Only seven hours playtime? (and most of that was spent in character creator)

How can that be enough time to even get an impression on a game, much less an MMO that's meant to be played endlessly?

Well... you know what they say about first impressions? Black Desert doesn't really make a good one.

That's not to say that Black Desert is bad. Or maybe it is, I dunno... after all, I didn't really play it long enough to find out.

But every single one of those seven hours was spent in boredom.

Look, MMOs are a serious investment. They require extensive amounts of time and money from players. Any entertainment product demanding that much had better be worth it, and I just didn't see anything in 7 hours playing BDO that convinced me that it is.

For all intents and purposes, BDO is a bog standard MMO that features all the trappings of every MMO ever. So if you want your MMO fix, you can already get it anywhere. About the only standout feature in BDO is the over the top action combat system - which is more akin to a fighting game with combos and everything - but which you can also get in plenty of other MMOs, like TERA.

BDO's other claim to fame is the extensive visual character customization system which is, ultimately, not that extensive... I mean, it's robust to be sure, but it's no more than you can expect from character creators in games like Dragon's Dogma or Fallout 4 and dozens of other examples. And it doesn't really lend much to the game, as like with every MMO now, BDO pretty much completely disregards any notion of roleplaying.

Because apparently, what passes for "roleplaying" these days is just having classes and skills; and the classes on offer in BDO are underwhelming, to say the least. First of all, there's a lot of them and they're all bizzarely gender locked for some ostensible reason. And in terms of combat, they're all going to feel the same anyway. The combo system is all sorts of clunky. And in the seven hours I played, I actually got to partake of combat hardly at all. Like every MMO, BDO has you going through the standard slog of following quests through a story too boring to be interested in. The moment I found myself skipping dialog and not even bothering to pay attention to the quest objectives was a moment that underscored how much I was playing yet another MMO.

And in that time I was bereft of any incentive to continue playing Black Desert Online. I have played MMOs before - hundreds of hours (and more money than I care to admit) in some. Almost all of them are exactly alike (thanks Warcrap) and I have no willingness to spend time on them. Why play BDO when I could be playing any one of dozens of MMOs just like it? Some of them even do the same things BDO does, only better.

Only seven hours playtime? (and most of that was spent in character creator) How can that be enough time to even get an impression on a game, much less an MMO that's meant to be played endlessly? Well... you know what they say about first impressions? Black Desert doesn't really make a good one. That's not to say that Black Desert is bad. Or maybe it is, I dunno... after all, I didn't really play it long enough to find out. But every single one of those seven hours was spent in boredom. Look, MMOs are a serious investment. They require extensive amounts of time and money from players. Any entertainment product demanding that much had better be worth it, and I just didn't see anything in 7 hours playing BDO that convinced me that it is. For all intents and purposes, BDO is a bog standard MMO that features all the trappings of every MMO ever. So if you want your MMO fix, you can already get it anywhere. About the only standout feature in BDO is the over the top action combat system - which is more akin to a fighting game with combos and everything - but which you can also get in plenty of other MMOs, like TERA. BDO's other claim to fame is the extensive visual character customization system which is, ultimately, not that extensive... I mean, it's robust to be sure, but it's no more than you can expect from character creators in games like Dragon's Dogma or Fallout 4 and dozens of other examples. And it doesn't really lend much to the game, as like with every MMO now, BDO pretty much completely disregards any notion of roleplaying. Because apparently, what passes for "roleplaying" these days is just having classes and skills; and the classes on offer in BDO are underwhelming, to say the least. First of all, there's a lot of them and they're all bizzarely gender locked for some ostensible reason. And in terms of combat, they're all going to feel the same anyway. The combo system is all sorts of clunky. And in the seven hours I played, I actually got to partake of combat hardly at all. Like every MMO, BDO has you going through the standard slog of following quests through a story too boring to be interested in. The moment I found myself skipping dialog and not even bothering to pay attention to the quest objectives was a moment that underscored how much I was playing yet another MMO. And in that time I was bereft of any incentive to continue playing Black Desert Online. I have played MMOs before - hundreds of hours (and more money than I care to admit) in some. Almost all of them are exactly alike (thanks Warcrap) and I have no willingness to spend time on them. Why play BDO when I could be playing any one of dozens of MMOs just like it? Some of them even do the same things BDO does, only better.