by RapthorneAssassin Incoming
Despite it being one of the biggest flops of 2018, Bless Online’s content releases are still chugging along, and today signals the arrival of the v2.0.0.0 update
Today’s update brings with it the Assassin class, a stealthy melee dual wielder focused on quick hits and high burst damage with their daggers which also has access to poison attacks. The races that can be assassins are, for Heiron: Habicht, Sylvan Elf and Mascu – and for Union: Amistad, Aqua Elf, Pantera and Mascu.
Also included in today’s patch is the Siege of Castra, a largescale 70 v 70 PvP map which you can join from level 25 (and be scaled up to level 45). To win, one side must defeat the other’s Lord Commander within 30 minutes.
Dominion Contracts and the Capital War also make their debut today, giving guilds a more pivotal role in the game. Dominion Contracts allow guilds to bid on control of various regions, letting the guild leader to become a baron or governor and allowing access in to the Capital War.
Capital War allows guilds to become the Protector Marshals or High Praetors, offering a large amount of rewards to the winner of the conflict (the first to destroy the opposing Guardian Stone in 45 minutes).
Other than the Assassin and the new PvP modes, today’s patch was mostly small changes and bug fixes as well as, of course, adding more things to spend money on in the cash shop.
Sales and Limited Content
To mark the release of the Assassin update, Bless Online is 67% off the marked price of $29 at just $9 until August 13th.
On top of that, NeoWiz have added the limited edition Celestial Executor Pack and Legendary Executioner Pack to the store until September 7th
The Bless Online: Celestial Executor Pack offers exclusive mount and pet skins, Lumena, and Premium Membership (30 days) to commemorate the Assassin update.
- Bless Online: Celestial Executor Pack Includes the following benefits:
- Exclusive Mount Skin (Executioner Venom)
- Exclusive Pet Skin (Sweet Revenge Skullchid)
- Premium Membership (30 Days)
- Lumena (1,200)
The Bless Online: Legendary Executioner Pack offers mount and pet skins, Lumena, and Premium Membership (90 days) to commemorate the Assassin update.
Bless Online: Legendary Executioner Pack Includes the following benefits:
- Exclusive Costume Skin (Legendary Executioner’s costume)
- Exclusive Weapon Skin (Legendary Executioner’s weapon skin)
- Exclusive Mount Skin (Executioner Venom)
- Exclusive Pet Skin (Sweet Revenge Skullchid)
- Premium Membership (90 Days)
- Lumena (2,450)
Too Little, Too late?
It’s great that the Bless Online team are focused on delivering content, but I worry that they will never be able to recover from the issues of launch.
Bless Online had so much praise and hype surrounding it despite it’s failure in other regions, with NeoWiz making a great many promises regarding the western Buy to Play release (compared with the other markets F2P versions), but few of those promises were kept, and many of the changes NeoWiz had announced for the western version of the game simply were not present at launch. Couple this with a very unusual Emissary selection process which many community members objected to, and a developer trying to appeal to a western audience with a very eastern mindset, and it just went wrong.
Bless went from being the genre’s brightest beacon of hope to being one of the biggest flops of the year incredibly fast, with Steam even stepping in to ensure people got refunds issued to them even if they were above the 2 hour play time limit for refunding steam titles. The player base dropped like a rock from a top peak of almost 35,000 players to barely able to keep 2,000 concurrent log ins.
Today’s patch hasn’t bumped up the numbers much either, with only about 2,500 concurrent players showing on Steam Charts at the time of publication.
What Do You Think?
Does the Assassin update make you want to go back to the game? Do you think it’s too late to hold out hope? Do you simply not care? Either way let us know in the comments below, or join in the discussion on The MMOByte Discord Server.
Game is not even worth $10.
-The game is still very poorly Optimized.
-Dated and Generic Graphics.
-Much of the skills are Forced and Useless.
-Heavily gated re-released years old content.
-FULL with Cheaters/BOTS, people who cheated their ways to wealth.
-Game rewards No brain grind more so Than playerskill.
-No real matchmaking, No Elo – Nothing.
-[SCHEDULED] PvP … in 2018 … HAhaAhAHhAAHhaAhAHAaHA – OMEGALUL.
-PvP in general is Mediocre and VERY VERY limited.
-Combat is stiff, Repetitive and Boring and lacks depth.
-Your typical RNG, RNG and then some more RNG game.
-Inexperienced MMO developer.
-Little to No quality control.
-VERY High chance of going Pay2Win in the future.
-Milking $$$ from the remaining noobs with forced choices.
-Pretty much a Pokémon GO CASHGRAB MMO.
-Very small and a dying population.
Go play latest WoW BFA, FFXIV, GW2, Monster Hunter World – FK it pretty much anything is better than Korean MMOs that are known for their Pay2Win model and Low Quality.