Blade & Soul is facing a backlash, as many players feel cheated by the name reservation, since GMs have an advantage.
You have 7 wishes free…
With the start of the name reservation, trouble is brewing over the game Blade & Soul. Those who secured a founder’s package of the game in the past weeks should actually enjoy some name reservations – depending on the package either one or two. Players who spend extra money for such a service are often those who are after a prominent name and fear that it will be taken immediately.
The starting signal should go off for all players simultaneously to ensure fairness. And the starting signal went off at the same time. At least for the players.
GM secures the name Naruto, says “It’s not fair, but that’s how it is”
Gamemasters and community managers were able to secure up to 7 names prior. This included names of anime characters or other popular figures. On Twitter, they wanted to hold the community manager Youmukon accountable. The GM had secured the name “Naruto” in Europe. The GM admitted it was not fair, but one of the few advantages the job brings.
@deahamlet Now of course it’s unfair but that’s one of the only perks we have and believe it’s not much.
— Akli Amichi (@Youmukon) January 11, 2016
From the outside, it’s doubly bitter: Over Twitter, the EU-Naruto and the NA-Naruto are joking about the names and mocking each other. Both are employees of NCSoft. Behind the North American Naruto is Brand Manager Julianne Harty, who later apologizes for how this must have appeared to outsiders.
As fans increasingly intervene, the discussion ends in the tweet.
“Honestly, I don’t care what people think because if I did, I wouldn’t be doing this job at all.”
In social media, the real outcry began, countless hateful comments such as “Employee of the year: CM doesn’t care about the community” or “Well done. Now remove yourself from the gene pool” were still the milder reactions.
Controlling the storm
Meanwhile, in the official forum, they are trying to calm the waters and have revealed some reasons for the gamemasters’ privileges.
- Certain NPC names and characters from the game have been intentionally secured. No one should be able to have “Mushin” on the server “Mushin”.
- Some people sell popular names. For example, with the name “Naruto”, it has happened in other games that it was sold for $400 or more. By securing such well-known names, they want to prevent this. Furthermore, “it is very likely that these names will be made accessible again later.”
- In the current system, gamemasters cannot switch their character from server to server. Therefore, they had 7 name reservations to secure themselves on different servers.
To conclude, they apologize:
“Rest assured, we do not want to cheat you out of your money or exploit the system. (…) Many criticisms here are legitimate and valid, but we primarily are employees of NCsoft and then gamers ourselves – not the other way around. Our priority is the players’ enjoyment, and much of what we do is not to give ourselves an advantage by snatching up beloved anime names. Instead, we keep an eye out for problems that have existed in the past and want to avoid these.”
Mein-MMO says: On one hand, it is completely understandable that gamemasters and community managers should have a certain privilege in name selection, because many of them are already well-known, and there could be confusion if those names are taken.
On the other hand, it is extremely unprofessional to inform fans in a tweet that a community manager
