Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Signe]

So I decided I'll play this for a bit and I saw you could reserve a name.  It's weird the way they do it.  You choose your name and guild name and it starts a countdown for an hour.  If you decide to edit the name, you do that withing the countdown time.  If you don't, it sticks.  You have 14 days from launch or something to make a character and guild with those names to "own" them.  Anyway, I had a problem with it (evidently the link they posted in the forum was wrong) so I went to check to see what was going on.  OMG.  The forums are a cesspit of hate and murder.  Srsly.  I guess it didn't work so well.  When I got the correct link, I was able to reserve a name.  Reading the forum made me think I was one of three who got through.  Actually, since only unhappy people go to forums to complain, who knows?  There does seem to be a problem though, so if you bought this and reserved a name, you might want to check up on it.  I didn't reserve a guild name but I did check on Bat Country and it doesn't give a countdown for it so I don't know.  I have no idea what server to choose at launch.  If anyone is going to play, let me know here unless you hate me or something. 

[01101010]

So I decided I'll play this for a bit and I saw you could reserve a name.  It's weird the way they do it.  You choose your name and guild name and it starts a countdown for an hour.  If you decide to edit the name, you do that withing the countdown time.  If you don't, it sticks.  You have 14 days from launch or something to make a character and guild with those names to "own" them.  Anyway, I had a problem with it (evidently the link they posted in the forum was wrong) so I went to check to see what was going on.  OMG.  The forums are a cesspit of hate and murder.  Srsly.  I guess it didn't work so well.  When I got the correct link, I was able to reserve a name.  Reading the forum made me think I was one of three who got through.  Actually, since only unhappy people go to forums to complain, who knows?  There does seem to be a problem though, so if you bought this and reserved a name, you might want to check up on it.  I didn't reserve a guild name but I did check on Bat Country and it doesn't give a countdown for it so I don't know.  I have no idea what server to choose at launch.  If anyone is going to play, let me know here unless you hate me or something. 

I'll be getting a box, but still on the fence about subbing. I can manage to get the cost of the box out of the game- at least I expect. I just have to wait till payday since I am moving in July and will need money for apt deposit.

[Numtini]

I'm generally soft on game forums at least compared to most people here, but Wildstar has, by far, the worst forum community I've ever seen.

[Surlyboi]

It's WoWtards bereft of a valid new game and deriding going back to WoW, what do you expect?

[Ironwood]

I'm kinda enjoying this game.  Does that make me a bad person ?

Also, thought the wife would like it too ;  installed on her machine where it chugs along at one frame per minute on the pic char screen.  Shit.

[Rasix]

I'm kinda enjoying this game.  Does that make me a bad person ?

Also, thought the wife would like it too ;  installed on her machine where it chugs along at one frame per minute on the pic char screen.  Shit.

See? It's impossible to predict what you'd like. I would have thought you'd tear this one to pieces.   Guess it's worth another look once the D3 buff wears off.  

[Simond]

It's WoWtards bereft of a valid new game and deriding going back to WoW, what do you expect?

But enough about this forum, what's the excuse for Wildstar? 

[Ironwood]

I'm kinda enjoying this game.  Does that make me a bad person ?

Also, thought the wife would like it too ;  installed on her machine where it chugs along at one frame per minute on the pic char screen.  Shit.

See? It's impossible to predict what you'd like. I would have thought you'd tear this one to pieces.   Guess it's worth another look once the D3 buff wears off.  

Yeah.  It's really strange to me actually, because it seems like just a far more confusing WoW clone and yet it's really gorgeous and has a nice little theme to it and the music's good and it carries you along.  Also, I'm a large killer robot with a fuck off gun, so there's that.  It's something I clearly should hate, but I don't.

But they really need to learn how to take the player by the hand.  The intro area was fucking horrible and even now at level 6 (which seems to have taken a LOOooong time) I'm not really anywhere closer in understanding what the almighty hell is going on.

Very confusing, but I'll stick with it a while.

[Signe]

It does seem to take a long time to level compared with most other mmorpgs.  I don't mind that at all.  I have a ton of quests, plus all the explorer and crafting quests and the slower progress keeps me from out-leveling everything.  Also, it really needs the mods.  Especially the ones that let you resize and move bits around or hide them completely.  Honestly, though, there hasn't been a game in a long time that I didn't either mod or wish I could mod.  For some unknown reason, Wildstar has it's FoV set at 50, which I find bizarre and uncomfortable and changing it make it look much better to me.  I do get some errors from the addons although nowhere near like I did before.  I find it easier to just disappear them than to play without them.

[Ghambit]

It levels about like vanilla-WoW w/o rest xp.  I dont mind it because of the extra frills of the game (housing, xtra dungeons, warplots, etc.).  And it's not apparent as yet how much of an xp bump hardcore dungeoneering nets you; I'd be willing to bet a lot more than simple quest-grinding.

I really need to get on with choosing faction, guild, server, etc.  Not much time left.

