Sticky just following up with you guys...

      just following up with you guys...

      It was 29 days ago that we finished the ama on reddit and I think it’s appropriate to say: “thank you for your patience”. A lot of things have happened since. Here at Aeria Games we formed a team, played the game a lot, got to work and oh yeah, Philipp [phibrex] now has a brand new son and so have I. Baby boys ftw!

      Right here I would like to quickly refer to a point that was raised before: Why do we say “product” or “project” instead of “game” when we talk about Bless? Well, it has to do with the way we work. The integration of a game like Bless into our systems and the launch of it are treated like a project, and we apply PMI methodology as well as Scrum / Kanban. When we talk about the game being a product, we do so because our work is influenced by modern Product Management methodologies and best practices. For those interested, "The Practitioner´s Guide to Product Management" by Jock Busuttil is one of my favourite books on the matter. It doesn’t mean that we don’t feel any attachment to the game. For me, games have been a safe haven I can immerse myself in, a way to meet with my friends to have fun, and of course a significant cultural contribution to our civilization. In my neighbourhood in Berlin there is actually the Museum of Video Games. If you like video games as much as I do go there if you are in Berlin or, try and read “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. Some hate it but I loved it.

      Right, back to topic. You may remember some of the team members I introduced last month. There is Mathias [met4_m4t] our Producer, Philipp [phibrex] our Technical Producer, and then there is me, [ChrizzzB]. I am overall in charge. Now two more have joined: Nyme is from Korea and she is our new Project Manager. Nils [Shubnig], a very experienced QA Manager with whom I have worked in the past, is now also part of the team. There are also six colleagues already working on the localization of the game and we’re roughly 20% done translating Korean to “relay” English.

      Bored yet? Thought so. Last time I said we would start working on specific topics and I would like to share some info with you.

      Combat System

      Please allow me to be frank: I found it hard to replicate the negative experience causing rants other players had. I am not saying the combat systems are perfect. I am simply honest here. I played free targeting and tab targeting, I played a Guardian, Berserker, Ranger and Mage. In the end, I liked playing the melee classes with free targeting and the ranged classes with tab targeting best. The more I played, the more I got used to it. We’ve talked to Neowiz about this a lot as well. During the first three Closed Betas in Korea, there was some feedback that led Neowiz to change aspects of the combat systems to what it is now. There are ongoing improvements happening, right now they are working on the “tab” key and how it functions. As of now, we will monitor this further and we are particularly interested in the experience once we have our test server up and running. My suspicion is that with great ping comes great responsibili… errr… better combat experience. We will try to find out if the theory latency issues = clunkiness is correct. Please everyone, share your thoughts underneath as well.

      The Shop

      We’ve analyzed the existing shop and are focussing at the technical integration right now. From what we can see, there don’t appear to be any major changes to the Korean shop and its contents required.

      IT Infrastructure

      We’re working with Neowiz on setting up test servers on our future infrastructure, which is virtualized and that way a lot more flexible to handle peaks, but also posing a few challenges.

      Changes to the game

      We are moving away from the idea of requesting changes to the game in order to acquire a certain age rating.

      Neowiz and Aeria Games

      The work relationship couldn’t be better. In two weeks, we will travel to Korea to visit Neowiz. If you were with us, what would you do / ask / bring / sing?

      I hope you can appreciate the effort we take in order to be transparent. I understand that this piece of information may not feel good enough to some, but hey... It’s a long journey and we need to take it one step at a time. From what I’ve seen on discord as well as here on the forum, I am really sorry but right now I do not have the time to run another ama and this post is not meant to be one. All I wanted to do is to follow up with you.

      Last but not least, please allow me to express something I feel. To me, every individual user matters and if I can, I will reply directly and personally to you. But please do not simply copy & paste our conversations to public boards or the like. If that’s what I need to expect, unfortunately it means that I will need to be more careful with what I can tell you in personal, direct PMs or emails. I hope you understand.

      ChrizzzB

      edit: thanks guys.
      This whole thing took an unexpected turn. Please everyone, come and discuss the points I´ve raised. The team and I will participate in the discussion, because when we have time, we like to check in on bless-source to find out what you think. Right now I can´t do an ama though. For me, an ama means that I will try to answer each and every question you ask in a very short amount of time. That requires a lot of focus and time and right now, I can´t ...
      Also, AcePro did not do anything wrong, quite the contrary. He didn´t know how I felt and I should´ve told him personally.

