Category Archives: Sandbox

Valheim Boss Report: Moder

After hitting full sets of silver, me and the better half decided it was time to visit the mother of dragons. Or at least I thought I had a full set, only later did I realize my pants were still of the iron persuasion. Nevermind all that, Moder is not a particularly physical fight in Valheim so it doesn’t matter much if you’re in silver or not!

I’ll preface this entry by stating my mild disappointment with the Moder fight which is a bit sad for a dragon fan. It felt anticlimactic, the worst being the preparations preceding it. We took maybe 2.5 hours from start to finish, with the final 10 minutes on the actual boss kill. The journey there was tedious and clearing the area wasn’t fun. At all.

Prepwork Shlepwork

The boss prep in Valheim is always the same: once you have a marker, you max out the current level of gear and ready recommended weapons and potions. For Moder that means stronger arrows than usual, or if we were to believe internet guides, LOTS and LOTS of obsidian and poison arrows!! One person went as far as saying they required 800 arrows on the fight which, if true, is testimony to their failure as an archer. Bonemass was already a lot easier than many reports claimed and well, Moder is another three steps down from there.

Anyway, we figured the boss being airborne, arrows made sense. We also brought a couple of medium healing meads along in case dragon guano hit the fan. Then our never-ending sea voyage began…It must have been over an hour until we finally landed on shore and built our small base at the foot of the mountain. It’s obviously random where the bosses are located, Moder was far off to the east for us with no previously discovered route.

Base, beds and portal built, we slept over night and started our climb in the morning. We settled on carrying a dragon egg each, relying on finding a third one on our way up. This at least went smoothly with a dragon nest sitting right beside Moder’s summoning circle, as if to say “in case you forgot one!”. That’s when we started to clear a large perimeter around the boss, as you usually do.

Naturally the area was a golem-infested suck fest. Two of them appeared right away, another one following soon after with blue drakes bombarding us (and them) from above. The flying pests fell quickly to obsidian arrows, the golems however I still deeply detest! Pick-axing them around uneven terrain is annoying as hell, so we took quite some time killing everything off to be on the safe side. That’s when a fourth golem spawned, at which point the weather had turned so abominably there was no way we would summon Moder into that dark blizzard.

Waiting out the weather, night settled in. I started getting a bit cranky as I was already running out of food and our 24-minute rested buff (which we had gotten through the portal just before journeying up) was gone too. Might as well build another make-shift hut with a fireplace now that we were already stuck. Another 10 minutes or so later, which felt more like 30 minutes, we finally got to summon the boss.

Defeating Moder

The dragon appeared with a bang, looking much cuddlier than I expected. In fact I was reminded of the Dragonheart movie where Draco is too goofy to be taken seriously. Moder doesn’t look very ferocious but she has a large health pool and bad breath. We dodged her aerial attacks easily, shooting arrows and awaiting the landing phase. The fight has no particular rush to it – Moder flies, Moder lands, and if you just stay at max range nothing will hit you at all.

Naturally we did get too close a couple of times, kiting the dragon for a bit while also trying to get a couple of sword strikes in. Same as in the previous bossfight, Moder takes a lot more damage from the right melee weapons but it’s also the riskier tactic. It took us maybe 10 minutes and 200 arrows altogether to kill her.

She drops a very nice trophy, the nicest thus far, so I’m thinking of going back sometime for another one. The dragon tear unlocks the next tier of crafting stations, tuned towards the Plains biome. Best of all, Moder’s buff is the seafarer’s boon, so my thalassophile partner was very happy to unlock that one.

I have mixed feelings about Valheim’s fourth boss. I think the unexpectedly long and tedious prologue soured me to the experience. That is the other side of the coin of randomness: sometimes everything clicks and feels smooth and epic, sometimes not so much. I’m okay with that as it’s the price you pay for more unique gaming experiences.

I don’t want to put Moder down too much, either – it’s not a bad fight. It probably echoes my overall mountain impressions which leave room for improvement. I do want to give the dev team props for making each boss fight feel truly unique in Valheim at least. There’s been no repetitions or stupid lazy fights the way you have them in other MMOs where it barely registers that you just killed a special opponent. And again, that dragon trophy is damn fine!

