Postcards From Pukaland

 In what seems like it might be an attempt to break the world record for widest range of content in a single drop, the same update that brought a harrowing version of the Salem Witch Trials to Neverness To Everness also saw the opening of Hethereau's candy-themed amusement park, the unfortunately but probably accurately-named Pukaland. 

As far as I can tell, Puka is Hethereau's answer to Haribo, not that that's a question anyone ever needed to ask. The theme park, named for the brand of tooth-destroying sweets sold all over the city, has been standing, empty and shuttered, on a promontory to the south-east of the city ever since the game began. Now, after a major redesign, it's finally open.

If the latest update took us on a tour from tragic to trivial with this latest update, it's not as if Hotta just bundled the two together without thinking about the friction. It's more as though they meant to rub up against each other to make some kind of abrasive point. At least, I found it hard to miss the subtext, when "The Witch" ended and a new storyline started right away, taking the Appraiser and Blackbird straight to the fairground.

At first I thought it was nothing more than a charming opportunity for the two of them to decompress after their traumatic experiences in the nested Anomalous Realms, and to a large extent that's indeed what it is, but as the short storyline developed, I couldn't help feeling there was a little more to it than that. 

I'd go into detail but unfortunately, I didn't document exactly what happened while I was playing and now, as is becoming annoyingly common with NTE, when I go online to refresh my memory, I find no-one else has posted a walkthrough I can crib from. 

I can't even find a video on YouTube where someone plays through it all, although there must be about a gazillion rating the rides and telling you how best to exploit them for the new currency. It's almost like no-one gives a damn about the story.

I'll just have to do the precis from memory. It oughtn't to be too hard. I played through some of it last night and the rest this morning. Even my memory's not that bad. Do feel free to correct any errors or add anything I've forgotten in the comments, though.

It's not like it's a lot to remember, anyway. The storyline part probably didn't take me more than fifteen or twenty minutes. The rest of the couple of hours in Pukaland, I spent gawping and taking pictures. And going on the rides, of course.

The whole thing begins with some story on Bagel about urban legends. Apparently, mysterious shadows, doors to other worlds and similar apparitions have been seen at Pukaland since it opened, often showing up after some specific trigger, like taking photos in a precise spot or staying on a ride for a particular number of times.

 

The Appraiser and Blackbird begin by visiting one of the people who posted about their experiences and having talked to her, agree to go check it out for themselves. The Appraiser, naturally, figures there may be some Anomaly behind it which, honestly, sounds like the Occam's Razor explanation for any odd, unexplained activity in the city.

Flora agrees to meet Blackbird at the gates but when she gets there Blackbird is already feeling a little overwhelmed, as well she might. Pukaland is busy. 

It looks like the park's off to a great start. The wide avenues are teeming with excited visitors. It's busy day and night, in fact. I stayed there all the way through a full day-night cycle and apart from the sun going down and the lights coming on, you'd hardly know the difference. Everything's open 24-7, in the way of video game worlds and, while I thought I noticed a slight reduction in numbers in the small hours, there's more than enough business to justify the added overhead in staffing costs.

Flora uses her Esper ability to sense anomalies but finds nothing. Blackbird has no more luck with her divination. The place seems to be no more than just what it looks like: a harmless entertainment complex.  

They explore the park, looking for anything out of place and trying to replicate the kinds of events they read about on Bagel. Flora takes a picture of Blackbird, waving to her from the supposed one of the supposed hot-spots but no strange shadows appear in the photograph. The two of them talk to some other customers, one of whom suggests inexplicable things often appear in the background of such images but after they all have another look, no-one can see anything.

One couple Flora and Blackbird interview makes the point that even though they live in a city famous for its Anomalies, they've never actually encountered one. That theme recurs in other conversations, reminding us that although all the characters we, the players, usually interact with have plenty of hands-on experience with these bizarre and sometimes terrifying entities, for many people living ordinary lives, all they know about them is what they see on social media.

They ride the big wheel thirteen times, another reported trigger, but nothing happens. They explore the hedge maze (Oddly called a "Flora Maze" in the game, which amused me and must have come as a surprise to Flora herself.) where strange things are supposed to occur quite reliably but again they see nothing out of the ordinary.

Eventually Blackbird and the Appraiser decide there's nothing to the rumors but as they're about to leave, they spot a couple of visitors acting strangely. Being the responsible citizens they are, they ask the two what they're up to. I mean, I wouldn't, I'd mind my own business, but then I'm not a Witch or a secret government agent...

