Horse Taming and Breeding Guide

In the World of Black Desert Online, if you want a decent mount, you are going to have to trek out into the world and tame one yourself. While you will receive a donkey at the end of the Velia quest line (donkeys actually have more base storage than a horse, which might make earlier trade runs easier until you can get a wagon), and can buy a starter horse from a merchant; you can find and tame horses in the wild all the way up to tier 5 (the first horse I tamed was tier 4). 

You can also made quite a bit of money by selling horses on the market. I know someone from CBT2 that made most of his fortune (1+ million Silver in the first day) just by going out and taming horses, then selling them on the horse market for profit.

What You Need

In order to tame a horse, your Taming skill must be at least level 5 (which you should get when your starter mount reaches about level 8). You will also need to purchase some lassos from a stable hand, costing 1500 Silver each. You are going to make mistakes in the beginning, so I suggest picking up at least 20 (or as many as you can afford). While not required, I also strongly suggest acquiring sugar lumps which will give you a boost in your efforts to domesticate your mount. These can be purchased directly from the auction house, but they are very easy to make via cooking. They only require 10 Raw Sugar and 1 Spring Water, which can be purchased directly from a tavern keeper for a little over 2000 Silver. I’d suggest making at least 3 for each mount you are going to tame.

Where to Find a Horse

Now you must set off into the world and find a horse to tame. I have found herds a short ways Southeast of Calpheon, Southwest of Heidel, and slightly East of the Northern Heidel Quarry. Once you find a horse in the wild, slowly approach to get close enough to throw a lasso. If you get too close, the horse will run away from you. If this happens simply wait for it to stop and approach it again (crouching will help you get closer). Be careful not to get the horse stuck on a rock or an incline, as you won’t be able to mount it later and all your efforts will have gone to waste.

Catching Your Horse

Once you have gotten close enough to the horse (the horse should have the red target on it), right click on the lasso on your inventory to throw it. Left click to throw the lasso, keeping the target on the horse, and a bar will appear. Hit the spacebar (make sure you don't try and hit left click again like I did) while you are in the sweet spot and the horse will become snared. Now you will be able to walk towards the horse slowly (you may want to wait a moment before attempting to approach the horse after it is lassoed as sometimes the horse will rear almost immediately). As soon as you see the horse rear up on its hind legs, press the spacebar. This will cause the second mini-game to start. While the minigame is active (there will be a countdown timer) spam your spacebar key as much as you can, keeping the meter to the right and in the blue. Once the timer expires, continue to move directly towards the horse. You may have to play the mini-game several times until you finally reach the horse.

Now, you can press “R” to attempt to mount, or press “F1” to give it a sugar lump. I recommend feeding the horse 3 lumps of sugar, then attempt to mount. If the horse doesn’t throw you, you will be able to guide it back to the nearest stable hand to register. If you are thrown you may be kicked and the horse will run off, and you will be forced to start again from scratch. Be careful not to attack the horse, as if you kill one, you will suffer a Karma hit. If you came upon the herd with a mount of your own, make sure you have left it in a safe area until you can return.

Once you get the horse to a stable hand, you will be able to register and name it. Oddly enough, you won’t be able to tell the sex of the mount until after it is named, so if you intend on using the mount regularly, you may wish to choose a gender neutral name.

Mount Breeding

In order to get horses of higher tiers, a male and a female horse of the same tier can be bred together (unlike pets, the horses are not consumed in the process) to create a new horse of a (hopefully) higher tier. To breed a pair, both will need to be at least level 10, although your chances of getting a higher tier horse increase with the level of its parents. You may also attempt to breed horses of varying tiers, trying to get a horse in between the two, or possibly (but unlikely) one of a higher tier.

To initiate breeding, check both mounts into the same stable and remove their gear. They also must both have full stamina. Register both your mounts for mating (a price must be entered for the male, but if you are breeding your own horses together you will get this money back). Then click the mating market and select your horses. You can also register your stallion for breeding, and collect the money the mare owner pays for the privilege of breeding with your stallion. Males can breed up to 2 times, while females can only be bred once. You can purchase breeding reset tokens from the cash shop, but they will only work with once with a given horse. The Female breeding reset costs 640 Pearls while the Male cost reset is 330.

