Where was this game all my life?

TheScavenger

Okay so these are just my initial expressions...only 19 hours played according to steam but I only started early this morning (PST time). but wow is the early game great. For me, if early game is bad I don't bother playing, so a good early game is far easier to get into than if the only good part of the game is max level.

With that said...here I am doing the tutorial this morning...get to level two and...the most hilarious announcer in a game pops up

"You leveled up! Way to go cupcake!"

and then the chat said he announces a lot when doing combo kills/leveling/dying and makes you feel really bad dying. But thus far in the game is been so much laughs.

And its actually a ton of fun. I did hear of this game a long time ago, but everyone made it out to be terrible, dead and not worth playing. But game seems fairly lively to me, compared to games like Ryzom/EQ2 (which both I tried recently)...not as much as ESO/GW2, but lively enough I think. Doing better than EQ2 (live servers, not the classic EQ2 servers) as far as I've seen, in terms of socialness in chat. But I dunno how the game is later population wise, only going by chat and the people I see running around. I'm not doing science on the numbers here, just what I've personally seen :P 

But anyway, population aside...community is friendly as far as I've seen...and the game has been more fun than any initial playing I've done of any MMO. The only MMO that beats the early impression experience is WoW back when it first released...but this is probably the most fun I've had in a long time. And I love all the humor in the game and the random announcer is the best. I dunno how much fun I'll have later...but early impressions (first day impressions) are amazing.

And I never knew about this game because everyone said to avoid it xD

Albatroes

TheScavenger said:

Okay so these are just my initial expressions...only 19 hours played according to steam but I only started early this morning (PST time). but wow is the early game great. For me, if early game is bad I don't bother playing, so a good early game is far easier to get into than if the only good part of the game is max level.

With that said...here I am doing the tutorial this morning...get to level two and...the most hilarious announcer in a game pops up

"You leveled up! Way to go cupcake!"

and then the chat said he announces a lot when doing combo kills/leveling/dying and makes you feel really bad dying. But thus far in the game is been so much laughs.

And its actually a ton of fun. I did hear of this game a long time ago, but everyone made it out to be terrible, dead and not worth playing. But game seems fairly lively to me, compared to games like Ryzom/EQ2 (which both I tried recently)...not as much as ESO/GW2, but lively enough I think. Doing better than EQ2 (live servers, not the classic EQ2 servers) as far as I've seen, in terms of socialness in chat. But I dunno how the game is later population wise, only going by chat and the people I see running around. I'm not doing science on the numbers here, just what I've personally seen :P 

But anyway, population aside...community is friendly as far as I've seen...and the game has been more fun than any initial playing I've done of any MMO. The only MMO that beats the early impression experience is WoW back when it first released...but this is probably the most fun I've had in a long time. And I love all the humor in the game and the random announcer is the best. I dunno how much fun I'll have later...but early impressions (first day impressions) are amazing.

And I never knew about this game because everyone said to avoid it xD

Gotta remember who publishes this game though. Main reason a lot of people don't really engage in the game is because NCSoft doesn't really take kindly to failure. Its also good to keep in mind that Carbine has been working on a second title, when they've also suffered a lot of lay offs since Wildstar has been around, so it kind of just reinforces that the game's fate is kind of done. More of not a matter of if but when to a lot of people. I was tempting to get back into the game, myself but I can't ignore those potential signs. I have been trying out LOTRO though and its interesting to say the least. I probably wont judge until I get closer to high lvl though.

Kyleran

Good reason to form your own opinions rather than depend on others.

NCSoft keeps it open, someone must be playing...

Po_gg

TheScavenger said:

And its actually a ton of fun. I did hear of this game a long time ago, but everyone made it out to be terrible, dead and not worth playing. 

Don't know about that mysterious "everyone" but as far as I can remember when Wildstar came up I usually praised the housing, the comical tone, the setting, at the f2p switch their friendly model. My gripe with it was the raid-heavy endgame since I'm not a hardcore raider. But besides that I always said it's a fun game, and still play it sometimes when I'm in the mood for some jumping challenges.

(just checked back, my last Wildstar comment was welcoming the community housing update in September)

Btw. way to go cupcake is nothing... I don't like this kinda "level up ding" mechanics, but Wildstar overdone it so much that it's actually funny. Wait till you get to the levels with "Holy sh.t! Now things get fu.kin real!" 

esc-joconnor

Wildstar is a great game for sure, when it launched I thought it was one of the best games I had played in a while. The market for a hard core raiding game wasn't as big as they had been lead to believe though, and they haven't really made good decisions since then, so the potential has dwindled away. A shame really. The engine had a lot of performance issues for many as well. I still love the character the avatars had in that game.

