Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

If it couldn't hit a million before fall console release season and WoD, this game is fucked.

Really just lacked a lot of features and variety of content. It seems like unless: the game is entirely new or fresh, it has years of content, or it has most of the desirable, expected quality of life features the release product starts with a significant handicap most MMOs don't overcome quickly enough to maintain the player bases' initial interest.

If only they had added one more fart joke.

Not hitting a million box sales means they didn't lose their player base, they never had them in the first place. There was only a single player from my old WoW guild asking if we were going to play at release and every single caster said no, hate the class designs (mainly Esper) and the rest were put off by the cartoons or leveling experience in beta.

For a new, good game 20-25 is still doable raid sizes. 40 is likely pushing it these days since at the end of naxx40 (8 years ago) there was already so much turnover that I doubt they could have stuck with 40 through TBC even if the devs wanted to.

fortunately Carbine is part of NCSoft which is a publicly traded company, they released their 2nd quarter (April 1st - June 30th) results a few weeks ago
IR Archive


Carbine made $28m total in that period in revenue (page 5). The game launched end of may (headstart) so up to June 30th pretty much covers box sales and the first two weeks or so of CREDD buys, and the first wave of people paying their monthly subs (all headstarters I think?). Since vgchartz reports their US/EU box sales at under 80k, that means most of their sales have been digital (80k sales is around 3m dollars to the publisher). That means their total number of players buying Wildstar was somewhere between 250-450k, since I don't know how many people bought deluxe (higher price/person), CREDDs, if the first month subs counted as part of that $28m (did all you day0 people get billed before or after June 30th), or if they had any fees to pay to digital distributors like Steam/Amazon/etc.

Assuming 400k subs at the end of month 1, thats $6m/month but we all know they experienced some dropoffs so that number will shrink over time. Unfortunately none of the numbers are looking good for Carbine. $28m in month 1 doesn't recoup the development costs, it probably cost them around $75m to make the game. $6m/mo in revenue translates to around $4m/mo in money to Carbine after accounting for datacenters, bandwidth, support, payment processing, etc which probably just barely covers their employee costs. it means its going to take years to cover the investment, unless they either shrink costs (fire people) or get more money coming in.

It seems unlikely that a ton of new people will suddenly decide to buy and sub, so its inevitable the conversion to f2p and all the cash shop goodness that comes with it, especially since GW2 has been doing so well financially with that model. Unless I am missing something though their current income cannot support the business as it stands

spronk_sl said:

fortunately Carbine is part of NCSoft which is a publicly traded company, they released their 2nd quarter (April 1st - June 30th) results a few weeks ago
IR Archive


Carbine made $28m total in that period in revenue (page 5). The game launched end of may (headstart) so up to June 30th pretty much covers box sales and the first two weeks or so of CREDD buys, and the first wave of people paying their monthly subs (all headstarters I think?). Since vgchartz reports their US/EU box sales at under 80k, that means most of their sales have been digital (80k sales is around 3m dollars to the publisher). That means their total number of players buying Wildstar was somewhere between 250-450k, since I don't know how many people bought deluxe (higher price/person), CREDDs, if the first month subs counted as part of that $28m (did all you day0 people get billed before or after June 30th), or if they had any fees to pay to digital distributors like Steam/Amazon/etc.

Assuming 400k subs at the end of month 1, thats $6m/month but we all know they experienced some dropoffs so that number will shrink over time. Unfortunately none of the numbers are looking good for Carbine. $28m in month 1 doesn't recoup the development costs, it probably cost them around $75m to make the game. $6m/mo in revenue translates to around $4m/mo in money to Carbine after accounting for datacenters, bandwidth, support, payment processing, etc which probably just barely covers their employee costs. it means its going to take years to cover the investment, unless they either shrink costs (fire people) or get more money coming in.

It seems unlikely that a ton of new people will suddenly decide to buy and sub, so its inevitable the conversion to f2p and all the cash shop goodness that comes with it, especially since GW2 has been doing so well financially with that model. Unless I am missing something though their current income cannot support the business as it stands

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Yeah I'm one of those.

Bought Deluxe, bought one CREDD, subbed one month then quit.

It's never about box sales, it's always about subs.

I'm in the same boat. For all their talk about the underserved solo PVE player they did a terrible job of serving such a person. Daily quests and rep grinds are not exactly revolutionary new ways to engage players. They also patched in a zone which necessitated spawn camping daily boss mobs for rep grind which effectively shut down a lot of the queueing into PUGs AND the PUG dungeon experience was horrible.

When you realize that the sole reason you log in is to spend an hour or so sitting and waiting for various boss mobs to spawn your desire to continue logging in erodes quickly. Couldn't even do other questing or play around in the house because once the rep-grind bosses spawned you had mere moments to join in before they were toast...thus you just parked your ass on the grass and waited.

Qhue_sl said:

I'm in the same boat. For all their talk about the underserved solo PVE player they did a terrible job of serving such a person. Daily quests and rep grinds are not exactly revolutionary new ways to engage players. They also patched in a zone which necessitated spawn camping daily boss mobs for rep grind which effectively shut down a lot of the queueing into PUGs AND the PUG dungeon experience was horrible.