It will take up to two hours for the process to complete and the foal to be born–which will actually be an already fully grown horse.

Client Download will be Available Tomorrow.

You will be able to download the Black Desert Client tomorrow (Daum will let us know via social media when the links are live). To clarify, if you possess the CBT2 version of the game, you will be able to patch it to the release version of the game. If you still have the CBT1 version of the game, it is advised that you delete it as it is not compatible, and could cause conflicts when installing the release client.

Source: https://twitter.com/BDO_News/status/703233699333148676

Streamer Spotlight: RyutheRed

RyutheRed has been streaming on Twitch since 2014, starting with such games as Guild Wars 2 and Archeage. Known for being incredibly interactive and outgoing with his fans, Ryu has been streaming Black Desert for a while now (Korean version). He also not only plays a Tamer, he just happens to be one in real life (his black 130 pound German Shepard is a frequent guest on his streams).

Ryu has been married for 7 years and has 3 daughters, and currently enjoys being a stay at home dad, and also works part time as a personal trainer. Over the last year he has been growing a strong community and is rapidly building towards becoming a full time streamer. He is extremely helpful to people seeking knowledge about a game, so don’t hesitate to ask him whatever questions you might have about Black Desert Online when you visit his Twitch channel located here.

Server Names Confirmed!

We have confirmation on the names of the North American and European Server names for launch–which happen to be the same as they were for closed beta 2. They Are:

North America

• Edan
• Orwen

Europe

• Alustin
• Jordine

As a reminder, your start date depends on the pre-order package you have purchased:

• February 28th for everyone who purchased the Conqueror's Package
• March 1st for everyone who purchased the Explorer’s Package
• March 2nd for everyone who purchased the Traveler’s Package
• The game launches on March 3rd for everyone who did not purchase a pre-order package.

One last thing to note, each server will have 9 channels at launch, which will hopefully be enough to accommodate the amount of people that will be logging into the game.

Editorial: Cash Shop Thoughts

One of the bigger controversies coming out of CBT2 was the reveal of the cash shop pricing. While some of the items were priced similar to what I had predicted in my “Which Version to Buy” article listed here, some items cost significantly more than what was previously thought. Most people were expecting pricing comparable to other buy to play games previously released, such as Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, and the Secret World. What we got was more akin to free to pay pricing, with some items costing even more than what you would typically expect in some of the more expensive F2P games. While I still stand by my comments that there isn’t Pay-2-Win in the cash shop, this whole experience reminds me of when Eve Online introduced “walking in stations” in the Incarna update, and tried to charge obscene prices for cosmetic items, such as $50 for a monocle (one will only set you back a mere $5 in Black Desert Online).

To give you an example , a full costume is going to cost you $32 (we had thought they were going to run you $15). I am fine with the minor stats on costumes. I am also OK with the fact that if you don’t buy a costume, you are going to be very limited on how you can change the way your character dresses. I am not fine with the fact that such items are so severely overpriced and are character bound on top of that.

These prices, are quite simply insane. A single costume costs more than the cheapest copy of the game. I get that Daum needs to keep the servers running, and to pay for additional development, but as Guild Wars 2 and the Elder Scrolls Online have already proven, if you make a good game, people will support it. I was intending on purchasing several costumes for my main and a few for my alts over time (I like costumes, damn you Guild Wars 2), but at these prices, I’ll collect my Conqueror's edition costume and pass on the others.

Also, while I appreciate the fact that you can unlock additional inventory slots via questing and the Miles shop, they will sell a lot more inventory space by charging $1 per slot with a discount if purchasing X number of slots (currently they are $1.50 each with 8 dropping the price to $1 per). Charging $2 for a Partial skill reset? Almost $30 for all the weight limit increases?  $5 for Lucky underwear? This isn’t Korea. No one is going to pay that kind of money for these items. Correction, a few will, but you are going to drive off a huge portion of the player base in the process.

Although there has been no official update as to whether or not we can expect any changes to the pricing in the cash shop in the near future, their Community Manager Jouska did have this to say:

“When it comes to a project as large and complicated as launching a MMO there are many people involved and decisions require discussion.  If you factor this in with the pre-existing workload and take into account that multiple time zones are involved it becomes apparent why it takes time.  Information is not held back arbitrarily, once we have the information for an announcement, the announcement will be made.”

