Blade and Soul Surpasses Diablo III in Korea, Tops the Charts

NCsoft's new MMORPG Blade & Soul started its long-expected open beta test last Thursday and was virtually level with Blizzard's Diablo 3 in popularity over the weekend.

According to the statistics from THISISGAME, Blade & Soul is occupied 20. 35% while Diablo3 is 17. 74%, League of Legends 14. 03%. This is the first time Diablo3 is below 20% during the last 5 weeks. One feature that helped cinch Blade & Soul's rise in popularity was the lack of any server maintenance over the weekend, something the deposed leader couldn't claim when it launched.

It's no surprise that Blade & Soul would trump Blizzard's ARPG behemoth due to Diablo III being highly unstable in the Asian regions, with diablo 3 gold a lot of players complaining about lag and the inability to login regularly. This resulted in the Korean FTC coming down on Blizzard, as well as internet cafe owners attempting a class-action lawsuit against Blizzard.

However, the commercialization of Blade & Soul could be the one of variables. NCSoft announced that it will start the commercialization service from 30th of June with 23, 000 Korean Won (about US$19. 81) monthly fee which is 3, 200 Korean(About US$2. 76) Won higher than World of warcraft in Korea.

Since you won't be able to play the game anytime soon (in English) you can at least check out the new open-beta trailer below to see what you're missing.

Source: mmosite