It turns out the two suspicious strangers are influencers on Bagel. They've also heard about the urban legend rumors and, like our heroes, have come to see if they can find out what's going on. Unlike Flora and Blackbird, though, having struck out, they've decided to fake some evidence so they can give their followers something to get excited about.

Blackbird is very put out by this, being the innocent shut-in she is. Let's not forget, almost her only knowledge and understanding of the outside world over the past couple of hundred years has come from watching a screen. The Appraiser, more worldly, isn't shocked but she gently suggests to the two would-be deceivers that it might be better to let their fans know that what they're showing them isn't really real.

And that's about the end of it. It's a small, gentle story but it comes with a moral. The whole thing is undoubtedly a commentary on social media and the responsibility it brings to be truthful and transparent. It takes a position on conspiracy theories and it's agin' 'em. The more NTE I play, the more lessons it tries to teach me. 

Having tried and failed to find any public account of the storyline I just attempted to recreate from memory, I have to wonder who's listening. As far as I can tell, the main interest most people using social media have in Pukaland lies in telling others how to get in and out of it as fast as possible with the highest rewards for the lowest level of effort.

Which is a shame because Pukaland is amazing. It's a huge area, the size of a whole city district, and it's teeming with things to do and see. It's not only that there'ssomething to do around every corner, on every avenue and plaza, but there are hundreds of NPCs there with you, doing it too. The illusion of an actual place filled with real activity is more than impressive. 

As for the games and rides, there's plenty of variety, something for everyone. I played darts, which I very much enjoyed and shot at plushies, which was fun, too. I rode the Ferris Wheel and the Merry-Go-Round, got lost in the maze and hurtled around on the roller coaster and all that scarcely scraped the surface of what there is to do.

I wanted to go into the Fun House, which looked like it would be a hoot, but it was closed for renovations. The middle-aged man throwing up outside was likely the clue things weren't quite as they should be in there. I hear there's also a balloon ride that takes you higher above Hethereau even than the Skytower. I'd very much like to try that.

Trust me, I'll be back. I skimmed a reddit thread where redditors were being as cynical and dismissive about the rides and activities as you'd expect but for once I think their cynicism is misplaced. On first impressions, I'd say Pukaland is as good a collection of mini games as I've seen anywhere.

Sure, some of them might not be as polished as you'd get in a full game dedicated to such things but these are throwaway activities in a game that has a million other things going on. Granted, they'll presumably be permanent additions to the game but no-one's expecting any of this to become anyone's full-time gaming habit. It's an add-on and a very impressive one it is, too.

From what I've seen so far, many of the games and rides justify their existence purely in respect of the fun they offer in the moment but the rewards you get for doing them aren't at all bad, either. The entry fee in Fons for each activity is low, the number of Puka Tickets you can win is generous and the range of activities ought to have something to suit everyone. 

I went to one of the booths where you can redeem your tickets for prizes, just to see what was on offer, and I was quite impressed with what was on offer there. The prices aren't too high for a start. I already had enough for a few things but looking through the options I soon found something worth saving up for - a boat!

The boat, which from the description looks like it can be substantially upgraded, and the glider that looks like a biplane are both on my wishlist now. The former costs 10k tickets for the basic model, the latter just half of that. I'd already earned 1300 tickets in less than half an hour so both sound eminently doable.

I'll probably have do what's needed to get the rest before the next content drop though. As 999 Nights proved, no matter how engaging, satisfying and enjoyable a new addition to the game can seem when it arrives, as soon as the next update comes, it's all but forgotten. 

How long Hotta can keep pumping out content at this rate and how long it will continue to engage players if they do is an unknown quantity but my worry is that they'll be caught in a Catch 22 whatever happens. If they fail to keep up the pace, players will call it a "Daed Game" and  move on but if they succeed, those same players will take the flood of new content for granted, expect it never to end. burn through it in no time and then complain it's not enough. As players, we often talk about the grind but it probably feels just as much like a treadmill on the other side of the screen.

That's about all I have to say for now but since every story in Hethereau comes with a moral, I'll add one for this post, too.

Enjoy it while you can. 

Number 5, Lynch Ranch, Serendia : Black Desert Online

I played more Black Desert yesterday than usual but I'm not sure I got much more done. The morning began with an attempt to clean up my quest journal. It was groaning at the seams, giving me the old "You can't take any more quests" message, so it was about time.

Questing in Black Desert is underrated, I think. The nested, organic approach, where more and more quests keep popping up in places you thought you were done with, from people you thought you'd never speak to again, feels quite original to me.