I sincerely hope that Daum gives us an update on the pricing before the pre-order period ends, as I have heard from more than a few of you that the prices in the cash shop are, to quote Jimmy McMillan, “Too Damn High”. I also fear that people will simply refuse to buy items in the cash shop, which could put the game’s future into question and  possibly cause the introduction of actual Pay-2-Win items. Hopefully Daum will get the message.

Editorial: Interview with the Developers Thoughts

The large question thread submitted by Daum Europe to the Developers based upon the communities questions has come back and 17 of the (Best?) questions have been answered. While most of the answers only offer hints of what lies ahead for Black Desert Online, some offer more concrete details on what we can expect in the future. I am offering my opinion on some of the questions that Daum has touched on, if you want to read the full post, you can find it on the forums here.

On Male Mirror Classes for the Ranger, Sorcerer, and Tamer

Sadly, there are no plans to include include male counterparts for these classes (I would assume that a female Berserker isn’t in the cards either), although the Developers go on to say that we may see a similar class with different abilities in the future, such as with the Warrior and the later released Valkyrie.

Personally, I think that this is a bad move by Pearl Abyss. While I can understand going in a different direction than the Wizard/Witch being identical pre-awakening (this largely occurred by accident, as many of the Korean players wanted an alternative to the older Wizard-and thus the Witch was rushed out), I was hoping to see that most of the original classes would receive a counterpart similar to the way that the Blader/Plum and Ninja/Kunoichi were handled. For those unfamiliar with the Korean version of the game, these classes share a common line of skills, although there are some differences which makes each counterpart class unique. They also receive different Awakened Weapons (a new weapon you will gain access to at level 56).

Also, the Warrior and the Valkyrie aren’t really mirrors of one another, as each possess very different skills and I could easily see a female and male counterpart to each (say the Amazon for the Warrior and the Templar for the Valkyrie).

I really hope PA decides to reverse this decision on further feedback from the community. Considering the last several classes have been mirror designed, it just feels incomplete that the older classes (or at least the majority of them) won’t be receiving this treatment.

On the Addition of New Races

Pearl Abyss says that they are interested in adding new races, but acknowledge that race is very much based on personal preference. Personally, I’d prefer more options in character creation to allow those who are trying to make a dwarf or elf looking character (Dwarf Berserker FTW!), but a class tied to a specific race could have possibilities, if the class truly demonstrated features that exemplified the race in question. Only time will tell what PA has in store for us, although I suspect we might be getting new racial classes with the Elf and Dwarven regions that have yet to be officially announced (but teased in Korea).

On the Introduction of Craftable/Earnable Dyes

The developers have come to understand that the ways to acquire dyes could be improved upon, and could possibly offer basic dyes for purchase with silver (or earned another way), rather than going to the cash shop. I am personally am not a fan of the way dyes are acquired at all. You need to pay for random boxes of one use dyes and a single piece of gear/costume has multiple dyeable areas, meaning if you want to dye your chestpiece blue, you are going to need more than 1 blue dye just to properly dye that specific piece.

I think that the dye system could be fixed either by allowing for a dye to be unlocked and used repeatably when acquired, similar to Guild Wars 2, or allow dyes to be slotted and removed, similar to the way Star Wars: The Old Republic handles dyes. A third possibility could include allowing a single dye to dye as many parts of a piece of armor as you want. Regardless, I don’t intend on buying many dyes until a better system is put into place.

On Creating Healing and Support Classes

Pearl Abyss states that while conventional MMO games offer classes with designated roles, BDO offers a different style of gameplay with its action combat. They hint that more support and healing abilities could be added to existing classes in the future, as well as being included with new classes that will allow players to provide additional support, pointing to some of the healing and buffing abilities possessed by both the Wizard and Witch classes as a start. I personally agree with this stance 100%. I have grown tired of the MMO Trinity (Tank, DPS, and Heals), but would like to see more support abilities found in the various classes, or a combo system that allows classes to synergize skills off one another for additional benefits, ala Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online.

On increasing the Mapsize

The developers have stated that in addition to the new regions we can expect in the future, older established regions will see the their borders (currently covered in fog) expanded in the future. We can expect to see more than just new than settlements, nodes and mobs however, as PA also talks about adding enhancements that will expand upon how we play the game. A reference is made to the third Valencia update which will feature maritime trade, gathering, and even naval warfare.