Now I look forward to reading how fellow Valheim adventurers Wilhelm and Bhagpuss were faring on this one, it must be any minute now!

Valheim Boss Report: Bonemass

So yesterday I mentioned we were slowly moving towards Valheim’s third, notorious boss encounter. Bhagpuss has a funny post up about getting ready for Bonemass, including a meticulous list of fool-proof preparations. He does not like enforced boss encounters very much in MMOs. After sharing it with my better half, I had this spontaneous idea of giving the boss a go last night, now that we have some level 2 iron gear and weapons. Am kinda getting tired of the swamp.

I don’t use blunt weapons in Valheim, so crafting frost arrows was a great tip for me. I spent an hour on mats for 200 arrows and went to build a base with a portal next to Bonemass’ location which is on another continent from our base. Turns out the boss was awfully placed too, in the middle of a large pool of water right next to a Plains biome with a goblin town at the border. Doing recon on Bonemass, I had both a Fuling soldier as well as one of their large commanders aggroing on me several times while trying to clear the swamp of other nuisances. Fun times!

Next, I built the much suggested mini-tower up one of the trees close to Bonemass’ summoning skull. I hadn’t heard anyone mentioning stone or anything fancy, so I went with several ladders leading up to a shooting platform way above the boss. As far as on site prep went, that seemed to be all that’s required. Thus armed with frost arrows and a few poison resistance potions, what could possibly go wrong?

We came, we saw, we yoloed

The pretty platform tower held exactly ten seconds after spawning Bonemass. As the three heroes fell through the bursting tree and ladders, chaos and hilarity ensued. The boss moved up on our friend who died instantly after also taking the fall damage from before. We spread out desperately trying to heal up while shooting arrows, realizing Bonemass had a lot of health and the shared frost arrows weren’t going to be nearly enough. Then the adds came.

When the second party member died, I decided to pull back and reset but resetting wasn’t an option. Bonemass kept pursuing me, never resetting his HP bar or despawning. While kiting, both of my party members managed their corpseruns and rejoined the action – that’s when we knew, we were going to show this sucker!

Sharing aggro between the three of us and kiting the boss around, the fight quickly became easy. Bonemass isn’t particularly fast and as long as you avoid the puke of doom, you can handle both him and the adds fine while minding your potion ticker. We also learned that the blunt weapons do considerably more damage than frost arrows, so we combined both, slowly wearing the boss down. For a small party of three, this certainly seems to be a feasible tactic.

Bonemass succumbed with a shudder and a moan after approximately 20 minutes. It’s been the greatest fun and laugh we’ve had together in a game in a long time! Mountain biome here we come – be very afraid!

Valheim Progress and Multiplay

Valheim has been pretty much all we’ve been playing in this household for the past two weeks and the home base is coming along nicely. We created a harbor base for all the ships and my personal forest cabin has seen the addition of a proper smithy the moment we discovered stone building. Progressing slowly through the swamp biome now, the game is just becoming better and deeper which I did not expect as much. I am still finding out new things about this world and I love how the developers have snuck in little secrets and surprises that keep coming at us. Just to name a few without giving away too much: Thor, Odin, that turtle!

Home base

Busy smithy

The progress towards Bonemass has been slow which is how I like it. I’ve only just acquired some iron gear and weapons and the tradeoff towards weight is noticeable. That’s when Haldor’s belt really comes in handy and I’m also frequently wearing the trader’s headlamp which has saved my ass many times at night. Speaking of trader items, fishing has been fun too once I figured out I really needed to go where the fish are visibly plentiful because you only catch what’s physically there. That’s rather cool, I don’ think I’ve ever played an MMO where you actually see the fish you’re catching?

Once Bonemass is down we’ll make our way to the mountains. I really look forward to the snowy biome but I’m reluctant to invite even harder events to our base. Once a new boss is down you get visits of waves from the upper next biome it appears, so our defenses better be ready!

Multiplay lag issues

There have now been up to 5 players simultaneously playing and building on the dedicated server we use. The lag has increased considerably ever since the fourth person built a mini base and it’s worst when everyone is online at once. There are times when you cannot even open doors and gates and the birds are immobilized figurines in the sky. The lag spikes even happen when we’re far apart venturing on the world map somewhere, so we’ve looked into solutions which don’t yet exist. The game isn’t optimized yet, it’s early access after all.

