In less than ten days, Pearl Abyss is set to release a new Black Desert expansion called Land of the Morning Light. Following the previous exclusive interview with Executive Producer Jaehee Kim, Wccftech was recently invited to a presentation of the expansion with subsequent roundtable live Q&A.
Land of the Morning Light is set in a new region inspired by the Pearl Abyss homeland of South Korea from the Joseon Dynasty era. The developers actually surveyed iconic locations and then reimagined them in Black Desert. The new hub is called Dalbeol, a picturesque village featuring authentic South Korean architecture.
The setting is but one of many changes long-time players of the MMORPG can expect in Land of the Morning Light. For example, the main questline will be nonlinear, allowing players to experience the eight unique stories (divided into fifteen chapters) in any order of their choice. There’s a huge focus on storytelling in this expansion, which is represented in-game by over 100 minutes of fully rendered cutscenes with more than five thousand lines of voice acting. Once players have completed the quests, they’ll be stored in a ‘Storybook’ and their endings can be rewatched at any time.
Another big difference from the usual Black Desert fare is that there won’t be any monster grinding zones. They’re essentially being replaced by the new Boss Blitz content, where players will be tasked with defeating powerful bosses equipped with unique mechanics. Black Desert users can also look forward to competing against each other for the best high score in Boss Blitz.
Since newcomers can create a character and start immediately with the Land of the Morning Light, Pearl Abyss also implemented a new attribute system that makes getting into Boss Blitz easier without having farmed gear from any previous content. The Light Orb system also helps with that. These points earned by players can be spent on Sun, Moon, or Earth attributes to deal more damage to specific bosses or reduce the damage they deal to you.
Speaking of gear, the new Dahn’s Gloves can be crafted after gathering enough materials, and players can specialize them for evasion or damage reduction. The Crystal system was also enhanced with two additional slots for crystals; moreover, three new crystals can provide buffs to character stats.
The life skill activities have been enriched with mini-games that reduce the required time for various activities and provide a chance to acquire a rare item that grants a special buff. Lastly, two South Korean-style residences (and appropriate furniture) have been added to Black Desert’s player housing.
Following the presentation, Senior Live Operations Specialist Chris Lee responded to several questions about Land of the Morning Light from the press. You can find the whole edited transcript below. As a reminder, the expansion launches on June 14th for PC, priced at $49.99.
It feels like there’s a lot of new additions that tend to give players more power and freedom than in previous expansions. How have you gone about balancing things out in Black Desert to compensate?
We actually put a lot of emphasis on the new storytelling aspects of the game. The voice acting and story elements with the Omnibus storytelling style will benefit both new and old players and the Boss Blitz part of the expansion.
The reason we are normalizing the gear is that 90% of the gear will come from the attribute system and 10% of the gear you fight in the boss place will come from actual gear. We’re hoping that new players will still feel like they can take a shot at the bosses and not feel like they’re missing up because they haven’t played the game for years. But we also want to give like veteran players a little bit of an edge to make sure that their gear and all the hard work they did is being validated. We’re hoping that both new and old players will be able to feel like there’s a lot of content for them.
The light orb allows you to spec into different auras to be better against certain bosses. Does completing all eight quest lines unlock the ability to be maxed out in all of them, or will players have to choose one or the other to spec back and forth?
In the demo account, I actually unlocked the maximum amount of live orbs. But as you play through the story, that’s actually how you’ll be earning the light orbs.
At any point, if you only complete half the stories, then you might not have enough light orbs to max out on a certain aura. That’s why the respec system is there. It costs a negligible amount of silver for you to respect, so you can pick and choose which one you want to specialize in and change that any time you want. There’s a lot of freedom in being able to specialize in what kind of strength you want to put in for the bosses.
What can we expect from new races?
These new races that are gonna be available in the Land of the Morning update, they’re gonna be primarily NPCs. You’ll see new races throughout the main story quest. They’re gonna be introduced kind of like the Papus. They’re our mascots. We’re hoping that these new races are the new version of that.
