1. #42201
    That free week of WoW playtime couldn't have dropped at a more painful time for WildStar. In the same few weeks, the playing field has looked like:

    WildStar
    - Servers had to be merged, but population is still low
    - Content patch drops delayed
    - 60 employees laid off

    vs

    WoW
    - Announcing new Australian servers
    - Subscriber numbers up by 600k
    - Free week offered to all players
    - Expansion launch in 3 weeks
    You just lost The Game

  2. #42202
    The Unstoppable Force Gaidax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by carnifex2005 View Post
    Bullshit. NCSoft gave them 7 years worth of money to release a good game and all Carbine gave them for their (allegedly) $100m + investment was a crap MMO. Carbine failed Wildstar, not NCSoft.
    Heh, well that's true too

    But still NCSoft is really heavy handed when it comes to things that don't bring them wheelbarrows of cash.

  3. #42203
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    Heh, well that's true too

    But still NCSoft is really heavy handed when it comes to things that don't bring them wheelbarrows of cash.
    Well... unfortunately I think we're talking about something that actually took away wheelbarrows of cash. Wildstar can't have been cheap to make, especially with a 7-year development cycle.
    Nothing ever bothers Juular.

  4. #42204
    Article from Ten Ton Hammer: What will become of Wildstar?

    http://www.tentonhammer.com/editoria...hiimMeE.reddit

  5. #42205
    Quote Originally Posted by eriktheviking View Post
    Article from Ten Ton Hammer: What will become of Wildstar?

    http://www.tentonhammer.com/editoria...hiimMeE.reddit
    Pretty much how I see it. The longer they delay an inevitable restructure of payment or closure, the worse the reputation for Wildstar is going to become.
    I am the lucid dream
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  6. #42206
    I hated the questing and leveling in this game. I couldn't play it. It just wasn't fun to me at all. I removed it from my PC last week but haven't played it since launch.

  7. #42207
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Why would shuttering the game be "stupid as hell"? If they don't think it can make a profit, shutting it down is the right thing to do, regardless of how much money has already been spent. Sunk costs are sunk.
    Why? Because you're essentially just eating those losses, at that point.

    This is 2014, F2P/B2P transitions are a thing, and for many, many MMO's they've proven to be a good way to improve revenue, at least in the short term. While there is a good amount of work that goes into a transition, the risks are relatively low (every major MMO to transition has seen a big jump in numbers in the subsequent months, many seeing the improvements stick around for a while) and the payoffs are far preferable to simply closing down a MMO.

  8. #42208
    Quote Originally Posted by Packers01 View Post
    Now for potential. Can you really say a game has potential when you have to change 90% of it? I think any game has potential that way.
    Eh, I view potential in terms of gameplay.

    If a gameplay is actually solid, then doing things like dailies, fetch quests, grinding rep, ect are all more tolerable.

    It's why I switched to gen 3 MMOs in the first place.

    Wildstars gameplay was always... not quite there in my eyes. The high amounts of white damage and lack of action locking always made the combat feel like a flashier version of generation 2.
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  9. #42209
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Yeah, me too.

    I assumed it was just me hating MMOs now, but I guess a lot of people felt that way about the game.
    Nope, me too. I play like... every MMO (that's worth anything). It's just what I do. I love the genre, and I'm always on the hunt for new worlds to explore.

    WS... I really cannot explain what is wrong with this game, but I just feel totally "Ugh." when I try to play it much. I don't get it, because objectively it's a perfectly good game. But I have near-zero desire to play it. Just seeing that screenshot above immediately made me feel unhappy.

    There's just something... wrong. I'm not compelled to keep at it and keep exploring and build a better character, even though I'm quite compelled to do that in most any other game, even ones that are objectively lower-quality than WS (like LOTRO or EQ2).

    I keep waiting for it to go F2P so I can try to force myself to overcome whatever's wrong, but at this rate I'm not sure if it will even get such a transition.

    It just boggles me that 5-to-10-year-old MMOs are still significantly more fun for me than something which was supposed to be the new cutting-edge release for the genre.

  10. #42210
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Why? Because you're essentially just eating those losses, at that point.

    This is 2014, F2P/B2P transitions are a thing, and for many, many MMO's they've proven to be a good way to improve revenue, at least in the short term. While there is a good amount of work that goes into a transition, the risks are relatively low (every major MMO to transition has seen a big jump in numbers in the subsequent months, many seeing the improvements stick around for a while) and the payoffs are far preferable to simply closing down a MMO.
    Pretty much this, the cost of a transition is way smaller than the original development costs - it doesn't hurt much to try. The odds of at least getting the "transitional investments" (let's call them that) back are very close to 1; in that case, the transition in itself would be profitable and thus, a good decision.