As a consequence, we’re keeping things small from now on and going easy on the decoration and light sources especially. It’s tempting to have torches and campfires everywhere for atmosphere but it seriously impinges on server performance. I’ve seen many reddit threads complaining about lag in multiplayer so we just have to wait it out for now, I guess.

Following the updates of the official Valheim twitter account, it also appears that we will have to re-start on a fresh server for future biome additions (while keeping your current world with less biomes). So there might be a time when we’re rebuilding from scratch anyway which will be an opportunity to plan and spread out things a bit better. First time bases are always fun but much improvement is made the second and third time, or so it has been in similar games for me before. Having a lot of fun with Valheim and the building tools right now, I don’t see this becoming an issue any time soon.

Valheim is good

Valheim by unknown Swedish developer Iron Gate Studio has landed on the ‘open world sandbox builder’ scene with a bang and while it’s still in early access, more and more MMO bloggers have started writing about the title. I had no intention on getting this game – first and foremost because it’s early access and I’ve been burnt by titles like ARK and many of its kind before. Sandbox builders / survival / crafting games are a generic dime a dozen and I’ve completely shut off to new releases appearing on my Steam queue. So when bloggers like Bhagpuss began posting more and more reviews with some praise recently, I stayed skeptical despite knowing myself to be closely aligned with Bhag’s idea of exploration greatness.

Then there were also the absolutely hideous character models and character animations, which I couldn’t stand watching Valheim footage. Your character’s walking and running animation is the single most important animation in the entire game; there is nothing you watch more than this one. Uhhh.

So, why would I possibly end up playing Valheim, anyway? Well, for one I was gifted the title because I kept refusing to buy it (the peer pressure was great with this one). From there, it didn’t take long however for me to enjoy myself to the point of clocking in at 35 hours of playtime and looking forward to seeing a lot more. I obviously owe it to the game now to leave my much improved impressions, so here we go!

Valheim second impressions

To get straight to the point: Valheim’s world is gorgeous. I’m not talking about highend resolution here, in fact the game takes only 1GB of disk space and is doing some masterful trickery with low res textures under shrubbery, the way WoW has been doing for some years. Where Valheim excels is how everything works together in harmony, the color changes of the light, the dramatic weather changes, the impressive water effects, the immersive sounds. In short, it’s the overall atmosphere and design of the world that is beautiful. The transition of weather and the day-night cycle are probably the best I have seen to date in comparable games while never putting a strain on my average PC setup. When there is a wall of fog coming up in Valheim, it’s actually FOG and navigating becomes hard and scary (especially at night on sea).

Forest Lights

Stormy weather

The world map is huge and procedurally generated like in Minecraft but there’s ways to pick particular seeds if you’re looking for that sort of optimization. There is also the handy fact that in Valheim, your character is not world-bound; this means you can always go visit another seed or find resources there and then carry them back to your home world. This is just one of the many things this developer is doing right. Playing together, my partner and I kept commenting on how this studio is clearly made up of actual gamers; many mechanics and details are just done right here that tend to be grating in big money titles. That’s not to say that Valheim doesn’t require further polish, it does – but much of the important ground work is done and bugs are absolutely minor.

Valheim’s exploration is very rewarding. I am obviously biased because I am an explorer at heart and can spend hours just walking through beautiful forest scenery and watch the sunlight change through the trees. If that is your thing, look no further than Valheim! Still, exploration has much more to offer already at this early stage of the game. Quite often you will find abandoned farms or small enemy footholds which can hold particular crafting materials and can be marked down on your map. Many small dungeons and caves can be found from the second biome onward. There’s a few rarer, stronger enemies too as well as a questline that leads to named bosses in linear progression. Fairly early into the game, you can sail a boat anywhere you like, ever so slowly on that vast world map. Fair warning though: stuff is going to kill you dead fast!

Darkness & Light

Dangerous fog

Generally, there is a slower pace in Valheim that feels just right. Progressing to the challenges of the second biome (where I am still at) takes time, wandering off where you should not is punishing. The boat takes ages to get anywhere which makes it all the more rewarding when you find a place of interest. Upgrading your gear isn’t quick and some gathering resources, such as certain minerals or portal components, are rare and do not respawn. At the same time, the game handles sustenance in a manner that isn’t overwhelming: plain food is easily gathered and needs to be mixed up for best effect.