What's everyone's feelings on faction?  I thought the Dominion 'theme' was more palatable than Exile and some of the starter zones were better.  But I heard the later hubs weren't as good.  Also the Domi quests seems a bit more fleshed out.

[Signe]

I don't mind which faction.  I can always make an alt later to check out the other one.  Right now I'm playing Exile so I'd probably do Dom for the next character anyway.  I have a feeling EU servers aren't going to fare well if they leave in as many options as they've been discussing.  PvE, PvP, RP-PvE, and even RP-PvP and having those choices for English, German and French.  EU servers have a hard enough time keeping a decent population without scattering them about with too many options.  I guess we'd just have to wait and see.  Of course, that many options might even do in a lot of US servers and I HATE merges.  Their eyes might be bigger than their tummies.  I'll be playing on a US server of course and I think Nexus is the biggie server, right?  I have a feeling that's where most people will head.  I'm not sure if it's advantageous to choose a server that's likely to be very crowded or a server that has a potential merge on the horizon.  I'd like to be on one where I know a couple of people at least.  That way I can cry on someone's shoulder now and then.  Purely selfish. 

I just thought of something and it made me giggle.  Can you imagine, after that verbally violent reaction to the whole name reservation thingy, them having to merge underpopulated servers where people have the same names reserved?     That would be a thread worth reading!

[Ghambit]

RP for a pulp sci-fi game is stupid. 

[Rendakor]

I've had nothing but trouble trying to get this game working. First it wouldn't let me login with my old NCSoft account; trying to reset password resulted in me never getting an email. I tried making a new account with the old email address (in case it got deleted somehow) but it just kept telling me to make a valid password without telling me the requirements.

So then I made a new account with a different email; finally got a beta code, but when I try to download the ~10Mb installer it keeps timing out.

[Riggswolfe]

I just thought of something and it made me giggle.  Can you imagine, after that verbally violent reaction to the whole name reservation thingy, them having to merge underpopulated servers where people have the same names reserved?     That would be a thread worth reading!

It'll be just like when TOR merged its servers.

[Ingmar]

RP for a pulp sci-fi game is stupid. 

Furry containment zones.

[Surlyboi]

I will agree with Ironwood on one thing. The music is compelling as fuck. It's probably the best thing in the game as far as I'm concerned.

[Fabricated]

The music was good.

I just watched a video of one of the early dungeons and yeah nooooooo waaaaaaaaay am I playing this. It's autism squared; these leveling dungeons have mechanics (at least as far as avoiding shit goes) on par with wow raids. Big fields of trash and everything requires -everyone- in the group to be on the ball the whole time.

meaning: you're not getting shit done, or at least not having fun doing so without guildmates or friends.

[Ghambit]

Did you miss the part where it was specifically stated (over and over) not to bother playing this unless you're in a pretty well-functioning guild?
I've actually spent more time canvassing guilds then I have actually playing the damned game.  Since OB started it's been a mad-rush to get organized; all the usual logistical nightmares...  DKP systems, "orbat," balance, all that.  Some of the sites are pretty damned impressive actually.

I'm targeting semi-hardcore PvX guilds with den mother leadership.  Women (especially ones stuck at home taking care of kids) always tend to run a tight ship in these types of games.  I will report back if I find some good ones.  I would stay away from RP, PvP, and strict PvE guilds for this one.  The best guilds will be balanced PvX.

Also, doesn't seem like the Goons are playing this one unless it's buried in the SA forums somewhere (I'm not a member anymore).

[Zetor]

My guild was mildly interested in playing, but the region locking makes it a non-starter for us. Seriously, is it 2004?

[Ironwood]

Did you miss the part where it was specifically stated (over and over) not to bother playing this unless you're in a pretty well-functioning guild?

I missed that part.  Oh Dear.

I'll just stop playing it now then.

[Rendakor]

Anyone have a recent list of good addons for this, and where to find them? Finally got it working.

[Signe]

I got the addons at curse because they're all there and it installs it for you.  After getting them and checking for updates once in a while, I disable the Curse client because it annoys me.  I use BijiPlates, BetterQuestLog, Custom FoV, Movable Frames, Icon Loot, and Junkit.  Oh, and I just uploaded a new one named Slashlist that simply gives the entire command list because my memory sucks.  I also have PotatoUI but I haven't enabled it yet.

[Bzalthek]

Region locking makes sense.  No one wants to play with laggy throttled americans.

[Simond]

Did you miss the part where it was specifically stated (over and over) not to bother playing this unless you're in a pretty well-functioning guild?

I missed that part.  Oh Dear.

I'll just stop playing it now then.

You and 95% of the playerbase, after the free month is up. 

[sam, an eggplant]

That's really not the case. You shouldn't expect to get into veteran dungeons or raids (while they're current) without a guild, but they promised several other forms of elder game content.

For soloers, they have daily quest hubs and rep grinds for gear, as well as regular "story instances" that extend the lore. Agree this sounds weak, but it does exist.

