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Author Topic: Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"  (Read 979276 times)
Merusk
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Reply #2835 on: October 02, 2014, 06:26:05 AM

If this went F2P I'd revisit it and ignore the hardcore BS. How the hell did Carbine/NCSoft forget that although hard-core is vocal, filthy casuals pay the bills in an MMO. It's like they looked at what Blizzard had to do to WoW over the years and then decided they were wrong. Yet they managed to do a better job with GW2 - also published by NCSoft.

What NCSoft game have you played where they EVER realized the casuals paid the bills?  I can't recall one so how could they forget something they never knew?

Remember, there's been a whole swath of devs/ players (now devs) for the last 11 years who've sworn up and down that Blizzard was a success ONLY because of the built-in fan base. Nothing they did was innovative. Nothing they did could be replicated. Every choice they've made is WRONG, because <REASON THAT IS NOT AT ALL PROJECTION OF I'M A "HARDCORE" GAMER FANTASY>

It's because even Blizzard doesn't realize filthy casuals pay the bills, or doesn't want to admit it. For all the joking about the raid training mode dungeon thing above, that is basically WoW's entire design scheme for it's entire history.

If you take Blizzard's game decisions and look at them from the PoV of "if only we could teach people to love raiding", then it all 'makes sense'. The fact they made a game that regular folks would also enjoy is basically a happy side effect.


It's all moot for me though, Wildstar either gave me n64 level graphics or single digit frame rates. Doesn't matter WHAT you're game is like at that point.  why so serious?

For the last 3 expansions, sure. There were still things for the less hardcore to do in Vanilla, BC and LK, though it was certainly a lot of Ramp-up to raiding.  They've tried to add in things for casuals since then but they're all grindy rather than fun or chunked-up experiences.


There's nothing wrong with game mechanics being simple and trusted ones re-used, but they need to be wrapped in an experience not as desperately generic as Wildstar is.

Hush you, clearly all non-MMO games have been totally innovative experiences and in no way derivative of their predecessors in any way.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2014, 06:30:57 AM by Merusk »

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Draegan
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Reply #2836 on: October 02, 2014, 09:02:47 AM

It's because even Blizzard doesn't realize filthy casuals pay the bills, or doesn't want to admit it. For all the joking about the raid training mode dungeon thing above, that is basically WoW's entire design scheme for it's entire history.

If you take Blizzard's game decisions and look at them from the PoV of "if only we could teach people to love raiding", then it all 'makes sense'. The fact they made a game that regular folks would also enjoy is basically a happy side effect.

Yeah, I still don't understand why they still refuse to connect that the game's peak in subscriptions and player satisfaction coincided with raiding meaning next to nothing. And what raiding there was, was apparently ludicrously easy. Of course guilds cried and the game will never recover from the crap they've done since.

I stand by my statement that no MMO should have a single item or single piece of content that will not scale for a solo player to do it.

Wasn't WOTLK's peak during Ulduar where people said it was the best raid design ever?

edit to add:

I wrote this elsewhere, but Wildstar's problem really isn't the world or lore. It's really that the class deisgn/mechanics are very very bad. The class customization is really really awful. The loot is boring, useless and unimaginative. Combat and the mechanics are terrible. I don't really care about explaining why, and I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't care to hear about it anyway.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2014, 09:08:22 AM by Draegan »
amiable
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Reply #2837 on: October 02, 2014, 10:46:37 AM


Wasn't WOTLK's peak during Ulduar where people said it was the best raid design ever?

edit to add:

I wrote this elsewhere, but Wildstar's problem really isn't the world or lore. It's really that the class deisgn/mechanics are very very bad. The class customization is really really awful. The loot is boring, useless and unimaginative. Combat and the mechanics are terrible. I don't really care about explaining why, and I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't care to hear about it anyway.

I'm curious what you think, because I agree that combat is pretty bad, but I can't really put my finger on why....   Maybe because I felt like I was only using 2 abilities over and over again.
Nebu
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Reply #2838 on: October 02, 2014, 10:51:44 AM

I found combat to be tedious and exhausting at the same time, particularly in the level 40-50 zones.  They packed so much aggro in these zones with fast respawn timers that you're constantly dodging ground effects, terrain effects, and still looking for adds/respawns.  I found it draining over long sessions rather than fun. 

