I'm sure you've already seen the big Community Endurance Run Post & announcements, but here's mine! As with every year, we're raising money for Pencils of Promise. PoP is a charity that raises money to help build and support educational programs in Guatemala, Ghana, and Laos. The best part is that 100% of online donations go directly to PoP programs!
The plan this year is to do a brutal Sprinters Only marathon in Project Zomboid.
I've played a few hundred hours of PZ in my time, so I'm no slouch when it comes to surviving the apocalypse. However, all of that survival experience goes straight into the trash when you replace the normally sluggish shamblers of PZ with full-on 28 Days Later-style sprinters that run you into the ground.
Naturally, this means I will be dying a lot, and $1 per death could get me to a sizeable donation by the end of 24 hours.
AND, if I reach $500 raised before the end of the marathon, I will increase that donation to $2 per death
Sound too easy?
Think I won't die that often?
Well fret not, because you can make it much harder on me!
Donations go towards building my characters!
That's right!
Want to make my next character a totally Deaf, Illiterate, and Short-Sighted Burger Flipper? JUST $8
Want to see me play a character created in my image, traits and all? $25 for 3 attempts!
Want to watch the world burn? See me suffer with an Unemployed character and ALL NEGATIVE TRAITS for 10 attempts! Just $50!
Am I surviving too long? $10 to disable sneaking for 2 characters!
It's going to be a fun time, and I'm really excited to just get obliterated by these zeds.
If you don't want to pick any incentive, that's fine too! My co-hosts will allocate those donations to their liking (and trust me they'll pick some rough ones)
Early donations will go towards the start of the marathon! So if you won't be able to catch the marathon and want to donate, please feel free to throw in what you feel comfortable with!
If you aren't in a comfortable place financially, no worries! Tell your friends about the cause, and stop on by any of the streams from the folks in the community! It's going to a hell of an Endurance Run this year!
And I mean all of GB. From everyone who’s worked on the site, everyone on both sides of the cameras, and the beautiful community that I’m incredibly proud to be a part of. Like a lot of you, I am also sad about Vinny, Brad, and Alex leaving, but I’m also very happy. I want to say that I don’t begrudge any decisions made by these wonderful people, and I’m incredibly excited for them and look forward to what they do next. I’m excited to see where GB goes from here as well. I trust Jeff to do what he believes is best for the site, and I will be along for the ride as long as he is. The change is hard to believe and process right now. It’s easy to feel sad, and it’s easy to think to myself that it’s the “end” but I choose to be happy that they were here for how long they were. I choose to be happy that I was at least a small part of this family called Giant Bomb. I wanted to take a moment here to look back on how GB has made me who I am today, and thank those that deserve every bit of my love for supporting myself and the community.
I believe I found out about Giant Bomb through a youtube recommendation/however youtube worked at the time. It must’ve been a Best of Giant Bomb, and I think it was Best of Giant Bomb 10 – Don’t Shake the Baby (it could’ve been before this, but my brain doesn’t like remembering things that long ago) So first thanks goes to Derek Stone and his beautiful work creating those for so long and continuing it to this day. You have a hell of a job to do and I can’t even imagine what you’re going through to create the next one. Big love to you my friend. Without you, the GB community wouldn’t be what it is. I strongly believe you have brought a large number of new people onto the insane roller coaster that GB is.
After that, I got sucked into the Persona 4 ER and GB became a daily presence in my life.
So over the 10+ years I have gained many friends and people that I consider family because of this website and community. I would never have considered myself a social person, but every time I join a random community thing to play some games, I am better off for it.
The GB PC Gaming Hub. I remember very explicitly when I met my best friend to this day, and many others that are close friends. It was an Arma 2 game night. I joined the mumble and joined the Arma server. I was stuck in the ground the moment I spawned, and had a blast chatting with other duders. One of those duders is now my best friend and I love him dearly (we are farmers now <3) So thank you guys, even though I’ve lost touch with many of you and I’m sorry for that. I hope to get back in and play some games with y’all again.
PAX East 2014. It was the first time I ever felt truly part of the GB community. I drove all the way to Boston by myself for that PAX. I met some wonderful people there. Took a picture with Drew Scanlon that is still my favorite picture of myself ever. I witnessed the very first “PAX wrestling” thing in the front row. What an incredible nightmare that was, and I also took one of my favorite pictures ever, which was the aftermath of the N64 taped to the floor surrounded by loose controllers and fake glass. I went to Vinny and Rich Gallup’s video production panel (which would be more influential to me than I realized at the time) I cursed at the GB panel during the Q&A for some reason, but it was still funny and I loved every moment of that show.
The Community Endurance Run. Thank you to everyone whose participated in those and supported each other in those incredible events every year. I participated a couple times after that PAX and then took a big break and participated again this year. Thank you to Gino, ZombiePie, and everyone who helped make those events possible. Raising an actual incredible amount of money for what the scope of those events are. I love you all and can’t thank you enough for having me in the mix. This past one especially. It was such a great creative outlet for me, and it’s the most proud I’ve been of something I’ve produced along with all of you.
