Nobody seems to be talking about this game. An Asian sandbox MMO with a somewhat Westernized (i.e. slightly “gritty” and “realistic”) aesthetic. Since ArcheAge (another Asian MMO offering a similar combination) has been looking more and more like an ever-receding mirage due to delay in a Western release, online interest seems to be building about Black Desert, and it has to be said that it does look absolutely amazing in terms of features, art design and graphics quality. I highly recommend a look at the vids there just to gawp at the character models, which have that startlingly realistic look of hi-rez Skyrim mods!
It also looks refreshingly free of impeccably coiffed girly boys, swords the size of canoes, loli tendencies, that godawful mish-mash of European mediaeval and frilly 17th century fashion (which even infects GW2 to some extent, although not badly enough to make me hate the game :) ) and all those other (to me!) horrible aesthetic tropes that have so put me off Asian MMOs up till now. (Some of the female armour even looks like it could just about pass muster as semi-functional gasp.)
If it lives up to the hype in terms of gameplay - sandboxy goodness, combat, crafting, exploring etc. - this may be the first Asian MMO that I could see myself getting into.
I refuse to get excited about any Korean MMO until I’ve had a chance to sit down and play it. Most of them look fantastic, but I’ve tried too many terrible ones to get hyped up just by the eye-candy.
Tom, sandbox means more open-ended, where you’re free to roam around and do stuff that you want, as opposed to the “themepark” model which is used most notably by WoW, where you’re led around by the nose from quest hub to quest hub. EVE is the prototypical example of a sandbox MMO.
Sandbox could also mean a MMO without much to do in terms of questing and instead a game where you are grinding to level up (typical Asian MMO).
Alternatively it could be a ‘complete fantasy world’ like pre-trammel UO where there weren’t any quests but you didn’t need them either as everything was accessible from day 1, and the only thing you ‘gained’ were skill points and wealth. (As well as Karma).
That’s what I’m wondering about. I know what “sandbox” means in general gaming terms, but as far as MMOs go, this just makes me think it’s a player-driven economy without any sort of storyline or narrative, a la that Tale in the Desert game. And, yeah, Eve Online is another good example. I’m just curious to hear more from gurugeorge about this game’s approach, because that would normally be a red-flag to me.
“We didn’t really have the resources to make much content, so here’s a sandbox MMO…” :)
Any hard dates on coming to the US? Just like ArcheAge, not terribly worth following until it actually shows up outside of Asia (at least for us non-Asians).
Here’s an interview with the developers, and here’s another one. Here’s another overview article from Massively.
As can be seen from the interviews, the game will have levels and quests, but there will also be an emphasis on carving your own path in a virtual world. The categorization of sandboxiness seems to be a general consensus arising from elements mentioned so far like its seamless open world, emphasis on guild v guild PvP, crafting, day/night cycle, cool mantling, and some vids which show people coming across stuff out in the open world and investigating.
No hard dates yet, but I surmise that given its heavily Westernized aesthetic, a Western launch isn’t going to be too distant from a Korean launch. Devs seem to be already negotiating and keen to bring it out here.
Age of Wushuis an Asian sandbox MMO that’s out right now. It’s about ninjas.
Tom: Sandbox MMOs are really about social structures. Just rolling a ship in EVE or a ninja in Age of Wushu and puttering around is pretty terrible. Joining a corp and advancing the cause is alright.
Lmao…the character models all look like they used some kids from a mall in Ohio circa 1991 to pose for them…I actually laughed out loud. Not trying to be snarky but I really did get a good laugh out of this :P
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was worried gurugeorge was getting at. I have zero interest in online social structures that don’t have some sort of game design engineering going on in the background. Guild Wars 2 and Battlefield 4 come to mind as excellent examples of the game design creating certain types of interaction. Just dumping players into an open-world, essentially opting out of the social interaction element, seems like a Bad Idea ™ in terms of how to make a game that appeals to anyone but the seriously hardcore. Who are probably already playing Eve Online anyway.
Arise, thread! Black Desert Online is coming to NA/EU next month. They’re in beta now, and RPS seems to think it’s interesting. It uses a buy-to-play model like GW2 or The Secret World - buy the game then play with no monthly fee, plus cash store for “vanity and convenience items”. I admit to being an MMO junkie, and this one definitely looks like it could be right up my alley. I’m intrigued enough to put in my $30 to try it out.
Hey, a beta invite I forgot I signed up for months ago. Excited to check this out…it looks mildly sandboxy, but doesn’t go all crazy libertarian about it.
It’s very sandboxy-- it doesn’t even have fast travel. You have to run or ride your horse everywhere. (It does have auto-run, so you can go take a dump for 20 minutes while you travel to your destination if you want.)
Also has flat-out gorgeous graphics.
It’s an asian MMO so expect lots of grinding.
Lots of people are calling it akin to Archeage, ideally without Trion messing up the business model.
I liked the character creator enough that this may turn out to be another City of Heroes for me - namely a character creation game with an MMO tacked on.
I could play with the hair choices for days. I may have played with the hair choices for days.
It passed my two key MMO tests : 1) Can I make a fully clothed female? (Answer… mostly, depending on class selection. This is Korea, after all). And 2) If I move the chest slider all the way left, (smallest), does a female character still look like a Rob Liefeld fever dream? (Answer : No!).
This looks like a pretty serious rabbit hole to fall down. Given how complex a lot of the systems seem to be, it seems like one of those games you could really get eaten up by if it grabs you, certainly no lack of things to do.
In that video he remarked about how much he hated tab targeting combat, and how much people liked the dodge/roll/have to learn combos game play. Problem with that is, that’s really fun when it’s part of a 20 hour game narrative, it gets really old when there is a huge grind to everything. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, but having to pay too much attention to combat, in a game where it looks like you’re suppose to spend a lot of hours playing it could be a bad combo.
Certainly looks to be worth checking out, if just for the couple of months of exploring you could certainly do. Actually pretty interested in this.
