Every Picture Tells A Story : Black Desert

There's a small problem with Black Desert. It's too photogenic. It was bad enough while I had my head down, concentrating on learning the systems, running up and down dirt tracks and country lanes between small villages and family farmsteads, picking potatoes or battling goblins.

It was worse when I reached the larger settlements, Velia and Heidel, with their architectural authenticity, their realistic street planning, their curious, colorful citizens. Sailing between islands, arriving at fishing ports just as the sun fell below the horizon, climbing the steep hillside to catch the last of the light among stands of rough brush, it was already becoming clear there were more photo opportunities here than a dozen Cannes Weeks.

Gotta pick a tater or two

But now I'm on an extended road trip things are really getting out of hand. I could, with ease, put up half a dozen narrative posts like the last, each one heavily illustrated with shots I've taken as I travel.

Before I began writing this I was flipping through the folder looking at possibilities. In a couple of minutes I'd pulled out enough for three posts and I had at least twice as many more still to consider.

My float is bigger than the fish

And that's just picking the most appropriate ones to tell the stories. Stories like the way by chance I at last found the road to Calpheon as I stopped to catch my breath at the safe haven of a riverside wharf, where I'd run to escape a cluster of angry orcs.

 
Or the hill-fort besieged by harpies, where I weaved a path through the screeching, flapping creatures, ignoring the shouts of soldiers and the clash of steel, to leap the wall and run on, high into the mountains.

You got harpies. And you can keep them.

There, finally, I butted against the invisible walls that mark the end of explorable territory and stood, gazing wistfully into the inaccessible valleys that stretched away to  the South. That adventure taught me how to slither and slide down the steepest mountainsides without breaking bones, leaning into the fall and spraying bronze dust from my soft boots.

It also led me to watch my footing closely, which was how I found the deep, deep hole that led to the spider cave.

Cave of the Unfortunately Mistranslated Spiders

That's an experience I choose not to recall too clearly. One blurred shot, taken at a dead run, is all I have to prove I was there. Oh, that and the photograph of the explorers before me; the ones who didn't climb so well or run so fast.

You're going to need some better boots.

A vendor in some village or farm, whose name and location on the map I don't recall and forgot to mark, sold me a pair of shoes that let me jump higher and farther, a bargain at thirty thousand silver. That fortuitous purchase changed the way I moved forever (or at least until they break, which he warned me they very well may should I die while wearing them). Without them I'm not sure I could have escaped the spiders or found a whole new rooftop world in Calpheon.

I could climb that.

When I came to Calpheon, great city of the West, it was of course, late in the evening. It's always "late in the evening" when I arrive anywhere. It seems as though I never get to see anything in full daylight. One moment I was gazing up at the rooftops from the road as wagons thundered by: minutes later I looked down on that same road from the tiles. These days I climb like a goat. And after all this running probably smell like one, too.

Told you!

Much has been said about Calpheon, mostly by Syl. I was ready to be impressed and I was, although the city is smaller than I expected, somewhere between Caceres and Trujillo, perhaps. Again, leaving aside a population leavened with goblins, giants and talking otters, this is a fair representation of a true, southern European medieval town.

Where did I put my Rough Guide?

The churches, markets, parks and public buildings all ring with authority. I spent a good while exploring with the UI switched off and the camera pulled back to first-person view. It felt almost disturbingly real. Once again, as I thought when I took the balloon ride in Ninelives, I could see the possibilities of VR very strongly.

Now That's What I Call Inappropriately Dressed Vol 1.

I called Mrs Bhagpuss in to take a look and she compared it to "Divinity's Reach without the confetti". They are very similar, if only in scale and scope and imagination and detail. The main difference, I think, is that Queen Jennah's capital is a pristine fairy-tale confection while Calpheon is a mostly-successful attempt to render a working city of the high-medieval period, with fantasy trappings.

I always try to get a room with a balcony.

Calpheon was a wonder but I was still restless. In my next session, which again began just as the sun was going down, I took the road west, past the great hulk of Calpheon Castle, whose barred door I tried to beat down without success and in whose moat I fished for dace and notch jaw for a while.

In time I came to the great forests where Treants are lumbered for their wood, a peculiarly disturbing concept, although why it should be more so than butchering boar for their meat I can't quite say.

Um, did I see that plank...twitch?

I spent a while in the busy lumber camps around Trent. Timber production and processing goes on there at an almost industrial scale, drawing in all kinds of new, strange races for the heavy lifting and the silver to be made. I talked with a troll, a people who here are untypically jolly and cheerful, fond of clapping their ham-like hands and laughing. A massive ogre hefting tree trunks was less willing to chat.

