Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

40 man raiding is enough reason for this to exist, but I agree to me this game is very clownish overall. The raiding and some PVP is all I care about though so for me its not a factor.

Good to see the quota of morons crying about carpal tunnel is remaining steady. Sadly not enough retards crying about copy cat industry.

I think the most exciting things are the raiding and warplots. These on top of a more action, skill based combat system are more than enough to make the game worth trying.

Krassus_sl said:

40 man raiding is enough reason for this to exist, but I agree to me this game is very clownish overall. The raiding and some PVP is all I care about though so for me its not a factor.

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If all people want is the raiding and end game challenge it makes me wonder why someone doesn't just make that, instead of the whole dog and pony show of copying wow poorly and its leveling content, and all the time and money that goes into doing it. Especially when you market your end game as the most important thing about your game.

Make something like a really challenging co-op game that captures the essence of raiding without all the terribly unfun bullshit that just drives people away from your games. Sort of like Guild Wars 1 if it had raiding content.

I don't know if there's a real market for that sort of thing, I know people have tried to make games based off mmo pvp that haven't succeeded. But what I am very confident there is no market for is games like Wildstar asking for monthly subscription fees. I've never been more sure that a game is going to flop than this, not because it's necessarily an awful game, but based mainly on the history of games like it, it just feels like it has everything going against it.

Iannis_sl said:

Supposedly you're going to be getting xp for pvp as well. They do seem to be allowing for some alternatives to the quest treadmill.

But it's really not even an opinion. It is without a doubt a quest treadmill driven game. But it really is a -big- themepark. Depending on where they want their xp curves to be, they do have enough content to allow for a replay or two for alts without having to go ride on the same rides again. Even if, that is probably a fairly significant con for a lot of people.

Another significant pro: A commodities broker with BUY orders. Eve is the only other MMO i've ever seen with them, and it's redonkulous that devs are THAT lazy. So that's a thumbs up for the wildstar/carbine crew.

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I meant that it's my opinion that the themepark thing is a boring thing. Looks like I left out part of that sentence. Oops. Also GW2 had buy orders.

Many people, myself included, could not care less if an MMO is subscription based.

Wildstar's hype and marketing has been top notch. It comes across polished even at this stage, so I don't agree that there is no market. Just look at how FFXIV sold, and wildstar is arguably more innovative with some extremely attractive features (if they pull it off..).

FFXIV sold because it was $20, is based on an established IP, and frankly it has much higher production value than Wildstar. Is anyone still playing FFXIV? Box sales are the absolute worst indicator of MMO success. TOR sold a lot of copies. That said I don't think this game will sell more than 300k

bayr_sl said:

In so far as Vanilla wow had a lot less bread crumbs to the point where people would often ask "where should I go to level now?" and people would answer with 3-4 zones to choose from, and you could and often times would go back and forth between zones, it's nothing like that.

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Don't really agree with this, but not going to break the NDA. I will ask what level you made it to in beta though, since the first couple zones are more on rails as one would expect...

But what I am very confident there is no market for is games like Wildstar asking for monthly subscription fees.

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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.

I am certainly not saying it is a revolutionary game by, but it is solid, especially compared to rest of the market, so I think there is a place for it. If your concept of success if 15 million subs, then yeah, it will be a flop. But if it is 'will it still be around 12 months after launch and have made it's costs back + some profit', I think it is strong enough to do that.

To each their own though.

My definition of success is not consolidating servers 2 months post launch and not having abysmal retention rates and layoffs like every single MMO to launch since wow. I can't envision any scenario where it accomplishes that. There's obviously tons of room to move goalposts in the MMO market. Even Funcom tried to pass TSW off as a marginal success at one point, didn't they? But all of these games are funded under the presumption that they will be monumental successes and massive sources of continual revenue.

It's not even a matter of being a bad game, it's about being just another MMO. when I compare it to TOR, Rift, TSW, FFXIV, it doesn't stand head and shoulders above any of those. In fact there's at least one thing if not more that each of those games does better than Wildstar. So where will the success come from? I just don't see it personally. If we repeat the same mistakes enough times do they eventually stop being mistakes? No

Not to put too fine a point on it but that success is going to come from the emerging 20 something market and the filthy casuals market who don't care about a thing you just mentioned. There's a lot of those tyeps, they play mmos, and they have money too.

WS promo trailers make it stand head and shoulders above the other MMOs if nothing else. The reddit hype machine is buzzing.

