DISCLAIMER: This is not by any means a comprehensive guide. This was made to answer frequently asked questions by prospective/new/returning players and to provide resources for them to refer to for more information. Updated as of the March 31st maintenance. 

Revision soon: With PA taking a break from seasonal for some period of time, I'll be making some changes to those sections in the coming week. 

It's long. CTRL+F for the question(s) you're looking for or read through all of it if you so desire. 

Table of Contents: 

What kind of game is BDO?

What kind of group content does BDO have?

What class do I pick?

What is a seasonal? Why pick a seasonal over a normal character?

What should I do to get geared quickly?

Why am I stuck at level 49 99.99%?

Are there any penalties for open world PvP?

How do I get a horse? How do I get a fast horse? Dear god that horse (is on fire/has wings/is a unicorn), how do I get it? 

How do I do [QUEST NAME]?

Why don’t I see monsters’ health bars?

How do I get more inventory space? Storage space?

How does the enchantment system work?

How do I get the enchantment banners to stop showing up at the top of my screen?

How do I get enhancement notifications to stop showing up in my chat window?

How do I move items from one character to another?

Why does the Central Market say I don’t have enough silver when I have it in my inventory?

What is awakening/succession? How do I get it? Can I swap between them?

Miscellaneous tips that didn’t really fit anywhere else

What kind of game is BDO? How is the combat? PvE? PvP?
BDO is a fast-paced action-packed MMORPG featuring things like castle sieging, trading, crafting, player housing, fishing, cooking, bartering, and much more. However, you’re probably not reading this just to read a copy-paste off the BDO website. In my own experience, BDO is like a sandbox. You choose what you want the “endgame” in BDO to be – whether it’s becoming the most renowned player in PvP, or perhaps it’s by becoming the top player in a certain (or multiple) lifeskills. There are even things that haven’t been completed yet in this game. Opportunities are everywhere for you to decide what to do with.

What kind of group content does BDO have?
BDO’s group content is unfortunately somewhat limited. There exist the following group grind zones: Mirumok (3-5 man), Abandoned Monastery (2-man), Padix (2-man), Gyfin (3-5 man), Turo’s (2-man), Olun’s (3-man), Elvia – Altar Imps (2-man), and Elvia – Castle Ruins (3-man). Beyond that, there’s Red Battlefield (enter to be placed on one of two teams, PvP for points), Savage Rift (8 to 10-man, protect tower from increasingly stronger waves of enemies), Altar of Blood (3-man, protect tower from up to 10 waves of enemies), Arena of Arsha (solo/group organized PvP), Node War (guilds fight for control of a node, winning guild gets taxes from node), and Siege (guilds fight for control of a territory, winning guild gets taxes from territory and a 50% drop rate bonus in certain regions [except for Balenos/Serendia]). Do note that more group content has been announced in GM notes, on Global Labs, and during the Calpheon Ball (roadmap stream).

What class do I pick?
Pick the class that you can imagine yourself having the most fun on. If you can’t imagine yourself grinding several dozens upon hundreds of hours on a class, perhaps try out other ones. You can use your Trial character slots to try out different classes (Trial tab in character select). There are class discords for every class in BDO. The Pearl Abyss discord has a link to every class discord, link is at the bottom of this post.

What is a seasonal? Why pick a seasonal over a normal character?
Seasonal characters are special characters that have a host of differences between them and normal characters. Simply put – seasonal provides a good way of making your first steps in BDO. It gives every player a host of quests that help them learn the various systems in BDO, as well as rewards that are useful for new/returning players and seasoned veterans alike.
tl;dr (very much napkin math) a full set of TET armor/weapons and TRI accessories will run you very roughly 15 billion silver if you purchase it all. On the other hand, you could create a seasonal character and get all of this equipment with a bit of grinding. At the same time, instead of spending silver on smaller upgrades, you get to instead save it for much larger upgrades (or fancy horses!).
Read more about seasons at this link:
- https://www.blackdesertfoundry.com/season-servers-guide/ 

What should I do to get geared quickly?
If you’re a normal character – follow the main story for blue quest gear/accessories and grind for money along the way. Purchase your TET weapons starting with whatever spec you’re in (Kzarka if you’re succession, Dandelion if awakening) and move to TET armors after that. Use full TRI blue quest accessories and replace with stronger accessories as you get them (Capotia, seasonal Tuvala, proper yellow grade accessories). Once full TET boss gear and TRI yellow accessories, work towards TET yellow accessories.
If you’re a seasonal character – follow the main story and work towards full PEN Tuvala. Make sure to look up a failstacking guide if you don’t know what that is. Save your money for further upgrades once you graduate. Make sure you complete whatever seasonal quest yields a PEN Capotia accessory – it’s equivalent to a TET yellow accessory.