The leveling hype, challenges, and voice over crack me up to, but I think in this kind of virtual reality game those kind of mechanics spoil the immersion and are over all at odds with everything else in the game.

I think a restart and new management could do the game wonders. Pull an FFXIV on it.

Po_gg

SedrynTyros said:

With almost nobody playing at the lower levels, you're basically looking at a long easy-mode solo grind to max level before you get to play with anyone in either PvE or PvP.

I met quite a couple people when I last started a new character... anyways, just wanted to add, that "long" is no longer ( ) there. Not only there was a boost-to-cap giveaway a few months ago, but if your goal is the cap as soon as possible, a friendly high-level can get you there in days. And by alone you can get there too very soon, if you are a power leveller.

When it's about the journey (doing the stories, clearing the maps before moving on, etc.) it can get long, but in that case it won't be a grind, since like in LotRO, you will overlevel the content around you all the time. Yep, in that case it is long and not challenging, but still fun. Some great stories there, on both sides.

rojoArcueid

Kyleran said:

Good reason to form your own opinions rather than depend on others.

NCSoft keeps it open, someone must be playing...

the few hardcore whales must be paying a lot to try and keep it alive. I doubt this game is more profitable than CoH. It could shut down at any moment. Of course that's just my speculation.

I'm honestly surprised its still going on.

TheScavenger

There is only one server (at least in NA), and I guess the EU is hosted on amazon servers now

https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/comments/77if9e/wildstar_eu_no_longer_hosted_by_ncsoft/

I doubt it takes much money to keep them running. Dunno how much amazon charges, or servers cost in general...but with only one server in NA must be low overhead

In chat, I do see a lot of new players and a lot of returnees. But that in itself doesn't mean anything, because Vanguard Saga of Heroes always had new players and returnees and game still died.

but its true, NCsoft is quick to kill games that are MAKING money (city of heroes was making positive income) to get a quick easy buck instead of long term revenue lol

Phry

I don't know, i tried Wildstar but thought it was boring, didn't like the art style either, but i guess some people must have liked it? with the game likely to shut down at any time, probably best to enjoy it for what it is, while you can

Albatroes

On the plus side, if the game dies at least the characters will be added to MxM so you'll have the memories, like they did with CoH characters.

BruceYee

What it looks like to me is that are keeping it open long enough to recoup enough of the development costs. I think they are doing the same for MXM.

I think if COH was still open it would have more players than both those games combined.

Kyleran

TheScavenger said:

There is only one server (at least in NA), and I guess the EU is hosted on amazon servers now

https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/comments/77if9e/wildstar_eu_no_longer_hosted_by_ncsoft/

I doubt it takes much money to keep them running. Dunno how much amazon charges, or servers cost in general...but with only one server in NA must be low overhead

In chat, I do see a lot of new players and a lot of returnees. But that in itself doesn't mean anything, because Vanguard Saga of Heroes always had new players and returnees and game still died.

but its true, NCsoft is quick to kill games that are MAKING money (city of heroes was making positive income) to get a quick easy buck instead of long term revenue lol

It should be pointed out that originally the game had 14 "Realms in NA, similar number in EU.

About a year or so post launch these were migrated to mega server tech, collapsing into one PVE and one PVP server for each region.

They later merged the PVP servers leaving one each per region. (You can optionally flag for PVP if you enjoy being ganked)

So no, the population is not necessarily healthy, mega server tech is great at masking actual population numbers.

You very well could be playing on a single instance in your current new player zone,  and those 40 or 50 people you meet are all there is game wide in terms of new characters.

I'm sure the bulk of the player base is at max level and they may running multiple channels there, but someone currently playing would have to confirm. 

According to one thread in Wildstar Reddit back in April the game had returned to its pre Steam concurrent players online of 827 on average, not sure if that is for both servers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=post_header

TheScavenger

Still loving the game. I can see how some people might not like the overtop humor and rather cartoony style (like announcer, graphics and what not)...but I still think its hilarious. My favorite part of the game lol

As for population...seems lively to me. A lot of new players, and people in every place I've gone to. I guess the mega server tech helps a lot with that...but WoW has a version of that too and still has a lot of zones that feel dead (can go a long time without seeing anyone when leveling) so I dunno how much that is to go by. WoW has vastly more servers though and obviously still played by millions, but I still never see anyone (barely) when leveling lol. But that doesn't mean WoW is dead obviously, just my observation

Even if Wildstar is dead (but like I said, chat is really lively and seems active enough.)...hopefully I can get some months out of the game or even 1+ year of it. I don't tend to play MMOs longer than a year anyway unless they are the best MMO since sliced bread (I played WoW for years). And wildstar does seem to get updates every few months, so that is always a positive sign. But city of heroes did too, so it isn't a bullet proof sign :P

They did switch the EU server to the amazon server cluster...that will save a LOT of money since they only pay for bandwidth they use, instead of a set amount of money cost every month. So if say only 1 person was playing, they'd only pay for one person through the amazon server.

