So, I got this idea a while back. I wanted to start something I called the ‘black desert club’. Not your typical guild, you know? Something more focused. I was playing a lot of Black Desert Online then, and I felt like most groups were either too hardcore or too casual, with nothing really in between for folks like me who enjoyed a specific niche – maybe exploring the lore deeply or mastering certain life skills together without the crazy pressure.
Getting Started – The First Steps
First thing I did was try to find people. Man, that was tougher than I thought. I started by just talking in the game chat, the general channels. You know how that goes, mostly noise. I posted on a couple of forums too, the ones dedicated to the game. I described what I was thinking, this ‘club’ idea, focusing on relaxed exploration and mastering trade skills as a small, tight-knit group.
I spent hours drafting the ‘manifesto’ if you can call it that. Just a simple set of ideas:
- Focus on exploration and lore discovery.
- Collaborative life skilling, helping each other out.
- No mandatory PvP or hardcore grinding schedules.
- Just enjoying the world the game offered.
Sounded good in my head, anyway.
Hitting Some Roadblocks
Got a few bites initially. Maybe five or six people seemed interested. We formed a small chat group outside the game to coordinate. That’s where things started getting complicated. Everyone had slightly different ideas about what ‘relaxed’ meant. Some wanted scheduled exploration nights, others just wanted to chat while doing their own thing. Some were way ahead in gear and skills, others were brand new.
Keeping everyone on the same page was a real challenge. I felt like I was spending more time trying to manage personalities and expectations than actually playing the game and doing the fun stuff I envisioned for the club.
We tried setting up a shared storage system using the guild bank, but arguments started about who was contributing what. We tried organizing group trading runs, but people’s play times rarely lined up. It felt less like a club and more like trying to herd cats.
Where Things Ended Up
After a couple of months, it just sort of fizzled out. People drifted away. Some joined bigger, more structured guilds. Others just went back to playing solo. I didn’t really push hard to keep it going towards the end; honestly, I was a bit burned out from trying to make it work.
The ‘black desert club’ never really became the thing I imagined. It wasn’t a total failure, I guess. I did meet a couple of cool people I still chat with occasionally. But the grand vision? Nah, that didn’t happen.
Thinking back now, it wasn’t a total waste. Learned a lot about managing expectations, both mine and others’. Realized that sometimes, the simple idea is way harder to put into practice, especially with online communities. Maybe the idea was too niche, or maybe I just wasn’t the right person to lead it. Who knows? For now, I’m just back to playing mostly solo, doing my own thing.
