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[Interview] WildStar: State of the Game Interview - Part 2
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Did you know that Nexus, the focal planet of WildStar, used to be called Meridia? Or that a player-created addon is now pivotal to Carbine’s debugging process? During Gamescom, I got the chance to sit down with three of the studio’s development supremos: Lead Client Engineer Jon Wiesman, Lead Content Designer Megan Starks, and Technical Design Lead Nick Roth.
Read more of Gareth Harmer's WildStar: State of the Game Interview - Part 2.
Comments
You can find part 1 of this interview right here:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/632/feature/8866/Interviewing-the-Trio-Part-1.html/page/1
Currently playing: WildStar, Guild Wars 2, EVE Online, Vain Glory.
The thing i see with this interview is that you avoided to touch anything regarding the actual "state of the game" and released another PR piece for a company that bought the huge ad-space.
Anyone who takes a look at the status of the realms at primetime can see what the state of the game is.
I've read these "interviews" on mmorpg.com by a dozen before. It's all so "fun and exciting" according to the guys -until they get hit by one or another round of lay offs since their underperforming product missed the market by a lightyear and now can't even carry it's own studio.
Again another promising title with potential beyond believe run down by an amateur studio. Same as once with Rift and Trion...but in this case i doubt Carbine even gets the transition to F2P done well.
Sadly i have to agree. I kept on waiting for 'the real critical questions to be asked'.
As I said with the piece published yesterday, these are not the head honchos at Carbine. Wiesman works on the client and addons (and yes, I did ask him about AMD performance which you can find in part 1). Roth works as the Technical Design Lead, building components for the content team to use in zone building, and Starks is a Lead Content Designer that built Farside amongst other zones. As a result, the questions were tailored to their own areas of expertise.
None of them have worked on PvP, which is why I didn't include any PvP questions, even though it's a hot topic in the community. None of them are from the live team either, which means asking questions about server population, original server numbers and possible mergers equally pointless. And none of them are producers, which means asking questions about content scheduling and release rates vs QA/Bugfixing aren't going to help.
I know that the community desperately wants answers to these questions - I do too - but I know that I wouldn't get much meaningful information if I asked those questions to the people available at Gamescom. That said, I know that we have people on the ground at PAX Prime, so hopefully we'll be able to ask Carbine those questions. If not, you can be sure that we'll be reaching out to the studio for answers to these and more besides.
Currently playing: WildStar, Guild Wars 2, EVE Online, Vain Glory.
Yes, i read the first part of the interview. Just venting i guess...
Thanks for your reply and for keeping in Carbine's face to get more answers
I canceled half way thru first month in. I was in beta too, although I was exile (chua and on a pve server) When game came out I went dom and pvp server and hated everything about my choice and hated the thought of regrinding. The barrage of telegraph lines from all gave me headaches (even as a color blind person) I shut off my friendly telegraphs and it helped some but the Dom on the pvp server I was on just sucked. So not enough of an interesting enjoyable game to want to start over on a carebear server for me to keep a sub alive.
I can acccept this explanation. But as suggestion for the next time you have this kind of problems: just give the article/ interview a diffferent title that is not so misleading. Problem solved. And with a different title you don't need a disclaimer in the first paragraph as well
Nontheless it was an (at least in parts) interesting interview. Thanks for the effort.
OMG! My eye's! Someone please paraphrase. I refuse to try and read this ... If it's worth it, that is.
On point, good write-up, keep chasing down the Devs. Don't mind the lesser beings on this thread; putting the article into 'parts' is a hard concept for some to understand. Taking time to sit with Devs responsible for 'parts' of the game and reporting on their status in an over-arching title like "State Of The Game", might just be a little to complex for those that rush to the keyboard and quickly complain that their question wasn't answered. Sadly, these folks are everywhere and their level of civility leaves much to be desired.
I know it's been said already - but it's hard to read this stuff. There are clearly ENORMOUS issues with the game, at this point, and to refer to this as 'state of the game' is quite misleading.
You've avoided addressing the real substantive stuff, and despite having said why you didn't, still seems like an easy way out of asking the tough questions.
Nothing really is relevant to WS at this point except the population and end game issues.
I'm basically just waiting for my built up CREDD to be turned into cash shop currency at this point...
I think the most important issue that already chased away a lot of players during Open Beta, thus even before launch, was the terrible optimization of the Client.
There is just no excuse for a game with cartoony / stylized gaphics ala WoW / GW2 to run this bad on the average PC.