Chattiest troll I ever knew.

A catfish-man held a roadside node and a fanged Khuroto another. In the crowds I saw other races I couldn't yet identify. No elves, though, for which small mercy many thanks. Eventually the last of the light left the treetops and full night fell. Not wishing to be lost in the dark forest when the monsters took their strength from darkness I sneaked into a hunting lodge in Behr and settled for the night.

Around these parts they tell of a catfish that walks like a man.

There's been little time to "play" Black Desert this week. By the time I get home from work and do my dailies on three accounts in GW2, it's usually pushing nine o'clock. By chance this has also been a very lively week in World vs World, with Jade Quarry hitting back hard against the domination Yak's Bend has shown for the previous month. There have been calls to arms that I've been happy to answer.

No, but have you got any elf-skin gloves?

Consequently all the Black Desert I've been able to manage has been an hour or so late in the evening. It's been days since I last quested or crafted or traded or did any of the game-like things that usually progress a character. I have, though, seen a lot of the world and it has made me want to see more.

I've often heard it said that sandboxes give players stories to tell that theme parks never can but I've always found that an unconvincing argument. Certainly, there are great tales to be told of the human encounters between players and sandbox gameplay is often designed to encourage human to human interaction, but a good storyteller can make a story out of anything. The better the raw material, however, the easier it is to work.

And so to bed. Never mind whose. Let's just hope he works the night shift.

Black Desert is often touted as a sandbox, or at least a sandpark, and yet all of the stories I have made for myself so far have nothing whatsoever to do with other players. Neither have I, yet, read anyone else's account of their interactions with another person in the game. Everyone is writing about the world, the scenery, the races and the wonder of exploring it all. And the game mechanics and the cash shop, of course.

This is a high-quality piece of world-making we have here. Comparisons that come to mind are The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, The Division, not Ultima Online or Darkfall. Everything  Syl and Alysianah and I are gushing over has been made by creative artists and placed to be discovered, not made by us.

I just bet they leave these flags up all year round.

Then again, perhaps that's the signature of the sandbox: you take what you're given and make of it what you will, be it scars or silver or stories. Only, when it comes to stories, the telling goes so much easier when you come to the fireside with pictures like these.

Edited to add more pictures. Oh yes...

The Road South : Black Desert Online

So, there I was, slaving away at the kitchen stove making some indescribable concoction involving weasel blood for the chef of the Inn in Velia, when it suddenly occurred to me that this wasn't what I came here for at all. I mean, did I ever say I wanted to become a cook?

I always meant to be an explorer, an adventurer, a breaker of trails. A life on the open road, through forest, over mountain, from sea to shining sea, as the bards sing it. So I put down my pots, threw open the door and began to run.

I could have picked a better time. As I jogged out of Velia on the high road to the south the sun was already starting to drop but when the wanderlust takes you, you have to go.

After some miles I came across a farm. Before I could really think what I was doing I found myself chatting to the farmer's daughter, who talked me into doing her chores. How do they do that? A couple of wobbling wheelbarrow-loads later I came to my senses. I didn't escape the kitchen just to labor on a farm!

Beyond the farm's fields lay marshland, dank and dangerous. Ahead, on a hill, I could see a walled town, so I picked my way through the wetlands toward its welcome cobbled streets and its even more welcome inn.

As the sun stooped ever lower in the misting sky I climbed a tower to get the lie of the land. My plan, inasmuch as I had one, was to keep bearing south in the hope of discovering Calpheon, the great, much-talked about city of which I'd heard...well, nothing much of any clear meaning at all and certainly no clue as to where it lay.

 As I pushed on to the south the land became wilder and so did the people. The air was alive with the grunting of pigs. Two legged pigs. Orcs? At a guard post I watched the unedifying spectacle as an overweight soldier sparred with one of the creatures, whose thick legs had been tethered by four enormous iron spheres.

Disturbed by the vindictive brutality of soldiers I pressed on, past stone-lands worked out from quarrying, leaving ravines to the rough charge of angry giants. An elaborate wagon passed me at speed. Thinking the driver must know the country I followed his rattling progress until I lost him in the mists.

In a while the scree began to give way to forest. The wagon was long gone but I passed a traveling merchant, laden down with goods for some market town I hoped might be near. I hailed her but she would neither stop nor sell.

