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Reasons why WS is struggling
PioneerStew
Member Posts: 874
We have all seen the financial reports and the WS section makes dire reading.
Here are my to reasons why WS failed to achive reasonabe initial numbers and failed to retain those people they did attract: -
1) Hardcore
They hugely over-estimated the size of the hardcore market. There is a reason why most other mmo's are becoming more casual friendly. it is because the audience is ageing and the alternative entertainment options are increasing. The majority of gamers simply to not want a hardcore mmo.
2) Hardcore
They simply mistook challenge for effluxion of time. They made vast levelling zones in a game that is supposedly all about end game. Why? They then made gated content that was essentially a time sink. When you are abundantly aware that a game mechanic is a time sink you start to wonder why you are bothering.
The dungeon content is divisive. If you mess up you fall into a lower medal category, this only results in alienating player after player from your game.
They are my thoughts on the subject, please share your own.
Comments
First of all, saying Wildstar is struggling is an overshoot. It is not WoW with its 6,5 million subs, but its not struggling either (Yes I have seen the 2nd quarter earnings and you know that NCsoft doesnt get 100% of the income right?). Of course, Wildstar didnt get all the players it wanted, but no MMORPGs since WoW have done that, so why should Wildstar?
But why didnt they get all the players they wanted? Because the players expected too much. They fell for the hype, just like any other MMORPG before even knowing what it was. Wildstar has stated it a lot of times. It can be summarized into 1 sentence:
"Wildstar is a game for hardcore end-gamer who wishes to have a challenge and be rewarded and punished accordingly to performance".
Casual games who do NOT seek a challenge but just another mindless grind fest or casual roleplaying do not want to play the game, but they thought they would because they didnt investigate the core concepts of the game.
Wildstar is not a WoW-clone, its a niche product for gamers with an above-average skill level which also demands a certain age of moth maturity and patience, which is why Wildstar does not attract the people with an age below 20.
So again, why is Wildstar "struggling"? The answer is, it isnt, because its not like WoW or any other casual game, its a niche product to the best of the best or to the people who just like Wildstar for what it is. Since it has a monthly sub fee, 100.000 players can earn NCsoft and Carbine more than 1.000.000 at SWTOR and the likes.
I think it's struggling. The main forums for the game talk about server pop issues all the time and after coming back for drop 3, having left just before drop 1 I have noticed a marked decrease in players across the zone at least on 2 different servers.
On top of that, I hit 50 finally, as that was my main goal this time around, get to endgame and see if I like it. So, got to 50, got on the daily train and attunement process and lost ALL interest within a day.
1. I can't stand the community and dungeon running in this one, they aren't fun when people are screaming at each other if you are new to a dungeon or people leaving/dropping party on the first wipe.
2. I hit 50 on Tuesday morning. Just after the weekly cap for elder gems hit. So, I literally have to wait a week to get my key and continue the attunement process. So...since I don't enjoy running dungeons in the game, what else is left to do? I went to tackle the reputation requirement through old zones and just lost all interest again, not really wanting to complete every quest as it just felt tedious. (Mind you I've done this type of play in many other MMOs and they weren't as painful to accomplish).
3. Wanted to do Warplots but apparently you need to know people with one and form a group instead of just using LFG to hop into someone else's randomly. So there goes that part I was looking forward to trying.
Also, the time intensive aspect of the game just doesn't work for me. I'm not much for large raiding, prefer 10 mans and no more, because I can't stand being beholden to other people. When I play I want to do it on MY time not someone else's. Small dungeon runs in other MMOs fit into this nicely, Wildstar's do not.
Needless to say I unsubbed a day after hitting 50. Even playing alts isn't as appealing as other MMOs. Extrapolate from my experience what you will.
but you provided an answer already: reward attuned players for helping unattuned players gear up.
somehow make it worth their while to put in some small effort to help others attune. i think that's a great solution, for a lot of games really.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I was joking when I labelled both reasons 'hardcore'. If you read the OP you will see that this is not essentially my issue with WS.
