• Publisher: GameOn
  • Release Date: Mar 3, 2016
User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1667 Ratings

User score distribution:

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  1. Mar 12, 2016
    4
    Edit; It has come to my attention that both an subreddit called /r/BlackDesertOnline and the Official forums participated in vote brigading(downvote negatives, upvote positives reviews) of Metacritic because people have different opinions then them. The saddest part was that both the moderators of each site allowed this to happen freely and seemed to support this action by not evenEdit; It has come to my attention that both an subreddit called /r/BlackDesertOnline and the Official forums participated in vote brigading(downvote negatives, upvote positives reviews) of Metacritic because people have different opinions then them. The saddest part was that both the moderators of each site allowed this to happen freely and seemed to support this action by not even attempting to do anything to prevent this type of thing.

    Also if you noted, it was even encouraged by them to create new accounts just to submit an positive review at the same time so they could get the average user score from 5.1/10. This just goes how immature the majority of the playerbase including lacking common decency.
    -------------------

    This review is based on me owning the conquers pack and logging 60 hours, having access to CBT1&2 and currently having an level 51 Tamer and an level 46 Archer.

    First of all, for anyone giving this game an 10/10 please don't write an review if you're just going to follow along with the flock and try to fit in. I can see other people giving this game an 8.5/10 at best, however this is simply not an 10/10 game. This also apply's to people giving this game an 0/10, lets be honest this game is no way your worst game of the year by any standards.

    So down to the review I'll be breaking it into my basic cons and pros to help shorten this list as much as possible.

    Pros:
    - Graphics (I'd say on-par with Witcher 3 on low, however for an MMORPG is very impressive of itself)
    - Combat (Currently one of the best, if not the best combat systems in any MMORPG currently out)
    - Theme park sandbox (Plenty of things like fishing,trading,crafting,harvesting,worker management, etc)

    Neutral:
    - Parkour system (An very shoddy attempt which leaves an bad taste if you've played other great parkour systems done right like Thief, Dying Light, Sleeping Dogs, AC Series, Etc)
    - Living World (It's decent, however it requires an high activity of players to feel like its immersive)
    - Plot (Great story writing, however the voice acting really ruins what the writers have achieved)
    - Customizability (Its locked behind an paywall, sadly to say so most of the time you're going to look just like everyone else, so much for that character creation)

    Cons:
    - The Community (Read the edit at the top)
    - PvP (Mostly dead due to the Karma system and this was expected, yet Daum games chose not to address this issue so most of the great PvP will be happening in GvG and not in the world itself)
    - PvE (WAY TOO EASY, from the tutorial mobs at the beginning to the end game mobs there is virtually no difference in difficulty. We're talking about those "epic" boss summons you can do, well the fact is you can do them when you're 15 levels behind and still have an easy time)
    - No real type of raids or dungeons (because the only difference between an summoned quest boss and the open world boss for guilds is literally one soaks up way more damage. That's all the challenge)
    - General game mechanics (None of them connect into any meaningful systems, which is quite disappointing given how much time must of been put into each of them)
    - Daum themselves (After seeing them banning players on forums for pointing out their mistakes and then lying about it (If you're interested I'd suggest googling there's plenty of drama on the subject), enforcing non-existent rules,dropping all communication with the community, etc. It really shows an lack of control or caring about the players in general)
    - "P2W" (This is an very hot topic and I define anything P2W that offers anything not obtainable VIA in-game methods EXCEPT for the standard EXP boosting items that help later joiners/less time available players still be able to play reasonably well. However the fact is you have abilities, stats, customizability being locked behind an pay wall which the game itself is B2P is sickening and the defenders of this have some type of Stockholm syndrome from previous games that abused these type of cash grabbing before)

    TLDR REVIEW; The game is average, nothing more and nothing less. For $60($30 base and $30 for 3 pets) its really up to you. I'd advise you to get an 7 day guest invite and play it the game until that guest period runs out to decide if you'd play this over other MMORPGs you'd like to try out
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  2. Nov 11, 2016
    4
    I do not recommend buying this game until the Dev's fairly release the Awakening's for all classes in the game. They like to release them a little by little over time which then creates massively overpowered classes in the game above other classes. This is a big issue in PvP and how PvPer's decide who to fight. Also, they have no system in place to deal with player harassment. There areI do not recommend buying this game until the Dev's fairly release the Awakening's for all classes in the game. They like to release them a little by little over time which then creates massively overpowered classes in the game above other classes. This is a big issue in PvP and how PvPer's decide who to fight. Also, they have no system in place to deal with player harassment. There are too few places to grind out experience and it creates viciously contested areas that leaves no place for a novice or weekend warrior to enjoy the game. For instance, Sausans Garrison is a place for level 54-56's to get experience, but oftentimes, level 58's - 59's will farm there for money; thereby cutting out the opportunity to lower levels to level their characters and improve their gear.

    So, if you do not live in your parents basement or have a real life, this game may not be meant for you. If you do have a life and you're not still living with your parents, just don't bother... the amount of time it takes to improve your gear score playing reasonably per day is not sufficient to bother playing or buying the game.
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  3. Jul 9, 2017
    4
    Combat is great, graphics are good.
    The cash shop greed is unreal and the grind is masochism, as in it should be illegal?
    So get this, a couple hours in you find out everyone kills monsters while you click R to loot manually most of your time, you literally spend ten times longer looting bodies than you do killing mobs, you spend $40 to buy pets (=autoloot) Then you find out your
    Combat is great, graphics are good.
    The cash shop greed is unreal and the grind is masochism, as in it should be illegal?

    So get this, a couple hours in you find out everyone kills monsters while you click R to loot manually most of your time, you literally spend ten times longer looting bodies than you do killing mobs, you spend $40 to buy pets (=autoloot) Then you find out your character is overweight after about 10-12 minutes of grinding, you spend $50 to increase your weight limit. Rinse and repeat, more annoyances come your way all the time, the game is kinda fun if you have your mastercard ready to go but without it the game is a cringefest. You have to buy this **** for every class you decide to play, dont like your class? Buy everything again, everything.

    Then theres upgrading gear, so like, you need shards to have a chance at upgrading gear, nobody sells shards since everyone needs them, you can get them (0.1% chance) by chopping trees and other mundane tasks.

    Just to explain how the upgrade system works, I have chopped trees non stop sixteen hours a day from wednesday morning until sundaynight, that got me about sixty shards, I tried upgrading my weapon with those, it downgraded to previous tier and then cost me about 100 million in repairs + 240 million silver in repairs to TRY to get it back to the tier it was at, which never happened.

    So I spent literally one week chopping trees, nothing else, just chop trees, I lost a quarter of a billion silver (50 hours of focused grind) my gear is broken and noob tier, that's how the upgrade system works. Buying the gear off marketplace would be a way better option, but you can't do that since nobody in their right mind would go through this hell and then sell it.

    Spent a lot of money on the game, all it does is frustrate me, i'm out.
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  4. Jul 23, 2016
    4
    As a experienced gamer (all the way back to the first video games) I see more and more lazy developers. Black Desert Online is a beautiful game, and it has so many things to do. The problem is none of those things matter. There is no end game in the game except to fight other players. So it is a MMO with no raids and no dungeons. All you do is grind the same spots over and over andAs a experienced gamer (all the way back to the first video games) I see more and more lazy developers. Black Desert Online is a beautiful game, and it has so many things to do. The problem is none of those things matter. There is no end game in the game except to fight other players. So it is a MMO with no raids and no dungeons. All you do is grind the same spots over and over and over while sometimes fighting over those spots with another player. One of the worst MMOs I have played and one of the most beautiful. Expand
  5. Apr 14, 2016
    4
    I have played the game for 500 hours now. I am not sure how i feel about it exactly so I used a random number generator to generate a random number between 1 and 10. The rng said 4 so the game gets a 4/10.
  6. Mar 8, 2016
    4
    PROS:
    - Unique character creation
    - Multiple character slots - Interesting trade route system - One time purchase CONS: - The UI is confusing and all over the place - Combat keys are random, for example to do a skill you may have to press a combination of keys such as "S, SHIFT, left click). Acts more like a fighting game. - Quest trails don't lead to the next objective for
    PROS:
    - Unique character creation
    - Multiple character slots
    - Interesting trade route system
    - One time purchase

    CONS:

    - The UI is confusing and all over the place
    - Combat keys are random, for example to do a skill you may have to press a combination of keys such as "S, SHIFT, left click). Acts more like a fighting game.
    - Quest trails don't lead to the next objective for some quests
    - Boring dialog
    - Bad english voice overs
    - Male characters limited to one class (unless you want to be old or a giant)
    - Energy system that limits your gameplay
    - Energy is used on almost everything. From Gathering to talking to some npcs
    - Game feels like an alpha
    - characters sometime appear as default class looks
    - feels unpolished
    - Game mechanics are not explained (or not explained early enough)
    - classes are gender locked
    - First boss is a massive increase in difficulty compared to all the enemies you fight before hand
    - Many free to play systems in play
    - boring quests
    - random arrows that point to nothing
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  7. Apr 11, 2016
    4
    Black Desert Online is one of those MMOs that either makes it or breaks it for gamers, unfortunately for myself, BDO broke it for me. My review will be as unbiased as possible and only discuss the details.

    Pros: 1. Amazing life-like character generator, although I wish you weren't bound to a set appearance by class, BDO provides one of the best character generator systems in the MMO
    Black Desert Online is one of those MMOs that either makes it or breaks it for gamers, unfortunately for myself, BDO broke it for me. My review will be as unbiased as possible and only discuss the details.

    Pros:
    1. Amazing life-like character generator, although I wish you weren't bound to a set appearance by class, BDO provides one of the best character generator systems in the MMO market, I've spent more time creating characters on BDO than any mmo before due to how in depth it is.

    2. The game has some realistic traits, due to fast travel not really being a thing, you have to explore the entire map yourself, this may seem tiresome to many but to myself, there is nothing more enjoyable than traveling around a diverse fantasy world rich in graphics and exploration.

    3. Combat in BDO doesn't really go stale, due to many different classes and possibilities in pvp matchups, no fight in BDO is similar to the next unless of course you literally play all day fighting everyone. Even PVE by yourself isn't too bad as BDO isn't a point and click mmo you need to actually fight tough enemies intelligently.

    Cons:

    1. Money Sink, this game is terribly corrupt, for a game that stands strongly with character creation, you'd think there would be more diverse options in what kinds of clothes you wish to wear. Unless you're really balling out of control in life, you'll find it kind of ridiculous to pay 30 dollars for an outfit in game when the game itself cost you 25 dollars. This game has a Free to play model which for a game you have to purchase is pretty ridiculous.

    2. The energy system, energy works exactly like a mobile game function for your phone. Basically in a mobile game you may be given a token that recharges in 6 hours or something after using one and with those tokens you can do various actions and that sadly is exactly how the energy system works.

    3. Very antisocial MMO. BDO has one of the most competitive communities in existence for an MMO and its not good. The game itself doesn't encourage players to talk to each other but instead encourages competition among each other and because of this most players will never be able to play with older players on the game. Everyone keeps trying to climb and climb the competitive ranks on the game so for every day you're not playing BDO other people are and they are passing you. This means you will not be able to get into most guilds, play with your friends who started the game earlier or later than you etc.
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  8. Mar 9, 2016
    4
    Pros:
    - great graphics
    - great character creator - sandbox Cons: - boring (go to place B from place A and kill everyone, do the same from B to C etc). - no equipment system (you will look the same from lvl 1 to lvl 50, or you can pay 30 euro for some epic outfit) - hud - no tutorials - combat system has too many keyboard shortcuts, so you can be pro player if you will just hit
    Pros:
    - great graphics
    - great character creator
    - sandbox
    Cons:
    - boring (go to place B from place A and kill everyone, do the same from B to C etc).
    - no equipment system (you will look the same from lvl 1 to lvl 50, or you can pay 30 euro for some epic outfit)
    - hud
    - no tutorials
    - combat system has too many keyboard shortcuts, so you can be pro player if you will just hit keyboard with your head.

