[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[zito]

When Wildstar really hits Steam I may try to convince a few friends to actually give it a(nother) try. Even though we planned to play it when F2P hit we never did it. I definitly will give drop 7 a shot, the level through the zones was one of the best things they had and OMNIcore was great. It would be great if Steam could save this game, because even though it was mismanaged, the game is still not aweful, it's actually rather good in it's current form.

Not releasing on steam was horrible. Their launcher is pure garbage :l

90% of games launchers are pure garbage actually which is why steam is so great. the other 10% are on oracle lolol

[CptEgo]

Not releasing on steam was horrible. Their launcher is pure garbage :l

90% of games launchers are pure garbage actually

Wow, that is a weird thing to care about. Congratulations!

[Edge-]

Not releasing on steam was horrible. Their launcher is pure garbage :l

90% of games launchers are pure garbage actually which is why steam is so great. the other 10% are on oracle lolol

>.>

Surprisingly it's never given me issues. I enjoy that you can pre-login through the launcher if the game is updating, which is nice. Doesn't have the ESO-esque bullshit of needing to install 30GB of data after downloading a 2GB patch, either. What's bad about it?

[shoc]

I wouldn't get your hopes up about the "We're still here, and we're still working!" PR Blurb.

If you remember, CoH developers too were developing content right up until the very last days of the game's existence.

""It was very much a surprise," says Matt Miller, former lead designer at Paragon, who had been brought in on the buyout plan. "We all were really working as if things were going to work out. ... It was business as usual right up until the last day."

While the layoffs and dangled-but-retracted hope of independence were disappointing for the team, it was just as frustrating to walk away from the projects they were working on.

The latest City of Heroes update was less than two weeks from hitting the live servers. Plans were underway for the game's upcoming anniversary. And two new IPs were in various stages of development at the studio.

All of that work had to be abandoned.

Since City of Heroes wouldn't be shut down until the end of the year, Paragon tried to give players a final gift, says Miller. While the latest update was unfinished, it was close enough that they tried to open it up to players.

"I insisted that we push it up immediately bugs and all just so the players had something new for the last couple months but even that was impossible to do," he says. "We just had no support from NCsoft for getting a new version out there. It was too bug-ridden and it was going to cause customer-service complaints and they didn't want to have to deal with that."

The anniversary plans Paragon had for City of Heroes were elaborate, Miller says. A new enemy was about to make its debut, which would culminate in the opening of a moon base for players. Preliminary work was underway, including concept art and level layout.

"We really wanted to give the players a brand new environment -- something they've kind of been asking for, something to take the game to that galactic stage," says Miller. "We've had superheroes in the game. You start off [and] you're just fighting street crime. Then you move up and you're fighting citywide threats and then global threats and then these sort of extra-dimensional threats all threatening the world. And we really wanted to take the stage and make it more of a galactic stage.

"So we had an alien invasion race called The Battalion that was going to be arriving in the very next issue. That would play out over several issues culminating with the moon base, where you would use the resources of the moon base to actually fight back and basically kick Battalion out of our solar system."

The team had actually been planning seeds for the Battalion for the past six years, hinting to players a big threat was on the way, but never clearly spelling it out.

"We were like, 'Hey, we finally get to bring that big threat and make good on all the promises that we made'," says Miller. "So it was actually sad that we didn't get to follow through on that."

[Tryuk]

Wow, that is a weird thing to care about. Congratulations!

Not really, having a hard time downloading a game or some such is quite a quick way to drop a decent amount of players.

Edit: The original Wildstar launcher was absolutely horrible, one of the worst I've seen. The current one is fine now, but it used to have problems

[CptEgo]

Not really, having a hard time downloading a game or some such is quite a quick way to drop a decent amount of players.

I guess. I've never had bad experiences with any game launcher..

[zito]

Wow, that is a weird thing to care about. Congratulations!

have you played any of NCsofts games on their launcher (using them as an example) it is quite a horrid experience. Or Trions glyph :l

[Edge-]

have you played any of NCsofts games on their launcher (using them as an example) it is quite a horrid experience. Or Trions glyph :l

What's the issue? NCsoft's launchers seem straightforward and functional to me across the board. Not much in the way of additional features and the like, but they work.

