I didn't like the content of "Abyss One: Magnus". There are several reasons.

1. Mostly i was in an instance. You only jump from one instance to the other and solve puzzles. For me, BDO is a Sandbox Open World PVX game that is known for its large and massive open game world. Every instance devalues this concept.

2. The dialogues were very poorly written, superficial and were not exciting. The characters seem to be soulless. If you want to go more in this "Themepark-story-telling" direction, then you unfortunately have to compete with MMORPG's like FF14. You will be compared by those who like "storytelling" in MMORPG's.

3. This "I am the chosen one" story is just boring and uncreative. You already know from 1000 other MMORPGs.

4. The music in the Magnus does not match the announced "mysterious atmosphere". With the music, I feel more like in a science fiction game.

5. The puzzles were uncreative, simple and, above all, contextless and without connection with the story. Everything looked like you should have solved these puzzles just to have puzzles. Why should I transport a ball 4 times from A to B and avoid ghosts? So far I have read everything and tried to follow the story carefully. Nothing explains why I should solve these puzzles. Mostly just random puzzles.

6. The worst is that the rewards of the Magnus is very good (Pen Boss Gear, fast travel, connected warehouse). This leads to the fact that, even if the story is great and is not buggy, many players will hate it because they feel pushed to make the questline for the rewards. Not to unlock these functions would be an enormous disadvantage. Unfortunately, that's how the human psyche works.

The only thing I liked was the Magnus optical. The sky, the emptiness and distance of the sea. Well done.

I very much hope that you will soon stop with this instance and "Themepark-storytelling" stuff and never build the activation of "essential" game mechanics again to complete content . This instance-story-telling stuff doesn't fit BDO and was very boring so far (Also in the "eternal winter" patch). BDO is known and unique in what it was and how it used to be and is mostly still. Better try to stay in the "Sandbox PvX Open World" vision and improve this. Otherwise there is no other MMORPG that is in this quality.
This "complete content X to get a really important function game mechanic Y" is mostly the best way how u lead ppl to hate ur content.

There are so many great suggestions in the forum that would fit: Bounty-Hunter System, World Boss Invasions on nearby cities, which are triggered by killing monster at grind spots, PvPvE Open World Dynamic Events, PvP Guild/Group Fights for Open World Boss Loot etc.

I have to say that I agree. I really want them to drop the whole attempt at cinematic story-telling. I think it's a waste of resources and development time personally. I played FFXIV since 1.0 and left it after over a decade of being committed because I was sick of the formula they followed. If they really want to do some story-telling in this game I think they should take the approach that From Software did with their more recent action RPGs. Have lore dumped on item descriptions and have NPCs talk a little here and there maybe to give a bit of lore. It doesn't need cutscenes. Honestly it doesn't even need the weird cinematic zoom in and letterbox menu that's already in the game when you talk to NPCs. You could just have them talk a little about something. Could also use the environment for story-telling too.

I came over to BDO for a more gameplay focused experience, without raid-logging or statics or any of the other obnoxious things you find in MMOs like WoW and FFXIV. I liked that BDO had long-term progression that isn't constantly invalidated by an ever increasing ilvl every few months. I liked that BDO was focused on a seamless fully open world that's shared by the players. I don't think they need to completely abandon story-telling, but I think an approach like found in From Software's games would be more suitable for the type of game that BDO is. Something that doesn't interfere too much with getting to the gameplay and exploring the world, basically the things that BDO excels at.

If PA intends to commit to the cinematic story-telling it's going to need a lot more polish and refinement. I'm basing my take off of the Eternal Winter questline and the updated Balenos questline. I have yet to do Magnus because I was at work all day but I imagine it's probably similar. I think the concept behind Magnus is interesting, and could possibly be cool if it were to take us to another world that's as large and open as the one we currently have, but I imagine that'd take a tremendous amount of work, and might be questionable as well given we still don't have our current world finished, and I wouldn't want it to detract from that. I will say I've been interested in getting to see and explore wherever the black spirits came from eventually. It's something I thought could be cool, but would need to be handled carefully because their mysteriousness is part of what makes them interesting currently.