    So:
    Wait for f2p or for equipment system patch, and this will be quite better (like 6/10).
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  9. Mar 7, 2016
    4
    ignore 10/10 and 0-1/10 reviews, those are clearly paid reviewers....
    As i predicted this is just another overhyped asian grindfest with nice graphics and combat mechanics.
    Everything else is just mediocore at most with terible UI/Story/PvE/fetch quests
    If u like endless grinding and u are fan of echii thats game for you, otherwise stay away from this...
  10. Apr 7, 2016
    4
    Not even sure where to begin with how bad this game is. I think people are starved for mmos so they are willing to put up with all kinds of stuff in a game and still give it good ratings. first of all , any 10 is automatically disregarded and down voted as nothing can be a 10. Nothing. So that makes you a fanboy or an employee if you voted 10. NOW that that's established, on to the game...Not even sure where to begin with how bad this game is. I think people are starved for mmos so they are willing to put up with all kinds of stuff in a game and still give it good ratings. first of all , any 10 is automatically disregarded and down voted as nothing can be a 10. Nothing. So that makes you a fanboy or an employee if you voted 10. NOW that that's established, on to the game...

    -open pvp

    I could stop at that but ill go on.

    -ridiculous learning curve
    -takes forever to do anything
    -everything costs points! you cant just go gathering for a while , unless youve saved up pts from waiting...
    -tons of wait mechanics
    -progression was much too slow for me , not trying to marry a game ... felt more like a job lol

    a 4 from me. Im just not as starved for an mmo as some of these reviewers.
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  11. Mar 4, 2016
    4
    Black Desert Online is enjoyable if you like pvp or running goods between cities for profit. But the games pros are outweighed by its cons.

    Pros: - An amazing parkour system where you can climb over any wall and onto roofs etc. - The game looks great and has good optimization - The autorun feature means you can set a destination to a quest or location and just hit your run key - The
    Black Desert Online is enjoyable if you like pvp or running goods between cities for profit. But the games pros are outweighed by its cons.

    Pros:
    - An amazing parkour system where you can climb over any wall and onto roofs etc.
    - The game looks great and has good optimization
    - The autorun feature means you can set a destination to a quest or location and just hit your run key
    - The lack of fast travel gives the game a more life like feel to it. Combined with a trading system that has you running goods between cities.

    Cons:
    - THE ENERGY SYSTEM. Everything you do requires energy, if you cut down 10 trees you then have to wait HALF AN HOUR to cut down another 10.
    - The voice acting is atrocious
    - Such little effort has gone into the quest text and dialogue, combined with how fast you level it might as well not exist
    - The ludicrous cost of cash shop items. An outfit will cost the same amount as the game itself. Your auto loot function costs $10. And the dye system is a joke.
    - Daum's business practises. The way they interact with the community, the prices they put on items and the fact they had you waive your rights to a refund if you pre-ordered the game all ties into the fact that Daum can not be trusted. I really would not be surprised if they made the game free to play 6 months later.

    You will get enough fun out of $30 if you can ignore the cons just don't support bad business practises; don't buy cash shop items.
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  12. Mar 5, 2016
    4
    This is a hard one to review, but i'll be trying to be as unbiased as possible... The game has a brilliant character creation system, by far the greatest i've ever used, to the point i spent hours in it. The graphics are nice and controls fairly easy to get the hand of. Unfortunately, in it's current state the game is in a bit of a mess...

    There is a point where everyone leaves their
    This is a hard one to review, but i'll be trying to be as unbiased as possible... The game has a brilliant character creation system, by far the greatest i've ever used, to the point i spent hours in it. The graphics are nice and controls fairly easy to get the hand of. Unfortunately, in it's current state the game is in a bit of a mess...

    There is a point where everyone leaves their horses in certain spots, and due to not being able to toggle them from your own vision, the screen can get fairly clustered with other people's horses, not just yours. The game feels also quite like a mobile game, in the sense there's quite a few "waiting" portions, however, while some may have a problem, the game offers multiple ways to shorten that time, if you're observant.

    While my biggest complaint is directed at the character customization, and don't confuse that with character creation, it's much different. When you first receive new armor or a weapon, you're excited to equip it to change your characters default look, only to realize, it doesn't actually change. Some going in blind to this game will be incredibly disappointed, for a game that stresses character customization there is a significant lack of.

    One of the "best" ways to change your looks is through the cash shop, where my other large complaint comes in, through purchasing of costumes and accessories. I completely understand vanity items, and that they're not a necessity, but $30 for a full set, or $16 for the torso/main piece only. If this had been a F2P game, i would completely ignore this matter, but that isn't the case.

    However, this game does offer a lot in the sense you can leave your computer running, and it will accumulate points for various sections of the game, and even when offline. However, while this is a nice time saver, this relates back to the feeling of a "Mobile game", which it shouldn't be, it's an MMO on a PC.

    Combat is nice and fluid, but some classes are more interesting than others. The skill tree system (currently) feels vast enough for me to say it's enjoyable to try out new skills when I get them.

    Voice acting in the game is... actually really bad. It pains me to say it as they must have put a lot of work into it, as a lot of NPC's speak when you're simply idling in town. If i had the option to just have the korean audio, i would take it.

    Overall, BDO gets a 4, a deserving 4. Does this mean the game is crap, no, no it does not. Does it mean you should throw your wallet on the screen, as i did, no, no you should not. The developers need to really consider what it means to have a game "Buy to Play", for as it stands, it feels like i've been playing a glorified farmville, apologies for the analogy to those hurt by that comment, but think about it...

    You start out with nothing, go out do missions, eventually get to crafting and the core section, and things start costing points that are returned by waiting: making food costs points, chopping trees costs points, making swords costs points, and getting those points back takes literal time. There are ways to get points back besides quests and waiting, through "loyalties", or real money, speeding things up, like a mobile game.

    I, like others, believe Black Desert will go F2P if things continue as is, and that's a shame, as i would love to see it prosper.
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  13. Mar 6, 2016
    4
    Black Desert Online is a game that's cool until you realize how much grinding everything takes. Wanna make a boat and go deep sea fishing? You'll have to spend 10 hours getting it.

    Combat involves pulling enemies into a group and dropping AoEs. Even the "bosses" have laughably telegraphed attacks. It's flashy but it's not deep. I haven't tried PvP. Sounds cool, but I'm not going
    Black Desert Online is a game that's cool until you realize how much grinding everything takes. Wanna make a boat and go deep sea fishing? You'll have to spend 10 hours getting it.

    Combat involves pulling enemies into a group and dropping AoEs. Even the "bosses" have laughably telegraphed attacks. It's flashy but it's not deep.

    I haven't tried PvP. Sounds cool, but I'm not going to grind for 50 hours so I can be on level footing.
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  14. Mar 28, 2016
    4
    really enjoyed the game at first, but the further along you get the more shallow you realize this game is. the very satisfying combat system is wasted on terrible pve content (grind the same mobs thousands and thousands of times) and seriously unbalanced pvp (gear > skill, absolutely no question). when you can bring yourself to smash your face against the horribly boring pve grind, you'rereally enjoyed the game at first, but the further along you get the more shallow you realize this game is. the very satisfying combat system is wasted on terrible pve content (grind the same mobs thousands and thousands of times) and seriously unbalanced pvp (gear > skill, absolutely no question). when you can bring yourself to smash your face against the horribly boring pve grind, you're likely to be pushed out of your spot by the uber geared no-lifers that plague this game. you can be griefed to no end, and even worse, you can lose 1% exp at end game. this doesn't seem like a lot, but it can take hours to grind just a few percent of a level post50. open world pvp is fun at first, but eventually youll realize it doesnt matter how well you know your class or matchups, all the matters is your luck with loot RNG and upgrade RNG. pvp is also plagued by horrible desync and latency issues, as well as significant bugs with certain class-defining abilities. I will say, the gear upgrade system is the least awful system ive experienced in a korean mmo to date, but it still sucks. I really wanted to like this game, especially because of the hundreds of hours I spent playing it just in its first month, but it really sucks. Is it better than ArcheAge? Hell yes it is, but it's still a shallow, grindy mess. spend your time elsewhere Expand
  15. Mar 30, 2016
    4
    Between the stat boosting cash shop items and the childish community, this game is worth a fat zero.

    I don't care how good the mechanics are when a game is this much of a cash grab with that MTX shop slapped over it. This game is pay to win just like every other MMO to come out recently. On top of the **** cash shop is the horrid pop-in this game suffers from. The game has piss-poor
    Between the stat boosting cash shop items and the childish community, this game is worth a fat zero.

    I don't care how good the mechanics are when a game is this much of a cash grab with that MTX shop slapped over it. This game is pay to win just like every other MMO to come out recently. On top of the **** cash shop is the horrid pop-in this game suffers from. The game has piss-poor optimization and a 15 meter render range that cannot be increased.

    Some examples (non-exhaustive):
    - You can spend real money to increase the value of your horse by resetting the death and/or breed counters. This means you can just keep breeding the same higher tier horses with out ever having to worry about breeding the lower tier ones because it failed.

    - All armor and weapons look exactly the same as the starter gear you have in the tutorial. If you expected your appearance to change equipping new items like I did, prepare to be disappointed. You will need to shell out an additional $50 for 1 costume for a single character if you want your armor to look different.

    - You can buy a ghille suit to hide your guild and character name from everyone on the server for PKing and griefing. Go to any town or popular farming zone and you can see someone exploiting this cash shop item.

    - You can instant revive anywhere buy just spending real money.
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  16. Apr 19, 2016
    4
    Took an almost immediate dislike to this game. Most of the bad stuff has already been said - total lack of guidance on how to do things or why you should/nt, no customisation ofr armor and bad voice acting.

    Combat is really good and that format should be the norm for mmos moving foward but the real problem...the total lack of story, the incredibly bad voice acting and translations and
    Took an almost immediate dislike to this game. Most of the bad stuff has already been said - total lack of guidance on how to do things or why you should/nt, no customisation ofr armor and bad voice acting.

    Combat is really good and that format should be the norm for mmos moving foward but the real problem...the total lack of story, the incredibly bad voice acting and translations and the really bad music throughout. It ruins the whole ambiance of the game.

    There might be a lot in it and a ton of depth - but if found myself saying "why should I care" - i dont care about this world at all or any of the characters in it. There is no lore, no history no story its just absolutely awful in terms of creating an atmosphere.

    If you enjoyed Wow or Swtor or any game with story/structure like that - this game is NOT for you.

    That said if you dont care about the things i mentioned and you love PVP and good combat then this would be
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  17. Jan 15, 2018
    4
    They called it an ambitious game. So it's true, but it's all terrible. All Korean bells and whistles. The epilepsy combat system, the lack of a normal interface, the lack of variation in the choice of race / class, the absence of any division into roles in the game. Everything is done as inconveniently as possible. And most importantly - the lack of optimization. Gives out a 10-30 fps onThey called it an ambitious game. So it's true, but it's all terrible. All Korean bells and whistles. The epilepsy combat system, the lack of a normal interface, the lack of variation in the choice of race / class, the absence of any division into roles in the game. Everything is done as inconveniently as possible. And most importantly - the lack of optimization. Gives out a 10-30 fps on any settings.Constant hovering, crashes, do not give a normal enjoy the game.
    Of the good moments worth praising developers for a very huge open
    a beautiful world, a detailed customization of the character and unusual gameplay chips, in the form of sea battles, the economy, trade and other things, but unfortunately it's realized terribly, but at least somehow
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  18. Jul 10, 2018
    4
    STORY: (3/10) Boring and so generic (You are Naruto, born to tame your Kyuubi so maybe you can use it to save the world).

    QUEST SYSTEM: (3/10) Errand boy, Kill 500 enemies, Kill and collect stuff, Kill/gather with RNG, "snowballing" interview/survey, Choose A to become Hokage - Choose B to become Hokage. GRAPHICS QUALITY: (10/10) Best (only if you have beast PC otherwise it's still
    STORY: (3/10) Boring and so generic (You are Naruto, born to tame your Kyuubi so maybe you can use it to save the world).

    QUEST SYSTEM: (3/10) Errand boy, Kill 500 enemies, Kill and collect stuff, Kill/gather with RNG, "snowballing" interview/survey, Choose A to become Hokage - Choose B to become Hokage.

    GRAPHICS QUALITY: (10/10) Best (only if you have beast PC otherwise it's still good looking).

    CONTENTS: (7/10) Rich (learn all of it from guides and tutorials on the internet, the game or the developer itself can't help you that much), Pay to look good (the best armor = mossy armor), frequent events, Dialogues are voice-acted (not all dialogues, I mean a most of them not), some confusingly in-game Wiki and item descriptions (All AP up?), mediocre cutscene.

