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New Starter Package Revealed, Others 30% Off
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
New Starter Package Revealed, Others 30% Off
Black Desert Online News - If you've been sitting on the fence about getting Black Desert Online, now might be the perfect time to jump in with a great sale going on. A limited time Starter Package is available for $9.99, with Traveler's Package at $19.99 and the Explorer's Package out there for $34.99 -- each 30% off.
Comments
They're obviously past the honeymoon stage now, all those that were going to buy at full price have pretty much done so by now. The next wave will have to be lured-in with cutprice entrance fees. Nvm, they can always catch them with the Cash Shop prices later...
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Yikes, the conspiracy theory is strong here.
Less people will purchase now so it's better to charge them less to get into the game where they will be enticed (supposedly) by the store items.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The thing is that if they get to bring new players with a price reduction, they're not really likely to make them buy in-game items. A huge chunk of those that this event will bring are people who couldn't afford it in the first place. Perhaps a small portion were just waiting for an opportunity, but they most likely got a 7 day trial prior to that.
I think that this game received an unfair reputation of money-grab from a very vocal minority. But that may be because the definition of pay to win is so large that it can be applied to a bigger array of games than what truly deserve it. BDO won't make you win the game with money.
BDO offer in-game advantage through the store, but two dedicated players will achieve the same goal with roughly the same amount of time investment, regardless of money spent. But ultimately, people got burnt by Archeage and moved to BDO in hopes of having absolutely zero in-game store items that give even the slight advantage.
I can understand where their frustration comes from. But it's not a reason to amplify reality.
My feeling is that it's better just to get dyes (one can buy them from their store but you don't know what you will get or buy them from players on the Auction House though it seems there are some limited colors there).
I agree with Lurianar that the "pay to win" thing is a bit overblown.
I bought some pearls last night and after buying a new armor look and a saddle (finally) for my horse I was going to buy one of those packs and put it on the Auction House for about 9 million or so. Then I thought better of it as I could easily make that within the week by fishing and grinding so saved the pearls for something else.
I can see that if one has a lot of money they could get several hundred million but it would probably take an entire month to do it as one is limited to something like 5 items or so per week and the most one seems to be able to sell an item is 21 million or so. As I mentioned, packs go for about 9 million.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The armor dyes are attached to the value pack item called mervs pallet. It's just there while you have the value pack and the dyes aren't permanent. There are other dyes you can get (which the game has given me a significant amount of) that you do not have to worry about them going away. The Mervs pallet is just there to entice people who want different colored armor who are on the edge about it.
Pve wise it's a snooze fest monsters AI is near retarded and hit like wet noodles no danger in the game unless you go to valencia which is horrible exp and medicore money.
Definitely agree with a lot of your points to a degree but to honestly say that two players of which one swipes and the other does not staying close to each other in terms of progression is a very naive and hopeful way of thinking. The amount of silver you get for selling outfits does not matter, its existence does as prices for the costumes will increase meanwhile the amount of silver you make stays the same over time. Even at the current rate selling outfits allows you to nullify the hard work of a medium level grinders week of farming.
Honestly until the Artisan's memory release in the cash shop this week I could definitely agree with you that the game is not "technically" P2W. The word technically is used because while its not directly P2W the game drowns you in so much pay to convenience that in time it almost begs to question how close it gets to the line between convenience and P2W. I have never seen a game dance around the dividing line as hard as BDO and it comes closer and closer after each marketplace update.
Every week I look at the patch notes hoping that the finally will fix the desync and server lag (not nearly as laggy now since a large portion of the playerbase dropped off but desync still exists) only to find more "convenience" items and ugly costumes with some decent events I will admit. Almost 7 months in and servers are still not fixed with no ETA or even mention of them being worked on outside of a small note of it a few months ago where they fixed "EU" pings... I won't even talk about the awakening debacle as classes get to wait months to be competitive because Kakao staggered Awakenings after the told use they would all release at the same time.
Roll that to this week and we have artisan's memory. While the upgrading system is not as cancerous as AA, most players will notice that once they start pushing past +15 or TRI that the one single limiting factor and major bottleneck in this game is memory frags. You need a great many and between limited drops (mem frags from other players scrolls were nerfed from 100% to 50%) from scrolls and the nerf to how much durability they restored based on item rarity (almost question if this was intended for the fleecing later) you have the perfect environment to release an item that gives ups the durability of frags restoration per item. For the low low price of 40 US dollars you can fully restore your Boss armor durability by 100% and swipe your way to the games first in/direct cash to advantage! I honestly wont per surprised if Valk's cry is just waiting around the corner.
Many players will have different opinions and apologists will brush off and allow BDO to continue as it is because they feel BDO offers them something different which to me couldn't be further from the truth. Some people honestly think that BDO is a sandbox game to put things into perspective for most people. I personally think that they went full hog way too fast as the game has more potential than I've seen in most games lately. The game drowned you in convenience for some time now and some may have different opinions on the Artisan's memory debacle but even those that speak against my stance can agree on one thing: the power creep is very slowly pushing its way in.
