Over the past few days I have been playing Black Desert Online after it was available during a free weekend on Steam. I had known of the game for several years, and was curious to see how it fared, but then I was reminded that MMORPGs are some of the last intuitive games on the market, containing so many mechanics and subsystems that are thrust onto the player. With trade routes, housing, four types of glorified crafting, and all of this tedious nebulous rubbish that exist on top of an interesting action RPG that has an interesting fixation on grinding knowledge on enemies, skills, and even people. It is an odd little title that really could be something novel, if only it did not belong to a genre notorious for its nebulous nonsense. Also, it’s controller support leaves a lot to be desired.
(more…)