Whoa, this forum category hasn't seen a new thread in almost 1 and a half years?! Jeez. This is not my first time playing this game, I had very brief experiences back in 2015, 2016, and 2018 during releases 20, 31, and 57 respectively. Given their age what I experienced then is irrelevant. The only thing worth mentioning is that the weak specifications of my machine back then were holding me back from playing more than just briefly. I'll be using my current experience playing over the past few days offline Before the bulk of my post I wanted to go over my background of MMO's to show where I'm coming from, and what experience I have with the genre before I played. Along with some notes. This list is unsorted Firefall - Scifi, PvE, MMOFPS. Played since the closed beta in 2015. I max leveled all 15 battleframes (classes) before the game shutdown in 2017. Ultima Online - This game shouldn't need any introduction. I played on a private free shard called Valhalla Lost for 1,357 hours, and only that shard. My experience with UO was a full PvE, and roleplay experience., no PvP. I never played on any of the official servers. Dungeons and Dragons Online - played as a free-to-play player solo as a dwarf fighter. Neverwinter - Played with a friend group. After they all left, I played solo up to the original level cap (60?), I don't play anymore. Runescape - 2006 was when I was most active. Returned to the game in 2023 then left again. Have always been a non-member Planetside 2 - Scifi, PvP, MMOFPS, one of the only of its kind on the market atm. 1,616 hours clocked. Dragon Nest These are the most notable games. I've shown interest in many other MMO titles but didn't get very far with them. Now onto my feedback. Character creation was a breeze. I thought I would dislike having to hold the right mouse button to look around but as odd as it was I found it intuitive, and necessary since I would be using my cursor to browse and select many things in windows and the game world. Early on, I didn't understand the importance of what I found and collected, so instead of ignoring it until I did understand, I hoarded everything in sight until my inventory was full, and I was encumbered by the time I reached the main camp at Solace Outskirts. At that point I wanted to find a bank to store what I found or a merchant to sell it. I didn't think I could find a bank in Solace Outskirts since this was a tutorial area so I left the scene, ran to Soltown, roamed around until I found the banker in the inn, and returned to the encampment in Solace Outskirts. I did the quests at the encampment one-by-one even though getting them all in bulk would have been more efficient but I wanted to avoid getting overwhelmed. I logged out for the day while I was gathering ore to make my own weapon instead of getting past the quests to complete the area. It took me 3 separate sessions/days to complete all the quests in the Outskirts, mostly because I took a sandbox approach to this game, and was more interested in character development, and interacting with the crafting system than the quests. I talked to almost everyone in Soltown, and learned about the importance of recipes from the Tailor there. I first didn't understand why I couldn't craft something like a breastplate at the blacksmithing station. I assumed I needed to level up blacksmithing to unlock more to craft more than just a dagger, and its pieces. Thankfully I didn't follow through with that assumption by wasting my time gathering ore to smelt, and mass crafting daggers for experience. I continued to struggle to with inventory management, and bank slot limits (30 Max). I wanted to get into housing so I could have a base of operations and item dump for storing my belongings cause the bank was not cutting it. I was disappointed to see that the deed I got from outskirts was a row deed, for a player town only, was taxed, and used crowns to be upgraded, something I knew I got from enemies, and loot sometimes. I was dreading the time and grind necessary just to acquire a place to live to get some weight off my shoulders. This isn't to mention finding a vendor that sold storage container for which I found none so far. Currently, I'm still questing, wanting to get a village deed, find a place to live, and store my stuff as well as have it be a workshop to craft anything I need but after discovering that I can by deeds with gold I question if I should spend gold or upgrade my current deed using crowns. I'm unsure. Before that I'd like to craft better heavy armor, and weapons. I'm still using the plate and chainmail I found in the Soltown catacombs, and its not good enough for the current quest I'm doing. PAIN POINTS • It should be obvious that my first pain point is not having access to a bank at Solace outskirts. If I rushed to do the quests there and wasn't distracted by the allure of crafting I wouldn't have done what I did. Having a bank automaton would have been great. • The low amount of bank slots haunts me to this day but that is only because that its my main way of storing things. The expensive upgrade costs of my deed I got from completing the Solace Outskirts and gold cost deeds just to get a house feels so out of reach. • Its difficult to understand the power level of items at a glance, and the weight of benefits on items. Is a +5 strength bonus better than +2% weapon damage? • Showing what I can craft with what is in my inventory would be better than showing me everything I can craft and filtering only my category. If I can't craft it I don't want to see it. PLEASANTRIES • I like the flexibility that deckbuilding, will provide in the future. I'm set on using Heavy Armor, a Shield, Blunt weapon, Earth, and Life Magic for now. But if I want to change it up to be an archer with, say, Wind, Archery, Light Armor, and Moon, I can do that. I don't feel like I can do that right now, nor do I want to yet but I like the idea of giving a loadout to my character to change the tools I use in combat. • Because your pool experience is limited, and the bulk of it is gained from new quests, I feel the tug to explore new areas, and grow my character instead of stay in one area • Coloring the names of enemies from red to blue to give an idea of difficulty of the enemy I'm about to confront. • Playing in offline helped me concentrate. I can't imagine playing online first, getting peppered by players wanting to trade, join their towns/guilds, quest with them when I need to time to myself first to get my bearings.
