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Wildstar - a game suffering from identity crisis
Wildstar is sending out 2 very different messages from the info they have released and other info that has been shown through videos. Let's take a look at the split personality:
1. Difficult, hardcore Wildstar: On one hand they have claimed they are bringing back the difficulty in mmo's. Big, hard, 40 man raids and gear progression, not for the feint of heart. They have really pushed the difficulty factor in almost all talks of their raiding, and while they have hinted at other things to do at max level the vast majority of talk and information has been about raiding - so it definitely seems that is their main focus for endgame. So, a hardcore end game raiding mmo like Everquest, vanilla WOW, etc. Cool!
2. Carefree, fun, casual Wildstar: On the other hand everything that has been shown and talked about of the leveling process looks like it's the oppositet. Huge arrows flashing on the screen pointing you in the direction of where you need to go for your current quests takes hand holding to a new level really, and the argument could be made the telegraph system also dumbs down combat gameplay. It's been said solo to max level would be perfectly achievable also. In general it just seems they are aiming for a light, care free, casual, fun game experience for gamers. Awesome!
So are either of these bad in and of themselves? NO, they sound cool! But the problem is they don't mix in one game in my opinion. The people who are more casual and relaxed are going to have a blast during the leveling process then get to end game and be presented with this hardcore raiding and be like huh? Then the hardcore raiders or those people drawn to the game for the promise of a hard mmo again are likely to find all the hand holding and easy laid back style of the leveling process unappealing. Casuals don't turn hardcore at endgame usually and hardcore players don't usually just play all casual until endgame. Of course there will be a percentage that enjoy both, but in general I think the opposite direction type decisions they have made in gameplay focus really don't add up to well for longevity.
Comments
what has ever been hardcore about leveling in WOW ?
EQ2 fan sites
On the contrary, i think you need both to make a successful MMO.
The issue with mixing both always comes down to guilds. Will there be enough players to recruit to raiding guilds, or is this trend of everyone wanting to form their own guilds going to continue? I think that issue divides players more than hardcore/casual.
It's beginning to seem like people are looking for every, and anything, they can to find negative about this game.
Really not sure I get all the fortune telling that goes on around here.
Vanilla WoW was always pitched as "casual" leveling, with "hardcore" endgame raiding. Maybe someone should have told blizzard that doesn't work?
Those terms weren't very big when WoW Nilla was released, [mod edit]
RAWR
those terms were well known on SOE forums preWOW -- Everquest is where raiding started
EQ2 fan sites
I'll give you the problem with 1. Difficult, hardcore Wildstar. The problem with these type of raids is that you need to be in pretty good guild with team speak and all. Also you need to know the ins and outs of the raid otherwise you'll be kicked out for someone else. That's where MMO start to crumble and lose A LOT of people. Nobody has the time any more for long hourly raids and on top of that with a slight possibility to even get the gear you're looking for, so that adds more to the rage quit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you put everyone max level with every piece of gear. What I am saying is bringing back the fun it was to raid back then, you know, with 5-6 people having fun camping a boss room. Raids today have become too much of a chore that nobody have time for any more. FF14 anyone? FF14 is probably the best example of a raid / grinding system that will soon prove to be fatal if they don't correct it by new year or some where along the road in the 1st Q of 2014. Back then PvP was all about team work and skills, not equipment and P2W cash shops. Granted we still got some old timers able to own P2W players but even them are losing hope in the MMORPG industry. At least we got some nice MMORTS on the rise, which will be refreshing.
Your opinion is flawed. Both the Hardcore and the Softcore...um, I mean Casual (almost made a porn reference there) can coexist within the same game. WoW Vanilla proved this. Guild Wars 2 does a great job of having Hardcore content such as higher level Fractals, Legendary Weapons, and other things of that nature.
The thing that's interesting about MMORPG's -proper ones- is that they're living, breathing worlds that fit all types of players. This is unlike specific genre type games that only support specifically aimed customer bases.
Hours played. In the first months of BC, level 1 to 70 playing with a questing guide to optimize performance took 240 to 300 hours (not counting endgame). If hardcore is used as a measure of time spent playing, that's 10 to 12 days playing 24 hours a day, or a few months playing 4 to 8 hours a week.
Don't get me wrong, leveling wasn't difficult, just time consuming and tedious.