    It's not like they have to spend another $50000000 on making the game F2P/B2P.

  11. #42211
    Quote Originally Posted by Reliefpfeiler View Post
    Pretty much this, the cost of a transition is way smaller than the original development costs - it doesn't hurt much to try. The odds of at least getting the "transitional investments" (let's call them that) back are very close to 1; in that case, the transition in itself would be profitable and thus, a good decision.

    It's not like they have to spend another $50000000 on making the game F2P/B2P.
    Indeed. Not to mention you get a ton of free press coverage for a F2P transition, making it almost like a relaunch.

  12. #42212
    RIP Wildstar. Your fifteen minutes of fame, inevitably, is over.

    OT: just drop the sub already Carbine! You wanna save your game? Drop the sub! Start making vanity stuff for sale. You hear me? Do you want to live?

  13. #42213
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Indeed. Not to mention you get a ton of free press coverage for a F2P transition, making it almost like a relaunch.
    The big question is though, whether NCSoft thinks WildStar is salvagable as a F2P game. Right now there is no in-game shop, no content to put in the in-game shop, and as far as I know, no infrastructure to support an F2P transition either.

    Knowing NCSoft, it's going to be very formulaic. There won't be any pity points here, it's either the game is going to become profitable or it's going to not exist.

    To be honest, I don't think WildStar, even with F2P and a cash shop, is going to be profitable. There's too much negative publicity surrounding this game and I think the issues are way too deep rooted to be solved just by a change in business model. Unless they pull a 'realm reborn' with this game, my personal opinion is that NCSoft is just going to shut the game down within a few months.
    You just lost The Game

  14. #42214

  15. #42215
    Epic! Pejo's Avatar
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    The game should be fine with a transition.

    There are a ton of ways to monetize in this game. Between housing, costumes, mount customization, and CREDD, they will be able to bring in some money. Actually, CREDD could allow them to continue selling gold, while selling a better experience through 'having a sub' when people use it. Add in some experience boosts, it'll allow users to solely do the story quests, while serving those many task quests to those who are not subbed. When they first started talking about the game, many users here thought it would come out as a B2P game due to how much time they spent with GW2.

    There are many problems with the game, and sadly it won't be able to be the game they wanted to be. I am blown away that they got rid of the dungeon/raid designer, since his work is quite good - could mean they'll focus less on those in the future. This will be sad, since it wasn't the actual raids/dungeons that were bad, but rather the system that goes with them. Poor rewards/itemization, meaningless attunement grind, etc were the issues. I am hoping that they do not change drop 4, as that is very much needed.

    Lastly, there is very little negative publicity around the game in the big picture. Very few people actually know of the game, quite a few people want to play it but know it has huge issues (fuck, look at all us in this thread), and if they go about focusing their future content on their majority vs the minority, they'll do fine. It won't be GW2, but will move itself back up at least 500,000 accounts.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by eriktheviking View Post
    Here's the '100 pages of patch notes':
    https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...otes-10242014/
    Not a bad list to start.

  16. #42216
    Quote Originally Posted by shoc View Post
    The big question is though, whether NCSoft thinks WildStar is salvagable as a F2P game. Right now there is no in-game shop, no content to put in the in-game shop, and as far as I know, no infrastructure to support an F2P transition either.

    Knowing NCSoft, it's going to be very formulaic. There won't be any pity points here, it's either the game is going to become profitable or it's going to not exist.

    To be honest, I don't think WildStar, even with F2P and a cash shop, is going to be profitable. There's too much negative publicity surrounding this game and I think the issues are way too deep rooted to be solved just by a change in business model. Unless they pull a 'realm reborn' with this game, my personal opinion is that NCSoft is just going to shut the game down within a few months.
    I'd be willing to bet my next few paychecks that yes, NCsoft thinks it's salvageable as a F2P/B2P game.

    Remember, they transitioned Lineage 2, a game that was nearly a decade old (and CoH, for that matter) to F2P.

  17. #42217
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    I'd be willing to bet my next few paychecks that yes, NCsoft thinks it's salvageable as a F2P/B2P game.

    Remember, they transitioned Lineage 2, a game that was nearly a decade old (and CoH, for that matter) to F2P.
    I can't believe people are thinking that this is going to lead to the studio closing.

