Bless Online will launch as Free2Play, and one may wonder why the game has lost more than 30,000 players since the release of its Early Access version in May. We shed light on the development of Bless.
The MMO release Bless Online has faced constant criticism from players since its Early Access release. But why?
Before the launch of Bless as a Free2Play title on October 24, we want to explore the path of Bless.
Bless Online – the rocky road to the West
Bless Online’s long development history: Bless Online has been in development since 2009 and has faced many challenges during this time. Why did players in the West have to wait so long for Bless Online?
In mid-2009, work began on the MMO that would later become known as Bless Online. Almost 5 years later, in 2014, the first Closed Beta started in Korea.
Further beta tests followed in Korea until 2016 when it was announced that the publisher Aeria Games would distribute Bless Online in the West. Bless also managed to find a foothold in Russia. A publisher announced plans to operate Russian Bless Online servers there.
But in mid-2017, Aeria Games withdrew from the publishing deal with Neowiz for Europe. Shortly after, the Russian publisher announced that it would shut down the Bless servers in Russia after just 5 months. The future of the MMO in the West was uncertain.
Neowiz takes matters into its own hands: However, Neowiz decided to bring Bless Online to the West on their own. The development studio wanted to self-publish Bless Online. For the release, Neowiz turned to the distribution platform Steam.
To prepare Bless for the release in the West, the development team began polishing it to create a better experience.
Fans receive first information: In the months leading up to the Early Access launch of the game, more and more details about the planned changes became known:
- Neowiz spoke openly about the new combat system that was planned for the Western release of the game. Fans were largely convinced by the initial gameplay materials.
- At release, Bless Online was supposed to support multiple languages. Players could look forward to an English synchronization and translations in English and German.
- Bless Online should definitely not be pay-to-win. Neowiz vehemently opposed any form of paid advantages before the release. Content from the in-game shop should not heavily influence the game. The fans remained skeptical.
Bless Online faces issues even before release
Neowiz struggles with influencers: Neowiz had not yet announced an exact release date. Fans only knew that the MMO was scheduled to launch in May 2018. Therefore, they pinned their hopes on a press event in San Francisco.
Various influencers were invited to this event, who had previously applied as ambassadors through the representatives program. The representatives were supposed to act as the voice of the community and funnel criticism to Neowiz. At the event, the ambassadors were the first to have the opportunity to try out the revamped Bless.
Neowiz opted not to set up an official stream for the event. Instead, the invited influencers were to stream the event on Twitch. Interested players were thus reliant on the invited influencers. Streaming issues arose frequently, with the internet connection often becoming overloaded.
€200 premium customer service: During the event, Neowiz announced the release date and the prices of the various versions of Bless. As is common with an MMO, players could purchase a founder’s version. While the base version was priced at $30, the most expensive founder’s package should cost $200. Part of the founder’s package was a premium customer service.
During the presentation of the special customer service, an employee presented the premium customer service as the service where “we actually read your tickets.”
This caused so much outrage among players that Neowiz backtracked, removed the premium customer service, and reduced the price of the $200 founder’s package to $149.
Interest in the MMORPG is high
Hungry market awaits: At release, the Western MMORPG market provided the best conditions for Bless:
- In 2014, the last major MMORPGs were launched with The Elder Scrolls Online and WildStar.
- Afterwards, only Black Desert was released in 2016.
The MMORPG market was starving and Bless found ideal ground for its launch. For the foreseeable future, Bless would be the only classic AAA MMORPG to appear in the West.
This led to extremely high interest in the game and also high sales on launch day.
Bless Online launches – no consensus among fans
Poor performance: Players who purchased a founder’s package were able to look into the game two days before the official release of the MMO. However, during these two days, many players could not log in to play. The servers were heavily overloaded. There was a bug that caused players to get stuck on the first loading screen.
As a result of these problems, two camps formed among the players:
- For some players, the game’s performance was unacceptable. Even on very powerful machines, there were no stable FPS. These players requested a refund through Steam, receiving their money back.
- Another group of players viewed the situation more moderately. They stated that no MMO release had gone smoothly thus far. They believed that the issues would disappear in the future.
Bless plagued by release problems: After the head start ended and all players could play Bless Online, the release week of the MMORPG began. However, only a few days after the launch of Bless, new problems began to emerge.
- First players reached level 45 and noticed that there was no real endgame content. Many of these players had previously played on the Japanese or Russian servers. Neowiz had brought the vanilla version of the MMO to the West. These long-time fans were disappointed.
- A dupe exploit caused problems. Players duplicated items and were able to craft powerful equipment. Players demanded a server reset. Neowiz decided against it.
- The English translation of the game was very faulty, and the German translation was not yet complete.
- The class balancing of the MMO was absent. Mages and paladins were far too strong in PvP and could dominate the other classes. All classes dealt too much damage to monsters, allowing players to sprint through the content.
Action combat is praised: Yet despite the problems, there was also positive feedback from fans. Especially at release, the combat system received praise from fans. While it was only limited action combat, the reduced number of skills and chaining of abilities led to rhythmic battles.
Additionally, many fans appreciated how Neowiz handled criticism. During the release period, the development team seemed to be constantly busy. New updates were pushed out every few hours that resolved issues. The team responded quickly to players’ problems and promised new endgame content in the future.
Several patches improved class balance; however, the damage had already been done, and many players withdrew from Bless Online in frustration. To make the game more accessible, some fans began developing a German fan translation for the game, but the project ultimately fell flat.
Players did not stay with Bless Online
Declining player numbers: It is normal for player numbers to decline after the release of an MMO. Some players reach the endgame of the game and have nothing else to do. What is important is that a stable core remains loyal to the game.
But this core was slow to establish itself in Bless. The player numbers of the MMO dropped daily, until they settled at the current level of around 700 (as of October 15, 2018), according to the website SteamDB.
At the beginning of July, around 7000 players were still visiting the MMO daily. Even back then, fans were calling for Neowiz to merge servers to do something about the declining player numbers.
However, the server merger came too late and could not persuade the remaining players to continue playing Bless Online.
Bless Unleashed is announced
Spiritual successor? At Gamescom 2018, Neowiz announced a new MMO. The title: Bless Unleashed.
Bless Unleashed is set to use Unreal Engine 4 and offer an action-packed combat system. The MMO is planned for release on Xbox One and will use assets from Bless Online.
Among Bless Online players, the announcement caused displeasure. There were suspicions that Neowiz only used Bless to finance the development of Bless Unleashed. Neowiz denied this, stating that both games would be developed by completely independent development teams.
A Bless Mobile is also in development.
What will happen to Bless Online?
The future of Bless: It’s hard to say how Bless Online will develop after its transition to the Free-To-Play model. Bless publisher Neowiz believes that Bless Online can succeed. The players will return to the MMO.
The game is intended to be operated for as long as possible. Through updates, Bless aims to transition to a good product with which they hope to convince former and future players. How many players will check out Bless Online when it’s free remains to be seen.
With the release of Bless Online, the long-awaited German localization of the game is coming. In an interview with Mein MMO, the developers also talked about the PvP focus of the game and its PvE content.
What do the Bless players think? Some Bless players are worried about the MMO. Although Bless Unleashed is set to release in 2019 only for Xbox One, it represents a version that many Bless players would have liked to play on Steam. From their perspective, Bless Unleashed competes with Bless Online.
Other players praise Neowiz for the publisher’s perseverance. The publisher has continued to work on Bless Online over the last few months and has fixed errors.
Starting October 24, you can see for yourself what Bless Online has to offer. Anyone who hesitated at launch can take a look at the MMO without much risk.
