Black Desert Online launched in North America and Europe this week, giving many players their first taste of that character creator everyone’s been raving about. This is what happens in the 30 minutes following character creations’ end.
Now that the bumps have been mostly ironed out and Daum Games’ massively multiplayer role-playing game is available to the general public, it’s time to take a look at what exactly all of those painstakingly-crafted characters are doing inside the world. Unlike previous iterations of the game, Black Desert Online in the West requires a one-time purchase to play (like Guild Wars). Since folks have to shell out at least $30.00 to gain access, I made the video atop the post in order to give them an idea of what to expect.
Apologies for the darkness in the video. I was at the mercy of the MMO’s day and night cycle.
Your player wakes up disoriented in a strange town, guided by a strange dark spirit that apparently has it out for any creatures lurking in the surrounding tall grass.
After introducing yourself to a few townspeople and learning an attack skill or two, the slaughter begins. Combat is fast, fluid and very combo dependent. It uses a combination of mouse and keyboard controls to initiate positional attacks, dodges, spells or counters, depending on your character class.
Though basic movement feels a bit sloppy and unresponsive overall (though folks have politely suggested I’m just doing it wrong or it very well could be a lag issue), combat is quite lovely, at least on the Valkyrie I created for the video. My main character, a Ranger, is a bit more methodical in her attacking, having to maintain a certain distance between her and her targets. Letting loose up close and personal as a melee class is a bit intoxicating, as evidenced by my wholesale wolf slaughter around the 15:20 mark.
Between the extra two minutes of wolf killing and the grass beetles, weasels, foxes and imps that died to make this video possible, the majority of the first 30 minutes was spent slaughtering all of the things. Towards the end of the vid I make it to the Western Guard Camp, advancing the story and picking up quests for a lovely break between bouts of sensible killing.
Over on my main character I’ve played about four or five hours of the game, and so far most of it has followed the pattern of killing and questing. I’m looking forward to getting into more of the extracurricular activities Black Desert Online has to offer—housing, fishing, that sort of thing. But as far as killing digital enemies goes, this is pretty satisfying.
Anyone else playing? How are you finding it? Let’s talk in the comments.
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