Blade & Soul Headed to... Japan!

AmbrosiaAmor

According to Steparu, the Japanese teaser page went up today.

 

http://event2.ncsoft.jp/1.0/secret/

http://www.ncsoft.jp/

http://steparu.com/latest-news/1498-blade-soul-sails-to-japan-with-teaser-page

 

No word yet (or any type of updates) since the first week of December 2012 for the western audience. 14 months of radio silence... this has to be a record.

dancingstar

Bumping this rather than making a new thread, in case anyone who's still paying attention to this game hasn't already read this on one of the English-language B&S fansites such as Blade & Soul Dojo or  Sugarmilk (which are my source for the following):

B&S Japan launches 2014.05.20; there is a four day "open trial" immediately prior to that which is accessible to anyone with an NC Japan account (there is a helpful post on the B&S Dojo forums explaining how to set one up): "open trial" is effectively a headstart, not a beta as there will be no character wipe. There is an additional 3 days of headstart prior to "open trial" for people who've bought one of the pre-order editions (which come with the usual cool-stuff like artbooks, soundtrack CD, &c).

Game will be subscription based with a more limited cash shop than Chinese release. Game graphics will follow Korean client & thus not incorporate various censoring done for Chinese version. Subscription fee has not yet AFAIK been announced.

It is currently possible to download a limited version of the client containing only character creation, & create one character; this was used in connection with a promotional contest that ended a couple of days ago.

It is unknown if official game service will be IP limited on release. The current character creation isn't.

There will be a short closed beta, mainly for server / network stress testing purpose, 2014.05.07-09; applications for this should be submitted at the link before 2014.04.28.  Those selected (20,000 chosen at random) will be notified 04.30 & the game client will be downloadable from 05.03 (& it's a pretty big download; even the limited client is eating 16 gig on my hard drive).

GoldenArrow

Hopefully EU release is coming next.

I know the US version is stalled because of Wildstar but maybe gameforge, just maybe...

dancingstar

Further re CBT:

Despite what I said above, invites have already started going out. Possibly due to fewer people than expected applying, everyone selected was also sent two codes for friends. I still have a couple, if anyone wants them then message me.  Bear in mind:

• This is basically a stress test, with everything that entails.
• Service will be live for only three six-hour sessions on the dates indicated, 1800-2359 Japanese time (GMT + 9); this works out at 1000-1600 UK time, early morning in the USA. All characters will be wiped at the end of the tests.
• It is still a subject of speculation whether or not service will be accessible at all from non-Japanese IP addresses. The limited character creation service (which may no longer be usable, tho' it extended a few days past the closing date on the associate contest) was.

There is no NDA: non-commercial (only) streaming, screenshot posting & video uploads are permitted. CBT client should be available for download on May 3rd.