WildStar

[Siya]

I'm just tired of games stream lining the leveling process too much. I like in wow how (for at least a little while) your leveling experience is different based on what race you pick. I love having alts but I could not bring myself to level an alt in Wildstar, same leveling zones with the same exact experience and dungeons give like no exp. I tried leveling through pvp which worked til they nerfed exp to combat bots... so that fucked me over. Why not actively ban the bots instead of fucking people over who actually wanted to level up that way. I would perfer something new every time I leveled an alt. It doesn't have to be a complete new experience but enough to keep me going. FFXI had job quests for AF which were somewhat interesting and kept me going (not that it was the best). But I don't want to rerun the same exact zones with the same exact quests. I feel bad for Carbine cause I like some of the people working on it and I always watched dev speaks as soon as they were released... but they are slowly fucking themselves imo.

[Celeras]

This, everyone was all nostalgic about about Vanilla and TBC and their serious gating and thought it was gonna be awesome to play stuff like that again. Turns out it was just nostalgia talking and that kinda shit just doesn't fly anymore.

That's just this community though man. We're likely all of the FFXI generation, and therefore likely an older crowd. I would think "too old for this shit" would be a pretty popular opinion.

That shit still flies for a lot of people though, and I have a bunch of friends who actively look for that kind of thing.

[Alderaan]

Exclusivity is end-game is a good thing. It's been missing for a while.

I personally may not have the time for it anymore but i still appreciate it and won't knock it just because i can't participate.

The sooner more people understand that hardcore MMO's are a young man's game, which many of us are no longer, the better off both parties will be.

[Siya]

Exclusivity is end-game is a good thing. It's been missing for a while.

If done right a good thing. When what feels like it has been slapped on ontop of a buggy game with shit servers then it's bad. Right now it's about who can put up with their shit for the longest. I was so excited to raid but due to the state of the game I will not see the raids.

[Kachiko]

End-game exclusivity vs over-all accessibility is the fine line that most games will never get. You can't dedicate the majority of your resources, to the 1%, and expect to keep any kind of solid base to make revenue from. If you don't dedicate enough resources to exclusivity, then your game is too 'streamlined', considered easy, so people get bored and quit. If it were capable to break the mold, someone would have done it by now, but WoW is king and will be until it decides its over. I'd rather see MMO expanded into other genre then see copy/paste after copy/paste fail due to current market and publisher conditions/expectations.

[arus2001]

In reality, players don't want smart AI, they want an AI that is fun to beat. Here's a blog article about this exact issue and what happened when a Smart AI was created, instead of a fun AI. I'm not saying Wildstar does or doesn't do this; just a comment on AI.

I'm kind of iffy on applying the failure of an FPS to an MMO. Obviously, I don't expect every fodder mob to have the AI of an endgame boss, but the conditions of boss battles themselves could stand to be a bit more adaptive. I think the flaw in the example they used was that it was also a solo player. Tactically, funneling multiple mobs to a narrow path is smart and not so much a failure of AI. The AI itself could've maybe tried to take things a step further if an alternate path was possible, but obviously that can't always be the case. Either way, I'd say it wound up feeling like cheating because of the habit to fall into tunnel vision.

I can personally think back to my XI days and playing more the role of battlefield commander for larger group activities. In generally playing jobs that didn't need to be right in a mob's face, this allowed a better view of possible links, things waking up, who might be taking hits, and so on. Perhaps there is some player emasculation going on with the realization they're more of a follower than a leader (oh the precious epeenz), but I don't really believe the idea should be given up, either. Some gaming habits have simply been conditioned into us, and those aren't going to change until devs willfully deviate. Yes, there will be failures, but successes will also evolve any given genre. So, while I won't disagree with the sentiment that there is a bit of a shell game that does go on, that's kind of the nature of the beast when it comes to working with computers.

[Elcura]

I think the point is that developers are too focused on making enemies that can beat the player rather than making enemies that are fun to beat.

[Meresgi]

A big thing with "fun to beat" or w/e bosses. It doesn't work in most MMO settings when you heap it on top of RNG drop bullshit mechanics. 99% of the time you want to kill the boss to get loot, not to just kill the boss. You can make it "fun" the 1st time, like killing Ragnaros or w/e in Vanilla, harder to do now since strategies get posted online within minutes of a kill making it that much easier for people to do, but after that 1st time it's now just a chore to do so you can HOPE the rng fairy smiles upon thee and grants you your Fuckaxe of Slaying+2 (Which she wont, instead you'll get fucking Dragoon gear even when the game isn't FF related).

So it basically just boils down to memorizing phases of any fight in question. I remember that start of MoP Blizz put in those dogs or w/e, where each week could be 3 or 4 out of 5? I didn't raid then so can't really recall, but I do recall people being fucking livid as shit when they got the "hard" grouping instead of the easier grouping of puppies.

[Siya]

Devs keep shooting themselves in the feet. Apparently they are now adding more RNG to PvP gear, which is continueing their "If you didn't hit cap and take advantage of stuff asap then F you"

[Ambrosia]

https://twitter.com/StephanFrost/sta...06783342387200

and

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...ervers/page-26


Guild UMBRA

Hey @StephanFrost @WildStar I respectfully request you address the server population or lack there of.

