In Crimson Desert, you unlock some exciting or useful features only after many, many hours. Sometimes, our MMORPG expert Karsten Scholz is reminded of the good old vanilla WoW.
As part of the Sauercrowd project of the German Twitch scene, I particularly enjoyed that many newcomers to WoW could experience similar things in the hardcore version of WoW Classic as I did back in 2005 in Blizzard’s MMORPG.
Of course, the leveling phase of the original version of World of Warcraft is tedious and time-consuming. It feels like an eternity before you gain access to your first mount, your strongest talents and skills, and content like the various raids. That can be frustrating. Some lose interest along the way and never reach the end.
However, anyone who perseveres through the many hours, days, and weeks of experience point grinding will be rewarded time and again. Just how good it feels to finally be able to sit on the back of your own mount after the endless strolls through the Barrens, Ashenvale, and Desolace is phenomenal. The mount is an incredibly valuable reward simply because you had to work hard for it.
Modern online role-playing games are increasingly diminishing such rewarding moments because they hand out too many rewards to players way too quickly. Everything has to be maximally comfortable and accessible. This often makes progression feel arbitrary.
Appearance: Crimson Desert
The reason I am thinking about WoW Classic and the old-school feeling of tangible progress again these days is Crimson Desert, which I have been playing with great joy for a few weeks now. Of course, this is not an MMORPG, not even a role-playing game, according to the developers. They call their baby an open-world action-adventure. However, there is a noticeable and – at least for me – incredibly motivating character progression.
Crimson Desert does one thing very cleverly and utilizes its enormous scope to continually present us players with new improvements, systems, and features even after 100+ hours. My personal counter currently stands at around 139 hours of playtime. I have only unlocked the following new features within the last 4 to 5 hours:
- A hairdresser and a dye merchant have now joined my Grey Mane camp alongside the blacksmith, cook, merchant, and others. I couldn’t find an option to customize the hairstyles of Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka anywhere in all of Pywel beforehand.
- During a quest in Delesyia, I was allowed to shoot at enemies with the mech that we had already seen in trailers. It plays wonderfully differently than the melee full contact with Kliff and adds a lot of variety to the battles.
- In the titular Crimson Desert, I was able to fly on a dragon through the skies of Pywel for the first time. Before that, I had mostly traveled through the regions on a legendary horse and my battle bear.
Above all, flying on the dragon left an impression on me. For 135+ hours, I have been traveling from A to B by walking, riding, gliding, fast traveling, or climbing. Yes, compared to walking in WoW Classic, these forms of travel often feel more dynamic. I generally enjoy exploring the world of Crimson Desert with Kliff. It just takes time; the world is huge. And climbing can be particularly strenuous.
The dragon is therefore a reward that significantly impacts the player experience. The previously enormous game world, of which I still have many areas undiscovered despite the high playtime, feels intimidatingly large from the air but somehow more accessible. Exploring unexplored zones becomes more efficient. Fast travel loses its significance.
From now on, I will fly whenever allowed. Also, because the dragon, with its fireballs and breath, is a strong companion in battle. I still need to get Narima’s Horn so I can call my new ally without cooldown.
From my perspective, it is exactly right that this powerful mount can only be unlocked so late in the main story. Because of the long journey one had to take without the dragon, its unlocking now feels all the more valuable. Similar to back in 2005, in the original World of Warcraft, when I received my level-40 mount. Do you feel the same? By the way, you can find another anecdote from Azeroth here: World of Warcraft changed my life, although I almost didn’t even make it through the leveling phase to level 60
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