Around 2017 or so (I can’t remember, it’s all so fuzzy) I entered a very dark point in my life. At the time I had been living alone for about 5 years, working overnight stocking groceries. I hadn’t gone to college, because I didn’t know anything about what I wanted to do with my life. It was a constant work, sleep, work, sleep etc. All while dealing with undiagnosed depression. It came to a head in 2017 and I ended up going to several mental hospitals. In my time there, I realized what I wanted to do with my life. I realized that I loved what Vinny and Drew did at GB. I made the decision to go to school and pursue a degree in video production. And I did. I got a degree in Digital Video & Cinema Production and now I am producing videos for my job. I mean, I work for a less than stellar company right now, but I never would’ve guessed I could be doing what I do for a living. I make videos now. It’s fucking wild. Thank you to GB and everyone who has held a camera, touched an edit, encoded video, and came up with insanely creative video ideas. You are the reason why I’m doing what I do today.
I got a fucking GB tattoo man, and it’s a damn quarter-sleeve! I got it in honor of the 10 year anniversary, and now I want to get another one/add to it.
The Destiny 2 clan I joined. Destiny 2 came out on PC and I looked through the forums for a clan to join and I honestly just picked one at random. It ended up being a European clan, which is actually great because I had gotten used to being up at odd hours due to working overnight. These fools have also become like family to me, and I consider many of them very close friends. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms, and thank you for getting me through the final hours of my 36 hour endurance run for the GB Community ER.
And finally. The Giant Bomb Infinite regulars. As soon as GBi launched (as GBTV at first) it became a constant presence in my life. No matter where I was, GBi was running somewhere in the background. The wonderful people in that chat are close to me in a way I can’t even describe. There’s always a handful of folks in the GBi chat that are just shooting the breeze, no matter what time of day it is. It was wonderfully described recently as having “strong ‘it's 2:30 AM and the party is dead except for five people sitting outside on the lawn’ vibes” The excellent people in the GBi chat are incredibly supportive of each other and we all get through tough days together. I would also like to thank Will Carle for GBi even existing. I love you GBi. And everyone in the chat: Stay horny.
This has gotten way too long now, and if you read this far, my apologies. I’ve tried my best not use any hyperbole throughout this, and I truly mean it when I that I wouldn’t be who/where I am today without Giant Bomb. Thank you Vinny, Alex, and Brad. I wish you all the absolute best in your personal and professional lives. Thank you Jeff. I’m coming along with you wherever you take this site. Thank you to Drew, Patrick, Jason, Dan, Austin, Abby, Jan, Ben, and everyone who was and is a part of the GB family. Thank you to everyone behind the scenes over the years making the site work and be what it is. Thank you Ryan, for everything.
This is a shot from the first short film I made last year
My name's Luis, and I like stuff! I wrote a blog post a little while ago (oh god that was two months ago) about stuff I was into. It was a nice and positive thing that I really enjoyed writing, and recently I've been needing some extra positivity in my life. I also would like for this to be a place where y'all can post about anything that you're into lately, whether it be books, movies, music, games, and really anything else.
More and more I try to expand my horizons, and become more competent in different media/cultures/aspects of life, and I hope through this blog we can all expand our interests. If you want recommendations on music/games/other stuff from my previous blog post, check out the link above and take a look, also be sure to check the comments, there are some cool recommendations in there too!
Things listed here won't always be new or trending, but just what I'm into at the moment, feel free to comment about what you're into lately below!
Let's Goooooo!
Music
Last time I wrote about some Jazz Fusion/Progressive metal, and this time won't be too different. I was also tempted to write about my favorite artist of all time, but I think they deserve a whole dedicated post, so I'll write that later.
Each track has art similar to this attached, and they're by Vladimir himself
There is only one reason I found this band, and it's because of the Vocalist. His name is Vladimir Lalić and he is my favorite vocalist of all time. He was a guest vocalist for my favorite artist in a few of their albums, and wow he was a huge highlight. In those albums he mostly did vocal solos, which are mind-boggling in their complexity and style He has such a unique sound and he is incredibly proficient in his craft. He can hit extremely high notes without going into falsetto and back to low notes very smoothly. Just as well he does such a good job making harmonies, hell there's even a pure acapella track on the album. He also puts a lot of flavor into his singing that really is unique to him and him alone. There are a few moments in the album where he screams, and it's very good, but I'm happy this album is mostly clean vocals.
In terms of instrumentation and composition, this is very much Progressive Metal. Though, the musicians here definitely had a lot of fun with different instruments and sounds throughout the album. The guitars are mostly heavy with some djent-y grooves, but also a lot of clean/acoustic guitar as well. There is also a lot of really great keyboard/piano work.
I love this album to death, and it's one of those that can give me goosebumps still.
This one's a weird one for me. I first listened to this band when they released their first album, and I really disliked how formulaic it was. The realm of Progressive Metal is filled with so many bands that just do what everyone else is doing. I suppose this is true for all genres too, but it's quite annoying all the same. I was curious to hear what they'd been up to since then so I checked this album out, and I was pleasantly surprised.
