The Joy Of Being Overwhelmed

SBFord

The Joy Of Being Overwhelmed

It pains me to admit that Black Desert Online is the first MMO I've ever played that I've had to Google guides and solutions. There's rarely been a time playing when I'm not loading a YouTube video that shows me how to do something. In the past I've often found it bizarre just how frequently people will use guides for the most trivial of content or things that are frighteningly obvious.

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markh777

maybe they need an in game browser like TSW another game that will have you searching the web like mad

DKLond

For me to feel good about being overwhelmed, it has to be about delightful intricacies and meaningful complexity - instead of a painfully bad UI and a severe lack of vital information.

Sovrath

I'm just taking it small chunk at a time and only doing things I enjoy. Probably not the best way to play but it works for me as I really love the game.

Scott_Jeslis

The overwhelmed feeling is often times too much for me a guy who's playtime is 2-3 hours a day.

Viper482

DKLond said:

For me to feel good about being overwhelmed, it has to be about delightful intricacies and meaningful complexity - instead of a painfully bad UI and a severe lack of vital information.

I know you think this sounded intelligent and all, but you are going to have to elaborate for credibility.

Author, I agree 100%. This MMO has been a breath of fresh air, with all the themepark clones being put out to make a quick cash grab, this game actually has some depth too it. Some freaking thought was put into something to make it stand out with different mechanics than the same old tired formula. That deserves praise, and we need more of it.

Dude I quoted, you are welcome to go play one of the hundreds of copy-cat themepark MMOs available. Enjoy.

toolak

One statement will make me never touch this game. Client side calculations. It works in Korea where you have to ante up your actual personal information but in the black hole of rest of the world gaming you can hack cheat and exploit the system and all they can do is basicly make you buy a new copy.

DKLond

Viper482 said:

DKLond said:

For me to feel good about being overwhelmed, it has to be about delightful intricacies and meaningful complexity - instead of a painfully bad UI and a severe lack of vital information.

I know you think this sounded intelligent and all, but you are going to have to elaborate for credibility.

Author, I agree 100%. This MMO has been a breath of fresh air, with all the themepark clones being put out to make a quick cash grab, this game actually has some depth too it. Some freaking thought was put into something to make it stand out with different mechanics than the same old tired formula. That deserves praise, and we need more of it.

Dude I quoted, you are welcome to go play one of the hundreds of copy-cat themepark MMOs available. Enjoy.

Please tell me what my incentive would be to work towards credibility with a random fan of BDO who can't accept people that disagree?

I do play other MMOs a little - here and there - but I prefer to wait until a game that's sufficiently fresh and rich comes along.

I don't have to convince myself some willfully obscure cheat-infested grinder is how I should be wasting my time - only to wake up in a few months and realise I wasn't really having fun.

Vonatar

This is a good article and sums up perfectly what I have been missing in MMOs since 2004-6. It's no coincidence that I am still firmly stuck in BDO and it's the first MMO in which I have lasted more than 2 months since I stopped playing WoW and then EQ2.

Unfortunately MMO gameplay has become so familiar, and almost standardised, that it's easy to find little mystery in the post-WoW titles. Sure, they were designed to be accessible and easy to pick up but, for me, that's where they failed to hold my interest.

BDO can be criticised for unashamedly not teaching you pretty much anything about its deeper layers. But I love this process of learning and discovery. I am constantly figuring out things and this draws me more into the game, and makes me feel more invested. At the same time there is always something on my "to do list" which I want to understand more about.

BDO is not perfect by any means. But for me it's unexplained depth holds mystery and excitement.

Shaiapouf

My problem wasn't with how hard it was to get into the systems, I could understand most of them well enough. It was just most were horrifically tedious. Crafting, Amity, Gathering, Horses, it wasn't -that- hard to understand them beyond what you see in some other MMO's, but it just felt...tedious and grindy, for the sake of being tedious and grindy.

Like with crafting/gathering, it will straight up say what you need if you use the in-game knowledge thing, showing you a specific area...but if its even semi-rare, actually getting said item to craft with was an absolute nightmare. Same with horses, I knew -how- to get a horse, just in order to get the privilege to even attempt it, I had to wander around on my Donkey for a long time, then finally get the horse, then walk around doing nothing on -that- horse, plus the one to breed it with, and so on.

Theres joy to be found in discovering something, but if you intentionally withhold information and make it obscure and tedious (Looking at you, conversation mini-game. I read how to play you, and I still don't get you sometimes.) it just feels...unrewarding.

Ceironx

Rhoklaw said:

It must be awfully painful to write a positive article for a game that has been under the negative spotlight since it launched. The game concept is great, but again, it was just another failed and extremely flawed Korean game. First ArcheAge and now Black Desert Online. Imagine a PvE sandbox MMO or at least one with consensual PvP like SWG. When are we going to get one of those?

You are talking about PvE and black desert in one sentence. You must have had a wrong interpretation of BDO then. The game was designed as PvP focused game, with very little PvE. The PvE part of BDO is just solely to achieve certain gear level for PvP.

And btw, BDO is still a very successful game, no matter how 'negative' the reviews were.