    PROGRESSION SYSTEM: (3/10) RNG-based (Lv.58 full-DUO most likely will lose to Lv.56 full-TET), Pay to win (you can buy in-game currencies by selling microtransactions items-like costumes on the in-game market and then buy some expensive end-game gear with it), Gear (except weapon) isn't class-bound (good for trying every class).

    MUSIC: (8/10) pretty decent jukebox music

    COMBAT SYSTEM: (7/10) as long as not involving grab and war-scale battle, it is the best combat system for MMORPG (IMHO).

    CUSTOMER SUPPORT: (7/10) Responsive (DO NOT ask about internal figures like enhancement/breeding/item drop rate to game master), some people said the server is bad - some people said the internet provider is bad

    NOT-SO-SPOILER ALERT!
    RNG is going to be the one that blocks your way to enjoy endgame contents unless you have real money to spend or a LOT of spare time to mine silvers through grinding (or life skills) or just plain "lucky".

    Edit #3. Turned out BDO was a free-to-play game at first (Korean, JPN, and Russia servers) but changed to pay-to-play in NA, EU, SEA servers. Now I know why the microtransactions are BAD. So beware
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  19. Apr 28, 2020
    4
    I've played 400 hours of this game and it feels like I did nothing, there is so much to do and so little to do at the same time!

    There is no endgame, none, you grind until 60 and that is it. when you reach the soft level cap you need to gear up to get more levels, so you can gear up and get stronger, to... nothing. There is no dungeon or raid, only word bosses with specific weekly
    I've played 400 hours of this game and it feels like I did nothing, there is so much to do and so little to do at the same time!

    There is no endgame, none, you grind until 60 and that is it. when you reach the soft level cap you need to gear up to get more levels, so you can gear up and get stronger, to... nothing. There is no dungeon or raid, only word bosses with specific weekly schedule.

    I repeat, THERE IS NO DUNGEON OR RAID IN THIS MMORPG!!!

    on top of this, the amount of RNG and PAID RNG in this game in astronomical ffs, you pay to pay sometimes. yes, you can buy the economic package in the market, but with fixed prices no one want to sell it.

    Visual 8/10
    Gameplay 8/10
    Content 2/10
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  20. Jan 2, 2022
    4
    Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind but graphics are good.
  21. Aug 5, 2021
    4
    I read here on Reddit that it takes ~ 7000 hours to jump from level 65 to level 66. This is all, of course, fun and cool, but I'll probably stop playing.

    It was possible to do something similar to Borderlands, but not only with weapons but also with the generation of skills, so that the level could easily be at least a billion and you could get a level per week. Instead, the
    I read here on Reddit that it takes ~ 7000 hours to jump from level 65 to level 66. This is all, of course, fun and cool, but I'll probably stop playing.

    It was possible to do something similar to Borderlands, but not only with weapons but also with the generation of skills, so that the level could easily be at least a billion and you could get a level per week.

    Instead, the developers broke the project's kneecaps, put it in a wheelchair, and made it trade in pearls. Another project that never went beyond the boring MMORPG genre (although it was sooo close to it).
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  22. Apr 15, 2022
    4
    Its just another grindy MMO. It has great combat and great graphics but every quest is the exact same thing.
  23. Aug 1, 2022
    4
    Gear upgrade system is crap! Ruined everything good in this game. And quests like "kill 5000 mobs" is amazingly interesting
  24. Apr 7, 2023
    4
    The game is good, but all is ruined by the infinite buttons on your screen and menus popping at you out of nowhere that you don't know how to close. The best of the game is definitely the combat, with amazing combos and effects, but most of the time you will be skipping dialogues or trying to close annoying windows. A good game ruined by its UI.
  25. Aug 1, 2023
    4
    I have probably put about 5,000 hours into BDO. The problem is that about 4,000 of those hours were me leaving my computer on overnight and while I was at work, fishing or doing some other AFK activity. The combat is either a grind when you are trying to get .01% exp per hour at higher levels or it is getting one-shotted by a witch in pvp. There is amazing value in this game if you don'tI have probably put about 5,000 hours into BDO. The problem is that about 4,000 of those hours were me leaving my computer on overnight and while I was at work, fishing or doing some other AFK activity. The combat is either a grind when you are trying to get .01% exp per hour at higher levels or it is getting one-shotted by a witch in pvp. There is amazing value in this game if you don't value your time. Expand
  26. May 17, 2016
    3
    boooriiiinggggg yawnnnnnnnn .
  27. Aug 1, 2017
    3
    Good game, but do yourself a favor and play on a private server. You won't have to deal with Kakao's greed, which is pretty much the only thing that's ruining this game.
  28. Jul 22, 2016
    3
    Black desert is MMORPG with a lot of great ideas. But after weeks/days of playing you will know there are a lot of bad mechanics. There good things and bad things and those bad things keep black desert from beying a top MMORPG.

    PROS - Big and beautifull world full of quests and things to do (Do not expect original quest. It is same repetitive bussines like in every other MMO) - The
    Black desert is MMORPG with a lot of great ideas. But after weeks/days of playing you will know there are a lot of bad mechanics. There good things and bad things and those bad things keep black desert from beying a top MMORPG.

    PROS
    - Big and beautifull world full of quests and things to do (Do not expect original quest. It is same repetitive bussines like in every other MMO)
    - The graphics are one of the best among todays MMO's
    - Sandbox style of the game, you can be skilled gatherer, trader, fisher, cook, horse trainer, etc... Or you can skip that all and focus only on combat power of your character.
    - Itemization and overall game phylosophy. Doesnt matter what level you are, you can use same gear when you are 10 lvl or 50 lvl. You can use materials and items that you found during leveling for your high end gear and high end potions. Literally you are playing end game even on low level.
    - Levelling system (Soft cap 50 level - official max level, but you can get higher levels, but more slowly)
    - Contribution poitns system: When you play, you earn contribution points, that you can invest somewhere. For example to storage, your residence, some grinding location or some farm where your workers can gather materials.
    - Enchanting system where your gear get's more powerfull as you enchant it.

    CONS
    - Clunky PVP. Its just not fun for me. Unnecesary animations and some game aspects make PVP and combat not fun.
    - Boss scroll system is boring and not exciting.
    - Only posibility to trade between players is by auction house (marketplace) I do not have anything againts that, it fights againts gold sellers etc... But they have not implemented anything that let you give some good gear or materials to your friend you play with. You can only give potions to someone.
    - Grinding and fighting monsters is much more efficient over all gatherin, fishing or other activities. It is shame they allowed that. I agreee that fighting monsters should be essential to collect some thing you cant get by gathering, but right now it is best in everything. This part of game is not balanced and damage game itself.
    - Energy system that allows you perform some ingame actions is messed up and total chaos :-D
    - Other game aspects that are simply stupid and unnecesary.
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  29. Mar 30, 2016
    3
    Since I do not like PvP and gathering stuff like fishing, cooking, mining, housing etc. I will NOT review those aspects. They are supposed to be pretty good though.

    I bought the game for one reason only, the combat system. And I was hoping to get enough PvE content out of it to keep me entertained for around 30-60 hours. I knew from the beginning on that this game's end content
    Since I do not like PvP and gathering stuff like fishing, cooking, mining, housing etc. I will NOT review those aspects. They are supposed to be pretty good though.

    I bought the game for one reason only, the combat system.
    And I was hoping to get enough PvE content out of it to keep me entertained for around 30-60 hours. I knew from the beginning on that this game's end content consists of PvP only.

    For every fan of PvE content and challenging (PvE) combat I can now say: "stay away and do not buy this game!!!"

    There's pretty much no PvE content to speak of and the quests are just lame and irritating. For me, this didn't even matter that much since I only wanted to have fun with the awesome combat system. I don't even mind games where you have to grind a lot... and this game is grind in the truest form!

    Don't get me wrong, the combat system is great but enemies are way too weak and the game is way too easy :( ! I played for around 10 hours and the game never ever got even a tiny bit difficult. Those 10 hours I was wondering whether I did something wrong and never left the tutorial area... it seriously is that easy. At first I planned all those special skills and combos and tried to use tactics whenever possible. But very soon you ask yourself "why"? The combat is so easy that you could easily use the standard attack without having to dodge, block or use anything powerful.

    Later on you encounter world bosses that randomly appear and bosses that you can summon using scrolls. Those are more fun and harder to kill but those events occur far to seldom to be of any use for any fan of PvE.

    It's such a shame because I really wanted to like this game.
    Like I said before, I knew that eventually the game wouldn't be for me with its focus on PvP and all that, but I hoped to get at least some fun hours of PvE content out of it. This wasn't the case though.
    The superb combat system cannot shine if there's nothing worth using it for. I wasn't looking for a Dark Souls either, but this difficulty is ridiculous.
    Fortunately I "only" spent 30 € on my sad/bad experience with the game...
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  30. Nov 14, 2016
    3
    graphics of this game looks very promising but beyond that it has gotten nothing really entertaining.
    you can craft many things, breed horses, get a farm, buy yourself houses, fishing, trading system and so on...
    well theres a lot of content but it feels just like all of that stuff leads you to nothing and only wastes a lot of your time. in the end you do this for the money to buy equip
    graphics of this game looks very promising but beyond that it has gotten nothing really entertaining.
    you can craft many things, breed horses, get a farm, buy yourself houses, fishing, trading system and so on...
    well theres a lot of content but it feels just like all of that stuff leads you to nothing and only wastes a lot of your time.
    in the end you do this for the money to buy equip and go out to slap mobs (instead of all that boring and time wasting things you can also grind mobs the whole day, buy equip and grind more).

    fighting system is somewhat fun.
    nice animations and a lot of combos but for the pve content you just don't need to learn any combos, cause the AI of the mobs is completely stupid, there are no really special mechanics any mob has except some knockdowns here and there. so even fighting through the pve content gets boring and repetitive really quick. no challenge here.

    pvp is nothing else than one big mess.
    in pvp it all comes down to gear. you got better gear than your opponent? gg.
    even in a fight between two guys with equal gear it just comes down to who hits first with one of the thousands of cc skills.
    this pvp is not competitive, challenging, fun... nothing but a big mess.
    if you're searching for a pvp game, you'll be wrong in black desert.

    this game got way too much rng in it. thanks to all that rng nearly everything in this game becomes a true pita.
    even landing a cc in fights is based on rng.

    there are so many occupations in this game you can do while being afk. it's worse than some browsergames and so few tools which benefit any kind of playing with other people. actually it feels the other way round. people try to avoid other players the whole day long (really awesome in an online game).

    black desert could have made it to a somewhat decent singleplayer game but as it is, not more than 3 points. at least for a while it is a little fun to grind throug the map.
    not to recommend.
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  31. Mar 7, 2016
    3
    I played it for few days with an "guest pass", and this game is one of the most terrible mmorpgs i ever played. Really glad i didn´t pay for this **** Its like the most of asian mmorpg - they just cant do it.
  32. Apr 19, 2016
    3
    This review is coming from someone who thoroughly enjoys PvP/PvE to the fullest. This game is beyond an utter disappointment.

    Leveling in this game takes little to no effort whatsoever, maxing at the soft-cap of 50 quite literally for anyone who simply looks up the correct areas to grind. When you get over the flashy combat, you'll realize this game is completely overrated. Best
    This review is coming from someone who thoroughly enjoys PvP/PvE to the fullest. This game is beyond an utter disappointment.

    Leveling in this game takes little to no effort whatsoever, maxing at the soft-cap of 50 quite literally for anyone who simply looks up the correct areas to grind.

    When you get over the flashy combat, you'll realize this game is completely overrated. Best part? You forfeit your right to a refund. "Well you can try it for free from a friend!" Implying you know anyone that plays this game. Simply watching YouTube videos of this game is like any other, watching BF4 trailers and demos made BF4 look great, devs hyped it to all hell. What was the end product? A beyond overhyped and trash game.

    This isn't even counting the fact the character balance in this game is horrid, and to be expected. At-range characters will dominate PvP team-play, hence why a vast number of people who play this are Range/Wizard etc.

    PvE wise this game is obviously lacking. Just another run of the mill "spam spam spam" for your daily fun. Mod grinding is the same as any other game and the quickest way to level.

    For virtually $50 the amount of customization is an abysmal joke. Sure, you can toy around with the physical appearance of your avatar (their physical body), but other than that and dyes, you're left with a extremely lackluster customization for something you just blew $50 on. Lets also mention that you'll be spending another $10-20+ on the cash-shop cosmetics that for the most part look ridiculous.