Glyph has actually gotten to the point where you can finally launch one game while another updates, so while it could definitely benefit from allowing for multiple games to update and from Defiance not taking forever to install files, it's largely functional nowadays as well >.>

[shoc]

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...1#entry1495207

Last Friday was an extremely difficult day for Carbine. As many of you know, WildStar has not been performing as well as we had hoped, and because of that it was necessary to reduce the size of our team. Events like this are never easy. To be completely clear, this does not at all reflect on the talent, dedication, or passion of the individuals who were affected. Each and every one of them worked hard to improve and enhance the game, bringing their creative energy to work each day despite the challenges we were facing. It has been my privilege to work with them on this team, and I hope the best for them in the future.

That being said, I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that this is not the end for WildStar. The team here at Carbine is still dedicated to the game and its community, and we will be continuing on the path that I outlined in my last state of the game update. Destination Arcterra will launch within the next three weeks. WildStar's Steam release will come this spring, and those updates will be followed by a succession of game improvements, new content, new systems and live events.

Work is continuing on Redmoon Terror, Halon Ring, and Evil from the Ether (our next expedition). The Item Upgrades system is still also in development, as well as new systems—such as multi-queuing—which are focused on expanding WildStar and bringing its players together in new and exciting ways. We will also continue to bring live events to our players—like the upcoming return of the Hoverboard zPrix Invitational—many of which will include improvements that further encourage and reward player participation. We will be talking in more detail about all of these initiatives, as well as many others, in the coming weeks and months. There are still exciting days ahead for WildStar.

It’s important for everyone to realize that the next few months will be a transitional period for Carbine. We still have a passionate group of core developers here who are focused on improving the game and creating new content, but transitions like this take time, and I'd like to thank all of you for being patient as the team gets settled and our development timelines get solidified. We’ll continue to communicate with you every step of the way.

Lastly, I would like to thank the WildStar community that has supported us through this difficult time. I understand fully that events like this affect all of you as well, and we appreciate those of you who continue to play the game and engage with us. As I have said many times, WildStar was created for you, and I’m looking forward to working together to make it even better.

Pappy


--------------------------

So basically no new content ever after Arcterra and the only things that will be released are things that they can recycle to nickel and dime as much as possible before the servers get shut down in a few months. Sounds dead to me.

Paragraph by Paragraph:

Last Friday was an extremely difficult day for Carbine. As many of you know, WildStar has not been performing as well as we had hoped, and because of that we can no longer afford to develop new content.

That being said, I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that this is not the end for WildStar. The content that is already 95% completed will be cleaned up and released by our skeleton crew within the next three weeks. The Steam release is also near completion, and the employees in charge of that won't be laid off until it's completed.

We are contractually obligated to say anything we can to prevent the community from thinking we have abandoned the game completely, so here's a list of projects that will likely never see the light of day.

It’s important for everyone to realize that the next few months will be a transitional period for Carbine, as we empty out our development studio one team at a time, in preparation for the bi-annual NCSoft MMO sunsetting ritual.

Lastly, I would like to thank the WildStar community that has supported us through this difficult time. I understand fully that events like this affect all of you as well, and we appreciate those of you who continue to play the game and engage with us. As I have said many times, WildStar was created for you, and fuck all of you who said you thought a Vanilla WoW style experience would be anywhere close to successful.

[Tryuk]

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/f...1#entry1495207

So basically no new content ever after Arcterra and the only things that will be released are things that they can recycle to nickel and dime as much as possible before the servers get shut down in a few months. Sounds dead to me.

*Halon Ring

How far it goes is probably up to NCsoft, they could pull a CoH and cancel everything right before RMT and Halon Ring though. Carbine seems to be intending to do more or less what they wanted. Very surprised that RMT is still going on though.

[Deleted]

Stay positive …. but be ready for unfortunately.

That's what I read in the message, then again we all have different eyes

But I would like to add, after playing the new zone on the PTR ( it's beautiful ) and the rest of game with the PTR updates is in a good place! If you've never played Wildstar, now would be the time!
Nothing P2W and NO content is behind a paywall.