I didn't know the bank limit for a new character was 30 slots. That's pretty low. @Ravalox, would it be possible to increase this? BTW, you can increase the bank slot limit using in-game gold (I forget how) but it gets more expensive for each upgrade. You can also increase it with crowns. Anyway, the tax for a row lot is 250 gold per real day. You can get 500 gold every day just by talking to the oracle and choosing/saying "test". You can store a lot of stuff on a row lot, especially if you add a basement. You get a village deed (also POT, taxed, 500 gold per real day) when you complete the main story line. These things really don't happen. Oh, BTW, welcome back @Zanril.
@Zanril the POT deed you got from the quests can be used in Player Run Towns (PRT); there is a list of those towns here. Also, offline mode allows you to buy other deeds for gold from the Housing Vendors found in most towns.
There is a clickable link at the bottom left in the bank window and a symbol that says when you move your cursor over it: "Purchase more bank slots in the crown shop!" I was under the impression that I'd have to use premium currency (you know, spent real world money) to expand it so I didn't bother clicking it when I first saw it. I tried doing that now, and it asks for gold to expand your slots which periodically increases in cost the more you buy. If the symbol could be replaced with a stack of gold coins, and the roll-over description be changed to better show It can increase my bank slots with gold players after me won't have had to suffer like I did. How agitating.
Hi Zanril and welcome to the game! How funny that your first game experience mirrored my own! Three years ago I started playing for real (like you, after I upgraded my system) and I ran into the same issues as you did. So, a few words of help and advice here. Like you, I was disappointed I couldn't use my free deed in a NPC-town. But then I learned more about player-owned towns and realized I'd be actually much better off in a player-owned town! Governors usually make sure that their town have lots of utilities: a crafting area with crafting stations that give a bonus to your crafting skill, useful NPC vendors for supplies, an Oracle for your daily visit, shrines and devotionals to pick up stat or skill bonusses, and more. Many towns have active governors, who are willing to place lot markers for you at your favorite spot, or help with road signs and more. I ran around the map for a day to check out a lot of player owned towns, finally found one that had a lovely and convenient spot for my house and lots of utilties (although no active governor) and lived there quite happily for the longest part of my three years in game. For my first year, my standard row house was quite enough to store my stuff and have some deco. I added a cellar for some more storage. Then I learned I could upgrade my simple row house to a 3-story with greenhouse on top by simply crafting it and I lived there until recently, when the town started to fall apart because the governor didn't login anymore to refresh it. So now I would advise you to pick a player-owned town with an active governor As for containers: those are quite easily craftable in the tailoring and carpentry sections. Lots of things can be containers that can be placed in your home: backpacks, bags, trunks, cupboards, desks, and many more. You can buy recipes for those, but you can also check recipes on Sotawiki. If a recipe there says it's "reteachable", it means you can discover the recipe yourself by putting the right amounts of the right ingredients on the crafting table. That saves a lot of cash on your limited budget! Anyway, have fun and don't hesitate to ask questions in game