Crafting is of course its own chapter in Valheim. Learning new recipes happens by discovering new materials. Generally, everything is learning by doing in this game which goes for all your skills. Progressing the crafting stations with various cosmetic enhancements is rather fun and despite the limited set of building tools and components right now, players are already creating the most amazing Viking structures and forts. Trophy hunting is another great thing that goes with the theme and adorns many a cabin or mead hall. Since this topic is always big with players, the next Hearth and Homes update is already set to deal with home improvements. I would love to see livestock added to the game too, such as chicken, sheep or pigs. Right now, my chicken pen looks rather sad and lonely!

Hearth & Home

Sunset

That leaves the topic of combat, as far as beginner reviews go. Even in this department, I have no complaints for now. So many early access games fail in this regard but Valheim’s combat feels good and varied, with noticeable differences between weapons and a distinct learning curve for each (bows for example depend on factors like wind, direction etc.). What I appreciate especially is enemy AI which can be very clever with types of mobs engaging in different ways. Packs of strafing Greydwarves attacking you from all sides can be a pest and wild boars charging and then chasing off again is challenging when you’re trying to skill up archery. Hilarious moments are guaranteed.

And that’s it for now, my Valheim early access review! I will definitely keep playing and look forward to additional content and progressing to the next two biomes that are currently in the game. Iron Gate Studio have started off really well, fingers crossed their quick and early success will not prove overwhelming and detrimental in the longer run.

Starbound and the Hopeless Quest for Space

So I recently started playing Starbound and it is worlds and galaxies better than expected. I made some bad beginner experiences with Terraria in the past which almost cured me off 2D ant farm builders for good. I’m glad, I gave Starbound another shot though – it’s quite the wonderful space odyssey with vast and very satisfying exploration! The graphics are much cuter than Terraria’s too and there’s the whole Firefly space hub theme which is obviously awesome. Oh and you can play instruments in a band and collect pets and fossils, so what’s not to love?

Naturally, Starbound also comes with complex crafting and progression as well as free creative building, with a million fun deco items to collect. Instantly, the building and decorating fever caught me the way it has done before in Minecraft, Landmark or Portal Knights. And in very much the same way did I find myself in desperate need for more and more SPACE before long!

Playing the guitar in my own spaceship is pretty stellar!

It makes me laugh how all these building sandboxes follow the exact same script from initial delight to panicky overwhelmification, or at least that’s how it always goes for me. Every single time, I find myself in the same psychological spiral plummeting towards deep frustration with my very imperfect build. The same old inner monologue ensues –

“Oh wow this world is awesome, I need to create my hub asap and collect all the things!”

/builds small hut with door, roof, windows.

“OMG there are so many different blocks and plants and crafting items – I NEED MORE SPACE!”

/expands house with second level and basement.

“I carry too many items!!! I need more chests to organize all these materials that I need to keep forever!”

/creates 20 chests for different mats. Also expands basement.

“Where did I put the wool?? I can’t find ANYTHING in this mess! Need better organization!”

/expands all rooms, builds different storage with labels.

“I found this lovely new wallpaper and ornate wood blocks! These will look so much nicer!”

/starts redoing entire house structure, swap materials, add little details.

“My house looks so cool now but I still have so much more furniture to place and all these ugly storage chests everywhere! I really need MORE SPACE but there’s this horrible mountain to my left now and I already hit the vast body of water to my right. This is hopeless, I can’t work like that – I NEED TO START OVER ENTIRELY, ARGH!”

/frustrated noises.

….

You might argue I know better by now; that I don’t need to create a definite hub right away, or hang on to every and all materials – or alternatively, I could just build with a lot more foresight and planning.

So…much….vexing….chaos.

Well, I don’t! I do try but I am always overwhelmed by micro-management halfway through and my inner perfectionist hates how shabby things start looking further down the line, once you discovered the fancier building blocks and items. Starbound has some fine tools to help with re-decoration and item management too (the pixel printer gotta be the greatest idea in the world of builders ever, but I don’t have it yet!) but it’s not gonna save me from the hopeless mix and match or storage hell I’ve already gotten myself into.

