Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

1 20 man with 6 bosses, 1 40 man with 5 bosses and 6 events. Also endgame has housing and warplots. I fail to see how that is 100% relying on raids. Regardless that is a lot of raid content. All comes down to how good it is.

Blackwulf_sl said:

So, I've avoided this thread for months. Has it been confirmed? WoW clone? Or, "WoW vanilla" which will please about 200k old fanboys? So failure. Such disappoint.

2014: year of mmo dissapoint.

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Raign_sl said:

Also disagree with this one. WoW, despite its fall from glory, still sucks out around 6 million subscriptions a month so there IS a market, YOU may not be part of that market, but frankly put I would much rather pay a monthly sub then deal with a piece of shit cash stop model and there are definitely others in my camp.

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If WoW has fallen from glory, I want to fall like they do. They have a subscription model *and* a cash shop now (had it for a while, now it's in game). They have still around 7.2 millions players, which is probably 12 times or more than the second MMO in line and even if we say they get only 4m subscriptions, they still take in approximately 60 or something millions per month. I really have to learn to fail like that.

Do a cash shop like GW2 and it's perfectly fine having a b2p game: non-intrusive, conveniences and skins, nothing game changing. You can buy your box and ignore the shop, hell you can even buy everything with ingame gold, including inventory slots and character slots. Hard to make a better shop than that, but apparently, depsite being non-obnoxious and annoying, it's quite profitable for them.

I don't care either way, I spend a small amount of money in both cases. What I dislike is SWtoR-like models, where f2p is a gigantic pile of shit , that also tells you how unworthy you are for not paying while with a subscription the game becomes quite decent instead.

Every single time I look at Wildstar I think of the above. I wouldnt put it past their wacky marketing team to do a Machinima parody of this using in game assets and changed lyrics.

Flipmode_sl said:

Miele...get off GW2's dick. Average game is average.

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I like it, get over it. You could call me a shill (it's the standard procedure I think) or you could maybe read what I wrote about all the things I didn't like (quite a lot, half the game in fact). What I said stands true: cash shop it's non-intrusive and stuff sold there has zero impact on gameplay. The game is average especially because there is a lack of it once you're 80 and their constant patching is more annoying than exciting, you're 100% right, but I still think they did the right thing in several aspects, including graphics, animations, short hotbars, explorable world, jumping puzzles, open world champions, etc. etc. ymmv of course.

Wildstar seems just like GW2: they appear to be doing the right thing here and there. I haven't played it yet, I have to comment based on what I saw and read. So far I like everything, but raids, which I don't care much about anymore: I hope there is also a progression path for those who prefer small groups, just like vanilla WoW dungeons as the time commitment to partecipate in a 40 men raiding guild is probably beyond my possibilities nowadays and from what I heard I doubt (and believe it, I'm thankful) there is no LFR. I'll be in town salivating over the raiders gear this time around.

Anyway, if somebody has a spare beta key, I'll take it gladly: Wildstar starts to be quite interesting and I wouldn't mind trying it out.

Tmac47_sl said:

Nah man. The MMO development cycle is fail proof:

Spend three years on content players will get through in weeks.
Use the last 6 months to tack on an end-game.
Profit.

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Launching with only a couple raids is fine, it makes it so the tuning does not have to be razor sharp or require lame keying grind to avoid tier skipping. It is a question of if they have others in the queue and imminently available. I am fine with only have Molten Core for the first month or two.. not with waiting over a year to get Blackwing Lair...

Couple of concerns :

1) When I check out the staff developing this game onWorld's Largest Professional Network | LinkedInthe large majority of the development staff are extremely inexperienced in this market.

i) is this because of remuneration and project budget ?

ii) much more likely to stick to existing proven design decisions (ie copy game systems almost directly)



2. They could probably be a success copying existing systems with small improvements except for the hard coded 2 faction system.



2. concerns me far more than 1. It would be a massive decision to back it out at this stage and I don't see anyone at Carbine having the balls to do it even if they have the insight to call it.

