http://forum.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?/topic/8038-pm-diary-22-cash-shop-and-more/
Dear Players,
Thank you everyone for your patience. Time is rushing fast and the whole team is working at full throttle to deliver news hot off the press.
We feel the bond with our community is growing stronger and stronger every day and we appreciate the massive feedback we’re receiving on so many platforms. In my past diary entry, I was only able to cover as much as the Party Play Revamp and the Energy System changes. This time however, I will be able to cover almost everything that we discussed with the developers in Korea.
But before I get to the first topic, I would like to point out a general rule that can be applied to Black Desert Online’s development (or almost any other MMO). BDO is like a living organism, which will keep growing and evolving. This is a rather natural process for online games and you’ve been able to experience that in the past months. That being said, if there is a decision, development, change or adjustment that the majority might despise, then we will address it one way or the other. So please give us time to adjust and respond to your needs.
February
Family and Character Name reservations for those that have pre-ordered the game will be available from early February. We are targeting first week +/- a few days.
CBT2 date will be announced next week!
Cash Shop
We know many of you have waited for this moment. It took us quite some time to find the right way and we hope that you will like the selection of items to be offered in our Cash Shop.
- You will be able to reserve 1 Family name for a region of your choice.
- You will be able to reserve 1 Character name for the same region as the Family name.
- Family and Character names will be unique in each region.
- There will be two regions. North America and Europe.
We will have two different shops (see below). The Cash Shop and the Mileage Shop.
- Cash Shop offers items that are all purchasable with Pearls.
- Mileage Shop items can be purchased with miles.
- You will receive 100 miles per day for logging onto any of your characters.
- You will not earn mileage by purchasing pearls.
| Cash Shop | |||
| Main | Shop | Sub | Item Function |
| Convenience | Storage | Inventories 1/4/8 | Increases inventory space by 1/4/8 slots |
| Weight 50/100/150 | Increases player carry weight by 50/100/150 LT | ||
| Region Storage 1/4/8 | Increase warehouse space in a specific region by 1/4/8 slots | ||
| Support / Boost | Horse EXP booster | Increases Horse EXP by +20% for 1 hour. | |
| Partial Skill Reset | Resets the selected combat skill and retrieves its skill point. | ||
| Family Name Change Ticket | Allows you to change your family name. | ||
| Horse name change ticket | Allows you to change your horse’s name. | ||
| Character Slot | Expand the character creation slots by 1 slot. | ||
| Revive Potion | Allows you to resurrect immediately. | ||
| Life Skill stats transfer ticket | Allows you to transfer specific life skill EXP to another character. | ||
| Stable expansion ticket | Increase stable space in a specific city by 1 | ||
| Worker’s lodging expansion | Increase worker space in a specific city by 1 | ||
| Vanity | Beauty | Costume + Weapon Skin Package | Full set of armor skills with weapon and off-hand skin |
| Weapon Skin | Cosmetic Skin for main-hand weapon. | ||
| Costume Set | Cosmetic Skin for armor slots. | ||
| Costume Single Pieces | Individual cosmetic item. | ||
| Accessories | Glasses and facial jewelry. | ||
| Underwear | Cosmetic underwear with luck bonus. | ||
| Dye box sets (1/3/10) / Bleach | Contains random dye from specific color range. | ||
| Appearance change scroll | Allows you to change the appearance of one character one time. | ||
| Housing | Floor & Wall, Chandelier, Furniture set, Bedside Table, Dresser, Closet, Dining Table, Table, Chair, Sofa, Bookshelf, Bed | Adds aesthetic value to a home, as well as beds restore energy when used. | |
| Horse | Horse set | Box containing full set of costume armor for a horse. | |
| Horse Face Mask, Horse Bard, Horse Saddle, Horse Stirrup | Individual cosmetic items for horses. | ||
| Horse skill initialization ticket | Change the skill of a horse. | ||
| Horse Breeding Reset | Resets the number of times a horse has been breed to allow more breeding., | ||
| Horse Whistle (1/7/30 days/permanent) | Allows user to call horse from further away for 1/7/30 days. | ||
| Horse appearance change scroll | Allows the user to change the appearance of their horse one time. | ||
| Pets | Pets (cats/dogs/birds/special) | Gathers monster loot items for the player. | |
| Mileage | |||
| Items | Item Function | Attribute | |
| Offered via Cash & Miles |