So, I guess I’ll start looking for an entirely new location to build from scratch again soon and transfer all my preciousss belongings…it’s a daunting prospect already but of course I’ll do it anyway, because I’m crazy like that! Prepare for that interstellar burnout!

Tomorrow is a new dawn with so much to organize!

Fun and Whimsy in Portal Knights

Besides sinking some considerable time into Overwatch last week, I have found myself enjoying Portal Knights, an already very polished title currently on early access and available on Steam. I almost missed Portal Knights thinking it was another Minecraft/Trove/craft-something voxel game but the graphics looked cute and bright and I kept reading role-playing game in various descriptions. It was coop mode which finally got me to try it with my best mate however and 15 hours later, we were still going!

Portal Knights is a breath of fresh air in the sandbox voxel world because it’s very much still a “game” and not another open world life sim. Now, I do love me some open world games as y’all know, but I’ve written before about my trouble with building fatigue in games that make it their primary purpose. I can go nuts for 3-4 weeks building my fantasy castle and then feel very burned out, wondering what’s the point.

This question never arises in Portal Knights. Instead, you unlock mini-worlds via portals that follow a very linear, level-based progression. As you journey from one map to the next, you gather better materials, beat harder dungeons and bosses to level up and become ever more powerful. Never knowing what will lie behind the next door, you want to return to your home base ever so often to craft better gear and potions or do some optional gardening and decorating if you like. This makes Portal Knights very much an adventure game on single-player or coop that features some crafting and free building on top. Scratching several itches at once is what this title does really well; I look forward to see what else the developer will come up with in terms of game modes (survival?).

For a more detailed overview, check out my full Portal Knights early access preview over at MMOGames! This is very much also a game to enjoy with family, in case you’re looking to play something together with your kids that allows for shorter session gameplay while still being a longer project you can work on together.

Black Desert Online as a PvEr? Round Two: YES you should play!

Two weeks ago I asked the pressing question of whether Black Desert Online is actually a game for PvErs out there, including information we had on how PvP flagging works in the game and how it affects the later gameplay experience. I did make it clear in my post that when talking about PvE, I am referring to that established definition of “player versus environment” the way we’ve come to use it thanks to MMOs such as WoW, Rift, GW2 and many others. That means player versus quests, player versus dungeons, player versus raids and all associated and preconceived progression. Black Desert Online has little of that, plenty of quests and dailies aside; what it does have however is an incredible sandbox appeal, so much that it very well may be the game many jaded MMO veterenas, on both sides of the spectrum, have been craving.

Now here’s the important bit of news that requires this update: as it turns out, some of the previous information regarding PvP was in fact wrong. It’s frustrating how hard it is to find much corroborated information for the NA/EU installments of the game but basically, PvP is a little different for us at the present time, as was finally confirmed to me ingame by guild mates who are way past level 50:

PvP on NA/EU servers starts at level 45 (not 50)
While becoming eligible is still non-consensual, this does in fact not extend to any lowlevel alts (also goes for the Russian version of BDO)

In lieu of any contrary news or things planned for the game, this in itself is pretty huge if we understand how BDO works. The game is all about your different characters working together, sharing whatever progress you make but having separate energy pools to invest in various undertakings, such as resource gathering or crafting. The great news about this: you don’t have to level past 45 to access any of Black Desert’s huge non-combat content. If you opt to be a crafter, gatherer, trader, breeder, house decorator, farmer or candlestick maker – you can do it! Most of the quests related to these activities yield no life/skill EXP, only kill quests do; 50 hours in, I am still only level 21 because I started crafting and thus my character has basically been stagnant while I keep progressing in other ways.

And if I should ever in fact require one higher level character, I can always use my “main” for that sort of adventure and switch to my alts for the rest. Right now, they are located in different towns and already assisting me a great deal. This is a big point about BDO, to conquer the world for yourself, decide where to make temporary or longterm homes and how to make best use of your different characters.

The game has no level cap either which to me proves it’s not about a set progression or reaching certain levels to unlock content. You can truly make your own adventure and if you ever need to venture anywhere with a level 45+ toon, wear the ghillie suit from the store and you’ll be next to invisible to other players (or just switch server channel if there’s any PvP, problem solved). For the amount of content BDO offers while not requiring any subscription, I am more than happy to put up with that.