Don't make me go meta. You wouldn't like me when I'm meta.

The way different sequences open up, according to which NPCs you play the Conversation Game with or what nodes you invest in, makes the whole process feel unpredictable, even chaotic. That probably drives more organized people than myself to the edge of madness but I love a little semi-organized chaos so it works well for me.

The Conversation Game itself is a real unexpected pleasure. It deserves a whole post of its own. It vaguely resembles Vanguard's much-missed Diplomacy sphere. Diplomacy was designed to be a full character progression path on a par with adventuring and crafting and it very nearly was, too. Conversation in Black Desert doesn't have quite those ambitions but it does share some of the mechanics and a good deal of the fun.

There's a plot in here somewhere. I swear there is.

Dulfy has a fantastically detailed guide that focuses heavily on the underlying mathematics and makes the whole thing sound far more daunting than it actually is. In practice what you do is quite straightforward.

You go around speaking to everyone you meet, clicking on any objects you can, killing all the monsters and wildlife you see and poking your nose into every nook and cranny in town and countryside. That way, you build up a portfolio of "Knowledge" in the hope that someone, somewhere will find some of it interesting enough to want to talk to you about it.

Every NPC is interested in a range of topics. You get to pique that interest for fun and profit. By spending energy to get started and then parlaying your information appropriately you build up "Amity" with that NPC (and only that NPC). As your relationship becomes chummier so the NPC begins to share his knowledge with you, adding to your store of things to pass on elsewhere. It's a gossip mill, let's make no bones. I imagine EverJane will be a lot like this, only with not so many goblins.

Sorry, I didn't think to take any shots of the Conversation Game. Here, have a picture of my horse. He's coming up later on.

As your Amity builds you might also get extra quests and at around 500 points some NPCs decide they like you so much they'll start taking your money. Only selling to people you really like is the dream of many an independent retailer. In Black Desert that dream is real - if you're a non-player character, at least.

As I was out questing to clear my journal, so there'd be room in it for more quests, I found myself climbing more than just a metaphorical mountain. Some guy I met had a fantasy about owning a sheep farm (no, me neither) and I'd foolishly said I'd negotiate the sale, the way you do when satisfying every passing stranger's whim offers an opportunity to grab five small health potions.

That must be the guy. I hope this trip's gonna be worth it.

It turned out the farm was at the top of a mountain. My horse was game for the clamber, which surprised me. I think I was more worried about him breaking a leg than he was.

Oh yes, I didn't mention that, did I? I have a horse now. I looked into the whole "taming" thing, with the sugar lumps and the rope, and thought, you know what, life's too short; so I bought one from the Stables.

The mail must get through!

I've ridden quite a few horses in quite a few MMOs but I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable. The mounting and dismounting is smooth, swift and elegant. The horse handles with just the right degree of inertia and momentum to feel solid but without so much that controlling it becomes a trial of patience.

The speed of this basic breed is possibly a tad slower than running but not so much that you'd notice. Any possible discontent at the slight downgrade in travel time is entirely discounted by the very significant upgrade in visual delight. Watching your character riding is just much, much more entertaining than watching her running. Or plodding.

How can a dozen potatoes weigh this much?

Plus the horse comes with its very own jazz soundtrack! Every time I ride it feels like I'm in the credit sequence of a 1970s cop show. I spent quite long time riding from town to town for no better reason than to watch and listen to myself doing it. That's what I call entertainment. Your mileage may vary.

So, there I and my horse were, at the top of a mountain, talking to a man about selling his farm. I did most of the talking; the horse just listened. It transpired that the farmer had moved up the mountain to get away from the imps who'd burned down his last farm and all he wanted was for everyone to leave him alone. He absolutely did not want to sell his alpine retreat to anyone.

Seriously, I'd live here. Wouldn't you?

When I went back to tell the prospective buyer the bad news I pointedly did not mention that I'd fallen so in love with the place that I'd grabbed it for myself. The farmer might not have been willing to sell but he was more than happy to rent. I already have two residences, one on the coast at Velia and one in the city of Heidel, but just one look at the roaring fire, stripped pine floor and good, natural light in this "shepherd's cottage" and I was sold.

A bear skin rug would go just right about...here.

Black Desert has an admirable solution to the perennial "how can you give everyone a house in the world without the world turning into a trailer park?" debate. Every house has an external physical structure but an instanced interior. It works brilliantly.

It also means I've looked around a lot of houses, trying to find somewhere that suits. Most are too dark, too cramped or just too shabby. This one was the best I'd seen by a good margin. Of course, it's at the top of a mountain, ten minutes hard ride form any kind of civilization, but the views are to die for! As are the falls...

