Was inspired to make this post after another recent reddit post about BDO needing content which I 100% agree with. But looking past that, what I think BDO truly needs is a story and I don't mean story as in whatever the main questline is currently. I mean a grand overarching story that involves all the various regions, all the main NPCs and captivates the player, a story that has huge stakes and clear progression as it builds towards a world-changing finale(s).

Think something along the lines of the Burning Legion Saga in WOW as you first fend of an unexpected global invasion of interdimensional demons, discover the masterminds and history behind this legion, battle and defeat it's generals and then launch an ultimate assault with the combined forces of literally everyone to stop this dark god once and for all (for now) and the in-game world was changed forever due to the player's actions. How goddamn hype was that? There's plenty of other examples of great stories (for MMOS) such as the Lich King Saga, pretty much every FF14 expansion, Lost Ark as you battle through the demon generals to stop the big demon lord from resurrecting, TERA up to and including Shandra Manaya, etc.

Point is, I believe all mmorpgs needs a grand backbone story to give its world a soul and to help give meaning, purpose and motivation behind the gear progression gameplay loop, i.e. I need to get stronger to defeat this imminent threat of world destruction. It may be a silly reason, but isn't the point of a (mmo)rpg the suspension of belief to immerse yourself in another world? OFC this isn't the only motivating factor to play, but it sure does help add meaning and substance to the game's fictional world.

In addition, having a core storyline would help the developers in creating clear future content instead of having to come up with random ideas here and there. For example, looking at Lost Ark , it's obvious what each future major update will be about as you battle through the demon generals (ofc you will get some semi-sidetrack stuff such as Elgacia and Voldis but the main direction stays the same). Meanwhile, looking at BDO, we get the mountain region with its own mini story, which we immediately forget about as we fuck off across the sea to BDO Korea, which we forget once again as we fuck right back to the Ulukita desert. All these releases, whilst pretty looking, just feel like empty soulless fillers that no one cares about.

And that is not to say BDO doesn't have good stories, but it doesn't have a good story suited for an mmo. I'd wager 98% of players can't give a 2 minute summary of what the main questline is about. Everything just feels so disconnected, low stakes and LOW LOW IMPACT. Oh this girl I met is causing some commotion in LOML in order to get medicine for her brother? Oh there is a big tiger terrorizing local villages? Oh some ambitious dude got possessed by evil forces in order to gain power but barely anything came out of it? I don't give a fuck. The closest thing we have to a core storyline and final boss is Illezra, the black spirit and the ancient kingdom where the player comes from but that hasn't gone anywhere besides a 1v1 with the black spirit that would've barely passed for a tutorial bossfight in any other mmo.

I know PA probably wouldn't suddenly make any changes, and certainly not due to a random reddit post, but would like to here people's thoughts on this. Apologies in advance if this rant went too long. Didn't submit in Feedback section cause it's doesn't really fit the forum's definition of feedback.

That's what exaclty i miss in BDO, i good story! i don't know why i cannot involve and get captivated by BDO story and npcs... maybe cause too many dialogues are long and goffy, nothing very seriouse. Just look at the last LOML story... everything was just some crap joke and nothing really seriouse.

And btw who are the arch enemies in this game? no demons, the true face of evil! even the art style design of some bosses is just too bad!!! just look at Bheg and Rednose! can it be anyworse than those?!

And the Dragons... Garmoth looks ok, but Nouver is just a furry snake... compare it to Antharas or any other decent dragon!

Even the background ambience and melody is not that great in many situations, and that rly disconects me! But some are rly nice and this aint enough!

Anyway take what you learned and use it in BDO 2, cause i dont think this game gonna be the main focus anymore.

R spamming is the story :D sry but bdo story is not interesting. 

No it doesen't. They did that before and it was godawefull. It needs better lore delivery and more flavour.  Game has much bigger problems than "no story" 

Yes..... let us change the main questlines AGAIN cause i sure ain't sick of redoing them again and again every few years cause they decided the story is not actually what they said it was and want to change some minor details. Stop touching the story pls. It doesn't matter, Iit's always gonna be formulaic no matter what you do because VG is not a good story telling medium and never has been no matter what the industry has tried to make people believe in the past like two decades (yes i'm aware this is a "hot take" to have but right now im gonna need you to tell me what video game had a better narrative than any of the best movies, tv series or books of all time) and fantasy is an extremely cliched genre anyway.

Especially in a mmorpg I feel it pretty much is the least important thing cause the fact that you have thousands of players means that everybody is experiencing the same thing which kinda cheapens the whole idea of having a storyline to begin with. Hey cool im like the champion of Serendia or something. Yeah, me and the 20 000 players roaming the world right now. Not to mention that because of this, they can,t have you make choices that would affect anything.  Like for example in a SP game you might be given a choice to kill x npc but in a mmorpg you can't cause this NPC needs to be around for everyone.

