Frankly WS never appealed to me. I'm probably going to sound like some of our other forum posters who say things like "uninstalled as soon as I found out I couldn't sit on the chairs" but for me it was the humor - as in way too much forced zaniness for my taste.
I do have a sense of humor but I like my MMOs to take themselves more seriously with humor as a minor component. Otherwise they give me the impression that the main purpose of the game is for non-MMOers to laugh at MMO tropes. I didn't care much for Bard's Tale for a similar reason. /shrug.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I think the game would have done a lot better if they had ditched the action combat and the telegraphs. This way it would have not raised the bar so high that people who enjoy dungeons and tab targetting and those who are not good at action combat ,not that they are mutually exclusive, could have done its raids.Their mistake was trying to appeal to the WoW audience while using combat that would not appeal to them.
I personally liked the rest of the game with the exception of the combat.
This is why I would never consider working in the games industry even though my dream has always been to work on video games. It's an extremely brutal industry for line employees.
I don't see Wilstar being around long enough to make it to Steam at this point. NCSoft seems to be gearing up to close the game.
That is why you play smart like me , and many others, you do not work for AAA companies.. I do really well, doing contract work, and working the mobile market for over a decade of this kind of stuff...If you plan on working for AAA, you will not last..I did, and what a waste, you better be single and plan on ,moving all over the world every 2 months...No Thanks, I work from home, and do very well..
I only hope is NCSOFT decides to sell the game/studio instead of simply closing it. In other hands, they may fix the 2 biggest issues: questing and alt friendliness.
This is why I would never consider working in the games industry even though my dream has always been to work on video games. It's an extremely brutal industry for line employees.
I don't see Wilstar being around long enough to make it to Steam at this point. NCSoft seems to be gearing up to close the game.
That is why you play smart like me , and many others, you do not work for AAA companies.. I do really well, doing contract work, and working the mobile market for over a decade of this kind of stuff...If you plan on working for AAA, you will not last..I did, and what a waste, you better be single and plan on ,moving all over the world every 2 months...No Thanks, I work from home, and do very well..
I got an email about working from home and doubling my income....you mean those are real???
Some of you are celebrating people losing their jobs? As if you were playing the game anyhow and as if the industry was like "Wildstar is so successful let us copy it!".
Corrupt comes to mind mostly.
As the least super inconsiderate.
Just because half of you are safe in your jobs behind the counter....
Some of you are celebrating people losing their jobs? As if you were playing the game anyhow and as if the industry was like "Wildstar is so successful let us copy it!".
Corrupt comes to mind mostly.
As the least super inconsiderate.
Just because half of you are safe in your jobs behind the counter....
Uh... Yeah it sucks when people lose their jobs, but it has to happen if a game is going to fail. And Wildstar needs to fail, ASAP.
These people have been employed for years in very high paying jobs, for work on a game that sucks and is bad for the genre. I'm sure they'll be just fine.
Hardcore raiding,slow tedious level grind, are what killed the game for me in 2014. I thought a new focus and F2p would sway me but alas, the tedious level system(mods helped but it was still terrible), but it still felt the same as 2014. in my honest opinion, the game ended up not being for me, after i realized hardcore raiding was no longer in my daily gaming mmo life.
Hardcore raiding,slow tedious level grind, are what killed the game for me in 2014. I thought a new focus and F2p would sway me but alas, the tedious level system(mods helped but it was still terrible), but it still felt the same as 2014. in my honest opinion, the game ended up not being for me, after i realized hardcore raiding was no longer in daily gaming mmo life.
Hardcore raiding was always a small percentage of the player base. And when they were focusing their hype on this ... I couldn't believe it. Whose idea was that?
Complete non-industry people like me already knew that was not going to work. How did that even get okayed?
Lol @ the people on this forum that said this was the classic WoW reincarnate and was going to be a hit. The only thing ever fueling this game were the egos of the devs/players behind it and that only keeps a game afloat for so long.
When it comes to selling Carbine - no hope as it stands.
If the article is correct and "more than 70 people" have been let go ... as much as 40% of the staff" then this would imply:
Previous staff level of c. 175 (so higher at launch). Approximate operating costs - staff only - $17.5M (will be higher but $100k for wages, taxes, medical etc. less tax breaks maybe (probably finished) is an easy number to work with). Q4 revenue - about $2.5M; 2015 revenue not much more than $10M (source NCSoft financial statements).
In other words Wildstar is costing NCSoft c. $2 in staff costs for every $1 revenue. Probably more and that's before other costs. That type of operation would be hard to sell to anyone.
And still a lot of staff working on the game.
Funcom, for example, c. 9 months after AoC launched (formally) reported (to investors) announced they were reducing staff from 120 to c. 75. The new content continued however.
This game was build in mind for all the whiners which scream "too easy" or "i miss wow vanilla" or "raiding = endcontent!" ... and propably even in your clan there is one person who cant forget the past and tells every fking time how nice it was ....
The Result of this was empty servers since the first real launch ....