You can't really say you own a house if you haven't stood on top of the chimney stack.

With that I took a break and played GW2 until the evening. When I logged back in and appeared in my lovely new home I realized it was a little on the unfurnished side. As in I had no furniture at all.

How are the movers going to get a wagon up that trail?

The basic $30 BDO "box" comes with your choice of three pieces of furniture but I'd already chosen mine and installed them in my Velia residence. I could have moved the bed but instead I decided to buy.

First I looked at the Marketplace to see what players were selling. Not much, it seems, and I suspect a lot of what they are trying to offload are quest rewards that I'll end up getting for free. What real furniture there was seemed to be on the expensive side so I rode down the mountain to Heidel to visit the Furniture Merchant.

The bed! Just sell me the frickin' bed!

He's a picky fellow, that one. There's not much he'll sell you if he doesn't like your face. I wanted at least to get a bed to lie down and recover my energy at night (animation, game mechanic, roleplay - all the functions in one handy piece of furniture) but for that I needed to hit 500 Amity.

It was touch and go but I made it. It really did remind me a lot of playing Diplomacy and although the subtleties of the system still escape me I felt I knew a good deal more about what I was doing after half an hour of wheedling and coaxing. Plus now I had a bed.

They always bite at dawn.

And that was my Sunday in Black Desert. Oh, except I killed about a hundred Altar Imps and died about a dozen times doing it. I really need to spend some of those 45 unallocated skill points. I was trying to see how long I could go with just the basic skills and I think I might have found out the answer: level 18.

The day ended when I found a great fishing spot and caught a crystal that sells for around 200k on the Market. I was so eager to get my hands on the silver that I rode back to Heidel and put it up for sale right away, which meant that, since by then it was heading towards one in the morning and I needed my own bed, my character never got to sleep in hers after all.

Sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Down On The Farm: Dragon Nest:Oracle and Villagers and Heroes

It's been a while since I last logged into Dragon Nest: Oracle. I wouldn't have mentioned it only the game welcomed me back with a hug and a back-slap and a "Where have you been?". The fatted calf was looking nervous.

There was even talk of a "Welcome Home" gift but when I logged my only character in it turned out she didn't qualify. I missed the explanation if there was one. It was late and anyway I just wanted to race around shooting cute, bouncing greebles (not an actual monster) with a BFG.

I was ready to let the whole thing slide but the game wouldn't let it drop. I was still getting anxious reminders to claim my non-existent gift before it vanished when I logged out an hour later. If it hadn't been for that, though, Dora wouldn't have been ferreting around in her various inventory tabs and then she might not have found her other present.

Umm...excuse me, Miss, but could you tell me where I am?

In DN:O, like many F2P MMOs from both East and West, you get regular care packages as you level. They tend to come in advance, a kind of gamer-carrot hung out to encourage you to keep making progress. And to keep logging in, of course, although you get a separate reward just for doing that as well.

Oh yes, I remember.

The level-up packs come every eight levels. Why eight? I have no idea. Perhaps the developers are all spiders. Who cares? It's Free Stuff!

What's more, in DN:O it's good free stuff and that really is a motivator. Inside her gift-wrapped Level 24 box Dora found a full set of costume clothing. That was a surprise. I hadn't even noticed we had a costume tab.

There was this log-in message, though, so maybe it's new:

After lot of work, we are pleased to announce the release of 252 fashions sets.

Next week : wings and other accesories.

It must be next week already because there was a set of wings in the box as well. And a ten-slot Inventory expander. And a 10-slot bank vault expander. Oh, DN:O, you know me so well...although 252 fashion sets and I just have one? Don't set the bar too high, now, will you?

I'm not quite sure about this new ensemble. Do these tiny wings go with my ENORMOUS GUN???

Anyway, it was a great start. Dora slipped into her new outfit, fitted her wings and took a look around. Being as how it had been a while she wasn't quite sure where she was. It looked like a much bigger city than she remembered.

Ah yes, it's all starting to come back. Last time out she fixed that airship and flew to Saint Haven. Wherever that is. Which is how last night we ended up growing pear trees and catching fish and making Red Beard Salad and not shooting anything at all.

No, you don't look creepy at all. I'm totally fine with you breaking down my molecular structure and re-assembling me half a mile away. What could possibly go wrong?

