Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Fabricated]

Also lmao at the glassdoor reviews.

I have been working at Carbine Studios full-time (more than 3 years)

Pros
Probably 85% of the people there are great.
Can strike up a friendly conversation about any topic with SOMEONE.
The health plan is pretty good.
Free snacks and soda, although people tend to hoard the snacks.

Cons
Recently we've been having these all hands meetings in misguided attempts to reassure and motivate everyone. As soon as we had the last one, all I could hear from everyone going back to their cubicle was laughter. They just couldn't couldn't believe how terrible that meeting was. At one point, the guy trying to uplift us started discussing the negative perception we had on Glassdoor, and instead of talking about how the company wanted to fix the issues that people were discussing in the reviews here, he said that he had begun talks with Glassdoor to see what he could to alter the perception that was being shown. It's like they don't understand how to treat people like people anymore. And because that one-sidedly positive review was likely astroturfed as someone's brilliant idea, let me just offer up some real talk commentary.

- WIldstar is an amazing game: True.

- Free snacks and soda: This is also true.

- Free SWAG for all employees: The last piece of free swag we got was when the game launched, over 4 months ago. It's a once in a blue moon thing, not something anyone would think of a positive for working here.

- Food truck Wednesdays: A perk of literally any company in the Irvine area. The Irvine Company recruits food trucks to come to all of their properties. As further proof that review is an upper has to be upper management astroturf job, the food trucks have also been coming on Fridays for at least the past month and a half.

- Laid back environment: Unless you count all the stress from not knowing whether your job will still be there. But who needs to think about supporting your family when you can just take solace in the immediate knowledge that you still have a job right this minute!

- Superior benefits package: Our 401k comes with discretionary matching from the company, after the fact. So you put money in for a whole year. Then, once a year rolls around, they'll decide how much they feel like matching. It can be anything from 0% to god only knows. Random number generation is a great way to plan for your future.

- Open to employee suggestions: LOL, no. Suggestions on trivial things are welcomed. Suggestions on things that can actually change the course of the company are burned with fire.

- Nice area: It's not that nice. You have the Aliso Viejo Town Center within walking distance. Once you get tired of the 8 restaurants in there, you can drive 5-10 minutes to get to 2-3 more restaurants, or deal with traffic on El Toro Road and go 15 minutes to get to another 6-10 restaurants.

Like I said, we have good people here. But they're not allowed to do good work, and they're not led by people who have experience doing anything but running other MMOs into the ground. The 15% of people who aren't great at this company are primarily the decision makers. There's been so much wasted work done here that it's unfathomable that we ever got a game out the door. This place had potential to be a world-changer, but now things are going to have to get worse before/if they get better.

Advice to Management

- There are people who are in very high positions here who are completely out of their depth. Get rid of them. If all they've ever done is fail, it's a pretty good bet that they're not going to succeed this time.
- You want people to stay in this time of chaos, give them security and a pay bump. You pay some of the lowest salaries in the industry. People are already looking and they're already leaving. You aren't in a position to replace them with new people, so reward the people sticking with you with something.
- Get an actual all hands brainstorm meeting together to figure out the direction for the company and move in that direction. Don't tell us that your plan is that you now know you need a plan, but you're still figuring out what that plan is.
- Do the right thing and step aside if you're in over your head. You know who you are.

[Rendakor]

FFXIV has tutorial dungeons that teach you the core mechanics of grouping, and they (along with a lot of group content) are mandatory for progressing the story quest.

Rasix that's an amazing gif and I'm shamelessly stealing it.

Do you really need that much hand holding? Don't you play video games?

I've been playing MMOs for years, so I don't, but they were pretty thorough. Taught you how to manage adds, avoid frontal cones, kite mobs into ground effects, etc. They taught stuff that you otherwise would only learn from trial and error, other players, or previous MMO experience, and were very helpful for all the non-MMO gamers who bought FFXIV on PS3 because they were FF fans.

[Rasix]

In addition the core dungeons scale in mechanics and difficulty as you level up.  They're also typically 30-45 minutes in length.  They want you to do the group content and they steadily draw you deeper into it without throwing you headfirst into the fire.  

It's really well done and allows you to appreciate how they managed to make a casual friendly group-oriented game. This is the kind of approach that would have benefited from Wildstar's marketing chops.

[Hoax]

And when is that Lineage money going to run out?

Blade and Soul has been ridiculously profitable for them in China and Korea.

What is the damn hold up with the English version? Are they insisting on doing all new VA work or some other retarded move? I doubt it would be successful but you would think they could run it small scale and it would certainly pay for the minimal translation and team and then some. Do these fuckers just hate money?

[Merusk]

They're not going to bring it here.  Their string of failures in the West has likely lead them to just decide we're not worth it. Wildstar's failure isn't going to destroy that perception, either.

B&S US site was last updated 2 years ago. It's done, they make more money focusing on Russia and the East.

