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Author Topic: Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"  (Read 979233 times)
Paelos
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Reply #1190 on: December 06, 2013, 02:25:29 PM

About rergression, FF14 is an insane step back and somehow it seems like it's doing good. Which is interesting.

Recent financials suggest that FF14 has about 600-700k in subs. It's certainly profitable, but it's a step back in terms of the total market too. Especially given that it's one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Wizgar
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Reply #1191 on: December 06, 2013, 02:32:21 PM

But aside from theorycrafting long dormant game systems redux, there's a deeper issue:

MMORPGs are tapering off. The players leaving WoW aren't going to other MMOs. There's a whole lot of lack of accurate numbers we could argue about, but my measure is simpler than that: the number of high profile MMOs not being made.

The mid-2000s are over, and they're not coming back. There's a confluence of factors, from the rise of mobile to the decline of PC gaming, the number of high profile underperforming high investment highly publicized MMOs, and the lack of any susbstantially successful console MMO in an age when even consoles as a business are in question.

I agree completely, but I'm still looking forward to watching someone get really defensive as they try to redefine "success" for an MMO to mean "firing everyone and limping on in disgrace as an F2P shitpile" or whatever. Maybe they can tell you how many box sales SWTOR had while they're at it.
Ingmar
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Reply #1192 on: December 06, 2013, 02:49:01 PM

the idea you'd have to still be running MC 8 years later is asinine.

I'm with the monkey for once.

It's funny to me that in the threads for the 2 upcoming MMOs, we have one conversation where people complain that MMOs never try new things and one where people wish that MMOs would stick to even older worse things.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Venkman
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Reply #1193 on: December 06, 2013, 03:40:39 PM

I agree completely, but I'm still looking forward to watching someone get really defensive as they try to redefine "success" for an MMO to mean "firing everyone and limping on in disgrace as an F2P shitpile" or whatever. Maybe they can tell you how many box sales SWTOR had while they're at it.

Heh, that's the gray area of "scaling to the expectations met versus those imagined".

Or the difference betwen "live" and "alive" smiley
Draegan
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Reply #1194 on: December 06, 2013, 03:47:56 PM

I also don't think regressing back to the dark ages of MMOs is somehow going to spawn a new, enlightened customer base. WoW worked because the proved the way EQ did it was not grabbing enough people. It was billed and packaged that way.

Let me know when you take your WOW fanboy glasses off then maybe we can actually have a discussion. Because it's obvious you think WOW is the pinnacle of MMO design and nothing can improve the cycle of LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID > LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID cycle of each expansion.
Draegan
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Reply #1195 on: December 06, 2013, 03:51:28 PM

Exactly. This idea that years-old endgame dungeons can be relevant years into the life of an MMO is as old school as the idea of leveling pace tapering off the closer one gets to the endgame. No way players will stand for that.

But aside from theorycrafting long dormant game systems redux, there's a deeper issue:

MMORPGs are tapering off. The players leaving WoW aren't going to other MMOs. There's a whole lot of lack of accurate numbers we could argue about, but my measure is simpler than that: the number of high profile MMOs not being made.

The mid-2000s are over, and they're not coming back. There's a confluence of factors, from the rise of mobile to the decline of PC gaming, the number of high profile underperforming high investment highly publicized MMOs, and the lack of any susbstantially successful console MMO in an age when even consoles as a business are in question.

Having said all that, we could very well regress to the dark ages of MMOs if for no other reason than the only players left are the ones who actually want that kind of game.

I think that more and more people realize that MMORPGs like WOW aren't really very good games in the scope of every game ever made. WOW was the best MMORPG but it's far from the best game ever. The thing that draws people back to MMOs over and over is living in a world/universe. Until developers get off static worlds and scripted dungeons we're going to have crap.

That's why people turned into GW2 fanboys because they lied about their event system. It turned out to be meh.
Typhon
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Reply #1196 on: December 06, 2013, 04:22:21 PM

Ok, so what's the best game ever?  Is how long someone played that game, and enjoyed it, a metric in determining, "best game ever"?  I'm not championing WoW as best game ever, but I think you're just throwing phrases around.  Can the phrase, "best game ever" stand up to a serious minute of scrutiny?  So if you don't mean, "best game ever", what do you mean?

The reason I'm asking is because, as far as MMORPGs go, and by any metric that matters, WoW is the clear winner.  Mabye you are actually saying something like, "I didn't care for it and it pisses me off that it's so popular", or, "I don't like MMORGPs (anymore)".

Again, I'm not championing WoW.  I quit it early and often.  I'm not a fan of the game, especially the end game.  I do acknowledge that it's clearly the best MMORPG that has been made.  So I'm wondering what exactly you are trying to say.
Venkman
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Reply #1197 on: December 06, 2013, 04:53:41 PM

I think you're both right.

