Pros: Exceptional graphics, fun character creation, multiple classes, interesting crafting and trade systems
Cons: Bad English translations at times, shallow open world content, boring grindy quests

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 10
Performance: 9

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So finally Black Desert Online has come out and the wait is over, the proverbial sigh that has crossed a continent and an ocean as the NA/EU release is finally upon us. Where we’ve waited for months and months it’s now time to roll up our sleeves and get engrossed in this amazing fantasy world so rich and full of wonder and possibility where we can truly lose ourselves in this new world.

Let's begin by saying that Black Desert looks stunning. It really does, from the landscape to bustling towns and cities packed with realistic NPCs, from performers to peddlers, head further out and find small farms and tower ruins; everything in the world looks fantastic and like a world you could live in. Furthermore the character customization adds to this possibility of a new virtual life, the possibility to create a fairly unique looking character with a bunch of sliders and dials offers up one of the better character creation systems. That said, as much as the character creation system beats out other games, it is still with restrictions as firstly the look differs slightly between classes; so one class won’t be able to look like another one, but more importantly your class is locked to specific races and genders. Yeah.

 

In the age of modern MMORPGs we don’t understand how this is still acceptable and it’s something that TERA has also done for a long time, presumably Black Desert Online is suffering from the same “lack of resources” to make multiple designs for the different classes, but either way it sucks big time when the entire world has this inviting “you can immerse yourself in the world and play out your character” when the class you want to play might not be the race or gender you want to.

Another similarity to TERA, but at least with a positive outlook, is the action based combat system where players must aim every attack without lock-ons, dodge incoming fire, build up combos and generally dance around the battlefield with some actual skill. It is definitely one of the better combat systems we’ve experienced, and we’re not even scratching the surface with our explanation but it really is pretty amazing. When putting combat to its tests in PVP the small scale arena style battles are relatively lacklustre and the environments are pretty boring in comparison to other games (Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft), however the mass combat against hundreds of players at least gives a fun and adrenaline packed system where skill really begins to count.

Players can band together in Guilds and engage in these Guild v Guild wars, which really is the end game focus insofar as what you’re going to be doing once you hit level cap, players work together and build up their Guild skills and can then conquer regions, building up fortresses and battling with other players to control a region where they can then tax the populous. Our biggest issue with guilds is minor for most, but it is that there’s only three ranks available: Guildmaster, Deputies (officers) and then standard members, for a modern day MMORPG and a feature that is so prevalent and desired in other games, it makes us wonder why Guildmasters aren’t able to create their own guilds to organize their players, particularly given the roleplay focused roots the game has.

 

The one aspect of PVP we really hate is the unnecessarily harsh karma system attributed to PKing/World PVP where players are quite brutally punished for killing “innocent” (unflagged PVP) players, to the point where if negative karma players (you end up negative after two kills) are killed they can lose gear, all trade goods they are carrying, breaking gems in their gear, complete item destruction and more. The penalty to the “innocent” players is a mild inconvenience and then they respawn to carry on as if nothing happened. Basically there is absolutely no reward to PKing, but 100% penalty, the penalties are there as an anti-grief feature, but without any rewards to PKing it is literally only going to be used for griefing…. so why bother allowing it at all? We’re fine keeping the harsh restrictions, but the PKers should at least get SOMETHING.

Unfortunately we can’t say the same about PVE, no matter how cool the combat system is, it becomes completely overshadowed by the ease at which PVE enemies are killed to the point where you barely need to do all these cool stunts and maneuvers to stay alive as enemies just aren’t that challenging. It feels like the entire PVE aspect needs rebalancing and the difficulty scaling up on all mobs; however, given that the game was released two years ago in other countries we can’t see this change happening. Furthermore the grind aspect of PVE means that it needs to be easy to kill stuff or no one would be able to level up at a decent pace.

Yes, the grind is real and you can see where the Asian influence comes into the game (aside from the terrible localization and laughable translations). Whilst there’s plenty of ways to level up, questing and PVE is going to be the biggest contender and unfortunately the quests are so trope it’s so disappointing, we’ve seen the same quests almost verbatim in our ex-MMORPGs, the boring fetch quests, gather 10 wolf tails, escort the NPC… it’s tired and yet it gets rehashed over and over and over. So much so that we were clamouring for a combat quest, as easy as they are, just to get over the boredom of the non-combat ones.

Outside of combat there’s plenty of other stuff to do, particularly revolving around the in depth crafting and trade system where players buy nodes within the city which are connected to each other and establish trade routes and you get to start managing your resources where you buy low and sell high. With crafting it’s a case of gathering resources (a lot of them) and experimenting to try and come up with new items without any form of recipe or blueprint; the trial and error system really adds to the exploration aspect of the game. The system itself is well padded out, the good is that the most powerful gear in the game can be made through crafting, players can craft boats, houses and even build up and manage their own workshops and manage an actual workforce that will go and gather specific resources for you providing you have unlocked the different waypoint nodes by earning Reputation as you level up.

The game does have an “energy” system, which we’re not overly fond of although do see its potential for being an anti-botting device to stop AFK activities, players spend Labor Points primarily on self-gathering. It does replenish over time so it’s not the worst system in the world, but still one we think is pretty unnecessary as it can get in the way from time to time. Labor Points also come in a similar form known as Conversation Points and are spent interacting with NPCs using the Intimacy system, here players can build up relationships with NPCs to gain more favors, extra quests, and unlock knowledge that otherwise improves your character in various ways and allows you to complete Intimacy Mini Games so that you can speak with an NPC about a topic in more detail to improve your standing.

 

Everything in the game at this stage once more leans towards a more sandbox style MMORPG instead of a traditional themepark game, and in truth it is for the most part.

The lack of tutorials for most systems, the trying to find your own way, the lack of traditional “endgame” such as raids, the vast world to explore and choose your own adventure, it has all the hallmarks of a sandbox adventure but with a class based system. Unfortunately it’s also quite shallow and soon has you saying “so what?” The game is filled with cool features, but they don’t feel like they come together particularly well and feel a little separate to what you are doing, the mechanics behind dealing with NPCs seem like a fun way to bring the world to life, but they still feel so mechanical in execution.

You can exist in the world, but you never feel like you are living there. It looks beautiful, but when you start to see how little they’ve done with the open world and how much potential has been put to waste, it’s very easy to become disappointed with what is left; a “new” MMORPG with the same old gameplay and some innovative yet disconnected features that don’t necessarily always add to the game. Worth a play? For sure. Totally recommended.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 15th, 2016 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.