[tmp]

FFXIV has tutorial dungeons that teach you the core mechanics of grouping, and they (along with a lot of group content) are mandatory for progressing the story quest.

Do you really need that much hand holding? Don't you play video games?

Do you really prefer the alternative of having to put up with random people pestering you to explain it and/or the morons who never bothered to find out?

[tmp]

And when is that Lineage money going to run out?

Blade and Soul has been ridiculously profitable for them in China and Korea.

It was large for a moment when it launched and then held decently for a while, but it seems to be doing bad atm. moonrunes source and google translation for the lazy

23rd spot, while Lineage is in 4th place. This is pretty huge drop from 5th spot it had around January this year.

On funny side note, ArcheAge is already even further down in 26th spot. In 14th rather surprisingly Tera but I think they had level cap expansion recently so it may be because of that.

[Rendakor]

TERA's combat is solid and it's a very well implemented f2p; you can level up to max with no cockblocks of any kind and the game is fun to play. Not sure if it gets p2w at max level but the journey up to (Max-4) or whatever I got to was a blast, and ruined both GW2 and Wildstar for me.

[tmp]

Yeah, gameplay-wise it's very solid and the one MMO i still play (somewhat), and yup it did ruin all the other ones for me too; it's just i was under impression it had dropped in the rankings to about where BnS is now due to age and such, so it was bit of surprise to see it hover in a decent spot.

[Draegan]

FFXIV has tutorial dungeons that teach you the core mechanics of grouping, and they (along with a lot of group content) are mandatory for progressing the story quest.

Do you really need that much hand holding? Don't you play video games?

Do you really prefer the alternative of having to put up with random people pestering you to explain it and/or the morons who never bothered to find out?

I prefer not playing these games anymore, so there's that. Any boss fight is going to need an explanation from people. Either people learn or they don't. The idea of wiping and spending 10 minutes running back is stupid anyway. But let's not talk about that here.

I only made it to level 25 and the videos of the raids in this game reminded me of those korean games with 2D spaceships flying through a million bullets. Fuck me if I ever wanted to do that. In any case, I did some of the basic dungeon runs, Adventures? They seems pretty simple to me, don't stand in the red, stand in the green. You did that while questing too.

Shrug.

[Draegan]

TERA's combat is solid and it's a very well implemented f2p; you can level up to max with no cockblocks of any kind and the game is fun to play. Not sure if it gets p2w at max level but the journey up to (Max-4) or whatever I got to was a blast, and ruined both GW2 and Wildstar for me.

TERA still holds as the best combat system ever in an MMO for me. Too bad the game is terribly bland around it.

[UnSub]

They're not going to bring it here.  Their string of failures in the West has likely lead them to just decide we're not worth it. Wildstar's failure isn't going to destroy that perception, either.

B&S US site was last updated 2 years ago. It's done, they make more money focusing on Russia and the East.

Agreed. NCsoft US has gone from one mistake to the next for a long time now and Carbine's MMO was the final shoe to drop. NCsoft Korea let it limp along for a while, but without some major growth things don't look good.

[Setanta]

As of 10/28/14, once NA servers come back online, we will enable free PvP to PvE and PvE to PvP realm transfers. You will be able to transfer from PvP to PvE servers and vice-versa, for free, for your games account region. Normal realm transfer rules will still apply, for more information on server transfer restrictions please see this Support article.

For the time being, these transfers will remain open indefinitely, but we will be closely monitoring the situation and if we feel it necessary we will remove this service. Rest assured, we will ensure to give you appropriate notice if we do decide to shut these free transfers down, as well as an explanation as to why.

We expect there will be some concerns about players using PvE servers to level up, without the dangers of a PvP server, and then transferring across once they reach max level, however we felt that ensuring the health and community of each server is more vital. We will be keeping a close eye on things for any shenanigans or foul play though.

Holy shit guys, don't you get it? Right now you shouldn't a shit about hard-core players! Your game is in its death throes and you are worried about what a tiny % of what WAS your user base thinks in terms of PvE/PvP transfers?

Nail in the coffin well and truly!

[Merusk]

Read it again. They said, "We expect some hardcore whining, but STFU it's more important that your server has people."  They did leave wiggle-room to imply that they'll shut it down but they haven't committed one way or another beyond, "this is happening for the moment."

[Hoax]

I can't see that move helping anything at all.

Why even bother with it?

[KallDrexx]

Read it again. They said, "We expect some hardcore whining, but STFU it's more important that your server has people."  They did leave wiggle-room to imply that they'll shut it down but they haven't committed one way or another beyond, "this is happening for the moment."

But they are acknowledging that most people are going to jump to PvE to level and then go to PvP once max.  So unless their problem is "we have too many people on pvp servers but not enough on pve" this does nothing but makes the numbers worse for pvp servers

[Venkman]

Do people really want to level via PvP though? Or is the best PvP really when the levels don't matter? Same question as every MMO ever, so I'm curious just about how this factors in Wildstar.

