Black Desert Online is one of those MMOs that garnered heaps of attention long before the game itself could even be obtained, and not because it was lauded as the next WoW killer, but because of its extremely extensive character creator which promised us a crazy amount of possibilities. Were this first title from the Korean developer team Pearl Abyss and their character creator good enough to separate this fantasy MMO RPG from the sea of others, is there anything else hiding beneath the surface of its black desert – we set out to explore and find out.
After a few hours, when you’ve finally finished creating your character, you’ll be greeted by the intro cinematic whose bombastic narrator will go on to explain the dramatic and cataclysmic event which happened to the port city of Goma Naru. However, you wake up in a small town called Olvia, with amnesia (of course), and attached to a small black cloud with two bright red eyes. Of course, said cloud is called Black Spirit and isn’t evil or the center of your adventures in any way. The problem arises right after you start the game, because you’re more than likely to forget about the main story and that quest line after getting swamped by a huge amount of assignments which explain and teach you about the game’s systems (rather poorly at that).
That brings us to gameplay, which is extensive to say the least – so much so, that even in first 15 hours of play time you won’t be able to see and try everything. The first thing you’ll encounter when starting the game is that you have to enter a “Family” name, i.e. the name which will be tied to your whole account and displayed above each of your characters; only after that you get to create your first character. Now, imagine the character creation system from Fallout 4, but which isn’t restricted to only creating the face of the character, but instead allows you to modify absolutely all parts of the body… Intriguing, right? Well, not really, when you consider that the choice of your race, sex and base look depends on your chosen class. So, if you want to play as a Wizard, you’ll have to create your version of Gandalf, as a Witch or a Tamer you’re a loli-girl, and if you want to play as an Elf you have to be a Ranger, or a Berserker for the race of Half-Giants. Not to mention that this version lacks a good chunk of classes which are available in the Korean version. However, perhaps the most important part of an MMO is its combat system, seeing how you’ll spend a lot of time killing droves of weasels, foxes, wolves and goblins, you might at expect to have fun while doing it. Black Desert Online doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Each class has a completely different fighting style, role and combos, i.e. combinations of moves which you can perform. You won’t just smash your skill keybinds during combat; instead, you’ll have to learn the combinations of buttons for every individual ability, which makes the game somewhat reminiscent of fighting games and it rewards your ability to block on time or dodge an opponent’s attack and then use a combo to quickly take him down.
Of course, this isn’t the only type of gameplay that Black Desert Online has to offer, on the contrary – this is just the tip of a giant iceberg that lurks beneath the surface. There is the opportunity to collect all sorts of materials, ranging from ore, herbs, lumber, and even fish. You could process all of these materials at almost any time, and turning them into useful items by drying the meat, smelting the ore, and by cutting, frying, cooking, mixing… As soon as you stumble upon your first town you’ll be able to lease houses and buildings, and turn them into your own home, as well as into special locations which can then increase your storage in town, add new places for your workers to sleep or craft gear for you. Yes, you’re able to employ workers to, in a sense, grind for you, but you have to nourish them with beer so they have the strength to work. Later on, you could work exclusively in trade and ride around from town to town selling items, or build a ship and sail the seas. The map is truly huge, and you’ll be stuck in just the first two towns for a while if you wish to do everything before moving on. Along all of this, yes there is a lot more, such as the guild system which is so detailed, that it reminds us of a company, especially since you’ll have to literally employ your members, i.e. other players, with contracts and payments and all! Then there’s the Knowledge system through which you’re literally learning everything about the world, and not just the NPCs you encounter, but also the enemies you fight – you need at least the starting level of it to even see their health bar depleting, and to be able to talk with the NPC in detail, you have to know something about other characters or things.
The game’s greatest fault comes in the form of an energy system, something similar to all those Facebook games, only not as severe. You’ll be spending energy on everything that isn’t fighting monsters, walking/running/riding, and basic interaction with NPCs. Everything else will spend your energy reserves, which you will increase over time by completing quests; also, 1 point of energy replenishes every 3 minutes. Another huge flaw of the game is the Cash Shop system of buying items for real money, which is extremely overpriced, and has some sets of clothes which give minimal bonuses to stats – the game’s not pay-to-win at the moment, but who knows what future might bring. The third negative is that even with loads of quests and help systems, you’ll still have to look for explanations outside of the game to better understand and use all of the systems which the game has to offer.
If you’re able to play the game on high settings, you’re going to enjoy wonderful landscapes, huge amount of detail, special effects while fighting, and shifts in weather and light during your adventure. On the other hand, on low settings, you’ll have to endure the graphics which is badly optimized for older machines and you’ll feel like you’re playing something from 10 years ago. Something unrelated to settings is the big pop-in problem – objects in the game which are still loading after you’ve already bumped into them or passed them by. Another issue are the NPCs, who even with the game’s vast detail when creating characters are simply copied, so you’ll regularly meet clones during your sessions.
The music is fun and diverse, meaning that it’ll change depending on what you’re doing and where you are. The problem is that even with that said, it becomes boring and repetitive after a while, so we recommend that you bring your own playlist. On the other hand, the voice acting ranges from “bearable” to “oh god, can it be this bad”; the lip-syncing is practically non-existent, and the NPC characters will use animations that are so repetitive, that you won’t be able to bear to watch and listen to them, only wish for the conversation to be over.
The developer’s inexperience is definitely showing, especially with the attempt to export the game to the western market. If this would be your first MMO, we recommend that you skip it and come back later. Otherwise, if you plan on it being your only MMO, Black Desert Online will offer you hours, days and weeks of gameplay. You will definitely need them to experience everything this game has to offer.
Author: Stefan Mitov Radojičić
Black Desert Online
Pros:
- Exciting combat system
- You always have something to do
- A long-term MMO
Cons:
- Quickly turns into grind
- Very limiting energy system
- The Cash Shop is too expensive
