Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Signe]

I don't want to search for a pic or look up something with the word "gross" in it.  Is it chicken?  I can never be sure around here.

[Pennilenko]

I don't want to search for a pic or look up something with the word "gross" in it.  Is it chicken?  I can never be sure around here.

Yeah I wasn't trying to trick anyone, the search term brings up lots of photos and videos of the conditions in KFC kitchens, and food production facilities.

[angry.bob]

I got a bunch of stories/pics of when their supplier left the kidneys on the underside of the breasts. They just fried them up and people discovering them though they were brains, because they sort of look like that. I also got one page about some teenagers using a KFC store's wash sink as a hot tub in their bras and panties one night when their boss left early. It was a really big sink with jets and everything. I'd have done it too.

But yeah, all the KFC's here in Akron have been closed for a couple years now. The guy who owned them never put any money into maintenance and just kept the money until the health department shut them down. THen he just said "fuck it" and sold the equipment instead of remediation.

[Lakov_Sanite]

To an extent all franchises are like this.  As long as the owner is making money he could give two shits.

[Mithas]

The problem with franchises is that they are very hit or miss. A good one is fine, a bad one is really bad and you wouldn't know it from the outside. A friend of mine in high school worked at a KFC and he said maggots were way more common than you would like to think.

[Sir T]

Subway is pretty famous for treating its franchisees like shit as well.

[Paelos]

Subway is pretty famous for treating its franchisees like shit as well.

So is Quiznos.

[Ozzu]

So is Quiznos.

Obligatory owner abandoning restaurant and not telling employees story:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002170453_quiznos04.html

[Paelos]

http://williambruce.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/best-and-worst-franchises-listed-by-sba-loan-defaults/

Interesting if true. Quiznos is on there, Carvel is on there, Johnny Rockets, Philly Connection, Beef'O'Bradys, Fuddruckers, Shane's Rib Shack, Blimpie, Cold Stone Creamery, etc. That makes sense considering most of them suck at the food they are serving.

Owning a Wendy's, Tim Hortons, Five Guys, or Steak and Shake seems strong on that list.

[01101010]

I love F13's ability to transform any thread into an Old Spice commercial. 

[Nebu]

I love F13's ability to transform any thread into an Old Spice commercial. 

I was just thinking this.  You know Wildstar is struggling when the discussion goes to forum policy and fast food. 

Anyone still playing this with any enthusiasm?

[Paelos]

I love F13's ability to transform any thread into an Old Spice commercial. 

I was just thinking this.  You know Wildstar is struggling when the discussion goes to forum policy and fast food. 

Anyone still playing this with any enthusiasm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cgbZqR2AGI&feature=kp

[Rokal]

I was just thinking this.  You know Wildstar is struggling when the discussion goes to forum policy and fast food. 

Anyone still playing this with any enthusiasm?

Still enjoying it. Just finished up Farside which was one of the better zones I've played in the game. I'm a few levels shy of 40 now and I know me and my friend will play until 50 but I doubt we'll stick around too long after that.

I still think the combat is great and the game gets a lot of things right (paths, housing, the amount of stuff to do, keeping some challenge in leveling content so that it wasn't agonizing boring until level cap). I've enjoyed the adventures and dungeons I played while leveling but I know I don't have the energy/desire to invest into Wildstar's endgame and it sounds like the game doesn't have much else to do at 50 that is worthwhile. I was chatting with a friend at 50 about how I was eager to get to the level cap and check out the new patch content but from what he told me it's mostly daily quests. At the end of the day, Wildstar is still an MMO.

[Venkman]

I still am, though more as a content-rich single player game than an MMO. I'm not paying close attention to anything though. Just don't have the will to re-care about all the same shit I used to care about the last decade and a half. All the problems are largely the same as they ever were... and therefore manageable

[Senses]

I'm enjoying it.  Already got next month's credd too.