The cities are madness

Yes, you should play in this sandbox!

After a considerable learning curve, I finally start feeling like I am “getting” into the flow of things (and there’s more and more guides for everything else). Now to be clear, I am still scratching the surface of BDO but I’ve finally managed to establish some resource nodes, I am training workers who bring back goods of my choosing every hour, I am gathering EVERYTHING I want to, I am crafting to the most satisfying animations and I am riding from place to place for hours because there ain’t any shortcuts. I tamed a wild horse two days ago and felt spectacular. Oh and fishing, just because my alt does that on her own when I go /afk. All of this is going on without obnoxious gold seller messages or botters due to the way PA handle the economy and regulate your ability to binge-craft, farm, fish as well as trade and sell goods.

The world of Black Desert is mind-blowingly beautiful in a Witcher 3 kind of way. More importantly, in this MMO the world truly is the player – you are not, you are just a lowly peasant that gets to do things in it. I could tell you about Calpheon city (Eri has done) and how ridiculously gorgeous, lively and huge it is, easily the most beautiful and largest city ever in MMORPGdom. The scale, the authenticity of how its crafted, the busy streets, they will break your heart. And yet none of it is the highlight of the game; there are so many regions, so many towns and hubs and little things, with individual economies and resources for you to engage with, I could go on for hours! Don’t get me started on the different funky fantasy races you encounter as you go along, I should probably dedicate a next post just to them

Cooking, brewing, drying, grinding, shaking, thinning…

I also got a new home in Velia now and am completely over the moon by the way Pearl Abyss have solved player housing. The fact that you own different, physically existing houses all over the world that let you phase in to perfection, is nothing short of a stellar job. Fancy a small hut by the river? A three-story apartment building with a cellar? A windmill with a fireplace? You can have it – you can have them all to do all sorts of useful things. Or you can just decorate to your heart’s content, open the windows and watch the view outside. In the Korean version of the game, there’s even big-style automated farming via NPCs and personal shop vendors. Every time I cross one of my own workers during my travels, it puts a wide smile on my face because they too actually “exist”.

I don’t know what I’ll be doing in two weeks time or three months from now. All I know is that I’ll still be playing Black Desert Online and doing 19347262094 things that have absolutely nothing to do with combat (and that require no cooperation other than from your own alts if that matters to you). I may build a cart for my horse and start trading for reals. Maybe I’ll get into making my own furniture or clothes. Or I’ll learn how to sail, build a boat and sail away forever, to make a new camp somewhere else.

Did I mention Black Desert Online has tents and campfires to pitch in the deep black of night? Yep.

If you’re at all into any of the things I have described above, just do yourself a favor and play this. (I have one 7 day guest pass for the first person who’d like one)

About that Black Desert Online Learning Curve

Five days into Black Desert Online, including some beta testing and headstart, my current state of mind is best described with this picture:

HALP! (click to enlarge crazyness)

I still don’t know what the fuck I am doing. And that is probably a good thing too, given how I generally find new MMORPGs too easy, too repetitive and too been there done that. Really, BDO is doing a lot of stuff its own way; I can’t say how effective or worthwhile it all is yet, but between node and worker management, haggling and raising amity with NPCs, one million gazillion crafty things and sub-menus for every possible resource, horse breeding, AFK-fishing, shipyards and feeding pets while looking to unlock the perfect residence, I have my hands full and then some. That Black Desert Online learning curve is no joke even for seasoned players.

Sandbox musings

While browsing the official Black Desert Online forums, I chanced upon this provocatively named youtube rant by WoW raider Kungen – ye, that dude that ran/runs Nihilum and raided with Ensidia for a time. I honestly never payed much attention to WoW’s 1% although there was a time when I statistically would have belonged among that group, albeit much further down the ladder from our Scandinavian overlords. In the few interviews I ever read back in wow.com’s time, most of them seemed aloof and not in touch with anything.

