Today Bandai Namco announced that the next network test for the Japanese audience of its upcoming MMORPG Blue Protocol will happen around the end of March.
The test was originally scheduled for January 14 but it was then delayed due to issues that could not be fixed in time. Today the developers appeared in a livestream to explain what happened.
We hear that the issue has been fully identified, but fixing it requires deep changes in the game's code, and those won't be completed until mid-March, hence the late-March window for the following test.
The problem was located in the automatic instance scaling that generates new instances when the maximum number of players in the existing instances is met (as a reminder, Blue Protocol's instances support 200 people in cities, 30 in the open areas outside of cities and in raids, and 6 players in dungeons). It appears that when the system is hit by a lot of requests, it starts bugging out. This was detected just before the originally planned date for the test, so it could not be fixed for it.
Lastly, during the livestream, the developers also mentioned that the promised Benchmark is currently in development and it's nearly finished. All it's missing is the installer and a few other tidbits. More information will be shared during another livestream in late February.
At the moment, it isn't known how and if this will affect the plans of Amazon Games, which has been teasing an upcoming beta. The publisher plans to bring the game to the west in the second half of 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
if you're unfamiliar with Blue Protocol, it's a free-to-play anime-style MMORPG with a business model focusing on battle passes and paid cosmetics. It features an extremely deep character customization suite designed to let players basically create their ideal anime-style character, on top of fast action combat and interesting character progression and storytelling.
It’s developed by a team named Project Blue Sky, which is a joint initiative of Bandai Namco Online and Bandai Namco Studios, and it was announced all the way back in 2019. Two beta tests have already been hosted for the Japanese audience, which has received the gameplay quite well. The western release was announced in December during The Game Awards.