Upon hitting 50, I was forced into doing dailies or attempting dungeons/adventures with people that would bail at the first sign of trouble.  It was a lesson in more tedium and frustration. 

That's really how it all summed up for me.  Without a regular group to run dungeons/adventures with, this game really came to a screetching halt quite quickly and I'm normally willing to tolerate a grind. 

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Draegan
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Reply #2839 on: October 02, 2014, 12:23:15 PM


I'm curious what you think, because I agree that combat is pretty bad, but I can't really put my finger on why....   Maybe because I felt like I was only using 2 abilities over and over again.

Alrighty, I hope this isn't too long.

1) Class design is outright atrocious. You have this really cool setting and you settle with a Warrior, Rogue (Stalker), Mage 1 (Esper), Mage 2 (Spellslinger)? And the only two non-fantasy based classes you have are the Engineer which is a reskinned hunter and the Medic which is actually kind of unique. That being said, even if you get passed that you have a collection of shit class mechanics. Combo points? Mana? Rage Bars? fuck you.

The only entertaining class was the Stalker because it's "special" ability was stealth and you could actually have fun with that. Everyone else's special was just a dumb 1-5 minute cooldown ability. Meh

2) Class customization was shit. It was just a glorified talent tree build mixed in with GW2's shitty trait system. It was bad, bland and stupid.

Do you know what they used to have? You used to have to hit stat thresholds to gain different effects of your abilities. You had to min/max your gear to unlock them. It was really entertaining actually. I'll mention a bit more later.

3) Combat. They fucking had no idea what they were doing or what direction they were taking the game. The must of changed the design docs 500 times in the last 5 years. When I saw this game back in 2011, it was your standard tab target system with dodges. Then they added some telegraphs. Then they added all telegraphs. No one wants to watch the fucking ground all game long and dodge out of fire. Fuck that. Add on the fact that you had no autoattack and they expected you to hold down a button half the time. No thanks.

It was just bad. It felt awkward, it was tiring, and it was shit. You want combat done right (action combat) just look at TERA. They did it the right way.

4) Game content. I don't care if they cater to hardcore people. Everyone should have a game. Everyone seems to expect to do be able to do everything in a game. Meh. As long as the bulk of the game is accessible, I'm ok with that. However, the game was really terrible. No one wants to do 30 hours of quest treadmills anymore. Fuck you for making another game like that.

5) Itemization. They changed this over and over and over and never fucking knew what they were doing. They did a major overhaul like 3 months before launch. It used to be really fun. You use to be able to dismantle every single item and reassemble it at any time. This allowed you to mix and match gear so you hit your stat thresholds I mentioned above. It was like Diablo on crack because they also had cool modules that you could toss on to do special effects. Then they got rid of all that shit and stuck it behind crafting. Meh.

What else? The game was really well made from animations to zone design, to art. I dug it. I liked the housing, I liked the scenarios and instances quests and adventures and dungeons. They were cool. They had zero direction, zero organization and zero ZERO zero "vision" for lack of a better word.

The game was kind of fun in an oldschool kind of way in one of the first betas. Things were more difficult. You had to pay attention to fights. You died a lot, the world was more dangerous. Instead of plowing through shit, you actually had to play careful. I kind of liked that, but that's a personal preference. Then they made everything a pushover and the game became boring and you stopped paying attention to shit.

It's been a while since I thought about this stuff so I may be off in some things.
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Reply #2840 on: October 02, 2014, 12:38:14 PM

If this went F2P I'd revisit it and ignore the hardcore BS. How the hell did Carbine/NCSoft forget that although hard-core is vocal, filthy casuals pay the bills in an MMO. It's like they looked at what Blizzard had to do to WoW over the years and then decided they were wrong. Yet they managed to do a better job with GW2 - also published by NCSoft.
What NCSoft game have you played where they EVER realized the casuals paid the bills?  I can't recall one so how could they forget something they never knew?
It depends on what you mean by casuals but if you are referring to non-raiders that would be City of Heroes -- aka City of Alts.



