[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[Racthoh]

I didn't get to play this game enough and now I missed my chance... damn

Maybe someone'll open a private server

[Yunru]

I didn't get to play this game enough and now I missed my chance... damn

Maybe someone'll open a private server

Low chance....heck even goldsellers avoided this game. One tried once on chat and got burned very fast on it.

[Usagi Senshi]

I didn't get to play this game enough and now I missed my chance... damn

Maybe someone'll open a private server

I keep secretly hoping that Blizzard buys the IP and merge s it with the WoW universe since space/other world only expansions will be the norm going forward.

[amishjello]

Man I loved this game so much. It had everything I wanted in a mmo. If only it had decent devs that didnt run it into the ground.

Heres hoping some decent studio picks up Wildstar to bring it back to life.

[serendipity11]

I keep secretly hoping that Blizzard buys the IP and merge s it with the WoW universe since space/other world only expansions will be the norm going forward.

Eh? Even if bliz did buy the IP which is within the realm of possibility they aren't gonna merge it with WoW.

[Usagi Senshi]

Eh? Even if bliz did buy the IP which is within the realm of possibility they aren't gonna merge it with WoW.

I know that, just let me dream and fantasize! I just want the bunny people i n WoW. :P

I'll have those in FFXIV next year anyway.

[Aurabolt]

Eh? Even if bliz did buy the IP which is within the realm of possibility they aren't gonna merge it with WoW.

...This.

Blizzard has taken concepts from their other IPs and put them in WoW (such as Fel Hounds in WoW using the same model as Zerglings in StarCraft) but never merged the IPs. Just borrowed concepts more or less.

Blizz could certainly buy Wildstar--and qe all know they have the money to do it--but the question is why would they?

[Baconeggcheese]

I don't know if anyone posted this yet, but I watched it earlier and some actual devs explain how shit the game really was in the first few comments:

Yeah that first comment sounds about right for what you gotta imagine is the situation for things at launch on a lot of these MMO's. I always love these inside looks into how things are run.

There's just infinitely these head scratching decisions being made constantly. So many people in leadership roles or positions of authority that have absolutely no business being there.


I lost interest in this game pretty fast, they sold it as this "hardcore" thing but at least for what I played it wasn't "hardcore" at all, unless hardcore is meant to be tedious. At the time felt that maybe they could carry that niche if they had done it right, but just didn't see it.

Still a shame when one of these games die. I always hope for their success because having more options on the market is always good.

[Torto]

A cautionary tale of how studios should never cater to neckbeard forum users. They are such a small percentage of players and their attitude drives away casuals. You need money to run mmo's, which means you need casual players, lots of them. Blizzard learned from the beginning you have to cater to the lowest common denominator and work from there.

I laugh at people on forums like this one arguing for things like getting rid of lfr. End result, you get Wildstar.

[Jtbrig7390]

No, no it's not. You can't blame Ncsoft for cutting their losses after being fucked over twice. Any sane business would in a heartbeat.

No I don't blame NCSoft for cutting their losses, I blame them for everything else.

Both NCSoft and Carbine mishandled this, Both are guilty of it. If you think NCSoft was 100% hands off then I don't know what to tell you cause they wasn't.

[frogger237]

Should have started with a tv show first to build up a potential playerbase. Then had a couple of the artists make up a bunch of hentai to spread thru the internet. People tend to think they can just create a new ip and millions will flock to it and while it can be possible most success comes from using existing things.

[ryanmahaffe]

Not my fucking fault a company releases a bad product. Most MMOs get one month from me. If it sucks ass I don't go back. Bad launch = bad forever in most situations, FF being an outlier because they fixed the game.

No, bad launch=dead forever in most situations. Mmorpgs are an evolving game type and usually an mmo 1 year after is a completely different beast.

- - - Updated - - -

No I don't blame NCSoft for cutting their losses, I blame them for everything else.

Both NCSoft and Carbine mishandled this, Both are guilty of it. If you think NCSoft was 100% hands off then I don't know what to tell you cause they wasn't.

