Black Desert Online has potential in the content currently offered

Black Desert is a Korean fantasy MMORPG developed by Pearl Abyss that is currently in its closed beta testing stage. It takes place in a fantasy world where two rival nations are constantly in conflict, the Republic of Calpheon and the Kingdom of Valencia. There are three confirmed races, the Elves, Humans, and Giants; and two races coming soon, the Dwarves and Hobbits. The characters of each respective race are beautifully designed and very detailed to fit seamlessly into the crowded contemporary medieval cities, towns, villages, and overall environment of Black Desert Online.

One of my biggest problems with Devilian was the combination of apathetic missions and boring combat, but Black Desert Online’s combat is exciting. It’s pleasing kinetically and visually. I chose the Tamer character first as I love her acrobatic style. She flips, slices and dices, and is a combo machine. I sliced and diced the same way for hours before realizing I had more ways to cut enemies down through the skill tree, but kept forgetting the combinations.

I didn't spend too much time with the cash shop aside from using the free money that was offered up to all players to test out the cash shop, on top of that I'm not the type that generally uses such means, but the cash shop is there for people who want things like cosmetic items(costumes) or convenience items(More bag space, skill resets), but what I will say is that what is in the cash shop right now compared to the KR/RU version is nothing in there is P2W, you can dump as much money into the shop as you want and you won't walk away with much more than a +1 to some small stat that caps out.

Combat in Black Desert intrigued me when I first saw previews of it almost a year ago. Unlike a lot of MMOs where you point, click and occasionally choose skills to use. Black Desert requires you to take more of a hands-on approach. Attacks are made with the left and right mouse buttons, while you move around your enemy with WASD. Specific skills can be activated by pressing a combination of keystrokes that are sometimes fluid, sometimes confusing. With each command your avatar will slash, hack, dash and fling themselves around enemies.

The game has lot of different PvE systems (trading, crafting, node management, fishing, boat build, horse taming and breeding etc) and it will overwhelm you very easily but I say that in good way. I don’t feel lost in MMO these days but I was lost and clueless in Black Desert and to me that’s good thing since the game is trying to do something’s different from all other games these days.

It's easy to see that Black Desert Online has a lot of potential in the content currently offered. But from my time spent in the closed beta, it often was overshadowed by generic quest design. If MMOs want to stand out among the crowd, they need to do more than just offer stunning visuals. Fortunately, the combat system is by far the most welcome surprise, and, if I may be so bold, is even more exciting than the game's beautiful presentation.

While it's still far too early to see how the game will fit within the market of other MMOs, I'm hopeful that mid- to late-game content provides more interesting opportunities for players. That will be the real test to ensure its future among others in the genre.