[Gray_Matter]

Stay positive …. but be ready for unfortunately.

That's what I read in the message, then again we all have different eyes

But I would like to add, after playing the new zone on the PTR ( it's beautiful ) and the rest of game with the PTR updates is in a good place! If you've never played Wildstar, now would be the time!
Nothing P2W and NO content is behind a paywall.

I don't think it's done for yet. I think they are taking a wait an see approach with Steam. They are cutting staff before to hedge their bets. If Steam does well then they will hire back staff. The good thing about Steam is that a large part of it will be new users. They won't be bound by the negative launch.

[Coldkil]

As i said also on official forums, if they invest on less expensive solo/casual/small group content which has an incredibly good fundation, maybe they will be able to save the game.

Keeping in mind that raids are really good and i can get how a good amount of the people left love them, i don't think that raiding progression is still sustainable for the game.

More housing, more zones, more open world events, more expeditions. Content that anyone can easily jump in and it can be as challenging as they want since less people doesn't automatically equals to braindead difficulty.

It's only my hope for the game. Want to attract more players? Stop focusing on raids which in a game like WoW is also getting old and stale and people just don't care about it anymore (if not for LFR which is basically AFKing to do the legendary quest because reasons).

[Deleted]

I'd love to see one day all housing decor owned shared accross account. Getting this one special decor and realising it's just on an alt feels so shitty.

[Acidbaron]

As i said also on official forums, if they invest on less expensive solo/casual/small group content which has an incredibly good fundation, maybe they will be able to save the game.

Keeping in mind that raids are really good and i can get how a good amount of the people left love them, i don't think that raiding progression is still sustainable for the game.

More housing, more zones, more open world events, more expeditions. Content that anyone can easily jump in and it can be as challenging as they want since less people doesn't automatically equals to braindead difficulty.

It's only my hope for the game. Want to attract more players? Stop focusing on raids which in a game like WoW is also getting old and stale and people just don't care about it anymore (if not for LFR which is basically AFKing to do the legendary quest because reasons).

The game has had 2 raids for how long now? And how much small to solo content is there? You have to be fairly selective in what you want to see if you find the focus is raids.

[Coldkil]

The game has had 2 raids for how long now? And how much small to solo content is there? You have to be fairly selective in what you want to see if you find the focus is raids.

Yeah, you're right.

Anyway currently raids are the source of best equipement so people is naturally attracted by them - by "focus" i meant that raids are the endgame, even if there's only 2 of them. While i'd like to see more raids in game since it's the signal of an healthy playerbase, i don't think they have many more options imho.

[CptEgo]

The game has had 2 raids for how long now?

And most people still haven't completed those raids because they are fucking hard. That's the whole point with Wildstar..

[Acidbaron]

And most people still haven't done those raids because they are fucking hard. That's the point..

The first one is being pugged, the second one isn't last i heard which is months is that it's mostly bugs and random elements that causes issues that and keeping a decent roster.

There are plenty of other reward structures and honestly, i never really got the whole argument that boils down to "I don't raid but i NEED raid gear!" always found it nonsense and merely a false sense of entitlement.

[Sheevah]

There are plenty of other reward structures and honestly, i never really got the whole argument that boils down to "I don't raid but i NEED raid gear!" always found it nonsense and merely a false sense of entitlement.

I completely agree on that one, and I'm just a guy that focuses on solo content. I have no gripes with better gear coming from raids, because there is no need for it in the content I'm participating in.

I think that the "need" for raid gear comes predominantly from 2 areas: 1) People that are into cosmetics that can't get their hands on a look they want without raiding, and 2) people that want gear with higher stats to carry them through content they should already be able to do, but lack the patience or skills to down said content in an efficient fashion.

[Kelimbror]

And most people still haven't completed those raids because they are fucking hard. That's the whole point with Wildstar..

That's funny. You have people on here that have claimed even since beta that it's not the point and that this game is totally open to casual players and that raiding isn't hard and that everyone is entitled. In fact, they just made the same facetious argument yesterday. But it's ok, because we all know you are correct.

And that is precisely the reason why it failed out of the gate. Not Donatelli nor Pappy could salvage the mess that Gaffney and Frost made.