[Threash]

People don't want real pvp, they might lose.  They want to pound noobs into the dirt.

[Nebu]

People don't want real pvp, they might lose.  They want to pound noobs into the dirt.

And they love games where having better gear allows them to do exactly that.

[Surlyboi]

People don't want real pvp, they might lose.  They want to pound noobs into the dirt.

And they love games where having better gear allows them to do exactly that.

Which is why there was such wailing and gnashing of teeth when Destiny's Iron Banner didn't let the catasses crush the filthy casuals. People with shitty gear but more skill were wtfpwning the l33t raiders with their best-of-the-best gear and they pitched a massive fit about it. So much so that Bungie is slanting the table more to their favor the next go round.

[Merusk]

Hey look, another company not learning lessons from the rest of the industry. Whoda thunk?!  Blizzard had that exact same problem 5 or 6 years ago.

I swear, there's an industry in here somewhere doing "master design classes" or something of the like at game studios. Itinerant teachers giving lessons that should be common sense design because they've been learned before.

[Draegan]

Learned before? Yeah right. None of these idiots learn a damn thing.

[Paelos]

Every industry has some of that, but even after a while they tend to learn not to repeat the same errors over and over.

Except gaming. They continue to fuck up old ways with new methods.

[Goreschach]

Every industry has some of that, but even after a while they tend to learn not to repeat the same errors over and over.

Except gaming. They continue to fuck up old ways with new methods.

The games industry is only a couple decades old. You need to wait for the people who bumblefucked into the field at the start of it to die off.

[apocrypha]

The games industry is only a couple decades old.

Wat.

[HaemishM]

Learned before? Yeah right. None of these idiots learn a damn thing.

This cannot be stated enough. The entire history of MMOG design contradicts the idea that MMOG devs have ever learned one goddamn lesson, even lessons they were taught by their own game.

[Pennilenko]

But my game would be so much more popular if those filthy casuals would just play it the way I want them to...

[Ingmar]

The games industry is only a couple decades old.

Wat.

"A couple" doesn't mean "exactly 2" in idiomatic speech like that. It's basically the same as "a few".

It's a young industry by more or less any measure.

[Xuri]

The same people who were the decision-makers for all MMOs under development for the last 14 years are still the ones making all the decisions today...it doesn't matter what lessons "ordinary" devs learn, because all of these eventually burn out and go into other fields of work, and are replaced with new people fresh out of game design school.

[Surlyboi]

But my game would be so much more popular if those filthy casuals would just play it the way I want them to...

That was the thing with Iron Banner. They were letting the filthy casuals in and win with superior skill. The "hardcores" got mad because they realized that all that "work" they put in didn't make up for the fact that they sucked at actually playing the game.

[tmp]

"A couple" doesn't mean "exactly 2" in idiomatic speech like that. It's basically the same as "a few".

It's a young industry by more or less any measure.

Also quite accurate when it comes (more) specifically to MMOs. UO* is what, 17 years old by now?

*) ofc not the first MMO technically (as that was WoW  ) but makes for a decent rough 'starting point'

[sam, an eggplant]

The entire history of MMOG design contradicts the idea that MMOG devs have ever learned one goddamn lesson, even lessons they were taught by their own game.

Not true at all. Carbine and Zenimax didn't learn a thing. but that doesn't transfer to the entire industry.

GW2 is a real innovator, doing its own thing. Neverwinter does F2P right. SWTOR launched poorly, but successfully transitioned to F2P. Archeage is a promising mix of sandbox and (admittedly poor) diku.

And Blizzard learned a lesson too-- they canceled Titan, remember.

[Paelos]

Tough for me to say gaming is a young industry when the progress in surrounding technology has advanced exponentially, while the attitudes and learning curve didn't. Most of these lessons aren't complicated. Hell, we've learned them and we're just assholes on a gaming forum.

[Triforcer]

Tough for me to say gaming is a young industry when the progress in surrounding technology has advanced exponentially, while the attitudes and learning curve didn't. Most of these lessons aren't complicated. Hell, we've learned them and we're just assholes on a gaming forum.

That's what I like about the gaming industry- we get older, they stay the same age. 

[Ginaz]

Tough for me to say gaming is a young industry when the progress in surrounding technology has advanced exponentially, while the attitudes and learning curve didn't. Most of these lessons aren't complicated. Hell, we've learned them and we're just assholes on a gaming forum.

I don't think we're going to see anything really new or different until these old one hit wonders (ie. Garriot, McQaid) and failboats (ie. Barnett) and their disciples leave the industry.  Their time SHOULD be over but instead they keep getting recycled onto new projects. None of these people, and sorry but Raph too, haven't done anything significant wrt MMO's in over 10 years, riding the coattails of their past success to mediocrity and worse. To quote Janet Jackson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZLdUZvQ8w8