This album uses a lot of faux orchestra throughout along with their guitars/vocals. I usually really despise the use of midi orchestra/fake strings and stuff, but here it is mixed incredibly well and they don't overuse the orchestra. The composition and instrumentation is also really well done, again I was pleasantly surprised at how not monotonous or boring this album is. The vocals are almost entirely clean, and are quite good. Lots of choir and harmonies used throughout. On top of good drumming, the percussion is quite good as well, with timpanis and other instruments used.
The guitar work is a lot of clean guitar, with some heavy stuff, and some moments of djenty groove. All very progressive with complex rhythms and such.
The weirdest part of the album is the final track. Which is a cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity. It is completely not what I expected, and really not bad at all. Space Oddity is one of those songs that gets covered a lot, and I'm sure there are better covers out there, but this one surprised me and is actually worth a listen.
Highlight tracks: Samum, Le Festin en temps de peste
Spawned in as a Scav, near three other AI Scavs...I want that backpack...
I bought Escape From Tarkov a long time ago, back before it was in a beta form I believe. I didn't enjoy the game much at the time, but it has come a way since then and I really really love it now. Escape From Tarkov is a hardcore first person shooter that focuses on modern military simulation. There is so much in the game that would take a long time to explain, it has mechanics that are completely unique and the systems are deep. As you can tell from the screenshot above, there is almost no HUD elements, and there are no markers over other people whether they are human, AI, or even your teammates. The weapons in this game are designed to be exactly like their real life counterparts, and are fully customizable. Every weapon can be dismantled and fitted with appropriate attachments, mounts, sights, stocks, barrels, etc.
Combat in this game is so tense and exciting and the only way to come out on top is to move, shoot, and engage your enemies strategically. Getting out of a scuffle alive and looting the corpses of your enemies is satisfying, and getting out of any Raid alive is awesome and tense. The pace of this game is SLOW, and I love that about it. If you've played Hunt: Showdown it is similar, it's also similar in that sound plays a major role. Footsteps are one the main ways enemy players can find/kill you, and of course the sounds of guns/explosions help you make decisions on where/how to move. Side Note: I might also write about Hunt sometime, because I love that game and it just got a big update today.
The player can use their main PMC character, which brings in their loadout and any gear they can carry into a raid. The player can gain experience, find loot, and level skills with their main character, but if they die in a raid they lose any gear they had on their player. The player can also choose to play as a "Scav" which is the AI faction. Playing as a Scav means the player joins a raid in progress with random starting gear, and when they die there is no penalty. The AI Scavs are also non-hostile to player Scavs unless attacked. I'll stop there because there's too much to break down.
Checking an empty magazine
Just to give an example of how intense the weapon functionality and systems are in the game I'm going to list some controls:
Shift + T: Check Chamber
Alt + T : Check Magazine and estimate remaining ammo
2x R : Quick Reload, this tosses current mag to the ground
Holding C + Mousewheel Up/Down: Switches between 7 standing stances
Mousewheel Up/Down: Change walkspeed
If you want to read a little more on the game and how it works I wrote up a big, big wiki post on it this week
Other Stuff!
Board games!
BIG BOX
I've been introducing my family and friends to more board games this year, and even some D&D. I love the idea of sitting down with some friends, having a drink, and just playing some relaxing board games. I've bought something along the lines of 5 different board games since Janurary, some of them old, some of them new, but all of them I really love playing.
Some notable ones:
Dixit
Letter Tycoon
Garbage Day
More recently I picked up this big huge box of Carcassonne. It was about $80 and contains all the expansions along with the base game. I. LOVE. CARCASSONNE. I first played it with my best friend @zagzagovich on TableTop Simulator a few years ago and fell in love with it then. It took me many years to get a physical copy, but I'm so happy I did.
I played it with my family the other night, and it was so much fun. The best part about it is that it's such an easy game to pick up and play. Our resident 10 year old really had a fun time placing tiles and won handily the first time we played together, besting 4 adults. I wish I had taken some pictures of our table covered in massive maps of Carcassonne tiles, maybe next time.
New phone!
Only need one page baby
A few weeks ago I bought a new Google Pixel 2. I had an Iphone 6 before, and I became really sick and tired of just how bad it ran. So much hitching, horrible battery life and such. I suppose it's to be expected in this age of planned obsolescence, but I needed a new phone so I went with an Android device. I have been very happy with no longer being strapped to the Apple way of life, and this phone has been wonderful. I especially love the customizablility of the Android OS. I also became a for-real millennial by getting a Giant Bomb Pop Socket, and custom widgets are cool as hell.
Also, I just bought Cook, Serve, Delicious! and it's a great game for mobile. It's also always great to see homages to Ryan Davis in video games.