    As most Korean MMO's are, they utilize gear enhancement. This game doesn't focus on skill, and rather focuses on who can camp and grind PvE for hours upon hours on end to enhance to +15 and above. Achieving such enhancements simply because you have less of a life than most people, and then entering into PvP where your "skill" (gear) will be made apparent is what does it for many people.

    To top it all off, this game has severe connectivity issues on the NA servers. Constant disconnects as well as authentication errors frequently make grinding out in this game that much more annoying when you're constantly having to relaunch your client.

    All in all, the only positive thing about this game are the graphics. Sure, there's some variety in this game, things that have already been done and quite honestly if I wanted to fish, i'd go to RuneScape and grind out a few hundred hours for 99.

    Maybe if their customer support and game-policy wasn't such an utter joke, I would have considered recommending this to a friend.

    Like many Korean MMO's, I really don't see this game lasting as many years as other more successful MMO's.
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  33. Oct 19, 2019
    3
    A good example of a fun and good MMORPG getting ruined for the sake of extracting every single conceivable penny out of the player base. The game is fun and looks amazing with a few caveats.

    Updates to old classes are rare. They mostly focus on freshly released classes and make sure they are in a good spot balance-wise and get new paid outfits (although even this was in decline lately).
    A good example of a fun and good MMORPG getting ruined for the sake of extracting every single conceivable penny out of the player base. The game is fun and looks amazing with a few caveats.

    Updates to old classes are rare. They mostly focus on freshly released classes and make sure they are in a good spot balance-wise and get new paid outfits (although even this was in decline lately). Older classes get largely neglected (DK, Valk, War, Kuno, Maehwa, Tamer, Ranger) and rarely get any fixes or costumes.

    Events have been using lots of recycled old rewards, rarely we get anything substantially new for Christmas/Halloween/etc.. It's mostly stuff from several years ago.

    Enhancing. It's the only means of gear progression (besides just buying what other people enhance for disproportionally more) and it's made to be as frustrating and infuriating as possible. It's made to irritate and frustrate the player to the point when buying some outfits to melt for enhancing "protection" starts to sound like a great idea. This is where they try to milk you dry. Repairing gear? 1 memory fragment restores 1/100 durability, unless you buy with $$ some Artisan Memories, and even then it takes a good amount. Upgrading past DUO? Gear will downgrade on failing unless you use Cron Stones ("protection") that you either get from melting paid outfits or buy using silver (although it's much worse ratio than buying outfits from the market that other players sell for silver). But even then the conversion rate of $ or your time to crons is awful. Of course, you don't have to spend a dime on any of this, but what people forget to say is that your experience with the game will vary depending on how much you spend. If you don't spend odds are it will be miserable. Alternatively, you can elect to upgrade your gear using Caphras stones, but this will take disproportionately longer than enhancing to the point of not really being viable.

    If they introduced more fail protection to enhancing and reduced Cron Stone prices from in-game vendors to make them worth buying over outfit melting it would improve the game a lot. If they started releasing new outfits and balance changes for older classes instead of having Artisans memory sales it would make BDO a really good MMORPG.

    I would not advise getting anywhere near this game if you are an impulsive person or have gambling problems - it will attempt to exploit you at every turn.
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  34. May 22, 2016
    3
    BDO :: the POP-IN Simulator™ ©®

    I simply can't recommend this game in its current state: the 3d rendering is terrible, while walking or running 3d objects will pop in all the time, not only players but mostly grass, trees, buildings.. whatever... After popping-in the 3d model will switch from low to high just in front of you: if you'll walk towards a tree you'll see it suddenly
    BDO :: the POP-IN Simulator™ ©®

    I simply can't recommend this game in its current state: the 3d rendering is terrible, while walking or running 3d objects will pop in all the time, not only players but mostly grass, trees, buildings.. whatever...

    After popping-in the 3d model will switch from low to high just in front of you: if you'll walk towards a tree you'll see it suddenly changing shape and textures.

    If you stand still you'll notice that the shadows of buildings and grass are not dynamic: they get updated with some interval and the new shadow position will pop-in without any transition or sort of effect to hide the annoyance.

    The graphic options the game provides are simple "presets": you cannot change anything to avoid the pop-in issues. This is how the game works now even on high end PCs.

    I never saw anything like that in any kind of MMO even if I go back with my mind to 2004.

    The gear progression in the endgame is RNG based and imo really frustrating atm.
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  35. Sep 20, 2016
    3
    I pay 30€ to this game and i completely regret, boring, unoriginal, pay per win, you have to play like 10 hours to get some weapon or armor and it can be ugly as hell. The gameplay dont have nothing new and you are always grinding, killing 20 monsters o gathering 20 flowers, again and again. The main quest its the same but with some easy and tipical boss. It have some things original likeI pay 30€ to this game and i completely regret, boring, unoriginal, pay per win, you have to play like 10 hours to get some weapon or armor and it can be ugly as hell. The gameplay dont have nothing new and you are always grinding, killing 20 monsters o gathering 20 flowers, again and again. The main quest its the same but with some easy and tipical boss. It have some things original like taming a horse but its almost impossible find a horse, theres is one for every hundred players and even if you find it and you are alone you can lose the minigame losing the horse and the money for the ropes. You can navigate with a boat and fishing but its really hard to get the first boat and when you are fishing literally you dont do nothing. I give the game a 3 because the graphics (not bad for a mmo) but overall its a boring grinding game like a lot others you can play for free. Expand
  36. Mar 13, 2019
    3
    Un excelente juego empañado por un sin fin de problemas de planeamiento e implementación.

    - Primero: Es un Pay To Win. Pues todo el proceso de mejorar tu PJ va destinado al endgame del juego que es el pvp, y como podes comprar cosas con dinero real para sacar ventaja, pagando tienes ventaja. - Segundo: El juego te propone que inviertas dinero en él de forma MUY AGRESIVA. Okay, es un
    Un excelente juego empañado por un sin fin de problemas de planeamiento e implementación.

    - Primero: Es un Pay To Win. Pues todo el proceso de mejorar tu PJ va destinado al endgame del juego que es el pvp, y como podes comprar cosas con dinero real para sacar ventaja, pagando tienes ventaja.

    - Segundo: El juego te propone que inviertas dinero en él de forma MUY AGRESIVA.
    Okay, es un juego coreano, allá por Asia la gente es MUY ADICTA y se deja todo su sueldo en videojuegos de este estilo. Pero vamos, que Asia no es el resto del mundo y si quieres sacarlo en otros paises no podes implementar las políticas abusivas de tu país en ellos. (Miren a Warframe, que es el juego con el sistema de monetizacion más light que he visto en mi vida. Lo juego hace 2 años y ya tengo todos los cosméticos sin haber pagado nunca, y según datos financieros de Steam 2018, Warframe fue el segundo juego de TODO Steam en más recaudar dinero dicho año. ¿Por qué será que Black Desert no estuvo en la lista a pesar de estar en steam?).

    Voy a seguir justificando por qué creo (por no decir "Es así") que este sistema es abusivo. Primero, hay MUCHISIMAS cosas en las que podrías invertir TANTAS horas en conseguir, que terminarías generando más gasto en electricidad que simplemente pagando por ello con dinero real. (Por dar un ejemplo MUY simple, la cantidad de peso que puedes llevar en tu inventario. Si quieres aumentarla debes mejorar el atributo fuerza, que por cierto tarda SEMANAS en levelear lo suficiente como para darte 50LT de peso extra, y es sumamente aburrido porque para hacerlo tienes que sobrecargar a tu personaje y correr. Eso es todo, sobrecargarlo y correr HORAS y DIAS y SEMANAS... Para conseguir solo +50LT, lo cual es MUY poco porque un cinturón pedorro te da +60LT extra. Ah, pero luego si quieres pagar con dinero real claro que puedes aumentarla al instante y en cantidades mucho más atractivas, como por ejemplo puedes comprar 1000 perlas (moneda de pago) y gastando 540 perlas consigues +250LT instantáneamente. +250LT por 5,40 dolares estadounidenses, o sino mantiendo la PC encendida SEMANAS generando gasto de componentes y eletricidad dejando a tu personaje corriendo para conseguir simplemente +50LT. (Que por cierto, a partir de esa cantidad se pone DIFICILISIMO relevar, porque cada nuevo nivel requiere x10 más de XP que el anterior, y que por consecuente requiere x10 más de tiempo que el anterior).

    - Tercero: Agregaron un modo battle royale llamado "Shadow Arena". Realmente es atractivo, pues hay cofres por todos lados y lo que looteas se transforma en equipo mientras juegas, y en dinero una vez terminas esa partida Battle Royale.
    ¿Cual es el problema de esto?... Pues hay más de uno. Primero el hecho de que no está siempre abierto, y que de hecho múltiples veces durante el día no lo está, (y de madrugada JAMAS lo está).
    Además no ocurren ciertas cosas que DEBERIAN. 1) Jamas te avisan que no está abierto siempre, tuve que preguntarle a amigos para saber por que razón me tiraba error. 2) Cuando está cerrado ell botón para entrar no se bloquea, por lo que no sabes si está disponible o no y clickear en él, te deja entrar, entra a una pantalla de carga, luego te pone el menú del modo de juego, le das a "Jugar", se pone a cargar otra vez, y recién ahí te dice, "Shadow Arena couldn't open". Osea "Shadow arena no se pudo abrir". No te dice "No esta disponible", dice "No se pudo abrir". Bien... Excelente mensaje. Tras darte cuenta por este cartel que no puedes entrar, solo te queda poner "Salir" y OTRA VEZ entra a una pantalla de carga y al terminar recién ahí puedes seguir con lo que estuvieras haciendo. (Es prueba y error todo el tiempo para ver si en algún momento está abierto o no. patético, terrible diseño, porque ni siquiera dan bien las intrucciones de a que horarios está abierto).

    - Cuarto: La traducción. Yo no sé que mierda hicieron, pero la traducción al español está hecha por un mono borracho, o literalmente metieron todo en un traductor y listo, a poner todo lo que el traductor diga. ES MUY MALA, tanto que múltiples veces no entiendes ni que carajos intenta decirte un NPC, y cito una conversación (este tipo de calidad de dialogas se repite constantemente), "Por favor a que le des prisa a que le haga la entrega el capullo". En realidad lo que este NPC quería decir era "Por favor dile que se apresure con la entrega DEL capullo", y se refería a un capullo de tela, (lo cual entendí recién al terminar de hacer la misión, porque con ese diálogo no sabia ni que mierda tenia que hacer).

    Quinto: No puedes sprintar hasta que la barra se carga toda, (aunque tengas mas de la mitad), y acabarás muriendo por esto (sobre todo en pvp cuando te persiguen).

    -----------------------------------------------------

    No tengo mucho más que agregar. Es un juego el cual disfruto mucho la mitad de las veces, y la otra mitad me dan ganas desinstar.
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  37. Aug 28, 2018
    3
    TL;DR: BDO is a full­time job you don't get paid for, but instead asks you for money.

    Still a Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Win game in it's core with a entry fee. No meaningful PvE content !. PvP with huge balance problems, exploits and server lags !. It is not rewarding at all. Almost all quest, event, loyalty, returning, login and what not rewards are crap. Pray to RNG to get something
    TL;DR: BDO is a full­time job you don't get paid for, but instead asks you for money.

    Still a Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Win game in it's core with a entry fee.
    No meaningful PvE content !.
    PvP with huge balance problems, exploits and server lags !.
    It is not rewarding at all. Almost all quest, event, loyalty, returning, login and what not rewards are crap. Pray to RNG to get something usefull !.
    To many stacking advantages behind a paywall to reduce the annoyness. Some of them you can optain in the market with ingame currency and a ~0,0000001% chance... if they even appear at all.
    No visual changes on your character unless you pay, after hundrets of hrs you look as someone who just started the game.
    The few outfits you can craft look ugly af and the once you get for a short time don't count. Also always the same that no one wants.
    (you'll end up easly with a few hundret bucks for a semi-normal gaming expiriance.)

    While the combat is one - if not the best out of every MMORPG out there
    (and I hate all tab-targeting MMO's, this and ESO were the closest to a somewhat singleplayer experience I've found), everything else in this "game" is designed to waste your time as much as possible, timers and long♥♥♥♥♥animations behind almost every action you do like a stupid free mobile game and most rewarding with AFK activites everyone uses macros and/or bots.
    The world feels alive but at the same time, almost every player is AFK or set to autopilot because no fast travel and lifeskill.