[Riggswolfe]

I got into my mid-20s and just sort of stopped logging in. For some reason I just hit that wall of 'screw it'. I think part of it was that leveling was already noticeably slowing down so I had to do a ton of stuff in each zone and I just felt like it was a long slog.

Also, the combat is fun but demands my total attention so I can't play this as casually as I do these days. I like to have netflix or something going while I play an MMO but I couldn't do that with Wildstar as it demanded total concentration so I didn't get killed in just a random fight. It was almost...exhausting. I think I'm just getting old!

[HaemishM]

It's probably not getting old so much as you feel like the combat requires a lot of attention, but no real skill. It feels like you should be able to just snooze it because you really don't have to think a lot about what you do, but you can't snooze it because you have to constantly push a button. It's in the weird gray area between active combat and boring key rotations.

[Ginaz]

I got into my mid-20s and just sort of stopped logging in. For some reason I just hit that wall of 'screw it'. I think part of it was that leveling was already noticeably slowing down so I had to do a ton of stuff in each zone and I just felt like it was a long slog.

Also, the combat is fun but demands my total attention so I can't play this as casually as I do these days. I like to have netflix or something going while I play an MMO but I couldn't do that with Wildstar as it demanded total concentration so I didn't get killed in just a random fight. It was almost...exhausting. I think I'm just getting old!

I know the feeling.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11033.msg1296932#msg1296932

[Hawkbit]

It's probably not getting old so much as you feel like the combat requires a lot of attention, but no real skill. It feels like you should be able to just snooze it because you really don't have to think a lot about what you do, but you can't snooze it because you have to constantly push a button. It's in the weird gray area between active combat and boring key rotations.

It's this, 100%. 

I felt the same way about Wildstar as Riggswolfe, that I'm just too old and my reactions aren't that great anymore.  However, I recently picked up Shovel Knight for the 3DS; it's a NES throwback to games like MegaMan.  It's not a terrible hard game, but it requires a level of twitch that I thought I lost.  After some practice, I'm right back where I was with reaction time as a kid.

As HaemishM says, Wildstar requires full attention, not skill.  Unlike Shovel Knight, Wildstar doesn't have a pause button for when life intervenes.  So not only can I not stop paying attention in Wildstar, I have to make sure I have an unadulterated 30 minutes minimum to set aside. 

I realize I'm comparing two completely different genres of games here, but it made me realize that my failure to enjoy Wildstar wasn't because I'm too old to play it, rather that it really isn't very fun to play.

[Shatter]

It's probably not getting old so much as you feel like the combat requires a lot of attention, but no real skill. It feels like you should be able to just snooze it because you really don't have to think a lot about what you do, but you can't snooze it because you have to constantly push a button. It's in the weird gray area between active combat and boring key rotations.

It's this, 100%. 

I felt the same way about Wildstar as Riggswolfe, that I'm just too old and my reactions aren't that great anymore.  However, I recently picked up Shovel Knight for the 3DS; it's a NES throwback to games like MegaMan.  It's not a terrible hard game, but it requires a level of twitch that I thought I lost.  After some practice, I'm right back where I was with reaction time as a kid.

As HaemishM says, Wildstar requires full attention, not skill.  Unlike Shovel Knight, Wildstar doesn't have a pause button for when life intervenes.  So not only can I not stop paying attention in Wildstar, I have to make sure I have an unadulterated 30 minutes minimum to set aside. 

I realize I'm comparing two completely different genres of games here, but it made me realize that my failure to enjoy Wildstar wasn't because I'm too old to play it, rather that it really isn't very fun to play.

As an MMO player with a 3 and 6 year old, dedicating a block of time where I cant be pulled away isn't going to happen unless they are fast asleep generally or the wife took them somewhere.  This is actually one of the reasons FFXIV works for me, 15 minute dungeon runs, 15 minute Frontlines(pvp), and a lot of content outside of raids/dungeons/grouping to fill the holes in between.  Games that only want to cater to hardcore, higher difficulty, increased time investment can fuck off. 