Partial Skill Reset | Resets the selected combat skill and retrieves its skill point. | All Mileage Items: – Character Bound – No trade – No sell on MP – repetitively purchasable – except weight +50, which will only be possible to be re-purchased 4 times |
| Storage +1 | Increase warehouse space in a specific region by 1/4/8 slots | ||
| Inventory +1 | Increases inventory space by 1 slot | ||
| Weight +50 | Increases player carry weight by 50 LT | ||
| Horse EXP Booster | Increases Horse EXP by +20% for 1 hour. | ||
| Revive Potion | Allows you to resurrect immediately. | ||
| Character Slot | Expand the character creation slots by 1 slot. | ||
| Only via Miles Shop | Blessing of Kamasylvia 1 day | Increase Energy Regen +2 & Increase item drop by 20% | |
| Energy Potion (S) | Restores 10 energy. | ||
| Tech EXP Booster | Increases Skill EXP by +10% for 1 hour. | ||
| Life Skill EXP Booster | Increases Life Skill EXP +10% for 1 hour. | ||
| Combat EXP Booster | Combat EXP +50% for 1 hour. | ||
| Mana Scroll | Increases Max MP by +100 for 1 hour. | ||
| Health Scroll | Increases Max HP by +100 for 1 hour. | ||
| Game Items | Boss Scrolls (Witch/Tree/Bheg) | Summons a greater boss. | |
| Boss Scrolls (Imp/Goblin/RedNose) | Summons a lesser boss. | ||
Note:
- Cash Shop items will not be possible to sell on the marketplace at launch phase
- If we decide to enable selling Cash Shop Items at a later stage, there will be control mechanisms that will prevent players from heavily profiting and gaining an advantage by repetitively selling Cash Items on the marketplace
- 100 Mileage will be distributed via daily login
- Miles are family bound; items are character bound
CBT Feedback
Leveling Curve
The experience from monsters will be adjusted compared to CBT to lower the risk of running into this scenario too frequently. Developers are aware of the situation and they will keep adjusting the progression flow in the process. Additionally, we are looking into the possibility of adding additional quests to fill the gaps in-between.
Group Play
The party experience and field boss drops have been addressed already in the previous PM Diary. Many of you have asked for the so-called “Party Loot Bag”, which allows players to conveniently split the loot based on categories during faster leveling. We discussed the matter with the developers and they have raised their concerns as it has been removed from the Korean version for a reason. They have experienced issues that affected the efficiency of their service operation and providing a proper support of issues around the “PLB”.
However, the developers are currently looking into different solutions that will offer similar or even improved version for players. One possible direction is to give users the option to ‘claim’ an item before it will be sold on the marketplace. This is merely a concept for now, but we will keep you updated about the progress.
Energy System
We introduced the new energy system already last time. However, some players raised concerns about the exchange rates of ‘unused energy’ into ‘energy potion’ on the Korean service. We will see how the system develops over time and adjust the rates if required.
Karma and PK
Currently small-scale PvP is heavily punished through Karma loss. Lowering the Karma penalty will result in more PK, which may work for PvP focused players but not for PvE players. Increasing Karma penalty doesn’t do the trick either obviously vice versa.
Actually this was the most important and also most difficult part to discuss with developers. We discussed several ideas and went back and forth on them.
For example we came up with a Vendetta System, which would in short, allow a player to call a Vendetta on max 5 players, based on the GvG system. So in short, you have to pay silver to keep up the Vendetta, but in return you can do unharmed PK. Repetitively calling Vendetta wouldn’t be possible as it would be tied to a cooldown. At some point we came to a dead-end on this matter, as it wouldn’t necessarily solve the issue. You could still do random ‘ganking’ of innocent players.
So we kept going…
Our main purpose was to come up with “a reason to kill”. My main point was and still is, that PK is a great feature, as long as you have a reason to kill or can see a reason why you get killed. Most games offer different factions, so if you get killed by the opposite faction, you obviously ran into a sworn enemy, so it was basically their duty to kill you. Some other games offer different PK maps with additional boosts such as increased EXP from monsters and better drops to give incentive to actually go there. If you get killed there, you will also understand why it happened, because you know what you’re getting yourself into, right?
