I’m really not a huge fan of these reviews with below 50h game time. I personally don’t feel like you can fully judge a MMORPG in this time.

P2W yes/no?
So first of all, what surely most people who are interested in Black Desert Online are wondering about. Is it Pay to Win?
The answer would be a yes and no. You can p2w the enchanting but there is not much of a reason for it in my opinion. Also, it’s incredibly expensive to do so. In my nearly 3 1/2yrs of playing BDO it never had an effect on me, so if you aren’t aiming to play in the top <5% of the player base, this shouldn’t affect you at all.

Gameplay
Black Desert Online has one, if not the best action combat system currently on the market. (That is subjective of course) So if you are a fan of this fighting style in MMORPG’s you definitely came to the right place. You can either drag the skills to your Hotbar, or activate them with Key combinations, so its quite dynamic.

BDO’s gameplay is highly focused on grinding, so you definitely have to be a fan of that. They also worked on the quest system in the last year and improved it a lot, which makes it a viable progress path now days.

Classes
There are 19 classes, which are genderlocked. Some classes have a male/female version which plays a bit different, so you should be fine, even with the genderlock in place and not limited in what you want to play!
You can also create a test character which allows you to try out your chosen class on a higher level first, so see if you enjoy it or not!

Beside that Black Desert has probably the best character editor you can find at the moment. It feels as close to a tool the developers use themselves as you can get. You can easily spend hours with it. Or if you aren’t into that, you can just load a preset from the beauty gallery. A tool where players can upload their character creation for others to use.

The World
Black Desert Online's Gameworld is massive. From deep woods, Ruins, over savannas, Coastal Areas, Massive Mountainous Areas, a giant desert up to a huge Ocean filled with many many islands. And all reachable without any loading screens.
Since there are close to no options to teleport in BDO you really get a feeling for the vastness of this world, which is definitely a big plus in my book. But I can see that some people also might not enjoy it, that they cant just teleport half across the world.


Technic
The game has a vast amount of options of graphic sound etc, so it should pretty much run well on most machines. And it looks absolutely beautiful on the higher settings.
BDO also supports 4K and even 8K resolution.

So, what is there to do? / Endgame?
Beside the grinding, Black Desert offers a massive professions system, called Lifeskilling in the game. There is a total of 11 Lifeskills, which you can all do, there is no limitation. Added to the lifeskill system, the game as a Node System. In basic, there are nodes all over the world, which can produce different goods, and you can/need to hire workers to gather these materials.

BDO also offers Guild vs Guild PvP. Node Wars (Guild vs Guild fighting about special nodes) And Large Scale PvP. Each area has a Castle for which ownership guilds can fight.

There is a good amount of World Bosses that spawn at set times.

What Black Desert doesn’t have are Dungeons or Raids. If you are looking for that, this is definitely not your game.

New Player Experience / Getting into it:
It's very easy now days to get into the game. The main story line, gives you lots of good gear to progress though the game and sends you right across all corners of the game world. They really improved this aspect of the game massively over the past 1 ½ years.

But Black Desert also has some very complex systems that may need a while to get behind, but these aren’t mandatory mostly. What I personally enjoy about these is, that they aren’t complicated for the sake of being complicated but all make sense the way they are.
And there are enough wikipages and guides that will help you to understand it all, if you happen to become interested in this aspect of the game.

Gear / Gear Improvement:
Unlike most MMORPG’s BDO has a steady gear progression. So new expansions don’t add a large number of new Items which make the old ones useless. They add stronger Items from time to time, but these mostly just add a little bit of extra power, so you won’t replace your whole gear every couple of months, once you get your hands on the higher tier items.
For gear Improvement the game has an enchanting system that is highly focused on rng, but can be influenced with various technics and items.
This is definitely one of the most complex aspects of the game.
And I wouldn’t recommend newer players to get right into it, since it can become really expensive.
If you don’t to enchant your gear, just farming silver and buying it is also a viable option, since every item can be sold via in in game marketplace.

Personal thoughts:
Black Desert Online is definitely not your usual MMORPG in some aspect, and does some things different, like no dungeons or raids, and the gear progression system.
It's definitely not a game for everyone and by far not perfect. But I enjoy my time here quite a lot, and I would definitely recommend to give it a go.
And if only to play around with the amazing character editor and the fun action combat system.