Why am I stuck at level 49 99.99%?
You must complete a quest with the prefix [To Level 50] in order to level up. Do note that this will enable open world PvP. You need to press ALT+C in order to “flag”, which causes you to hit other players while in a combat zone. Attacking others may cause your karma to drop, which may incur penalties. (see “Are there any penalties for open world PvP?”)

Are there any penalties for open world PvP?
It depends on your karma and whether or not you’re in the desert. Negative karma is considered “red”.
- Karma has a maximum of 300,000. This is unique to each character you own. It can be grinded to 300k by killing monsters.
- Hitting another player will result in a loss of 3k karma.
- Killing another player unprovoked will result in a loss of around 50-120k karma, depending on how much less gear the target player has than you.
- Hitting or killing another player after being hit first will not result in a karma loss.
- If you are negative karma, you become “red” and can be attacked ay any time. This includes in cities. Furthermore, NPC “guards” in cities will attack you.
Positive karma & non-desert: No penalties.
Negative karma & non-desert: Crystals have a chance of breaking. EXP will be lost.
Positive karma & desert: No penalties unless marked as an outlaw (having killed another player in the desert). Then you will be sent to jail where you can either wait out your sentence (30-60 minutes depending on players killed), complete a quest to be let out, or escape by reaching a certain NPC.
Negative karma & desert: Same as positive karma & desert.
Note: Dying in PvE while negative karma and non-desert has a chance to degrade your gear if you have an insufficient number of crystals slotted.
How do I get a horse? How do I get a fast horse? Dear god that horse (is on fire/has wings/is a unicorn), how do I get it?  
Some quests give you a horse for free. One of the easier ways would be to go to a Stable in any major city (Velia, Heidel, Calpheon, etc.) and purchase a horse from the horse market. For speed, look for a high tier horse that has both Drift and Instant Accel. Instant Accel provides a burst of speed but has a cooldown on its usage. Drift allows you to cancel directly into Instant Accel without this cooldown.

Horses that are on fire (called Doom), have wings (Arduanatt/Pegasus), or have a horn (Diné/Unicorn) are classified as dream horses. You can obtain a dream horse through two methods: (1) awakening a tier 8 courser (a horse becomes a courser if it has all necessary skills required by the game to be classified as such) with many materials, or (2) by purchasing one off the horse market (around 9-12 billion silver on average).
More information on dream horses: https://grumpygreen.cricket/bdo-dream-horse/

How do I do [QUEST NAME]?
Searching the name of the quest followed by BDO is usually enough to find the bddatabase or bdocodex link. It usually contains the specifics on what you need to do.
- https://bdocodex.com/us/
- https://bddatabase.net/us/

Why don’t I see monsters’ health bars?
You can see monsters’ health bars if you have knowledge of that monster. Knowledge is obtained at a certain % chance for each monster (or through quests/amity) and has ranks (S/A+/A/B/C). These rewards are cumulative.
S: increase rare drop chance
A+: increase damage dealt further
A: increase damage dealt
B: decrease damage received
C: view monster HP %

How do I get more inventory space? Storage space?
There are a handful of ways to increase your inventory/storage space. You get a temporary 16 inventory slots while you have a Value Pack active. Maximum inventory space (per character) can be increased by using an Inventory Expansion Coupon obtainable through events or through the pearl shop. Similarly, maximum storage space can be increased by using a city Storage Slot +X item obtained through the Loyalty shop or pearl shop. Finally, storage space can be increased by investing Contribution Points into houses with storage in the city in which you want storage space in.

How does the enhancement system work?
I wanted to write about this. I really did. And then I realized it was so much information that I was literally writing a guide within a guide. Here are some links that provide good information on the enhancement system.
- https://grumpygreen.cricket/bdo-enhancement/
- https://www.blackdesertfoundry.com/enchanting-and-sockets-guide/
- https://www.blackdesertfoundry.com/upgrading-gearfailstacking-guide/
How do I get the enchantment banners to stop showing up at the top of my screen?
Yep, it annoys me too. On the new menu: ESC > Settings (F10) > Settings (1) > General Settings > Alerts, tick Enhancement Success and Enhancement Fail off, don’t forget to apply and confirm. You may need to go to character select and come back to make it fully disappear due to a backlog of enhancement notifications.

How do I get enhancement notifications to stop showing up in my chat window?
Unfortunately, there’s no surefire fix for this. However, the function does alleviate the constant spam of enhancement notifications in your chat window. Hover over the relevant chat window and click the cog at the top. Under System, untick General and confirm.

How do I move items from one character to another?
You can move items between your characters by either moving them through the family inventory or by putting it in storage for your other character to take out. Storage is family wide.

Why does the Central Market say I don’t have enough silver when I have it in my inventory?
The central market (CM) pulls money from your CM warehouse. You must deposit money into your market warehouse in order to purchase items from the central market. Furthermore, anything you purchase will be sent to your CM warehouse. You must withdraw it from your CM warehouse to use it.

