Hi,
In a sense, this is my resignation from GW2. Recently my college felt we should all upgrade to Windows 10 because it is being forced on the world. This didn’t go well. A lot of computers died, software that was supposedly compatible wasn’t, and the nightmares continue. So, the school is going Linux. Yay…
Anyway, it bricked my computer. Standing in line with lots of other students going, “You’re paying for this!”, I realized we’re in a bit of a transition in the world of PC gaming.
With Microsoft aiming hard to destroy the PC world a lot of us gamers are going to get impacted pretty negatively with all of this. Steam’s making its own OS, probably in-time, EA might do their own just because, and so on. If the moment stays this way the MMO world is going to have to choose pretty soon between American tyranny or Linux. I think anyone with half a brain has realized Windows 10 is an auto-off switch to your PC by Microsoft while simultaneously perving you because NSA.
On top of this it turns the PC into a gloried cellphone that spams you with Microsoft advertisements. Great right? Pop-ups you can’t block. So, in very short order the PC world is about to be annihilated.
Sitting around a card table a few nights ago, listening to friends talking about the own horror story with the update everyone was generally reaching the conclusion Linux. It meant we’d have to basically quit gaming, but most of us have a lot of money tied up in software licenses now and for several more years. It’s really not affordable to go Windows 10. Some of these licenses are thousands of dollars. No one is willing to lose them.
On the same round table discussion we were sighing our goodbyes to different games. Most are Indie titles that probably won’t see update to all the new OS’s coming out. A few might have some compatibility if you’ve gone Mac, but that’s a huge loss in your graphics options for stupid prices. If you want the customization of the PC for any affordable prices not going to happen.
The discussion really zero’d in on some long term problems with games, too. What games did we really feel worth hanging on to? This was really a way of talking backwards to the Windows 10 issue: “What games are we really not happy to give up?” One friend brought up SWTOR, another WoW, another ESO. ESO prompted a comment that evolved the rest of the conversation to follow: “They should have waited six years to make ESO.”
In general most of the MMOs our today are old. ESO looks like trash. It has an absurd amount landscape, but all of us run on a graphics engine that really could be summarized with, “Mesh supported.” ESO is basically the bottom of the rung though. All of the MMO world has really been trapped in a non-evolving scenario for years. NCSoft’s products are just that; front-ended rushed productions. Blizzard products are trying to survive on story writing and having a strong temporal model for content consumption. SWTOR is increasingly lost, trying to offer story, but just not adding new “game”.
Everyone at the card table then started talking about Dragon Age: Inquisition. We were playing with its card deck. “Why don’t they make more games with open world environments like this,” said one of us, tossing her card meaningfully onto the table. Her boyfriend was quick to say, “Actually… Black Desert Online did that.” Everyone sort of perked up, “Huh?”, was her prompt. She’s big on the whole game, but then so are all of us. “What do you mean,” asked my best friend’s brother.
We’d all played Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. ‘Super awesome graphics,’ in MMOs or ‘Realistic landscapes’ usually translates to, ‘Blue Screens your computer with memory leaks,’ and ‘pretty scenery, no game’.
He was like, “No really.” He took out his laptop, turned the game on and showed us…
A couple hours of ooo’s and ahh’s later we’d all purchased a copy.
Here’s the point of transition: Development
Black Desert Online isn’t really the selling point here. The game is solidly built. It doesn’t matter what the content it. The level of care, artistic expression, and thoroughness of every detail is pretty much what you should expect from a PC game. There’s no catering to consoles about it. The game is meant for a PC of this era and well into the future.
What sold us on the game was that it has the graphics of Dragon Age: Inquisition and beta character modeling. The landscaping, immensity of continuous world, and attention to detail are supreme, fluid, and persistent. Camps, single player, exploration, etc, etc, are all there. Player housing, fishing, sailing, and immense NPC populations doing their own thing all go to show that there’s a world to game in.
Girls are still bimbos in heels to start out, but there’s also much we can ask from Asia. The slider bars let you eliminate most of that if you’re persistent.
The glaring reality on the table for us after he’d shown us the game was pretty obvious. The MMOs we’ve got right now are half-kittened. Want a Guild Hall? Pay 5000 gold and 2 years of your life to farming Silverwastes. Want a not Free to Play experience: Maguuma and it’s sometimes-sort-of maps. As much as a loath WoW since Wrath, it actually gains significant landmass and equipment with every expansion.
In general what I saw in Black Desert was something I haven’t seen since WoW’s release; everything I’ve seen in every other mmo that came before it, updated and improved to the needs, fantasy’s, and desires of the living generation.
Whereas, NCSoft, Blizzard, Bethesda, and SWTOR are just not with the program. They’re outdated and surviving on what little moment they can generate from initial profits. They’re not innovating, they’re just slowing to a standstill.
With all of the time-gating and basically dead-ended content that came with Heart of Thorns it’s become very obvious NCSoft is just mass producing front-ended titles with no intent to put more money into them than that. Anet, out of things to produce, has gone to cash-gating now.
And that should be a word: Cash-gating.
We’re not getting a game anymore. All roads lead to the gem-store. That’s not even producing much these days. The fishermen have gone blind. They’re still fishing the same lake they always fished, but this is the Aral Sea. It’s obvious what’s happened. Just be sure to recognize anyone reading this is a fish, because the devs sure as heck don’t read the forums. The watering hole is gone folks. Me too.