Today Bandai Namco announced that the upcoming network test for the Japanese audience of its upcoming MMORPG Blue Protocol It will happen at the end of March.
The test was originally scheduled for January 14, but was later delayed due to issues that could not be fixed in time. Today the developers appeared. in a live broadcast to explain what happened.
We’ve heard the issue has been fully identified, but fixing it requires deep changes to the game’s code, and they won’t be completed until mid-March, hence the end-March window for the next test.
The issue was with instance autoscaling which spawns new instances when the maximum number of players on existing instances is reached (as a reminder, Blue ProtocolInstances support 200 people in cities, 30 in open areas outside of cities and in raids, and 6 players in dungeons). It seems that when the system receives a lot of requests, it starts to crash. This was detected just before the originally scheduled test date, so it could not be fixed.
Lastly, during the livestream, the developers also mentioned that the promised Benchmark is currently in development and almost finished. All that’s missing is the installer and a few more tidbits. More information will be shared during another live stream at the end of February.
At the moment, it is not known how and if this will affect the plans of Amazon Games, which has been teasing an upcoming beta version. The publisher plans to bring the game west in the second half of 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
If you’re not familiar with Blue Protocol, it’s a free to play anime-style MMORPG with a business model centered around battle passes and paid cosmetics. It features an extremely deep set of character customization designed to allow players to basically create their ideal anime-style character, along with fast-paced combat and engaging character progression and storytelling.
It is developed by a team called Project Blue Sky, which is a joint initiative of Bandai Namco Online and Bandai Namco Studios, and was announced in 2019. Two beta tests have already been done for the Japanese audience, which has received the gameplay quite well. The western release was announced in December during The Game Awards.