Personally, I like that some of the stories are connected and some aren't.  It's more realistic that way.

"Was inspired to make this post after another recent reddit post about BDO needing content which I 100% agree with. But looking past that, what I think BDO truly needs is a story and I don't mean story as in whatever the main questline is currently"

I am so sorry, I am completely against this idea and similar. Black Desert doesn't need a history mode, what it requires is the opposite... I want to immerse myself in that fantasy world as I want, I don't want a videogame developer to force me to do what to do in this fantasy world - they already do with the timegated events, reason why I ignore them- and how to play it. I want to play the game, not the game play with me.

We start with the basics, Black Desert is supposed – at least, they label it so– a massive online videogame of RPG genre set in a fantasy world based on pseudomedieval societies and systems. Being massive and online means that it is alive, that the most important are those who play it -players with their avatars or characters- and the context of fiction -the world of fantasy and its laws, both natural (I remember another online that has an interesting system on how it affects the exploitation of natural resources by the players to the world) as social or legal (I remember certain games of tactical genre where each area or combat had laws system)-.

The main adventures are great, especially the remade ones, but that if Black Desert was a video game for a player and not massive online; in Black Desert I have the growing feeling of being in a park of attractions -so it is listed by many people, genre park of attractions- that each client -avatar or player character- is given a VIP pass of platinum that automatically turns them into protagonists of a different history of fun.

"Adventurous save us, Oh! Im wet and in love with my shining knight superhero number 9999!": THIS IS A LOUSY APPROACH. Instead of using so many resources and budgets to these guided adventures for a player -they would have to keep this for the Crimsom Desert and other single player videogames-, make understand that our avatar (person) is someone else from that world -it is not the superhero that comes to save everyone and mount a unisex harem-, that decides what to do. In short, it would be moving from being a instanced player's theme park to a minimum open world multiplayer RPG sandbox.

In the end, the less history, scripted quests and npcs in online massive multiplayer BETTER –I mean those omnipresent zombie humanoids and other creatures who say repeat things and sell potions; not wild beasts, animals and dangerous monsters– because those NPCs in a true RPG would be the players with their avatars; players talking, crafting, selling, exploring, hunting, etc. Does anyone remember how that videogame saga called Dark Souls or Monster Hunter is? No Man's Sky? Something like that. Plus, everything gets worse when they segregate players on servers, channels, instances and other asphalt patches. What is and what could be Black Desert, a pity.

They have good stories. Its just that they're all sad as heck. And since it used to be a mostly pvp game, most people spammed R. I don't think anyone even knows the lore of BDO. I was trying to look up several instances of it, there was nothing on it. Good point on it being disconnected, there's no flow. Yes. It doesn't feel progressive. More like a short story here and there. 

I think the biggest problem regarding the story is the NPC interactions. The decision behind keeping story dialogues behind a menu system turns people away from being interested. I'm a huge lore buff in other games, BDO failed to captivate my interest likely because of the delivery format. But, the story telling of the game isn't quite there. Here's why.

The first issue is that new players can pick to start in one of three regions, which pretty much tells you that there's not going to be any narrative that connects the three together in a chronological way. While I understand PA wants to try and encourage people to try the newest content, I think it has the opposite effect, at least that's how it would be for me if I were new.

The second issue is that we are not presented with story driven goal that is impactful and meaningful early in the story. The Black Spirit is the first NPC that really matters to you, but since you can't ask the Black Spirit any questions, you're just going along for the ride without question which is disconnecting with reality.

The third issue is that you don't have a real enemy, there's no arch villain in the story, it's just these little quests that connect each other. There is one guy, but I won't comment further on this to avoid spoilers. However, my point is, where is the great threat? The stories aren't epic enough in my opinion. Even MoEW and LOML were both lacking in the threat department, there was no precedent to actually do anything. The only reason why one would want to continue with the story is so they can go to the mainland area and complete content there with everyone else.

Basically, I agree with the opinions that there's no flow to the story, there's a severe lack of impact, the way you interact with NPCs is jarring and it's overall designed in such away that you start subconsciously wanting to spam R because you're so done with it before it's even close to being done.

Thankfully, there are other high points to the game to make the story or lack-there-of worth it. But maybe PA's decision with story was because the game isn't meant to be a themepark MMO, but rather a sandboxy kind of game where, wherever you go, you can play a small part as an adventurer, rather than a legendary hero. (despite at times where the story makes it seem like you did something nobody else could)

That's just my opinion on the subject. Either way, if I had to pick between budget for more content/gameplay or budget for making the story more interesting, I would pick content/gameplay.