So, the lore behind the hardcore servers: Marni and the Crow Merchant Guild (humans) team up to make a desert deathmatch, just because, I guess.  Oh, yes, that really inspires me to do this.

Remember the last hardcore servers, the Elvia servers?  The god (an all powerful being) Hadum curses parts of the world, making them brutally difficult to survive in.  And battling there now ferocius monsters will help restore balance to a world thrown into chaos. Good luck!  Sounds awesome!

Man, the lore is going south in this game. 

When I first started in 2020, I was immediately hooked by the lore.  The story was grade D crap, because whoever put it together didn't know how to write, as quests were contrived, and the story had too many holes in it to make sense.  But the lore was amazing A grade stuff.

Now, it's mad-scientist garbage.

This is a fantasy game, not a sci-fi game.  Sage is about as techy as the game needed to be.  He made all those cool stone weapons by using magic and mystic arts.  Sounds good.

Then the Magnus came.  And world-breaking anomolies that are solved by doing.......... silly puzzles..........

Then Marni Realms, because of carebears.

Then Marni has to suck into this world an American gunslinger chick that really isn't historically accurate..................

I hate Marni.  And I hate what the devs are doing to the lore.  I hate where this game is going: spiraling down a drain.

The art too, is dying.  Over-the-top visuals that aren't needed, sounds being nerfed, character's voices being silenced, soundtrack playing random junk at random times, no more class specific outfits that bring our characters to life with a unique identity....... so many things that are done, just to make things in the game easy to maintain.

The game is dying because the vision that ran the game for the first six years is gone.  The last four years has been an ever quickening pace to ruination.  BDO has lost it's lore, which is it's identity.  Lore has a way of making one want to be a part of the game's universe.  But the devs don't care.  The devs are just coasting at this point.

I want the game that I bought and invested in, back.

Same, Ive always cared about the lore in any game I played. I think BDO's IS good but the delivery is really poor and the lore isnt present in the gameplay outside the main quests. It doesnt feel relevant.

Id love to have stuff like class halls (similar to WoW) where we have our lore gathered ETC but the playerbase probably doesnt care about that and even less the devs :")

Maybe it's because only a few people are interested in lore in mmorpg? All people just  want content. But we have big troubles with content, so there is no chance they will do something with lore.

I think Lore does matter.  Otherwise, there would be no difference between games, except maybe skins and combat mechanics.

A ROLE PLAYING game really is founded on lore.

BDO lost its identity the moment Pearl Abyss took full ownership of it. It cannot be a coincidence. Not only storywise, but EVERYTHING. I would've rather seen it eventually be grim-reapered by Kakao Games than see it resembling nothing it once was.

Personally, I tried to get super into the game's lore but the Google Translations from Korean to English was a hindrance lol

The localisation team is terrible, if there's a team to begin with.

But anyway this is a curse that haunts every MMO lore. Even though they deliver mediocare stories, if you get hooked/invested you've just made a mistake; because the people behind it will be replaced at some point and you will notice. My best advice? Imagine the story and lore ends after Kamaslyvia and you can replay the sh*t out of that. That can be applied to other mmos, FFXIV before it turned into a full-on anime/sci-fi, Warcraft before they made a Chinese expansion to appease their shareholders, etc etc.

Pearl Abyss is the developer, Kakao was the publisher in NA/EU. They made 0 decisions about the game, they controlled the pearl shop in the regions.

True, but is it control like whether this kind of out-of-place outfit gets approved or not?

But anyway I'm not being literal... it's just weird that changes to the game (at least superficially) were very noticeable ever since the transfer.

Agree 100% the game is going in a rather weird (and lazy if we're being honest) direction. Marni is now Deus Ex Machina. A lazy and convenient way to explain or implement 'new content.' I'd love if they'd implement the lore better and make it more immersive. Get creative. The content is already there, just expand on it. Improve it. Stop taking things away, condensing, and dumbing it down. Make the classes unique again and actually meaningful. Stop coming out with FOTM classes for quick cashgrab and work on the content we have already in order to make it more enjoyable. Sadly, I still love this game and my characters. I hate the direction the game is going, the future of BDO does not look bright. They'll have to make BIG changes (changes people have been asking for) if they want to save this game. But I don't think they want to put in the time, money, or effort. Hence, the quick cashgrab schemes...

It also annoys me how Marni is all of the sudden relevant. Besides his laboratory and weird (and quite frankly disturbing) inventions, not much was known about him. Other than the fact he was crazy (mad scientist and all that). I personally can't stand him.