I'm not going to get into an esoteric "what is a good game" debate, but it's personal, it changes all the time, and it changes over time.

WoW is a great MMO. And it's a good game, when compared to select other games. But is the combat as fun as other games all about combat? Is the story? The quests? The travel?

I think it, like all MMOs, are a hodgepodge of good-enough features with the unique qualities of a shared persistent space to make up the gaps against singular/focused genre-specific games like CoD, BF, Assassins Creed, Madden, etc. But whereas those games are annualized, allowing for iteration in tech and game play, MMOs aren't really allowed to be (especially after the few that have tried). So whatever they are at launch, they're largely that forever, just becoming more of it.

So if MMOs are just good-enough game systems with online stuff to differentiate, and if WoW is the best of the good enough, then it's not surprising people who leave WoW aren't staying in MMOs.
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Reply #1198 on: December 06, 2013, 05:40:07 PM

I also don't think regressing back to the dark ages of MMOs is somehow going to spawn a new, enlightened customer base. WoW worked because the proved the way EQ did it was not grabbing enough people. It was billed and packaged that way.

Let me know when you take your WOW fanboy glasses off then maybe we can actually have a discussion. Because it's obvious you think WOW is the pinnacle of MMO design and nothing can improve the cycle of LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID > LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID cycle of each expansion.

Most every RPG since 1974, both tabletop and digital, follows that same exact progression, and for a reason.  It's the Hero's Journey, Kurosawa, and all that shit.  There is rarely a better model, nor improvements on the cycle.... only reskins and slight variations.

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
Draegan
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Reply #1199 on: December 06, 2013, 06:18:30 PM

Ok, so what's the best game ever?  Is how long someone played that game, and enjoyed it, a metric in determining, "best game ever"?  I'm not championing WoW as best game ever, but I think you're just throwing phrases around.  Can the phrase, "best game ever" stand up to a serious minute of scrutiny?  So if you don't mean, "best game ever", what do you mean?

The reason I'm asking is because, as far as MMORPGs go, and by any metric that matters, WoW is the clear winner.  Mabye you are actually saying something like, "I didn't care for it and it pisses me off that it's so popular", or, "I don't like MMORGPs (anymore)".

Again, I'm not championing WoW.  I quit it early and often.  I'm not a fan of the game, especially the end game.  I do acknowledge that it's clearly the best MMORPG that has been made.  So I'm wondering what exactly you are trying to say.


Let me clarify because I was just finishing feeding a hungry infant.

WOW created one of the best social gaming experiences to date. The underlining game mechanics were terrible. Look at it from a mechanics point of view. Can anyone defend hotbar combat with tab targets, playing the UI and waiting for cooldowns actually compelling gameplay that is satisfying? Or was all that hidden under a rewarding social/communal experience?

Draegan
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Reply #1200 on: December 06, 2013, 06:22:23 PM

I also don't think regressing back to the dark ages of MMOs is somehow going to spawn a new, enlightened customer base. WoW worked because the proved the way EQ did it was not grabbing enough people. It was billed and packaged that way.

Let me know when you take your WOW fanboy glasses off then maybe we can actually have a discussion. Because it's obvious you think WOW is the pinnacle of MMO design and nothing can improve the cycle of LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID > LEVEL > DUNGEON > RAID cycle of each expansion.

Most every RPG since 1974, both tabletop and digital, follows that same exact progression, and for a reason.  It's the Hero's Journey, Kurosawa, and all that shit.  There is rarely a better model, nor improvements on the cycle.... only reskins and slight variations.

What a boring response. I agree that the cornerstone of RPGs are character development and a personal story. However the underlining mechanic of leveling and creating leveling content in a game that attempts to keep you over a long period of time and asking for money is a terrible waste of time and an awful mechanic.

The process of leveling and all that hero journey shit is fantastic for single player or small scale co-op games. Not for MMOs.

I'm getting way off topic now.
Ingmar
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Reply #1201 on: December 06, 2013, 06:34:29 PM

Exactly. This idea that years-old endgame dungeons can be relevant years into the life of an MMO is as old school as the idea of leveling pace tapering off the closer one gets to the endgame. No way players will stand for that.

But aside from theorycrafting long dormant game systems redux, there's a deeper issue:

MMORPGs are tapering off. The players leaving WoW aren't going to other MMOs. There's a whole lot of lack of accurate numbers we could argue about, but my measure is simpler than that: the number of high profile MMOs not being made.

The mid-2000s are over, and they're not coming back. There's a confluence of factors, from the rise of mobile to the decline of PC gaming, the number of high profile underperforming high investment highly publicized MMOs, and the lack of any susbstantially successful console MMO in an age when even consoles as a business are in question.

