Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Paelos]

I think casuals have, for the most part, won the MMO war and you ignore that at your peril.

There was never a real war. It was simply recognizing that regular people in the world existed, and they don't like planning their lives around a game. That's what made WoW's numbers as huge as they were.

That you could choose to be a catass in the game was the icing on the cake, but the realization was that there was a huge market that prior games never tapped. That market was 20-30x as big as anything seen before, and it was all casual for the most part.

[Signe]

I hope they don't nerf difficulty.  I like that things can be challenging sometimes and I need to regroup and try again with a new strategy.  There's still plenty of easy peasy quests when I don't feel like staying around long enough for the harder ones. 

I like my hair in this game, too.  And freckles.

[Ingmar]

Even if they do nerf difficulty later, that's such a dumb way to do a difficulty curve. If players hit heroic raid type mechanics in a *leveling dungeon* many of them are very likely to just quit or never try a dungeon again. (See: Ascalon Catacombs story mode.) If you make them get incrementally harder as you go along, you actually have something appealing.

[sam, an eggplant]

The whole thing is asinine. You're going to have WoW players coming in and getting their asses repeatedly handed to them in level 17 leveling dungeons then going to the forums to bitch, where the elitist wildstar cognoscenti will talk down to them, call them wow kiddies, and a battle royale will ensue. The ensuing flamewars will be amusing to watch from a sufficiently isolated safe distance, but they won't do Wildstar's commercial success any favors.

[Abelian75]

The whole thing is asinine. You're going to have WoW players coming in and getting their asses repeatedly handed to them in level 17 leveling dungeons then going to the forums to bitch, where the elitist wildstar cognoscenti will talk down to them, call them wow kiddies, and a battle royale will ensue. The ensuing flamewars will be amusing to watch from a sufficiently isolated safe distance, but they won't do Wildstar's commercial success any favors.

The best part of this, of course, being that the "wildstar cognoscenti" are themselves either WoW players or largely irrelevant MMO hoppers (like me! only I'm nice.).

[angry.bob]

Is this free to play yet? I want to make hot cartoon space nazi girls.

Anyway, dedicated raiders and people playing this shit for a challenge are such a tiny minority that game companies should just ignore them. Seriously, hardly anybody plays these games for that. We casuals want to cruise control to cool outfits. Games that bother consider the wants of the "games are serious business" players, let alone cater to them are doomed from the start. In a year that Queen's Blade game where you can pay extra money to see your avatar's tits will have more players left. Because of tits. WIldstar was doomed the minute they caved on the tits. Well, that and gave a single shit about anyone wanting more than casual 5 man raids.

[Rendakor]

...they made a Queen's Blade game?

[angry.bob]

...they made a Queen's Blade game?

Indeed. It's called Scarlet Blade here in the states though. It doesn't appear to have anything in common with the anime other than tits. Class 360's can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5MXYwOe6aA

[Riggswolfe]

...they made a Queen's Blade game?

Indeed. It's called Scarlet Blade here in the states though. It doesn't appear to have anything in common with the anime other than tits. Class 360's can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5MXYwOe6aA

Is that the game where all the characters are female? I found that....creepy for some reason.

[tmp]

I found that....creepy for some reason.

You don't say

(not so much 'only female characters' per se I think, but the way they are... handled)

[Riggswolfe]

I found that....creepy for some reason.

You don't say

(not so much 'only female characters' per se I think, but the way they are... handled)

Well it's only female characters and from my memory they were walking sexual stereotypes. I found it...off putting to be subtle.

In less creepy news:

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/games/wildstar-mmorpg/wildstar-digital-deluxe-standard-pre-order-now-25-off/

GOG has this for 20% off. Part of me wants to do it, then I hear about the punch you in the dick dungeons/raids and go "Really?" and decide against it.

[sam, an eggplant]

I picked up Wildstar. I plan to level a character to max then quit. Maybe two, if the factions vary sufficiently.

Like I've said before here, I find the WoW leveling experience for each new expansion to be one of the best games ever. You're always exploring new areas, getting new abilities, seeing new stories. I'm not burned out on doing quests one time, even if the quest "verbs" are strikingly similar, they're in new locales with new lore etc. I hope Wildstar offers the same sort of experience.

When I hit max level, I'll check out the elder game stuff. Either it'll click or it won't-- most likely it won't. WoW's certainly didn't, and vet dungeon/raid difficulty aside Wildstar is WoW.

[Lucas]

Open beta servers are online (as of 4.57pm EST/10.57 CET).

...Along with 2.6GB (or so) update 

[Kail]

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/games/wildstar-mmorpg/wildstar-digital-deluxe-standard-pre-order-now-25-off/

GOG has this for 20% off. Part of me wants to do it, then I hear about the punch you in the dick dungeons/raids and go "Really?" and decide against it.

*GMG, you mean.  GOG doesn't do MMOs apparently, and it's not on Steam either.  I wonder why we don't get many MMOs on Steam anymore, FF14 is the only recent one I can think of.

[Lantyssa]

Marvel Heroes.  And they're unique in that when the game patches the Steam client does as well.  Most MMOs on Steam have a separate patcher.

[Rendakor]

I think Valve takes a cut of all revenue generated on Steam, and MMO devs are reluctant to give up a cut since they live on more than box sales.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, but Steam Wallet makes it really easy for people to put money into it.  I'd wager they make up in convenience what they lose to Steam's cut.

At least FFXIV allows Steam Wallet for monthly payments, too, which is nice.

[Draegan]

They have stated in older interviews that they had always planned to nerf content as it gets older and new harder "bleeding edge" shit was released.

Did they? I was not aware of that. Recently they seemed to indicate otherwise. They got snarky when people asked if they would nerf difficulty, replying with just "no".

