I have to say, Daum is really starting to impress me. I was randomly flipping through my various gaming reddits today when I saw there was a new post from PM_Belsazar on the Black Desert forums: The project manager y they mentioned as a possibility last week is already up and running! And what a diary entry it is. We have specific dates for the first beta test, screenshots of new faces going in to the game, new skin tones and hair colors – even new beard styles for the men. And even beyond that exciting news – Belsazar delighted many with the unexpected news that they have seen the feedback and have changed their plans and will be introducing the Beast Tamer class at launch due to its popular demand! And not only that, but the class will be playable in the closed betas and it will even be getting its own version of the unique costume being designed for the master founder’s pack.
That is what I call going above and beyond.
So let’s get to the details. There is even more good stuff – the first closed beta now has a date, and it has been extended by 2 days. It will run from Wednesday, the 16th of December at 7am UTC until Tuesday the 22nd of December at 7am UTC. Good to know so far in advance, I can stock up on my favorite chocolate coconut milk and let friends and family know that they will have to deal with a zombie Pherephassa that weekend.
I was excited to see that night has been darkened, back closer to what it was in the original stages of the game on Korea, the speed of leveling has been slowed, a few items have been flagged as tradeable, and they will be providing a more in depth explanation of the intention behind the Vigor system. I don’t like anything that artificially limits what I can do in my play time – the most recent example of that was in ArcheAge – but I am always interested in hearing the design intentions.
Also in the mix are changes to pvp. The level requirement for PVP has been increased to 30, to give players more of an ability to develop their characters before being thrown to the PVP hounds, also the cooldown on health potions has been increased to 5 seconds in an attempt to mitigate the potion spam to victory technique that is so prevalent in other regions.
All in all it was a very exciting post.