On Stealing Trade Packs

A feature found in Archeage that some have been asking for in BDO, Pearl Abyss has indicated that they need to be careful about the implementation of such a system, as it can be quite frustrating to some players, while others quite enjoy it. They also indicate confidence in their ability to strike a balance between the two.

I believe we will be getting some sort of a theft mechanic system, but I suspect that it will be tied to the previous answer. That is, having new areas that can change the player experience. I could easy see a system added where you could make lucrative amounts of money by implementing a system in a new region that requires trade runs that could be intercepted and looted by other players, say in Valencia or Southern Calpheon. I am cautiously optimistic about the possibilities such a system could present.

On Adding Instanced Dungeons and Player Raids

Pearl Abyss states that while we could be seeing more dungeon content in the future, we will never see the instanced grindable dungeons for loot that has become the mainstream in most MMOs today. We should expect to see advanced raid type content in the future. I’m looking forward to what PA has in store for us.

There are also some thoughts on improving AI intelligence, creating apps allowing players to manage aspects of the game, crafting, adding lengthy and more challenging quests, and remapping keys to allow for additional customization of how the game can be played. All of the answers point to “we are open to the possibility” rather than this is something that is being actively being worked on.

Overall, I am a little disappointed that Pearl Abyss answered so few of the questions put forward by the community. While I understand that there are many barriers with the difference in languages, and the fact that the developers are going to be hesitant to committing to future content updates, I really feel that more could've been answered, or at least touched upon. I would also like to know what happened to setting pathing “loops”, and if we are going to be seeing any further tweaks to experience granted from monsters.

I was also hoping to get some sort of update on any changes being made to the pricing of the items in the cash shop, because as of right now, the prices of some items are just too high (costumes...cough). I really hope we do receive some sort of update before the pre-order period ends, because I personally have heard from more than a few people that they are waiting for an announcement before they pull the trigger and purchase the game.

Black Desert Korea will become Region Locked March 3rd

According to Daum Korea, Black Desert Online will become region locked on March 3, 2016, to coincide with the release of Western version of the game. The press release says that the launcher website page will become IP blocked on that date. While unfortunate, this was somewhat expected, as the Russian and Japanese localizations have been region locked for some time. For more information, refer to the official post here.

Hail to the King Baby!

King Richard is a 6 month partner on twitch and has been streaming for less than 1 year. His growth can be attributed to a very high skill level of gaming rivaled only by pros. He is known for being a very confident and skilled player while maintaining a funny entertaining and interactive stream. Currently married with 2 children he streams full time as he takes his kingdom to dominate the realm of twitch at his channel located here.

ALL HAIL THE KING

Guide to Knowledge and Energy

Knowledge and Energy are incredibly important aspects of Black Desert Online. They are tied together because as you gain knowledge, your maximum Energy pool increases. This guide will explain to you the basic concepts of Knowledge and Energy, their uses and importance, and how to increase them.

Knowledge

Knowledge represents information that you have learned throughout your travels in the World of Black Desert Online. Knowledge falls into different categories, including (but not limited to) knowledge of characters (NPCs), Topography, Resources, and Ecology (the knowledge of the beasts and creatures that inhabit the world). You will gain knowledge from meeting people, interacting with objects throughout the world, traveling, and killing monsters. You can access the knowledge interface at any time by pressing the “H” key in game.

Gaining Knowledge

Anytime you see a “?” on your minimap, go over to it and interact with who/what is there to gain knowledge about the subject. In addition, some NPCs will offer you knowledge through gossip by exchanging a small amount of energy, and some NPCs offer knowledge as a quest reward, or from reaching a high enough Amity with them by playing the Social Interaction minigame (this may also require a quest to perform first, but you will gain the knowledge once it is completed).

Knowledge can be obtained out in the world by interacting with interesting objects, such as statues, paintings, carvings, and wall murals. You can also gain knowledge by gathering resources. If you dig up enough potatoes, you will gain knowledge on them. As you fish, you will slowly gain the knowledge of the different types of fish you will catch.

