Blue Protocol Open Beta? New Blue Protocol News – August 2020!

So a couple days ago the Blue Protocol team held interviews with various different news outlets: 4Gamer, Famitsu, OnlineGamer, DengekiOnline and more.
This was an interesting time for an interview, considering they recently made the announcement that they’d be reducing their presence on Twitter and other forms of social media while they continue to work on development of the upcoming MMORPG.
But here we are, with more to talk about! So let’s get to talking. I’ll be taking information from a variety of sources, so keep that in mind.

The developers interview went on to mention how they grew up immersed in the world of online gaming. Blue Protocol was designed with the intention of creating a world filled with opportunities for the experiences they had when they were younger.
According to them, “It’s not finished yet. There was a lot more content in the Closed Beta than in the Closed Alpha, but we’re not at all finished.”

The Closed Beta test was just a test, and they recognize that it is necessary to make modifications to the game after test phases based on the opinions of the players.
It is the players, after all, that will be taking their time to actually play through the content and without an active playerbase, not only will the game die off relatively fast, but it won’t be profitable for the company.
As an example, during internal testing their team didn’t come across many issues with the game. However, after players began their journey in the Beta, they found a significant number of issues that they wouldn’t have found otherwise. Server-issues, development-issues and even issues plaguing the gameplay itself.
One set of feedback the devs actually got was concerning the release of the game. Apparently this was a more frequent concern than you would think, as they addressed this directly. Players were leaving feedback assuming that the game would release in its current form – that this is the version of the game that would release.
However, they stressed repeatedly that this was just a Closed Beta test and there is a lot to not only improve on, but to also implement going into the future.
The entirety of the Closed Beta took place from remote work stations. Everyone was at home during the course of the Beta test, and that brought with it its own set of problems.
Team members had issues communicating with one another, there were connectivity issues depending on where different staff members were located, real life problems came into play.
Any number of issues came up that got in the way of development, which is one of the reasons why the Closed Beta test was actually delayed back when it was. However, they got things sorted out and moved on accordingly.

They went on to discuss how servers are expensive, and they wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to go over their budget to maintain an MMO of this size.
According to the devs, Blue Protocol utilizes a mega server, similar to The Elder Scrolls Online, that is essentially a large cluster of smaller servers, concentrated together into one much larger server, allowing cross-play between all servers without the need to manually select one, keeping every player on the same server.
This makes it necessary to have “channels” or “instances” for players, which I know was a bit of an issue initially during the Beta test as players couldn’t join instances with their friends if the channel was full.
Interestingly, servers are divided based on type. There are town-servers that are used exclusively for the towns you’ll visit, field-servers for when you’re outside of towns, and dungeon-servers for when tackling dungeons.
There are player limitations imposed on each type of server, with each server obviously being required to have more power to house an increasingly larger maximum number of players.

They also touched a little on classes here. I know a lot of you have been asking on the Blue Protocol subreddit “Will they be adding new classes?” – According to the devs, “it’s inevitable to put out classes with similar concepts.”
As an example, if you introduce a new class that uses shields and recovery abilities, then what about the older class that used shields? It’s now going to become unnecessary, obsolete.
Especially since you’ll need to incentivize the new class by making it better than already existing classes, otherwise there’s no purpose to adding the new class.
This is a commonly reoccurring issue in games that release classes too frequently: It’s impossible to balance them and keep old classes relevant.
This is an issue that they would very much like to avoid, but they did confirm that they are interested in adding new classes, they just want to attempt to make them feel as “unique” as possible so as to not make other classes irrelevant.

They then went on to discuss three other topics: Matchmaking, communication with the community and their upcoming Open Beta Test. Players were unhappy with the matchmaking system, and they need to take an appropriate amount of time to fix the issues players had with it.
They have several different ideas in mind, all of which they’re contemplating on but are unsure of ultimately. They went on to state that they want to be highly communicative with the community – they want to post little bits of information, post screenshots, post little videos but they can’t.
The official Blue Protocol Twitter isn’t built for that and as such they need to respect that. That doesn’t mean it won’t be something they do, it’s just not something they’ll do often.
They’re considering holding a small test-phase for dungeons and matchmaking once they get around to finalizing the changes on it, after which they have plans on a potential follow-up Closed Beta Test followed by an Open Beta.
According to the devs, “We can not discuss if it will be necessary to perform a Closed Beta Test again until the fixes have been made, or proceed with the Open Beta Test.” Yup – you guys heard it, they already have plans for an upcoming Open Beta Test!
That means we’re probably further along through development than we thought! And if these issues with the game are resolved and players are happy with them, Open Beta will be coming shortly after!
They haven’t confirmed whether or not we’ll be receiving another large livestream after their last one, but they’re definitely considering it when they’ve made enough changes to the game to warrant one.

Blue Protocol had development begin over 6 years ago with the goal of creating a beautiful Anime MMO experience for players and developers alike to enjoy. I hope that Blue Protocol can live up to that expectation set by both parties.
This is a title that I personally believe could be the “next big MMO.” It has AAA backing, a development team that has a known history of solid Anime RPG games and a community that loves what they see.