What about the old world? Are there any Land of the Morning Light features that make the old world relevant, or will we be mainly in the new map?
We are trying something new this time called Boss Blitz. This is actually based on a weekly lockout system, meaning that once you complete your weekly runs, you’re free to do whatever you want to do. In conjunction to that, the new gear piece that I showed you, the Dahn’s Gloves, actually requires a lot of materials from the old continent as well.
In the Boss Blitz, one of the rewards you will get is the flame of honey. You will need to collect 500 of them in addition to what I believe are called Crystallized Spirits. They drop in the Calpheon Elvia area. So you have to either be preparing already to get that gear piece on the launch day – actually, it would probably be very difficult to get that piece on the launch day because of how much work you need to do unless you’re very lucky.
But this content is not a replacement per se for the old continent. Everything is still gonna be relevant. All the grind spots and monster zones are gonna be relevant and you’re not gonna make any less money from these grind spots, but Boss Blitz is gonna be something you’re gonna want to do additionally to further progress your gear.
Does the expansion increase the soft cap for AP and DP?
In the story aspect of Land of the Morning Light, you don’t need any gear since a new player can create a new character, enjoy the entirety of the story and complete it without any problem. But there is one aspect that I guess we are kind of increasing the soft cap.
If you complete eight of the stories and complete the Land of the Morning Light questline, you will actually get one AP and DP. We’re not increasing any soft cap for AP and DP, but you will be getting additional stats for completing the main quest line, and the scaling of AP and DP is only for the story versions of the bosses. During the Boss Blitz, your gear will mostly come from the attribute system.
Did you add any content to the boat?
The short answer is no. If you failed to port rat in the past, it will be a similar experience.
I believe there’s also NPC ships that travel between harbors. But there is actually a new ship that we’re adding with this expansion called Panokseon. I wasn’t able to show it during the demo because of time constraints. The spec is a little less than the Carrack that we released a few years ago, but it does feature more sailor rooms, so you can put more sailors in your ship and it looks really cool. There are going to be sea monsters. You’ll see them on the way if you decide to sail to the Land of the Morning Light.
Are there plans to do official tournaments where people compete and race to kill bosses?
Currently, we don’t have any plans, but I think that’s an amazing idea. What we did when Korea first released the Land of the Morning Light was gather a bunch of streamers and did a live stream race to see who could beat the bosses in the shortest amount of time.
We do have plans to do that for North America and European streamers and our gameplay audiences, but I don’t know if you would count that as an official tournament.
Just to add more detail, the rankings in the game will reset every week. Meaning that it will be on a weekly race. I think we’ll probably try to see how the community reacts to this system and if they react pretty strongly, I think this is something that we can definitely try to do in the near future.
Can we expect the end of gender lock for certain classes or at least new variants of classes with opposite genders?
That’s a good question. The players have been asking that for a very long time.
I can tell you right now that I do not have a solid answer for you, but I hope to get back to you soon. I would definitely need to check up on that.
You said you’re getting away from monster grinding for Land of the Morning Light. Are there any areas on the new continent where players can farm like they’re used to?
There’s absolutely zero monster grind zones. Everything’s gonna be boss fights. That’s in relation to PvE. If you’re someone who’s into life skills, there are going to be certain areas that are gonna be specialized in collecting life skill materials, but in terms of grinding monsters in a zone, there is none of that here. You will see some hunting, like deers and stuff.
But they’re not gonna be like Orcs if you’re familiar with the popular grind spots. There’s nothing like that in Land of the Morning Light. We’re definitely taking a shot at something new. Honestly, as a player who’s been playing for a really long time, I see this as a very refreshing change and I’m hoping the rest of the community feels that way too. After a certain point, you’re grinding and it’s always gonna be repetitive stuff. But if you do Boss Blitz, you can finish the week piece in an hour or so and then do whatever other content you want to do. It’s breaking out of the monotony and trying something new. I think it’s gonna be amazing.
What are the questline contents like? Is it mostly story based, or is it almost entirely story based plus bosses?