In any case, Wildstar been most fun MMO I've played in a long time. Its just so much fun and hilarious. Of course the humor won't fit everyone as it is pretty over the top...but I think the humor is great lol

Also for those curious. I'm an exile, Esper class. And my profession is Settler (was explorer but switched)

Panther2103

Honestly I like Wildstar a lot. I hope it grows. But the problem is that, with 3 launches, the game still didn't do well. It's got a decent population (albeit small, but dedicated), and it has a lot to do now. I keep wanting to go back but I'm just so afraid NCsoft will pull the plug that I can't force myself to do it.

Mikeha

Wildstar is a good game.

Hariken

To the OP glad you found a game your having fun with. If you like it then that's all that really matters. To many people come here and look for opinions about games from other people and never even try a game themselves.

Rhygarth

TheScavenger said:

Still loving the game. I can see how some people might not like the overtop humor and rather cartoony style (like announcer, graphics and what not)...but I still think its hilarious. My favorite part of the game lol

As for population...seems lively to me. A lot of new players, and people in every place I've gone to. I guess the mega server tech helps a lot with that...but WoW has a version of that too and still has a lot of zones that feel dead (can go a long time without seeing anyone when leveling) so I dunno how much that is to go by. WoW has vastly more servers though and obviously still played by millions, but I still never see anyone (barely) when leveling lol. But that doesn't mean WoW is dead obviously, just my observation

Even if Wildstar is dead (but like I said, chat is really lively and seems active enough.)...hopefully I can get some months out of the game or even 1+ year of it. I don't tend to play MMOs longer than a year anyway unless they are the best MMO since sliced bread (I played WoW for years). And wildstar does seem to get updates every few months, so that is always a positive sign. But city of heroes did too, so it isn't a bullet proof sign :P

They did switch the EU server to the amazon server cluster...that will save a LOT of money since they only pay for bandwidth they use, instead of a set amount of money cost every month. So if say only 1 person was playing, they'd only pay for one person through the amazon server.

In any case, Wildstar been most fun MMO I've played in a long time. Its just so much fun and hilarious. Of course the humor won't fit everyone as it is pretty over the top...but I think the humor is great lol

Also for those curious. I'm an exile, Esper class. And my profession is Settler (was explorer but switched)

Queue up for low lvl pvp and see how long the queue takes to pop

TheScavenger

Rhygarth said:

TheScavenger said:

Still loving the game. I can see how some people might not like the overtop humor and rather cartoony style (like announcer, graphics and what not)...but I still think its hilarious. My favorite part of the game lol

As for population...seems lively to me. A lot of new players, and people in every place I've gone to. I guess the mega server tech helps a lot with that...but WoW has a version of that too and still has a lot of zones that feel dead (can go a long time without seeing anyone when leveling) so I dunno how much that is to go by. WoW has vastly more servers though and obviously still played by millions, but I still never see anyone (barely) when leveling lol. But that doesn't mean WoW is dead obviously, just my observation

Even if Wildstar is dead (but like I said, chat is really lively and seems active enough.)...hopefully I can get some months out of the game or even 1+ year of it. I don't tend to play MMOs longer than a year anyway unless they are the best MMO since sliced bread (I played WoW for years). And wildstar does seem to get updates every few months, so that is always a positive sign. But city of heroes did too, so it isn't a bullet proof sign :P

They did switch the EU server to the amazon server cluster...that will save a LOT of money since they only pay for bandwidth they use, instead of a set amount of money cost every month. So if say only 1 person was playing, they'd only pay for one person through the amazon server.

In any case, Wildstar been most fun MMO I've played in a long time. Its just so much fun and hilarious. Of course the humor won't fit everyone as it is pretty over the top...but I think the humor is great lol

Also for those curious. I'm an exile, Esper class. And my profession is Settler (was explorer but switched)

Queue up for low lvl pvp and see how long the queue takes to pop

Yeah, if you like PvP (for anyone who reads the thread) I actually say stay away. This game is more for PvE. Even in-game chat, people say PvP is dead (at least low level PvP) and not worth playing Wildstar for.

I don't PvP, so it doesn't bother me at all. But for those who want to try Wildstar after reading the thread, probably not the best if you prefer PvP and not PvE.

