Black Desert Online features many unique sandbox contents aside from the non-targeting action combat system. One of the key sandbox elements for Black Desert Online is the housing & crafting system.
Housing System
Many towns in Black Desert Online offer room or house for players to buy. The housing system consists of nodes and links between them as well, similar to the node linkage in the world map (refer to my previous review on the node system).
I will demonstrate the house link system with an example. Initially, only the houses colored with white color can be purchased with contribution points; for this example here, House 7-1 of Heidel City(see picture below). If you want to buy House 7-4 further down the link, you will have to buy House 7-1, 7-2, and 7-3. Take note that some houses have 2 storey; to activate the node, you only need to buy the ground floor. Each house can be upgraded with both contribution and money for specific purposes.
After you buy the first house, it will be a warehouse (storage room) by default and takes about 2 minute to be completed. Each warehouse increases the inventory or vault space in that town by 3 slots. The vault slots for each town are independent, i.e. buying a warehouse in Heidel Town does not increase your vault slots in Velia Village.
Certain warehouses can be further upgraded for better functions. For example, the 2nd floor of House 7-4 can be upgrade to level 2 or level 3 to give 5 vault slots and 8 vault slots respectively. Upgrading the house requires not just contributions point but money as well. When you sell the house, the contribution will be return to you, but not the money. Therefore, careful planning is required for upgrading.
Asides from storage place, one can convert the house to perform specific functions. For example, House 7-1 can be turned into a Refinery or Residental House. Refinery can be used to turn Rough Stone into Blackstone Powder which the raw ingredient for various crafts. Residental House allows you to put furniture (provide buff with fixed durations) and life skill tools such as alchemy set, kitchen or anvil. The anvil allows you to repair your own gear, provided that you have the knowledge (learn from blacksmith of Velia Village) to do it (see video below).
The functions which the houses can be upgraded for, differ from house to house; for example, House 7-2 Floor 1 can be turned into woodworking workshop (crafting bow), wood processing room (process log into wooden plank), mineral processing room (turn mineral ore into metal ingot etc) or refinery. House 7-2 Floor 2 can be upgraded to Weapon workshop (craft sword & axe etc), tools workshop (craft fishing rod, pick axe and other life skill tools). After upgrading, the functions are indicated by the small icon beside the house. Some of these workshops or refineries can be further upgraded to level 2 or level 3 to produce or process more items.
Unlikely ArchAge or other sandbox game, the houses here are not uniquely own by one player. Many players can buy the same house and use it for different purposes. The houses in Black Desert are instance zone for that player. In this CBT, additional feature has been added such that one owner of the house is allowed to display his house to the public: the one with the highest ranking for the house. However, I am not sure how the ranking is determined for a particular house.
Crafting & Gathering with Workers
Although you can extract some rocks manually or chop some woods as you travel around Black Desert world. This is actually not the efficient way to gather materials. You can hire workers to do all these chores for you while you sit back and relax!
You can have up to 3 workers per town, by default. If you want to hire more workers, you will need to purchase some rooms and turn them into worker's hostel. After you have connected the "Resource Nodes" to the town, you can instruct your worker to gather the resources for you. The workers which you sent out for work can actually be seen running and working on the world map.
The items harvested will be sent to your inventory of that town. I demonstrate how to send a worker to the nearby mineral node to harvest "bronze ore" in the video below. Sometimes, the worker even harvest some rare minerals (i got ruby gemstone before) for me.
Each worker has specified amount of energy; working consume his energy. Once the energy is depleted, the worker can no longer work. You can either terminate the contract and hire new workers, or renew his energy with certain food. The standard worker contract can be purchase from worker NPC in town. Better workers with higher productivity and speed can be purchased from certain NPC's once you have established sufficient intimacy (affinity) with them (refer to NPC affinity system review).
Similarly, crafting and material processing can be performed with the same method. The video below demonstrates how to craft a fishing rod through a hired worker (as a part of the tutorial quest). First, I will need to buy the house with my contribution point and turn it into a tools workshop. After that, I put the materials into the vault in that town and select the tools which I want to craft (fishing rod in this example). Then, select the worker and send him to work. After the crafting is done, the crafted items will be deposited in your vault of the town.
Here some interesting interactions between crafting and gathering have been implemented in Black Desert Online. Certain things can only be crafted in a town while the raw materials for crafting it can only be harvested from other places. The raw materials have to be deposited in the same town for the crafting to proceed. You have 2 choices here: either manually take the raw materials from one town or put it in another town yourself, or send it though the carriage service through the storage management NPC with a cost.
For large crafted products such as horse carriage or boat, many parts need to be crafted from various intermediate raw materials. You can engage multiple works to work on different parts as well. Special house need to be upgraded just to assemble the crafted components into the carriage or boat.
