Have you started your journey in Black Desert but feeling a bit lost? Don’t worry, GM Grana is here to help you on your new adventure!  

Note: This guide is meant to provide basic guidance of Black Desert and is not a path one must follow in order to enjoy Black Desert.  

Black Desert is a vast open world game with endless possibilities, so enjoy it however you wish! 

For new adventurers, we recommend you start your journey on the the Season servers, giving you a bump in the right direction in terms of progress speed, gear and more.

Season characters can be played on any server, however we recommend focussing your time on a season character on the season servers, as they provide all the items your Season character will need. Not only that, at the end of the season, you will be rewarded with even more rewards that will help you continue your journey through the Black Desert world!

Season characters are not deleted at the end of a season, and instead graduate onto the other servers at a time that suits you, or at the end of the season. For more information regarding seasons, check the notice here:

However if you would rather just jump into the general populace of Black Desert and have a more natural experience, we heavily recommend using the NEW Olvia servers. The experience on these servers is tailor made for new players, including increases to your life skill levels. Olvia servers are only accessible by characters that are level 61, with 99% of the experience collected to make it to 62 or lower!

GM Grana suggests starting your journey by going through the main questline. Not only will you learn more about the world of Black Desert, but you will also be able to earn combat and skill EXP, Inventory Slots, pets and maids/butlers who will help you through your adventures across the world of Black Desert.

Find out more about Maids and Butlers here
Find out how to find and follow the Main Quest line here

TIP: You can receive various rewards while experiencing the Black Desert world through the Progression Pass. This separate pass is ideal to get to grips with many of the various activities in Black Desert, but it can only be accessed by normal characters, not seasons! The Progression Pass is completely free, and you can access it by going to the Menu>Adventure>Progression Pass!

 

Main Quest FAQ

I don’t have enough Inventory Slots! How can I organize my items?

While killing monsters or completing quests, there are many items that you can get that will fill your inventory. You may not know how to use these things, and with full bags you will no longer be able to pick up items.

Let’s Use the Central Market

Every big town has a Central Market. You can move certain items that you do not currently need into the Central Market, and treat it as an easily accessible storage. Anything that you place in the Central Market Warehouse can be withdrawn at any Central Market NPC, or even through Transaction Maids/Butlers!

You can store as many items as you want within the Central Market Warehouse, assuming you stay below the VT limit, which is the markets weight limit.

For items that cannot be transferred to the Central Market, you can always place them in nearby Storages. Storage NPCs are scattered around the Black Desert world, but they only have access to that specific areas Storage. This means you can store items such as Cron Stones or Weapons to pick up and use later on in your adventures. Unlike the Central Market, you can only access the storage in the town you are currently in. Your Maids and Butlers will be able to send/withdraw things that are in the closest main town storage too, but they cannot move items to other storages.

Since it’s early in the game, we recommend selecting a village or town that you like and use the storage there, remembering where you place your items to use in the future!

How to make use of Maids and Butlers

TIP: If the item description says ‘Vendors would buy this item at a price’, this means that the item can be sold to vendors the world over for silver. Most NPCs have a sell function, making it easy to sell directly for a little bit of silver, freeing up both inventory and weight while giving you some extra Silver for your troubles.

When selling to vendors in Towns with a storage, you will be given the option to deposit the Silver directly in your inventory or straight into the nearest storage.

Items are generally separated into normal inventory or Pearl Inventory. The inventory the item ends up in varies depending on the item, so be sure to check it out.

It’s so slow to pick up loot from monsters when I kill them!

There is an indispensable ally to your adventures across Black Desert! Pets are loyal companions with special effects that automatically pick up loot for you, assuming you feed them well.

Some pets change appearance based on their tier, and other pets who give you helpful benefits in various in-game activities. 
Learn more about pets

When out killing monsters across the Black Desert world, occasionally you will be moving slowly despite still having inventory space. If this happens to you, check the weight limit at the bottom of the inventory window! If it’s full, and you’re moving slow, you’re going to need to offload some of that weight before you can move freely again!

Thats why horses are doubly important. As you may have realized, there is no real fast travel in Black Desert, so a horse can carry you from A-Z. But not only can they carry you to where you need to go, they can also hold onto your items, allowing you to clear your weight so you can get straight back into the fight. If your horses weight is over the limit, and you still need to deposit more of the same item on the horse, take them all off the horse, then put them back on to ‘stack’ your horse!

Learn more about mounts and horses

How do I learn skills?

In Black Desert, there is Combat and Skill levels. While Combat is your overall level, Skill levels are independent.

Use these skill points in the skill menu to learn new skills, or upgrade existing skills of your character to truly level up.

For more information, check the Skill notice here.

Shortcuts with the Ring Menu

A functional, customized ring menu is essential to Black Desert. You can equip skills, items or even frequently used menus to your ring menu!

Tip: Putting only 1 selection in a ring menu turns it into a quick slot, allowing you to use it immediately!

For more information about Ring Menus, read the adventure guide here!

Don't make this simple mistake, get Knowledge!

When you discover a new NPC that you have never met before, you will find a yellow box with a ‘!’ next to their name.

▲Yellow ‘!’ in question

▲ New NPC’s will appear a ‘?’ on the minimap.

Interacting with new NPCs, items, buildings, monsters and multiple other things will allow you to acquire knowledge!

When GM Grana first played, they skipped over all the ‘?’ NPCs, and had to go back to acquire all the knowledge in order to gain more energy. With more energy, comes more gathering, which can be very profitable if you know what to gather!

For more information, please read the Knowledge and Energy Adventure guides!

Knowledge?

Energy?

There is so much more to Black Desert than this notice, but we hope that GM Grana’s introduction to all the things that new players should know can help you set off on your adventures on the right foot!