So nobody Hardcore anymore killed the game .... and for the players who still live in the past of the old days ... there is no hope xD
[and it also uses the HERO-Engine which also rendered the future of the game pointless]
Beating a dead horse i guess but needs reminding. Unless you are Blizzard you cannot pull this kind of game design off and expect and longevity.Gamer's are spending money foolishly buying anything and everything that comes out but in the end most games are ghost towns within two months.
All we have really seen is a rehash of old proven brand names like Diablo,Final Fantasy,Warcraft,Everquest, we have not seen a lot of success from NEW brands.The reason most of these games are NOT new,they are same old different skin and that is not good enough.
Here is the biggest one......RAIDING,,,very dumb idea.How developers create single player games then expect Raiding to work is beyond me.Yeah Wow does it ,Wow is not a good game either,Blizzard has a large fanbois following that buys anything Blizzard sells,nobody else can pull off Blizzard ideas.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most importantly is games need to get GROUPING back into games.It is baffling to me how developers keep creating single player games then toss in raiding especially as bad as WS did with 40 man raids wtf,,40??? lmao very dumb idea. If you are going to create ANY grouping ever in a game,then you need to reinforce it at all times so players are used to it and expecting it,otherwise you end up alienating 95% of your player base that has been expecting solo game play.If you want to continue down that same path then perhaps go from solo to 4/5/6 man groups,something that is way more easy to pull off but 40 is just dumb and even switching to 20 is still dumb.
IMO WS spent too much time trying to copy Blizzard and be COOL.Look at me i am a RAIDER,well it is not COOL,maybe with the 14 year old kids not with adults.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most importantly is games need to get GROUPING back into games.It is baffling to me how developers keep creating single player games then toss in raiding especially as bad as WS did with 40 man raids wtf,,40??? lmao very dumb idea. If you are going to create ANY grouping ever in a game,then you need to reinforce it at all times so players are used to it and expecting it,otherwise you end up alienating 95% of your player base that has been expecting solo game play.If you want to continue down that same path then perhaps go from solo to 4/5/6 man groups,something that is way more easy to pull off but 40 is just dumb and even switching to 20 is still dumb.
IMO WS spent too much time trying to copy Blizzard and be COOL.Look at me i am a RAIDER,well it is not COOL,maybe with the 14 year old kids not with adults.
i agree with this a lot but the issue right now is if you look at force grouping games, the old ones like DAOC everquest or similar those games never had even during their primes numbers like wow had after just a year being online. So all these lead devs and studios look at numbers pulled from the most successful games and are now finally starting to realize that it was just a anomaly.
I starting playing ESO again the last few days ago and no one I know is playing eso anymore and I can't lie its lonely playing a mmorpg by yourself so I agree with you 100% that longevity in mmorpgs is the friendships you build with people you play with daily that make you not want to just hop around game to game.
you know that most of carbine stuff are ex-wow employees .... but nowadays its not important which team makes a game ... only the name of the game counts ... example ?? diablo 1 + 2 made from totally different people ... then activision bought blizzard and now the cleaning crew is forced to make the games like diablo 3 or starcrap 2 .... Most of the Players dont even look at other games, mostly unknowing that some or important people which invented the game / style / mechanics / etc like all loved in diablo 1 + 2 or whatever game ...
Example ?? -> "Umbra..." And most of the answers from this gamers: "Yeah, never seen, never heard but i already bought Diablo 4 PreOrder with Season Pass which gives me exclusive beta access to the newest wow expansion" <-- sad but fking true =(
For me the only reason Wildstar didn't succed is because NCSoft was handling it...
The game had great potential and yes it was the only MMORPG that was relatively close in feeling to WoW that was in actually fairly good shape and not p2w, however because NCSoft were being greedy at the beginning + apparently they don't have any experience on how to release EU/US friendly games the game ended up failing.
Their 2 biggest mistakes were - 1st. They stopped the beta testing too early which made a lot of players mad and what's more they released a game which was barely optimized(like B&S, except even worse) and 2nd. They didn't make it EU/US friendly... the game was waaaaaaaaaaaay too grindy and focused too much on the hardcore players while it should have catered to both HC and Casual players. This is an MMORPG after all... If it doesn't cater to both groups chances are there won't be enough players(income) to sustain it.
I wonder if they have thought about how many players will decide to not invest any more time into this game and stop playing after today's news. It's not like they can afford to lose only a handful.
Also, they let the whole raidteam go.. what'll happen if there are going to be problems with the new raid? And knowing Carbine, there WILL be problems. There have ALWAYS been problems with anything they released.
Hopefully the remaining team is able to handle a possible influx of players IF the game gets released on steam. Just thinking... as even the whole team wasn't able handle the F2P transition properly.