Here's a shot from a trailer showing "The Ryan Davis"
it's also funny because both Ryan and Jeff have quotes in the product description:
"There's an odd appeal to this game." -Ryan Davis, Giantbomb.com
"This seems like a cool game...I just want a corndog..." -Jeff Gerstmann, Giantbomb.com
That's it for me this time, my friends! I hope you enjoyed reading about my interests as of late, and I really hope this encourages you to be positive and get your fingers into some new and interesting pies! But, I want to hear from you, so...
My name’s Luis, and I like stuff! Well, it turns out a lot of people do, but I just had an urge to write about some of it. Thanks for stopping by though I really appreciate it! The way I want to do this is to have 3 separate topics (i.e. music/games/other) and keep each section limited to two things that I’m into lately. I would also like to do this at least semi-regularly.
These things won’t always be new or trending, but just what I’m into at the moment. I also would love to hear from y'all about what you love, so without further ado…
Let’s get positive!
Music
I love music, and it plays a major role in my life. I played violin for 12 years, and through that I developed an extreme love and appreciation for music theory, composition, and originality. This, in turn, has led me to the world of Jazz influenced styles as well as more Progressive genres. I also will mention that I only ever listen to albums as a whole. I like to experience what the artist wanted me to hear, so I will always recommend an album as opposed to a single track, with maybe a highlight track or two to give you a snippet of what the artist is about. So, here’s some tunes that I’m into lately.
Owane is a mostly solo project with three releases since 2015, but this release really trumps them all. As with most Jazz Fusion outfits, Owane’s work is incredibly interesting in terms of composition, especially when it comes to complex rhythms and absurd time signatures. In yeah whatever, Owane plays musical gymnastics, but at the same time got my head bobbing along to the crazy, but understandable rhythms and melodies. It has an upbeat feel, and makes me smile with every listen.
Highlight tracks: Rock is Too Heavy, One Curl in Bangkok
Hungry Lights is a solo project by a guy named Justin Bonitz. Three Gods & Me is the third part of a five part series called “From Windfall to Hell.” The interesting thing here is that Justin Bonitz is writing a series of novels that follow along with the story being told in the albums. I haven’t read his work, but what he’s got going on here in these three concept albums so far is incredibly interesting. In terms of genre it’s incredibly hard to pin this guy down. His vocal stylings are incredibly unique and his screaming is just as unique if not downright crazy. Not only does he sing, scream, and play characters in his music, but he also will rap in certain parts of these albums. His work kept me guessing and surprised at his experimenting and I can’t wait to see more.
Highlight tracks: Reflaugh, Cowardice
you guessed it, Bonitz is the guy with the bunny ears
He also started a new band by the name of Tallah with Mike Portnoy’s son Max as the lead vocalist. Look into it you’re curious, but the one word I would describe them as is: insane.
Dwarven ships don't have sails, thus chain-shot is useless on them
I picked this up yesterday and almost instantly fell in love with it. In Maelstrom you play a boat and are placed in a map with up to 15 other boats in a fight to the death, and yes of course there is a “circle” that closes in. The “circle” in this case is called the “Dead Waters” and it doesn’t tick away at your health. Instead, giant sea monsters roam the Dead Waters, and if you hang out too long they will chase you down and kill you in one hit. There are also AI mobs that spawn on the map (you could call them creeps, I guess) and they will drop buffs on death that you can pick up. In terms of ships, there are three races with 3 ships each. They have different speeds, armor, cannon positions, size, and many other things that you can pick from. On top of this, you can unlock 3 captains per race, who each have different active abilities that will give you versatility or an advantage depending on the situation.
Giant Merman!
This game controls so well, feels so good, and is incredibly exciting when getting in a 6 ship scuffle surrounded by 4 sea monsters waiting to pick you off. Very fast-paced, and very fun, with an average match time of 15-20 minutes.
Gosh this game is so interesting. I like playing MMOs, but they are definitely a sort of mindless thing for me. This is especially true when they are extremely “hand-holdy” in the vain of WoW. In Project: Gorgon there is zero hand holding. The game wants you to read what the npcs have to say, because they actually tell you where to go and what to do. There are no waypoints, no exclamation marks over quest givers’ heads, and no markers over quest objectives. It very much reminds me of Morrowind in this way, and I adore Morrowind.
Yes, you CAN level in the art of Dying!
The game doesn’t have an overall level, but each skill in the game, of which there are way too many, levels as you use them. The game also touts itself as a “new old school MMO” so take that for what it’s worth if you played “old school” MMOs. I really am enjoying this game, and hope to see some more people talk about it.
You can actually go below zero in the graphics settings to -2 "Retro-Terrible" - Runs great though!
Other things I’m into
Giant Bomb Infinite
I miss Drew and Dave!
This almost goes without saying, but Giant Bomb Infinite is one of the greatest things this site has done. I have a laptop hooked up to my TV running GBI 24/7 and I will have it that way for a long time to come. I absolutely love being reminded of some of GB’s greatest/silliest/craziest moments over the past 10 years, and GBI does this for me instead of me having to do it manually on my second monitor.