Having said all that, we could very well regress to the dark ages of MMOs if for no other reason than the only players left are the ones who actually want that kind of game.

I think that more and more people realize that MMORPGs like WOW aren't really very good games in the scope of every game ever made. WOW was the best MMORPG but it's far from the best game ever. The thing that draws people back to MMOs over and over is living in a world/universe. Until developers get off static worlds and scripted dungeons we're going to have crap.

That's why people turned into GW2 fanboys because they lied about their event system. It turned out to be meh.

So... the prerequisite for a discussion is changing our minds about what we like? Very reasonable.  Ohhhhh, I see.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Draegan
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Reply #1202 on: December 06, 2013, 08:21:50 PM

Well not you in particular, you're too obsessed with the game.
Paelos
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Reply #1203 on: December 06, 2013, 08:46:52 PM

WoW is by no means the pinncale of design. It's the pinnacle of what sold. And it's the pinnacle of what sold because the people had no desire to put up with the kind of content design you're talking about in EQ.

The pinnacle of design in my mind is Mount and Blade style combat in a persistent world with a functioning economy and guild upgrades to buildings. I'd also add in a commander slot for tactical orders, and the ability to settle/build/develop new lands.

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Venkman
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Reply #1204 on: December 07, 2013, 07:00:39 AM

Even before f2p business models required all game designers to think "but how will this drive IAP too?", thus screwing over the idea of balance for the sake of balance, MMO developers have had to worry about design vs development vs size of potential market vs return on investment.

Blizzard's success came specifically from optimizing conventions people were familiar with plus their other advantages (brand equity, playerbase, budget, etc). But all those resources come at a cost of their own.

Money people make decisions based on precedent. To get budget, you need to predict ROI. To get that you need a baseline. That baseline is going to come from near examples. This is why a game can be deemed a failure when it doesn't hit it's million players. Not only was it budgeted based on that assumption, but the marketing and PR behind the game positioned it that way. It's not an empirical failure if it's still live and new content is being added. But it can be a perceived failure when the team is downsized, servers merged, subs are dropped in favor of f2p, and all the new content is bug fixes.

WoW was not based on taking a popular game mechanic of the day like FPS or RPG and turning it into an MMO. It was based on taking what was known about MMOs and making them better.

There have been actually experimental MMOs. But aside from Eve, which itself took a long time to become big (and generated a nice shot in the arm due to the mistakes of an entirely separate MMO), the other ones like PS and TR and whatnot all revealed that people who want an actual different MMO represent a small percentage of the overall playerbase. And because they're small, they're not going to get the WoW-level of budget.

And all this is made worse by those games with WoW-levels of budget being deemed failures* (see above).

Which brings it all back to Ingmar's question:

So... the prerequisite for a discussion is changing our minds about what we like? Very reasonable.  Ohhhhh, I see.
Yes. Because until we stop proving our preference for mediocre game mechanics in high production value chat rooms and instead actually flock in droves and spend all our money in something like Mount & Blade, we're going to continue to get high production value chat rooms.

tl;dr: you're already voting with your dollars smiley
Paelos
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Reply #1205 on: December 07, 2013, 08:58:42 PM

If they wanted to sucker me in on a Kickstarter, the Mount and Blade people would announce an MMO. It's like the only thing I can think of where I might lose all reason and donate, even given my objections to the method.

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satael
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Reply #1206 on: December 07, 2013, 09:22:18 PM

If they wanted to sucker me in on a Kickstarter, the Mount and Blade people would announce an MMO. It's like the only thing I can think of where I might lose all reason and donate, even given my objections to the method.

I would avoid that and suggest that everyone else did too since they have Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord to finish first!  awesome, for real
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Reply #1207 on: December 08, 2013, 11:50:50 PM

If they wanted to sucker me in on a Kickstarter, the Mount and Blade people would announce an MMO. It's like the only thing I can think of where I might lose all reason and donate, even given my objections to the method.

I would avoid that and suggest that everyone else did too since they have Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord to finish first!  awesome, for real

I loooove Mount & Blade to bits. Which makes me worry that Bannerlord will be the Duke Nukem Forever of mount- and blading. Please don't fail.  Heartbreak

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Lucas
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Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.


Reply #1208 on: December 09, 2013, 02:02:30 AM

Ok, I finally finished downloading the client, ready to go!!!  DRILLING AND MANLINESS DRILLING AND MANLINESS



Oh wait, right, the stress test weekend is already over  Ohhhhh, I see.

By the way, what's up with MMORPG companies still using the ridiculous NDA excuse to cover a possible shitty product, and making two-days stress tests? Really, still using these policies with leaks, word of mouth and the Net in general? Bah.

" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Evildrider
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Reply #1209 on: December 09, 2013, 02:04:54 AM

To be fair... these are actual stress tests and not just weekend previews. 
Lucas
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Reply #1210 on: December 09, 2013, 02:10:53 AM

To be fair... these are actual stress tests and not just weekend previews. 

Sure, sure, but my complaints remain the same: companies still believes these two-days stress tests represent valid data?

" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Falconeer
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WWW
Reply #1211 on: December 09, 2013, 02:55:21 AM

Problem isn't that the stress test was too short. Problem is that the stress test was literally just that: a stress test, an attempt at breaking the servers that was utterly succesful. It worked so well (the stress) that no one could do anything more than play with the login screen, fail to connect, get kicked out every 3 minutes, rinse, repeat, for two days so don't be envious if you haven't be picked. I hope at least it helped them.

Ghambit
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Reply #1212 on: December 09, 2013, 08:32:08 AM

Sounds like ESO's stress test.   Ohhhhh, I see.

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
Pennilenko
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Reply #1213 on: December 09, 2013, 09:05:57 AM

As far as I can tell they regularly schedule stress tests, like, in between beta phases and once or twice during beta phases.

"See?  All of you are unique.  And special.  Like fucking snowflakes."  -- Signe
01101010
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Reply #1214 on: December 09, 2013, 09:23:20 AM

I been involved in a few MMOs at release and they all have followed the same pattern... first week or two the servers get slammed and create all sorts of warped fun - from login fiascos to rubberbanding players and warping mobs. All of these generally are alleviated in a few weeks later when the first locust players push through level cap and finally get some sleep and a regular play schedule. I am not sure what a specific stress tests really do anymore. I think there are enough data points in the MMO genre to give a pretty good indication of what is needed when. Then again, I am of the ilk that thinks closed betas are antiquated and need to be put out to pasture. They are nothing more than a viral marketing tool that has lost its sparkle years ago.

IMHO, GW2 did it best with the overflow servers they had. Not sure other MMOs can do that considering GW2's special snowflake status... but it worked really well.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
luckton
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Reply #1215 on: December 10, 2013, 01:27:09 PM

Check the emails, people.  Winter Beta invites going out, and apparently not only did I get one, but they gave me two keys to give away.  PM if you want one, first two into me by timestamp gets them.

"Those lights, combined with the polygamous Nazi mushrooms, will mess you up."

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Pennilenko
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Reply #1216 on: December 10, 2013, 01:33:34 PM

Careful passing out those keys, they ban you too if a friend key violates user policy or nda.

I only offered keys to forum people I felt fairly sure were safe.

"See?  All of you are unique.  And special.  Like fucking snowflakes."  -- Signe
Lantyssa
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Reply #1217 on: December 10, 2013, 03:34:37 PM

They don't want me playing.  Still no invite and they have yet to give a friend code to my roommate. undecided

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
luckton
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Reply #1218 on: December 10, 2013, 03:35:34 PM

Careful passing out those keys, they ban you too if a friend key violates user policy or nda.

I only offered keys to forum people I felt fairly sure were safe.

Noted, and I agree.  

And mea culpa to those that PM'd and didn't get an immediate response.  Posted my post at work right before I left for the day.

That said, here's my PM results (all times in EST, my local time):

Zetor: 16:30:00
Paelos: 16:40:39
Threash: 17:42:49

I'm PMing Zetor and Paelos now.  If the two of you already got keys within the last hour via other people or email, let me know so's I can send it to Threash.  Thanks.

"Those lights, combined with the polygamous Nazi mushrooms, will mess you up."

"Tuning me out doesn't magically change the design or implementation of said design. Though, that'd be neat if it did." -schild
Lucas
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Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.


Reply #1219 on: December 10, 2013, 03:35:41 PM

Invited! No doubt thanks to my amazing feedback during the last stress test why so serious?


" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Samprimary
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Reply #1220 on: December 10, 2013, 04:11:45 PM

ohhhh, of all the things to miss.

its super cool you guys get to beta :)
Sjofn
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Reply #1221 on: December 10, 2013, 04:23:08 PM

BAH.

God Save the Horn Players
01101010
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Reply #1222 on: December 10, 2013, 04:48:28 PM


Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
sam, an eggplant
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Reply #1223 on: December 10, 2013, 05:30:12 PM

Damn. I didn't hear about Wildstar until 6 months ago or so, so I'm unlikely to make it to closed beta.
Ghambit
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Reply #1224 on: December 10, 2013, 05:42:03 PM

Have you guys who've gotten in been signed up since 2011?  'Cause I have, and have yet to get an invite.  That's just not right.  Cant Draegan shwag us some keys or sumthin?  What good is he?   Ohhhhh, I see.

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
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