That also ties into one of my biggest frustrations with BDO: Forced PvE to get gear to be competitive in PvP. While AA certainly is a treasure trove of mistakes and swiping I loved that the highest gold payouts came from making risks and all boss content contested with direct PvP. Not to mention past getting a Celest/Divine set what gave you the most survive-ability was Gems which were gained from honor which were from *gasp* PvP!
In this game grinding mobs with no AI and doing nascar laps ad nauseam was the best way to make silver because the need to nerf other forms of silver gain. I would of loved a system like AA's where direct energy spent attributes to how much EXP% you get to allowing leveling and SP at a slower rate for life skill players but since the game feels the need to slowly remove energy from every Life skill its no longer feasible.
The game has a sub you can purchase in game for 9 million silver but good luck getting one without it being sniped by some script kiddy. It costs 1500 pearls which equates to 15$ but its a "premium" sub. I do like the very common response of you not needing it "unless you want to be the first or competitive" as many are quick to add when in reality its very hard to pass up as it has something for everyone. Unlike most convenience items the "value pack" as its named gives you a nice starter batch of inventory slots/weight/extra life and combat exp (10%) and access to a very nice gear dye tool. If the pack stopped there I would say you have a lot of optional stuff that you don't need but in the NA version you get to curb the absurd tax deduction BDO has and you go from only getting 65% of the items value all the way to 84.5%.
Many players will of course argue that this benefit isn't mandatory nor a deal breaker but getting more for the items you sell does add up considerably over the 30 days and the more you sell the more of an advantage the pack gives over someone who doesn't have one. If you get to the point of having 7 tool workshops/armor/weapon and refinery like me, AH sales make a bulk of my profits and getting close to 20% more per sale is almost criminal. And let me add I'm not a player that "needs to be on top" I just like most people realize that min maxing and absolute efficiency is better than beating your head into a bloody pulp from ramming into a wall to prove a point that doesn't exist in the first place. At the very least the sub is STILL a lot more optional than AA. There is no such thing as optional when it comes to patron in AA.
Going about it exactly the same way you are and its probably the only thing that honestly keeps me logging in. I've gotten to the point of min maxing my worker empire so well that I'm pulling 30M a night before fishing income from just spending 5 min here and there posting items over a 4-6 hour period while playing LoL or Legion. I really don't see the game going anywhere with how things have been going but managing workers is so easy (and fun) to do and takes so little effort its hard not to log in.
I suggest ignoring the posts that are made by qq whiners like this guy. I mean omg the horror how can you compete when i can dye my outfit pink and get a whopping 10% more xp!!!! GAME OVER MAN P2W AND YOU LOST!
The real problem is people like you who chose to play a mmorpg and then cry about having to play a mmorpg. I mean do you eve read what you say? You just complained about playing a genre of games designed around PVE (infact the term was created to describe mmorpg gameplay),,,like for real the save world you never ending whining and how about you nut up and play a real pvp game since that is what you want, one that tests your actual skill unlike a mmorpg which instead tests your ability to success at pve. so go play league or counter strike so you can stop crying about PVE in games designed primarily to be pve....
Current games playing: MechWarrior Online
Games being watched: Project Genom
Favorite played games: SWG, RomaVictor, and Xsyon
this game just like archeage... kinda
if you know what i mean, dont play this game
They'll also try to market those purchases to you..
General sarcasm not aimed at anyone. :pleased:
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Honestly the end game isn't even pvp. The gear grind is unreal you can spend 2 years grinding 10 hours a day and not have full pen.
To stay competitive in pvp you're forced to grind day in and day out. Then there is the severe lack of pvp atleast on UNO I went 1 week grinding pirates 10+ hours a day without a single pvp encounter. The only pvp endgame is once a week on the weekend to defend your castle if your in a top end guild. Spending 70hours grinding a week to stay competitive isn't worth the 2 hours of pvp.
I still think publishers and devs need to get their business models in order, expecting the mystical 15 bucks a month or as in these Korean MMOs wanting 15 to 30 bucks a month or more is an outdated system (business model) in my mind. I can get many entertainment options for under 10 bucks a month and Amazon's new model for their new game company is interesting (...providing they can create entertaining games, I am hopeful considering their Prime originals). This treating the player base as an ATM is getting old along with the argument of 'poor' people not dumping their hard earned money on a single entertainment option when there are plenty of other choices for entertainment at a less expensive cost. It is not about wealth but about spending smartly on entertainment and 15 bucks a month is an outdated business model. Note to investors: Sorry, the Blizzard Unicorns are gone from this genre, enjoy the profits you can get and drop the notion of tens of millions of dollars a month from you investment. The cash shop grab is old, especially the pricing. I mean this is a game, a few guys created Osiris, a few guys created Minecraft...I enjoyed BDO until the cash shop 'convenience' stuff creep'd in for a game I originally thought was B2P with aesthetic items in the cash shop. I would easily pay a 5 dollar sub for this game per month, but fifteen bucks or more a month in my mind is ridiculous. Sorry BDO (PA), you had a gem but ruined it. Actually the best grinding I have had in a game in a very very long time. Sad panda doing pushups.