School
I am currently studying Digital Video and Cinema Production, and am loving it so dearly. I graduated high school in 2011, but didn’t start college for almost 6 years. I’m happy I didn’t go straight into college, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do at the time. Over time, I found out that I really love video production. Learning about and doing stuff that I love has been such a boon for me these past few semesters. I am in currently in the middle of production for my Cinematography class doing scene recreations (I’m doing a scene from Twin Peaks) among a bunch of other things I’m doing for my Editing, Screenwriting, and Production Management classes.
Screenwriting specifically has been so so much fun for me. I am currently working on the first act of a feature screenplay. I never really considered myself a writer, but it turns out when I am writing creatively I love it! Granted, writing screenplays isn’t the same as writing novels or poetry, but I love the creative process all the same. I currently am developing a story that has really grown on me. It has become way bigger than I thought it would, and I plan to write it in novel form over the summer. I will keep the name and concept of it to myself for now, and hopefully later on I will have something to share.
I think that does it for me this time, I’ll write up another post at some point in the future. I think writing this is just good positive thinking for me. I would love to hear from y’all though, maybe about what I’ve written or just whatever you like, old or new. So...
Ahh, MMOs. The bane of all video games for some, and the holy grail for others. I’d like to think I fall somewhere in between that spectrum of opinion, landing somewhere along the lines of “they’re alright.” There really has only been one MMO that I have put a decent amount of time into, and that’s Guild Wars 2. A game I put over 400 hours into over the course of three years, and enjoyed that time quite a bit.
A serene spring
So, what is Black Desert Online?
BDO is a sandbox MMO created by Korean developer Pearl Abyss. It has become well known for it’s incredible character creator, fun and satisfying combat, life-skill system, and it’s seamless open world containing no loading zones. It is also regarded as a prime example of Korean MMO design due to the gratuitous amount of grinding required to level up. Due to this design many people look down on BDO as just another Korean time-sink, and they’re not completely wrong to think so.
I can hear you asking the obvious question: “Why and how did you put in almost 500 hours into what quite a few people consider a not great game in such a short amount of time?!” Well, I aim to answer that question to the best of my ability in this blog post.
So how did this semi-addiction start? Well, it began when Black Desert Online showed up on Steam at the low, low price of $9.99, reminding me that the game had even existed. Of course I had seen the famous Monster Factory and the Giant Bomb quick look, but the game had never piqued my interest until it came out on Steam. After a few days, I decided to check out the game’s 7 day free trial...
First Impressions
So many adjustable parts!
The first thing you do is create your character, and we all know the glories that can come out this ridiculous thing so I won’t delve into it, other than to say that there are 11 unique classes to choose from now (compared to the 7 classes at launch). Also, the classes are gender locked with the exception of 3 classes that have male/female counterparts. After creating your character and sitting through (or skipping) a horribly rendered cutscene explaining the world, you are dumped into the game’s tutorial area. This is where most people will turn the game off and walk away.
You may have seen some screenshots of this game and thought, “Wow this game looks great!” And you’re right! The game looks fantastic...as a still image. In motion, however, the game begins to vomit convulsively all over the place. The render distance for objects, characters, and most noticeably grass and trees is abysmal. I would estimate pop in distances of about 30 meters, that’s right ladies and gentleman. 30 meters. You will constantly see trees, players, npcs, and enemies materialize right in front of you, and no amount of power in your PC build will make this any better. I run the game at the highest possible settings and still have ridiculous pop in. Not only is the render distance completely off the rails, the game is incredibly poorly optimized. The game will drop frames when entering cities, no matter what video card you are using and no matter how strong your CPU is. That being said, the game is very pretty when you are standing stock still and taking a stunning screenshot.
If, by force of pure will, get past the rendering issues you will be treated to what many say is the main draw of the game:
The Combat
I wanted to show a gif of combat, but couldn't get it to work with me
This is where I fell in love with BDO. The combat is incredibly fluid and fun, and can require a lot of skill later on. This isn’t a traditional MMO wherein you target a creature, and hit number keys to cast abilities after their cooldowns. In BDO you have to aim, much like in a third person shooter, and you actively dodge and block enemy attacks. Later on when fighting high level enemies/bosses learning the enemy’s movements is key to dodging their attacks and surviving tough encounters. There is no such thing as single target abilities in this game, which allows you to plow directly into groups of enemies and easily land combos that hit every one of them. The combo system is a ton of fun, and each class has a different feel to them. Some classes are extremely mobile and can dodge and dash their way around enemies with ease. These are the classes that I am having the most fun with (granted I really have only played two classes.) Overall, the combat is fun and engaging, and feels like a real action game, not an MMO.
One other thing I should mention is that BDO is open PVP after level 50. Players can attack you even if you haven’t opted into PVP when you are in combat zones. I say this, but I have yet to see a single instance of players attacking each other in the wild, though I haven’t engaged in guild wars and stuff. There is a karma system that penalizes PKers, though I don’t know too much about it.