Stephan Frost ‏@StephanFrost

@GuildUMBRA @WildStar We are working on some tech regarding that issue. You should hear about it soon.

[Siya]

Soon for them is 2 content drops away. We'll see what happens, thankfully I claimed my mains name on every PVP server just incase of merges.

[Ambrosia]

Jeremy Gaffney stepping down as President of Carbine Studios.

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f.../#entry1148679

Hey guys.


I wanted to let you know that I’m stepping down as President of Carbine Studios. I’m not leaving entirely; I’ll be adopting more of a consulting role going forward with Carbine (and possibly elsewhere in the industry down the road).


This is not a bad thing. Some of our current development stars will be stepping up to lead WildStar forward while I can help work with them from the outside.


I have a personal “no bullshit” policy (which I think I’ve infused Carbine with as well), so let me give some context here without getting too personal.


“Focusing on family” is most often, in my opinion, a horseshit excuse you hear from executive types (usually departing with a forcible shove).


In my case, it is part of my reason for stepping down - through 2013, my wife and I lost six members of our families to various reasons – mostly cancer. I myself was diagnosed at the end of last year with a fatal-if-untreated form of skin cancer. I had let it go untreated/undiagnosed for over 9 months while focusing on work instead. I dodged a bullet; surgery was successful and I’m cancer-free - but (if you ever go through anything similar you’ll know) that’s a hell of a wake-up call.


I mention this now (I usually don’t talk about personal stuff, because who cares) to say: don’t be my brand of idiot, if you see an unusual mole or marking get it checked out ASAP; there’s worse stuff out there than what I had.


On the professional front, when you lead a team this size in a company this size, there are a variety of strong opinions on every major decision. It’s been a pleasure helping steer us through to launch, but I think having one less strong opinion in the mix can be a good thing too. Even if I’m always right, of course.


Anyways, all this culminates in a need to take some time off before leaping into the next set of adventures. This has not been an easy decision for me to make, as I’ve pretty much poured my life into Carbine and WildStar. I’m proud of what we accomplished; we took a no-name IP to a big ass MMO launch, which ain’t easy in this day and age. There’s more work to do (the devs are indeed listening) but we have a great team to do it with as well.


I think it’s important that the folks here coordinate together around a single vision to move forward, and as part of that I’m looking forward to working with NCSOFT and Carbine in a very supportive role moving forward. I’ll likely not be as active in the forums and community as I have been in the past (some of y’all have noticed this already as I’ve worked here on my transition over the last months). But I’m far too passionate about you and WildStar to just get up and go entirely; while my role has changed, my voice hasn’t.


Thanks guys for your support and for being passionate WildStar fans – I remain one too.


-jg

[Ambrosia]

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...edback-thread/


Info is sprinkled throughout this thread. Megaservers are incoming (they are expecting it to go live in the next 3-6 weeks). Free transfers will stay live until megaservers come. Everyone will be forced to have a surname. All of the RP servers are going poof. The 14 NA servers will be reduced to 1 PVP and 1 PVE server.


Serious question... what happened to Wildstar? Was it the attunement process? Was it the been there done that feel? Was it the difficulty of getting 40-man raids going? Wildstar probably holds the record for the fastest decline in server pop (at least for a P2P MMO). The company acknowledged by the end of month #2 that there were server issues. They announced reducing all of their servers down to one by month #3. I honestly don't recall any other MMO, at least in the past 5 years that had this sort of downturn happen so quickly. The closest one I recently recall was TERA, but Wildstar takes the cake.

[ringthree]

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...edback-thread/


Info is sprinkled throughout this thread. Megaservers are incoming (they are expecting it to go live in the next 3-6 weeks). Free transfers will stay live until megaservers come. Everyone will be forced to have a surname. All of the RP servers are going poof. The 14 NA servers will be reduced to 1 PVP and 1 PVE server.


Serious question... what happened to Wildstar? Was it the attunement process? Was it the been there done that feel? Was it the difficulty of getting 40-man raids going? Wildstar probably holds the record for the fastest decline in server pop (at least for a P2P MMO). The company acknowledged by the end of month #2 that there were server issues. They announced reducing all of their servers down to one by month #3. I honestly don't recall any other MMO, at least in the past 5 years that had this sort of downturn happen so quickly. The closest one I recently recall was TERA, but Wildstar takes the cake.

My problem was the total lack of engagement. Nothing felt relevant. Quests had basically no connection with anything, and then there was that winter-zone, which was huge and a total grind. I think that some MMO's need to come back to a more "story-first" kind of mode. I think they were too worried about the combat and making sure there were a million quests.

[arus2001]

While I can't speak specifically for WS, I can't really say "story-first" has ever been a thing for MMOs as the rate of consuming it far, far, far exceeds how quickly a dev can produce it. Claims otherwise are just pure lip service. The only thing that may make story-centric gaming seem longer are the steps you have to take to get to it, which usually involve the combat system in some manner. Now, I could easily peanut gallery a bunch of things, "You shouldn't do in today's MMO environment!" but I think anyone who's paid decent attention to the game or even left in frustration would already know most of those issues. The tl;dr version could probably be summed up as nostalgia not being what the people want, then technical issues.

