GameNet has announced that Pearl Abyss will take over the publishing duties for Black Desert Onlinein Russia starting on October 12th. A contract between current publisher GameNet and developer Pearl Abyss was not successfully made for GameNet to continue providing Black Desert services to Russian players.
Steps are being made to ensure that all accounts and characters can be transferred without issues, but accounts will not be transferred automatically. Players will be able to transfer via a new Russian website by Pearl Abyss. It’s also been clarified that the Russian servers will not merge with European servers.
Action combat is a type of combat mode that allows players to manually utilize complex movements like dodging, evading and pointing to hit to their advantage in combat scenarios. As opposed to tab-target combat, action combat generally requires a players to trigger their skills within an opponent’s hit-box in order for attacks, buffs or heals to successfully land. It is also common for enemies to have advanced movements like flying, dashing, grabbing and jumping. Here is a list of the top MMORPGs with impressive action combat.
We are listing these games based on release dates in descending order. This is an on-going list that will be updated when a new impressive action combat MMORPG reveals itself.
European Beta: Live – March 2, 2018 Developer: Booming Games
Publisher: Netease Games Model:Free-to-play
PvP: Controlled Army Warfare, Castle sieges
Conqueror’s Blade is a sandbox MMO warfare game that combines action combat and tactical movements. Players control single commanders and give commands to their personal armies. The gameplay includes controllable medieval teams where players command dozens of powerful and varying troops in large-scale siege-like scenarios.
Western Release: Pre-alpha – January 24, 2018
Developer: ArtCraft
Publisher: ArtCraft Model:Buy-to-play
Crowfall is deemed as a “throne war” MMORPG with an open world setting played across campaigns where players fight in a large open-world arena for resources and bases. Skills are leveled over time, so players can create the builds they prefer without worry. Players can play any of the available characters at any time, which adds uniqueness to the exciting non-target action combat.
Western Release: Live – November 7, 2017
Developer: Naddic Games Publisher: En Masse Entertainment Model:Free-to-play
Closers is a side-scroll MMORPG where players battle interdimensional monsters as kinetically-powered teens known as “Closers”. Movement is done within 2.5D environments, dungeons and player hubs. Left and right are the main points of direction.
Western Release: Live – September 28, 2017
Developer: ALL-M Publisher: En Masse Entertainment Model:Free-to-play
Kritika Online is a dungeon crawler MMORPG with an extremely fast paced action combat. The game offers small scale PvP such as 1v1, 3v3 and other tiers for various arena modes. Each of its six starter class is vastly different from the others in terms of combat and even more so when they upgrade to one of over twenty different advanced classes. The wide variety of very different play-styles for each class and the speed of the combat make PvP encounters unique.
Release: Open Beta – March 6, 2017 Developer: NetEase
Publisher: My.com Model:Free-to-play
Revelation Online is a Wuxia-themed MMORPG set in a seamless open-world with flying beasts and dragons. The action combat features extend and make use of the game’s flight system. The open-world is open to punishable player killing, which from my experience may be too punishing. The battlegrounds and arena PvP are mostly objective based where teamwork is greatly rewarded.
Western Release: Live – June 8, 2016
Developer: Black Eye Games
Publisher: Black Eye Games Model:Buy-to-play
Gloria Victis is set in a medieval fantasy world where players fight for realistic goals like territory and resources. That means the PvP takes place in real-time in the open-world with no instances whatsoever. Players fight in lifelike scenarios with non-target combat, sandbox crafting and a player-driven economy.
Western Release: Live – March 3, 2016
Developer: Pearl Abyss
Publisher: Kakao Games Model:Buy-to-play
Black Desert Online is a sandbox MMORPG with a flashy and fast-paced action combat. To progress and level up, players must grind by defeating creatures in the seamless open-world. Perfecting one’s combat style allows players to be one step ahead of others in PvP and PvE progression.
Western Release: Live – January 19, 2016
Developer: Team Bloodlust (NCsoft Developer Division)
Publisher: NCSoft Model:Free-to-play
Blade and Soul offers a skill-based action combat system using the player’s ability to properly time attacks and adapt to situations with the use of limited dodges and blocks. Small-scale arenas, especially 1v1s, test the player’s skills and judgement with invulnerability frames and critically timed abilities.
Western Release: Live – April 4, 2014
Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Model:Buy-to-play
Elder Scrolls Online is a fantasy MMORPG based on the Elder Scrolls series. The game offers an extensive action combat system, public dungeons, player factions, various fields of PvP and more.