Comments
I do have a sense of humor but I like my MMOs to take themselves more seriously with humor as a minor component. Otherwise they give me the impression that the main purpose of the game is for non-MMOers to laugh at MMO tropes. I didn't care much for Bard's Tale for a similar reason. /shrug.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I personally liked the rest of the game with the exception of the combat.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
That is why you play smart like me , and many others, you do not work for AAA companies.. I do really well, doing contract work, and working the mobile market for over a decade of this kind of stuff...If you plan on working for AAA, you will not last..I did, and what a waste, you better be single and plan on ,moving all over the world every 2 months...No Thanks, I work from home, and do very well..
I got an email about working from home and doubling my income....you mean those are real???
Some of you are celebrating people losing their jobs?
As if you were playing the game anyhow and as if the industry was like "Wildstar is so successful let us copy it!".
Corrupt comes to mind mostly.
As the least super inconsiderate.
Just because half of you are safe in your jobs behind the counter....
These people have been employed for years in very high paying jobs, for work on a game that sucks and is bad for the genre. I'm sure they'll be just fine.
Complete non-industry people like me already knew that was not going to work. How did that even get okayed?
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
If the article is correct and "more than 70 people" have been let go ... as much as 40% of the staff" then this would imply:
Previous staff level of c. 175 (so higher at launch).
Approximate operating costs - staff only - $17.5M (will be higher but $100k for wages, taxes, medical etc. less tax breaks maybe (probably finished) is an easy number to work with).
Q4 revenue - about $2.5M; 2015 revenue not much more than $10M (source NCSoft financial statements).
In other words Wildstar is costing NCSoft c. $2 in staff costs for every $1 revenue. Probably more and that's before other costs. That type of operation would be hard to sell to anyone.
And still a lot of staff working on the game.
Funcom, for example, c. 9 months after AoC launched (formally) reported (to investors) announced they were reducing staff from 120 to c. 75. The new content continued however.
The Result of this was empty servers since the first real launch ....
So nobody Hardcore anymore killed the game .... and for the players who still live in the past of the old days ... there is no hope xD
[and it also uses the HERO-Engine which also rendered the future of the game pointless]
Unless you are Blizzard you cannot pull this kind of game design off and expect and longevity.Gamer's are spending money foolishly buying anything and everything that comes out but in the end most games are ghost towns within two months.
All we have really seen is a rehash of old proven brand names like Diablo,Final Fantasy,Warcraft,Everquest, we have not seen a lot of success from NEW brands.The reason most of these games are NOT new,they are same old different skin and that is not good enough.
Here is the biggest one......RAIDING,,,very dumb idea.How developers create single player games then expect Raiding to work is beyond me.Yeah Wow does it ,Wow is not a good game either,Blizzard has a large fanbois following that buys anything Blizzard sells,nobody else can pull off Blizzard ideas.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If you are going to create ANY grouping ever in a game,then you need to reinforce it at all times so players are used to it and expecting it,otherwise you end up alienating 95% of your player base that has been expecting solo game play.If you want to continue down that same path then perhaps go from solo to 4/5/6 man groups,something that is way more easy to pull off but 40 is just dumb and even switching to 20 is still dumb.
IMO WS spent too much time trying to copy Blizzard and be COOL.Look at me i am a RAIDER,well it is not COOL,maybe with the 14 year old kids not with adults.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I starting playing ESO again the last few days ago and no one I know is playing eso anymore and I can't lie its lonely playing a mmorpg by yourself so I agree with you 100% that longevity in mmorpgs is the friendships you build with people you play with daily that make you not want to just hop around game to game.
Most of the Players dont even look at other games, mostly unknowing that some or important people which invented the game / style / mechanics / etc like all loved in diablo 1 + 2 or whatever game ...
Example ?? -> "Umbra..." And most of the answers from this gamers: "Yeah, never seen, never heard but i already bought Diablo 4 PreOrder with Season Pass which gives me exclusive beta access to the newest wow expansion" <-- sad but fking true =(
For me the only reason Wildstar didn't succed is because NCSoft was handling it...
The game had great potential and yes it was the only MMORPG that was relatively close in feeling to WoW that was in actually fairly good shape and not p2w, however because NCSoft were being greedy at the beginning + apparently they don't have any experience on how to release EU/US friendly games the game ended up failing.
Their 2 biggest mistakes were - 1st. They stopped the beta testing too early which made a lot of players mad and what's more they released a game which was barely optimized(like B&S, except even worse) and 2nd. They didn't make it EU/US friendly... the game was waaaaaaaaaaaay too grindy and focused too much on the hardcore players while it should have catered to both HC and Casual players. This is an MMORPG after all... If it doesn't cater to both groups chances are there won't be enough players(income) to sustain it.
such a shame, it was one of the most awaited MMO 2 years ago, lol..
i still can't believe they only lasted 2 years before the recession took place.
So What Now?
Also, they let the whole raidteam go.. what'll happen if there are going to be problems with the new raid? And knowing Carbine, there WILL be problems. There have ALWAYS been problems with anything they released.
Hopefully the remaining team is able to handle a possible influx of players IF the game gets released on steam. Just thinking... as even the whole team wasn't able handle the F2P transition properly.