    (aka - the game you will barly play, if you want to progress, only background / second monitor.)

    Have fun wasting time with killing the same mobs 10^12 times on the same spot, just to reach one level endgame and making a bit gold for RNG gear progression, that whenever it deciteds do fail, makes you grind for another dozen of hours and at the end, you'd never catch up unless you dedicate your life to it and your wallet. - the game.

    Not to mention the utterly bad optimization, servers and pop-in / draw distance issues.
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  38. Sep 30, 2017
    3
    (Gameplay)
    Combat is the whole game that it defined it for everything in this game besides this is either dull or good or terrible.
    (Graphics) Best graphics for this generation of mmos, it has good immersion, npcs, enemies, structures, textures, buildings, etc. (System) The system like enhancing is really bad, equipment downgrades after reaching DUO gear level and nobody even
    (Gameplay)
    Combat is the whole game that it defined it for everything in this game besides this is either dull or good or terrible.

    (Graphics)
    Best graphics for this generation of mmos, it has good immersion, npcs, enemies, structures, textures, buildings, etc.

    (System)
    The system like enhancing is really bad, equipment downgrades after reaching DUO gear level and nobody even likes this system. You have to build fail stacks to increase your chance of succeeding just to get your gear another level. You don't feel you even progressed even after months of grinding and repetitive questing. The whole game is based RNG, nothing in this game is guaranteed of gaining even if you're a veteran or not.

    A lot of important stats are hidden such as accuracy and dmg, you won't know if you're doing enough damage neither if you are doing so much. It's all a guessing game of agony when you are doing PvP, and PvE. There is an attendance system where it gives rewards that are not useful as a lot of the ones that they give either need you to play forever to gain, or you already can get them easily. The game doesn't explain to you if you are using the correct tools to mine, or use any gathering due to lazy devs.

    (Balance and Content)
    PvE is basically just kill trash mobs all game, there are world bosses and guild bosses you can do with people and that is just it. There is only 1 dungeon in the game that needs you to be completely high end gear and high level that takes forever to get. Plus you need 5 other people with the same type of requirements. There is a new PvE content in the game that you can just teleport to and it is very dull content. The mechanics are shoot birds with guns, slice and dice ground mobs, it is basically a horde mode.

    PvP is a mess of unbalancing and lag, nobody will get a fair fight as gear and level will always determine which person will win. There will sometimes be an rare occasion where your opponent will be in an equal level as you are, the classes almost never gotten any nerfs as dark knights can 1 shot you with or without gear, warriors will pummel you without any skill involved, etc. Desync will happen a lot, as if you used a warrior grab on someone they might be just behind you instead of your animation happening, or on their screen their behind you but you just grabbed them and knocked them down.

    Node wars and big PvP battles are such a cluster fk, you don't know what is happening and there is only 1 thing you can only do. Go from point A to point B and destroy their tower and nobody even knows if anyone will win by sheer numbers or outgearing. There is PvP protection such as Karma when if you kill a player the pker will get deducted for it, once it reaches negative their name will go red and they can get attacked from anyone even if they have pk off.

    (Mechanics)
    By the time you start in the game your whole screen will be filled with so much crap, you won't even know what is on your screen. You won't even know how to turn some of them off and some cannot be turned off. You have to look it up online. Horse mechanics are good, as horses can be bred and they all have skills that boosts your horse speed. But the bad thing is that you have to level them up to get them and it is RNG if you can get a useless or good skill, or no skill at all.

    Pets only loot 1 mob just for a cooldown of 10 seconds, the cooldown lowers as they level up. Pets provide bonus stats that increases exp gain, life skill gain, mob tracking, etc. Breeding any of pets will make you lose 1 in return of a chance of getting a higher tier pet. Horses need to be bred at the horse breeding market, the many deaths affects the chance on getting a higher tier horse.

    (P2W)
    Yes this game is p2w, you have to either buy pets to rid of the problem of spamming R to loot is either by spending months of trying to snipe pets from the market. You can pay $40 just to get 4 of the maximum pets you can get. Artisan Memories are another way to save silver on enhancing weapons, armor, accessories. They can only be bought at the pearl shot for 50 Pearls, this can be a ton of money if you only plan on enhancing and saving silver for your next upgrades. Complete now buttons have been added to worker builds to speed up on getting millions of silver by selling crates. The amount of time remaining will determine how much Pearls will be deducted.

    (Community)
    The community is really awful as players don't even care if they kill your horse, and they will cry about it if you kill theirs. A lot of the chat is based on flaming and trolling, everyone you encounter in a popular grind spot will attempt to kill you if they see you. People use karma bombing as letting them pk you so you can harass them for being dumb to do it.

    (Conclusion)
    There is so much more I can say but I am already limited. Do not buy this game if you do not want to waste time.
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  39. Mar 5, 2019
    3
    Worst MMO I have played. No explanation of any systems other than basic movement, camera and starting skill set. Combat is some strange system I have never come across. Kill things until your "knowledge" increases so that you do more damage. This is done AD NAUSEUM for every creature you come across. I only paid for the $10 version - and I wish I could get my money back. Stay far away.
  40. Mar 18, 2019
    3
    I can write a long list of positives. But I stay by the main reason I am interested in this game. Its the unique constellation of a good Fight system with a interesting Life-skill system for one goal, Top Gear.
    Unfortunately this game moves more to P2W. But you can work around.
    The Negatives overshadow the positives with time. Technical issues, like Server lags and crashes are not
    I can write a long list of positives. But I stay by the main reason I am interested in this game. Its the unique constellation of a good Fight system with a interesting Life-skill system for one goal, Top Gear.
    Unfortunately this game moves more to P2W. But you can work around.
    The Negatives overshadow the positives with time.
    Technical issues, like Server lags and crashes are not getting fixed. Now people with older Windows versions cant access to the new Market. Trade items in the trade window are not loading. NPCs are not accessable. Quest Rewards cant be accepted afer finishing a Quest.
    Event Quests cant be finished for unknown reason and many more!
    But the most frustrating issues are by design. To make money you need to do a lot of AFK. People keep they computer on for days to process close to the town storage. if you somebody with connection issues, you cant open your storage because of lags and crashes.
    You die because of this and lose xp, you earned grinding for a hurtful amount of time.

    After 1,5 years of playing this game more or less active, I found out that without an extreme specialisation supported by micro-transactions, its pretty hard to reach the top. Nothing new for MMOs. But I start playing BDO, because of its unique mechanics.
    Its fun to do what your mood suggest you or follow a plan. But after time you realise its pointless and exhausting. The many silly unnecessary design flaws in the Quests and game mechanics are frustrating. Sometimes they seem to be installed to force us to take the shortcut buying stuff in the Shop.
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  41. Apr 1, 2021
    3
    Complete trash. P2W af. Buying this game will just waste your money. —————-
  42. Nov 22, 2021
    3
    if you're like me you grew up with MMOs giving you armor for doing various things around the world. all these pieces would look different and give a certain uniqueness to your character and the looks. now take bdo this game takes that idea and puts a price on it. real cash. now normally thats fine but your base game has maybe 4 unique armor looks? and you need to be a member to change theif you're like me you grew up with MMOs giving you armor for doing various things around the world. all these pieces would look different and give a certain uniqueness to your character and the looks. now take bdo this game takes that idea and puts a price on it. real cash. now normally thats fine but your base game has maybe 4 unique armor looks? and you need to be a member to change the color it leads to everyone lookong the same and feeling like the only way to stand out is to open your wallet and that is just sad to see imo solid 3/10 for me Expand
  43. Mar 17, 2022
    3
    Beauty graphics, one of the best fighting combos, 10x better than Elden Ring but:
    - boring, and too easy at beginning.
    - story - bad
    - too much pay to gear or furniture currencies
  44. May 28, 2016
    2
    Many people prize this game for being sandbox mmorpg. Well it aint sandbox and feels more like single player online than mmorpg. Have you ever seen sandbox mmorpg with no player-2-player trading or fixed market prices?

    When we think of sandbox mmorpg we imagine an opportinity to become whatever we like to be in that world. A warrior, an alchemist, a dedicated blacksmith for our guild,
    Many people prize this game for being sandbox mmorpg. Well it aint sandbox and feels more like single player online than mmorpg. Have you ever seen sandbox mmorpg with no player-2-player trading or fixed market prices?

    When we think of sandbox mmorpg we imagine an opportinity to become whatever we like to be in that world. A warrior, an alchemist, a dedicated blacksmith for our guild, the guy to every guildie comes for a masterfully crafted equipment, part of a trading empire guild, crafting artisans, warriors, mercenaries etc. whatever we like to specialise and dedicate to. In BDO however everyone have to be everything and do stuff for themselves. Most of the time the effort and even ingredients for crafting stuff outweight the price devs fixed for the product on the market (this is just absurd). Its a sad sight to see game with plenty of proffesions have communist-like marketplace with empty shelves, cause naturally noone is bothered to give away stuff for no profit.

    Giving it 2/10 cause it kept me interested untill i realised i am playing an illusion of sandbox mmorpg, that is in fact just content-poor, cheap theme park, old "KAL Online" like mmorpg with tones of grind which is the very same path for everyone. You go the same single-player path of grind all the rest of the players go, like a lemmings. And on top of that the ultra cheap money grabs everywhere, like the retail price wasnt enough for this thing. You dont want to pay more than the retail price? Fine, just do everything 5 times slower than those who did. No pay2win whatsoever, no... Well in fact... it aint pay2win, cause its a single player :D
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  45. Nov 21, 2016
    2
    Technically forced PvP; it can be avoided through counterintuitive measures. Graphics are pretty, especially during character creation, but load times are ridiculous. The game crashed three times before I could even get to character creation, then twice more trying to join the server. Even the launcher was unstable, occasionally failing to load the login form.
  46. Mar 4, 2016
    2
    I find that the games icons are confusing and cheesy voice overs are embarrassing to listen to. I get the sense of an inferior product as there doesn't seem to be much player cooperation in the game and everything is much too easy to kill. Leveling up was so quick and then there was nothing to do except pvp. I find the character graphics as good as they say but the world is blurry in theI find that the games icons are confusing and cheesy voice overs are embarrassing to listen to. I get the sense of an inferior product as there doesn't seem to be much player cooperation in the game and everything is much too easy to kill. Leveling up was so quick and then there was nothing to do except pvp. I find the character graphics as good as they say but the world is blurry in the distance and the pop in on all settings is really bad. It's like a really broken version of the Arcania Gothic 4 graphics engine but ends up looking less attractive as a result. I think the steady solid graphics of Rift and Wow are more appealing. All the icons and wibbly screen effects in this confuse the eyes. For 4k gamers in particular the game only runs in 24 frames per second when you choose 4k. Expand
  47. Jan 31, 2018
    2
    I had pretty much mixed feelings about this game, but the more i discovered about it, the more disappointed i became.

    - All the initial phases of the game are way too easy, you can just go on, aggro an indefinite amount of monsters and grind them off without even losing HP, there is no punishment for poor-playing at least for the first 50 levels of the game, no risk, no real feelings
    I had pretty much mixed feelings about this game, but the more i discovered about it, the more disappointed i became.

    - All the initial phases of the game are way too easy, you can just go on, aggro an indefinite amount of monsters and grind them off without even losing HP, there is no punishment for poor-playing at least for the first 50 levels of the game, no risk, no real feelings besides the "omg, i can grind everything" one. That becomes boring pretty fast.
    - Developers are greedy, and the game is pay2win: you can buy a lot of stuff from the premium shop that you can directly resell for silvers, that way you can have any amount of currency based on your credit card. On top of that, there is no room for trading between players, everything is strictly controlled and restricted, prices on AH are controlled, you can't even give an item you don't need to a friend. All of this to prevent goldsellers, except the game itself is run by goldsellers, and they are just ruining the game experience for everyone to insure they have no competitors, no better than a mobile game does.
    - Many things are very complicated for no real reason: The whole nodes/worker/city system is needlessly complicated, you just have to master it in order to accomplish nothing more than having a daily silver income, which creates nothing but inflation of the economy.

    The whole game seems like a very complex and deeply structured living economy and crafting environment, but it only seems so, once broken down, it's actually not at all.

    The whole purpose of the game is "appearing".