As for WildStar, what I think we're seeing as the contradiction is that marketing department positions the game as appealing to players who want difficult, but under the skin it's similar to modern MMORPGs. Old WoW did this also. Anyone remember the old trailers "You are not prepared" ? Prepared for what? *chuckles*
The way I see it, this is all about market image. Tell them the game is tough, and when they do well, tell them they are just really skilled to complete it so easily. Doing so feeds the ego of players. At least that's my perspective. WS isn't really on my radar, so I haven't spent a lot of time learning about it.
The question is fair, but it hits the wrong areas of the game to make a point. Right now, the only issue from the hardcore standpoint would be regular quest mob time to kill and danger level. So far feedback from videos and such has been that its a little too easy, mobs die too quickly and the danger level is low.
There is no point in giving a heal ability, or food, or med pack, or anything of the sort if the player never needs to use those things during his quest experience. This not only makes combat and leveling boring, but like was pointed out, jarrs the player when they do get to something challenging like a dungeon, world boss, or something at end game.
Do keep in mind we have mostly only seen leveling in the teens and this is beta, we all should know this, and they have been tuning these very things back and forth already. The target time has been said to be 150 hours to level, and hopefully with more feedback, they will make the questing mobs provide some sort of danger so that the player needs to use those health and shield "rewards", and not just vendor them.
The other things pointed out in the op like questing arrows and telegraphs and help tooltips can all be turned off in the options menu's, and really aren't something to be labeled as "casual" in the context of the op's question.
guess it depends how you play the game
my EQ raiding guild played at WOW launch Thanksgiving 2004
we were all 60 and raiding during the first 6 weeks of WOW - no questing guides or exp boosts
I also remember measuring how fast it was to level in WOW (compared to EQ2 launch)
WOW was 3x faster
Old post I made about WOW pre-release, Oct 2004
WoW: speed levelling?
related old thread about WOW
First to max level?
EQ2 fan sites
The problem is, that the contradiction in content with easy lvling, and 'hardcore' end game is the staple for MMOs... and maybe even games in general with the beginning being too easy to learn the ropes, and of course being challenging towards the end.
Its not much of a leap in being much more challenging from questing in heroic missions towards level cap, and end game raids. So depending on the game, there are some quests along the way to end game which are challenging.
The contradiction I see is that they want to make a fun game where gear grind does not exist for progression from lvl1 to cap, but then in raids as challenging as it may be suddenly has a gear grind because the boss might forget to collect everyone's gear for them, or is just naked.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
@Nadia
Head some laughs reading trough the ancient threads you posted, particularly the "Hero Class" thing. I remember now, there was a big hype about that pre-release. And it was actually - Blizz will never lie to you - released later in the game. Well one. Two addons later. Hilarious.
On topic: I guess WS, being frankly an endgame orientied type of game, does the right thing in making leveling fun and not all too tedious. Even in WoW, where I enjoyed the lore and loved many of the zones from Vanilla before they screwed them in Cataclysm, I could not bring myself to level another alt by collecting mofoing goretusk livers and stuff the 100th time. I hated leveling in a lot of other MMOs, because they did not even pretend to have some lore worth telling in their quests or stuff to explore. Hope WS will actually be a genetically improved "WoW-Clone" in that respect and do this better than e. g. Guild Wars 2. You got more lore in Darkshire in vanilla WoW than you get in all of Kryta (despite the usual "kill 20 ogres" quests), and it's not that GW has no story to tell...
I think if Wildstar really delivers on what they have said about consistent end game content for the casuals then it won't be as much of an issue. However all the real information they have released has been about the raids so it comes across that's where their real development attention is. Time will tell I suppose.
One of the more modern mmo's that I feel did a really good job of representing itself well and consistently throughout the whole game was LOTRO at launch and until they started dumbing it down. Many quests and zones throughout the leveling process were just brutal and you would have to get a really good group together, or even a raid, to stand a chance - and often times this was just for normal questing in a zone. So it was fairly consistent with difficulty throughout.
As long as Wildstar delivers the casual solo content at endgame for the crowd they are targetting their level experience for then great. And I think it would also help if all these hand holding features could be turned off as an option for the people who want hard and challenge like the raiding focus they are doing at endgame.
Perhaps yes "All MMOs are defined by endgame content now" , but not all MMO Players define MMOs by just end game content.
