Black Desert Online Launches Their New Great Expedition Update

I’ve always wanted to play an MMO that really allowed me to live out my desire to play as a pirate. You know, sail an epic ship, have massive naval battles, frequent the.. uhh, okay. Nevermind. I’ll uhh-I’ll keep that one to myself.
So when Black Desert was announced to have a large update featuring – you guessed it – almost exclusively naval content, I couldn’t help myself. I had to jump in.
Now let me preface this by stating that the team behind BDO was kind enough to sponsor this video – offering me early access a week in advance to test things out before the game went live for everyone else.

So if you weren’t already aware, Black Desert announced they were launching the Great Expedition update.
The update brings with a brand new ocean trading system, new boat operation systems, a brand new ocean boss – which, wait, hold on.
I’ve never done sailing in Black Desert before.
This whole “sailing the oceans” thing is competely new to me as I mainly focused on leveling and trying to make money. But.. were those weird.. whale things with legs always in the game?
Because apparently they’re targettable and attackable. At first I thought they were placid – so I told Mrs Stix to jump into the ocean and go say hey.
Turns out they’re actually very aggressive if you fire cannon balls into them. Who’d of thunk it?
But back on topic – Ahem, a brand new ocean boss named Khan, brand new ships to find and build, and most importantly for players looking to participate in the content: An overhaul to the entire sailing system.
You’ll now have to deal with ever-changing ocean-currents and wind direction. This’ll have quite an effect on your travels – both hindering and aiding you depending on what you’re doing and where you’re going.

Since the majority of this update takes place out at sea, I wanted to try and participate in as many different naval situations as I could.
When we finally figured out how to go about obtaining and building our ship, we chose the largest, most powerful creation imaginable.
Well, I did. Mrs Stix tried to and.. admittedly she couldn’t figure out what happened to her ship.
After summoning it – it just kinda.. Iunno, sunk? She thinks she did something wrong and that prevented it from spawning, whereas I was under the impression that my ship was just too fat.. and it sank hers. RIP.
After obtaining ships, we had to go around the town, recruit sailors to aid us in our cause, and set out to raid, pillage and plunder just like Jack Sparrow, my pirate role model.
Granted I lack the physical capabilities that he so often displayed when he’d attempt escapes, but, on the other hand.. well, I had a ponytail. I’d like to see him pull off a ponytail.

We sailed around the seas for quite a while.
We encountered those unusual whales-with-legs, quite a few of them actually, we went diving to see what lurked beneath the surface.. and almost drowned.
Or, actually, funny story.
Mrs Stix was on my ship because she lost hers. However, after sailing far out to sea my game crashed. You know what happens when your game crashes, right? Summons disappear with you.
So out of nowhere, I hear this shriek of terror as she was dumped from my ship – which poofed into thin air momentarily while I re-booted the game – as she descended into the ocean.. in the middle of nowhere.
So, yeah. When I say we almost drowned, I mean she almost drowned. Then she would’ve spawned back god knows where, and I would’ve had to go fetch her.
We encountered enemy ships, which we did battle with and absolutely massacred, we found an island called “pirate isle” – which we decided we’d go investigate also because.. well we were trying to RP this whole pirate-thing.

And.. yeah. That was pretty much everything we did. We spent hours in-game killing things, following the story, killing pirates, trying to murder the weird 4-legged whales and just having a blast out at sea.
There’s a lot more to this update then I’ve went over but I wanted to bring you guys kind of a.. real, first-hand experience of it.
Filled with content I got to experience, and encounters I had, providing you all with a much more raw experience.
Oh, one additional thing worth noting.. I hate sailing against the wind. It almost feels like you’re trying to walk on a treadmill set to run.

Black Desert Online is a beautiful MMO. It has beautiful graphics – especially with the remaster having rolled out.
It has combat that people will argue is the best in the genre – which if you’re a fan of action combat is hard to deny.
It has amazing character creation, a large selection of non-combat activities to do in-game, gets regular updates, and.. well, I can safely say I understand why so many players play the game.
Like every MMO it has its flaws but my god this game is huge.