NCSoft Don’t Care About Blade & Soul or its Players

NCSoft just announced – after years of silence, that Project TL was finally launching Globally this year. Queue players getting excited. Then moments later, they go ahead and confirm something that just destroys any semblance of confidence I might have had in them.

I’ve never shied away from talking crap about developers when I see them doing things that would be against the best interests of their respective communities.
And today, we have an absolutely abhorrent excuse for a new feature, that was implemented with the sole purpose of extracting as much money out of their community as possible.

Now I get it. Developers, publishers. They’re companies, and companies need money to continue to run. To function. I have nothing against wanting to make a profit off of your work. It’s what I do with Youtube videos. What all content creators do.
But that is no excuse for taking advantage of, and abusing your community. All for a quick buck in an effort to appease investors and increase your quarterly financials.

You’re probably scratching your head though, wondering what this is even about. NCSoft announced just a few days ago that they were introducing a brand new feature into Blade & Soul: The ability to change your class. This is a feature that is present in Final Fantasy XIV, in Twin Saga, in the upcoming Blue Protocol MMO.
This is a feature that is becoming more prominent in MMOs because players don’t want to be locked into playing a single class. We either grow bored, our class gets nerfed, better or more interesting classes get released. Or, in the case of Final Fantasy XIV, we want to be able to fill a role that our group needs.

NCSoft being the money-obsessed South Korean developer that they are thought to themselves.. “How can we implement a feature that players have been actively seeking for years now, make an exorbitant amount of money off of it, and simultaneously infuriate the entire playerbase?”
Like this, apparently.

“This will be a unique opportunity to make your characters switch combat styles and abilities. Class Change is a complete modification of your character because you can also change their race and looks!”
That doesn’t sound half bad. You can alter your class and your physical appearance.

For reference, a Fantasia in Final Fantasy XIV – which allows you to alter your race and appearance costs approximately 10 US Dollars.
To alter your race and appearance in World of Warcraft it costs approximately $25 US Dollars.
In Blade & Soul, though? It costs 8,000 NCoin. Taking a look at Amazon, 8,000 NCoin sells for approximately $100 US Dollars.
A hundred dollars. What a great deal. I only need to spend what I’d spend on an entire week’s worth of groceries – maybe two – to change my class. A hundred freakin’ dollars, man. A hundred.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, they go on to state that “Class Change will be available for a limited time.”
This should theoretically allow for you to purchase the service, and utilize it at a later date, right? Like a level boost.
Wrong.

“The Class Change Launch Bundle will be available for purchase from March 16 to March 23 (1 week). You can then use it after your purchase and until April 13.”
So technically by the time this goes live, the deal will be over. But they do note that “we will bring it back later.” Even though it is, though, they state that you will be able to use what you spent $100 on up until April 13th.
Yes, you heard that correctly.

“Class Change Bundles will be available for three weeks, from March 16 to April 6. You then have until April 13 to use them.”
There is an actual deadline. You spent $100 dollars to use an item that would allow for you to alter your class, alter your appearance, and they give you a deadline with which to use the items.

In bold letters towards the end of the announcement, they state “Note that both bundles cannot be used after April 13.”

Theoretically, if you were to have purchased the bundle for a hundred bucks, taken a short break, maybe thought to yourself “Well, I want to continue playing my class a little longer” and somehow go beyond the April 13th deadline, then your package is null and void.
You can no longer use it. They will have taken your $100, and you will have gotten nothing in exchange.

This is absurd. It’s actually a horrendous way of doing this. By setting a deadline, by imposing limitations on when and how this service can be used NCSoft are in essence forcing players to purchase the package, and make use of it before it expires.
It’s not a service they want to offer long-term because they know players will delay purchasing it. If they put a time limit, players will feel obligated to purchase and use it before it’s too late.
It acts as motivation. “You don’t want to miss out on this epic opportunity! Because who knows when we’re going to offer it again!”

They legitimately took the time to develop a feature that they physically implemented in-game. A feature players have been asking for for years now. And instead of charging players a much smaller, much more manageable fee, they try extorting over a hundred dollars out of us.
And that’s just in US Dollars. Conversion fees for other countries is going to be substantially worse. I know people over in the East, over in Europe that can’t afford the $5 price tag on Black Desert.
Don’t even get me started on Australia – where I lived most my life. That costs almost $150. Unreal, right?

They noted there are certain requirements that need to be met before successfully class changing, but realistically all of these should already be met for any person that has been playing long enough to warrant a class change.

In closing, they go on to state that they’re excited for your money – and can’t wait for you to waste it unnecessarily. Without people willing to support practices like these, Korean companies would have no way of staying afloat.
Oh, wait, whoops. Sorry, that’s what they meant, not what they wrote. I have a bad habit of seeing through the crap companies post and understanding their intentions.

I understand that players wanted an option to alter their class. It’s become a quality of life feature in this day and age, and eliminates the larger need for alternate characters.
But taking advantage of your players is not the right way to go about implementing it as a feature. And imposing such an atrocious limitation on when you can use it? What if players didn’t see the deadline, do we just lose the $100 we invested into purchasing it?
This is a horrendous way of going about this and I hope that they better think through these things in the future. I wouldn’t feel as bad if it were a permanent feature, but this is likely going to leave many players wondering why they can no longer use a feature they purchase.

NCSoft, you need to do better. This isn’t acceptable. Also, $100? Are we actually for real? Who is going to even be able to afford $100 for a class change? Holy crap, man.