Of course, when one thinks combat in an MMO the next few thoughts are…
Gear, Loot, and Leveling
Allow me to start with the leveling system. First of all, there is no level cap. That’s right, no level cap, you can infinite gain experience and gain levels. Currently what is known as a soft cap is level 56, which can be achieved fairly easily. After 56, gaining levels is an extreme grind and very difficult, the amount of experience one would need to gain to go from level 60 to 61 is absurd and can take literal months. As of writing the current highest level is 62 or 63 I believe. That being said, the leveling process from 1-56 is incredible fun and I highly recommend just enjoying the combat.
Once you hit 56 you will begin to realize that you need really good gear to stand a chance against at-level and higher enemies. If I were to divide up how important certain aspects of your character are in terms of end game combat viability it would be like this: 70% gear, 20% skill, 10% abilities. And that’s a huge bummer. The reason it’s a bummer is because if you can’t get your hands on what are considered must have pieces of gear and upgrade them enough to raise your stats, then you won’t be able to handle end game enemies. There isn’t a lot of loot variety, and this leads to certain pieces of gear being the must-haves that you need to get in order to stand a chance at the end game. If you want these items then you need to prepare to do a lot of grinding in the hopes of getting a drop, or making enough money to buy them off of the player marketplace at exorbitant prices. Once you get the gear, you then need to upgrade the gear. I won’t go into this process, but suffice it to say that it is incredibly difficult and just means more grind. That’s not to say it isn’t rewarding however, I sure have enjoyed getting my gear up to snuff.
But what else is there to do outside of combat? Plenty.
The Node System and Life Skills
Only a portion of the map in BDO
Along your adventures in BDO you will come across towns and cities. These towns and cities have what are called nodes on the map, which you can invest a resource called contribution points into to gain certain benefits. You can connect nodes on the map to connect trade routes between cities and send workers to gather materials for you. The node system is complex and I won’t go deep into it here, but I will say that it is a unique system and fun to manage, it is like a mini management sim. You can see in the map to here golden lines extending from node to node. Those are the nodes that I have connected together and can trade between.
You’ve seen me reference life skills, a silly term the game uses to define the gathering and fishing type activities you can do when playing. There are 10 life skills to level up in, each of which can produce many different materials to use in crafting, and can also make you a good amount of money. I’ll give a list here with a quick explanation of each skill:
A popular fishing spot
Gathering: cut down trees, gather herbs etc. for crafting/alchemy
Processing: combing materials together for crafting/alchemy
Cooking: cooking food that give buffs for a variety of things
Alchemy: create potions/items that give more buffs
Training: riding a horse will raise this and allow you to train your horses more effectively
Fishing: catch fish to either trade/process/cook
Hunting: can hunt certain creatures for materials
Trading: uses trade routes to trade items between cities to gain a profit
Farming: I haven’t messed with this one, but it seems self explanatory
Sailing: ~50% of the map is open ocean, and can be sailed across to reach islands and fish for more lucrative fish
Each skill can be leveled up a lot, and is an extreme grind at high levels. I have put a lot of time into fishing, and am nowhere near the highest level. Another interesting feature here is the concept of auto-fishing. A player can begin fishing and walk away from the computer and the game will automatically do the fishing mini-game for you while you are AFK. If you have enough durability on your fishing rod(s) you can feasibly fish for hours at a time. I personally have let the game run overnight many many times to fish for me, and when I come back I will have a bunch of fish to sell to a town far away for a distance bonus. I would almost liken the life skill system here to the skills in Runescape, which is a strange thing to say, but I think pretty accurate.
A Fun Grind Fest
After 450 hours of Black Desert Online, I feel confident in saying that I will keep playing for a while to come, and I would recommend those that are curious to check out the free trial, if only just for the combat. I’ve had a great time with this game, and I hope more people from the GB community jump in. If you do decide to get into it, be sure to check out some guides or ask me some questions, because the game is very bad about explaining it’s mechanics.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to turn off the RP chat channel.
P.S. shoot me a message if you are playing, I would love to set up a clan for duders, and would even set up a discord for us if there is a desire.
My name is Luis, and I am very excited. Last year I participated in Extra Life for the first time, and put together my first actual live stream setup. Boy, it sure was a wild ride. Some of you may recall the blog post I made last year announcing all that stuff. I streamed my first play through of Persona 3 every freakin' day for 47 days prior to Extra Life, and then myself and a few friends played through 60+ PS2/GC games on game day. To this day, I'm still surprised I survived that whole ordeal at all. Perhaps calling it an ordeal is a bit harsh. I mean, I had an immense amount of fun doing it, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. It was, however, a intensely grueling endeavor. Having to stick a daily livestream schedule is HARD. On top of that, I work overnight, so I would have to get home and immediately start the livestream every morning. In the end, I was very proud of what I had accomplished. I raised over $200 dollars, had a ton of fun producing a really stupid livestream, and I learned a lot.