I'm not really arguing with you. After you've played enough of them a MMO is a MMO is a MMO... that's just the nature of how the mind works. But there is evidence that they do have a plan here and they are offering enough bells and whistles to draw the attention of all but the most grizzled veteran consumers.

IMHO The next "WoW" is going to be on a tablet, but Wildstar is poised to make the company some serious money. (Please note: there are nearly infinite varieties of methods for them to fuck that up both before and after they release -- that is not a prediction or a gaurantee)

bayr_sl said:

My definition of success is not consolidating servers 2 months post launch and not having abysmal retention rates and layoffs like every single MMO to launch since wow. I can't envision any scenario where it accomplishes that. There's obviously tons of room to move goalposts in the MMO market.

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Fair enough, we agree on that point at least! That said, I would compare Wildstar to WoW and GW2 but not the others you have listed there as it is, if anything at all, a hybrid of those two games. TOR failed, in no small part, because the net code was unresponsive and terrible. Rift - given it was not an AAA launch (hell did anyone even know it was coming before it just suddenly showed up?) have done well for themselves, you could argue that they did see attrition after the initial 60 day mark, but I honestly don't think they were expecting to get nearly the initial volume they did. TSW I have no idea, I never tried it. FFXIV I only played in beta but after hitting my 4th zone line in a 1 minute run around town - was confident it wasn't a game for me.

What Wildstar does right is: Netcode responsiveness on par with WoW and GW2, a Vanilla-WoW difficulty level which does make it distinct from most of the crap out there now, and a lot of modern MMO amenities. It is low on innovation, I agree... but so was WoW.

Are you going to zone into the game and say to yourself 'damn, this is nothing like anything before', certainly not. What it does do though, it does well -- arguably better than anyone since WoW (GW2 is the possible exception) and it does so while still months from release.

I can't say that 60 days after launch it won't see and exodus of players, but I think as long as they keep it tuned to be a 'WoW but harder' it will have a place, even if it isn't with the clickers and keyboard turners.

Iannis_sl said:

Not to put too fine a point on it but that success is going to come from the emerging 20 something market and the filthy casuals market who don't care about a thing you just mentioned. There's a lot of those tyeps, they play mmos, and they have money too.

WS promo trailers make it stand head and shoulders above the other MMOs if nothing else. The reddit hype machine is buzzing.

I'm not really arguing with you. After you've played enough of them a MMO is a MMO is a MMO... that's just the nature of how the mind works.

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I have never seen a modern mmo combat system that punishes casuals as hard as wildstar, there goes half of your demographic.

^^^ People thought some of the FFXIV easy shit was tough, they are in for a surprise in Wildstar. Especially since at lower levels standing in telegraphs doesnt do anything, you always see a ton of people when you level just YOLO standing in the shit.

Seems like the system punishes frail old school mmo players who can't adapt to moving and are worried about their limp wrists more then casuals.

Woah... is it as bad as Tera where as a warrior most of the end game stuff was do or die? If you missed an invul-frame or your block, you died?

Can you not bind the "autoattack/power builder" ability to your mouse wheel's up/down? Seems like an easy way to save you from hand cramps/fatigue.

Khane_sl said:

Can you not bind the "autoattack/power builder" ability to your mouse wheel's up/down? Seems like an easy way to save you from hand cramps/fatigue.

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You most certainly can.

Woah... is it as bad as Tera where as a warrior most of the end game stuff was do or die? If you missed an invul-frame or your block, you died?

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Can't comment on end game Tera (nor end game Wildstar either obviously) but I can say that just a random pack of trash out in the world will school you if you just try to spank and tank it. Not talking elite mobs.. just a pack of 3 social 'normal' mobs. You stand still and let their telegraph abilities hit you rather than circle kiting them.. you won't get far. I won't go into the more advanced mobs... but they are more advanced.

Casuals can turn on autotarget shit and then have to just worry about telegraph avoiding.

Helldiver_sl said:

Woah... is it as bad as Tera where as a warrior most of the end game stuff was do or die? If you missed an invul-frame or your block, you died?

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Nowhere near as bad. It also bares repeating that the reason why telegraphs are currently doing so much damage is because the devs are testing out increased mob telegraph damage and reduced mob hp.

Khane_sl said:

Can you not bind the "autoattack/power builder" ability to your mouse wheel's up/down? Seems like an easy way to save you from hand cramps/fatigue.

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Yes you can. Absolutely every keybind can be changed. As noted above, a hot topic among players is whether or not to allow auto target. They've recently stated that they intend to disable it in PVP and allow it in PVE.