What is the campsite?

It is a permanent item that can be placed almost anywhere (combat zones) and has multiple uses such as the following:

Repairing items
Buying potions
Currency exchanging
Storing items
Buying buffs

The concept for the tent was to add more convenience for players because they would not have to move away from grind spots to repair and buy more potions. This would be particularly useful in the desert and for classes that use a lot of potions when grinding. It could also be really useful for open world PVP where you constantly need to repair and restock potions. However, there are several restrictions in place that make the tent practically useless:

The tools run out of durability.
Various tools are required to use each of the uses the tent offers. These can be crafted or bought from an NPC in each of the cities. The shop for example costs 14 million silver and will last for 7 days, this is a fair price and just a minor inconvenience which is honestly quite acceptable.

Repair cost is x10 the normal amount.
Repairing an item by using the tent will cost x10 the amount that it would at a blacksmith NPC. Repairing all of your gear can cost more than 3 million silver each time and is often not worth the cost compared to the time it takes to travel to a blacksmith.

Potions cost x2 the normal amount.
Potions also cost more than they do at a general merchant. The price difference quickly adds up and again, is often not worth the cost compared to how long it would take you to just go to a general merchant.

Buffs cost too much for such a low amount of time.
The buffs cost 250,000 silver and can only be used for 20 minutes. This is quite a high price for what you get but offered as more of an ‘extra’ you can decide to use or ignore and is not the main use of the tent.

Now we will compare these to the pearl store tent:

The tools do not run out of durability.
Buying the pearl store tent means you no longer have to buy the tools to use it. The tools were a perfect gold sink and minor inconvenience that was well balanced. But with permanent tools, players can save a lot of money over time by simply paying for the pearl store tent. This alone does not make the tent directly/obviously “pay to win” but definitely “pay for convenience” in my book.

Repairs are now cheaper than blacksmiths.
If you buy the pearl store tent, the price of repair now drops to less than it would cost at a blacksmith. When compared with the ridiculous price it costs without the pearl store addition, it feels like a huge advantage for players willing to spend money.

Potions cost the normal price.
Buying the pearl store tent also decreases the potion price to same price as a general merchant. This saves a lot of money compared to using the tent without the pearl store tools. Buffs last x3 longer. The buffs last 60 minutes and are far more reasonable for the price. This again not directly/obviously “pay to win” but is another extra advantage that you can get by spending money.

Villa buffs can be bought from your tent.
This is considered the biggest convenience of having the tent and is only available with the pearl store addition. It can be used to collect the buffs from any location on the map. Players must have a villa contract to buy the buffs, but can also buy all types of villa buff without needing the relevant villa invitation for each one. This is a huge advantage that is again locked behind a pay wall.

So why does all of this matter?

Honestly, it does and it doesn’t. The campsite system is completely there for convenience in the first place.

However, the issue is that it’s only convenient if you are willing to spend money. The tent is far too expensive to use without the cash shop add-ons and all of the restrictions together make it practically useless for it’s purpose. There is nothing wrong with the durability of the tools and minor inconveniences to push sales, but there are too many restrictions on the system, and they can all be avoided by simply paying to, with extra advantages also placed on top of that. The whole system is designed to be as useless as possible to drive those sales and make players believe they “need” this item, when in fact they don’t.

The price itself is also part of the problem. The pearl store tent costs 4,900 pearls, which is an extremely high priced item and the tools are not split for you to pick which ones you’d like to buy. This one item costs the same price as other B2P games and is considerably more than what many players paid to buy Black Desert and even the early access packages. It’s simply down to greed. By making the price so high, many players will not want to buy this item and the people willing to pay high prices are rewarded even more since it puts a gap between the community. This again makes the people who don’t “want” to the spend money, feel like they have to just because others have.

The price is also carefully thought out to be directly in-between the 3,000 and 6,000 pearls pack, so that players are more likely to buy the higher priced pearls package, instead of making two separate transactions. This is done purely to drive multiple sales by leaving high amounts of pearls left over.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that the timing of the item being added is right before the anniversary of the game. Many will instantly buy this item and those who don’t will be more tempted to when sales/coupons are added next month in celebration. I can assure you that this is not a coincidence and I feel like all of these put together makes me feel manipulated into buying the item. I have personally decided not to purchase this item as I don’t believe in supporting Kakao and Pearl Abyss this way and don’t want more of these “convience” items creeping into the game. I encourage others to do the same, at the very least until the sales so you can save yourselves some money!