6° 2.0 Episode 3 – 1st Degree – Healing the Masses

Back in May, I visited Jewel at Healing the Masses in my Six Degrees series and she was talking about Black Desert Online at that time, and it looks like she’s still interested in that game along with Archeage, and in comparing the 2 recent sandbox MMOs.

Healing The Masses – Archeage Vs Black Desert Online – MMOGames Post

This is an interesting post as it actually is referring to an article that Jewel posted to MMOGames that compares Archeage and Black Desert Online as two of the most recent sandbox MMOs.

From my point of view, neither game really grabbed and held my attention. I gave both a try but ended up leaving early. Probably too early, but I planned on giving them a bigger shot at impressing me at some point, I just haven’t gotten back yet. For me, I thought the economy of BDO provided a bigger draw, being somewhat player controlled, but then my foray into AA was back before they introduced naval battles, so they could both prove interesting to revisit.

In both the article and in this post, Jewel does a good job laying out the highs and lows of both games. BDO has graphics and interesting combat while is grindy and AA has good PvP and PvE questing but has a few too many pay-to-win systems. From both posts, it seems like either could easily have won the challenge, but Jewel gave the nod to Archeage. In my view, they both reached for and failed to grab the holy grail of sandbox dominance and left a lot of people disappointed. Perhaps someday I’ll get back in and wander around these games…when I get the time.

In any case, I really enjoyed Jewel’s coverage of the challenge. She brought an interesting perspective to the good and bad parts of both games and I was happy to see both MMOs highlighted after all their hype has died down. From her description, neither game has attained their goals yet nor is as bad as many would have you believe, so there is still hope for them yet. If you have any interest in these games or in the sandbox genre, I recommend giving this post and article a read.