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Blade and Soul losing steam?

NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798

article from 4 weeks ago

 

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/08/133_117289.html

08-13-2012 17:09

The popularity of game developer NCsoft’s latest title Blade & Soul may fade sooner than expected due to lackluster content updates, according to industry observers Monday.

The massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) took five years to develop and cost 55 billion won. It was launched commercially in June to rave reviews.

However, a month after commercialization, Blade & Soul ceded its top position to a lesser game in scope and size: Raw Games’ League of Legends, a real time strategy game based on Warcraft’s customized map, Defense of the Ancients in which users pick heroes and fight with automated units from opposing sides battling each other.

“There is reasonable speculation from the market that the game (Blade & Soul) will see a repeat of what happened to TERA,” said Kim Min-kyu, a cultural content professor at Ajou University over the phone. “Despite the buzz that surrounded its launch, the overwhelming number of accounts by gamers online complained about insufficient content. As it is a pay-per-month game, users tend to be more sensitive over what they get for their money.”

“The game is at a critical point, in which its life-span will be decided.”

..

NCsoft announced on July 18 that it will not charge users before they reach level 15, which industry analysts judged to be a strategy for the game developer to prevent its user pool from leaving.

“I’ve noted many complaints on community websites about balancing the ability of characters and requests for patches to fix them. Reacting to these as soon as possible should be NCsoft’s main goal,” said the official.

Comments

  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278

    Seems to be the latest trend - shut down MMOs that people want to play for YEARS, and replace with MMOs that people only want to play for MONTHS.

    If City of Heroes gets saved, I will try this just to say thanks to NC soft. if it does not get saved, then I am not bothering at all. If City of Heroes was not on the chopping block / destined to shut down, I would probably not bother with this game at all.

  • anonentityanonentity Member UncommonPosts: 36

    Same boat as Superniceguy, I was mildly interested in it but given NcSoft's treatment of City Of Heroes and Paragon Studios, I will pass.

    Might give it a try if NCSoft moves to keep City in some fashion but not until.

     

    All I have is my wallet and my meager lil internet voice, going to use them both.

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Other than the combat and graphics, what is interesting about this game? Are the two strong points of the game even that interesting?

    I don't think this is a case of the game losing steam, I think this is a case of the game not building up steam in the first place.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • JetrpgJetrpg Member UncommonPosts: 2,347
    Its tera w/o healers.

    "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine

  • dancingstardancingstar Member UncommonPosts: 362

    Not been following this game too closely, but I gather it has a strong focus on a "personal story" which (a) leads to obvious absurdities in the MMO game-form and (b) can limit longevity if dev resources are diverted from things to do once you've finished the story-quests (witness complaints against SWTOR, The Secret World, &c.).

    (Edited: typo)

  • fenistilfenistil Member Posts: 3,005

    Blade & Soul is very linear.  Afaik it does have one starting place for all classes / races and is preety linear. Game is build around story which player follow.

    At least that what it looked like when I played first 15 or so levels.    Don't know how it looks further away, but game seemed preety small and linear.

     

    When I play modern mmorpg's from big companies it seem like they all few years ago when they were starting on recent mmorpg's made similar decisions:

    - focus much more on story

    - make experience more streamlined and linear

    - emphasise combat even more at expense of other systems and features

    - speed up so called levelling, increase hand-holding.

    - use zoning, instacing, phasing, cutscenes, matchmaking and so on, basically making mmorpg a series of maps and instances instead of world.

     

    I mean it does make game more accessible and increase factual and potential playerbase size especially initial one. 

    Thing is those decisions and those design kill mmorpg longevility. That's why they are getting deserted after few months.

     

    WoW is phenomenon and many things that sparkled it success won't repeat.  Hell most of WoW's playerbase will not want to play another mmorpg for long peroid of time or at all and many of ex-WoW players flock to LoL, Dota 2 or WoT instead.

     

    Big corporations want huge initial playerbase AND long-commitments.  That won't happen. 

    Choice is between:

    a) small initial playerbase that will be stable and maybe even grow overtime

    b) big initial playerbase and most of it leaving game after few months.

    Choice is made by designing game accordingly. 

     

     

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