ALL my friends (OK, a few of my friends) are playing Black Desert Online, the new MMO from some company or other. I haven’t followed it much, wasn’t the least bit interested. Then they started talking about it.

And I’m intrigued. I hear about how complex it is, which interests me. That it’s Alt-Friendly and I love me some alts. That there are rewarding systems that go far beyond just combat. From the outside looking in, it seems to be the best ‘virtual world’ game available now if you want modern graphics. (And yeah, I like me some nice graphics.)

I held strong for a while because my friends tend to be very attracted to the new shiny. Blade & Soul was hot for maybe 10 days. Figured the same would be true with Black Desert Online. Plus there seems to be altogether too much excitement about AFK activities. The game literally plays itself I guess. That seems like an odd thing to be excited about but then, I haven’t experienced it.

But there seems to be so much to like about the game, and as a bonus it’s really pretty, at least in theory. I’m not sure how pretty it would be on my old machine, but it’s sure pretty on other peoples’ gaming rigs.

I came so close to caving and buying the $30 starter package (there’s no free lunch here, you have to buy something to get started).

But then I thought about spending hours sitting in front of my PC playing a game and I realized this was not the right move for me. I work from home. I sit in front of my ‘gaming PC’ for 40-50 hours a week working. Sitting here for another 20 just no longer sounds like fun. Most days once I ‘quit’ work for the day I walk out of the office and don’t return until the next morning.

Sadly I can’t even imagine a game as complex as Black Desert Online ever coming to consoles. So for now I guess Black Desert Online gets filed away with EVE Online; the kind of game I love to read about, but that I don’t really want to play. At least not until I get a kick-ass gaming laptop or some other way to play it in front of the big screen in the living room. Maybe it’ll come to Steam some day and I can play it via Steam In-Home Streaming….