Fordel
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Reply #2841 on: October 02, 2014, 02:14:39 PM

For the last 3 expansions, sure. There were still things for the less hardcore to do in Vanilla, BC and LK, though it was certainly a lot of Ramp-up to raiding.  They've tried to add in things for casuals since then but they're all grindy rather than fun or chunked-up experiences.

It wasn't a lot of Ramp-up, it was ALL Ramp-up. Vanilla and TBC especially. Every design decision from leveling to content to class design, all Blizzards idea of 'turn them into raiders'.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Setanta
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Reply #2842 on: October 02, 2014, 03:11:45 PM

If this went F2P I'd revisit it and ignore the hardcore BS. How the hell did Carbine/NCSoft forget that although hard-core is vocal, filthy casuals pay the bills in an MMO. It's like they looked at what Blizzard had to do to WoW over the years and then decided they were wrong. Yet they managed to do a better job with GW2 - also published by NCSoft.
What NCSoft game have you played where they EVER realized the casuals paid the bills?  I can't recall one so how could they forget something they never knew?
It depends on what you mean by casuals but if you are referring to non-raiders that would be City of Heroes -- aka City of Alts.

That was my first choice, followed by GW2. Compared to GW1 the successor had casual player stamped all over it - to my eyes anyway.





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Reply #2843 on: October 02, 2014, 03:20:51 PM

If this went F2P I'd revisit it and ignore the hardcore BS. How the hell did Carbine/NCSoft forget that although hard-core is vocal, filthy casuals pay the bills in an MMO. It's like they looked at what Blizzard had to do to WoW over the years and then decided they were wrong. Yet they managed to do a better job with GW2 - also published by NCSoft.
What NCSoft game have you played where they EVER realized the casuals paid the bills?  I can't recall one so how could they forget something they never knew?
It depends on what you mean by casuals but if you are referring to non-raiders that would be City of Heroes -- aka City of Alts.
CoH was very fun, but progression was extremely slow, even by standards of the day. A good example, but more Cryptic than NC. And of course Cryptic was a problem all its own smiley

Wildstar would have been great in 2003. But you can't turn back the clock. After so many high profile sub-performers, after so many left WoW and chose to leave MMOs entirely, and after whole new forms of gaming brought games to non-gamers who aren't coming to MMOs, they really were just too damned late to the party for the decisions they made.

It looks like they realized that early enough in development to try and change things. But it also looks like they didn't have any clear sense of what to do about it, as evidenced by Draegen's comments.

I still am glad they tried. For the six years or so they worked on it, that's six years of gainful employment, paychecks, families, etc. And it's not like anyone ever expects a job for life anymore anyway. So it not being great or even good doesn't mean it was wasted time. /magnanimous smiley
Malakili
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Reply #2844 on: October 02, 2014, 03:31:41 PM

Every design decision from leveling to content to class design, all Blizzards idea of 'turn them into raiders'.


I suspect it may have even been "they are already raiders, let's give them a path to getting there." 
Venkman
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Reply #2845 on: October 02, 2014, 06:42:58 PM

Yea that. 10 years into the game, it's not like they were rolling in a constant stream of brand new off the street players. Anyone left was either a returning player or a raider.
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Reply #2846 on: October 03, 2014, 04:00:47 PM

Yea that. 10 years into the game, it's not like they were rolling in a constant stream of brand new off the street players. Anyone left was either a returning player or a raider.

He's not talking about the decisions they're making *now*.

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Venkman
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Reply #2847 on: October 03, 2014, 04:18:23 PM

I either don't agree with his sentiment, or he meant later even if he said earlier smiley

Saying "'turn them into raiders" is like saying "turn them all into people who reach the achievement cap and want to keep playing". I mean seriously, who isn't thinking that outside of the thrice resurrected corpse of UO and the one-hit-wonder space sim?