For group players, they'll also release additional dungeons, veteran dungeons, and adventures (which are basically easier, shorter dungeons) in patches, and regular dungeons should be beatable without a persistent guild-- albeit not easily, and not in the beginning when most people don't know what they're doing.

There's also arena-style PvP with its own rewards, that requires aligning with either 1, 2, or 4 other people (2v2, 3v3, and 5v5).

Note they promised substantial monthly updates. Not a new raid every month, but something for either soloers, group players, PvPers, or raiders.

Their philosophy is that vet dungeons and raids are aspirational targets, and they're OK is only single-digit percentages of players ever get there. They have other content for more casual players.

I completely disagree and think they're disregarding lessons already taught to Blizzard, but hey, I guess we'll see. If it were me, I would offer several difficulty modes and structure the large population elder game mechanics taking lessons from Team Fortress 2-- I would offer low-stress healing/support/ranged DPS roles, and let the more complex, challenging roles be aspirational, the tanks and melee DPS. This lets everybody experience the content, and contribute, and take on the roles they feel comfortable filling.

[Rendakor]

Note they promised substantial monthly updates. Not a new raid every month, but something for either soloers, group players, PvPers, or raiders.

Which means at best, each type of players gets an update every 4 months. That's not exactly something to be enthusiastic about. I also didn't realize just how hardcore these guys were going; I guess I ought to talk to my gaming group before I even bother getting invested in the beta.

[Simond]

On the bright side: Watching the inevitable climb-down followed by the lamentations of the poopsockers is going to be fun.

[Ironwood]

If you call something you've seen a million times before 'fun'.

[dd0029]

Played a bit of this. Got to a whopping level 7 in the two hours I put in. Played as a bad guy bunny person medic. Never did figure out what was going on. There's no quest text. I initially thought that I was supposed to listen to the people talking, but I eventually realized that had nothing to do with what's going on. The little soldier path events were neat. V to vacuum up loot was neat. A single bag window was nice. Tip, this is not an mmo where you need to buy bags the first time you see them. I was showered in better bags in very short order. Quest text in the bottom right corner was  The way pointer arrow was really essential, because with no quest text I never had a clue what I was supposed to be doing. I did notice the complaint about not enough mobs to do things. I had a couple of challenges - kill quests - pop up that were a real pain to complete because I couldn't find mobs. The thing about this is that I couldn't blame my problems on other people. Most of the time I only saw one or two other people. That brings me to the last thing I noticed. It's surprisingly difficult to notice other people playing. Names don't appear to be on by default. Other PCs seem oddly small by comparison. It was peculiar.

[sam, an eggplant]

Which means at best, each type of players gets an update every 4 months. That's not exactly something to be enthusiastic about. I also didn't realize just how hardcore these guys were going; I guess I ought to talk to my gaming group before I even bother getting invested in the beta.

I dunno, meaningful updates every 4 months is actually pretty good for a theme park MMO. It doesn't touch GW2's 2013 living world update frequency, but many of those were fairly minor.

It's only hardcore if you want to get into endgame PvE veteran dungeons and raids. There is no equivalent of WoW's heroic dungeons, LFR, or even flex raiding.

The less hardcore PvE players can still do normal dungeons (with some difficulty, they are hard), adventures, lore solo instances, daily quests (/spit), and rep grinds (/spit).

[Rendakor]

Veteran dungeons are not the equivalent of Heroics?

[Fabricated]

The thing that really blasted my eyes was the shitty font/font rendering.

[sam, an eggplant]

Veteran dungeons are not the equivalent of Heroics?

WoW heroic dungeons are very, very easy today. You can essentially AFK your way through. In the last expansion, Cataclysm, they were moderately challenging, particularly for pick-up groups.

Wildstar normal dungeons are tuned much more difficult than even Cataclysm-era WoW heroics-- they will be challenging (and more importantly, frustrating) to beat without a set group of friends, so you don't have to teach each new PUGger how to do them, particularly in the first couple of months. This includes the first dungeon you hit while leveling at like level 17. Brutally difficult, with complex multi-phase mechanics comparable to raids in other games.

Wildstar veteran dungeons are supposed to be tuned much, much more difficult than the normal ones.

[Rasix]

Wonder how much that Penny Arcade comic cost them.     Reddit seems to love this.  So fucking odd.

[Nebu]

WoW heroic dungeons are very, very easy today. You can essentially AFK your way through. In the last expansion, Cataclysm, they were moderately challenging, particularly for pick-up groups.

Wildstar normal dungeons are tuned much more difficult than even Cataclysm-era WoW heroics-- they will be challenging (and more importantly, frustrating) to beat without a set group of friends, so you don't have to teach each new PUGger how to do them, particularly in the first couple of months. This includes the first dungeon you hit while leveling at like level 17. Brutally difficult, with complex multi-phase mechanics comparable to raids in other games.

Wildstar veteran dungeons are supposed to be tuned much, much more difficult than the normal ones.

So... 3 months until the forum whiners get them nerfed into easy-mode?