It was 29 days ago that we finished the ama on reddit and I think it’s appropriate to say: “thank you for your patience”. A lot of things have happened since. Here at Aeria Games we formed a team, played the game a lot, got to work and oh yeah, Philipp [phibrex] now has a brand new son and so have I. Baby boys ftw!



Right here I would like to quickly refer to a point that was raised before: Why do we say “product” or “project” instead of “game” when we talk about Bless? Well, it has to do with the way we work. The integration of a game like Bless into our systems and the launch of it are treated like a project, and we apply PMI methodology as well as Scrum / Kanban. When we talk about the game being a product, we do so because our work is influenced by modern Product Management methodologies and best practices. For those interested, "The Practitioner´s Guide to Product Management" by Jock Busuttil is one of my favourite books on the matter. It doesn’t mean that we don’t feel any attachment to the game. For me, games have been a safe haven I can immerse myself in, a way to meet with my friends to have fun, and of course a significant cultural contribution to our civilization. In my neighbourhood in Berlin there is actually the Museum of Video Games. If you like video games as much as I do go there if you are in Berlin or, try and read “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. Some hate it but I loved it.



Right, back to topic. You may remember some of the team members I introduced last month. There is Mathias [met4_m4t] our Producer, Philipp [phibrex] our Technical Producer, and then there is me, [ChrizzzB]. I am overall in charge. Now two more have joined: Nyme is from Korea and she is our new Project Manager. Nils [Shubnig], a very experienced QA Manager with whom I have worked in the past, is now also part of the team. There are also six colleagues already working on the localization of the game and we’re roughly 20% done translating Korean to “relay” English.



Bored yet? Thought so. Last time I said we would start working on specific topics and I would like to share some info with you.



Combat System



Please allow me to be frank: I found it hard to replicate the negative experience causing rants other players had. I am not saying the combat systems are perfect. I am simply honest here. I played free targeting and tab targeting, I played a Guardian, Berserker, Ranger and Mage. In the end, I liked playing the melee classes with free targeting and the ranged classes with tab targeting best. The more I played, the more I got used to it. We’ve talked to Neowiz about this a lot as well. During the first three Closed Betas in Korea, there was some feedback that led Neowiz to change aspects of the combat systems to what it is now. There are ongoing improvements happening, right now they are working on the “tab” key and how it functions. As of now, we will monitor this further and we are particularly interested in the experience once we have our test server up and running. My suspicion is that with great ping comes great responsibili… errr… better combat experience. We will try to find out if the theory latency issues = clunkiness is correct. Please everyone, share your thoughts underneath as well.



The Shop



We’ve analyzed the existing shop and are focussing at the technical integration right now. From what we can see, there don’t appear to be any major changes to the Korean shop and its contents required.



IT Infrastructure



We’re working with Neowiz on setting up test servers on our future infrastructure, which is virtualized and that way a lot more flexible to handle peaks, but also posing a few challenges.



Changes to the game



We are moving away from the idea of requesting changes to the game in order to acquire a certain age rating.



Neowiz and Aeria Games



The work relationship couldn’t be better. In two weeks, we will travel to Korea to visit Neowiz. If you were with us, what would you do / ask / bring / sing?



I hope you can appreciate the effort we take in order to be transparent. I understand that this piece of information may not feel good enough to some, but hey... It’s a long journey and we need to take it one step at a time. From what I’ve seen on discord as well as here on the forum, I am really sorry but right now I do not have the time to run another ama and this post is not meant to be one. All I wanted to do is to follow up with you.



Last but not least, please allow me to express something I feel. To me, every individual user matters and if I can, I will reply directly and personally to you. But please do not simply copy & paste our conversations to public boards or the like. If that’s what I need to expect, unfortunately it means that I will need to be more careful with what I can tell you in personal, direct PMs or emails. I hope you understand.



ChrizzzB



edit: thanks guys.

This whole thing took an unexpected turn. Please everyone, come and discuss the points I´ve raised. The team and I will participate in the discussion, because when we have time, we like to check in on bless-source to find out what you think. Right now I can´t do an ama though. For me, an ama means that I will try to answer each and every question you ask in a very short amount of time. That requires a lot of focus and time and right now, I can´t ...

Also, AcePro did not do anything wrong, quite the contrary. He didn´t know how I felt and I should´ve told him personally.



Sorry for the confusion. Next time I will get in touch with the mods and admins beforehand and I will be more precise on what we will do.