[Setanta]

I picked this up 2 days ago - level 15 on an engineer and I'm bored with it. :( The housing is ok but TBH I have no real investment in the story - the most fun I had was in the asteroid instance solo. For the rest of it, I don't think it's that superior to GW2, if anything it's interesting but just not fun as the leveling takes ages and there's always too much to do for not much reward. I think I'm getting old.

Really annoying, I jumped into  a  ground vehicle - when I got out my bots didn't respawn, I have to re-summon them.

Anyway, I'll play for the month, but I know there's problems when I think of playing EvE and Smite etc while I'm in Wildstar.

[luckton]

I still could honestly care less about housing in the game, but I know from word of mouth that it was powerfully customizable.

I had no idea it was "recreate the End of Time from Chrono Trigger" powerful 

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

[Scold]

So is Quiznos.

Obligatory owner abandoning restaurant and not telling employees story:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002170453_quiznos04.html

The best story along these lines: http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/martin/2010/01/covina-tasty.html

[Venkman]

I still could honestly care less about housing in the game, but I know from word of mouth that it was powerfully customizable.

I had no idea it was "recreate the End of Time from Chrono Trigger" powerful 

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

Wow.

I've barely scratched the surface of housing. Have my room, crafting station, vending machine, party thing and a farm. There's a bunch of things I can't access for lack of some special currency or those FabKits. Like crafting, I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, but spending too much time fighting to look it up (and no free time outside of game to learn it).

Probably the reason I haven't gotten bored yet

[Ozzu]

Surprisingly enough, I'm still poking along. Just running dailies, I've already bought 2 CREDD to cover myself until early September. At this point, with CREDD still below 5p, I don't see myself paying a monthly fee for a while. That's good. It makes me not have to make a final decision on whether it's worth a subscription.

As far as attuning for raids, I'm at needing to get silver medals on veteran dungeons now. That's kinda hard. I've tried some runs in a couple of the dungeons and we were nowhere close to silver (yet), but I had fun. Hopefully I'll get that accomplished before I get to feeling stabby.

[Abelian75]

Yeah, I'm still playing this and really enjoying it.  It's definitely hooked me more than any post WoW-MMO (I did and do love Secret World, but I almost consider that a single player game.  A really good single player game, though!).  I'm at the same attunement step and really haven't considered the attunement chain painful at all.  I actually kinda think the complaints about attunement here are a bit off-base in regards to what can suck about attunements.  It's not actually doing them that sucks, it's that they can make it hard logistically to replace raid members and make alts, especially as time goes on.  The process itself is kind of fun at this point, imho.

I dunno, maybe I'm just a masochist, but I've found it a pretty fun game.

[Senses]

I still could honestly care less about housing in the game, but I know from word of mouth that it was powerfully customizable.

I had no idea it was "recreate the End of Time from Chrono Trigger" powerful  

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

Wow.

I've barely scratched the surface of housing. Have my room, crafting station, vending machine, party thing and a farm. There's a bunch of things I can't access for lack of some special currency or those FabKits. Like crafting, I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, but spending too much time fighting to look it up (and no free time outside of game to learn it).

Probably the reason I haven't gotten bored yet

I think at some point everyone "discovers" housing and then spends a week placing and replacing stuff, figuring out how to do it better, sending it all to crate then starting over.  Its really very fun and furniture drops *everywhere.*  As for the housing furniture currency, its on renown which is sort of an everything currency that will just stack up overtime.  When I first hit 50 I had about 30k, but I spent most of that.  I now have like 500/800 furniture in my crate and last attempt I was at 297/300 place outside décor.  Havent really even started on the inside of the house lol.

The game isn't perfect, but if you play MMO's a couple hours a night this is an amazing one for free.  Making money is easy even if all you do is sell everything you pick up to vendors.  Is it worth a sub though...?probably not, but not many are.

