csant

Anyone tried Black Desert? or followed it?

I played the Beta this weekend and was impress, I will make a sorc or ranger come release (3/3/16).

K&AJones

I'm sort of surprised this thread is that old and not any comments at all on this since it's been for PC, then XB and now a Free Open Beta for PS4....(just for a few days). I was hoping some have a tried it or playing it for some input and take on it especially long term. I'm going to give it a go but already don't like the reports about it being a "so-called cash grab" with stash and storage issues, something about the pets and needing to spend $$$ on upgrading them and later reaching level 40-50 the game steers you into doing PvP if you really want to advance. So if anyone has had or having any experiences with the game like to hear it....especially if they have played Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter, Tera, Skyforge or others like this style of game.....

19K

I picked this up about a week after it was released on PS4. I never even heard of this game until I saw a friend playing it and he was raving about it, so I figured what the hell. I believe it was $29 in the PS Store. I've only been playing for a couple weeks, but I'm totally hooked. I don't even know how to describe it. It definitely has an elder scrolls feel but on a MUCH bigger scale if that's possible. The game world is ridiculously large. I think I have 100 hours in and don't even have half of it discovered yet... it can take upwards of 20 minutes to go from one place to another (there is no fast travel options). Not to mention a whole section of the world that requires a boat to reach (which btw you have to gather and craft the materials to build yourself and is no small task).

As far as concerns about the game steering you towards PVP, I personally don't see that at all. I'm currently level 55. When you reach level 50 PVP becomes "unlocked" for everyone, but it's turned off by default. You have to manually turn it on if you wish to attack other players and in the time I've been playing I've only seen 3 players doing that (it's obvious who has PVP turned on because the id tags above their character are visibily red. You can technically still be "attacked" by those players, but if your PVP is turned OFF you don't really lose anything if you're killed. The attacker actually gets penalized more by losing karma which will make it very difficult for them to enter cities and interact with NPCs. If you don't want to bother with the PVP events you dont have to, there are literally a million other things you can focus on. Fishing, farming, crafting, hunting, trading, breeding horses, etc, etc... anything you catch, find or create can be sold on the central market. You can play the game however you like.

Pets cost real money (the game gives you 1 free one to start), but all they do is give you bonuses like extra XP gains in certain skills (ie +1 luck). They're certainly not required and don't cost anything extra if you've bought one. You do have to constantly feed them (which is also how you level them up), but that's all done with the in-game currency and not real money. And by no means is it forced on you.

The only bad thing I have to say about this game so far is I feel like the PS4 sometimes is not powerful enough to handle it. There can be a lot of lag, especially in world events that have hundreds of other players on the screen at once. Or when you enter a town, sometimes it takes a few seconds to render all the characters so they're visible on your screen. Maybe they can patch that in the future, maybe not. Like I said, the game is MASSIVE so that's probably to be expected. It's definitely the biggest game I've ever played.

Also, the game doesn't ever really explain anything except the very basics. And its confusing as all hell at first. The UI has crap all over the screen and there's no explanation to what any if it means (on PC you can just mouse over things, on consoles not so much). Luckily its been out on PC for years, so there's a ton of info and tutorials on the internet but you will definitely spend a lot of time looking up answers to pretty much every question you will have when you first start out. And you will have A LOT.

I would say even if you're mildly interested in it, definitely give it a try. But keep in mind it does require a significant amount of time to learn how things work. I'm still constantly looking things up.