Anywho, after several minutes of WoW tirade Kungen goes over to waxing lyrical about BDO, its great sandbox premise and horizontal endgame “progression”. I confess, I found the video rather entertaining for all the ways he hits and misses various points related to his general WoW malaise. He is quite obviously incapable of relating to what constitutes the majority of WoW’s non-hardcore player base. Where there’s only “easy peasy mythics” left for him in today’s endgame, other players would argue that the game has added a lot of non-raiding related content over the years, from achievements to pet battles and the garrison. That doesn’t interest Kungen because raiding was the greatest in vanilla and after that, the game gradually went to shits. Here’s where I agree with him: WoW took a big turn for the worse after the conclusion of the Arthas arch in WotLK; I too am a Cataclysm-unsubscriber. And I hate flying mounts in WoW, they rank right after achievements for me.

The rest is mildly amusing, given how this hardcore player fails to realize how his playstyle adds to his own detriment in MMOs. He probably level 50+ during the BDO beta too or something, so I wonder how long the enthusiasm is gonna last. But hey, it’s nice that even the “WoW elite” (…) can appreciate Black Desert Online for doing things a bit differently.

Should you play Black Desert Online as a PvEr?

Important Update: some of the info in this post is outdated. Please see this update!

One of the lingering concerns from the final Black Desert Online beta is the very PvP-centric focus of the game. Given that we’re dealing with an MMO that comes with such a beautifully crafted world, complex gathering and crafting mechanics, interesting housing and farming features, horse taming, boat building and whatnot, it is understandable that there’s more than your average Darkfall crowd lining up for BDO. The biggest questions from PvErs are therefore twofold:

Can I turn off PvP mode for myself / will there be PvE servers?
What about classic PvE content, aka dungeons, quests, endgame..?

The first question is easily answered at this point: nope. While there are ramifications for player killing in BDO, once your first character hits level 50 (edited for correction: level 50 is not the level cap as BDO has none), you are available for PvP. There is no opt-out at the present time. This also extends to whatever alts you may create on the same account which will no longer benefit from any newbie moratorium. There is the misconception that “flagging yourself” for PvP in BDO means consensual PvP but that’s not in fact the case; flagging yourself is required to engage in PvP but it does not save anyone from being ganked whether they are flagged or not.

Now, from some of the replies I received to my early CBT2 impressions and also reading more related forum articles since, it appears that ever since the Korean launch PKing in BDO has been nerfed to a point where “it’s no longer fun for hardcore PVPers” due to hefty karma penalties. Indeed, there’s been a lot of outcry over this. This may serve as some reassurance to all those who would like to try Black Desert without being continuously ganked by others; while you can be killed anywhere, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen an awful lot. BDO’s main PvP content is siege / arena / instanced PvP.

What about PvE servers and classic PvE content?

It is always tiresome to see how fast forum discussions on PvE servers get derailed and attacked by those who feel threatened by peaceful playstyles. Or rather that’s not what the PvP player fears: what he fears is the exodus of potential sheep for slaughter. PvP players know fully well that they are a minority. I guess from that point of view I understand their frustration – BDO was primarily developed with PvP in mind, so that audience considers it “their game”. Yet, it is simply a misconception that not having alternatives would mean everyone stays together. This is not the year 2000 where desperate MMO players stick around no matter their environment. These people will simply leave the game never to return. If you want outdoor PvP in any meaningful fashion in MMOs nowadays, it needs to be consensual while allowing everyone else to perform other roles. That said, for reasons already stated above I have my doubts PvE servers are even required.

Furthermore, it de facto doesn’t look like Pearl Abyss have any plans for PvE servers. In this, I believe some of the passionate PvP advocates on the official forums to be correct – it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to have PvE servers in a game with so little classic PvE content or endgame. It’s a sandbox MMO which is basically the opposite of getting themepark PvE content handed to you. And to drive this point home further, the developers have made it pretty clear in a very recent pre-release interview that they have no intention to turn BDO into a classic PvE game:

Q: Are there any plans to add instance based dungeons and or raids for end game PVE content?

A: Adventures and fierce guild wars in Black Desert are strongly established on an open-world system. Some special content might need to utilize an instance dungeon system, but we are not going to add a repetitive instanced dungeon, where the sole purpose is getting rewards. Guild- and party-centric raids are already implemented in the game now, and we are developing more advanced kind of raid.

Q: Are there any plans to do epic quest lines for an in game reward. I.E. Extremely difficult quest lines that could take month+ to complete. Rewards could be unique high end weapons that have special characteristics, stats, or an extremely unique look.