Obviously there'll be catchup mechanisms when new content gets released, and they'll allow players to attack old content with better gear and youtube guides. But that's different than a straight-up nerf.

I think that quote is referring to nerfing the content when it's still the top tier.

[sam, an eggplant]

If you've got it saved somewhere, can you link the quote?

[Ozzu]

Well, this was cool of Carbine to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0z_KD3LjoU

[Evildrider]

That's pretty awesome.

[Venkman]

That was full of win.

And honestly, it also feels authentic. Which works with the schtick they've had all along their marketing of the classes, features, etc.

The game is mediocre at best with moments of uniqueness and a quirky self-effacing style I like. They've got my money already, and these kind of tactics help me feel even better about it.

Screw the haters who say that was their intent all along. They didn't need to fly a team lead out there. They coulda just shipped the box

[Riggswolfe]

So I made a Dominion character. That side of the game, so far. The quests seem to have more character and the style is much more entertaining to look at. Which sucks, cause if I buy this (I'm on the fence) I wanted to do Exile because...well...I'm a Browncoat at heart.

[Venkman]

Ha, I hear that. I posted this for mother's day to my family:



Nobody got it. But that's ok

[Abelian75]

Alright, I admit, I'm kinda digging this game.  Even if the fucking font makes me want to be able to say it sucks.  Goddammit.

[jakonovski]

This one really appeals to me, but unfortunately I can't spare the time or the money yet. I'm thinking that I'll spend my summer vacation playing this.

[Signe]

So I made a Dominion character. That side of the game, so far. The quests seem to have more character and the style is much more entertaining to look at. Which sucks, cause if I buy this (I'm on the fence) I wanted to do Exile because...well...I'm a Browncoat at heart.

Since the only server open was one I didn't have a character on, I started a Dominion warrior.  I'm only level 2 or 3 and just left the tutorial zone so I haven't seen much yet.  I'm liking it, too.  I chose soldier path because I've only done explorer and, for a brief time, settler.  I've bought the game so I'll have some time to see if it sticks.  The thing that bothers me the most is the UI.  I've applied mods to fix some of this, even the FoV, but I get a lot of errors, even more than before with the latest patch... which was humongous.  Since the game is new, the mod writers are quick to update but I'm not convinced that all these errors are from the mods.  Also, I'm not sure I could play without some of them, especially the one that makes the frames movable.  I'll be happier if Wildstar just incorporates what most of these mods do into the game because I really am getting a bit tired of the pop-up error boxes. 

That twitter thing was so fucking sweet it made me almost very nearly get all misty-eyed.  I really kind of like the devs in this game, as unresponsive as they can be at times, because when they DO respond they're funny and pretty open about stuff.  The same with the Landmark devs. 

[Samprimary]

I legitimately enjoyed this game, even if I was pretty sure I had effectively 'beat' it well before the closed beta ended. And I did really enjoy getting a little bit of an opportunity to experience the oldschool MMO magic I had been missing. The people making the game obviously .. y'know, cared, and were competent and knew what they were going to do and what practical limits they were going to impose on themselves so they weren't trying to shoot for the moon and do all those other mistakes.

Given how overplayed the staples of MMO's are, it was only exploration and aesthetics that made a playthrough ultimately worth it, but it was! and housing was a legitimately fun thing to do. I am just uninterested in replay.

I probably won't play much or at all at release 'cause i have expended most of the game's appeal by now but I still intend to chuck a box purchase at them for giving me, even if just in a beta, well over the average return for 60bux worth of game. And a friend or two can put money on my account to play on it since I most likely won't be.

[sam, an eggplant]

The soldier path sucks, as far as I can tell it consists largely of little beacons you can activate and then defend from a bunch of mob waves. Annnnnd... that's it. Supposedly later levels allow you to summon minibosses too.

But compare that against the scientist, which gives tons of lore throughout the world, or the explorer, which has a metric ton of content specifically for them throughout the world, jumping puzzles, vistas, shortcuts, and speed boosts.

Or the settler, who always has access to various buffs. Actually the settler is pretty weak too.

[Paelos]

Soldier struck me as the least designed of the 4 when I tried them. It's like they built the explorer first, scientist second, then they half-assed the settler. By the time they go the soldier I think they were so bored of working on shit, they just made it a wave machine.

[Ingmar]

They're designed to appeal to different kinds of players. I definitely have played with people who would pick the waves thing before any of that other stuff.

[sam, an eggplant]

Sure, it's not like you spend 99% of the game fighting mobs anyway. Makes total sense to bump that up to 100%.

[Ingmar]

I don't really get it either, but those guys do exist.

[ezrast]

Soldier definitely sounded the most appealing to me based on the little blurbs at character creation during one of the beta weekends. I reason that if the core gameplay is fun, I want to be doing more of that instead of tacked-on minigames or whatever. But then I though the core gameplay was awful. Couldn't force myself to play past level 5. So maybe having some other sort of sidequest would have helped.

[Draegan]

Soldier definitely sounded the most appealing to me based on the little blurbs at character creation during one of the beta weekends. I reason that if the core gameplay is fun, I want to be doing more of that instead of tacked-on minigames or whatever. But then I though the core gameplay was awful. Couldn't force myself to play past level 5. So maybe having some other sort of sidequest would have helped.

IMO Settler seems the worst. All you do is going around collecting zone specific things, and then clicking on pre-made points to buil temp buff stations or travel nodes. It boils down to clicking shit on the ground. Boring.

Scientist seems to be mostly learning about shitty lore.

Explorer has some fun mini games attached to it, probably the second best one.

Soldier just gives you more experience as you play, and at least they aren't very annoying to do.

There are probably gimmicks where each one comes into play in a dungeon or something. It was an interesting idea to add to the game, but in the end I don't think it adds much but then again my experience was only up to level 20ish.