[GM Notes] 8th Anniversary Interview with Zethiann!

GM Notes Mar 18, 2024, 21:09 (UTC) 8th Anniversary Interview with Zethiann!

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Celebrating 8 Years!

Greetings, Adventurers!

Here we are, 8 years later, with the renowned Zethiann!

GM Polly here! For our 8th Anniversary, we are bringing you an interview with an Adventurer who has been here since the beginning!😮 Black Desert Online officially released in North America and Europe on March 3, 2016, and Zethiann, one of our most dedicated Adventurers, has been playing since March 26, 2016. Over these last 8 years, the game has changed in tremendous ways! For today's interview, Zethiann and I embark on a journey down memory lane through Black Desert's illustrious 8 years, reminiscing on things we feel nostalgic about.

GM Polly

Hello, I am GM Polly, and today we have a very special guest! Would you please care to introduce yourself to our readers? 😊

Zethiann

Hi, my gaming and stream alias is Zethiann, but my real name is Chris. I am 40 years old, and I have been an avid gamer my whole life. My first taste of gaming was my Atari that my parents purchased. It was basic (didn't feel like it at the time), but I was immediately hooked.

Zethiann

Throughout my childhood, I had lots of friends that also enjoyed gaming and we would get together, get some snacks, a rental game from the nearest blockbuster, and play it all weekend. Fast forward a whole bunch of years, a lot of those friends now live busy lives with their families, so we don't get to game the way we used to. You don't realize it was your last gaming session with your friends until you're looking back at it years down the road. There were lots of late nights and angry parents.

Zethiann

Luckily for me, I was able to discover streaming some years later, and, about 12 years ago, shortly after JustinTV became Twitch, I decided to start streaming myself. It felt like the good old days, and I treated it like sitting around with friends with similar interests and playing games together. Except, as a streamer, you don't have to share the controller. I've now been streaming for 12 years and just celebrated my 10 year anniversary as a Twitch partner on the 25th (Feb). Three days after my 40th birthday.

GM Polly

OH I remember going to blockbuster, it was something you would really look forward to as a kid 😭

GM Polly

A lot of my friends have moved on from gaming too, or have moved on to games that I don't play and so I too feel that sadness of thinking fondly on old memories of gaming together.

GM Polly

Wow, happy anniversary! You have been streaming for a long time. I never watched anything way back then, the first time I even discovered video game streaming outside MLG tournaments was Twitch in 2014.

GM Polly

So, when did you first start playing BDO? What drew you in?

Zethiann

I started playing BDO about a month after release in North America. Over the years of gaming I have developed a system to try and mitigate wasting time playing games that are overhyped. Basically, I'll watch videos and streams of the game for the first month. This allows me to observe and get an idea of what the gameplay loop looks like and see if it lives up to its hype. If the player base takes a big dive after the first 30 days I'll avoid the game.

Zethiann

At the time I was playing the division, but was watching a variety of streamers play BDO. One of the main streamers I watched was Kungen, but I also watched a few more. Obviously, the combat and graphics were what immediately pulled me in. However, the streams I was watching at the time also had a lot of drama between guilds. All of which were trying to establish dominance over each other. There were constant open world battles going on. People were getting attacked while grinding and those fights would escalate into giant guild vs guild battles. Both guilds fighting over resources (the best grind spots) so that their members could get stronger in an attempt to get an edge over the opposition.

Zethiann

This power struggle drew me into BDO and made me fall in love with the game. Never knowing when a new opponent would appear and challenge you for a spot. It would get you sitting on the edge of your seat, excited to see if you could take on this opponent. And as the fights would get larger you would want to surround yourself with other strong and competitive people to fight by your side. I have a good handful of friends that I played with back then that I still play with to this day.

Awakening Warrior release, August 2016

GM Polly

I agree that I am usually hesitant about jumping into hyped games as well just because I don't like devoting time to things that might be fleeting in terms of popularity. especially nowadays that I have less free time and capacity to play games.

GM Polly

The landscape back then was pretty charming when I think about how simplistic the conflict was back then with so many fewer places to grind. Much easier to starve the competition from getting stronger. I remember watching Lacari and the dominance of ManUp, and all the politics interwoven in the game. The gear progession was so different back then compared to now in terms of what we thought 'good' gear was 🤣

GM Polly

I also do agree that the imminent threat of someone coming into your grindspot made the monotony of grinding a little more exciting when those battles did take place.

