Black Desert – New Star in the MMORPG Sky
Black Desert is a pleasant surprise. In Korea, the game had struggled quite a bit, not making much headway: PvE aspects were too weak, there wasn’t really anything to do.
Here in the West, they have made a good start overall. The publishing team, which was newly formed, makes a good and solid impression, reacting quickly to problems and being in communication with the community.
The big plus: they have content on hand and are happy to release it. A new zone is out, with the classes nearly at the level of Korea, and in the summer, we will probably continue with the new zone of Valencia. Together with Blade and Soul, this is a clear trend of the MMORPG year 2016: Korean MMORPGs that have been out in the East for a while finally come to the West and kick off a content fireworks show. It’s working out.
It’s a major advantage for an MMORPG: If the players who are there at launch get immediate follow-up content when they’re craving new content, they stay loyal to the game. Other “new” MMORPGs like WildStar have failed precisely because of this. Players were hungry, but the food wasn’t ready yet, and instead of waiting, they wandered over to the next trough.
Come all! There is enough content
Black Desert will be able to draw from its resources for several months. However, forever the supplies from Korea won’t last, as relatively little has changed in the game in recent months. By winter, there will certainly be a period of weakness, unless the follow-up in Korea is ready by then and is promptly brought to the West. But winter … that’s still a long way off, and Black Desert seems equipped to allow players to occupy themselves with the extensive crafting and trading concepts.
Currently, Black Desert surely occupies a niche market.
Sure: Not everything that glitters is gold. Players discuss whether the end-game is optimized enough, whether it’s too grindy, whether Black Desert requires too much time and is more akin to a second job than a game.
Others object to such criticism: There are so many casual games out there, so Black Desert can certainly be something for hardcore gamers, as is often read in fan discussions.
The Elder Scrolls Online – On track
The Elder Scrolls Online relies on a policy of small steps. While they have some big visions and features they want to bring to Tamriel, in practice they think quarter by quarter, DLC by DLC. Some features have been discussed for years, while others have remained silent just as long. There has been practically no news on PvP battlegrounds and arenas for about a year.
The DLCs with their feature lists are being diligently worked through. The Thieves Guild has been introduced to the game, and next, the Dark Brotherhood will make its way to Tamriel. Veteran ranks will disappear. A change that has been in the works for a long time and should have come long ago.
The developers never tire of promising new features. Hardly is there a semblance of calm, they bring up a “housing system” for discussion, which is supposed to come “someday”. Of course, it was also present in Skyrim… Other promises, such as spell weaving, have been postponed to later, while a developed justice system, with dynamic player battles has been completely scrapped.
This is the crux of The Elder Scrolls Online. Developers and players both have a clear idea of what the game should one day look like, how huge and wonderful the world will be with countless features and freedoms we know from the single-player games.
The dream of Skyrim Online
No matter how glossy the plans are, reality faces many problems with lags, game mechanics and inaccuracies that still need to be fixed before the next mini-steps can be taken.
But well, they have gotten used to this process by now. If you like ESO, you get new game content at regular intervals. And if you step away from the “patch to patch” level and look at how the game has developed over longer periods, you’ll notice a distinctly positive trend. With many small steps, you can indeed cover a great distance.
Even if this dream vision of a “Skyrim Online” will likely stand in the way of reality for many years to come.
In our last issue of State of Play, we only dealt with The Elder Scrolls Online:
World of Warcraft – August is a long way off
WoW will have gone over 1 year without new content when Legion releases at the end of August. It’s actually a nightmare or an affront, depending on your perspective. However, with Blizzard’s MMORPGs, one has gotten used to it by now.
In the latest podcast of the German website Buffed, it’s pointed out: Between the Siege of Orgrimmar in September 2013 and the Legion release in August 2016, only 2 content updates will take place: Warlords of Draenor 6.0 and the patch with the Hellfire Citadel 6.2. The interim patch 6.1 wasn’t worth mentioning, and Blizzard stated that as well: It wasn’t really a full patch.
Two patches in three years for a subscription game—that’s probably something Blizzard can only afford and only Blizzard can get away with: The content of the last year of WoW was essentially waiting for Legion.
For the new expansion, as always before a new expansion, there is quite a lot to speak of. They’ve mixed a “best-of” of ideas: the Legion, artifacts, Illidan, new class Demon Hunter. All that could be very good. But that’s what people think before every expansion of WoW.
Hello Blizzard, you have a live MMORPG here
At the moment, it seems Blizzard’s focus is elsewhere: Overwatch is now important. The PR machinery is in motion. Then the WoW movie is on deck. After that, it looks like they will indeed be putting significant efforts to place WoW back in the spotlight for a few months.
While this may sound gloomy, one must admit: The Blizzard machinery works, moves from product to product and shines the spotlight briefly for maximum effect.
WoW hasn’t been in the spotlight for a long time. In autumn 2014, Blizzard last gave World of Warcraft a full PR offensive. Once the expansion was out, the topic of “WoW” seemed to be done for a year and a half. No expansion had received as little attention as “Warlords of Draenor” before. Essentially only 1 content patch … that’s quite something.
Apparently, they have parted with the idea of “We provide game content throughout the year” for WoW and want to be recognized only at the release of a new expansion. How that fits with a “subscription model” is something someone should explain to the players. After all, the main advantage of a subscription MMORPG is that the game receives reliable and ongoing new content.
The “content drought as the new normal” aside: As a WoW fan, one can only hope that Blizzard has learned from the mistakes of Warlords of Draenor. The expansion looked like the best WoW of all time for 2 months while the spotlight was on it and then transformed into a tedious undertaking without long-term motivation when the release hype faded.
Blizzard should avoid that this time. And please, occasionally a content patch isn’t too much to ask.
Then maybe in the next State of Play, we will have more nice things to say about the genre primus.