So you can see our dilemma. Valencia Part II update, which has been recently released in Korea offers some additional PK/PvP features and offers some freedom to a certain extent. However, many players do not want to wait until Valencia.
So we kept going…
We brought up the old flagging system that many PKers requested. But it doesn’t really solve the issue as it brings up new issues. Such as the possibility to avoid the Karma penalty by attacking a player while he is engaged with monsters until he ultimately gets killed by the monsters (last hit). This way you could simply avoid getting the penalty for the kill, as the final strike would have been executed by the monster, not the player.
So we kept going…
We brainstormed a lot, also about some ‘rubbish’ ideas that didn’t lead anywhere, but that is the beauty of brainstorming, isn’t it? J
So we kept going…
Towards the end we brought up a ‘Bounty Hunter’ system, but developers were concerned about offering silver as a reward and being transferred in the process from one player to another, as it is not part of the game’s design.
Us: “Why don’t we simply use Karma as a reward?”
Devs: “Hmmm…. Interesting….”
An idea was born and we will be following up with this. So far we only have an early concept on paper that we are trying to refine. The direction is simple. Offer a bounty system where any player can set a bounty on another player. The reward for the ‘assassin’ would be karma.
The idea behind it in short, is displayed in the following scenario:
- PK1 kills PvE1
- PvE1 is pissed and sets bounty on PK1
- PK2 kills PvE2
- PK2 needs to refill his Karma
- PK2 kills PK1 to get Karma back
- …Hunting season is opened!…
I know this is a very rough concept, but as explained, it only exists on paper for now and we are proceeding to refine it. We are not sure if this concept will be feasible, but we would like to get the first feedback on this topic. We have to keep in mind that we need to consider exceptional cases that would allow any sort of abuse, such as setting bounty on yourself, abusing the system to refill your karma more easily etc. Also it might be considered to increase karma penalty in general to create a paradigm shift away from ‘ganking’ (random killing without particular reason) towards bounty hunting (killing for a reason).
Aside from Karma other options are being considered as reward such as titles, achievements or a ranking system.
Join the ‘Bounty Hunter’ discussion >>here<<
Player to Player Trade
In CBT1 we had several items available for player-to-player trading. Yes, it was the same list that the Russian server used. However, we are still considering to have the player-to-player trading completely removed, as it doesn’t offer any reasonable benefit with the current setting and offering more items for open trading is not an option either. The game’s design is laid out to function without player-to-player trade.
Nonetheless we want to stress that we do understand the perception of Western players and their demand for such features. We will closely monitor the development on our service and respond accordingly to improve the situation if deemed necessary.
This is not final, but you will see the changes latest within the patch notes for CBT2. Again, BDO will evolve over time, so please give us time to determine the needs for our service after launch and do not base all your assumptions and perception on your experience with other games or the Korean service. Give us the chance to be our own version of Black Desert Online.
Server Setup
Still in discussion. No update yet. Sorry folks.
Once we found a final decision, we will let you know and explain the reasoning behind it. Whatever setup it will be, it will be in your interest.
Learning Curve
Black Desert Online is a game of incredible depth and there is just so much to find out and to get lost in. We do understand that especially casual players might feel intimidated by all the different features that are deeply interconnected, so my personal recommendation is, take your time!
Jokes aside, we will look into the possibility to add a quest to the in-game wiki page which is monitored by fans. That way, additional content can be added anytime addressing the most urgent needs for information. On top of that, we will re-arrange some of the tutorial quests to offer knowledge about certain features at an earlier stage.
Around launch, we also plan on improving our website content, so adding additional guides will most likely be part of this process.
Hmmm… that’s it about the CBT1-Feedback-Feedback
New Stuff!?
Localization
As mentioned in my ‘Paris Games Week’ video, I pointed towards some special surprise in regards of localization.
For those that are not familiar with the game, here is the idea:
Black Desert has (currently) 5 revealed regions and 2 more to follow at some point.