But even that aside, I got no sense of training for raiding during the leveling process. Yea yea all the uber guilds had MC on farm status within a month and not really many places to go after for awhile. But they showed up to WoW with training already, and probably mostly the same co-players. Meanwhile, WoW had way more than just ex Planes raiders, and all THOSE people struggled as soon as they got to the "easy" raid zone for years. So they went back to alts and small groups and had more to do in BC and WoTLK, months to re-level characters through different zones. All that because unlike many others, it was content complete enough for it and allowed people to play on their own time, not requiring they beholden themselves to someone else's definition of fun and pacing.

This was years ago though. Seems like more recently the narrowing playerbase is raiding or doing raiding-type things more and more. I left shortly after WoTLK and my lifestyle doesn't support that playstyle anymore smiley
Maven
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Reply #2848 on: October 03, 2014, 07:02:51 PM

Every design decision from leveling to content to class design, all Blizzards idea of 'turn them into raiders'.
 

As a former member of WoW's QA team from Vanilla to WOTLK, I'm going to disagree with you there.
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Reply #2849 on: October 04, 2014, 04:51:55 AM

In my view, WoW's ascendency was not much to do with the game itself or how polished it was it was to do with the Blizzard name. I remember saying at the time that Blizzard could release "advanced toilet simulator 2000" and people would lap it up. First time mmo players tried WOW because it was made by blizzard. Yes Everquest had the distinction of crashing and burning right as WOW was launched, by EQ never had the subs that WOW had at launch. Remember day one numbers were unprecedented for any game ever at the time.

Most players didn't have a clue that it was basically EQ with bodybuilding Elves and muscular Undead. It was their first experience with an MMO, and they played it because it was made by Blizzard, but they came to love the MMO experience. And with truckloads of money WOW was able to polish the game after the fact in a way no startup could not. So those people tried other MMOs, said "god this is so un-polished like the only other MMO I have played, and it does not have my Macros set up like I have in WOW," and went back to WOW, made by Blizzard.

WOW's problem now is that the Blizzard name is no longer a license to print money.

As for this game, catering to the hardcore is never going to work, because "being hardcore" means nothing if you don't have "useless scrubs" to look down on from the ivory tower inside your own head.

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Reply #2850 on: October 04, 2014, 09:35:26 AM

Thanks for once again reiterating that silly notion. There was far more interest in Wow than just bliz fans even during beta.  Amazing how 10 years of saying a silly thing starts to make it truth.

As for the earlier COH love it was a grindy boring game for casual folks. I couldn't get past level 25 and I'm a hardcore DIKU fan.   COH bored me to tears once the character was built out.  IThere was never any thing of interest to do those last 25 levels. 

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Draegan
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Reply #2851 on: October 04, 2014, 09:39:49 AM

I could never get past level 10 the game was so bad.  I subbed once for the character creator though. That was a boring Saturday afternoon.
Rendakor
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Reply #2852 on: October 04, 2014, 09:43:18 AM

I only capped out on one toon, and even that was done via PLing by a pre-nerf Fire Tank. Still, I loved that game; no other MMO has been more fun for me to resub for a weekend on a whim.

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Venkman
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Reply #2853 on: October 04, 2014, 10:00:28 AM

Thanks for once again reiterating that silly notion. There was far more interest in Wow than just bliz fans even during beta.  Amazing how 10 years of saying a silly thing starts to make it truth.

As for the earlier COH love it was a grindy boring game for casual folks. I couldn't get past level 25 and I'm a hardcore DIKU fan.   COH bored me to tears once the character was built out.  IThere was never any thing of interest to do those last 25 levels. 
All of this.

Blizzard assumed their first audience would be battle.net people (what some of us called "b.net kiddies" at the time). EQ1 topping at 500k then meant wild success possibly meant double that. 1mm subs was also SWG's goal. This was a huge number, and believable to Blizzard because of the size of the EQ and b.net player bases.

They blew past 5mil in the first year. Nobody responsible would ever have presented that many subscribers as even a pipedream upper goal. Most of us experienced the first six months of queues because they literally couldn't roll out hardware and balancing vast enough.