It's a long story. I'll try to keep it brief. Dora was lost in the big city so, when she spotted the Transfer Wizard right across the square, she naturally went and had a word with her. The name Old Man Mori came up in association with a Farm, which caught Dora's attention and on a whim she asked the Wizard to send her there and that's how we found out about farming and fishing and cooking, none of which I knew existed in DN:O.

Crafting, that I knew. I'd already found the rather terrifying crafting interface and made a decision to stay well clear of it, at least for now. What Old Man Mori had to teach seemed a lot more user-friendly although, as it turns out, a lot more labor-intensive.

 I have wings, you know. I can turn around if you want to see them. Oh, and stop calling me "Young Man". Although I admit it must be hard to tell in this get up.

Unlike Villagers and Heroes you don't get your own house and garden in DN:O. As far as I know, that is, but then take that with a barrel of salt. I didn't know we had a costume tab, remember? Anyway, whether or not there is personal housing somewhere down the line, Dora doesn't have any. She has to use the Public Plots.

There's a whole article waiting to be written about V&H and DN:O's various takes on collective farming, communitarianism and political theory. One day I might even get around to writing it. For now, I was struck by the co-incidence of coming across such superficially similar systems in the two games as well as by how they differ in detail and execution. It's beginning to dawn on me that Estate Management has become an MMO thing almost without anyone noticing.

It's like having an allotment. Only without the shed.

I guess I like it, if only on the same uncommitted, dabbling level I like most things in MMOs. Like almost everything else the genre has to offer I sometimes feel that to take any of it terribly seriously would require far more commitment in time and effort than could possibly be commensurate either with the in-game reward or any objective assessment of sanity. Then again, if you're having fun, your having fun, so why question it too closely?

Best. Achievement. Ever.

Thus far my fun in all the MMOs that allow you to plant seeds and tend crops and raise livestock is limited to the odd drop-in when I'm passing the old homestead. To do more looks like a lot of commitment and responsibility and no-one wants that, obviously. I do tend to like the process, though.

Take planting crops. It has all the attractions of actual gardening without any of the hassle. It doesn't make your back ache, you don't get scratches all up your arms, earwigs don't fall on your head, the neighbors don't come round to remind you of the by-laws on bonfires and best of all you can actually see the plants growing. I can certainly understand the attraction.

Is that thing...throbbing?

It felt weirdly satisfying, watching the plants grow on the public plot in Public Farm Area 2. The Red Beard seeds produce something that look like a large cabbage. Like most things in DN:O it moves a little even when at rest. The pulsing is slightly sinister. As you water it the growth bar moves up while the water bar goes down. If the growth completes before the water runs out there's a POP and the plant has a growth spurt.

If the bars finish their race the other way round your plant dies. I think there's a mini-game here but I haven't worked out how to play it. Yet. Fishing has a mini-game is a lot easier to understand. You just have to use the left mouse button to keep progress in an optimal position to speed things up. It's basic but fun.

It's not often you find yourself trying to stay in the red.

For farming mini-games, so far I like my sheep in V&H best. I used to love the Pet Training mini-game in Free Realms, as I may have mentioned about a thousand times before, and feeding apples to my sheep before playing her a tune on my lute is the nearest thing I've found to it since FR closed up shop. (No-one working on a Free Realms emulator? I guess not.)

I wax and wane on crafting and gathering mini-games. They can be relaxing and entertaining, when that's what you're in the mood for, but they can be an irritating waste of time when all you want to do is get something gathered or crafted for a reason. Ideally I'd like them on a toggle but then Ideally I'd like everything on a toggle and I know that can't happen. If I had to choose I think I'd take the mini-game approach over the WoW or GW2 style of click-to-make.

Oh... ah... diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly...hang on, this isn't a flute..

It's the wealth of options on how to spend your time, all these amusements away from the main rides, that make me believe I could be happy spending a lot more time in either of these games, be they sandparks or themeboxes or whatever the next buzzword happens to be. You think they're going to be little distractions but pretty soon you begin to realize there's depth and breadth you hadn't expected.

Having been rightly taken to task in the comments last time for making unsubstantiated, sweeping generalizations about FFXIV I'm wary of drawing any conclusions from such limited exposure and experience but thus far neither Dragon Nest: Oracle nor Villagers and Heroes has let me down when it comes to either content or execution. Bugs excepted, of course.

More good things around the next corner? I hope so. On we potter. Half the fun is in the discovery. Maybe a lot more than half. And a lack of commitment doesn't mean a lack of interest. No need to panic if I haven't logged in for week or three. I'll keep coming back. You don't have to give me a present every time.

Oh, wait, you didn't, did you?