I was hoping to be able to write an article about gameplay in BnS, the first of a new column, but after running into numerous issues installing the game, let alone playing it, this is the sad panda result.
Tuesday, January 19th, 12:01 a.m marks the launch of Western version of Wuxia MMORPG Blade & Soul. Quite a bit of players, however, have already tried out the game - or hoped to - as last Friday was the beginning of the early access for buying founders’ packs with price running as high as $125. The official forums and Reddit seem to be filled with frustrated players who had troubles with launcher, client, GameGuard, performance, being unable to stay connected to the servers and much more.
However, there are as many players having a great time, enjoying the game, as there are those who are having troubles and we can only hope that NCSoft and the development team have been looking into reported concerns before the servers are opened for much broader number of players.
Here are some major issues that have been reported by the players and / or that you may run into as you prepare to play BnS. These come from the official forums or Reddit and the solutions have been offered by other Blade & Soul community members. Keep in mind that there have been few official responses (that I could find), so take the offered advice for what it is.
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NCSoft Launcher
Players are reporting issues with even the first step to install BnS, namely the NCSoft Launcher. After installation of the launcher is complete, clicking on the created shortcut announces that the launcher is not installed or found. Re-installing has not solved the issue.
Here’s one of the suggested solutions that many players reported took care of the problem offered by one Reddit community member:
“If you don't have the launcher installed anymore, download it from here. Then you may need to recreate the shortcut for BnS.
Locate the launcher executable, where you installed it and create a shortcut.
Now go to the properties of the shortcut and on the "Target" field, input "C:\Program Files (x86)\NCWest\NCLauncher\NCLauncher.exe" /LauncherID:"NCWest" /CompanyID:"12" /GameID:"BnS" /LUpdateAddr:"updater.nclauncher.ncsoft.com".
If the path for the launcher is different, change accordingly."
Client Crashes & Program Interference
Players have been reporting stability issues with the Blade & Soul client, as well as display issues resulting in poor game play. It appears that various background programs are conflicting with the client and/or launcher, luckily not required to keep your system up and running while playing. Two prominently mentioned as being flagged by Game Guard, a required part of the BnS installation, are ASUS Game First Service and Razer Chroma SDK Service and Razer Game Scanner Service programs.
- Go to task manager
- Choose "Services"
- Find "Razer Chroma SDK Service" and choose it
- You can't stop it by right clicking it, it says access denied. You need to click that "Services"-button on lower right.
- Find "Razer Chroma SDK Service" again, click "Actions" and "Stop" (it's grayed out on me, because I've already done it)
- Click "Actions" again and choose "Properties"
- Open the "Startup type"-drop box, and choose "Disabled", Apply, OK.
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Asus:
- Go to task manager
- Choose "Services"
- Find "Razer Game Scanner Service" and choose it
- You can't stop it by right clicking it, it says access denied. You need to click that "Services"-button on lower right.
- Find "Razer Game Scanner Service" again, click "Actions" and "Stop" (it's grayed out on me, because I've already done it)
- Click "Actions" again and choose "Properties"
- Open the "Startup type"-drop box, and choose "Disabled", Apply, OK.
The issues mentioned above are not the only ones people write about, however, they seem to be the ones that are the most widespread and repetitive.
My own personal head start began only today as I, the lucky one, managed to run into all of the mentioned issues simultaneously. Hopefully, the solutions will help you as they did me and that your experience with getting into the game would be much less frustrating.
One last tip: there are currently two servers that have large amount of players resulting in huge queue waiting time: Mushin (NA) and Windrest (EU). Stay clear of those servers if possible and get ready to hang on tight on the launch date, since there will be a huge income of people. If you have nothing better to do while sitting in the queue, check out Blade & Soul anime to learn more about the world and certain characters as they make appearance in the game.
