It's also worth noting that, unlike Archeage, having negative karma has no impact on your standing within the guild you belong to. In Archeage, players who became outlaws were expelled into a special pirate guild. In Black Desert Online, no such mechanic exists, so players who do decide to dip into negative karma will only have to contend with being attacked by guards and other players, but are still free to participate in activities with their guild.
Like The Elder Scrolls Online Outlaw Refuges, there are plans to introduce areas that are friendly to players with outlaw status. At this time, however, player-killing is going to be something that most will want to avoid entirely in favor of PVP that actively rewards participation.
Duking it out in Each City's Arena
Each of the three major cities that will be available at launch have arenas where players are encouraged to fight without penalty or reward. These arenas, which can be found in Calpheon, Heidel, and Velia, are basically free-for-all PVP zones where, upon entering, you can attack other players inside the arena without penalty. If you're looking for a fun place to spar with strangers or against guild-mates, this is the place to go.
Fighting in the arena has no real reward, but there's also no penalties either. So jump in, fight some people, and when you're ready to leave just step outside the boundary and continue on with your journey.
The Art of Guild Wars
While random player-killing is a system that, for now, remains heavily punished, PVPers don't need to worry about Black Desert Online being a game for non-aggressive people. Instead, Daum Games has elected to create systems where PVP can be meaningful and social for both parties.
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If you're looking to brawl with other players, guild wars are going to be the place to do it. When joining a guild, you're free to declare war on up to five other guilds at any time. In order to cater to western audience's passion for blood, Daum Games has completely erased the upkeep cost for maintaining wars (other versions of BDO had expensive hourly upkeep costs), and guilds will only need to pay the initial 150,000 silver in order to declare war. If the cost seems high, it really isn't. Players who are dedicated to PVP will find that they can form a guild and start declaring war within the first eight hours of playing.
Guild wars will last, at maximum, one week, and during that time players can engage in PVP without consequence. Wars must be declared by someone with proper standing in the guild, however. The cost of declaring war comes out of your guild bank, which is a wallet that can only receive money from either owned territory in the world or completing special guild quests that reward a hefty sum of silver. However, due to relatively low cost of declaring war, PVP focused guilds won't need to worry about grinding just to afford staying at a near constant state of war.
Unlike other forms of PVP in Black Desert, there is no real objective to guild wars beyond providing an avenue for groups of players to brawl with one another. Because there is no hourly upkeep cost, the defending guild is free to declare war back on the attacking guild. Doing so makes the war consensual, and a scoreboard will appear which will track the total number of deaths and kills for each guild.
While the system might seem pointless at first glance, it's important to understand that Black Desert is a sandbox game that places a high value on specific areas within the world. Certain zones will be highly valued for the density of their monsters, for example, making them excellent places for a guild to grind and gain experience at a rapid rate. If you were grinding in a zone that another guild was also grinding in, it might be beneficial to declare war on them in order to chase them off. Just don't be surprised if they have a few friends in other guilds who declare war on you in turn.
Though guild wars don't have any major benefit, each kill you score during the course of the war will also contribute to your guild's experience, which will eventually level up your guild giving access to better abilities or increasing the total guild size. Starting out, guilds are limited by how many players can join them, so declaring war and fighting with other guilds for experience can be a quick and fun way to level up your guild at minimal cost.