But maybe at max level PvP gets more lively, someone else will have to confirm that or not.

k61977

The game was great at lower levels originally.  It wasn't until people hit cap and realized that this was a hard core raiding game that it originally got the bad rep even though that is what it was advertised as.  People didn't want to have to do the prerequisites to unlock things, even though they were not that hard to do just time consuming.  Have you ever tired to organize a 40 man raid? No way in hell will I ever sit and wait for an hour just to get started, it's like trying to herd cats.  Then the devs tried pushing a update schedule that just couldn't do and wasn't realistic to begin with.  They launched unfinished additions over an over without fixing issues.  I mean quest with no names, objectives with no description kind of things.  Overall I still pop in here and there and check it out myself.  It had the potential to be a great game they just picked the wrong crowd to try and cater to originally, the hard core 1% of players.  They did try and relaunch the game and did fix a lot of the problems but I think the game did suffer a lot from it's original launch and never recovered like  final fantasy did.

Kyleran

Panther2103 said:

Honestly I like Wildstar a lot. I hope it grows. But the problem is that, with 3 launches, the game still didn't do well. It's got a decent population (albeit small, but dedicated), and it has a lot to do now. I keep wanting to go back but I'm just so afraid NCsoft will pull the plug that I can't force myself to do it.

You are considering playing a game, not proposing marriage.

Play the game, if the worst happens you've lost nothing of real value.

Rhygarth

TheScavenger said:

Rhygarth said:

TheScavenger said:

Still loving the game. I can see how some people might not like the overtop humor and rather cartoony style (like announcer, graphics and what not)...but I still think its hilarious. My favorite part of the game lol

As for population...seems lively to me. A lot of new players, and people in every place I've gone to. I guess the mega server tech helps a lot with that...but WoW has a version of that too and still has a lot of zones that feel dead (can go a long time without seeing anyone when leveling) so I dunno how much that is to go by. WoW has vastly more servers though and obviously still played by millions, but I still never see anyone (barely) when leveling lol. But that doesn't mean WoW is dead obviously, just my observation

Even if Wildstar is dead (but like I said, chat is really lively and seems active enough.)...hopefully I can get some months out of the game or even 1+ year of it. I don't tend to play MMOs longer than a year anyway unless they are the best MMO since sliced bread (I played WoW for years). And wildstar does seem to get updates every few months, so that is always a positive sign. But city of heroes did too, so it isn't a bullet proof sign :P

They did switch the EU server to the amazon server cluster...that will save a LOT of money since they only pay for bandwidth they use, instead of a set amount of money cost every month. So if say only 1 person was playing, they'd only pay for one person through the amazon server.

In any case, Wildstar been most fun MMO I've played in a long time. Its just so much fun and hilarious. Of course the humor won't fit everyone as it is pretty over the top...but I think the humor is great lol

Also for those curious. I'm an exile, Esper class. And my profession is Settler (was explorer but switched)

Queue up for low lvl pvp and see how long the queue takes to pop

Yeah, if you like PvP (for anyone who reads the thread) I actually say stay away. This game is more for PvE. Even in-game chat, people say PvP is dead (at least low level PvP) and not worth playing Wildstar for.

I don't PvP, so it doesn't bother me at all. But for those who want to try Wildstar after reading the thread, probably not the best if you prefer PvP and not PvE.

But maybe at max level PvP gets more lively, someone else will have to confirm that or not.

ok then queue up for either

• Ruins of Kel Voreth (cave) (level 20 Dominion)
• Stormtalon's Lair (cave) (level 20 Exiles)

and see if you get get any luck

I use to love wildstar when it came out but it is just a shadow of a game, if you get into a guild that has some low lvl toons you could run them

TheScavenger

Despite a couple week break to play WoW. I'm still playing Wildstar after all this time. I did use a boost they gave me, and its fun being max level. But think I'm gonna level normally and see the world/story as character progresses. 

Love the artwork, the over top humor and all that. Game isn't any less boring at all, though I do game hop a lot even when I'm really into a game. I tend to play one or two MMOs, a bunch of singleplayer games, some co-op games and occasional multiplayer game. 

But since I'm still into Wildstar, I'll be paying for the sub next month. Sure I'll probably get a bit tired of it, but I get tired of any game if that is the only game I play. Even when I was super into WoW, I'd always play 2-4 weeks and then move on to something else :P But that is just how I game lol..I don't tend to play one single game always and even if its an awesome game that I love, I like to take breaks from whatever game I'm into.

With that...love Wildstar. And population is low, but not dead. If you want to see a true dead MMO, look at Ryzom or DDO lol. I tried playing DDO recently and only saw 6 other people in the hub lol. Ryzom is even more dead, their tutorial island...I played 8 or 9 hours, and only saw one or two people the whole time. Wildstar is nowhere like that. But it is low pop