Hello, Adventurers!

This is The MMORPG, Black Desert.

First off, we would like to thank all our Adventurers for showing their interest and enjoying the Terrmian Waterpark and the Secret Quest Challenge event.

We thought that this was a historic moment for Black Desert, wouldn’t you agree?

It was so great to watch Adventurers from all over the world gather to solve the mysteries from the event.

Check out all the amazing Adventurers that unraveled the secrets in the ‘Secret Quest Challenge’!

We are thankful for all the Adventurers that struggled day and night trying to figure out the hints during the event.

To show our appreciation for the effort and support shown by our Adventurers, we have decided to adjust the difficulty of the Secret Quest Challenge and extend the event period to allow more Adventurers to enjoy the event.

Even though the Secret Quest Challenge race is over, there are still 400 million silvers worth of additional event rewards up for grabs for finishing these quests. We hope Adventurers that haven’t completed the quests will take advantage of this opportunity before time runs out.

■ Details

• Starting: 7/19/2018 (Thu) after maintenance

• Changes to the events:

1. Event Period Extended (Until 7/26 (Thu) before maintenance)

• Secret Quest Challenge event period extended


• Terrmian Waterpark event period extended


• Terrmian Octopus Fishing event period extended.

2. Secret Quest Challenge Difficulty Changes

• Increased drop rates of materials needed to for the event.


• Changed required amount and types of items for certain quests.


• Changed requirements for getting certain quests.


• Changed completion requirements for certain quests.

• Please Note

• ‘[Event] So Disappointed!’ quest can only be completed once per family, same as before. 


• All the additional event rewards such as [Event] Alchemy Society's Contribution Ribbon, [Event] Alchemy Society's Contribution Insignia, [Event] Alchemy Society's Contribution Medal, and the in-game titles for completing the quests will be delivered on 7/26 (Thu) during scheduled maintenance.


• Light/Darkness/Eternal titles are only given to Adventurers that complete the quests before maintenance on 7/19 (Thu). The titles will be sent during maintenance on 7/19 (Thu).


• The additional rewards listed below are only given to Adventurers that complete the quests before maintenance on 7/19 (Thu). The additional rewards will be sent to sent during maintenance on 7/26 (Thu).


• The additional rewards listed below will to sent to Adventurers that completes the quests before maintenance on 7/19 (Thu).
  
  -  Silver will be rewarded the total number of quests completed (you can receive up to 150 million silver)
  
  * Fire completed: 100G x1
  
  * Water completed: 100G x1
  
  * Forest completed: 100G x1
  
  * Metal completed: 100G x2
  
  * Earth completed: 100G x2
  
  * Spirit completed: 100G x2
  
  * Darkness completed: 100G x3
  
  * Light completed: 100G x3
  
  - Get Fine Accessory Boxes depending on the total number of quests completed (you can receive up to 3 boxes)
  
  * Completed up to Forest: Fine Accessory Box I x1
  
  * Completed up to Spirit: Fine Accessory Box I x1
  
  * Completed up to Light: Fine Accessory Box I x1


• Due to the event period being extended, all items, quests, and challenges will be removed during 8/02 (Thu) scheduled maintenance.

The Secret Quest Challenge is the first Black Desert Online event ever that was held world-wide simultaneously! It wasn’t just Adventurers that had a hard time with the quests, but it was also quite a challenge for us to prepare.

We interviewed the lead coordinator of the Secret Quest Challenge event to share what happened behind the scenes :)

1. How did planning for the Secret Quest Challenge event begin?

It started when we were planning the summer events with the Korean publisher Kakao Games. The initial idea came from the marketing team at Kakao Games. They suggested the idea by saying, when we think about ‘Summer’ we tend think about the horror stories in the middle of the summer night, exciting unsolved mysteries, and etc. This idea acted as the starting point and continued to develop. Given that the Black Desert world is so huge and full of so many different experiences, we thought it was a pity that Adventurers usually don’t get the full experience. So, we decided to plan a summer event that would expose our Adventurers to new experiences. Actually, this event was originally only planned for the KR server. However, during the planning stages we thought all Adventurers would enjoy this event, so it was made into a global event (thanks to this, our Adventurers in South America got to enjoy Terrmian during winter. Adventurers in South America can look forward to Christmas in summer too). Our Planning Team was pulling their hairs out trying to figure out how to make this idea fit into the Black Desert world and to create a brand new event that’s never been done before.

Starting from the initial idea, we put our heads together and worked on it. This is how we came up with the Secret Quest Challenge world-wide event. We are proud to have created an event that can only be done in that is uniquely designed for the world.

