The producers of Bless Online have issued details on changes coming to the game. The focus of July’s producers’ letter was to address player-initiated optimization of the game (as many have taken to manually editing files to improve the game’s performance), and to discuss recent player attempts to hack the game.
“While we know that improving performance isn’t that simple, we also recognize that this altering of .ini files represents a greater issue, and we’re working to improve it,” wrote Bless Online‘s executive producer Sungjin Ko in the letter. “Our devs are in fact currently in the process of refining the settings so that players who don’t alter the .ini file can further customize the game to match their own needs through the game’s own settings menu.”
In terms of game optimization, the Bless team is working on formally addressing most of the things players regularly edit game files to change. “We have identified specific function problems in the UI manager and in level streaming, and we are working to delete unneeded files that were included in the game build (removing redundant output in region level boundaries, etc),” Ko continued. The studio also continues to test and improve server stability and fix network problems, and plans to conduct stress tests sometime in July.
When it comes to hacking, Ko wrote that the studio is taking immediate action against hackers. Taking unfair advantage of other player violates the game’s terms of service, and Ko reiterated this by adding that “Using such tools and modifying the client are clearly methods of cheating; this is not a grey or unclear area. As such, we are issuing permanent bans to those who are or have been abusing these hacks.”
In the meantime, players are encouraged to report in-game hackers and cheaters to the studio. “We greatly appreciate your reports to us of these issues,” Ko wrote. “Sharing videos with us that contain character names and server info is extremely helpful and allows us to take the quickest and most accurate measures to address the problem.”
Bless Online is currently available to play via Steam’s Early Access program.