This was not due to any one thing. Blizzard name, Warcraft name, b.net audience, and a sequence of regional rollouts, and "MMORPGs" entering peak zeitgeist along the adoption curve, all contributed to a feedback loop of marketing. But that only gets people in the door. They only stayedbecause of the quality of execution, the casual friendly experience, the broad range of hardware able to run it, the sheer scale of content completeness, and the community feedback. All of these were Blizzard hallmarks of the day.

They exposed to the world what it takes to do it right. They also exposed just how few actually have the ability.

Blizzard today could not pull off what Blizzard did then. This is due to all the same variables with different values. Hence their shift from exclusive focus on big AAA work every 3-5 years to more smaller projects.
Sir T
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Reply #2854 on: October 04, 2014, 11:16:44 AM

Uh huh. Then why are they staying now. Because while sub numbers are dropping slowly people are not fleeing out the door. That means that people are still staying with WOW. And you cannot claim that blizzard are delivering a "polished experience and ease of use" anymore.  You simply cannot argue that WOW is the best game out there anymore. Sorry, it just isn't.

They are staying because its WOW, by BLIZZARD. And when they try something else they have a list of everything WOW has that this game doesn't, and they just go back to nice familiar blizzard territory with lots of soothing affirmations as to why they are right in doing it. Because its WOW, by Blizzard. I tried wow for 2 weeks years ago and I found it clunky and boring as all hell. Starcraft was not the best RTS out there when it was released either, but it still sold zillions because Blizzard.

Hell a few months ago when I saw (in GW2) someone starting trolling about how GW2 is not as good as WOW people didn't even bother arguing, they just said "then fuck off back to WOW, noob". Then everyone just started laughed in the trolls face because it was so ridiculous, and now no troll even bothers saying it anymore.

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Nebu
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Reply #2855 on: October 04, 2014, 11:20:30 AM

People stay with WoW because there's really no reason to jump ship.  Most MMO's in the last 10 years have been little more than "like WoW but worse". 

If you want to play an MMO that is polished and content rich, WoW is about the only option.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Maven
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Reply #2856 on: October 04, 2014, 11:38:22 AM

People stay with WoW because there's really no reason to jump ship.  Most MMO's in the last 10 years have been little more than "like WoW but worse".  

If you want to play an MMO that is polished and content rich, WoW is about the only option.

Look, WoW is a strong product, and that is still included in discussions about MMOs today is a testament to that. Is it as good as it was 10 years ago? I haven't touched it since WOTLK, but I'd say probably not ONLY because its competition has caught up and made WoW appear less awesome by ratio.

I think Guild Wars 2 at launch was a great alternative to WoW. EVE is another for a different type of player, and yes, more niche. I think Star Wars Old Republic is a worthy competitor as it is now, my time with the Imperial Agent blew every other storyline of WoW's out of the water and was far more enjoyable.

I lived it, man. WoW developers didn't always know what they were doing and were putting out more fires rather than creating a controlled burn. Early WoW was reactionary and this daze at the unexpected and unprecedented success. As time went on, they got their shit together and could tackle issues more skillfully.

*All* intellectual property franchises are fighting a natural diminishing effect in public consciousness that can only be countered by new products or releases raising it back up -- but never as high as the original (barring New Era releases like Marvel's Iron Man -> Avengers, Star Wars Prequels & New Trilogy, etc.). Blizzard was attempting to launch a new IP with Titan as their older properties age, fade, and become increasingly tricky to manage as layers of lore muddle things.

I can't convey the feeling of how badly I wanted to work on a new, novel project after five years of 'maintaining a service.'
Maven
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Reply #2857 on: October 04, 2014, 11:42:55 AM

Speaking of people staying with WoW: Loss Aversion. I'd say most casuals have invested considerable time and money in the experience. They've built up friends and a community. They don't jump from game to game like a more dedicated team looking for new experiences might.

We could hypothesize multiple reasons people are staying subscribed. Maintaining the investment. Uninterested in new products that don't appeal to their particular tastes. An extreme love for the style or Blizzard. Only logging in once a week and proceeding through content at such a pace that by the time they finish the new expansion has hit.
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Reply #2858 on: October 04, 2014, 11:48:19 AM

I think Guild Wars 2 at launch was a great alternative to WoW. EVE is another for a different type of player, and yes, more niche. I think Star Wars Old Republic is a worthy competitor as it is now, my time with the Imperial Agent blew every other storyline of WoW's out of the water and was far more enjoyable.

