The game that many have long awaited “Black Desert” has undergone several transformations over the years and throughout multiple beta phases. There is not much left of the original plans that were disclosed for the MMO. Especially the fans from the beginning feel betrayed and sold out by the developers, as many promises have been broken, and former high goals have completely been lost sight of.
Earlier: Peer pressure, different guilds, bad karma
The opponents in the game were tough, and one would need “easily 200 hours” to level from level 1 to 50. For guilds, there were different concepts: There were trade guilds, PvP-oriented combat guilds, and even religious guilds that could influence the weather or portals once they had gathered enough believers.
Playing solo would quickly overwhelm you with the strong creatures of the world, making group play eventually necessary. Friendly colleagues could lend a helping hand with some items, as trading among players was possible.
Those who “let loose” in PvP and especially prey on defenseless newcomers quickly accumulate karma. A high karma value led to losing some items from your inventory upon death, which other players could then pick up. This gave player skirmishes a very special thrill.
Today: Everyone can do everything, Solo RPG and no trading
Nowadays, Black Desert feels, as Ike from the fan site Black-Desert.com puts it, like a solo RPG in which there is the option to team up with a few friends. However, since you cannot effectively help your friends—there is, for example, no one-on-one trading anymore—it is only worthwhile in the rarest of cases. Gold is earned very quickly, which means you always have enough healing potions on hand.
The monsters are now so easy to defeat that you can get by without the extra sip from the mana potion. Leveling to the maximum level now only takes 1-2 days if you know roughly where to grind.
All housing plots are now instantiated, so there is hardly any opportunity to be something “special” in the game world. And that was one of the core promises, which has left players feeling more than just a little cheated.
You can view the very detailed article in English here on black-desert.com. The game that we see as one of the promising MMORPGs of the near future is likely to be released here in 2016. More about the upcoming MMO hope can be found on our Black Desert topic page.