Housing System
Many towns in Black Desert Online offer room or house for players to buy. The housing system consists of nodes and links between them as well, similar to the node linkage in the world map (refer to my previous review on the node system).
I will demonstrate the house link system with an example. Initially, only the houses colored with white color can be purchased with contribution points; for this example here, House 7-1 of Heidel City(see picture below). If you want to buy House 7-4 further down the link, you will have to buy House 7-1, 7-2, and 7-3. Take note that some houses have 2 storey; to activate the node, you only need to buy the ground floor. Each house can be upgraded with both contribution and money for specific purposes.
After you buy the first house, it will be a warehouse (storage room) by default and takes about 2 minute to be completed. Each warehouse increases the inventory or vault space in that town by 3 slots. The vault slots for each town are independent, i.e. buying a warehouse in Heidel Town does not increase your vault slots in Velia Village.
Certain warehouses can be further upgraded for better functions. For example, the 2nd floor of House 7-4 can be upgrade to level 2 or level 3 to give 5 vault slots and 8 vault slots respectively. Upgrading the house requires not just contributions point but money as well. When you sell the house, the contribution will be return to you, but not the money. Therefore, careful planning is required for upgrading.
Asides from storage place, one can convert the house to perform specific functions. For example, House 7-1 can be turned into a Refinery or Residental House. Refinery can be used to turn Rough Stone into Blackstone Powder which the raw ingredient for various crafts. Residental House allows you to put furniture (provide buff with fixed durations) and life skill tools such as alchemy set, kitchen or anvil. The anvil allows you to repair your own gear, provided that you have the knowledge (learn from blacksmith of Velia Village) to do it (see video below).
The functions which the houses can be upgraded for, differ from house to house; for example, House 7-2 Floor 1 can be turned into woodworking workshop (crafting bow), wood processing room (process log into wooden plank), mineral processing room (turn mineral ore into metal ingot etc) or refinery. House 7-2 Floor 2 can be upgraded to Weapon workshop (craft sword & axe etc), tools workshop (craft fishing rod, pick axe and other life skill tools). After upgrading, the functions are indicated by the small icon beside the house. Some of these workshops or refineries can be further upgraded to level 2 or level 3 to produce or process more items.
Unlikely ArchAge or other sandbox game, the houses here are not uniquely own by one player. Many players can buy the same house and use it for different purposes. The houses in Black Desert are instance zone for that player. In this CBT, additional feature has been added such that one owner of the house is allowed to display his house to the public: the one with the highest ranking for the house. However, I am not sure how the ranking is determined for a particular house.
Crafting & Gathering with Workers
Although you can extract some rocks manually or chop some woods as you travel around Black Desert world. This is actually not the efficient way to gather materials. You can hire workers to do all these chores for you while you sit back and relax!
You can have up to 3 workers per town, by default. If you want to hire more workers, you will need to purchase some rooms and turn them into worker's hostel. After you have connected the "Resource Nodes" to the town, you can instruct your worker to gather the resources for you. The workers which you sent out for work can actually be seen running and working on the world map.
The items harvested will be sent to your inventory of that town. I demonstrate how to send a worker to the nearby mineral node to harvest "bronze ore" in the video below. Sometimes, the worker even harvest some rare minerals (i got ruby gemstone before) for me.
Each worker has specified amount of energy; working consume his energy. Once the energy is depleted, the worker can no longer work. You can either terminate the contract and hire new workers, or renew his energy with certain food. The standard worker contract can be purchase from worker NPC in town. Better workers with higher productivity and speed can be purchased from certain NPC's once you have established sufficient intimacy (affinity) with them (refer to NPC affinity system review).
Similarly, crafting and material processing can be performed with the same method. The video below demonstrates how to craft a fishing rod through a hired worker (as a part of the tutorial quest). First, I will need to buy the house with my contribution point and turn it into a tools workshop. After that, I put the materials into the vault in that town and select the tools which I want to craft (fishing rod in this example). Then, select the worker and send him to work. After the crafting is done, the crafted items will be deposited in your vault of the town.
Here some interesting interactions between crafting and gathering have been implemented in Black Desert Online. Certain things can only be crafted in a town while the raw materials for crafting it can only be harvested from other places. The raw materials have to be deposited in the same town for the crafting to proceed. You have 2 choices here: either manually take the raw materials from one town or put it in another town yourself, or send it though the carriage service through the storage management NPC with a cost.
For large crafted products such as horse carriage or boat, many parts need to be crafted from various intermediate raw materials. You can engage multiple works to work on different parts as well. Special house need to be upgraded just to assemble the crafted components into the carriage or boat.