Personally, I could take some further pot shots at the choice of aesthetics and things like race restricted classes. Lore may attempt to justify such things, but players genuinely interested in the RP element love finding exceptions to the proverbial rule. Unfortunately, such things simply become impossible to do when the game slaps you on the wrist and says no. As a result, I am not surprised the RP servers themselves are getting munged up, but to run with my earlier comment on story never really being the priority, RPers have been getting the shaft for well over a decade when it comes to support, be it facilitating events, shaping the world, or stopping that asshat on the noisy mount from jumping up and down between you and some RP buddies while spewing idiocy. While I think it would be awesome if we could actually find the RPG in MMORPG, the concept of playing a role has seemingly been watered down into the trinity with a dash of "epic plots" the game world generally seems ignorant of. Really, MMO worlds need danger, and I'm not talking about just plopping mobs you need a party to kill. Things the players do or don't do need consequences. Some games may have come close to this, but they usually seem to stop a step or two into the process. Probably because cries for PvP seem to ruin everything PvE.

[Alderaan]

I don't want to say that story has no place in MMO's but i don't play them for the story. I appreciate the lore aspects here and there but i play them to play with other people.

Wildstar's problem, other than trying to have hardcore raiding and action combat, is that everything other than raiding is insignificant.

[arus2001]

everything other than raiding is insignificant.

Pretty much my beef with every MMO nowadays. :/

[Thiefami]

Serious question... what happened to Wildstar? Was it the attunement process? Was it the been there done that feel? Was it the difficulty of getting 40-man raids going? Wildstar probably holds the record for the fastest decline in server pop (at least for a P2P MMO). The company acknowledged by the end of month #2 that there were server issues. They announced reducing all of their servers down to one by month #3. I honestly don't recall any other MMO, at least in the past 5 years that had this sort of downturn happen so quickly. The closest one I recently recall was TERA, but Wildstar takes the cake.

What did it for me was the tedium. Nonstop questing and then to have that linked to renown and renown linked to buying skills and shit. The quests were by far the most boring ever. Second the lack of overall PVE content pre-endgame. Adventures were boring, dungeons I felt were well thought out and fun but there simply weren't enough. The grouping process should've started and been encouraged through content early on in the game. The learning curve really isn't bad, but with every class having a dual spec it really didn't ease you in or teach you shit. The world was too stylized. It's simply not for everyone. It wasn't for me but I looked past it because I enjoyed the game play. Then along with the stylized world you had the over the top "humor" which is injected into the storyline. Style, humor, and story didn't kill it for me but it didn't exactly sway me to stay either.

I think the attunement was fine. If they could go back and do it again I believe they'd find better rate of success by keeping everything they have now(solo pve progress, solo pvp progress, group pvp progress), but adding a focus on PVE Group leveling. More dungeons, more *exciting* adventurers - frankly they were boring as hell, more open world group content.

Another thing would be to make open world as deadly as instanced world. I understand keeping things solo friendly but open world mobs were faceroll boring. That and marathon questing do not mix.

The game felt very incomplete on release. I enjoyed the time I spent with it, felt like I got my money's worth, but it still felt very incomplete.

[Rulke]

Serious question... what happened to Wildstar? Was it the attunement process? Was it the been there done that feel? Was it the difficulty of getting 40-man raids going? Wildstar probably holds the record for the fastest decline in server pop (at least for a P2P MMO). The company acknowledged by the end of month #2 that there were server issues. They announced reducing all of their servers down to one by month #3. I honestly don't recall any other MMO, at least in the past 5 years that had this sort of downturn happen so quickly. The closest one I recently recall was TERA, but Wildstar takes the cake.

I think SW:TOR crashed pretty hard and fast too. While Tera saw a sever decline, it wasn't as massive as SW or this game and the span of time was about a year (of course they didn't have as many open servers to start with). Wildstar never caught my interest but I was surprised to hear how bad it was faring after people in this thread (early on anyway) had given such favorable reviews. I asked a buddy of mine who was interested about it and he said that he only played Beta but that was enough for him to tell it was going to be a really stale experience overall.

[Kachiko]

From my perspective, their biggest problem was that they made a game that they wanted to play, then hyped it like it was going to be the best thing you'd ever play, and didn't stop to consider what would actually be a successful game. I recall showing one of their panel recordings (the one where they showed off their top end raiding gear/imbuments) to a long-time game developer friend of mine, and her over-whelming feeling was that they were kinda full of themselves. I really did like their over-all idea, for the game mechanics and world concept, especially their housing system, but it's obvious they spent all of their time on Dungeon/Raid aspects, and most of the game suffered because of it, especially their UI and character progression. Warplots probably sums it up, in one word.

Whether Wildstar ends up finding a workable model remains to be seen, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the mortal blow to the big MMORPG model as we know it.