I agree with you.  I'm the type of player that yearns for niche products rather than the mainstream crap that keeps getting churned out.  I enjoyed GW2, Secret World, Rift, A Tale in the Desert, Star Wars (both of them), etc.  I'm just saying that many people try these games wanting them to be a better WoW only to realize that they already had the better WoW AND had an established history with a character in WoW.  For that reason, they tend to either go back to WoW or never leave in the first place.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Venkman
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Reply #2859 on: October 04, 2014, 02:50:15 PM

Uh huh. Then why are they staying now. Because while sub numbers are dropping slowly people are not fleeing out the door. That means that people are still staying with WOW. And you cannot claim that blizzard are delivering a "polished experience and ease of use" anymore.  You simply cannot argue that WOW is the best game out there anymore. Sorry, it just isn't.
They're staying because they're having fun, have a lot invested, there's no reason to jump ship, and nothing else just like it even if they wanted to. They don't need "ease of use" because they've long since mastered the area of the game they want to play. And to them, it's totally polished enough for their needs, especially long after having modded their UI in support of the area of the game they want to play. The level of investment can't be understated either, but you know that as well as anyone. On the one hand there's the comfort zone of being reminded of your vast wealth of achievements. But on the other hand, it's not like all MMOs are anywhere near created equal.

Case in point: this thread  awesome, for real

You're focused on WoW, but it applies to any MMO still running, especially all the still-alive games that predated WoW.

tl;dr: Every UO argument ever.

Quote
They are staying because its WOW, by BLIZZARD. And when they try something else they have a list of everything WOW has that this game doesn't, and they just go back to nice familiar blizzard territory with lots of soothing affirmations as to why they are right in doing it. Because its WOW, by Blizzard. I tried wow for 2 weeks years ago and I found it clunky and boring as all hell. Starcraft was not the best RTS out there when it was released either, but it still sold zillions because Blizzard.
Soothing affirmations, yes. Because it's "Blizzard", no. They don't stay for 10 years and north of minimum $1800 investment just because they like the name. They stay because there's nothing better for them. Shit, before 2004, EQ1 was this too. The only time I can recall any real and ongoing movement between MMOs was around 2001 when people were continually jumping between AC1, UO and EQ1. But that was an abberation. People stick with stuff they like when it suits what they want. Shit, the entire concept of annualized games and franchises derives from this.

And it's not like Blizzard was resting on their laurels. Nothing has killed WoW. The biggest changes are industry wide. The attention on MMORPGs moved on after high profile failures and emergent new ways to game. But they're still making money hand over fist, still doing their audience proud, and still employing, what, almost 5k people company wide?

tl;dr: Also every UO argument ever  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

The other stuff you said is just every summer blockbuster vs awards movie debate: what you personally liked vs what millions of others did.
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Reply #2860 on: October 04, 2014, 05:16:54 PM

WoW is still around because if you try to talk about its "competitors" you quickly run out of anything to say and instead start talking about WoW. Its also still around because of people like my mother, its her first and only real online video game. She probably won't be able to handle learning anything else. She's tried a few times but it never lasts a week. She has a slowly growing collection of single player RPG's I get her that she says she'll try one of these days. Its frustrating.

Wildstar's big hope was housing and war plots. If the game was fun and one or both of those systems were amazing there would be reason to think it could slowly drain WoW's playerbase.

But Wildstar isn't fun. Its less good than WoW or Tera depending on what kind of combat you like. Its about on par with Neverwinter Online in terms of how lame character progression and combat feel and if anything Wildstar combat feels even more disconnected than NWN.

I hear housing was quite good. I never heard a peep about War Plots. I didn't care because 30 minutes of beta testing made it clear the core game was awful. I was less entertained in those 30 minutes than I was in 30 minutes of being utterly lost and confused in Age of Wushu or 30 minutes of connecting and trying to play Chinese Blade and Soul. The first play session should always be fun because its new stuff, new world, new class, new abilities, yay!

