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[Dev Talk] 2018 Development Roadmap

    • [Dev Talk] 2018 Development Roadmap

      Hello! It feels like only yesterday when we last greeted everyone, we
      can’t believe it’s already been three months. Time sure flies!


      This week we are finally able to present to you the first “Dev Talk,”
      where we hope to officially address some things that you have all been
      curious about regarding Bless Online’s Steam service. Starting with
      today’s Dev Talk on Steam development, we plan to continually publish
      Dev Talks about development progress, concerns, and detailed plans. We
      hope you will enjoy them!


      We are extremely grateful that so many
      of you are looking forward to Bless, and are bringing up points of
      concern because of your interest and enthusiasm for Bless. Since we pay
      great attention to the community, you can rest assured that we are well
      aware of what everyone is most curious about! While we cannot answer ALL
      of your questions immediately, we hope to answer some of them and also
      satisfy your curiosity through the Dev Talk series.



      Our new Game Director knows Bless better than anyone else! Jae-hoon is
      also the one who guides the future development direction and points of
      focus for Bless. Recently, he presented a big development roadmap
      regarding Bless Online’s Steam release. We thought that it would be a
      good idea to share this with you guys so we asked him for an interview.


      • Q Jae-hoon! Please tell us about the development direction for Bless Online in 2018.
      • A. First, I want to say how happy I am to be able to meet everyone through Dev Talk. While we were deciding on and preparing for Bless Online’s Steam service, I thought that the most important thing was to be clearly aware of Bless’ strengths and points for improvement when deciding on the big picture for development.

        Therefore, we tried to find Bless’ strength and weaknesses by looking back on our past service experiences through various kinds of research, such as NA/EU community feedback and focus group interviews. Using this as our foundation, we ended up deciding on the development direction after much consideration.

        To summarize Bless Online’s development direction for 2018: we aim to fix problems that many have identified as we lead up to Steam Early Access. We want to ensure smooth gameplay and develop and polish new and current content to allow players to experience Bless’ transformation. In the long run, we will present new core content that expresses Bless’ strengths and uniqueness.

        Of course, as we aim to launch Steam EA as soon as possible, we may be criticized for trial and error during the development progress. However, we think that communication with players and providing quick responses is the most important thing in game service. Thus, we will make and grow Bless Online together as we listen to the feedback of players in North America and Europe.

        We will do our best to improve on all Bless’ shortcomings before Steam Early Access!

      • Q According to the above direction, what is the most important feature in the Steam version that you are currently improving?
      • A. As I mentioned above, as part of our short-term goals, we are currently focusing on the development of four components that will transform Bless before Early Access.
        - Growth: in addition to providing further vertical growth for players, we want to provide goals for horizontal growth (exploration of new content rather than just leveling upwards, etc) while minimizing repetitive experiences
        - Optimization: provide a pleasant gaming environment
        - Combat: break away from repetitive combat patterns, making combat fun and rhythmic
        - UI/UX: provide an intuitive and unified UI that creates a positive user experience

        In the first build that will be unveiled on Steam, we will present you the new Bless, including the growth, improved optimization, and noticeable changes in the improvement of combat and UI/UX.


      • Q Can you please tell us about the main content that is under development and in particular, provide detailed examples regarding combat?
      • A. To give you a brief description of what we’re developing: We are redesigning the arrangement and connection structure of the game content to improve the flow, and we are revising the game guide as a whole. We will also improve the current UI / UX to make it easier for players to understand what is going on in the game without any inconvenience.

        Combat is the area we focus on the most because it comprises of the majority of gameplay. However I am confident that you will feel considerable change in Bless’ combat as we have been working very hard to improve it.

        The main goal of the combat change is to make a system of rhythmic combat that is fun in regard to skill building, and battling solo or with party members.

        In order to provide tempo-based (rhythmic) combat, we are re-adjusting the monster difficulty and adding skill combo effects for more efficient and interesting combat. Additionally, with the skill customization system, a skill’s effect or the whole impact of the skill itself can be changed depending on the path you choose. It will definitely provide more depth to growing skills and will enable more strategic combat in PVE / PVP situations.




      The current skill system works through players improving their skills by
      investing skill points, but in the future players will be able to
      diversify their combat style by choosing which skill effects to grow and
      how to make their skill combos.


      In addition, the cooperative
      aspects will be more interesting with the addition of special buff
      effects that vary depending on the party members’ classes.


      We are
      also preparing a lot of other content not mentioned above, and we will
      share further details on improvements through later Dev Talks.


      Lastly,
      many fans in the community are wondering about the release schedule.
      There will be a chance to tell you what you are looking for soon.


      Everyone
      in our company is working hard to develop the game you would like in
      EA, so please be patient and give us a little more time!


      source: steamcommunity.com/games/68166…etail/1651000839359632581
    • ShiftyBandit wrote:

      Cool. Another announcment that doesnt really tell us anything new.
      At least they're talking I guess...
      Indeed. Better some communication than none. I mean Aeria barely ever spoke at all until they decided to shutter the idea.
    • Well, I don't know if I would call this a "roadmap". it's basically just a Q&A for Rebuild Project related things. Maybe one of these days they will give an actual roadmap that includes a progression plan in stages for Bless Online. I'm still glad they are communicating in the way they can though.