    Fights appear complicated, skill based, fast and intriguing, it's not really so.
    Markets and economy appear to be very sandboxy, free and complex, they aren't at all.
    Characters appear to be very customizable, it's not so.
    Graphic style is kinda trash, involves a lot of different styles and comes up as the usual popular-mmo-laughable-mixup of pseudo-fantasy and trash.

    Nothing is there to actually keeping me playing the game. and it was overall a big disappointment.
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  48. Mar 7, 2016
    2
    No dungeons. No raids. No endgame. What is the point of gearing up? Guess I will go to max level because I was forced to buy this free to play game....
  49. Mar 7, 2016
    2
    I was really looking forward to this game, but I have to say I am disappointed. Character creation is quite nice and very detailed - but gender locked classes was a bit annoying. However, that was the best bit - it is really all downhill from there. The game itself is a mess. Confusing and cluttered UI, glitchy graphics, lag, lighting effects where you can't see what the hell is going onI was really looking forward to this game, but I have to say I am disappointed. Character creation is quite nice and very detailed - but gender locked classes was a bit annoying. However, that was the best bit - it is really all downhill from there. The game itself is a mess. Confusing and cluttered UI, glitchy graphics, lag, lighting effects where you can't see what the hell is going on half the time. Combat looks quite good but is way too easy. Maybe this changes at higher levels, but even the first boss fight with the Giant Imp required no thought, planning or skill. Quests are boring and unimaginative and text and voice acting is truly awful. Steer well clear - this will be F2P soon. Expand
  50. Mar 5, 2016
    2
    The Bad..
    Voice and text are not matching.
    The black spirit... who thought that whine when summoned was a good idea.
    Mobs die in one hit.. then at the first real fight with the summoned imp you almost die... very strange.
    So many systems in place, that are just diffrent grinds?
    I got the most fun out of the character generator, then it fell apart after that...
  51. Sep 25, 2017
    2
    while the game in itself could have a great future it's plagued by Micro-transactions and a heavy dose of RNG, while at the same time there is also backwards progression that results in your effort, time and money, going to waste on this game and will only leave you with frustration and a bad taste in the mouth.
  52. Mar 7, 2016
    2
    BDO gets a lot of the basics right which give it a lot of attention. However it lacks a true end game and has too much in the way the game has become pay to win. Furthermore, they turned a F2P game from KR into a Western Buy to Play game with a Free to play cash shop.

    Its really starting to feel that these KR ports are becoming cash grabs from the unsuspecting western audience that is
    BDO gets a lot of the basics right which give it a lot of attention. However it lacks a true end game and has too much in the way the game has become pay to win. Furthermore, they turned a F2P game from KR into a Western Buy to Play game with a Free to play cash shop.

    Its really starting to feel that these KR ports are becoming cash grabs from the unsuspecting western audience that is too willing to forgive in order to fill a gap in the current MMO market for open world gameplay.
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  53. Jun 15, 2016
    2
    This game looks great in still frames. Looks OK in most Utube reviews. The game seems like it has a lot of depth. And after you make the purchase and download it you will find out what it's really about. A whole lot of nothing. The combat is weak, the quests are typical. Trying to figure out how to develop your work force or even how to go about the conversation mini-game takes way moreThis game looks great in still frames. Looks OK in most Utube reviews. The game seems like it has a lot of depth. And after you make the purchase and download it you will find out what it's really about. A whole lot of nothing. The combat is weak, the quests are typical. Trying to figure out how to develop your work force or even how to go about the conversation mini-game takes way more effort than it should and don't expect any help from the community. I spent 10 minutes trying to get a simple answer to one of the games many convoluted features to no avail. In short, the game sucks and only rates a 3 because of the graphics (which aren't stellar). I'm sorry I wasted my money on it. Maybe you will be too. Expand
  54. Jul 13, 2016
    2
    PvP-centric game, there is no PvE content. Despite this the pvp is pretty bad, balance issues, server lag and desync, gear>>>>>>skill.
    You are required to grind mobs in the world and gather flowers for most of your play time if you want to do anything and not get 1-shotted on sight in pvp. Do your research before purchasing the game, you'll regret it dearly if you don't.
  55. Aug 24, 2016
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I had a number of level 50+ characters with my main being a level 58 ranger before I decided to sell my account and call it quits. The game is visually pleasing... but its designed for no lifers that play 24/7 in order to be competitive. Its a waste of time for those that have a job and families to consider. On top of this there are people using hacks and expliots to get ahead (Pyx and Others) so there fair gameplay is missing. It was kind of a dissappointment for me to be honest. I played in the NA/Europe region which is the only region that needs to buy the game in order to play it.... on top of that you have to buy cashshop items in order to be competitive. Overall a visially nice game but not very well designed against hackers and for those that have jobs... for me it was a dissappointment Expand
  56. Nov 24, 2016
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Outstanding graphics, world and physics of movement. So why I put a low score? The gameplay is simply terrible. There is very limited multiplayer PvE content. And the PvP is instanced, or not rewarded. Most of the game is singleplayer grind of resources and easy monsters. The quests are linear, repetitive and blind. The rewards are RNG. The immersion is eroded by the costumes and the animations. I mean the world has a clear landmark from Europe in XVI century. But many costumes and animations are anime alike. Most of the gameplay is grind, the rest is gambling for RNG rewards. And most important, nothing you do has any consequences to the world or the other players. In conclusion, The Black Desert is a massive online singleplayer game or MSO, instead MMO. It looks great, the movement in the game feels great, but the grind is endless and in general pointless. Anyway, if you like Diablo type of games, on easy mode, you may like The Black Desert too. And there is some PvP in addition. For me personally the open world and the amount of players online are pointless, when the game is actually singleplayer. Expand
  57. Feb 5, 2019
    2
    Keeping it short.
    The game had potential but nobody expected something better from Korean Devs.
    P2W elements are everywhere, from enchanting to even leveling your horse. The punishment system is ridiculus, encouraging people to abuse it over a spot, sending others to jail. The community is toxic, rush-ish. RNG and Grinding is everywhere
  58. Apr 22, 2018
    2
    pro: Great scenery, great combat UI, and mostly ok other stuff. (crafting, trade, ...)

    con: RNG enhancing system, lots of information hiding, and unexplained UI features (no reliable manual) The game was on average OK because of the combat system. This lasted 1.5 months. Then several bugs happened at the same time they introduced a new event. Bugs included a memory leak (>58GB) and
    pro: Great scenery, great combat UI, and mostly ok other stuff. (crafting, trade, ...)

    con: RNG enhancing system, lots of information hiding, and unexplained UI features (no reliable manual)

    The game was on average OK because of the combat system. This lasted 1.5 months. Then several bugs happened at the same time they introduced a new event. Bugs included a memory leak (>58GB) and another that caused instantaneous failure (the game was running and then vanished, poof). Playable for short periods only.

    The so called support was some of the worst I have ever dealt with. Common sense would suggest gathering details (e.g. log files) , clarifying details that are uncertain, and then recommending fixes. This is not how they work. Instead, they instantly recommend an action based on a single word. In most cases the action was irrelevant and that action involved serious matters that could have severe negative effects on the system (adjusting page files, installing 3rd party software to mess with the registry). Nuclear options if you will. My system was fine, and their "fixes" put my system at risk.

    Later, I went to their forum and discovered that several other users were experiencing the exact issues I was, and they had already pointed out that the exact same "fixes" were inappropriate (posted data and screen shots). Yet, the same support person had no problem recommending those "fixes" to me.

    Add insincere to superficial and nuclear.

    Buyer beware
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  59. Mar 9, 2020
    2
    Farming and grinding game.

    0 gear variety

    0 coop conteny

    Atleast was free for me
  60. Jul 28, 2023
    2
    Black Desert used to be a good game. Unfortunately, the developers went in the wrong direction. They introduced equalization during sieges, cuts.
    They devalued the achievements of the players.
    They have moved away from the open world. The latest update completely removes PVP in the game. It makes no sense to improve the character. Don't start playing BDO - now it's a game without
    Black Desert used to be a good game. Unfortunately, the developers went in the wrong direction. They introduced equalization during sieges, cuts.
    They devalued the achievements of the players.
    They have moved away from the open world.
    The latest update completely removes PVP in the game. It makes no sense to improve the character.
    Don't start playing BDO - now it's a game without meaning and interest.
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  61. Mar 17, 2016
    1
    I came back to give this game a lower score/review. I had uninstalled it and decided to re-install it. Despite its bugginess, the general lack of enemy AI that I had seen, and all the other issues, I figured I'd give it another chance.

    Well, upon creating a new character, I loaded into the game and found that every single one of my key bindings, including the Escape button to bring up
    I came back to give this game a lower score/review. I had uninstalled it and decided to re-install it. Despite its bugginess, the general lack of enemy AI that I had seen, and all the other issues, I figured I'd give it another chance.

    Well, upon creating a new character, I loaded into the game and found that every single one of my key bindings, including the Escape button to bring up the menu to re-bind the keys, as well as the mouse buuttons, had been unbound.

    Currently there's no way within the game to re-bind the keys, so the game is completely unplayable. This game breaking, massive bug, on top of all the other issue I encountered and the utterly lack-luster combat system that I had seen, earn the game a dismal 1/10.
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  62. Apr 29, 2018
    1
    Don't waste your time on this garbage. There are no dungeons. There is one set of final armor to get for all classes. That's right everyone has the same gear set in the end lol. You pay to look different even thou you have the same armor. You can buy the final BOSS armor with real money via buying and selling cash shop costumes. You can also just log in daily and collect 10 tokens a monthDon't waste your time on this garbage. There are no dungeons. There is one set of final armor to get for all classes. That's right everyone has the same gear set in the end lol. You pay to look different even thou you have the same armor. You can buy the final BOSS armor with real money via buying and selling cash shop costumes. You can also just log in daily and collect 10 tokens a month and you'll get it in a few months. That's right folks, you don't have to ever kill 1 mob in order to get the best gear in the game. The ONLY reason you do anything in the game including combat is to get money to upgrade the BOSS gear and that's it...Yep NO END game, no dungeons, no nothing except unfair PvP at to take points in the world to , guess what, make more money.....there is 0 substance to this trash pile. Expand
  63. Mar 6, 2016
    1
    Pay to Win, Breast sliders and fetch quests, i think that sums up the game after leveling to 50.

    Don't get me started on the black spirit which is easily the worst part of the game.
  64. Mar 3, 2016
    1
    The game have their classes gender locked. Meaning that if you want to play as a specific class, you are forced to play either a little asian girl or - if you are a Bezerker - a huge monstrous man.

    People are defending it by saying its "in the lore" which in all RPG's is a **** excuse to limit player customization and personal choice. If only the female gender can pick up a bow in Black
    The game have their classes gender locked. Meaning that if you want to play as a specific class, you are forced to play either a little asian girl or - if you are a Bezerker - a huge monstrous man.

    People are defending it by saying its "in the lore" which in all RPG's is a **** excuse to limit player customization and personal choice. If only the female gender can pick up a bow in Black Desert the "lore" is a **** disaster.

    I never made a character. I usually play spellcasters in games, and I was limited to the choice of being an old man. The game is Korean. It shows. A lot of skimpy dressed pretty females fighting monsters.
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  65. Mar 27, 2016
    1
    The first several hours are fun...but then once you realize that all the "complexity" of this game is just a mask. Grows very, very boring very quickly. The voices and sounds of this game will annoy you beyond belief. It is not p2w whatsoever, though, so I did offer it a 1 instead of a 0.
  66. Sep 9, 2016
    1
    After having close to 83 in game days spent with this game, I think I can give an honest review. To start off I want to say I truly loved this game, the graphics are really good, and game play in general feels very satisfying since there is so much to do here, such as: Fishing, Grinding (for levels, gear, silver, items etc.), Farming, NPC Trading, Hunting, Cooking, Alchemy, Crafting, myAfter having close to 83 in game days spent with this game, I think I can give an honest review. To start off I want to say I truly loved this game, the graphics are really good, and game play in general feels very satisfying since there is so much to do here, such as: Fishing, Grinding (for levels, gear, silver, items etc.), Farming, NPC Trading, Hunting, Cooking, Alchemy, Crafting, my favorite Horse training/breeding (to get nice mounts), Gathering, and so much more. Leveling is fairly easy up until 50 by grinding since it is the best way of leveling. Past 50 leveling will become slower but there are costumes you can buy with $30 that give +10% experience, and you can also buy consumables to boost experience. Gear has no level cap so a level 1 could have the best gear if they had the money or a main.