Somewhere around this time the roads began to falter and the world along with them, or, rather, my understanding of it. I met an owl set to manage a node and a fin-headed Naga managing another. I spent a while with silent, stalking, red-cowled monks at a monastery. I tried to speak to their lord but he had other concerns and would not share them with a passing stranger.

For what seemed like an eternity I ran through woodlands thick with walking dead. Their bony hands snatched at me but while I did not slow they could do me no harm. I found their cursed chapel on a hill and from it looked on to the south. The sun was falling behind the great mountains. Darkness drew down upon the valleys.

As the last twilight gathered I saw a tower and thought it might offer some shelter from the night. I was wrong. The tower and its grounds belonged to a cult. One that did not welcome travelers. Still luck was with me. I met two explorers watching warily from a distance and they warned me before I could approach the gates.

With night on my shoulders and Calpheon no nearer or better known I chose to bring my journey to an end. In the last of the day's fading light I ran back to the market town of Gilsh and the safety of its thick stone walls.

This land is vast and wild and filled with wonders. And tomorrow, as the saying goes, is yet another day.

The Torch Passes : Pantheon, EQNext

Now here's a thing. In all the dust and smoke kicked up by the falling giant that would have been EQNext it was all too easy to miss the latest PR push from the only other current pretender to EQ's throne, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.

Almost exactly two years ago, when Brad "Arudune" McQuaid unleashed his ill-fated Kickstarter campaign to an embarrassed shuffling of feet and jingling of pocket-change, the great EQNext project was still all systems go, even though none of it was actually going anywhere. Smed was still in charge of the the EQNext roadshow with Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson as the ever-grinning master of ceremonies.

Compared to their three-ring circus act, Brad's indie effort looked like a dog and pony show. Once the Kickstarter went down in flames barely half-way to its goal most observers thought that was curtain down for ever. There was even a little speculation over whether the Great Smed would wave his magic wand over poor, deluded Brad once more, the way he'd done when Brad so spectacularly failed to realize his vision with the launch of Vanguard, and haul the Pantheon project on board the good ship SOE.

Hero's Song. For a very small value of "Hero"

And now, here we are in 2016. EQNext is dead. Sony Online Entertainment is dead. Smed is...well, he's failing his own Kickstarter for a game that sounds vastly less-ambitious and less interesting than anything Brad ever put his name to over the last twenty years. There would have been some serious money to be made had anyone run an accumulator on those odds.

I didn't watch the Twitch stream live as Brad and a bunch of his co-developers at Visionary Realms showed off their pre-alpha build to anyone who cared. I only vaguely knew it was happening. My interest in Pantheon, never strong to begin with, pretty much fell off a cliff after the Kickstarter failed.

Brad, however, turns out to be made of stronger stuff than I or probably anyone who'd vicariously winced at his career downhill since the infamous parking lot firings would ever have believed. Instead of rolling over and giving up, Brad and his Visionary Realms crew (VR - that's an unfortunate acronym) have rolled on, picking up funding from who knows where.

Two years on not only is the Pantheon project still alive, not only does it have a smart new website, no, much more than that, against all odds it appears they are actually making a game. Ald Shot First, who is far more on board with Brad's vision of a fully group-centered retro retread of EverQuest running on a modern game engine than I will ever be, has full coverage of this weekend's big reveal.

So far I've only watched the first fifteen minutes of the hour-and-three-quarters of footage that's up on YouTube. That was more than enough to convince me that Pantheon is the real thing after all.

It might look rough around the edges. The animations and spell effects might look faint and sketchy. There might not be any lens flare, light shows, spectacular explosions, giant lion-men walking on their hind legs or buildings falling down but by all that's holy those guys are playing an MMO!

To be precise, they appear to be playing EverQuest. Only with prettier pictures. The dream is real.

Ald observes that "More surprising than anything is how modern the interface appeared. I was worried we'd get some sort of terribly clunky interface all for the sake of either EQ nostalgia or some sense of stubbornness many old school players seem to have. So far i'm not seeing that." I take that to mean he hasn't played EQ for a good while, because that interface looks remarkably similar to how I have EQ set up today.

I like my spell bar on the left but otherwise that's just about perfect.

The entire thing just screams EverQuest, from titles of the classes to the text in the chat boxes to the names of the mobs to the placement of the camps. And, of course, to every last detail of the gameplay. Starting with the pulling, through the the adds and the fights to the brief territorial tussle between two groups of players vying for the same Orc Camp, to (and this was the capper for me) the minute's sit-down for the entire group after a big fight so the casters could get their mana back, this could be me playing EQ a decade and a half ago.