When you realize that the sole reason you log in is to spend an hour or so sitting and waiting for various boss mobs to spawn your desire to continue logging in erodes quickly. Couldn't even do other questing or play around in the house because once the rep-grind bosses spawned you had mere moments to join in before they were toast...thus you just parked your ass on the grass and waited.

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but but.. sitting around waiting for a boss spawn, lets you chat and build a community!!?!

Taking on a new role with Carbine Studios - News and Announcements - WildStar Forums

"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

dechire_sl said:

I have a personal ?no bullshit? policy(which I think I?ve infused Carbine with as well), so let me give some context herewithout 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)

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Did he read this or give this to someone to proofread before posting because Captain Contradictory is going to bitchslap him in the face.

I think more people are going to focus on "I ignored my own cancer so I could be project lead for a shitty WoW clone with added twitch", though.

"and then it tanked so I'm stepping down, sorry we didn't prioritize Blade & Soul for NA release"

It speaks volumes about some of the decisions that went into Wildstar if the president of the company thinks not treating his allegedly "fatal if untreated" cancer is a sound idea

This game sucked.

Qhue_sl said:

I'm in the same boat. For all their talk about the underserved solo PVE player they did a terrible job of serving such a person. Daily quests and rep grinds are not exactly revolutionary new ways to engage players. They also patched in a zone which necessitated spawn camping daily boss mobs for rep grind which effectively shut down a lot of the queueing into PUGs AND the PUG dungeon experience was horrible.

When you realize that the sole reason you log in is to spend an hour or so sitting and waiting for various boss mobs to spawn your desire to continue logging in erodes quickly. Couldn't even do other questing or play around in the house because once the rep-grind bosses spawned you had mere moments to join in before they were toast...thus you just parked your ass on the grass and waited.

Click to expand...

What in the fuck are you talking about?

so my account got closed this morning for using " unauthorized third party software"

generally i log in through a VPN and have razer synapse, razer audioboost, and nvidia game optimizer running. Has anyone had any issues with these being flagged as unauthorized? my account wasn't banned, just closed and i have the option to reopen. i have a level 15ish Stalker and several level 6ish other classes, obviously i am not botting myself to victory.

sumdain x_sl said:

so my account got closed this morning for using " unauthorized third party software"

generally i log in through a VPN and have razer synapse, razer audioboost, and nvidia game optimizer running. Has anyone had any issues with these being flagged as unauthorized? my account wasn't banned, just closed and i have the option to reopen. i have a level 15ish Stalker and several level 6ish other classes, obviously i am not botting myself to victory.

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They did a wave a few weeks ago and it caught a LOT of false flags. I know there is always the "I run linux" or VPN excuse but this was the real deal carbine acknowledged it and told people to open a ticket etc.


____________

On another note, what happened to the raid bosses changing their abilities and tactics every week?

yea i emailed them and they were friendly about reopening it, took less than 24 hours.

Megaservers are coming to WildStar! | WildStar
Megaserver FAQ : WildStar Player Support

Hi everybody,

First off, we?d like to apologize that we?ve been so quiet about the state of our servers; we wanted to be certain that our new tech was in a solid enough state where we could speak confidently about some exciting new developments we want to share with all of you. We?re close to finalizing a goal we?ve always had for our servers, something that will bring long-term benefits for our players and their WildStar experience.

In the near future, we will be implementing Megaservers for WildStar.

Going the Megaserver route means that we vastly increase server capacity allowing for greater critical mass of our player base, resulting in more people, more groups, more activity and more raids? more of everything that makes WildStar so fun. The Megaservers and their increased player capacity will give fans more options to group up and enjoy WildStar with friends and other players for a long time to come.

Under the new MegaServers, there will be one PvP and one PvE realm per Data Center. We?ll also increase the number of available character slots for each Megaserver. There?s lots more information to come, with some questions already answered in our FAQ and more on the way.

When the time comes, all guilds, arena teams, circles, mail and auction items will transfer to the new Megaservers. The normal ?realm transfer? restrictions will not apply during this transfer. Unfortunately, one of the byproducts of this is that realm rule sets will be going away, so we will replace them with five region-wide chat channels ? Roleplay, French, German, French Roleplay and German Roleplay. More details on this will be revealed soon.

Although we?re far enough in the process to begin talking about it, we are still some ways away from the Megaservers going live. One of the things we?re doing to make the wait easier is that as of this post going live, we have put free realm transfers in the game for all players.

There?s still a lot of detail to be worked out and shared with you in the near future. We did want to let you all know where we?re headed with our new Megaservers, because we are fully aware that the game servers in their current state are a very important subject with you, our players. As always, the devs are listening, we?ve heard your feedback loud and clear and we?ll continue to listen as WildStar grows.

We?re happy to be able to share our future plans with you, and thank you as always for your patience and support.

Team WildStar

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Bah Tred scooped me....