      Sorry for the confusion. Next time I will get in touch with the mods and admins beforehand and I will be more precise on what we will do.

      Post was edited 2 times, last by “ChrizzzB” ().

      ChrizzzB wrote:


      I am really sorry but right now I do not have the time to run another ama and this post is not meant to be one. All I wanted to do is to follow up with you.

      [...] please do not simply copy & paste our conversations to public boards or the like. If that’s what I need to expect, unfortunately it means that I will need to be more careful with what I can tell you in personal, direct PMs or emails. I hope you understand.


      I have stickied this post to ensure more people see it. In regards to not wanting to run/start another AMA, I will close this thread as well if you want have closed this thread as a precautionary measure so no one can reply.

      Also: If that second part I quoted is a reference to AcePro's thread in which he quoted your email, I will be happy to delete that thread and I'll talk to the admin and other mods about adding a rule to respect the privacy or private messages and emails (aka just a rule that'd say to keep anything AeriaGames directly tells you a secret). Again, let me know.

      Post was edited 3 times, last by “Zazaaji” ().

      Since ChrizzzB directly said he doesn't want this to be another AMA thread, I'll close this is a precaution to ensure no one else asks questions (but leave it as a sticky to ensure as many people see it as possible).

      If you want it un-closed ChrizzzB, let me or any mod know. We'll un-close it for you.

      Post was edited 2 times, last by “Zazaaji” ().

      Thank you for the follow up ChrizzzB. Hopefully we will be able to hear more information soon, though considering how busy your team is thats probably not likely. All I ask is please don't make this a "pay to win" game. As for the questions about korea; I would try tons of food, ask where is the best place to visit for fun, I would bring a toothbursh (can't travel without one), and I would try to sing korean songs.

      Post was edited 1 time, last by “Alaula” ().

      glad to see that someone from Aeria has enough time to visit us here, it's always good to hear about news and infos directly from a publisher.

      as for the gameplay, i can't say much since i haven't played the game yet, but judging by youtube videos it looks fine.
      probably not the "holy grail" of mmorpgs, but still a solid and nice game overall.


      in any case, i honestly hope that you'll give enough attention and care to the game's publishing, as much as for its playerbase.

      "Rise and rise again, until lambs will become lions."
      Thanks Chris for your lengthy reply to this fan forum~!

      First let me say i love how you at Aeria have such a good relationship with Neowiz, that's a key part in making this game truly great abroad imo.

      Secondly, you mentioned no issues with the combat in the classes you played (the 4 from first few betas it seems) BUT the Assassin from what I've seen in videos and comments is really lackluster in combat with rehashed animations and dull combat not to mention the faulty free targetting with nearly all of their moves, as a melee class it just doesn't do justice to them....
      In regards to ping hindering combat, oddly enough i have GREAT ping on the korean servers and combat isn't really dull or negative to an extreme extent but i do feel as if skill comboing is a bit slow even at high lvls and high amounts of spell cast reduction etc. (my mage is a bit of a struggle to do mob kill quests with at times...spending roughly 15 mins doing them on average for only 10 mobs and decent gear!)

      Thirdly, I'm elated to know you aren't focusing on changing the game at all to pander cater to a wider even younger audience, when the game itself is meant to be enjoyed by a mature group of people who want a bit darker theme from the usual MMORPG, slightly grittier even in some questlines... yet it's tastefully done imo and is not meant to be for shock value (alone).

      Lastly, but not least~! lol the hot topic that is the shop! I'm glad you see no changes desired to fit with Aeria thus far on the surface, I feel it's done quite well in Korea and the business model really leaves no player feeling inferior or superior to an extent as where either group of paying or free is dissatisfied! :3


      If and when you/your team reads this, thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us fans here at Bless-Source and continuing that transparency! <3
      Thank you for taking the time to follow up with us ChrizzzB.

      Regarding what I would say to Neowiz in your trip to Korea, I would tell both them and you to please not launch the game in the current state.

      Don't get me wrong, I really love the game and I even paid for premium membership in korea and plan to keep playing here until you release the game in europe, but right now the game is not finished, it's missing a lot of basic features and tweaks to the UI, like auction house, duels, armor appareance customization, hide headgears, invite people from guilds menu, linking positions, and a lot of other basic things that pretty much are present in every mmorpg.

      We are even missing the level 50 cap and two classes and three races that would be nice if they'd were also included, but even if this last thing isn't in your plans for the launch at least finish the game before launching it here.