I'm not in the least bit convinced that's something I want to do. I did it already. It was fun while it lasted but those days are gone. I'd like to think I've moved on. I know for sure the world has.

Still, it really is good to see that someone, somewhere is still holding the faith. EQNext, had it ever appeared, seemed set to erase every last vestige of affection for the look, feel and gameplay that supposedly made EverQuest the world's most successful MMORPG of its day. Jeff Butler, one of the original architects of that success, seemed particularly determined to ensure none of That Kind Of Thing ever happened on his watch again.

When Pantheon eventually becomes something we can buy and play (and it looks more likely now than ever before that that's a thing that could happen) I will almost certainly give it a try. Curiosity, nostalgia, and the knowledge that, for all his multifarious shortcomings, Brad has been the visionary force behind two of my all-time favorite imaginary worlds, make that much a certainty.

With the heavy emphasis on all group play, all the time, and the very unattractive lore, it's extremely unlikely that I'll make Pantheon my new MMO home but I wish Brad and his team all the best in making it happen. Just don't screw it up again, this time, okay?

The Longer View : Black Desert Online

Black Desert is full of surprises.

Late last night I realized I had a conger eel in my pack that wouldn't last the night. Fish spoils quickly. If you don't sell it while it's fresh then you can't sell it at all.

Neither can you sell it just anywhere. Only the Trade NPCs will buy it and they will only pay you a fair price if you have linked all the necessary nodes. Don't ask. Life's too short.

You can sell to an unlinked trader but you'll only get 30% of the price a linked one would give you. For a cheap, common fish that's acceptable to me. I'm not hauling haddock (not an actual BDO fish - as far as I know) five miles just to get a few hundred silver more for it.

Conger eels, though, are not common. They are Yellow quality, which is the fourth and highest tier. That makes them valuable. They sell for somewhere north of 20,000 silver.

That's worth a little travel time although not as much as you might imagine because whoever designed Black Desert's Economy clearly had a soft spot for hyperinflation. Remember those pictures we all saw when we were at school studying the Rise of Fascism in Germany? The ones where someone was wheeling a wheelbarrow full of banknotes to the baker just so they could buy a loaf of bread?

Well, the BDO economy is like that. You have one grade of coin, silver, and even basic items are priced in thousands or tens of thousands. Anything truly desirable goes for tens of millions. There's probably a lot more to it than that but that's the impression I'm getting.

Even so, a 20k fish is not to be sniffed at. So to speak. Examining the fish handily tells you where it was caught and this eel came from the waters around Iliya Island. Since I hadn't connected Iliya to anywhere that meant yet another round on the ferry. Must have been the third round trip of the day. I should get a season ticket. Oh, wait, it's free...

The sun was nearing the horizon as I boarded the ferry. Evening light was turning the ocean to copper. For a moment I contemplated getting my fishing rod out for the journey but the boat passes through the waters attached to several nodes that I haven't connected, which would mean a bag full of fish I'd have to sell for a fraction of their value. Kind of what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

So I left my rod in my pack. Instead I decided to do something I'd seen another player do earlier. She'd managed to sit on the rail of the boat. I thought it looked like something the cool kids were doing so why not?

Black Desert is almost unique among MMOs I've played in that it appears to have no basic /sit command. I tried it early on to no effect. There's a convoluted way to bring up a window with all the emotes shown as icons but there isn't one for Sitting there, either.

As usual I had to google it and it transpires that to sit you have to back up to a potential sitting spot and press Q. If the game deems your chosen object a fit match for your posterior your character will do a little bit of posturing and hoick themselves up onto it, or down, as appropriate.

So, I sidled up to the rail and hit Q and up she hopped. It did look for a moment as though she was going to do a comedy pratfall into the sea but she got settled and there we were, ready for the trip. Which was when the window popped.

As I said, Black Desert is full of surprises and it likes to spring them on you unannounced. The game has an "Observation" mode that comes into effect when you sit down. It allows you to de-link your camera from your character's point of view and send it high into the air, free-floating.

You acquire a whole set of new controls that let you swing the PoV around as though you were operating a high crane. It is fantastic!

The views that open up when you have access to this device are just astonishing. At first I kept sweeping and swerving it around, marveling at the sudden changes of perspective. The painterly long shots made Velia harbor look like something by Breughel. Then I found the zoom, which let me swoop in for close-ups on the crowded streets. It felt astonishingly real.

