Tag: BDO

[BDO] Guilty Pleasure Gaming (again)

You know those games you love to play that you are pretty convinced that no one else in your circles plays – but you just absolutely love it so much? That’s Black Desert Online, for me. This game is grind city, with a billion and one systems to learn that only get more confusing the longer you play – and yet there’s still something that draws me in.

Let me be completely honest though. I’m doing very little ACTUAL game play. What I’m doing is logging in, setting up for fishing, and then going afk for 15 hours until I come back to bags full of fish. Then I take a portal and go to a far away land and sell those fish, earning around 2.5 billion silver each day. I reached Guru 10 which was a nice accomplishment.

My TempusGameIt statistics show just how much time I spend AFK, and since you might not have heard of this app before, I’ll be doing a blog post about that in the near future, too.

Anyway, comfort gaming. BDO is the perfect game. It gives the illusion of me making progress without actually spending a lot of time actively playing – which I completely understand sounds backwards as far as gaming goes, but does seem to work for me on a very basic level. It’s a lot like an idle game, at least the way I’m playing lately. The thing is, the game CAN be as hands on or off as you’d like and sometimes when life is busy I want that very familiar feeling of gaming but I just don’t have the energy or the free time. With this ‘idle’ gaming, I feel like I’m making progress and working towards something. Why is that important to me? No idea, but it is. So, while the world is crazy hectic and has a lot of moving parts, I’m just hanging out with my fishing rod, and for now, that’s enough.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Black Desert Online – Some QoL Changes!

When I want to game, but don’t really have the time or maybe I’m out of spoons, the game I jump to is almost always BDO – this game has a lot of AFK / passive game modes that make it absolutely worth it to get my gaming fix when things are a bit rough. It has also been quite some time since I played, and a lot of QoL changes have taken place that I am completely in love with.

First, I created a Dosa, my first male character (my one issue with BDO is that classes are still restricted by gender). I made a season character – but seasons have changed now, they’re no longer static dates that rotate, you can create one when ever. I had a scholar in the works (the newly released class before Dosa) but decided that I didn’t want to continue with that, for now. Anyway, apparently life skills are now family (account) wide! That was one of the first changes I noticed. This is a fantastic change, I used to swap characters all of the time and I’m very glad it went account wide. On that same note, harvesting tools are also now shared across your family, another VERY delightful change.

One of the less favourable changes that happened is the hotkey for fishing, it’s ‘ now (the key beside enter) on QWERTY keyboards, other languages might have it elsewhere. To stop fishing, right click and move back to battle stance. Confusing, I actually had to watch a video on how to fish since the changes took place.

There’s been a bunch of other changes too, things I haven’t managed to wrap my head around yet. I don’t know what artifacts are, how to use them, or what to do with them. The same can be said for the transfusion window. I do have bits and bobs scattered all over the place, so I’m taking my time and sorting things out and figuring what I want to work on – when I don’t have the time to actually pay attention, I set up for some AFK fishing (there’s an event going on at the moment) or some mount training.

BDO has never been the easiest of games to get into, there’s a LOT to it, and the cluttered UI easily scares people away – but – I think learning the mechanics slowly is doable, and I really love how beautiful the game is as well as the incredibly robust life skill system (crafting). There’s apparently a new life skill releasing this year and I’m excited to see that, too. Plus, the game doesn’t require a subscription and the expansions are always free. Sure, there’s lots of ‘please buy this’ in the shop, but I’ve honestly never felt that pressured, they give away so much for free.

In any case, I’m enjoying my return and hopefully I can figure out what else has changed given some time. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Return to BDO – Where do I start?!

It has been about 2 years since I last played BDO, and while they’re celebrating their 8th year right now, I decided I had enough free time to squeeze in a little game play – except I have absolutely NO IDEA what I am doing. A lot has changed in those two years.

What I did manage to learn is that seasons never end, so you can pick up a seasonal character any time you want, and I also learned about this “new” (to me) tool bag, that allows me to put my gathering tools in a bag I can equip to alternate tools instead of constantly switching. I followed the guide by GrumpyGreen (thank goodness they still write guides, I loved their stuff before and I still love it) and finished it easily enough. That freed up a bunch of inventory space which I was VERY happy about. Inventory management is still a nightmare, maybe even more so now because I have so many items that I simply don’t know what to do with and I don’t know what they’re used for.

I also found out I had components to create a dream horse! What! I have never owned one before, having never really dedicated the time towards breeding horses (though I do have a nice stable of my favourites) and I have no idea when they gave this out, or why I had it. I decided to go with Pegasus, female, and I named her Fluttershy, of course.

What am I going to do next? I’d like to get my shai to 61 (she’s 60 at the moment), and then work on cleaning out my inventory, which is probably one of my favourite silly things to do. I am not sure if I want to create another seasonal character (I’ve done it a few times in the past) but I might ‘just because’. Eventually I’d love to clear out some of the quests I’ve been carrying around (for years) and try to learn what else has changed since I’ve been away. It feels nice to be back! I won’t be giving up WoW any time soon, but BDO can be played (well, life skills at least) fairly passively, one of the reasons I love it. There’s room for both in my day to day, hopefully!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

BDO – Seasonal Fun

I know I have too many BDO accounts (the total right now is three for those of you keeping track at home) but I have to say, this is probably one of my top favourite MMO of all time. It’s just that good. Anyway, I decided to cut down playing all three accounts and I’m trying to focus on just one. I swapped my 60 tamer for a newly boosted 60 guardian in the season, and I’m hoping to finish off the achievements they have before it ends, but one of those achievements is to kill 5k mobs and that one I’m a bit reluctant to get started on because ew.

Like most games I play I tend to spend all of my time crafting or doing life skills, so going out and slaughtering bad guys for a few hours doesn’t exactly speak to me. That being said, I have been having a LOT of fun in game. Artifacts were added, and new content releases just a few short weeks from now. BDO also recently celebrated their 6 year anniversary, a huge congratulations on that milestone!

I am unsure as to whether or not I’ll participate in the next season event. I think I have more than enough characters by now, and running through the same content at ultra fast speed has never really been my thing. I’m quite taken with my Shai, and I play very little else (the guardian is a close second, and the lahn is my combat character of choice). Next? Maybe working towards a dream horse…

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Leveling up In BDO

I’ve continued to play BDO this month alternating between my two accounts every 30 days so that I can remain on the Olvia servers (no PvP happens there). My winter season character (a dark knight) is level 58 and just finished the chenga tome quest. Next I’ll work my way to 61 by using some of the very popular leveling guides, and I’ll attempt to finish off my season pass. When 30 days have passed, I’ll swap back over to my other account, and continue playing the season there. All in all I’m pretty happy with my progress, life skills are moving, though some certainly move faster than others. I still have not even touched hunting yet, mostly because I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it or be any good at it. I hear it’s pretty annoying. Still, it’s on ‘the list’.

I’ve done a lot of AFK fishing, afk combat, and cooking. Alchemy is something I’m really interested in, but getting components is annoying. I haven’t started doing too much trading on this second account, but I made up for that with bartering which levels VERY slowly. In fact after 23 barter trips, I’m still at beginner 2. Ouch.

I’m excited about the new winter zone being added, and while I can see how people would experience burnout and want to play different games, I’m still enjoying myself and trudging along. Maybe when I reach guru in all of my life skills I’ll want to take a break. Until then..

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!