      The game is good enough right now to keep the people really interested on it, but even now with the little international community that plays in the korean version I can see how many people joins us and leaves a few days later or a few days after they have reached the level cap, the game needs a little more tweaks to retain more people, Neowiz is aware and already working on it, the following announced updates include many of the missing things, and so far every patch they added made the game more a lot more interesting and gave more things to keep people busy that were really needed.

      In short, don't be too hasty with the release and don't start our betas with what Neowiz had by the time they announced you as publishers but with what they will have in the near future, have them working on adding all the basic stuff that is missing so that the experience can be a lot better for the EU/NA playerbase when they get to try the game.


      P.S. Also if you can get them to fix that annoying bug that happens when you get disconnected from the game for network issues, that leaves your character logged in and doesn't let you login back for a over 5-20 minutes because it says you are still logged in, you would be my hero :love:

      Post was edited 1 time, last by “Arkray” ().

      I want to agree with mostly everything Arkay said, the game doesn't feel finished and releasing it in this state would be a bad idea.

      Also we played the game on KR without any boosters and the game ran very very very smooth compared to some other games like BnS which were unplayable even with asian booster; i know that the games are different but you can draw some comparison... Bless was a milion miles away better from this pov.

      The game looks gorgeous the armors should also look gorgeous at higher lvls, i get it that maybe the point is to have them a bit realistic... Also the costumes in the shop were too expensive and not so diverse.

      I would also like to add the fact that the item attributes don't vary enough, i mean you have SO MANY items at this point in the game but the differences between them are so small... especially the crafted gear from dungeons... that's quite some farm and in the end you don't even get some "great" item just a very slightly better one than you had before. Also it's quite easy to get the full pvp items from sieges compared to other mmos. These stuff should be the high end mega gear that only a bunch of ppl can achieve.

      Imo there are stuff from other mmos that keep people in the game gear pvp pve -wise... i am sure that there are so many others like me who want to experience a real mmo again and Bless has the potential for it... I don't think that the key to success is to reinvent what's keeping people hooked up in an mmo for years, it's to go back to the roots and apply what already worked, in a maybe new clever way, but not reinventing it completly.

      QUESTION TO ASK: Would they consider making the game NOT RvR? The game can be even better from a pvp perspective if it is focused on clan wars and arenas instead of race vs race... i personally never saw the point of race vs race.
      @Sindeya: even if is not ready I can assure you that Neowiz is currently releasing a lot of content between May and June, this is a screenshot of the Auction House that I saw today on their Developer Blog




      but my question is: when Microsoft will force us to update to "Windows 10 Anniversary Update" this summer, will Bless be compatible with W10???

      Post was edited 2 times, last by “vegax87” ().

      "Sindeya" wrote:

      Also it's quite easy to get the full pvp items from sieges compared to other mmos. These stuff should be the high end mega gear that only a bunch of ppl can achieve.


      and why only few people should be able to obtain it? to make the game more unbalanced gear-wise? no thanks.

      games like Aion have a PvP gear system based entirely on ranks, and it's total crap because most people will never be able to get top PvP gear since it's limited only for a specific amount of people that farmed sieges and arenas for months or years.
      new players will never have a chance to get top PvP gear in that game, and i sure as hell don't want to see anything similar in Bless.

      everyone should be able to get the same gear by equally farming for it.
      being more active in game means that you'll get it faster than others, but no other advantage or limitations should be put in place.

      "Sindeya" wrote:

      QUESTION TO ASK: Would they consider making the game NOT RvR?
      The game can be even better from a pvp perspective if it is focused on clan wars and arenas instead of race vs race... i personally never saw the point of race vs race.


      that's something i can relate to as well, since it would probably bring more competition and make the servers a bit more interesting.
      but in the end, it's always up to the developers.

      "Rise and rise again, until lambs will become lions."

      Sindeya wrote:

      QUESTION TO ASK: Would they consider making the game NOT RvR? The game can be even better from a pvp perspective if it is focused on clan wars and arenas instead of race vs race... i personally never saw the point of race vs race.
      Let's take attention to the RED point.... i mean....NO, just... NO!... let's see... NO!

      Ok... now, getting on the main issue: You are misunderstanding...RvR is not Race VS Race, but REALM vs REALM, it's intented to have the whole side A get in war against the side B. It's much more larger than how you are putting it... and this mean that whole Clans and Alliances will get to work to destroy the Clans and Alliances that are on the other realm...

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