As the boat left the harbor I turned and saw the sunset. It was just stunning. Small craft moved across the burnished waters between isles that drifted in the haze. On the ferry with me were the NPC helmsman and one other player, fishing from the prow.

The whole voyage lasted ten or fifteen minutes and it was one of the most ethereal, immersive experiences I have ever had in an MMO. It wasn't in any way like a game. I wasn't doing anything gamelike - just sitting. and watching. It was like watching a movie but from the inside.

From time to time I wished I could video the whole thing. I thought of firing up FRAPS but I didn't want to break the mood by tabbing out. In the end I just sat there, soaking up the atmosphere, taking the odd screenshot now and again. They really don't give more than the merest hint of how it was.

And then we pulled up alongside the pier at Iliya harbor and I stood up and the camera snapped back to normal and I got off the boat and sold my conger eel and that was that. Next time I ride the ferry I'll know about Observation mode and I'll be expecting the views and they won't ever be quite as amazing or as surprising or as emotionally involving as that first time.

But they'll always be something worth seeing.

You're Going To Need A Bigger Boat : Black Desert Online

So there it is. My raft. Thanks to everyone who left suggestions, tips, advice and encouragement in the comments. It was all very helpful and some of it made a significant difference.

The key points I've learned:

• You never have to visit your Shipyard. It might as well be a window in the UI.
• It is a window in the UI. Open the map, click on the City, click on your house and there you go.
• All the mats to make your raft go in your Warehouse. That place you probably thought of as your badly-translated bank. 
• Your Warehouse is full of fish. 
• Rotting, unsaleable fish. You probably want to do something about that.
• It has to be the Warehouse in the same town your Shipyard is in. All storage is local.
• No, the Warehouse is not a window in the UI.
• Oh, wait, yes it is. 
• Don't get excited. It's a read-only window. You still have to go to the real Warehouse to put anything in or take anything out.
• I think. Don't quote me on that.

• You can hire multiple workers.
• Every worker needs a bed. 
• Okay, not literally a bed. Just somewhere to sleep. You'll be glad they made you buy those other two apparently unrelated houses just to get to your Shipyard.
• You can set your workers to work on more than one project.
• Or they can work on different parts of the same project.
• Best of all, they can even share the load on the same task for the same project, thereby reducing the overall completion time and the grinding of your teeth.

• You can do all of the gathering and some of the processing yourself.
• The more you do the faster the whole thing goes.
• I  mean, if you want a job done properly, do it yourself, amiright?
• If you set it up correctly your project will carry on just fine without any input from you. You can go do something interesting like kill goblins or something profitable like fish or maybe just afk and do something else entirely, like play another game that has raids and flying mounts and what all..
• I mean, why keep a dog and bark yourself, amiright?
• If you log out your workers will down tools and, for all you know, get drunk and chase girls. Or guys, depending on preference.
• The second you log in they will jump back to work like guilty schoolkids when the teacher comes back into the room.

• Two giants can easily make a whole raft before you have to give them any beer.
• Working together they can get the whole thing done in, like, six hours. 
• Don't laugh. It's better than eleven.

And so I have a raft. It was moderately satisfying, getting it made, and at least next time I'll know what to do. And there is almost bound to be a next time because

• The raft has a set lifespan.
• The raft has durability.
• The raft exists only to remind you that you really need a real boat (just as the donkey exists to remind you that you really need a real horse, but that's a pleasure I have still to come).

 
The appearance of the raft is excellent. It looks very authentic. It handles excellently and the character animations while using it are very fluid and convincing. The way you berth it at the wharf and summon it again when needed are a fine, workable compromise between convenience and realism.

It's a great little craft in every respect but one. It moves at the pace of an arthritic snail. In fact I think it moves at the exact same pace that a character swims, albeit with the huge advantage that you neither drown nor die of exhaustion. Unless you fall off and can't get back on. Don't think that can happen...

The first thing I did was sail - actually paddle - to an island I hadn't yet visited. On the way there the Velia-Iliya ferry ran right over the top of me, apparently doing about 90 knots. I thought that thing was slow when I was riding on it. How naive I was.

The ferry was no more than a dot on the horizon when I beached my raft on the rocky shore of the island, whose name I forget. It had a Node which is why I went there.



You might wonder why a rocky islet with no habitation or significant features would have a Node, let alone a full-time Node Manager. There's a story behind that.

I'm taking it as ironic foreshadowing. I'm getting a bigger boat.

Didn't say I was going to make it myself.