      Bless Online in my Top 10 MMORPGs In 2018!
    • Got to admit that Q&A told me nothing. Wish we would get a rough idea of when it's coming out and the changes they have made since japanese rebuild.
      Dark or Light, Good or Bad its all a matter of perspective. :saint: - Muriele Lightflicker :evil:
    • They pretty much could have just said "Hey! Remember this game? Ya? Well, We still working on it!
      After reading that "Dungeon sneek peak" I Had to roll my eyes and think sarcastically "Oh gee, is that how dungeons work?" How about actually telling us if theres goin to be an LFG tool? Is it Cross server matchmaking? Will there be level balancing? Reduced drop rates if someone is too high of a level? Daily limits and resets? etc...
      We all know how dungeons work neowiz....
      Im just getting impatient lol
    • ShiftyBandit wrote:

      They pretty much could have just said "Hey! Remember this game? Ya? Well, We still working on it!
      After reading that "Dungeon sneek peak" I Had to roll my eyes and think sarcastically "Oh gee, is that how dungeons work?" How about actually telling us if theres goin to be an LFG tool? Is it Cross server matchmaking? Will there be level balancing? Reduced drop rates if someone is too high of a level? Daily limits and resets? etc...
      We all know how dungeons work neowiz....
      Im just getting impatient lol
      If your impatient then play the game on KR or JP. Everyone else who wants to try the game is so there's no harm in doing so. There's nothing to lose by trying it. You can at least get your feet wet and a develop a feel for the game.
    • My only concern about the game right now is that, it takes to long to be released. I know that a release without bugs and other things is a good release, but they have to realise that other games are also comming and as we all seen a lot of people complaining about graphic been outdated, thought from my perspective is so real, it looks to me like The Witcher and Gothic franchises in one place, old retro-gothic style which is awesome. But probably it suits me because well i grew up with those games so i`m old school, but the new generations doesn`t find it very attractive. To summerize this, the basic point is that guys you are running out of time, right now the place is empty for new RPGs, so the game needs to win the people and by how it looks like it will, the problem is if another game is released around the same time, with more breath taking effects and other modern things, the game will not have the chance to prove itself. Let`s not forget Ashes of Creation, Moonlight Blade and Wolcen (i know this is not an MMORPG is at RTSRPG) but still those games are OVERPOWERED and it`s funny that Bless is around the same level as them, don`t know about Ashes of Creation level though, but still it will probably be the last to be released in EU/NA from all games mentioned above. Time is running out and the game needs space to prove itself.
    • Pentrep wrote:

      ShiftyBandit wrote:

      They pretty much could have just said "Hey! Remember this game? Ya? Well, We still working on it!
      After reading that "Dungeon sneek peak" I Had to roll my eyes and think sarcastically "Oh gee, is that how dungeons work?" How about actually telling us if theres goin to be an LFG tool? Is it Cross server matchmaking? Will there be level balancing? Reduced drop rates if someone is too high of a level? Daily limits and resets? etc...
      We all know how dungeons work neowiz....
      Im just getting impatient lol
      If your impatient then play the game on KR or JP. Everyone else who wants to try the game is so there's no harm in doing so. There's nothing to lose by trying it. You can at least get your feet wet and a develop a feel for the game.
      I have played the korean and russian versions. My feet have been wetted and I want more, I want the western version.
    • Pentrep wrote:

      If your impatient then play the game on KR or JP. Everyone else who wants to try the game is so there's no harm in doing so. There's nothing to lose by trying it. You can at least get your feet wet and a develop a feel for the game.
      Some people like myself, i don`t want to get the first impression and feelings in other languages i don`t understand, english FTW, so that`s why i`m waiting for an EU release.
    • Thordek wrote:

      No - Wolcen is currently very-very far from Bless JP version. Are you playing/following Wolcen? I do...
      If by "very-very far" you refer to play style, yes i know that, the reason i brought it into discussion is because the game is very promising so players will offer a lot of time to the game, something that Bless doesn`t need when it`s released. I know that Wolcen will be in direct competition with Path of Exile, though it will crush the game if you ask me, probably Diablo 4 will be the main rival to the game. Why i`m saying Diablo 4 is pretty obvious, we know Blizzard moves on very hard, they are into their games, but when they do damn they release OP games.
    • Crystallis wrote:

      Thordek wrote:

      No - Wolcen is currently very-very far from Bless JP version. Are you playing/following Wolcen? I do...
      If by "very-very far" you refer to play style, yes i know that, the reason i brought it into discussion is because the game is very promising so players will offer a lot of time to the game, something that Bless doesn`t need when it`s released. I know that Wolcen will be in direct competition with Path of Exile, though it will crush the game if you ask me, probably Diablo 4 will be the main rival to the game. Why i`m saying Diablo 4 is pretty obvious, we know Blizzard moves on very hard, they are into their games, but when they do damn they release OP games.
      Some of Bless' potential success lies in when it's released. They need to watch the release schedule for both MMO's as well as other games. They can't afford to release it at the same time as any potential competition. It will just make it's journey that much more difficult for neowiz to deal with.
    • Nothing big this year amongst new MMO licenses, the closest MMORPG is A:IR and it will most likely comes out in 2019. Otherwise we have the latest WoW expansion BfA coming this summer but 2018 seems to be the perfect year for BLESS to be launched.
    • Momoruk wrote:

      Nothing big this year amongst new MMO licenses, the closest MMORPG is A:IR and it will most likely comes out in 2019. Otherwise we have the latest WoW expansion BfA coming this summer but 2018 seems to be the perfect year for BLESS to be launched.
      Ya, I agree. Its matter of them getting their poop in a group and relasing this thing already. Or to get somewhat back on topic... Release better statements with some actual real meat in them!
    • Momoruk wrote:

      Nothing big this year amongst new MMO licenses, the closest MMORPG is A:IR and it will most likely comes out in 2019. Otherwise we have the latest WoW expansion BfA coming this summer but 2018 seems to be the perfect year for BLESS to be launched.
      Indeed but WoW won't really pose a threat to the Bless community. WoW's fanbase is essentially established at this point.