Black Desert Online is an MMO being designed by Pearl Abyss. The company has designed their own engine, escalated the expectations of visuals with highly detailed characters and animations, and they've been in talks with representatives from both Sony and Microsoft regarding bringing the game to the new generation consoles. However, nothing is cemented in stone just yet.
The lengthy 16 minute video is ripe with information... and I do mean ripe. The team talks about all manner of things surrounding Black Desert Online, including the detailed weather system that actually includes typhoons! Yes, typhoons. Unfortunately they haven't been implemented just yet, but you get a nice look at them in an overhead view of the world map.
Speaking of world maps... boy does that world map in the game look delicious. I haven't seen a sexy looking world map like that in ages. It's good to see it return to form. The closest thing we've had is probably that procedural world map from the game Cube World, which is also pretty sexy.
Anyway, getting back to Black Desert... the game will have shipping routes, cargo missions, dynamic combat and a really nifty NPC information sharing option that will allow players to develop relationships with various NPCs based on info they share or take away from them. It's an ambitious design but I'm not entirely sure how it will play out in a theme-park type design that the team is using.
In addition to the whole NPC thing, the team is also focusing on castle sieges and territory control, so you'll have more to worry about than killing 10 boars and scavenging for boar meat while some little, nerdy kid sitting behind his parent's computer yelling out (in text) “No KS, la... no KS!”
Moving on... Dual Shockers' Giuseppe Nelva really wanted to scope out the game's character creation system while he was there at GamesCom, so he politely asked if they could take a look. After some fumbling, some loading and some closing, they finally got into the character creation screen.
Given that the game is still early in development, the options were crude and limited, but that didn't stop Nelva from letting his libido lead his lingering line of questioning and asking like a frisky puppy in front of its owner with a bag full of doggy treats, where he promptly asks “Can we see the females?!” Zing!
Quite naturally, many gamers were also asking the same thing... “How much can we edit with the female avatars?”
Who knew that gamers were so engrossed in making detailed, life-like female characters in an MMO? I mean, I had no idea there was such a movement for custom characters; the ability to stand out from the crowd and make your mark known. It obviously had nothing to do with seeing if there was a slider for boobs.