What is awakening/succession? How do I get it? Can I swap between them?
Almost every class has their own succession and awakening, unique skill sets that separate different skill trees. At level 56, most classes receive a quest from the Black Spirit to unlock your awakening. After completing the awakening questline, you unlock the succession questline. Succession typically focuses in improving the skills you already have – their skills are denoted with the “Prime” prefix. For example, a succession lahn will primarily use their crescent pendulum weapon with enhanced versions of their skills, whereas an awakened lahn can swap between their crescent pendulum and crimson glaives with additional skills with their new weapon. You can swap between awakening and succession freely so long as you have some form of skill reset item active (i.e. Secret Book of Old Moon) or have it saved to a skill preset.

Miscellaneous tips that didn’t really fit anywhere else
- Oasis vendors are awesome. You get free cron meals (consumables that provide 2 hour buffs), Traveler’s Maps (teleport to nearby towns), and compasses (see location while in the ocean/desert).
- BDOPlanner lets you see your stats with whatever gear you'd like to see. Link: https://bdoplanner.com/
- Even if you don’t attend any other world boss, Garmoth and Vell are the ones most recommended to attend. You can find boss timers here (change region to yours if not NA): https://mmotimer.com/bdo/?server=na
- Adventure Logs can give all characters in your family a passive HP and sheet AP/DP bonus. (upwards of 6 AP, 5 DP, and at least 750 HP)
- At level 58, you get a quest from the black spirit called [Naderr’s Band] Magic of the Dark Energy. This quest gives you access to a system called Naderr’s Band, which allows you to easily store and switch between failstacks at the click of a button. 

Pearl Abyss BDO Discord: https://discord.gg/blackdesertonline

For any questions, comments, or general banter, feel free to hit me up in-game with a whisper (family name: Shuji) or shoot me a message on Discord (@Yue#3067). 

this is very good, i'd add a section for "those boats are huge, how do i get one", with the answer being "set worker nodes up for zinc, acacia/white cedar/elder saps; then do the oquilla's eye suggested questline; obtain an epheria sailboat/frigate; then do ravinia's daily quests for materials; finish by bartering land>t1 barter goods and collecting any remaining materials needed (including the permit from filaberto falasi); and upgrade your boat at a wharf manager."

i disagree about the oasis vendors; it isn't necessary or good

it really devalues the game, makes things worth less, like cooking your own meals, finding the rare teleport scrolls, of course gearing up

it's candy for babies

Ah Yes I too hate it when devs are nice and give me free stuff and try to help new players get into a game instead of trying to slowly kill off their playerbase. 

Thank you for the Time and effort spent in making this post, I have found it insightful and useful.

it doesn't help new players get in to the game

making rational pvp would do that, like enabling low level players to compete in a structured pvp as they level up

instead they want players to be excited about rushing through all the low level content to get the oasis gear, which would only just barely enable them to compete vs. trial characters

it's kind of pathetic

(but i still like running my horse wagon around, so... ttfn)

Thank you for your feedback oatraa. However, as a FAQ probably isn't the place for feedback about in-game systems, I would like to point you towards the Suggestions page on the forums (https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/Community?topicType=26) and the BDO Feedback Library (https://twitter.com/feedbacklibrary?lang=en). 

As a short (oh god it wasn't short aaaaa) response to what you've posted: (1) in looking at the price of meals, they've held steady in the last three months. With the exception of cron meals, the materials required to create them are used in Imperial Delivery and thus have held their current prices. (2) I fail to understand what you mean by "rare teleport scrolls". If you mean Traveler's Maps, there are 24.6k min listed on the NA central market right now. If you mean the Archaeologist's Map, they should not be compared as the usage differs too greatly between the two. (3) While new/returning player support would not have been as needed some 3-4 years ago, the gear gap between new players and veterans continues to widen. If you have a problem with this, then rather than targeting oasis, shouldn't you be more against seasonals? Seasonals effectively give new players entire TET boss gear sets which, alongside the full set of base Capotia accessories players now receive, push new players up to what many consider softcap with minimal effort. Regardless, this allows new players to bridge this gear gap slightly more easily. New players still need to slog through the "wonderful" world I call PEN tapping/purchasing. This allows for our playerbase to continue to grow. In conclusion: rather than allowing our population to become full of veterans with an elitist mindset and pushing away new players, I think that this system of helping new players get to softcap while teaching them the game is far better than what you and I went through many years ago. (4) Regarding the "low level players competing in structured PvP as they level up", send your ideas to the feedback library or the suggestions section on the forums. A FAQ for new/returning players isn't the place for this! You have ways to get your suggestions to the BDO developers a lot more easily now than when we were under Kakao. 

I'm always up to talk about BDO! Feel free to reach out to me in-game (NA / Family name: Shuji) or on Discord (@Yue#3067). 

For a new player guide you use a lot of acronyms such as TET.. It may be worth explaining what these are in slightly more detail.

it is a response to your faq, a disagreement about the value of a certain feature

do you want all positive feedback only?

It's not an acronym, tet is the last but one upgrade state of armor