    There are two important systems implemented in this game which are your Energy pool, and Contribution Points that also spread to all the characters created withing your family name on the server of your choosing (meaning, at the start of the game you choose a family name that all the characters you create will have, and all those characters also share your energy pool and contribution points, as well as warehouse space/items, pets etc.). Your energy pool increases from knowledge you gather as you explore new areas, fight new monsters, talk to new NPC's, discover new recipes, etc . You use energy every time you gather materials through mining, woodcutting, butchering animals for meat, and cutting their hides, and more. You also use energy leveling nodes(areas you discover on the map that you can connect with contribution points) to get better drop rates when grinding or more resources with workers assigned to gather there.

    Contribution points you get from doing normal and daily quests. The more CP you have the better off you are, especially if you want to build yourself a big workers empire or trade route empire. You can use CP to connect nodes and then use energy to level them up, or rent equipment from NPC's.

    There is still so much I did not mention in here, such as housing, decorating your houses, having maids you can buy with real money, pets, horse armor, dying pretty much every piece of equipment, and so much more. There is a lot in this game but a huge part of this game ties down to money. Luckily I did not spend much on this game other than the $100 Conqueror founder pack, a couple of costumes, one of which is quite P2W (the ghillie suit which hides your name and HP in PVP and makes it really hard for players to see you), and a few pets. That being said, I will never spend another penny in this game.

    Before launch in an interview the company stated how they will make the game buy to play, and that they were against P2W elements but they are OK with "pay for convenience" through a cash shop implementation. A lot of players bought into the Founder packages (myself included). Before you could even start playing the game, you had to agree to an agreement at the start screen which basically said that you give up the rights for a refund if you start playing the game. So you had to accept their game and policies as is.

    Once you play longer, you begin to realize that some of those pay for convenience items are starting to become mandatory unless you want to go through a painful and slow grind. For instance the character you play has a weight limit for how much items you can carry around, and and an inventory space limit. Pretty much every item in the game has a weight attached to it, so if you plan on grinding for long periods of time at once then having a large weight limit is a must in order to have more potions etc. Also a large inventory space is needed since some items that you pick up do not stack up. Oh and unless you plan on picking up every single item that drops from monsters with an animation that takes about 2 seconds to get everything, you will have to spend real money on pets that do that for you automatically, and you can have 4 pets around you doing this.

    So what is the big deal, right? Well 6 months after launch they also introduced a subscription based item you can buy with money or lots of loyalty points that reduces marketplace tax by 30% and a bunch of other goodies (The marketplace/auction house has a 30% tax on everything you sell. This was implemented to stop people from making huge profits on certain items or playing the market, and it kept the economy in place), everyone was against it and before implementing it they were asking for player feedback in the forums to no avail. Then they implemented buying cash shop items with money and selling them at the marketplace for silver with a cap of 5 items per week. These items don't sell for much silver "right now" but still having these systems in place made a lot of players feel betrayed, they outraged and a lot quit and started refunds. So now you have a Buy2Play game with F2P elements+Subscription-Based+Pay2
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  67. May 13, 2017
    1
    RNG and also cash shop RNG. Oh also add expensive cash shop. (the game is pay to play)... And is more expensive than others free to play...
    RNG is also in game upgrading all. (Accessories are destroyed if you fail)...
    You can't play this game fine without spend in cash shop such as pets, increase your weigh limit, etc.... This game take your life, if you're new please avoid of playing
    RNG and also cash shop RNG. Oh also add expensive cash shop. (the game is pay to play)... And is more expensive than others free to play...
    RNG is also in game upgrading all. (Accessories are destroyed if you fail)...
    You can't play this game fine without spend in cash shop such as pets, increase your weigh limit, etc....
    This game take your life, if you're new please avoid of playing this game.
    This game personally is wrong rate and it should be +18 ages.
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  68. May 14, 2018
    1
    This game boasts beautiful graphics it uses to hook people in. But past that surface beauty this game is a complete mess. I have played the game for 2 years now and up until now it's PvP made up for it's flaws. Now however they have taken the game back to alpha stage and we the players are suffering through a completely broken and unbalanced game. The new devs have turned everything on itsThis game boasts beautiful graphics it uses to hook people in. But past that surface beauty this game is a complete mess. I have played the game for 2 years now and up until now it's PvP made up for it's flaws. Now however they have taken the game back to alpha stage and we the players are suffering through a completely broken and unbalanced game. The new devs have turned everything on its head and are implementing changes nobody asked for.

    Everything users made their class choices based off, their PURCHASES is now invalid. This game was truly a gem for anyone that loved to PvP and even it's lifeskills can be enjoyable and play a role in top end pvp making elixirs etc

    If you buy this game in it's current state you will spend 95% of your time on the floor in a combat system that has been dumbed down beyond belief.
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  69. Jul 22, 2018
    1
    This game has most obnoxious cash shop it made me hate myself for even trying this game out. It gets one point for graphics but theyre not really that good since the game runs terribily on high settings and you need to lower it to play the only "content" that this game has which is pvp because the more frames you have the more damage you deal in pvp somehow. Not to mention pvp is entirelyThis game has most obnoxious cash shop it made me hate myself for even trying this game out. It gets one point for graphics but theyre not really that good since the game runs terribily on high settings and you need to lower it to play the only "content" that this game has which is pvp because the more frames you have the more damage you deal in pvp somehow. Not to mention pvp is entirely gear based with pretty significant imbalances between the classes to the point that even with same gear Class A has no way to win vs Class B no matter what. If youre looking for fun pvp game which BDO was advertised as i cant recommend it. The best way to play it would be to create characters since character creator is pretty neat and then just casually wander around the world, but just forget about being into any sort of competition and pvp since youll need thousands of dollars and hours to achieve that. Expand
  70. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    Imagine an MMORPG whose goal is to improve the strength of equipment and characters, but in which most pvp activities have a huge limits on the level of equipment, and those that do not have are consistently killed by developers. That's what bdo is at the moment.
  71. Nov 25, 2018
    1
    The Launcher is unable to start, the game needs to many resources, finally, very bad programmed, not Win 10 ready.
  72. Jul 16, 2020
    1
    Game has a lot of wasted potential keyword is wasted. Would give a zero but it's actually really beautiful game with some great characters. This game is lousy with RNG madness. Their pearl store is absolutely insanely expensive which there are so many toxic people on here that buy all their equipment to go around and just bully other characters. The chat is one of the worst ones of all theGame has a lot of wasted potential keyword is wasted. Would give a zero but it's actually really beautiful game with some great characters. This game is lousy with RNG madness. Their pearl store is absolutely insanely expensive which there are so many toxic people on here that buy all their equipment to go around and just bully other characters. The chat is one of the worst ones of all the MMOs insanely toxic hardly anything is said that's actually instructive or helpful in any way.customer support is absolutely non-existent in this game especially if you're a PS4 player. game is constantly glitching and freezing even though I have high speed internet. Instead of fixing any of the problems that exist they're just creating new characters just adding on filler and more crap to try and drown out the garbage. it's just soo unfortunate because it if they just fix these issues it'd be a fantastic game. Expand
  73. Sep 6, 2019
    1
    There is a lot of debate about this game being p2w. Being a player since release, my opinion is that it is one of the most pay to win game I've ever played. It can take years to compete with players that pay to win. It is also considered "competitive pvp" for others to camp/harass you for hours. They can even use an NPC to keep finding you if you change servers. Support is rarely helpfulThere is a lot of debate about this game being p2w. Being a player since release, my opinion is that it is one of the most pay to win game I've ever played. It can take years to compete with players that pay to win. It is also considered "competitive pvp" for others to camp/harass you for hours. They can even use an NPC to keep finding you if you change servers. Support is rarely helpful compared to other games in general. Expand
  74. Oct 19, 2019
    1
    Toxic Community. Unhelpful staff. Highly recommend Final Fantasy XIV as an alternative.

    Beware hidden "subscription" features like paid items that increase drop rate and profits for sold items. It's tough to keep up without these. Everything in this game is deigned around a gambling-style RNG system. It's quite clever how much they are able to integrate variable-reward gambling tactics.
    Toxic Community. Unhelpful staff. Highly recommend Final Fantasy XIV as an alternative.

    Beware hidden "subscription" features like paid items that increase drop rate and profits for sold items. It's tough to keep up without these. Everything in this game is deigned around a gambling-style RNG system. It's quite clever how much they are able to integrate variable-reward gambling tactics. You do not want to allow kids to play this.
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  75. Apr 19, 2020
    1
    Progression is based on RNG -> you have a chance to successfully enhance an item, or it fails and goes down in enhancement / destroys itself. You can repair items that you failed at enhancing with shards, but a cash shop item boosts the strength of that shard 5x. You can also buy outfits in the cash shop and sell it for in game gold. This game has lots to offer if you play it like aProgression is based on RNG -> you have a chance to successfully enhance an item, or it fails and goes down in enhancement / destroys itself. You can repair items that you failed at enhancing with shards, but a cash shop item boosts the strength of that shard 5x. You can also buy outfits in the cash shop and sell it for in game gold. This game has lots to offer if you play it like a marathon and don't bother comparing with other players. But if you're looking to get into a MMO and wanting to be competitive in PVP, be ready to grind endlessly waves of mobs (which can be therapeutic) or drop a few G's in the cash shop. Expand
  76. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    Thanks for killing open world pvp. That is what players always asked for. gg
  77. Sep 18, 2021
    1
    Using the term "character customization" is an under statement for its character customization. One of the game that has the most flashiest combat. The game let's you become a bad-ass slaying mobs. Has some interesting life skills mechanic that to be honest can be its own game. With that said, this game has the most shallowest game play I ever play. I don't know what's wrong with KoreanUsing the term "character customization" is an under statement for its character customization. One of the game that has the most flashiest combat. The game let's you become a bad-ass slaying mobs. Has some interesting life skills mechanic that to be honest can be its own game. With that said, this game has the most shallowest game play I ever play. I don't know what's wrong with Korean devs but they still on their antiquated belief that end game is basically leveling infinitely and "let the player decide whats their end game" trope that brings nothing new to the MMO genre. If they still believe in that then it's safe to say that minecraft is an MMO. Story and lore is meh as every other Eastern and Korean MMOs. There's no literal end game and dungeons and raids are lacking. The game is definitely created as a Open world PVP game first but suddenly change their minds because player retention, especially to casuals would be catastrophic to its player base if they keep this game an open world PVP MMO. The combat is good when slaying mobs but awful during PVP since most of the time, PVP is just hit and run tactics. It's going to be a chore if you reached level 56 because every mobs 5 levels higher than you will drop 0.0X0% experience. I'm not joking this game's exp bar has THREE DECIMAL DIGITS! There's a reason why season server exist and that's for new players to acclimate to the game, give new players a decent item sets and to rush to the "end game" and that is leveling past the level 61 which is the soft cap. The gear enhancement is what you typically expect to an eastern MMOs (the pluses) which is very antiquated and a scheme for you to get your credit card and buy a guaranteed enhancement success. I haven't talked about the awful monetization of this game, which is borderline robbery!
    If you love stylish combat and great graphics then this is the game for you. I would suggest to not buy this game on full price or even at 50% discount. I would suggest to get this game for free or even try the free 1 month play to know if this game is for you.
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  78. Oct 30, 2021
    1
    Гринд ради гринда, помойное ведро которое еще подает признаки жизни, худшая мморпг.
  79. Jun 28, 2023
    1
    Posiblemente fuera un buen juego cuando salió en 2016, pero el combate y la jugabilidad se ve extremadamente espesa.
    Las cinemáticas no se puedes omitir y tienes que tragarte una historia mediocre y arquetípica sobre fuerzas del mal y salvar el mundo
  80. Jul 27, 2023
    1
    PvP based game who managed to kill PvP function. If i want to play a grind game i will choose PoE or D4
  81. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp!Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp!Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp!Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp! Stop killing pvp!
  82. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    We should thank the developers for gradually removing PvP content from the game over the course of several years and turning it into a PvE grind simulator... Also, the absence of any actions of developers in relation to DDoS attacks, and the simple removal of this content for some regions.
  83. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    I love BDO, but this direction is all for beginners, it kills the desire to enter. Being an average player, not a beginner who gets kissed on the butt by the developers, or a top player who has amassed maximum gear a long time ago, I want to leave
  84. Jul 28, 2023
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I've been playing this game for more than 10 thousand hours and the developers decided to cut off the last influx of content for the players. Murder war system. Opens the possibility for bad players to interfere with your game for free and now you can't do anything about it. The game that positioned itself as an open world pvp has now turned into pve not just pve and the developer is completely not interested in what old players need, they are completely immersed in work for content for beginners and only for them. As you move into the high class of players your experience just gets worse and worse. What a pity that a greedy developer kills his creation Expand
  85. Mar 4, 2016
    0
    This game has no pve endgame content and the combat gets really boring after few hours.
    The only reason this game is getting any good reviews is that you can play as pornstar looking skimpy anime girls.
    Stay away. Its not worth your time.
  86. Jul 3, 2016
    0
    Google Black Desert Online pop in, before you buy. The videos developers show and what you actually get are two different things. The games has no draw distance slider either and it effects the best of rigs too
  87. Mar 7, 2016
    0
    Cashshop is completely p2w. gear are not equalized in any means meaning someone can just spent $1000 on this game and owns everyone in open world.