Finally, knowledge is gained by slaying monsters. Ecology knowledge can take a while to gain, as you will normally need to kill a random number of mobs, and it is graded in 5 tiers from C to S. Depending on the grade you receive, you will receive bonuses when fighting these creatures in the future. Here is a list of the different ratings with their benefits (all benefits are cumulative):

C	See the creatures full health bar
B	Defense bonus against the creature
A	Attack bonus against the creature
A+	Larger attack bonus
S	Increased chance of dropping loot

When you gain rated knowledge, its value is completely random and is not based on criticals, number of mobs grinded out, or any other factors. The good thing is, if you are unhappy with your result, you can go to the Librarian in Calpheon to reset it. As this can be somewhat inconvenient when you are grinding, I suggest keeping an NPC logged near the librarian that you can hop over to so you can quickly reset the knowledge of the creature you want to get a higher score on. I wouldn’t worry too much about having a good rating until you are fighting level 50+ creatures where you will benefit the most from the higher grade.

Energy

Energy is a resource that is expended temporarily to do many things in the game, including social interaction (that includes speaking in channel chat–which is BTW a great way to keep spammers out of it), gathering and processing resources, investing in nodes, and hiring workers. Your energy maximum is account based (as it is tied to knowledge, which is also account based), but each character keeps their own energy total. This means that if you do not have enough energy to complete a task on your main character, you can always log onto an alt to spend his energy.

Speaking with NPCs

When interacting with an NPC you can gain Affinity with, you can press F1 to exchange 3 Energy for 3 Amity. You can also pay an amount of energy listed to the left of the conversation button (the right side is your maximum energy), to play the Social mini-game. If you meet the requirements in a round (top right of screen), you will be able to play again, and if the requirements are met again, a third time. If you are successful, you will increase your Amity with the NPC by a substantial amount (hopefully). You will need to possess sufficient knowledge that the NPC is interested in to attempt the Social minigame.

When you speak to the NPC and you don’t have the prerequisites, they will tell you what interests them and how many additional pieces of knowledge you will need to gain in order to interact with them. As an example, one NPC might be interested in the merchants in a particular town, while another might like talking about different types of fish. We are writing a Social Interaction guide that will explain more on how to play the minigame, which should be out prior to the game’s Western release.

Node Investment

You can spend your energy to invest in a node you have already invested Contribution in. You must invest 10 energy at a time, which will slowly increase the node’s level, to a maximum of 5. As you gain levels of node investment, you will need more energy to increase its rank to the next level, and so on. The higher you have ranked up a node the more benefits you will reap from it, including increases to materials harvested by your workers and to drops gained while farming mobs nearby. If you are ever near your energy cap and don’t know what to do to spend it, I suggest spending 10 points into a node that is valuable to you. As a warning, if you release the node to regain the Contribution and then reinvest it back later, your previous energy investment is lost (the node resets to level 1).

Gathering and Processing Resources

You will spend a small amount of energy each time you gather or process (a change from the Korean version) a resource yourself. You will also spend a small amount of energy when crafting food and potions at your residence crafting stations (another change from the Korean version of the game).

Energy Regeneration

Energy regenerates naturally at the rate of 1 point every three minutes your character is logged into the server, and 1 point every hour he is not. Therefore if you play your main for 6 hours straight, each alt will regenerate 6 points of energy during this time (Pro tip: Make your alts early on, you can always delete them later and create another character). In addition many quests, including dailies will as a reward regenerate a certain amount of energy (make sure your energy is not capped before you select the reward). If you are at your residence, sleeping in your bed will recover additional energy. A crafted bed restores 1 point of energy every 2 minutes, while a bed purchased in the cash shop will regenerate 1 point per minute sleeping in it.

You can also create potions of energy by draining your own. Currently, the tradeoff is that you must spend 100 energy to make a potion yielding 10 energy, which can then be sold on the Auction house. These numbers are currently under review at Daum, and could change to a more favorable value (hopefully) in the future.

Increasing your Energy

Your energy maximum will increase as you gain knowledge in specific categories. The total amount of energy can vary per category, depending on how large it is. I suggest occasionally pressing “H” to open the knowledge interface to access the categories, which will not only tell you your learned knowledge but also what must be sought out to further increase your energy total. Gain the missing knowledge in the category and increase the cap.