An ex Wildstar dev popped up in Towelliees WoW stream earlier today and offered some insight on some issues with both companies.

Carbine just wasn't productive, they redid entire zones multiple times, even ones that "didn't need it" and they were so focused on making something perfect that their time was spread like shit, they were managed horribly, and NCsoft just said you have to release the game, stahp. Which is completely fair but maybe a later release would have been better.

A fantastic world (the artists did a great job) GOD TIER music (Jeff is a god) Great gameplay, and some great lore. All ruined by shitty unfinished systems, broken endgame content, and yadayada.

[Kyanion]

No, bad launch=dead forever in most situations. Mmorpgs are an evolving game type and usually an mmo 1 year after is a completely different beast.

And the 20 people still playing that game after a year are happy for the changes I'm sure. You want to see how short the shelf life is for a MMO just watch after month 1.

[ryanmahaffe]

And the 20 people still playing that game after a year are happy for the changes I'm sure. You want to see how short the shelf life is for a MMO just watch after month 1.

So did you just concede that most mmorps do get better over time orrr?

You aren't making an argument, just random nonsense.

[Kokolums]

Form what I understand, Wildstar had quality raids, but they were locked behind a tough attunement, and PvP not only offered better gear, but you could totally cheese PvP by wintrading. Furthermore, Carbine never did anything to counteract wintrading. So endgame became a mess, where people just PvP wintraded to gear up and then got bored and quit. it was practically on the level of a crappy pirate server with its endgame design (or lack thereof). I heard horror stories of raiding guilds sitting around trying to fill out their raid with people and being unable to do so, and then taking the raid into a PvP match, winning easily, and getting more powerful gear than what the raid they were trying to run offered. It sounded hopeless.

But that's just from what I heard, I didn't play it.

[Kyanion]

So did you just concede that most mmorps do get better over time orrr?

You aren't making an argument, just random nonsense.

Most mmorpgs do get better? Maybe they do. But by then public opinion is out and servers are ghost towns. I mean you can believe whatever the fuck you like, if WS was so good it would still be around. The game was utter shit and I didn't even get out of my first free month I was so bored. Nothing of value was lost.

[Usagi Senshi]

No I don't blame NCSoft for cutting their losses, I blame them for everything else.

Both NCSoft and Carbine mishandled this, Both are guilty of it. If you think NCSoft was 100% hands off then I don't know what to tell you cause they wasn't.

Yes, I only blame Carbine as guilt by association is always bullshit reasoning and I'll never buy into it.

Also, whats "everything else"? That's pretty ambiguous and comes off as more of a personal grievance than facts.

I can't think of a single thing NCsoft has done wrong other than slightly mishandling its own Korean MMOs for Western markets. Still not a big deal.

[serendipity11]

Should have started with a tv show first to build up a potential playerbase. Then had a couple of the artists make up a bunch of hentai to spread thru the internet. People tend to think they can just create a new ip and millions will flock to it and while it can be possible most success comes from using existing things.

Honestly this is a BIG part of it. All the other successful MMOs were built of pre existing IP.

Other then I think the original everquest which hasn't been popular since WoW.

WoW had 3 warcraft games and warcraft 3 was particularly successful (Even spawning the MOBA genre).

GW2 had guild wars 1.

FFXIV was a final fantasy game made by a beloved publisher Square Enix.

ESO is based off the extremely popular elder scrolls series.

SWTOR was star wars one of the most popular sci fi things out there.

Rift did alright for awhile despite being an original IP and I don't think it failed because of that. Honestly wildstar didn't fail because of that but they do contribute. Some people have loyalty or fondness to a certain IP. Ones trying without having something pre established really have to work harder to earn loyalty. EQ.

The only reason games like neverwinter, STO, DDO, and LotRO haven't died imho is because they're based off an established IP. Despite the games being mediocre at best.

Speaking of I'd love a mass effect and or dragon age MMO.

If we get a MA mmo I better not be race-locked to human though! I wanna be an Asari so bad.