Mardukk

The world design, life skills, freedom, options of things to do and gfx are second to none.  Now if you are a PvP only person, this isn't likely the worlds greatest game, for a variety of reasons.  But for those looking for freedom from linear quest hub themeparking this game is breath of fresh air.

PersistentWorld

Rhoklaw said:

It must be awfully painful to write a positive article for a game that has been under the negative spotlight since it launched. The game concept is great, but again, it was just another failed and extremely flawed Korean game. First ArcheAge and now Black Desert Online. Imagine a PvE sandbox MMO or at least one with consensual PvP like SWG. When are we going to get one of those?

It's relatively easy when you enjoy the game.

Archlyte

I'm in this stage of playing the game. Learning and discovering. So right now BDO is great. I hope I don't figure it all out soon though, that is my fear.

donger56

I was overwhelmed by all the hacking, item duping and the complete idiocy of policy in dealing with it. Expecting the community to clean up the game for them and then only handing out 3 day bans for using cheat programs is pathetic. I charged back everything I spent and moved on.

Kajidourden

I was overwhelmed at how terrible the PvE and PvP was, and how much of an economy sim it is. All that work to make the combat look fluid and cool only to screw it up with boring easymode mobs with gawful AI that stand in hordes of hundreds waiting to be slaughtered.

azurrei

Ceironx said:

Rhoklaw said:

It must be awfully painful to write a positive article for a game that has been under the negative spotlight since it launched. The game concept is great, but again, it was just another failed and extremely flawed Korean game. First ArcheAge and now Black Desert Online. Imagine a PvE sandbox MMO or at least one with consensual PvP like SWG. When are we going to get one of those?

You are talking about PvE and black desert in one sentence. You must have had a wrong interpretation of BDO then. The game was designed as PvP focused game, with very little PvE. The PvE part of BDO is just solely to achieve certain gear level for PvP.



And btw, BDO is still a very successful game, no matter how 'negative' the reviews were.

rofl you can't actually believe what you just typed if you actually play the game? The game is 99% PvE grind and the occasional grind spot PvP fight...or random PK...or some moron running around killing AFK people. Oh, there are some outdoor Arenas people "practice PvP" in sometimes. I don't think the craptacular NA/EU servers will even be able to handle Node Wars/Castle sieges - they are barely stable enough as is. Even after that content is released, it will still overwhelmingly be a PvE game at heart - heck, they even said they are adding a bunch of PvE content in the future without as much as a whisper of PvP at all. Generally speaking, the NA/EU MMO crowd doesn't seem to like having to spend the majority of their time PvE'ing to PvP and I don't blame them. This game has an identity crisis IMO.

Tiller

Then you have more and more of these threads.
http://forum.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?/topic/87508-sadly-im-quiting/

He does bring up some valid concerns even people who are still playing have issues with. Not here to bash the game since I play it, but it's looking like it's going down hill fast.

ceratop001

Sovrath said:

I'm just taking it small chunk at a time and only doing things I enjoy. Probably not the best way to play but it works for me as I really love the game.

That's the perfect way to approach most any game.

Cheers..

ShrikeArghast

Heh. I uninstalled this bad game weeks ago. OP likes his koolaid strong.

Octagon7711

The more intuitive the game the lower the learning curve and if you leave and come back to the game after a long hiatus, the faster you're be able to get back into actually playing the game. If you have the time for extended learning curves, then enjoy.

Lheiah

I applaud BDO for coming up with something different and challenging, but I did put it on the shelf for now with plans to come back at some later time. I didn't spend a lot of time with it, but that's the problem; I have limited gaming time. I don't want to spend the next couple months trying to figure out the structure of the game to get a broad sense of what I'm doing and want to do in the game. I still have games I'm interested in that I understand the structure of the game and can therefore get something accomplished during my limited gaming sessions. If I get bored with my current games, I will dust BDO off and give it another shot.

About the only true turn off for me is that Korean art style and how the npc's act when interacting with them. That shaking of the head back and forth and no eye contact like they are subservient or something just drives me nuts.

Scorchien

I had the Overwhelming feeling to Flush...  by lvl 40 ..

BalianWolfie

I am not sure if it's that the general mass is easily impressed by little complexity because they lack the skills to analyze, but for me, I kind of figured out most aspect of the game and I am still having fun.

So no, it has nothing to do with overwhelming; it just has to do with freshness.

SpottyGekko

Rhoklaw said:

... Imagine a PvE sandbox MMO or at least one with consensual PvP like SWG. When are we going to get one of those?

Seeing as all our MMO's come from Korea nowadays, you may be in for a loooong wait...  

holdenhamlet

Game is actually great. Certainly the coolest MMO to come out in a very long time with tons of innovations. Amazing graphics, modern combat system, great music.

Not sure what kind of MMO people are hoping/waiting for that this isn't good enough for them but I'd just say good f'ing luck.

As for "the joy of being overwhelmed", I do like finding stuff out, but since the extent of that is going to a web browser, I think they should just put some time into improving the in-game guide and/or quests to teach you stuff. I'm sure it was super neat for the first people to discover stuff, and people still are discovering some things (especially since our version is slightly different), but there's a line between "this is an amazing game for discovery" and "they just didn't bother putting the info anywhere in the game itself, let alone the in-game guide."