5 Keys to Give Away

We are giving away 5 more keys before CBT2 begins tomorrow at 3AM EST. Just Follow us on Twitter, and Like and Retweet this Tweet.

Keys winners will be announced at

5PM EST.

Guide to Fishing

Fishing is an excellent way to make money in Black Desert Online. Not only can you actively fish, which involves a mini-game that can be quite addictive (trust me, I know), you can also fish while AFK to make good money when you need to be doing real life things (i.e. sleeping or working). That’s right, in Black Desert Online, you can stay logged into the game 24/7, and the game will actually reward you for doing so. In addition, you earn experience towards increasing your character level while fishing, although grinding mobs will certainly level you faster.

You can fish just about anywhere in the world that has an abundance of water, such as a river, lake or ocean. Popular areas will tend to get overfished, which will increase the amount of time it takes to hook one. You can also build or buy a boat and go out into deeper waters for even better catches, but as a beginner it probably best to stay on the shore and increase your fishing skill for a while as you learn the system.

Fishing Rods and Bait

In order to fish, you will first need to get a fishing rod. You can either get one as a quest reward, or simply speak directly to Crio in Velia (he is by the docks, and also gives you the Hunting daily). He will sell you a rod for 500 Silver and also has fishing daily quests to offer. The rod has a durability of 30, which should last you between half an hour and an hour of fishing, depending on whether you are playing the mini-game or AFK fishing (AFK fishing takes longer so you will lose durability at a slower pace).

Rods cannot be repaired (none of the tools can), but you can craft your own at a tool Workshop that is more sturdy and provides other benefits, such as increasing your chance of catching rarer fish.

You can exchange 5 fishing tokens at a Fishing Shop NPC to purchase bait that will give your fishing skill different buffs, such as decreasing the amount of time it takes to hook a fish, or increasing the chance of catching rarer fish. You can earn fishing tokens by exchanging common fish for them. You can also find bait for sale in the Mileage Shop (Mileage is earned as a daily login reward). While not required, bait can help the dedicated fisherman greatly improve his profits.

Fishing

To play the minigame, you must first equip your fishing rod, then cast it into the water by pressing the spacebar. The amount of time it will take to hook a fish is based upon how depleted the spot is. Typically, areas close to the dock can become exhausted very quickly, so if you are starting to fish in Velia, move West along the coast until you can find a spot where the fish are abundant. Be careful if you go to into a combat zone if you are level 30 or above, especially if you are AFK fishing, as you could get killed by another player.

Once your line is cast, you will need to wait until you get a bite. When this happens, you will see an icon of a fish appear on screen. Press the spacebar to start the mini-game.

A bar will appear with the left side in red and the right side  in blue.  The bar fills from left to right and then empties. The goal is to hit the spacebar while in the blue (the bar will fill from left to right 3 times before cancelling and forcing you to recast your line). If you manage to hit it at the end of the blue portion of the bar you will automatically win. If you don’t (don’t worry, it doesn’t happen often), you will need to press a combination of WASD keys, the number based upon how rare the catch is. If you do this before time runs out, congratulations, you have have won and may loot your catch by pressing “R”.

If you just want to AFK fish, simply cast your line using the spacebar, and let the game do the rest. You will notice that it will take a while for your character to react to the fish icon that appears on screen, which is why AFK fishing is slower than you immediately hitting spacebar once you see the icon. I typically Alt Tab back into the program once in awhile when AFK fishing and if I have a bite play the mini-game, but if you want to leave your character AFK for hours, as long as your rods durability holds and your inventory doesn’t fill up, you will continually fish. Near the top of your screen you have the option of checking a box that will discard low quality items. I suggest enabling this if you are going to be away for awhile.

What to do with your Catch?

If you have caught a fish, you can take it to the nearest Trade Manager to sell (in Velia, he is near the Northern Stables). If you did not catch the fish locally, you must have all the nodes from where it was caught to the town where the Trade Manager is located linked or you will only receive 30% of the trade value (that’s bad). You also have a limited amount of time to sell a fish once caught (around 24 hours) or it will spoil. Alternatively, you can “dry” a fish, which will reduce its value, but will remove the expiration timer. Your fish might be more valuable to you as a crafting ingredient, in which case you can keep it and use it in a recipe.

