Blade Symphony's Future of Free-To-Play

I broke my own rule by not keeping our community updated often. Given some recent changes to our plan and the game, it's a great time to update you.

What Hasn't Changed

Let's re-iterate some points from the last post, because they're note-worthy, or particularly difficult for some to stomach.

• We have to part ways with the stats system on this website. While it's an impressive system and has lasted 5 years with minimal updates, it's costly to run, has numerous bugs, expensive to maintain, and crashes often. We'll try to provide a data dump of statistics, but no guarantees it will be immediate.

• Ladder ranking and leagues will be replaced by a level progression system, that allows players to earn experience based on various factors during the duel and receive rewards at certain levels. Some rewards are things not previously in-game, like background emblems, sword glow types and glow colors.

• Blade Symphony is still releasing for Windows 64-bit, Linux and Mac OSX. These have all proven to run extremely well on our test systems, and we're pretty excited.

• This new version will release releasing with more languages than just English, Japanese and Russian. We really need help with translations, however, so please lend a hand if you're multi-lingual. Here is our current status:

What's Changed

Here's an update on the new things we've put in since the last update:

• We've implemented a multi-match system. Currently, if there are three arenas to a map, then only six players can play at once. This is a little silly, considering some servers may have another 10 - 12 players, sitting and spectating. This new system will allow for multiple duels to take place in the same arena. We do this by hiding the characters, effects and sounds of any other players in the same arenas you and your opponent. You can hold Tab and choose the arena you want to duel in or spectate:

• Heaps of animation, network and interpolation fixes. Not only were there numerous issues noticed and fixed prior to the engine update, but updating to the CS:GO version of the engine allowed us to improve things even further.

• Faction specific music that has been shipped with the game, but never hooked up, will play on the customization screen now.

• We've replaced the loading screens with the art we use for our trading cards. So, along with minor UI tweaks, adding loading information, we felt like this art was too awesome not to show off:

• We've had a lot of trouble with compiling shaders for this update. Along the way, though, we made Blade Symphony feel a bit more saturated and colorful in bright areas, and low-light in dark areas. Much of the current color palette is leftover from the "visceral, shaded" feel that both Half-Life 2 and Dystopia had. We feel this gives Blade Symphony a bit more of a unique palette.

• We've enlisted a fantastic local artist, to create an exclusive item set for owners of Blade Symphony. Here are some screenshots, still very work-in-progress, not in-game, so material properties haven't added to make it pop. In total, a skin, mask, four attachments, sword and sheathe, and cape all need a name. Feel free to suggest one for the set.

What's Left

The game is finally stable, but needs lots of bug fixing. The last feature to work on is something to better communicate level progression, which is