Those anticipating the arrival of Bless Online in the west are still coming to grips with the news that the game will be published by Aeria Games in North America and Europe. To mollify any concerns, the Aeria team assigned to Bless took to Reddit yesterday for an AMA about the incoming title.
Topics in the discussion included questions over pay-to-win, server strategies, comparisons to Trion Worlds’ handling of ArcheAge, censorship, localization differences, possible PvE worlds, the business model, and the starting roster of classes and races. However, if you are looking for concrete answers to most of these, you will come away disappointed. Many of these questions were met with variations on, “We don’t know as we just started working on the game. We’ll look into that and get back to you later.”
Alpha was announced to be starting “soon,” with beta coming months down the road.
At least the author was unabashedly enthusiastic about Bless’ potential: “This game is one of the greatest MMORPGs ever created. We will be running the game as a service and you, the community, will be the judge of our success. The game looks brilliant, many of the systems are well thought through and designed. I think it brings the potential to being a big hit but we will have to work really, really hard to deliver.”
The AMA didn’t appear to have the intended effect of getting the community excited, as players peppered Aeria with criticism and frustration over the responses given. Senior Product Lead Chris concluded the AMA by saying, “I am really sorry that some may feel as if this was a waste of time, it surely wasn’t for us, the Bless team. You raised very good points and these points will direct our attention to what matters to you.”