In addition to fish, you can also acquire other items which can either be sold on the Auction house, or kept for personal use. Some of the rarer items include keys allow you to open chests that you come across exploring the world. You will also come across Ancient Relic Fragments that can be combined (place 5 of them into a + formation in your inventory) into a Boss Summoning Scroll (with a 7 day expiration timer, so don’t create it if you aren’t planning on using it in the next week).

CBT2 Client Now Available!

You can now Download the CBT2 Client. Simply log into your account at Blackdesertonline.com and make sure it says that you have CBT2 access, then click the Download button. The total size of the game client appears to be 31.85 Gigs.

We will see you in game on the 18th!

New Beta Key Giveaway

We are giving away a couple more beta keys today. To enter, simply retweet this Tweet to enter. Winners will be chosen tomorrow afternoon. Good Luck!

Also, make sure to check out our newest Guide to Contribution, located here.

Contribution Guide

Contribution represents influence you have gained by assisting people throughout the world of Black Desert Online. It is a new concept not seen in previous MMO’s and therefore can be somewhat confusing to beginners. The aim of this guide is to teach you the basics of the system, including how to earn and invest contribution.

We originally intended on having separate guides on Housing, Nodes, and Workers, but as we prepared our outlines we realized that they were all so intertwined that it would be better to create a single larger guide to talk about Contribution and its uses. Because of this, the guide is a little on the long side, but we believe the information will be very useful to players, especially those new to the game.

What is Contribution?

Contribution is a resource gained by performing quests for the NPCs of Black Desert Online. This resource is shared among all of your characters, and all Contribution experience earned goes to increasing your account’s Contribution level. This means that even while you are leveling an alt, any Contribution quests completed by the character will help to raise your contribution total. This includes Storyline quests.

Contribution is invested, but never lost. You may always give up the resource you have traded your Contribution for and it will be returned immediately to your account. You may invest your Contribution into a number of things, including: Item Rental, Housing, Workers, and Resource Nodes. Typically Contribution cannot be invested remotely–you must visit the location in order to secure the resource in question.

Item Rental

You may rent items from NPC’s throughout the world by investing Contribution. This can include things such as Weapons, Armor, and Furniture (including a chest that will allow you to access your warehouse). Certain NPCs may require a certain level of Affinity (see our guide on Conversations and Affinity) to allow you to rent an item (I don’t know about you–but I would not lend out my favorite slippers to just anyone).

The great thing about item rentals is that once the item is of no more use to you, you can simply return it and immediately reclaim your Contribution. It’s like letting your friend borrow a book, you aren’t going to charge him for it (I hope), and when he is done with it he brings it back to you.

Early on, I recommend renting the hunting rifle from Laiano the Guild merchant in Velia to get a jump on the hunting quests, until you can make or purchase your own. Once acquired, speak to Crio (Also in Velia, by the docks) to get the hunting quest to kill Seagulls (you must have the rifle to get the quest-if it is not available, press “O” and set quest preference to “all”), then return the gun. There is no need to keep a rented item in your inventory if you aren’t going to use it–it’s just taking up space. You can return again the next day to rent again to do the quest.

Housing

Houses are gained through investing Contribution (although some buildings may also have a Silver cost as well). While in most MMOs Housing provides a place to decorate and perhaps extra storage, in Black Desert Online it plays a huge role in the crafting and production aspect of the game.

You buy houses in cities, towns, some villages, and even some remote places throughout the world. You can see if any housing is available by left clicking the location on the world map. Housing must be bought in tiers, with any blue houses displayed on the map being available for immediate purchase (houses must also be sold back from highest to lowest tier as well). Houses showing up in grey on the map  have a prerequisite house that must be purchased first (look for lines linking the two properties). You can also tell the houses that are purchasable by the purple beacon on the doormat. Some houses can be upgraded further, which will also take time to complete. The arrows next to the type of the house indicate how many times the house can be upgraded. There are four types of houses; Residences, Lodging, Storage, Work Stations.

Just about any house can be turned into a Residence, and you are limited to 5 per account. Residences are the only buildings that you can enter and decorate. Furniture can be placed in the house by clicking the editor icon on the upper left hand side of the screen, which will open the House Editor and allow you to decorate. Furniture provides bonuses to your character, including energy regeneration. Also, there are some crafting stations that can be placed into a house, such as an Alchemy or Cooking workstation.