2. The idea is very similar to , was this where the event drew its inspiration from?

- Like I mentioned before, this idea came up while brainstorming with the marketing team. The marketing team presented the ‘Ready Player One’ motif and suggested a huge prize to go along with it. Interestingly, the whole company recently went to watch ‘Ready Player One’ together. Like many in the audience, we were deeply inspired by the movie. The moment we heard of the concept, we were very excited about it. This event was to be different from many common events that all too easily give out rewards without presenting a challenge! It’s time for Adventurers to start using their brains! We shall force Adventurers to walk into a pit of sulfur, muahaha! We will meet you in hell!! At the end of this ordeal, infinite glory and wealth await them!

… of course, many of our co-workers were worried about how difficult the event would be. Nonetheless, we were already fixated on the idea. We started to plan for the event step by step and then noticed that it was starting to become more like ‘Ready Player One’. Still, it had a totally different feel from the movie. That’s the result of the hard work we put in to make the event unique to . The remaining similarities between the two are that Adventurers will not just need to explore a vast world, they will earn amazing rewards, and that the event NPC somewhat resembles Halliday.

3. The difficulty of the quest was fairly hard and appears to be targeted towards users that have spent a long time playing Black Desert. Was this done on purpose?

It was necessary to judge Adventurers from all around the world as they compete against each other. Therefore, it was hard to make quests that only required items that were easy to come by. Additionally, we hoped that the diverse experiences that our Adventurers gained in would help them to deduce the hints from the game dialogue / knowledge, exploration, by sheer chance of luck, and others.

We also had to think about the possibility of information being leaked through abnormal means as the difficulty of the quests were set very high. So, we made the difficult quests even harder.

Now that the world-wide race is over, we will adjust the difficulty of the quests and extended the event period, so that they can be completed if the Adventurer has figured out the clues. It might have been difficult at first, but we hope everyone can enjoy the event in the end.

4. The hints were very unique, was there any difficulty in making those hints?

There was a process of researching mystery gimmicks to come up with the hints. Our biggest homework was predicting the difficulty of these quests as our Adventurers always go above and beyond our wildest expectations.

If I was to pick out a specific difficulty, as it was a global event, localizing the hints while maintaining all the meaning in each of the hints was difficult. The fact that some of the hints were different for each country could be a point of interest. Setting the hint difficulty was the trickiest part. The question of ‘What kind of hints should we give our Adventurers so that they find it adequately fun while still challenging?’ was something we were concerned about very much. Some of them were too easy, some of them were too hard. However, we were clearly able to see the ability of the community to gather information through this event.

5. What was your biggest concern while preparing this event?

We were very worried that Adventurers wouldn’t want to participate in the event if it the was too difficult. It exceeded our expectations. Not only did many Adventurers take part in this event, internet broadcasts brought Adventurers from all around the world together. We were surprised to see people come together to work through the quests. Much more people were able to figure out the quests faster than we had anticipated. At times, it was really heartbreaking to see some Adventurers take a non-approved route using leaked information (skipping all the intended hints). It was a chance for us to witness the community’s ability to work together and collect information. (Some of the intended hints never saw the light of day, so we were thinking of using them in future quests… maybe next time...)

6. What was your top priority while preparing for this event?

Of course it was about maintaining security. The event was based on who can finish the quest the quickest. Additionally, the prize for this event was huge. We had to be prepared for anything that could happen. To make sure that no information would be leaked, we only used the minimum number of people needed to create the event and to test it. Due to this, our schedule was always tight. Thanks to all that hard work, I got white hair and bags under my eyes… hahahaha!

Employees at Pearl Abyss and the publishers around the world are all fellow Adventurers in . We forbid all employees from participating in this event. Discussion about this event were always done in secrecy.

We did everything we could to ensure that the event was fair. I hope our intentions were clear to our Adventurers.

7. Are there any plans for another event like this?

If our Adventurers want it, of course! However, the next time we do an event like this it needs to be original and more difficult. So, it might take more time to prepare. For this reason, we welcome ideas from all our Adventurers around the world!

8. Please say a few words for the Adventurers that worked hard to solve the event!

Many sleepless nights were spent worrying, what if the event is too difficult and not fun? What if no one participates in the event? However, we were truly surprised by the number of Adventurers that participated in this event. This was an opportunity for us to re-think about what kind of fun we need to deliver.

Thank you for enjoying the event. It was a learning experience for us and we enjoyed the event with our Adventurers. We will continue to work hard to keep exciting and to provide exciting new gaming experiences.

We would like to sincerely thank our Adventurers again for showing their passion and accepting the challenge head on. We will work hard to return with enjoyable events.

We hope you stay cool during the hot weather.

Thank you.