A: No matter how hard a quest is, it can never deliver the same level of achievement or anticipation once it is cleared or a walkthrough is published. Most of the quests in the beginning stages of the game are simple and guiding, but as the player proceeds toward a later stage of the game, such as Valencia, desert and maritime quests demand long-distance travel and intense adventure. A quest in Black Desert should be an extension of the exploration of the in-game region, and can also assist players by making the exploration more convenient or helping with character growth. However, we’d like to state that we do not prefer a type of quest that players feel obliged to complete, in order to become stronger or to gain rewards. Players should play freely and naturally in the game, and it is never fun to be pressed into doing something to get rewards. We do plan to add some difficult quests, but the estimated time of arrival is still not set.

I must admit, while I do not find outdoor PvP enjoyable personally (but I am willing to give it a shot based on everything I know), I love everything about the answers provided above. The devs have no intention to do what’s already been done to death elsewhere. If you want long questlines that everyone can go look up on a Wiki after two days, go elsewhere. If you want to repeat the same dungeons over and over for rewards, go elsewhere.

That’s not to say that there won’t be any types of repetitive grinds in Black Desert Online, I know there will be. But it sounds like there’s a clear vision behind this MMO and a decided focus on sandbox over PvE. And isn’t that what so many have kept asking for in the past? Personally, I look forward to see how things turn out. Should you play Black Desert Online as a PvEr? Let’s find out.

No purpose, no nothing

No purpose, no nothing – that short but poignant conclusion to so many things, coming to me once more while writing Monday’s post and then Kadomi said it again, literally, in the comments:

I don’t enjoy not having a purpose. What good is all that freedom if it leaves me feeling empty after a while?

“Who may be allowed to linger that is fulfilled by purpose?” I’ve asked that before, in slightly different context but no less relevant to this cause. A purpose is an end (hence the double meaning) and in many ways, endings bring a certain degree of linearity or at least progression to life real and virtual. Yet, purpose is also what fulfills that life lest in not be literally point-less. There is a cosmic balance here, a trade-off and even our favorite genre in video games, MMORPGs must struggle for it – that balance between the sandbox and themepark, between too much freedom and too little, too much endgame and not enough satisfaction.

To what end?

No purpose equals nothing, in virtual worlds too.

No purpose, no point for guilds.

No purpose, no point for housing.

No purpose, no point for gear.

Take GW2’s gear grind – so futile, so unfulfilling because it is not required, does not prepare you for any kind of endgame that exists. And what is endgame, by now such an unpopular term, but not a purpose or “life after”? Take LOTRO’s homesteads – beautiful but empty, forever instanced away from the world of men, not serving any purpose really. Take any other MMO you can think of that allows you to solo self-sufficiently, obtain everything on your own and then wonder why people don’t play in guilds. Having co-founded two lasting, successful raidguilds in WoW, I am very pragmatic: guilds are common ventures first, uniting people with the same purpose for that purpose. More often than not, that purpose is what keeps the best guilds alive. So what?

I made some wonderful friendships in MMOs founded on a common goal; common goals glue people together. Maybe they are the only thing that truly does. Common goals on the horizon add purpose to our stride, infuse our dreams, inspire our achievements social or otherwise.

To clarify, that’s not to say that there’s no such thing as individual purpose defined on an individual level in every game and for virtually anything (even jumping puzzles! eww) – there absolutely is and it matters too. However, in isolation this doesn’t tend to create the same value on a cooperative level and not the same longterm appeal, either. Not in my experience anyway.

Give me purpose, give me endings

No purpose -> no point -> no end -> no meaning. If things can only have meaning if they also end, let’s have ends and lots of them. Let’s have many purposes.

MMOs and not just Landmark, need a ‘hard’ purpose for the features they implement. It sounds simple and yet it’s a glaring oversight in so many games, yes sandboxes and themeparks alike, and it always backfires in the mid- and longterm and affects the community most strongly.

Oh sure, a game’s early flame burns brightly like a bonfire in the night and by all means, warm yourself at that fire. Enjoy it while it lasts. In the long run however, you’ll want some meat on the bone to roast on that fire and sustain you. In the long run, you will need that.