Western Release: Live – September 2011 Developer: Eyedentity Games Publisher: Previously Nexon, currently Eyedentity Games Model:Free-to-play
RaiderZ offers a complex and impressive combat system that was ahead of its time. Characters have the ability to dodge, aim, and make decisive combat movements while enemies have advanced skills like dashing, jumping, biting and flying around.
Western Release: Live – September 2011 Developer: Eyedentity Games Publisher: Previously Nexon, currently Eyedentity Games Model:Free-to-play
Dragon Nest incorporates a non-target action combat system and highly customizable skill sets to provide fast-paced battles. Player vs. player combat is skill based in nature. Player interactions are tailored for balancing purposes, with different cooldowns and rules for skills in PvP and PvE. Dragon Nest is a fantasy MMORPG set in the beautiful world of Alteia, created by the goddess Altea. The game’s story incorporates the history of Alteia and the dragon slayer heroes.
Western Release: Live – October 2010 Developer: devCAT Publisher: Nexon, Tian City, Garena Model:Free-to-play
Vindictus is a prequel to the popular MMORPG Mabinogi and is referred to as Mabinogi Heroes in Asia. Vindictus takes place several hundred years prior to Mabinogi in a time of great hatred and war. The world consists of instanced zones with some open areas.
Pearl Abyss held the long awaited showcase of the remastered Black Desert Online on August 11th. The event showed graphical enhancements, new music, new UI, a new territory called Ordillta, a new hunting mode, improvements to the story, a new playable class, changes to leveling up and more. Black Desert’s lead graphics programmer talked about changes to physical based rendering, lighting and ocean rendering.
The updates that were announced during the showcase event are based on the Korean version of Black Desert and may be different in other versions. Black Desert: Remastered launches today for users of the Global Lab Testing server and will be patched in to the live server on August 22nd.
Check out the video below for a preview of the improvements. For more information, visit the official Black Desert Online forums.
NPC dating has arrived in the Western version of Black Desert Online! Players can now express their affections toward their favorite NPCs. To win the heart of an NPC, a player must show affection and increase Amity through conversation or by giving gifts (Express Goodwill) to them. Gift giving consumes energy and upon reaching 1,000 Amity, the player can confess his or her feelings.
After some needed time to think over their received confessions, the NPC will decide on who becomes their lover. The relationship lasts for one week and the NPC may choose another lover when the week is over. If you keep the highest Amity, you can maintain your relationship with the NPC, but if not, the NPC may break up with you.
Microsoft has revealed at the Xbox E3 2018 press conference that the beta of Black Desert on Xbox One will begin in Fall 2018. The Xbox One version was initially planned to be released in the first half of 2018 as Black Desert publisher Pearl Abyss stated at the start of this year. At the time, it was also revealed that the Xbox One version will support 4K resolution.
Watch the E3 2018 trailer below as well as the 4K trailer from last year which shows off some amazing environmental graphics and flashy combat skill animations.
Black Desert Online has released the awakening of Lahn, the latest playable class addition to the game. This is quite fast considering the Lahn was just released in the Western version on May 23rd. Players can now begin Lahn’s Awakening Quest if they have reached level 56 with their Lahn characters. The awakening will let Lahn players wield a pair of chained Crimson Glaives that can be used to perform a new skill called Soul Raid for pulling enemies closer. Lahn is also able to swiflty switch between awakening and pre-awakening skills for a broader set of combos.
Black Desert Online has a knack for IP restrictive region-based servers and now the Japanese version is breaking the habit by what seems to be a low-key invitation for the world’s Black Desert Online fans. A Twitter user by the name of mellopachi has tweeted a picture of an announcement slide for a non-IP restricted test server for the Japanese version of Black Desert Online.
This is from Black Desert Online’s 3rd Anniversary Party that took place on May 20, 2018 at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa (Tokyo, Japan). Extracted from the announcement image, we also know that players will receive a certain level of equipment that is prepared in advance to assist in testing, the pearl shop will be disabled, only Japanese language is supported and a bulletin board will be opened for posting feedback. Read more
The latest and upcoming 16th class of Black Desert Onlinecalled Lahn has been added to the game’s character creation tool. Players can pre-create their characters’ looks before Lahn is released into the world of Black Desert on May 23rd. The new class utilizes dance-like combat movements to perform devastating mid-range AoE combos. Her Nimbus Stride skill allows her to glide through the air.
As far as the other classes are concerned, the Lahn update is accompanied by a long list of class changes, PvP changes and monster changes. Changes related to CC and knock-back have been applied to reduce the impact that server lag has on recovery speeds. You can read the full list of changes on Black Desert Online’s patch notes.