[KainneAbsolute]

this video talks about several topics of why wild star died. There is comment of ex dev where it says the game failed before launch:

"Ex Dev on wildstar here. Watched the video and although it was quiet informative, I just wanted to chime in on some of the key factors on why this game was a huge flop.
I worked on the game for 5+ years and let me tell you.. This games was destined to fail wayyy before there was any issues with servers or not enough updates.
Development on this project was a nightmare. The real Development time frame was closer to 10/11 years. Coming onto the project at the 5 year mark I soon realized that the leads and big boys had no fucking clue what a good game was and they could not commit to any idea. Too many cooks in the kitchen that can't cook anything other than Mayo and Beef Jerky sandwiches... Look for the double meaning in that. It's there.
One of the most prevalent issues with the game that I noticed was bad direction from top down. People like Tim Cain specifically made way more problems than they were worth. Honestly the guy was a total dick. Awful to work with and almost nothing he "did" ended up in the game. His lack of leardership I would say was one of the reasons why the first 4-5 years of the game were almost completely thrown out. Literally...
Then you have an art director who couldn't keep his nose out of anything. His selfishness drove off many of the best artists in the company including cory loftis. Literally... Cory Loftis LEFT the game which is based off of his style almost entirely because of this guy. This same art director was also responsible for hijacking the story and overall vision of the game as well. Wondering why there wasn't more raids and dungeons? Because the ART DIRECTOR thought several ALREADY MADE LEVELS didn't fit the story anymore... So they threw them away... He also made calls on gameplay... Which... is a hole other nightmare.

The gameplay was once good... I would say around the 7 year mark. 1v1 combat was very fun at this point and each class felt very unique and fun. Unfortunately most of that was thrown away and replaced with alot of new stuff that was just NOT tested enough. I repeat... most of what launched in Wild star combat wise was BARELY tested. Stuff like Warplots was broken to shit from start to finish. The designers leading WarPlots were absolute lazy trash and would knowingly put in broken systems and call them done just to appease their bosses. The only reason that warplots was even REMOTELY playable on launch was because of some amazing talent on the 3D prop team. I am not joking.. Artists LEANRNED HOW TO SCRIPT TO FIX THIS CRAP.
Pvp in general was absolutely broken. I didn't even work on paper let alone work in a multi million dollar game. The idea of telegraphs is pretty straight forward and seems to just work for most cases in combat.... except in any fight larger that has more than two characters per team... Attack telegraphs drawing on the ground is very clear when you have a small amount of people fighting but in medium to large pvp fights ( pretty much every fight that matters) the entire ground becomes a multi colored disco dance floor. Casual to moderate gamers were like deer in headlights during the VERY FEW playtests that were had for larger pvp battles. SO MUCH FEEDBACK was given by the teams that participated in these tests and almost nothing was fixed about it.
The leadership was god awful. Proof of this was that most of the BEST things in the games that players loved the most such as Double Jump and Hoverboards were things that were never planned for or schedules by leads. Those were passion projects. Double Jump was made by an ARTIST. That artist got in trouble for making double jump and eventually fired for other reasons. Never got credit either. Hoverboards were snuck in by an animator... He got written up for secretly working on hoverboards in his freetime with other coworkers. The place was a prison of ideas and everyone was getting shanked for even THINKING that they WANTED to think of something to improve the game.

Oh did I mention mandatory Crunch? We would crunch for months at a time. Mandatory. I remember working from 10am to 3 am everynight 6 days a week for about 3 months straight. And I got a talking to once because I was 10 minutes late to work. ONCE. Because Jeremy Gafney saw me coming in late. Everyone working on this game was absolutely DONE with the BS and it shows. The love died way before this game launched. No one in the studio really wanted to play the game. And then we shifted to try to cater to the hardcore audience?! ( this was the version on launch. The hardcore not for pansies mmo) During a time where pretty much almost every successful game was being carried hard by more casual players.

I can go on but... I think you get the picture. These devs thought they were clever enough to ignore pretty much every other successful business model and all other mmorpgs to make this.. There you have it..."

[serendipity11]

That makes me really sad. Why do people have to ruin a good thing, squash on potential?