Wildstar offered nothing new. It was repackaged shit and they had doused it in fake new car smell but it was slow, bored me to tears, progression was anemic as were your early abilities and the dodge the red ground shit was just boring.

I'm not sure that I've ever played a MMO that felt more like a video game than Wildstar.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2014, 05:19:24 PM by Hoax »

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Kageru
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Reply #2861 on: October 04, 2014, 05:44:31 PM

WoW was so much better than EQ, but people have to remember how long ago that was... EQ is still around, and still ugly, if you want to appreciate what a dramatic transition it was.

GW2 was not a competitor to WoW. Without a subscription they knew they couldn't compete in terms of content releases so they gave up on raiders and achievers (besides Wildstar wanted those) and focused on a more casual game with dynamic events, a rich world and an end-game based on skins as visible badges of effort. They've wandered erratically and pretty much destroyed that design since launch though. Even falling into the "people want a story in their MMO!" fail that sank SWTOR.

And with Titan dead there's pretty much no challengers to WoW on the horizon. If you want a Western MMO that can generate substantial amounts of new content there's not much else.

None of this excuses Wildstar for being a bad game based on a poorly thought out business model. I'd love to see what their sub-numbers are tracking like (ESO too for that matter).

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Reply #2862 on: October 04, 2014, 09:13:28 PM

Let's ignore WoW for a moment. What has been the most successful triple-A MMO since 2004, by revenue (allowing F2P games like GW2 to count)?

WoW's shaped the industry, but comparing new releases to its already established empire sort of masks the merits of new MMO releases. A game pulling down a million subscribers and generating a good profit is nothing to scoff at.
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Reply #2863 on: October 05, 2014, 08:39:31 AM

Let's ignore WoW for a moment. What has been the most successful triple-A MMO since 2004, by revenue (allowing F2P games like GW2 to count)?

WoW's shaped the industry, but comparing new releases to its already established empire sort of masks the merits of new MMO releases. A game pulling down a million subscribers and generating a good profit is nothing to scoff at.

If you're allowing F2P games, then it's probably World of Tanks. Although I'll confess to not having done any research and basing this on observation only. Wargaming are the only guys I can think of not backed by Disney or a publisher able to afford TV Ads. That's a lot of money.

As for your 2nd part, the problem is that those developers didn't sell and get budgeted for a game with 'only a million' subscribers. They went for 2-5 million and got pummeled. That's been the story for most of the big releases since 2004. Over budget, under deliver; the worst of both worlds.

If I were to go back to an MMO full time it'd be WoW. Not because of investment and achievement and community as I've abandoned more stuff in more games than I achieved in WoW, but because it's technically superior.
* It remains more accessible and performs better than anything I've played in the last 10 years. Even when games steal feature or improve on them, they've implemented them back into WoW or polished them up.
* Walking doesn't have the annoying stutter-stop ramp-up of Star Trek/Wars or Secret World.  That 1/4 second delay is annoying and makes it feel like a console.
* Combat remains snappy in a way nobody else has captured. Push butan get result. No goddamn "wait for the animation to stop" bullshit.  If I'm pushing butan I want to do that NOW.  GCD gets a lot of hate but it's consistent and predictable to me as a player in a way animation locking never is.
* After years of false starts they finally got a nice LFG system for all content that lets me hop in and out on my schedule. (Although they've worked to undermine it ever since on the raid side.   Ohhhhh, I see.  idiots.)
* More features than any other game. While this is unfair because they've had 10 years to add them, you miss them in other games when you want to do them and they aren't there. Which is why I now do multiple F2P instead.   (And they're foolishly removing some of these as well. Like flying.)

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Reply #2864 on: October 05, 2014, 09:53:55 AM

If I had time for an MMO obsession, I'd be back in GW2. It's great for two months every eighteen smiley

WoW's shaped the industry...
I don't know that WoW shaped the industry per se. They certainly affected it. But at best I would say WoW allowed a wider array of ignorant business people the opportunity to make a case for entering the industry, and that more because the revenue they posted achieved a scale usually reserved for big console game launches. Prior, the stuffed suits could dismiss EQ1 as just a bunch of antisocial basement dwellers paying for something nobody really understood.