Other than raiding and the combat nothing is fun in this game. Pvp needs gear balancing so that its more of a skill game and less of I got 1800 before you. Quest hub leveling and daily quest rep grinds needs to go. They created a kick ass world, but give you no reason to go back out into it.
The fix I would implement would be to take all that gear on the rep vendors and put it out into the world on rare npcs deep in some elite open world dungeons. I want to play a game not sit around in a city and wait for a queue to pop for a dungeon/adventure to only have it fall apart when some guy dies to random shit.
"Its better to look ugly and win than pretty and lose"
WS did not struggle and imo is not struggling because this was a VERY cheap game to make and they got a lot of people to buy into their marketing.I wouldn't give this game the time of day yet it still has a decent amount of players,so i would say they exceeded expectations.
Also hardcore has nothing to do with it,it is just another linear questing game.Most hardcore game i ever seen is FFXI and since Wow had the most number for an easy linear questing,instance game i would say Hard core has NEVER been an issue with choice of gaming.
People play Blizzard games because it already had a huge following before the internet boom, SOE lost a lot of it's following,Square is sort of ho hum from it's earlier domination in the 90's with it's console games.Where does WS fall into this,well they offer nothing new just old tech and old graphics,VERY lucky to achieve what they already have.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It had a 9 year development cycle, the last few years of which had 200 directly employed staff (ignoring everything that was out-sourced). This was far from a cheap game to produce; there are entire threads on this issue but as a very conservative estimate the development costs were >$100m.
ahh mybad im hungover and i thought you were implying its hard becuse i recently saw some WS posts saying it was "hard"
I would disagree, hardcore in Imho is the time you put in, it doesn't necessarily mean difficulty. so a player who sinks 6+ hours each day into a game i would consider a hardcore player and someone who only has an 1 hour is casual. And this game rewards player who sink the most time into it, i can't just jump in for an hour an expect to get everything, only thing is probably levels. Housing takes time to get anything, crafting, money, dungeons, raids. In simpler terms it's a game for those who rather take the stairs to the top floor than the elevator. it has been said over and over again that the game would be like this, but as expected from here, no one bothered to read up on it.
I stopped reading right about where it says, no mmo since wow !!!
As if wow started with 6 million players !
Wow itself started with just about 200k subs, learn your mmo history or STFU about it. Only state what you do know !!!
I do conquer though that WS is not doing as hot as it thought it would, but than again whose fault is that ?
fucking morons focused to much on the 10% of the community that cries "We want hardcore"
Look at Sony's great hardcore mmo "Wizardry Online" where is it now ?
SHUTDOWN NOTICE
https://forums.station.sony.com/wo/index.php?threads/with-great-regret-we-announce-your-wizardry-journey-is-coming-to-an-end.4771/
Times have changed, only 10% of the community still wants to relive those hardcore BS days of grinding for weeks to acquire one good piece of gear, now a days we got so much shit to do IRL we don't got time for time sinks and moronic grinds.
Here is my position on Wildstar.
I have no problem with game having hard group content. Game was advertised as such, and complaining about difficulty of the game, and bitching about the game punishing you for "not being good enough" is out of place. You don't come to EVE and expect a themepark, and you don't come to WoW and expect challenge.
I have no problems with game having boring and somewhat "grindy" levelling, that is the way of doing things in most themepark MMO's, and if you complain about quest grind in MMO games, you should reconsider your gaming habits. If anything, levelling process gives you the opportunity to learn your class, and practice the combat system.
What I do have problems with is attunement. I believe the game should let me decide when I am ready to raid. If I am not ready, and not geared, I will get wiped, but that is my problem. Why do I, after completing the levelling process, after learning all there is to learn about my class, need to go through lenghty, grindy and ultimately useless process of "attunement" just so I could start the lenghty, grindy but at least fun and challenging process of raid progression? The only reason I can think of is that they decided to implement it to artificially prolong the endgame. I am all for long endgame progression, but attunement is not progression, its a grind with no purpose other than to force you to sink time before the raid.