I’m really not a huge fan of these reviews with below 50h game time. I personally don’t feel like you can fully judge a MMORPG in this time. [u][b]P2W yes/no?[/b][/u] So first of all, what surely most people who are interested in Black Desert Online are wondering about. Is it Pay to Win? The answer would be a yes and no. You can p2w the enchanting but there is not much of a reason for it in my opinion. Also, it’s incredibly expensive to do so. In my nearly 3 1/2yrs of playing BDO it never had an effect on me, so if you aren’t aiming to play in the top <5% of the player base, this shouldn’t affect you at all. [u][b]Gameplay[/b][/u] Black Desert Online has one, if not the best action combat system currently on the market. (That is subjective of course) So if you are a fan of this fighting style in MMORPG’s you definitely came to the right place. You can either drag the skills to your Hotbar, or activate them with Key combinations, so its quite dynamic. BDO’s gameplay is highly focused on grinding, so you definitely have to be a fan of that. They also worked on the quest system in the last year and improved it a lot, which makes it a viable progress path now days. [u][b]Classes[/b][/u] There are 19 classes, which are genderlocked. Some classes have a male/female version which plays a bit different, so you should be fine, even with the genderlock in place and not limited in what you want to play! You can also create a test character which allows you to try out your chosen class on a higher level first, so see if you enjoy it or not! Beside that Black Desert has probably the best character editor you can find at the moment. It feels as close to a tool the developers use themselves as you can get. You can easily spend hours with it. Or if you aren’t into that, you can just load a preset from the beauty gallery. A tool where players can upload their character creation for others to use. [u][b]The World[/b][/u] Black Desert Online's Gameworld is massive. From deep woods, Ruins, over savannas, Coastal Areas, Massive Mountainous Areas, a giant desert up to a huge Ocean filled with many many islands. And all reachable without any loading screens. Since there are close to no options to teleport in BDO you really get a feeling for the vastness of this world, which is definitely a big plus in my book. But I can see that some people also might not enjoy it, that they cant just teleport half across the world. [u][b]Technic[/b][/u] The game has a vast amount of options of graphic sound etc, so it should pretty much run well on most machines. And it looks absolutely beautiful on the higher settings. BDO also supports 4K and even 8K resolution. [u][b]So, what is there to do? / Endgame?[/b][/u] Beside the grinding, Black Desert offers a massive professions system, called Lifeskilling in the game. There is a total of 11 Lifeskills, which you can all do, there is no limitation. Added to the lifeskill system, the game as a Node System. In basic, there are nodes all over the world, which can produce different goods, and you can/need to hire workers to gather these materials. BDO also offers Guild vs Guild PvP. Node Wars (Guild vs Guild fighting about special nodes) And Large Scale PvP. Each area has a Castle for which ownership guilds can fight. There is a good amount of World Bosses that spawn at set times. What Black Desert doesn’t have are Dungeons or Raids. If you are looking for that, this is definitely not your game. [u][b]New Player Experience / Getting into it: [/b][/u] It's very easy now days to get into the game. The main story line, gives you lots of good gear to progress though the game and sends you right across all corners of the game world. They really improved this aspect of the game massively over the past 1 ½ years. But Black Desert also has some very complex systems that may need a while to get behind, but these aren’t mandatory mostly. What I personally enjoy about these is, that they aren’t complicated for the sake of being complicated but all make sense the way they are. And there are enough wikipages and guides that will help you to understand it all, if you happen to become interested in this aspect of the game. [u][b]Gear / Gear Improvement:[/b][/u] Unlike most MMORPG’s BDO has a steady gear progression. So new expansions don’t add a large number of new Items which make the old ones useless. They add stronger Items from time to time, but these mostly just add a little bit of extra power, so you won’t replace your whole gear every couple of months, once you get your hands on the higher tier items. For gear Improvement the game has an enchanting system that is highly focused on rng, but can be influenced with various technics and items. This is definitely one of the most complex aspects of the game. And I wouldn’t recommend newer players to get right into it, since it can become really expensive. If you don’t to enchant your gear, just farming silver and buying it is also a viable option, since every item can be sold via in in game marketplace. [u][b]Personal thoughts:[/b][/u] Black Desert Online is definitely not your usual MMORPG in some aspect, and does some things different, like no dungeons or raids, and the gear progression system. It's definitely not a game for everyone and by far not perfect. But I enjoy my time here quite a lot, and I would definitely recommend to give it a go. And if only to play around with the amazing character editor and the fun action combat system.