My best guess is this game will be free to play within a year with it's largest demographic being younger players using item shops. The quirky humor gets old pretty quick for a lot of older players. It's far more pervasive on the playing experience than Blizzards continued pop culture references in their game.

stress test tonight for those that got in (should be everyone from the last one), run the client before then so you get all patched up (had to download a lot since the last stress test)

Flight_sl said:

Couple of concerns :

1) When I check out the staff developing this game onWorld's Largest Professional Network | LinkedInthe large majority of the development staff are extremely inexperienced in this market.

i) is this because of remuneration and project budget ?

ii) much more likely to stick to existing proven design decisions (ie copy game systems almost directly)



2. They could probably be a success copying existing systems with small improvements except for the hard coded 2 faction system.



2. concerns me far more than 1. It would be a massive decision to back it out at this stage and I don't see anyone at Carbine having the balls to do it even if they have the insight to call it.

My best guess is this game will be free to play within a year with it's largest demographic being younger players using item shops. The quirky humor gets old pretty quick for a lot of older players. It's far more pervasive on the playing experience than Blizzards continued pop culture references in their game.

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Eh, fresh blood might be exactly the kind of devs you need to break established systems. Although from reading it doesnt look like that is what they are going for. I guess slow or unfinished and limited endgame content is the unspoken tradition they claim to break with, but wether that is going to happen is anyone's guess currently.

Well the 5% do provide a carrot which is essential to the MMO sticking around. There are good precedents for challenging 5 man content that should be modeled as well -- Original Heroic Magisters Terrace was a great example. The drops complimented raid gear without replacing it. The difficulty was tuned high enough that I poorly organized people in raid gear would fail horribly but well coordinated people in non-standard raid gear could succeed. We have not seen much on the 5 main content though at the cap (unless I missed it) but I retain cautious optimism.

Really, anything tuned to be remotely difficult will fill a gap in the spoon-fed market right now.

Queue up the l33t dudes who solo'd Heroic Magisters terrace with their friends level 4 druid by face tanking it.

Flight_sl said:

2. They could probably be a success copying existing systems with small improvements except for the hard coded 2 faction system.

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Concerns me as well. There seem to be hints within the game lore that at higher levels that faction split is going to be soft(er).

That segregated playerbase is such an obvious derp and it sticks out. They really have put some thought (more than the usual) into longevity and systems design... I really do wonder if they're building to something or if they're just teasing.

I suspect they might just be making a joke at their own expense. It is entirely possible that the argument went "2 factions, won't that lead to inevitable problems 2 months in, and aren't those problems entirely avoidable? Fuck it, whatever -- It's good enough for WoW" Or they might have decided to hook people with what they know, and the restrictions are malleable at different stages of the game. I hope for the second, I fear it is probably the first.

There will also be 'dungeons' in end game as well as 'adventures' which are semi-interactive dungeons (choose your own adventure!)

Both will have atleast twodifficulty settings.

Throw in rare shit in each setting or achievements or whatnot and you've got a lot of potential shit to do.

The worst part of the 2 faction BS is that when someone questioned Gaffney on it he gave some bullshit response like you can't have a conflict if people can talk to each other. This is my number one pet peeve about MMO's. Stop dividing the playerbase and making playing with friends a PITA. Oh, and stop wasting development time making grey loot. Fucking seriously, just give us coin or have nothing drop.

The development time for Grey loot is so long it's crazy yo. Could of made an expansion in the same time.

It isn't an unreasonable point. Why have loot that has no value but to be sold? To annoy you with bag space stuff by making me delete them in exchange for good stuff that is worth a damn when my pack is full? Silly.

Abefroman_sl said:

The worst part of the 2 faction BS is that when someone questioned Gaffney on it he gave some bullshit response like you can't have a conflict if people can talk to each other. This is my number one pet peeve about MMO's. Stop dividing the playerbase and making playing with friends a PITA. Oh, and stop wasting development time making grey loot. Fucking seriously, just give us coin or have nothing drop.

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I have to believe that they have better intentions than just the herp derp than people always seem to assume. I feel like the WoW Devs did it originally for PVP purposes, but in the end ~ it came down to encouraging customers to level up a character on the opposing faction. Which could cost the player another month of subscription or more. With faction specific content like what Warlords of Draenor is coming out with, you can definitely expect to see a lot of players want to play on both sides.

I personally thought that Blizzard would have let go of the Hard Coded faction shit a couple expansions ago. We're always fighting an outside threat that doesnt really go against one faction or the other. Its always just like ""Those other guys" are going to help us! Charge!!!"