    its not about skills because if someone spent more money than you they will have an easier time beating you, sure you can gear up ur stuff for free but that will take forever and the grind in this game is insane. combat system it doesn't
    Cashshop is completely p2w. gear are not equalized in any means meaning someone can just spent $1000 on this game and owns everyone in open world.

    its not about skills because if someone spent more money than you they will have an easier time beating you, sure you can gear up ur stuff for free but that will take forever and the grind in this game is insane.

    combat system it doesn't really require strategic thinking and is just buttons smashing. however it has the best graphics and character customization no doubt.

    lack of PVE content i am hugely disappointed bu this. the game as a whole right now is just a open world pvp game
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  88. Jun 1, 2017
    0
    One of the worst MMORPG games I ever played, mechanics are bad and low on possibilities, combat is linear and button-smashing, PvE is easy as hell, no challenge, no hardcore, PvP is primitive and totaly oriented on mass without any logic, for PvP core game is very unbalanced, personall skill does nothing, just good guild and enchantments, worst grinding and repetitive content, no socialOne of the worst MMORPG games I ever played, mechanics are bad and low on possibilities, combat is linear and button-smashing, PvE is easy as hell, no challenge, no hardcore, PvP is primitive and totaly oriented on mass without any logic, for PvP core game is very unbalanced, personall skill does nothing, just good guild and enchantments, worst grinding and repetitive content, no social mechanics, for action game have very bad optimization, graphics are quite outdated for it's requirements, some textures have 16bit resolution.... Damn in what **** I throw my money, not worth a cent.
    Have much of useless and unnecessary content, but have nothing worth to play more that test time, one month maximum, get bored just in one week, even Archeage was much better on release than this. BDO is just perfectly promoted junk

    Graphics and performance - 6/10
    Game-play and re-playability - 2/10
    Controls - 5/10
    Questing - 3/10
    PvE - 0/10
    PvP - 4/10
    Role playing - 4/10
    For most idiotic AI and no challenge and very easy battles even against bosses- -3pts
    Average - 0/10
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  89. Mar 12, 2016
    0
    This game looks good on the surface, then you realize that everything that makes an RPG fun is either gated by $, or you will be punished for doing it via the idiotic energy system?

    You like to pvp? Cool, go try some open world pvp and get punished for killing people. You like to trade? Awesome, you won't be dictating any terms of the trade. You can't trade with other people and the
    This game looks good on the surface, then you realize that everything that makes an RPG fun is either gated by $, or you will be punished for doing it via the idiotic energy system?

    You like to pvp? Cool, go try some open world pvp and get punished for killing people.
    You like to trade? Awesome, you won't be dictating any terms of the trade. You can't trade with other people and the auction house prices are chosen for you.
    You like collecting loot? Me too! Get loot all day but it wont matter, your guy will still look homeless unless you spend $$ on the shop.

    No AOE loot, instead you need to pony up $$$ for pets that will allow you to loot faster.

    Oh, and don't even THINK choosing the gender for your character. They devs did the thinking for you.

    You want to chat in general? That costs energy... You want to craft? Energy, you want to do anything outside of battling the dumbest AI we have seen since ET for the original Atari? Then you better be ready to pool your energy for those 15 minutes of "fun".
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  90. Feb 13, 2019
    0
    I liked this game at first, but that was before I realised it had soul destroying RNG for everything. Want to upgrade gear, it's not too difficult until you try and get tet gear I failed many times and spent nearly 3 billion on cron stones so my gear would not degrade back to duo. It's a terrible system of non stop failure, tedium and effort and getting no reward for my efforts.

    Decide
    I liked this game at first, but that was before I realised it had soul destroying RNG for everything. Want to upgrade gear, it's not too difficult until you try and get tet gear I failed many times and spent nearly 3 billion on cron stones so my gear would not degrade back to duo. It's a terrible system of non stop failure, tedium and effort and getting no reward for my efforts.

    Decide that you want a better horse, spend many months, as training them and getting good skills is also random and you are more than likely to end up with a dud horse that you can spend money on to try and change it's skills which could end up costing you $100's to get all the skills you want.

    If you eventually get a courser to try and turn into a Pegasus, that is also random and can take 50+ attempts and it is also random and you may not get the dream horse you want.

    Everything in this game is a trap that gives lots of failure to encourage lots of spending of money to try to increase your success, but even then you aren't guaranteed to get what you want.

    This game is a trap, stay away escape while you can, this game is rng heavy designed for lots of tedious frustration and failure to try and milk you of your money. Avoid at all costs.

    Only recommended for those who like wasting money and time. As this game feels like work with no fun or reward for your efforts.
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  91. Feb 21, 2018
    0
    The game does some things really well. The action combat feels extremely fluid and the lifeskilling has potential, however this game is a scam in that it creates an artificial problem and then sells the solution.

    Every cash shop item is a response and the solution to a roadblock in the game. The developers initially promised there would be no Cash Shop along the lines of the Korean mode
    The game does some things really well. The action combat feels extremely fluid and the lifeskilling has potential, however this game is a scam in that it creates an artificial problem and then sells the solution.

    Every cash shop item is a response and the solution to a roadblock in the game. The developers initially promised there would be no Cash Shop along the lines of the Korean mode ... they lied.

    They continue to lie to this day and will vehemently deny they are pay 2 win but pay for convenience. Either way, their racket is becoming more exposed in the west and I will never recommend a game developed by PA or published by Kakao ever again.
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  92. Mar 3, 2016
    0
    The game had potential, I'll give it that. Sadly the final product is just horrible. For all you PvE lovers, just turn back and never return, BDO has no PvE at all.
  93. Mar 22, 2016
    0
    Looks like this game has stunning graphics, Amazing Combat system
    Unfortunately Graphics are not good at all. Blur has all the way of you can easily find it.
    (Characters, scenery like a Bloodborne.)

    Uncomfortable, also non-intutive UI/Interface

    **** exaggerated FX/Effects NEVER can't be helped ever.
  94. May 24, 2018
    0
    Groundbreaking of Pay-To-Win genre that takes P2W to a new level. Intense skill at spending real money will allow you to shame all other players for not spending hundreds of dollars for minor upgrades.
  95. Mar 3, 2016
    0
    Black Desert Online Is a buy to play MMO with a price tag of $30

    This game has a lot of issues. Most mainly being from it's terrible publisher DAUM. I think it's quite clear that this game for them is nothing more then a quick cash grab. Let's talk about DAUM's communication skills If there's anything this last week proved it's that DAUM is terrible about communicating to their
    Black Desert Online Is a buy to play MMO with a price tag of $30

    This game has a lot of issues. Most mainly being from it's terrible publisher DAUM. I think it's quite clear that this game for them is nothing more then a quick cash grab.

    Let's talk about DAUM's communication skills

    If there's anything this last week proved it's that DAUM is terrible about communicating to their player base. During the 2nd closed beta people were given a look at the cash shop items, a lot of people were upset with the pricing and RNG items. A costume would cost more then the actual game. So DAUM created a thread on the official forums to keep all the angry players in one spot. A whole week of people complaining and DAUM said nothing to anybody. At the end of the week it was the last day to pre-order and still DAUM had said nothing about it. Only the day after the pre-orders ended did people finally get a response. It's almost like they purposely waited till after pre-orders ended to release a statement to make sure they got no more negative press. They also didn't get the response from DAUM, they got it from MMORPG, that's right a third party site.

    Did they listen to their players? Well yes and no. They did reduce the price---of just the costumes, and only by $3 from $32 to $29. In fact it almost seems like they lowered the prices by $3 just to shut up the people who were complaining about costumes being more then the game itself. Everything else stayed the same in the cash shop.

    During the Early Access stage of the game people like myself who spent $100 on the game tried to claim our pre-order items had many issues. What happened when you tried to send in a support ticket asking for help? Nothing, Till this moment I still haven't gotten a response to my ticket asking for help. Sure eventually I got my items after the game launched, but it's really telling when DAUM can't be arsed enough to even reply to support tickets asking for help.

    on 3/3/2016 the game officially launched. When it went live there was a 1 gig patch. Normally with a MMO you expect for there to be some sort of patch notes. So was there any patch notes? Nope, apparently 1 gigs worth of changes isn't important enough to tell their players about.

    Now let's talk about character customization.

    BDO has a very detailed dye system, and a good amount of dyes. How do you get dyes you ask? Well through the cash shop of course! There's no way to obtain dyes in the game itself without paying for them. Oh did I mention that the dyes are rng one time use items? I hope you don't have a certain look you want because good luck getting the dyes without spending $100.

    I bet you're thinking "well if I can't dye my gear surely I can just use a wide variety of costumes at my disposal!" you'd be wrong. Each class has about 4 different outfits in the game, that's right 4. There's more in the cash shop of course. So really if you want to look different then other people you're gonna have to pay money at some point. It's almost mind boggling, since you can play mmos from 16 years ago that offer more character customization then BDO does(without using cash shop items). Heck even modern F2P games have more customization then BDO does.

    Being able to style and customize your character in an mmo is a very important feature, and has been a fundamental part of MMOs for over a decade. The fact that DAUM has restricted that customization to the cash shop is disgusting.

    DAUM sold a B2P game which has a worse cash shop then most F2P games. I like the game, but I would not recommend it to anyone with how greedy and lazy the publisher DAUM is. Black Desert Online does not have a bright future if DAUM keeps up with their shenanigans.
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  96. Mar 3, 2016
    0
    Moneyscammers i say who does nothing to fix the problems who overflowing atm . Can`t even login on my server and it`s no use write a ticket as they got 0 support. Beta i would say but u pay for Alpha..if i could i would sew their lazy money asses on all they got...
  97. Mar 9, 2016
    0
    My god this is hilarious. Aren't we done with these korean garbages already? Blade and soul failed 1 month ago and now this failure. Korea just stop, you suck.
  98. Mar 9, 2016
    0
    Lol people going nuts because of 2 or 3 guys said they prefer ESO. I'm not even playing ESO, but I can at least see where they are coming from. When I played ESO there was at least high quality stuff, I don't see anything that good in BDO. Get a better taste people.
  99. Mar 9, 2016
    0
    BDO is anything but decent. This grindfest mess that they've created deserves to die, and I'm sure it will very soon. If blade and soul didn't make it, Black Desert has no chance at all.
  100. Mar 9, 2016
    0
    This game is not a sandbox. The company lied and I was very mislead. I guess I'm staying with EVE till a true sandbox game comes along. It's way better anyway.
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 35
  2. Negative: 0 out of 35
  1. With it's massive and unique open world, Black Desert Online is inviting you to a great adventure.
  2. Jul 27, 2017
    50
    Overall, Black Desert Online is a typical MMO in every single way. While I disagree with their claim that it’s the “next generation” of MMOs, I did find the character creation to be the most robust of any MMO out there. Unfortunately, the character customization is the game’s biggest highlight, and many of the other elements of Black Desert Online can be found in many other MMOs.
  3. 70
    Black Desert Online comes to the table with an intricate character sculpting tool, gorgeous graphical presentation, and a nuanced, exciting combat system overlying a less immediately apparent, but very unique, sandbox-style resource management simulation. Those looking for a rich narrative, complex or groundbreaking PvE questing, or highly unique monster design may be disappointed, but those seeking a mechanically rich, visually striking MMO will find themselves at home.