    Even if they thought all was lost, they would switch to F2P, use existing content to create some kind of high replayability shit like competitive PvE and PvP, slash down to a maintenance staff, and then milk it for a few years to make their money back.
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  18. #42218
    Quote Originally Posted by Valyrian Stormclaw View Post
    RIP Wildstar. Your fifteen minutes of fame, inevitably, is over.

    OT: just drop the sub already Carbine! You wanna save your game? Drop the sub! Start making vanity stuff for sale. You hear me? Do you want to live?
    This is how I feel about it. Ill admit I haven't played much of WS but that was because they marketed to the "Hardcore Croud"

    I got one of those 7 day pass's and checked it out and I got out of the starting zone bored out of my mind. But I figured I would keep a eye on the game to see if it dose anything interesting. So happens that was the best choice I made. The game is falling apart faster then SWTOR did and it is almost a 100% chance it go's f2p or b2p.

    I have learned over the past couple years its best to wait and see how a MMO turns out before buying it. If it dose go F2p/B2p ill buy a hardcopy and check it out more. But right off I would tell it isn't worth a sub even more so if I got to spend a shit ton of hours a week to play it.

    People bitch about the "Casual" market but in all MMO's besides eve its the "Casual" players that are keeping these games funded.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by shoc View Post
    The big question is though, whether NCSoft thinks WildStar is salvagable as a F2P game. Right now there is no in-game shop, no content to put in the in-game shop, and as far as I know, no infrastructure to support an F2P transition either.

    Knowing NCSoft, it's going to be very formulaic. There won't be any pity points here, it's either the game is going to become profitable or it's going to not exist.

    To be honest, I don't think WildStar, even with F2P and a cash shop, is going to be profitable. There's too much negative publicity surrounding this game and I think the issues are way too deep rooted to be solved just by a change in business model. Unless they pull a 'realm reborn' with this game, my personal opinion is that NCSoft is just going to shut the game down within a few months.
    Good chance it go's b2p and gets put on life support for like a year then shutdown if they don't get a cash shop up and going.

    When it dose go f2p/b2p ill come and play it for a bit. But after hearing the cater to the hardcore shit I was 100% turned off from it. ill buy a hardcopy so I don't have to download a big file and when the game dose die the box will go in my box of forgotten/shutdown MMO's.
    Last edited by Jtbrig7390; 2014-10-24 at 08:58 PM.
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  19. #42219
    The only reason I'd want WildStar to shut down is so that I don't have to hear or see Zybak anymore.

    Outside of that, I wish it well and hope for a smooth F2P transition.

  20. #42220
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Yep. It's frustrating for me because generally I'm good at finding flaws in things and recognizing what I did or did not like.

    With WS, that was just so hard for me to see what was wrong. I was bored witless from the start and didn't know why. I mean before I even got out of Crimson Isle I was sick of it.
    Yeah. It drove me crazy, tbh — usually I can either immediately identify a game as crap (and list all the reasons why, in excruciating industry-jargon-laced detail), or I can find something charming & salvageable about it and be happy logging in every once in a while as part of my change-of-pace itinerary.

    WS ... like... first in Beta, then again when I gave it another chance (with a pass tossed to me) after release ... it's just ...

    I play it, I'm like: "I should like this. Why don't I like this?"
    I go "No, no, all MMOs have slow points, just be patient, give it a few more days."
    Finally I'm like "I CANNOT TAKE THIS ANY MORE" because I'm bored to death.

    And I don't get it, because I can't figure out why since there's plenty to do and I can't immediately identify anything boring about the game. It's just so bizarre. But I log out, and I feel relieved. I have rarely had that happen with a game in this genre.

    That's why I've been quietly following this thread for ages — I keep thinking they'll wake up and make some radical change and fix whatever's 'off' about it and happy ending yay.

    Instead it's like... nothing happens. And then nothing happens. And then... nothing happens. This has been one of the weirdest, most demoralizing MMO releases in a looooong time.

    I guess it sort of reminds me of stories about SWTOR's dread Year One (which I wasn't there for), or SOE/Brad McQuaid's Vanguard face-plant. Where people are just like O_O COME ON FIX IT and the devs are like "WE'RE TRYING BUT WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO" and running in circles with their hats on fire.

    Actually, on reflection, all 3 of those examples have "Rushed out the door by mandated deadline" in common...
    Last edited by Lovestar; 2014-10-24 at 09:19 PM.

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