Repeated intro
Hey there everyone, First, I wanted to say thank you to the people who supported us and the release of the Harmonious Prelude update for Blade Symphony. It was a stressful, albeit fun, week of last minute testing and patching. We’re very fortunate to have had the turnout we did, and are happy the update is finally out. Before I delve into the the release of Patch 1, I want to address a few topics. These are things that I really should have provided more clear information on prior to release, but I got caught up in the work leading up to the release.
What changed
0 fixes3 additions1 change0 removals
- Store
- Compatibility
- Balance
addedWhat the Harmonious Prelude was and wasn’t.Prior to this update, the workload required to create models, textures, and load them into the game was not conducive for adding lots of content. As we know, a Free-To-Play title has to have lots of free and purchased content to be successful, and a variety of options for players. As a result, it must have a pretty fantastic pipeline for artists and developers to add this content.
changedWhat the Harmonious Prelude was and wasn’t.We also had a poor build and deployment system, by modern standards, which meant we couldn’t rapidly release builds as much as we wanted to. The benefit to this meant that we could also create a build pipeline conducive for more platforms, which is why we have Mac and Linux.
addedWhat the Harmonious Prelude was and wasn’t.The feeling was, and still is, that with a big update and a price reduction from $4.99 to $0.99, that this would feel like a good bargain for new players. However, some still feel like it’s not good enough for current players. Which leads me into:
addedWhat is going on with the Item StoreFree-To-Play games just get more players. Period. Lower barrier of entry, means more people downloading and trying. However, in order to sustain a Free-To-Play game, that went from making little money to no money, the developers have to sell something . Since Steam doesn’t offer a micro-currency system, we had to get rid of the in-game notes currency (RIP.) However, it meant that we could use the Steam Inventory Service to sell items we felt were premium. Upon launch, we went live with four items on the Item Store. Unfortunately, these were already items that were available for players prior to the Harmonious Prelude update. The long-term plan was for a variation of these items to be available on the item store, but they were not completed in time. For example, a variation of the Ryoku Kabuki mask will be available on the Item Store. Here’s what it looks like so far: Steam post image When the new variations for Ryoku’s Kabuki Mask, Resonant Phase, Flame Song and Cardboard Tube are complete, then these variations will appear for anyone who purchased them. The original variations will be put back into the game as items freely available to unlock. As much work as we could to improve the pipeline for new content, I didn’t expect that many of our old models and source files would
Blade Symphony changes
addedPrior to this update, the workload required to create models, textures, and load them into the game was not conducive for adding lots of content. As we know, a Free-To-Play title has to have lots of free and purchased content to be successful, and a variety of options for players. As a result, it must have a pretty fantastic pipeline for artists and developers to add this content.
changedWe also had a poor build and deployment system, by modern standards, which meant we couldn’t rapidly release builds as much as we wanted to. The benefit to this meant that we could also create a build pipeline conducive for more platforms, which is why we have Mac and Linux.
addedThe feeling was, and still is, that with a big update and a price reduction from $4.99 to $0.99, that this would feel like a good bargain for new players. However, some still feel like it’s not good enough for current players. Which leads me into:
addedFree-To-Play games just get more players. Period. Lower barrier of entry, means more people downloading and trying. However, in order to sustain a Free-To-Play game, that went from making little money to no money, the developers have to sell something . Since Steam doesn’t offer a micro-currency system, we had to get rid of the in-game notes currency (RIP.) However, it meant that we could use the Steam Inventory Service to sell items we felt were premium. Upon launch, we went live with four items on the Item Store. Unfortunately, these were already items that were available for players prior to the Harmonious Prelude update. The long-term plan was for a variation of these items to be available on the item store, but they were not completed in time. For example, a variation of the Ryoku Kabuki mask will be available on the Item Store. Here’s what it looks like so far: Steam post image When the new variations for Ryoku’s Kabuki Mask, Resonant Phase, Flame Song and Cardboard Tube are complete, then these variations will appear for anyone who purchased them. The original variations will be put back into the game as items freely available to unlock. As much work as we could to improve the pipeline for new content, I didn’t expect that many of our old models and source files would
What the Harmonious Prelude was and wasn’t.
Back in March, I made a news post discussing the Future of Free-To-Play. Under the Release section, I made it clear that we would first be releasing a large update, Harmonious Prelude. I tried to make it clear in Discord and in news posts, that this was the predecessor to Blade Symphony going Free-To-Play. I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. Here’s why we did Harmonious Prelude:
Prior to this update, the workload required to create models, textures, and load them into the game was not conducive for adding lots of content. As we know, a Free-To-Play title has to have lots of free and purchased content to be successful, and a variety of options for players. As a result, it must have a pretty fantastic pipeline for artists and developers to add this content.
Additionally, we were using our own item service which was a massive headache to work with, as it was very old. We switched over to using Steam’s Inventory Service, which meant a ground-up rebuild of how we handled items.
We also had a poor build and deployment system, by modern standards, which meant we couldn’t rapidly release builds as much as we wanted to. The benefit to this meant that we could also create a build pipeline conducive for more platforms, which is why we have Mac and Linux.
The feeling was, and still is, that with a big update and a price reduction from $4.99 to $0.99, that this would feel like a good bargain for new players. However, some still feel like it’s not good enough for current players. Which leads me into:
What is going on with the Item Store
Free-To-Play games just get more players. Period. Lower barrier of entry, means more people downloading and trying. However, in order to sustain a Free-To-Play game, that went from making little money to no money, the developers have to sell something. Since Steam doesn’t offer a micro-currency system, we had to get rid of the in-game notes currency (RIP.) However, it meant that we could use the Steam Inventory Service to sell items we felt were premium. Upon launch, we went live with four items on the Item Store. Unfortunately, these were already items that were available for players prior to the Harmonious Prelude update. The long-term plan was for a variation of these items to be available on the item store, but they were not completed in time. For example, a variation of the Ryoku Kabuki mask will be available on the Item Store. Here’s what it looks like so far: Steam post image When the new variations for Ryoku’s Kabuki Mask, Resonant Phase, Flame Song and Cardboard Tube are complete, then these variations will appear for anyone who purchased them. The original variations will be put back into the game as items freely available to unlock. As much work as we could to improve the pipeline for new content, I didn’t expect that many of our old models and source files would