You will begin your journey in Balenos, wander through Serendia, explore Calpheon, travel to Mediah and get lost in Valencia (literally, I actually died after getting lost in the desert -_-). In the history of Black Desert there are also two more, inaccessible areas such as Kamasylvia and Dragan.
- Balenos lies close to the sea.
- Serendia is a rural area in the center.
- Calpheon holds the capital city of Calpheon.
- Mediah is a rough area with many rocky areas, with partial access to the sea in the north.
- Valencia is sand, lots of sand, and more sand. Did I mention sand?
- Kamasylvia is the area of elves.
- Dragan the habitat of the dwarves.
Black Desert has more than 1.000 characters that will be voiced. Many of them solely mumbling in the background mostly contributing the overall atmosphere. To emphasize the beautiful lore and world of Black Desert, we have decided to allocate certain English accents to each region, as the game will only be featuring the English voice over with English, German and French subtitles.
- Balenos and Serendia will both have NPCs speaking U.S. American English
- Calpheon will have British English
- Mediah has Australian English
- Valencia will receive an Arabian Acccent
- Elves in Kamasylvia will speak Irish
- Dragan, well obviously … Scottish
To give you a small preview of how it will sound like, here is an example of Alustin’s voice:
We believe that this will massively contribute to the environment’s atmosphere and we hope you will like it.
Cinematic Intro
The current cinematic intro video that we have is different from what the Korean service had at the beginning. Unfortunately, the old one became obsolete because it didn’t match the storyline and lore anymore after certain parts had been rewritten. However, developers are working hard on offering a different, re-worked Cinematic Intro for the NA/EU service, which might, with a bit of luck, be ready for launch! So stay tuned…
Castle Siege and Node Wars
They will not be part of the launch, but released with the earliest update, roughly ~4 weeks after launch. The main reason behind this is to give everyone a chance to get accustomed to the game, find a guild and educate themselves about the features before it gets ugly. J
Also before the features get fully activated, we will do some test runs at the beginning once implemented, so we can fine-tune the settings at our end to provide the best stability possible.
The future…
We discussed many more things than mentioned above, but those are to be mentioned another day. However, to give you a small peek into the future, a very exclusive peek actually, we would like to share some pictures taken on our tour throughout the office.
Those pictures show content that has not yet been released on any service! We will receive this sometime in the future, so please be patient
Valkyrie Awakening
Kamasylvia Monster Design
New Wizard/Witch Costume Drafts
New Pet
New Weapon Design
New Town
New Monster
New Areas
New Environment
We will give everyone some time to digest this heavy load of information before we get to the next interview where you can shoot questions that remain open. So please give it a few weeks from now. J My fingers need to recover from all the typing.
Thank you everyone for being such an awesome community so far, yes, yes, we also love the forum trolls… haters gonna hate *eyeroll*
Pearl Abyss and Daum Games Europe hope you’ve enjoyed all the news!
Best regards,
Your PM Belsazar and his amazing team!
Below you will find a short summary for the lazy readers.
February
- Family and Character Name reservations early February
Cash Shop
- Cash Shop details announced. See post for details.
- Possible pay2win items moved to mileage shop
- Mileage system will be improved
CBT Feedback
- Leveling Curve
- Experience from monsters will be adjusted
- Group Play
- Party Loot Bag will be re-implemented
- Energy System
- Energy exchange rate into potion might be adjusted for CBT2
- Karma and PK
- Possibly looking into ‘bounty hunter’ features (see details in post)
- Join the PK discussion >>here<<
- Player to Player Trade
- Trading might be disabled for CBT2; discussion ongoing
- Server Setup
- No update
- Learning Curve
- Missing profession quest bug in CBT1 will be fixed for CBT2
- Guides or channels towards guides will be offered
New Stuff!?
- Localization
- All regions will receive their English accentuation to emphasize their role and contribute to the environment and atmosphere of the game
- Cinematic Intro
- New cinematic intro in development; maybe available at launch!?
- Castle Siege and Node Wars
- Will be updated after ~4 weeks after launch
- First test runs will be done on live service to fine-tune server settings
The future…
- Look for yourself
- Stop reading the summary you lazy bum!
Update
- You will not receive Mileage with pearl purchases, the only way to get mileage is as a daily login reward.
- Cash Shop & Mileage items cannot be traded or put on the Auction House
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