No real science to my opinion. I'm just going by how all the post-WoW games followed similar arcs to the ones that preceded. More money showed up than may have without WoW. But it only meant more money could be used to whitewash the same issues.

When I look at MMOs, even the narrowly defined AAA budget diku-inspired MMORPG ones, I see the "industry" as actually being everyone in #2 on down. Those are the companies that all need to fight for pieces that early 2000s Blizzard didn't need to. Blizzard already had global reach*, an established IP they owned, a built-in starting audience, respected industry talent, credibility with game players (not just neckbeards and luminaries), and the ability to leverage all of those to justify costs. Everyone else gets only some of those, and tight strings are tied to the rest (usually IP licensing). Maybe I could argue one other company had most of the same pieces to the same degree, but like Blizzard of old, it depends on which part of Bioware you're talking about.  Ohhhhh, I see.

* They don't directly own some markets, but they were able to get into them in ways others couldn't.
Draegan
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Reply #2865 on: October 05, 2014, 10:27:32 AM

Let's ignore WoW for a moment. What has been the most successful triple-A MMO since 2004, by revenue (allowing F2P games like GW2 to count)?

WoW's shaped the industry, but comparing new releases to its already established empire sort of masks the merits of new MMO releases. A game pulling down a million subscribers and generating a good profit is nothing to scoff at.

SWTOR
Merusk
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Reply #2866 on: October 05, 2014, 10:55:26 AM

We're both wrong, I was just looking it up and found a TERRIBLE article on Gamespot article (seriously, how hard is it to do a top 10 list.. very hard apparently) using 2013 revenues.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-revenues-for-2013-total-624-million-update/1100-6417224/

I'm going to just list them rather than make the mistake that writer made.  They cited a report from these guys that's probably behind a pay wall:
http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/

Worldwide Gross Revenues 2013
1)  Dungeon & Fighter at $1.4 billion. This ignores the US/ Euro markets entirely focusing on S. Korea and China 
2)  Crossfire, a F2P FPS out of South Korea at $957 million. 
3)  League of Legends at $624 million. 
4)  World of Tanks at $372 million
6)  World of Warcraft $213 million
8)  The Old Republic at $136 million
9)  TF2  $139 million
10) Counter Strike online - $121 million

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Nebu
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Reply #2867 on: October 05, 2014, 11:21:04 AM

2. is an FPS
3. is a MOBA
4. is only tangentially an MMO.

I don't even know what 1. is. 

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Reply #2868 on: October 05, 2014, 11:23:14 AM

1. Is not a MMO either.

In English markets its known as Dungeon Fighter Online. Its a great game but its hardly a MMO. Its a cool sprite based, I believe precursor, to games like Rusty Hearts, Invictus, Warframe etc. 100% instances no actual world. I really like it but its always been only half ass supported out here by assholes and its pretty old looking at this point. PvP in it was incredibly tactical and fun but like many azn ports the people running it spent as little as possible on servers so the lag was so terrible that you couldn't actually get good games 90% of the time.

But yeah its pvp is basically one of the better online games that play like a true fighting game. I put it up there with Infinity Online and Rumble Fighter in terms of games that had they been well supported or at least not laggy I would probably still be playing to this day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppHaLdyt2k

9. Is probably the most MMO fps there is but still isn't really a MMO.
10. Is strictly an FPS.

« Last Edit: October 05, 2014, 11:27:50 AM by Hoax »

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Merusk
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Reply #2869 on: October 05, 2014, 11:29:01 AM

I abandoned the MMO nonsense years ago when I realized that the only people that care are old men still dreaming of UO's glory days of "virtual worlds." They're all moving to online lobby games. Virtual worlds are dead, man, dead.

Because that's what you're up against when you're pitching an online game idea. Fund it yourself via Kickstarter or be prepared to make one of those top 5 games.  This is business. Welcome to the real world.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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