Some Players find as much or more enjoyment from the Journey (leveling) as they do the Destination (End Game). I myself prefer Leveling to End Game almost completely. I've done my share of end game raiding and content and most of it I either found repeatative and boring (even more so than some leveling), or not enjoyable due to some of the other Players I participated in the end game content with (Raiding is fun with friends, sux with power freaks and asshats).
I am looking forward to Paths and I intend to enjoy that new idea to the hilt. I will probably make 4 Paths of each class just to try out and see how the Path choice changes the Leveling experience.
Now I hate money, and modern business attitude, all that, but even I see the "financial potential" with Paths... just think about it. MMOs have needed another "bait" to get Players to "bite the hook" of Subscriptions and Paths will help with that to an extent, how much is yet to be seen. A feature that can encourage Players to continue their Sub a few more months so they can play a Class with a slightly different focus. For some Players like myself Paths is the kind of feature we have been hoping for in a MMO for years. Fun for Players (some Players), good for the MMO Publishers.
@OP in regards to Identity crisis..... I don't see it at all. I see a MMO trying to please everyone, and that is in itself an "identity". There is no "crisis" there. If Carbine does manage to pull off the trick of pleasing both the hardcore and casuals they will have done good. Not many MMO Publishers can pull this off.
But if they DO get it right.... WS will become the new favorite of many Players, and that will be a welcome event considering how many times in the past years many of us have been disappointed with new MMOs.
I think that you're drawing the line where telegraph == easy. Why do you feel that way? What you may not realize is that you've been playing telegraphs your entire MMO career. Tell me one single end game raid boss who isn't somehow scripted? Do you have DBM installed for WoW? That just goes one step further and throws up big bells and whistles whenever you should be paying attention and even tells you what you should be paying attention to. And if you're a hardcore end game raider, you have this installed because if you don't your group will simply kick you, unless you're ultra hardcore and run with a guild/group who are purists and don't use any addon.
Instead of thinking of how a telegraph system can dumb down a fight, why not think about how it can make it more difficult. Your penalties for standing in the crap can be that much more brutal. It addition, it's no longer a dance, you can make the boss do whatever they want in whichever order they want. You need to anticipate any attack at any time, no scripting. Plus, you can decrease cast times and force people to react more quickly.
I grow tired of people who believe that WoW isn't telegraphed. It's almost like they've never played an MMO (or really any game with bosses) before. Not saying Wildstar will capitalize on the system, but the opportunity to ramp up the difficulty is there.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I'm 37, buddy.
And Blizzard has always marketed the game in just that way.
So perhaps it is easy to get around and to know where to go to get to mobs which are more difficult to take down......
doesn't sound too far fetched.
Every game that tries to have tougher questing that requires groups while leveling ultimately undoes it all. Inevitably people complain about not being able to solo level, and eventually the newbies run out of fellow newbies to group with.
This is why forced grouping outside of end game hasn't been popular in a long time. It's generally fine when you have tons of players looking for a group while leveling. But once the majority get to end game, any potential new players are screwed.
"Wildstar - A game for those that have no Epinions that hinder their own playing experiences."
Fixed that for you there
There was a reason why Blizzard went away with the "hardcore" raiding, and for good reason. And they still have the hardcore raiding still in the form of heroics. When Blizz reduced the incintive to do 25 man raids there was a large drop and there is a reason for that, cordinating large scale raids is a fucking pain in the ass where most of the time your sitting round with your thumb up your ass.
Wildstar has released zero detail on raiding other than it's suppose to be challenging which how many times in the past have we heard this or some other promise by a Dev and they completely failed to deliver? I'll believe this when I see it. But really I have my doubts.
But on a different note, does anyone else think of TOR's smuggler every time you see Wildstar's Space Cowboy? Dual wielding pistols, flat brim hat, trech coat like out appareal.... that is what comes to mind when I saw this thread's title.
From everything I have gathered this generation "lets call it second generation WoW", hardcore has become the word used to describe raids this generation and is in general the definition of hardcore when it comes to MMO's it seems.
Even though it wouldn't be my exact definition of hardcore "in the least", it is in fact what most new school MMO players consider to be "modern day hardcore" and to that fact I would have to say when it comes to raids I would consider myself "casual" as in my mind that in fact makes me hardcore.
Hope I didn't confuse you further, lol.