Not sure why it posted my post twice, I only submitted it once...

The cron/artizan money they rake în is better spend on other areas of the game for sure.

what u discribe here is in my understanding the kind of "story-telling" that Sandbox MMO´s use. It´s the kind of discover the world, be in the world and interact with the world (more active), its more roleplay. For sure u can improve this kind. The kind of "story-telling" in Magnus is a typical Themepark thing where ur the choosen one that needs to deal with the big dark Danger that wants to destroy the world. Its much more like watching a Movie, where u dont roleplay, but identify ur self with a character (more passive).

They really dropped the ball on this one. I hate the direction they are going with cinematics, they are not polished with it. If they are going to include cinematics, they need to include the same amount of effort as they do for New Class Trailers. Otherwise, it feels forced and it is an unnecessary amount of resources.

The lack of QA to test this new feature was non-existent as well. If the content is not ready, delay it until it is completely done and tested. I expect big compensation and an apology to the players. This was a disappointment.

lol if you kill a million enemies like butter effectively doing what an army should be able to do (but don't / can't), climb up ranks in little-to-no time due to your insane strength then I'm pretty sure you are the chosen one whether they say it or not. They can't make you not a chosen one in this game, it wouldn't make sense.

Also "themepark storytelling" is what they avoided for years and failed miserably with delivery. Now they are trying to actually give the game lore and story and people are complaining. Can't ever please people, lol!

But I think they should have released Magnus in December with proper QA instead of rushing it. This was bad and it will likely delay the expansion due to the negative feedback over the rush.

Apart from the Pirate Flare mini game instance being rage inducing I actually loved it, it definitely got my brain working with the puzzles. Luckily I didn't encounter any bugs on my play through (I think graphic settings plays a big part in bugs). It brought a breath of fresh air to the game imo and we got to see Jordine again (Love that guy). Pearl Abyss can add mini games and new story with jordine and the other heroes with rewards to the magnus for many years to come without much time commitment (I think the Magnus is a developers dream with so much future potential). I think how Pearl Abyss indroduced us to the Magnus was cool also. Using the well systems to jump to cities is so inkeeping with Black Deserts lore so I'm a fan that they didn't overdo it.

Now are Pearl Abyss working too quick to get updates out that bugs are a big major part in new updates nowadays? Yes, I think Pearl Abyss need to fine tune their bug reporting and bug fixing team at PA headquarters or maybe even recruit new people to soleley work on game bugs. But I will never hate new content in BDO even if it is buggy, New content is just something that brings that extra flavour to the game. 

yes, i kill a million enemies, but thousand other player around me too. Not everyone can be the "chosen one". that wouldn´t make sense.

The game has already Lore and Story, but not in this themepark kind.
i dont need cinematics, full voice acted dialogues, linear story telling, where the story is already written and dont need to be the chosen one. i just need some tools to create my own story and adventure. for sure, its nice to have a bit of existing story in the world, that is presented as an offer, like some Books, Inscriptions in Ruins or a NPC that tell me a bit about the past or the existing gods. "story-telling" through the environment and objects.

Everything written is subjective. You didn't like the music, but I liked it. You think the rewards are too good only because you're used to the fact that the rest of the game rewards for quest chains are too weak. The easiest way is to kill monsters every day. To complete quests, there must be good motivation. She is often absent and Magnus in this sense is a step in the right direction.

I also want to thank the developers for improving the rewards on October 5th in the taming and fishing gurus chains. I spent 3 days of real time to catch a sperm whale. For 3 days I was fishing 1 fish with a harpoon, wasting time that I could spend on earning a huge amount of silver on spots. But I was rewarded with an Item Brand Spell Stone which justified the potential silver loss for me. If it wasn't for this reward, I'd rather just beat the monsters because that's the most profitable.