When I was putting together the livestream for last year, I had a goal in mind: Make my livestream not unbearable to look at and experience. I don't think I hit it, mostly because of the barrier of low quality equipment. Hell, my camera situation was fucked. I had two little $20 dollar webcams taped to the fucking wall. Consider that fact for a moment. One of the cameras was taped in such a way to capture a $100 clock that counted up the 24 hours. Again, consider that for a moment. $100 clock, two $20 webcams, some tape, a decent mic, a terrible capture solution for PS2/GC games (in other words, don't buy an El Gato), and BOOM you got an Extra Life stream. To compensate for the lack of quality equipment, I tried to make the layout of the stream as view-able and nice to look at as possible, and with that in mind I think it worked quite well. I learned a lot.
I fucking hate this game, and I really love this game.
Since then, I participated in The Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run for my first time back in April this year. I attempted to do an entire playthrough of Siren on the PS2 for the event, but It didn't quite work out as intended. I didn't plan on streaming for longer than about 15 hours or so...but It ended up being a 21 hour stream of a horribly flawed game, lots of cursing, and awful technical issues.** I DIDN'T EVEN FINISH THE DAMN GAME! Though, we did end up raising over $3000 dollars for Pencils of Promise, and I was infinitely happy to have helped out. Again, I learned quite a lot.
**remember how I said "don't buy an El Gato"? Seriously, don't.
So, after upgrading my shitty webcams to GoPros, finding a solution to capturing retro game carts (see: Retrode), and learning from my past livestreams I have come out the other side ready for...
Extra Life 2015! - Supporting the Children's Hospital of San Antonio!
Remember that time when Ryan Davis bought two lots of Super Famicom/Famicom games and played them on an end of year stream? Well, about a year before he did that, I decided to buy a SNES and a lot of 100+ Super Famicom games off of Ebay for myself. I did pop in a number of those carts, (after modifying the SNES to accept Super Famicom carts) but never had the excuse to spend any real amount of time with them. I wanted to run through these games for Extra Life last year, but I couldn't find a good solution to capture them effectively. Then I remembered at one point @jeff talked about the Retrode on the Bombcast. I was curious about it, and after ordering one from Germany and testing it out, I came to the conclusion that...the Retrode is fucking baller as shit! So, I had the terrible/brilliant idea of the...
Well, after streaming Persona 3 EVERY DAY for 47 days straight before Extra Life, I STILL haven't beat the damned game. I am on the final boss, and have made several attempts on it. Many of those attempts were made during my Extra Life stream. Turns out I probably need to grind a little bit more to stand a better chance at winning. The plan is to stream a few days next week to finish the game. I WILL FINISH THIS GAME. Here's an idea of when I will stream:
After I beat Persona 3, I will do a write up on my overall thoughts on the game, and will hopefully be able to put together a montage of my favorite moments during my playthrough.
Anyways...
Recap Time!
Displayed play time: 62hr 17m
Player Level: 71
Day 43 - Boss run cont.
This dude was tough, did a LOT of Almighty damage.These guys cast pure physical attacks, and suicide bombed at low hp.
forced me to summon a null strike persona, pretty silly.
Day 44 - The top! Also Monad
This dude. One hit me with a slash attack, cuz it enraged me.Hey! We made it! With 28 days to spare!
and went from level 0 to 10 with this S-link :POh hey! Bonus Dungeon!
Level 94 huh? hmm...Well I'm level 70...
FUCK
Day 45 - Operation waste time until the 31st
Yup, you nailed it.WOAH! first typo!
Reconciliation!Not like it matters! The game's almost over!
Day 46 - Mitsuru loves me! Also Death comes.
Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to.Woah there! Punk ass fake fiancee, thinks he's tough
Word. Well...Misturu I forgot to tell you......I'm dating another girl...ah well
Soooo close!Easy boss #1
Easy boss #2yup.
this boss fight is split into 13 phases. 13 being Death, and being exponentially harder than the previous 12.Don't get your hopes up Fuuka...
FUCK. TENTARAFOO. FUCK THAT.HOLY SHIT. The worst place you could possibly be in this game.
Well, I gotta outta that mess aaaanndd....fuckOH MY GOD. AGAIN WITH THE TENTARAFOO! FUUUUUU
Lucky. Crits.
Day 47 - Death attempt #3
1 hour in. First time to the 13th phase. DeathOH YEAH?? YOU JUST FIGURED THAT OUT???
1 hour into the 13th phase. Notice the boss' hp.Out of Somas. Out of hope.
As some of you may already know, I have been streaming my playthrough of Persona 3 as a lead up to Extra Life. This post is a recap of last week, but I am currently at the VERY end of the game. I will post a recap of the end of the game next week. I will also try and do a write up on my experience with the game, and hopefully get around to making a video highlighting some of my favorite moments from the game.
Recap Time!
Displayed play time: 55hr 27m
Player Level: 62
Day 36 - dumb
block 5 here we come!stupid boss fight
Day 37 - more dumb
another stupid boss fightINCREDIBLY easy boss fight
another stupid boss fight
Day 38 - School Trip Executions
pretty easy boss fightAnother trip!
great picturesYES.