Lodging increases the number of worker’s you can hire (see below). While the first worker you receive does not require lodging (my guess is that he is local), each additional worker will require a place to sleep if you want him to enter your service. Lodging can be upgraded to provide more beds and house more workers.

A Warehouse will increase your personal storage, which is accessed through the Storage Manager in any town, or if you have rented a storage container from the manager, in your house as well. Upgrading Warehouses increases the number of inventory slots available. It is important to note that all inventory is localized. Therefore, if you leave a stack of materials and later need to access them in Heidel, you will need to return to claim them. You can view your inventory remotely however by clicking on the the city, which will pop up the storage screen (provided you have selected the appropriate viewing mode on the world map).

Your Warehouse is where your workers will store items that they have harvested for you and where they will draw items from while crafting. Any items crafted will also be deposited there. Be careful to leave some space, or your Workers will stop harvesting resources and crafting once it fills.

Workshops allow you set up production to craft items using your workers. Different houses allow for different types of crafting stations, i.e. you cannot take any house and decide to make it a  shipyard. Because of this, be careful which house you assign to a specific purpose, as the house you turned into a Warehouse might have been the only place you could create a carriage workshop in the town.

Node Management

Nodes represent valuable resource gathering areas on other various points of interest throughout the world. By investing in a node, you can tap into those resources. Nodes must be linked together back to their settlement to be used, simply investing in a node is not enough.

Nodes can be used for production by sending off a worker after the node and the resource have been invested in, for trade, by linking towns together to secure a trade route that greatly increases the value of your goods (trading to an unlinked city only rewards 30% of the value), and even for grinding mobs, as the drops will be better in an area linked together from nodes you control.

You can invest in a node by speaking with the Node Manager NPC, who is usually, but not always present at the node in question (look for the node manager nearby on the world map if he or she is not present at the node). Remember that if you are harvesting resources, you will also need to spend Contribution points on each resource you want to harvest in addition to investing in the node (again, via the Node Manager).

Worker Investment

Workers can be used to gather and refine resources, and also to craft items for your character. There are three types of workers; the quick working but low strength Goblins, the slow moving but high strength Giants, and the Humans, which represent a balance between the two. Speed indicates how quickly the worker will complete its task, while Strength determines how long he can be worked without being refreshed with beer (see below). Workers are divided into 5 Tiers; Grey, Green, Blue, Yellow and Orange, with Grey being the weakest and Orange being the strongest.

Workers gain experience and levels while being assigned tasks and will receive new skills when they do so. These skills give bonuses to doing things, such as gathering faster or crafting a higher quality item.

You may send your worker to take an exam every ten levels. Only one Worker can be sent at a time, which takes 24 hours to complete (and also makes the worker unavailable for the duration). If successful, they will evolve to the next higher tier (Green to Blue).

You may hire a worker by going to the Work Commissioner NPC. You will need to Spend 5 energy to evaluate a worker. For the first few workers you hire, I would take any that are green quality or higher. Later on, you can become more discriminating. There is also a Worker Market where you can buy or sell Workers as you wish. An opportunity exists to make some Silver simply by developing Workers and then offering them for sale to those that don’t have the patience to do it themselves.

To manage your workers, simply click on the pickaxe on the upper left hand side of the screen and tell them what you want them to do.

In addition to securing lodging for your workers, you will also have to keep them refreshed. This is accomplished by giving them beer. Beer can either be purchased from the Auction House or made at your Residence if you have put in a cooking station (you can buy one at a Tavern), plus the following ingredients (certain ingredients can be substituted, such as grains instead of potatoes, or gathered in the world, such as water-this is fastest for a new player):

• 5 Potatoes (Bartali Farm)
• 2 Fermentor (Tavern Keeper)
• 1 Sugar (Tavern Keeper)
• 6 Water (Tavern Keeper)

You may send your Workers to the farm to gather the potatoes, or you can buy a hoe from the tool vendor in Velia and harvest them yourself, at the cost of energy.

Once you have brewed or purchased your beer, click on the pickaxe to open the worker menu and click recover on the Worker you want to give the beer to.