Zethiann

Very much so. I remember when I first hit 500 gear score. It felt like a major milestone.

GM Polly

How would you say the game compares now to way back then?

Zethiann

Well, nothing will ever match the honeymoon phase of a new game. The sense of adventure and mystery you get while discovering new things for the first time really allows you to get lost in the game. I wish we had content releases at the same time as KR so we could get to relive these experiences briefly whenever something new is released as opposed to going down a checklist of everything that has already been figured out.

Zethiann

But, back on topic. The quality of the game has increased in an amazing way. People take for granted how much Black Desert is changing. Every week, I am not only excited to see what's in the patch notes, but I am also excited to see what's in the global lab patch notes. The amount of quality of life changes are staggering. So far this year, I have been very impressed with what we've been seeing. The changes to the magnus making it much more convenient to use, the consolidation of a lot of different items to clean up our inventories and storages, the faster loading screens, etc. I am very excited for the all in one presets that were teased at the most recent Ball. And I know myself and a lot of people I play with are excited for the possibility of centralized servers in North America. That one alone, people seem the most passionate about.

Zethiann

I think with how rapidly changes happen to Black Desert, we have become numb to it. But, if you were to take a player from today and drop them in the game a year ago, never mind when it was released, they would be frustrated with the old systems before they were improved.

Lahn Awakening release, June 2018

GM Polly

Yea for sure, some of the changes that have happened over the years have probably made me forget a lot of how things used to be for all the various aspects of the game. Like you said, it does eventually become taken for granted, especially if you are on the newer side. And I hope we continue to improve further many aspects of the game.

GM Polly

On that same topic, what changes over the years are most nostalgic for you to think about?

Zethiann

The first thing that immediately comes to mind is the addition of the centralized market. I've always tried to buy all my gear whenever possible and, prior to the centralized market, it was very difficult to purchase the items you wanted. I am perfectly fine spending, on average, more silver to buy the item from a player instead of going out to try and make it myself. This allows me to play the game the way I enjoy while outsourcing that work to someone else who enjoys making the items. I would love if they increased the market caps on Pen Deboreka accessories so it would become worth it for people to make and sell these items. Currently, I believe the max price is too low.

Zethiann

The second thing that comes to mind, and I know some people might frown at me for saying this, is the new classes. I love every new class release. I think Pearl Abyss does an amazing job at creating unique and interesting classes. And the most important part of that to me is how actively they try to avoid just copying classes from other games. If you go into town, go into screenshot mode, and then turn on slow motion: you really get to see the detail that goes into these abilities. We now have so many classes that, between succession and awakening, you could make a full deck of cards with an individual class/spec for each card. There's certainly something for everyone.

Zethiann

The third is more of a collection of changes over the past 2 years and a couple more recently. I really enjoyed the addition of Arena of Solare, even though the ranked hours aren't very compatible with my free time. War of the Roses has been fun even though it's been quite short. And Guild League, probably, has me the most excited. Seeing a variety of guilds fight each other in a controlled environment is thrilling. The weekly reset of ratings were frusting because you'd have to spend the whole week seperating yourself from other guilds to have real competition. However, as of writing this, just this week they removed the weekly rating resets which has me very excited to see guilds be able to actively compete against guilds of similar strength.

GM Polly

Ah yea, the changes to the marketplace since I have joined are night and day for sure. Used to be so hard to get things using the old bidding system. Another thing I remember vividly is the removal of silver weight. But I think my favorite change is probably the universal storage 😊

Central Market rework, February 2019

GM Polly

For Guild League and War of the Roses, I hope that, by the time the content is ready for its official release, the content is in a super favorable spot. I think, in theory, the content is exciting and so I hope that a majority of players are able to enjoy it.

Zethiann

The universal storage has been amazing for sure. I try my best keep my storages organized, so being able to sort items across a variety of different storages has allowed me to stay a lot more organized. Especially when paired with the search feature (Ctrl+F) for finding items.

GM Polly

True, ctrl+f is nice too; anything that helps with organization. I wish I could reorganize storages without taking everything out also 😪

GM Polly

What is something that you feel most strongly about that you would like to see changed or added?