......
uh oh!!
and then the game turned into Metal Gear Solidand it didn't go well
fuuuuuu
don't remind me...yes
Day 39 - PROGRESS
Yeah! no more hanging out with Chihiro!Oh man! Kenji gettin it
As some of you may already know, I started streaming my playthrough of Persona 3 as a lead up to Extra Life 2014. If you're interested in my Extra Life streaming, I posted about it here. I have been streaming every day for five weeks now, mostly between 8am and 12pm. I have made a slight change to that schedule, and will be streaming at 8PM two nights a week.
This week those nights will be:
Wednesday Oct. 15th @ 8pm CST - DAY 38
Thursday Oct. 16th @ 8pm CST - DAY 39
Every other day I will still be streaming between 8am - 12pm CST (sorry I'm crazy!)
Also if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions please let me know!
Recap Time!
Displayed play time: 48hr 08m
Player Level: 55
You'll notice different layout stuff happening through the screenshots, I was working out more technical stuff in preparation for the Extra Life stream (which is coming up fast!) I'm actually kinda worried that I won't be able to finish the game before the 25th, but I'll try and push on through.
So here we go!
Day 29 - Hee Ho.
FINALLYBlack Frost is kinda of a go-to for me when it comes to SMT games.
Day 30 - Always Be Tartarusin'
Next up!oh god
Perfect. No one gets exp except for me
Day 31 - Midterms, and parental issues
this one killed me twiceAlright, time to get academical!
Word.WORD.
HELL EFFIN' YEAHGood plan.
oh hi, your kid ran off, and it's your fault.yup.
Day 32 - Genius get!
OH MAN MITSURU IS GUNNA LOVE ME NOWOh right! Hell yeah something useful!
oh...well fuck you too.I AGREE video game.
Stop lying to me video game.
Day 33 - The "Final" Boss
lies.pokemon battle time?
sureyup, totally pokemon
Thanks Fuuka. Also this boss was incredibly easy, but took forever to kill.What do you think video game?
hehMan, I love this game
STORY
Day 34 - Oh, you know, Persona
Max S-linkin!Now I won't ever hang with you again Kaz.
but thanks for the sick Personapretty great
now let's die to this boss over and over for an hour.
Day 35 - Get Hunked
Maaaaan, you really need to level up20 minutes later, ahh close enough
!!!! YUKARI WILL TOTALLY BE INTO ME NOWOh what? I thought the game was over!
New character means we have a ways to go now that's a life lesson
As some of you may already know, I started streaming my playthrough of Persona 3 as a lead up to Extra Life 2014. If you're interested in my Extra Life streaming, I posted about it here. I have been streaming every day for four weeks now, mostly between 8am and 12pm. I have made a slight change to that schedule, and will be streaming at 8PM two nights a week.
This week those nights will be:
Thursday Oct. 9th @ 8pm CST - DAY 32
Friday Oct. 10th @ 8pm CST - DAY 33
Every other day I will still be streaming between 8am - 12pm CST (sorry I'm crazy!)
Also if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions please let me know!
Recap Time!
Displayed play time: 39hr 52m
Player Level: 44
Day 22 - Teachers, Tanaka, and more character development!
ah yes, let's fight this stupid boss for 40 freakin' minutesyou said it Maya!
WOAH! Maya is totally a teacher at my school huhwow you really are just scamming me
Yeah! Elementary school kid joins the team!quit creeping out girls Junpei!
Day 23 - Just a buncha grinding
My teamalso Ken is so good
Day 24 - Fully Moonified
Thats because you are stalking her!hah!
how could I forget?you tell em!
oh god Junpei put that away!sorry Koro-chan, you can't go to school too...d'awww
naaahh she's a pretty lady, not a weapon designed to fight shadows! Don't be silly.dude, shut up! you realize she's gunna turn on you...
prefect.man, the major boss fights are incredibly easy compared to the tower bosses.
oh NOW you break outta your chains Junpei, nice job.nope, we definitely don't hate you
well, Junpei doesn't at leastMan, what a creep!
None of your damn business!YES! First hand hold, mark it down
Day 25 - It only took 40k Yen to S-link with Tanaka
I mean you clearly need it, you poor bastard, I'm swimmin' in yen over herewait what? OH NOOOOOOOOOO
Who?HELL YEAH!
Day 26 - S-linkin' over here, don't mind me
that will totally solve all of your problemshooraaaaaaayy!
Koro-chan check: he's stokedI'll give you something to make you happy girl, oh yeah
YEAH! Maybe now Yukari will go out wit......oh
Who are you again? nahh im screwin with ya. What? That's creepy dude.Hmmm, I guess we'll see about that
Day 27 - Persona-ing
Burnin through bosses whatever excuse you need lady
So YOUR that asshole!! yup, that's how relationships work folks
totally ready
Day 28 - Full Moon, easy boss, and...oh man...
Knock on wood Yukar--oh god dammit Yukari!
welp, here we go.so this guy casts this spell exclusively, until you kill the other boss
It's super dumb, and takes forever to animate, and it's so insanely easy to manipulateThis boss fight took 30 minutes, only because the stupid roulette takes too long to animate
Log in to comment