Recent reviews by maRe .;

Black Desert Online is a pretty nice MMO for that fair (-low) price. Very often there is boundle discounts on the game and occassionaly there is also free offers for the game were you can keep the game, after reaching a certain level with your first character.

The storyline of the game is very extensive, which can be sometimes a little confusing, if not taking attention to it. Depending on which type of gamer you are, the game gives you freedom to skip every text of the storylines. Personally i find the story very interesting, gives sometimes moral examples, has it´s own humor, is not missing to be serious enough and has plenty of surprising plot-twists.
If you are a person who enjoys stories in a game, than take your time for the stories, they are very well written.
Downside of playing the stories is, that you won´t be able to progress fast in the game, since the story is definitely humongous and takes days, if not weeks to finish it.
Another downside of the stories is, that it feels most of the time like chores, than doing some meaningful action which could shape the world of the game in it´s looks. Very often you run from point A to B. Doing the story will also not have a big visual impact in regions inside the game.
What the story does, it allows you to unlock further content and sidequests. Additionally to that some mainstories will also give you unique items, gear-parts and free premium items.
At some point i started to skip all the storyparts, since it became rather tideous and i wanted to see progress and enjoy the endgame content. If you are not patient at all, i advise you to do the same.

The start of the game is rather difficult, especially for newbies in MMO´s, nevertheless you should be patient at the start and don´t be afraid to ask the community in the ingame-chat if you feel kinda lost in the game. The community is compared to other multiplayer games very beginner friendly and welcoming to new players.
Aside of the very helpful community the UI of the game might be a decisive factor for you to not touch the game again after you have seen it once. The UI in my opinion is the worst i have seen in any game in the last 25 years of gaming, which is definitely unfortunate, since BDO is a really nice game. For every new player i would highly advise to watch youtube guides for beginners in Black Desert Online, this will give you a better start in the game and most beginner guides will show you tips and tricks on the UI and how to change it. After i changed my UI i felt a little more comfortable playing the game.

When it comes to gameplay Black Desert Online is definitely unique to what most people will maybe expect from a MMO. It´s far different in its playstyle compared to famous titles like WoW or GW2. Black Desert is developed by the gamedeveloper Pearl Abyss in south-korea and has the very authentic combat style in the game, which many will be familiar with Tekken or Mortal Combat. Aside the unique combat system there is also a very authentic lifeskill system were you can spend hours of hunting animals or gathering materials from trees and bushes, and with that also even having the access to cook meals or craft elixirs, which can be also quite satisfying.

In terms of progression you can expect the conventional slow-progress-system of a MMO type game, but for a typical MMO Black Desert is definitely harder and slower compared to its competitors on the market. To reach something in the game you have to be patient and work hard. The feeling to have accomplished a goal in Black Desert is than quite extraordinary and satisfying, which gives motivation to strive for even higher targets.

Of course the game originally was developed for the MMO enthusiasts and hardcore gamers out there who like to spend plenty hours a day in the game, BUT to not demotivate any casual player out there i can tell you, that the game has plenty things to offer were you can also spend some time around the game casually without having to stay there for hours. The game offers afk-activities, lifeskill as mentioned above, and every week different events which can be done very quick and are highly rewarding.

Since BDO is named to be a MMO, we can fairly say the multiplayer factor in the game is really held small compared to other MMO´s if you understand multiplayer as some group interaction. BDO keeps it´s multiplayer mostly on "show-your-b*lls"-activities in the name of PVP.
If you expect daily dark and deep dungeons, massive multiplayer instances, insane raid bosses were you can meet up with hundrets of friends to empty those raids, than Black Desert is not the right place for you. BDO lacks from the start on a big amount of multiplayer activities, which can be found normally in every other MMO out there.
You won´t find spontaneous multiplayer events around the map in BDO. If you want to interact with other players in multiplayer situations, than you have to actively search for that and ask for groups to grind party spots or to go to the only one dungeon named Atoraxxion in the game. To be fair, the dungeon in BDO is compared to other MMO´s dungeons also very hard and quite challenging and can take up to three hours to finish it. Other than that there is open world PVP in the game and battle arenas, where you can let yourself get the sh*t beaten out of yourself from high geared PVP players.
Another downside of the lackluster of multiplayer in Black Desert Online is the restricted amount of party members for the group events. All events with group content are limited to five players in the group.
Were other MMO´s might lack in PVP action, BDO has definitely a lot of that. As already mentioned you will find open world PVP, red battlefields with free-for-all battles, massive Guild Wars fought in certain parts of the map, called Nodewars. Those fights are intense and give you always a huge amount of adrenaline rush, were you start to keep looking for that, even you desperately loosing each time over and over again against hardcore PVP players.

If you are someone who asks for balance in a game, you might gonna search very long for it in BDO.
The game offers you 24 different classes, and to the sheer amount of classes added the PVP factor it is impossible for the gamedeveloper to give balance in the gameplay. So to say, there is simply zero balance in the gameplay when it comes to multiplayer PVP.

