Adventures in BDO, Part 1

  As I mentioned previously, I like the social aspect of MMOs. Going adventuring with friends--whether it's slaughtering things, exploring, or some other aspect of the game--is what I consider the most fun. Sure, I need my alone time (part of that whole introverted thing), but the real fun is doing things together. It is an MMO, after all, not a single player game.

  Today's adventure started out simple enough. Nykoss and I have been taking our higher level characters out to the desert to kill desert naga. He and I have been gaming together for over a decade, and we like the same sorts of things, including exploring weird places. The problem with the desert is that the map stops working when you go out far enough. BDO's way of saying, "It is difficult to navigate in a desert, your compass has stopped working," so to speak. The same thing happens out on the ocean (yes, you can build and sail boats!). As Nykoss is the leader of our intrepid band of adventurers (I use the term "leader" loosely. He runs our guild, <Nonessential>, and has been playing longer than the rest of us. That's about as much leading as he does), and has decided that our guild needs a large sailboat so we can all go on exploring adventures in the open ocean together, we were determined to unlock the compass ability. That way, we could easily see where we were and where we were going on the map when we all went out together. So our adventure began.

  We started in Port Epheria, on the northwestern coast of the main continent. The quest immediately sent us out chasing clues among the islands to the north. Not too difficult, Nykoss has a boat!

Nykoss does the work, I relax. Life is good.

  This is not the large sailboat that Nykoss is working on building. (Actually, I'm working on building one as well, because one must keep up with the Joneses!) This boat is a fishing boat, and while it's sturdy, it's not particularly large or fast.

  The quest had us tootling around the islands, investigating various locations underwater. Now, when you go underwater, you have a breath bar. We both were frantically swimming and diving, thinking that if the breath bar went down you started drowning. Good news is, no you don't! You simply auto surface, while gasping for air. Bad news? You auto surface. Doesn't matter if you were almost at your objective. You're headed for the surface.

  A brief portion of the quest involved killing some pirates. The two of us were merrily wreaking havoc on the pirate clans of the island when another player ran up to us.

  "PT?" he said intelligently. "pt," he repeated again, when neither of us responded immediately (seeing as how we were in the process of decimating a giant group of unwashed sea dogs). Nykoss informed him we were just there for a quest, not grinding. We'd killed 41/60 by that point. So our lovable giant friend huffily informed us, "Go somewhere else if u no pt. U ruinin my rotation."

  Goodness! You'd think he owned the pirates or something! I mean, I know the area is heavily trafficked, but it's not like we were following him around and killing mobs (enemies) he'd already attacked. We'd been there for a total of maybe three minutes (yes, we killed 41 enemies in about 3 minutes). He was the one following us around demanding a party invite! (That's what "pt" meant, for those who were unaware. He wanted to group up with us to kill the pirates. But we weren't staying long, so there was no point.)

  We informed him that we only had 19 more mobs to kill, and he angrily ran off. Definitely a different experience than I've had so far--the few times that I've run into other people and wound up killing "their" mobs (mobs that it was clear after a moment of reflection they'd obviously been heading for), I've apologized and the situation has been quite cordial.

  After a while, the quest wanted us to head out to Nowhereisland, conveniently situated out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. So we hopped on the ferry (well, not a ferry. A ship. An NPC ship).

It's snowing! There's snow on the rails! And me. Brrr.

  Now the thing to keep in mind about going into the deep ocean is that there are sea monsters. The ship was attacked multiple times as we headed for Nowhereisland. The good news is that while both of us don't have the best gear in the game, we have pretty decent gear. The sea monsters only tickled us. Our first encounter went something like this:

  Me, panicking: AHHHH! I was in the worker window, and I heard the roaring! Why is it following us?!

  Nykoss: He is in pursuit
  Me: MAKE HIM STOP

  Nykoss: Jump overboard. He will stop.

  Me, disgusted: After you do.

  Two minutes later...

  Nykoss: He's back

  Me: That was a whale. Why is a sea monster a whale?

  Nykoss: There's many types. Once we get a sailboat, we can fight them with cannons and stuff.

  Apparently, you can hunt them from a ship! Yet another reason <Nonessential> needs a ship.

  The sun went down as we were on the ferryboat, as the sun is wont to do. The moon rose. I took a few screenshots and mentioned it to Nykoss.

  Nykoss: Water is kind of eerie at night. It's like black shadowyness. And no one is steering this boat... we are doomed!

  Me: It's a ride to hell.

  Nykoss: I'm glad we caught the boat. 'cause it's a long ride.

  Not long later...

  Me: Another one?!

  Nykoss: That ain't no whale for sure.

  Me: No, that one's not.

  Nykoss: Looks like a naga.

  Me: We're outdistancing him! Keep it up, boat!

  And again...

  Nykoss: Whale back again

  Me: That's not a whale, that's a stingray!

  Nykoss: Stingwhale

  Eventually, we made it to our destination. Out on Nowhereisland (not its real name guys, I promise), we began questing. Because we'd taken the ferryship to Nowhereisland (and even on the ferry, it was a good 20 minute ride!), Nykoss' fishing boat was back by the main continent. Luckily, one of the quests in the chain gave us deeds for... a raft.

Not glamorous, but she'll do.

  The raft wasn't the fastest thing around, and I swear the waves were going to capsize us, but we made it. After more tootling around on the raft, and diving deep into the water, we received diving masks as rewards! We were excited, because they'd help us with the rest of the diving in the quest chain, right?!

We look so snazzy in our masks!

  Dear reader, you would be forgiven for believing so. It is, after all, called a diving mask. However, it does absolutely nothing except look awesome! We wore them anyway.

  Me: Does it do anything, or is it just for looks?

  Nykoss: I have no idea. I will wear it anyway jic

  Nykoss: Aw man it doesn't actually do anything

  Me: Awwwww

  Nykoss: But it's necessary to increase immersion by 1500%!

  We did a bit more diving for various quests, wearing our useless masks, and the useful crystals they gave us to increase breath time.... in our boots (because that makes sense, right? I would have at least thought they would be crystals for helmets. But no. Boots).

  Eventually, as we stood there on the docks after one of the quests, Nykoss decided to do some research. And realized the compass is temporary, not permanent. We'd been questing for hours, and it was for a temporary item! 3 days of compass, and then it breaks and you have to do another quest again. Good news, there's another place you can do a shorter 3 day compass quest. Bad news, there is no such thing as a permanent compass. So we decided to leave Nowhereisland, and head back to the main land.

COME BACK, MR. BOAT!

  And of course that means we got there just in time to watch the ferryboat sail away. Thus ended our adventure for the evening. Well, except for when the ferryboat dropped me in the middle of the ocean randomly, and I had to swim ten minutes to land.

  Tune in next time for Rionne and Riovis Go To Grana!