Zethiann

Hmm that's a tough one. There's a lot of different things I would like to see changed, but I recognize a lot of it is subjective to how I play the game and wouldn't necessarily be a change that would affect the most people.

Zethiann

If I had to choose one, it would be a more active approach at class balance. Instead of doing giant, sweeping changes all at once to a bunch of classes at the same time, I would like to see minor changes more often. I think, ideally, it would be nice for these changes to be every week or maybe every other week. Hypothetically, one class that's underperforming would get some improvements targeting where they are weak, and another class that's over performing would get some nerfs. Nothing over the top. People get frustrated when their class gets overly nerfed. But, everyone gets frustrated when a class gets overly buffed and, all of a sudden, it's putting a damper on everyone else's fun.

Zethiann

If you would have asked me this question a year ago, I might have commented on the lack of diversity with different grind spots. But, over the past year, I have been very happy with the attention Pearl Abyss has been giving toward providing us with a variety of different spots while also improving old spots. I still miss Sycraia though.

GM Polly

Yea, grind diversity has improved a lot over the last year for sure, thats a good point. Also, balance is a touchy issue for sure. I just hope that classes are balanced as best they can possibly be.

Elvia Realm release, March 2021

GM Polly

Okay last question, Bucko: what is your fondest memory (or some of your fondest memories)?

Zethiann

Ohh there's a few for sure. But my favorite is probably when my friends and I all managed to finish our compass.

Zethiann

We were all grinding Hystria for years, some much more actively than others. We had a group of us we called "The Morning Crew". For years, a portion of us couldn't get the elten piece to drop for our compasses. Most of us spent well above the average amount of time there, but the person who was going for it the hardest was Kinjara. At this point, he had dropped nearly 30 vodkan pieces. All of a sudden within a 2 or 3 week period all of us managed to get it.

Zethiann

It started first with MagEleven getting it, then a day or two later, Divios. A week or so later I managed to get it. I was excited to get it, but, at the same time, I felt bad because that meant the person who was working the hardest for it was left there by himself. Like a good friend, though, he was excited that we didn't have to experience what he was experiencing. He congratulated me and asked me to combine the compass next to him hoping some of the luck would rub off on him, and I happily obliged. After combining it next to him, he swapped back to his character that he was grinding on. I was trying to figure out what to do with my very first summon. A friend of mine, Vsoft, asked me to summon him to Hystria for my very first summon, so I started running there. I didn't even have enough time to get into Mediah before Kinjara popped back into discord yelling that he got it. I thought he was just kidding at first, but sure enough, a moment later he put the clip into discord for us all to see. Apparently, the luck did rub off on him and he barely finished a full rotation before getting his own piece.

Zethiann

At this point, I knew exactly what my first summon had to be. Kinjara still didn't have his Aakman piece so I ran straight to Aakman and summoned him there, and he got his last piece within that week.

GM Polly

Sheesh that's quite a string of luck. It must have been even nicer since you guys were getting it as a group as opposed to if you were grinding it for all that time alone.

Land of the Morning Light release, June 2023

GM Polly

Thank you for your time, Zethiann! Do you have any final words for us?

Zethiann

Thank you for taking the time to listen to a bit of my story and some of my feedback. Thank you Pearl Abyss for creating and maintaining a game that I have enjoyed for over 60,000 hours (even though a lot of that is AFK). Thank you for working your hardest to grow into the company you are today and doing your best to improve the game for all of us. There's still some things a lot of people would like to see changed, but I have faith that you'll eventually get there.

Zethiann

Also a big thanks to the whole community, PA included. You have all done a tremendous job at creating an environment that's enjoyable to stream in. I hate to speak for my peers, but I am sure a lot of them would agree. The opportunity you have given us to try and make a living while doing something we all love has been an absolute dream come true. And I look forward to seeing not only how Black Desert develops, but also the people I have met along the way.

A big thank you to everyone who enjoyed reading the interview,
and special thanks to Zethiann, who was willing to talk with us!
To all those who are reading this, thank you for playing Black Desert, and we hope you continue to enjoy your time with us! ❤

Take care, everyone, and see you in the next interview!

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