So apparently its necessary to get the max gold to get a boat.
Sorry, didn't see this question for a while. The answer is "not necessarily". There are 3 ways to get a boat:
- Pay 10,000 gold, which is the max gold a single character can carry. Ouch.
- Find a certain document to give to the emperor
- Steal a boat. But you have a big fight and the whole town will be against you. Use the disk swapping trick to reset the town later, or you'll never be able to get back into that town without everyone attacking you.
That said, it is highly recommended that you reach level 20 (not a joke) before leaving the main continent. It's violent out there. At that point 10k won't seem that much.