Man you couldnt be farther from the truth, the problem with wildstar as is all other mmos even wow now, wow isnt the giant it was, you have 6.5 millio subs, it used to have 12 mill, so i would say there is just as large of a hardcore market than a casual, so stfu with ur nonsense, and it failed because you can play the game by yourself, that so boring you dont see people playing basket ball alone, or football, or any other sport hell you rarely see human beings doing anything by themselves, it goes against human nature, the reason wildstar failed was because it wasnt hard enough, i play darksouls now, i cant put that game down and its a single player game for the most part, why? because its fucking hard and it drives me to succeed, to not accept defeat, make me use my {OH MY GOD COVER YOUR EYES IS SO SCARY HEEELEP MEEEE) WILL to do better.
I wish this website actually did the right thing vs be another executive shit decision.
Oh please, cut the "above-average skill level.." crap already. I played the game for a period of 6 months, 4 in closed beta with access to the raids and another 2 after release. The only "difficult" thing about WS is to get accustomed with the action oriented play style and learn your interrupts, that's all there is to it. And no, having to avoid the same ability a gazillion times until the boss dies is not hard. It is frustrating and sometimes exhausting. In fact, the game enforces players to focus way to much in the "get out of the red stuff" motto than the actual boss fight mechanic itself.
As i wrote in an earlier post, Wildstar is a classic gear progression MMO. Now, when you make this progression accessible to only a certain portion of your player base then you end up with almost empty realms like many in the EU right now. Nobody stays just for the housing or the crafting.
Yeah, I enjoyed FFXIV up to 50 too and after that just wasn't interested in the "group" side of the game. I came back recently for the 3 faction PVP, which was fun and some of the storyline stuff but again, level an alt to 50, was happy with that and unsubbed again.
Based on just these 2 experiences alone, it seems to me endgame in MMOs needs a drastic overhaul, revamp, innovation, etc. Why are these games great up to that point? Why do they do a complete 180? I've been enjoying some things other games add such as housing, alternate advancement methods, the Timeless Isle in WoW, GW2s living story, but by themselves, the content isn't enough to keep me subbing for longer than a month. Really hope the genre, which I love immensely, starts to go down the right path here. Maybe the key is to make a fantastic themepark leveling game, one that's not boring and is multifaceted and can even be redone on alts or other classes/same character, GW2 sort of does this well with mentoring down and what not, but then maybe endgame should be about turning the game into a sandbox at that point with influxes of more themepark maybe for expansions. ArcheAge sort of starts to do that but they made the themepark side of the game a bit too boring and not as engaging.
I guess I would love to have a game like WoW coupled with the replayability of GW2/FFXI and an endgame like EVE/Darkfall/SWG or something we have yet to see.
Game lacks options for endgame content. Players need to be able to shift gears from day to day and do something else. And yet what do they do? Combat.!
I remember watching the video conference they posted here at MMORPG.COM where they had a panel of developers and they were asked what are you doing to make things different. and What did the WildStar team say?
"We are making combat more fun" Combat is repetitious. It should be interesting to the point where it's not a deterrent, but don't waste time on making it exciting. That's just a waste.
I think that there is, at it's core, a disconnection between the child friendly gfx and aiming at a 'hardcore' market. I don't mind the graphical style for most games, but it just isn't one I can 'emotionally' buy into for an MMORPG.
Plus, it was a brand new IP, and most gamers are resistant to those until a critical mass of hype has built up. WS never reached that critical mass.
Oh, and the fact that it's game play seemed to be, from the start, designed for ADHD 12 year olds. This might not hold true as it goes on, but the first impression was that this was a obnoxious overly colourful themepark quest grinder with little else to offer except doing what you're told and lots of flashes and noise to make you think you are achieving..
There is no such thing as "hardcore" in gaming. This needs to stop.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
That's why I said a mix of Eve and other games. Obviously we don't want an exact copy of current sandboxes but an amalgamation of the best. Just saying, something needs to change drastically with endgames. When raiders make up %10 of a game's population, you would think that raids would be a side addition instead of the main focus that they currently are.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D