The game is having it´s own ingame-shop as most other MMO´s are having. Do you need the ingame-shop? Definitely not. You can play the game to it´s full excess without having the need to buy anything. There is no benefit in combat and only minor benefits for progression in lifeskilling if you buy shop items. Everyone who started to play the game and reached a certain high level in combat or lifeskills had to spend many hours to achieve that goal.
So for a new player you won´t have any disadvantage compared to others, you just have to spend some time and effort in the game to reach something. Of course you can buy anytime something in the ingame-shop, to make your life a bit more convenient and to speed up some progress slightly faster, so to say it´s a mix of a big amount of Pay-To-Convenience and a small amount of Pay-To-Win.
If you don´t want to give out money for the shop, than you still can get enough premium items when attending weekly events in the game and for login in daily. Also the game gives you the opportunity to get more premium items provided finishing certain quests in the game, which some require to finish the mainstory of the game.

Last but not least the game is weekly updated and is releasing very often new content and lifechanging mechanics. New zones to explore are also released once a year.

If you always wanted to play an unforgiving MMO with a massive open world, insane combat mechanics and a really terrible UI, than Black Desert Online is definitely something you should play.

Would i recommend the game? Absolutely!

Spiel ist viel zu einfach, die In-Game-Oberfläche ist sehr monoton gestaltet, ebenso das generelle Spielsystem.

Ein Spiel das nur über ca. 3 Menüs aufgebaut ist, ist bei so einer Simulation für diesen Preis zu wenig. Animierte Videosequenzen und ein deutlich umfangreicheres Menü hätten den Preis zumindest gerechtfertigt, diese fehlen aber.

Die Unvorhersehbaren Ereignisse wie z. B. Dürren, Wasserverschmutzung, sowie einschneidende politische Entscheidungen wie z. B. Steuererhöhungen von bis zu 50%, oder Rentenreduzierungen von 40%, sind bedeutungslos und hindern kaum am Sieg bzw. der Wiederwahl, stattdessen scheint es der Bevölkerung zu gefallen, wenn man 100% Steuern abzieht und keine Sozialleistungen vergibt.

Hinzu kommt die Monotonie des Spielprinzips, das sich gänzlich zum Ziel gemacht hat, einem eine Art pseudo-Demokratie aufzuzwängen. Das Spiel mag zwar Democracy 4 heißen, dennoch hätte man mehr Innovation hervorbringen können, mit Volksaufständen in der eigenen Nation, Kriegen von/gegen andere Nationen, usw. um den Spieler deutlich unter Druck zu setzen und auch Gründe zu geben, Steuern nicht abrupt zu steigern oder ein Militärregime/Verteidigungsarmee zu erstellen.
Es gibt zwar die Möglichkeit Diktaturen oder sozialistische Regimes zu erstellen, aber selbst das ist nicht wirklich spannend, da sich die restliche Welt im Spiel kaum interessiert, wie man als Staatsoberhaupt agiert. Im Endeffekt kehrt man dann zur Herausforderung wieder zu einer Art Demokratie zurück, die man selbst dann noch derart manipulieren kann, dass es wieder eine pseudo-Demokratie ist und man letztendlich im Endlosmodus gelangweilt die Runden überspringt, in der Hoffnung das Spiel endet irgendwann, obwohl man bereits gewonnen hat.
Wenn man dann wenigstens wüsste in welchem Jahr zu welchem Tag man als Staatsoberhaupt all diese Ereignisse erlebt hat, wären diese zumindest etwas authentischer oder auch für das eigene Spielgefühl historischer oder realitätsnaher. Aber bei all den vorhandenen Statistiken im Spiel, den vielen Zahlen und Prozentsätzen, Verboten und Regelungen, sucht man so etwas einfaches wie eine Jahres-/Monats-/Tagesangabe vergeblich in all den Statistiken.

Um den Spielspaß also zu steigern muss man sich selbst ein imaginäres Szenario erdenken und das Spiel demnach solange spielen, bis es einem zu langweilig ist.
Ein klar strukturiertes Szenario mit Sieg und Niederlage-Bedingungen und klaren Limitierungen, sollte bei einer derartigen Simulation eigentlich Standard sein, welches aber leider auch nicht wirklich vorhanden ist, die einzige Sieg-Niederlage-Bedingung ist die Wiederwahl, welche man ohne Probleme umgehen kann.

Die zwar positiv zu erwähnende Modding-Freundliche Oberfläche mit dem vom Hersteller auf der Homepage zur Verfügung gestellten Leitfaden zum Modding, und die bereits vorhandenen von der Community erstellten Mods, können leider auch nur Bedingt die groben Mängel der Spielentwickler von Democracy 4 ausbügeln.
Es gibt Browser-Games, die deutlich älter sind und in denen sich die ganze Politik- und Weltwirtschaftsspielerei authentischer nachspielen lässt, zudem zu einem günstigeren Preis und ohne Mods.

Für zwischendurch aus Langeweile ist das Spiel ganz nett, aber nach einer Stunde ist die Lust am Spiel dann auch vorbei, da es sowieso immer nach dem gleichen Schema abläuft. Der Spielablauf ist sehr kalkulierbar und man kommt sogar mit plumper durchklick-Manier weit.

Im Großen und Ganzen ist Democracy 4 deutlich schlechter als erwartet. Eine klare Enttäuschung.

A really decent historical medieval strategy game without big fantasy addings. Nothing for impatient people. Takes time to make progress and to understand for newbies in this genre. Nevertheless it´s worth spending time in that game, very educative since it´s very closely connected to real historical events and partly shows how life and reign could have been in middle ages.
The start is very easy to make, but if you miss the pace to grow your borders, others will do and you lay behind. Endgame can be very hard for beginners, especially on normal difficulty.