As I mentioned, there’s gonna be eight separate smaller stories that make up one big story. Each of the eight stories will feature a boss and those bosses are actually gonna be in the boss list that I showed you.
In Boss Blitz for the global release, there will actually be 10 bosses. It’s gonna be eight bosses from the story plus the two secret/hidden bosses.
The way the interface works is kind of interesting. You go to the village, you explore a little bit and you come upon a point where you get in your interface like a series of books or fables, and when you decide to open that quest, the book opens and then you get a number of missions after which you face a boss, then you complete that boss. You can then go back and try to fight that boss at a higher level or you can start a new quest. Each one of those books is like an old time fairy tale book. Each one of those is a quest and once you’ve beaten all those, there’s sort of more secret content that comes out.
Those are the main quests in Land of the Morning Light, but there are also all kinds of story elements that you’ll experience outside of those throughout the rest of the game.
We saw how the world is very alive. When you’re riding in the villages, there’s always NPCs around minding their business. Is that true for all the villages or just the ones we saw?
Just to be transparent. I didn’t cherry-pick these places. You can expect to see a lot of this liveness in other villages and on routes to those villages as well. But I did show you two of the biggest villages that are available in the expansion. The other two are gonna be more like the countryside.
In line with that theme, there are gonna be less NPCs, but the activities that they’re doing are going to be a pretty accurate representation of the Korean Joan era and what people actually were doing at that time. Even when you’re riding around, there’s birds that fly around, coming out of bushes when you’re riding on your horses.
If I had more time, I would have loved to talk with every single NPC in one location. Like those NPCs that are dancing, what are they dancing for? By talking to the NPCs, you can gather enough context closely to know that they’re dancing because there’s a festival going on. That’s one thing that our development team put a lot of emphasis on, working on the storytelling and the worldbuilding aspects of the expansion.
Do you expect players to smash through the calamities pretty quickly or is it going to be a real stretch of time? It seemed like the difficulties scale up pretty quickly.
Yes, the difficulties do scale up pretty quickly. Level one is pretty easy. I’m not saying you can do it in your sleep, but you get what I’m saying. Level two will be a little more difficult. Level three is what I just played here in the demo. That’s when it gets pretty rough and this is where the light orb system will come in handy.
Depending on what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can use that light orb to help you beat the bosses. We are actually not expecting players to beat through all the levels.
In the demo and in the UI that I showed you, only the first five levels were unlocked out of the full 10. Level six will unlock if some adventurer playing the same class as you has beaten level five and level six will unlock. Level seven will be locked until an adventurer playing the same class as you beats level six and so forth. You won’t be able to try and beat level 10 right off the bat. You’re gonna have to work your way up.
Is there a folk tale that sticks out to you as a favorite or an example of the kinds of stories we might expect in Land of the Morning Light?
I actually grew up in Korea. These folk tales that are available in the update, a lot of them you learn from school, but then some of them they’re gonna be told from your grandparents and stuff, right?
Everyone’s version of their folk tales is a little bit different, and I was pretty young actually growing up, so I can’t remember a specific one. But one of the quest lines that actually kind of stuck out to me was the Boris quest line, that entire quest line actually incorporates three different folk tales from Korea.
About the season system. Are there plans to put out some lore relevant to the main story beyond the season gameplay?
About seasons, we’ve been trying something new for seasons. I know this isn’t gonna directly answer your question, but I guess it’s kind of in line with your question. I don’t believe that we are adding any lore to the seasons, but what we’re trying to do this past season and this current season is incorporate some kind of life skill as a core element to the seasons.
If you played last season, we put a lot of emphasis on fishing. You were able to fish in the season servers to get some extra silver, which in turn, you can get extra mats and stuff. This season, we’re highlighting our horse training life skill, so lots of horse tier nine materials. Hopefully we can boost our players to get more tier nines and then turn into more tier tens.
I’m not sure about plans for the next season yet, but I’m sure it’s gonna be another life skill event.
Thank you for your time.