[Ozzu]

DevSpeak for Drop 2. Some PVP goodies it seems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfu8-zfgf78

[Merusk]

http://williambruce.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/best-and-worst-franchises-listed-by-sba-loan-defaults/

Interesting if true. Quiznos is on there, Carvel is on there, Johnny Rockets, Philly Connection, Beef'O'Bradys, Fuddruckers, Shane's Rib Shack, Blimpie, Cold Stone Creamery, etc. That makes sense considering most of them suck at the food they are serving.

Owning a Wendy's, Tim Hortons, Five Guys, or Steak and Shake seems strong on that list.

Just to circle 'round back here. SnS only seems strong because that list evaluates the last 10 years. They didn't start selling franchises until about 2009/ 10 when the new majority shareholder took over. They also require a minimum liquid asset portfolio of $1 million just to be considered as a franchisee, then you have to get financing for the building.

I knew a lot of unhappy franchisees, especially the ones in states with a higher min. wage than federal.  Mandatory prices that aren't adjusted by state are a bad thing when you're paying 25% of your revenue back to corporate.

[Samprimary]

So what i'm getting from this is that if i sub to the game I need to make sure i franchise either a Wendy's or a Tim Hortons on my plot.

[Abelian75]

Hell, I'm just gonna say it.  I didn't think I'd ever get to enjoy an MMO this much again.  I'm fully aware it's probably a niche thing, but holy christ is it serving my niche well.

I mean, I pretty much only follow MMOs so that I can enjoy seeing them fail.  I even enjoyed watching the MMO I spent three years of my life developing fail!  I shouldn't ever have had the chance to fall in love with an MMO again, but there it is.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a crazy person.  I'm well aware, trust me.  The game has about a hundred issues that make me want to punch it in the face, but... holy hell is there a good core there.

[DayDream]

honestly, i think that sort of reaction is the way the MMO sphere is going to go.  Hell, it HAS been going that way for a while, it's just that i think it's been plan B or even C.

Building an MMO to hit a certain niche of player really tightly, is what i mean.

people have their different strokes, etc.  but in the old days of only a couple of MMOs, almost all wildly different, if one mmo hit half your personal notes and was at least functional, whatever mmo it happened to be was the one you stuck with, most likely.  WoW was a broad enough game to hit a lot of people's personal notes half way, and in general more competently built than much of the competition.

These days, hitting half of your personal notes isn't enough any more.  Some other MMO might have your specific niche laid out like velvet.  Mine was a lot of small group content, active gameplay, a heavy emphasis on character building and design, and fairly open, low investment raiding.  Consequently, i loved, LOVED, DDO.  Or at least, did before shoddy buisness and developement drove me away.  I still like the basic gameplay design, i think.  it's been a while.

Anyway, the "WoW killer" concept we've all been laughing about won't be any one game.  it'll be all of them.  Each collectively taking their small slice of the pie WoW made space for on the table.  It's already been happening for a while, but like i said above, i get the feeling it's been happening on accident.  People were trying to beat WoW at being the biggest on the block, and later sliding into a much smaller niche if they were lucky.  When people start building their games to hit a much smaller niche of player really tightly, that's when the hits to WoW will really start to come.

[Threash]

Hell, I'm just gonna say it.  I didn't think I'd ever get to enjoy an MMO this much again.  I'm fully aware it's probably a niche thing, but holy christ is it serving my niche well.

I mean, I pretty much only follow MMOs so that I can enjoy seeing them fail.  I even enjoyed watching the MMO I spent three years of my life developing fail!  I shouldn't ever have had the chance to fall in love with an MMO again, but there it is.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a crazy person.  I'm well aware, trust me.  The game has about a hundred issues that make me want to punch it in the face, but... holy hell is there a good core there.

Which part are you enjoying so much?

[Abelian75]

The ball-kicking dungeons, basically.

[Nebu]

The ball-kicking dungeons, basically.

You must have 4 friends that are good gamers.  Without that, the dungeons are a lesson in keyboard bashing and screaming at your monitor.