Hell it took them ages to fix the issues with sertain AMD setups.
There were just too many People who spend a ton of cash on High End configurations that were faced with terrible framerates in this game.
I think this already caused a very low launch sales of the game. As I was there at launch and the game was far less crowded actually then during the beta events. Which was already a tell tale sign if you ask me.
The issues later that popped up with endgame, like the horrible attuning process doesn´t play that big of a role People think, as most People never even made it that far and quit long before that.
Which brings me to the next major issue in the game (and why I and many others never even made it past Level 20). The leveling experience is just downright terrible and boring. It´s all very mediocre and boring to tears.
The stories are bad, over the top humor and way too cliche. It all just got old very fast. /shrug
i kinda loved the humor, the only thing that kept me going.........but the maps are empty.....no one to group with is gamebreaker for me.....only GW2 did this one right imho
Everything about Wild Star feels so forced. The messy telegraphs everywhere combat, the le epic reddit humor that makes you cringe every 3 minutes, the old school grinding which nobody has time for these days.
Like every WoW killer before it, all the potential in the world, flushed straight down the toilet due to some huge oversights on the developers part. But I guess that's okay, I'm sure carbine is working frantically to convert Wild Star into a MOBA as we speak.
Considering the population drop and the call for server merges, I would have expected some questions about that. The question about hardcore gamers in the first part was also easily circumvented and lacked a follow-up.
For any game you guys have done "State of the game" on, the interviews have always been really *soft*. I'd like to see a little bit more grilling, I'm sure the devs can stand it.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
The sad thing about interviews and reviews, they are all paid for. The review site is given a criteria they must adhere to and reporters/interviewers are given a list of questions they have to ask. There is no more brute honestly in any site anymore, the sites have all cave in to publishers for the almighty buck. This interview is PURE SH*T. The interview need to get a friggen backbone and a brain to actually think up REAL QUESTIONS.
YA this wasnt an interview so much as it was a PR stunt.
oh btw just alittle hint for how they fixed population too LOL here is a link just click the button ^^
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/02/hot-topic-wildstar-megaservers/
Now we all know there have been some issues with some servers suffering from lower population. This was mainly due to the launch period required way more servers than was needed after the usual drop off. This has been possibly the most talked about topic in the past weeks, causing much negativity in the community and of course while Carbine were sorting this, the silence didn’t not help. This is all changing with Cougar’s forum post and the live stream.
TL;DR
Cougar first took to the forums to explain just how the megaservers will effect the current server layout.
(Source)
The Good
For the most part, this is all all round positive change. It ensures there will be the max amount of players on the servers at all times. This literally removes the population issues being experienced on the quiet realms, from the economy suffering to the not seeing people in the world. This also removes the issues that many had upon launch of choosing a server. Although PVP/PVE will still be separate now however you will be merged with all the other servers of the same time, bringing server divided friends together. Free realm transfers that are live right now allow you to go play with friends or create new ones before the merges happen as they are not ready just yet.
The Bad (Maybe)
Ok so while the announcement is a major positive there are of course negatives that effect some people. Surnames is a big negative for many who went through the trouble of reserving their single worded handle pre launch especially. Some people just don’t like having surnames while others are super happy on this announcement, again it’s very much a personal preference.
Sorry RP
While I am not an RP’r I can understand the sadness that will come from community on this merge. However personally I feel that if any game is going to have a place for RP’rs on Megaservers it’s WS. With community & guild housing coming it does open up for more ‘off world’ RP and of course many of the places people choose to RP are not the most populated areas at the best of times. However I understand this sucks. Feel free to shout at how wrong I am in the comments below.
Posted by Anlath on 2nd September 2014
(Source)
Final words
Overall I think this is a very positive move on all counts for the game, it stops the population issues (well of course not if nobody plays) for now and in the future, allows the game to grow without having to open a new dead server at that point etc. The negatives mainly fall to the RP community and those who dislike Surnames, other than that a huge positive change. I encourage you all to leave feedback on the official feedback thread, for or against the changes the Devs are listening!
There was a great FAQ posted under the main post that should answer most of your questions that this announcement has raised!
Q 1. When will the Megaservers be introduced?
Currently we are still finalising the details and working on the Megaserver technology, which will have a big impact on when it can go live. We will post any new information or updates as soon as possible to ensure any communication on this is as clear as possible.
Q 2. Why did you go for the Megaservers?
Megaservers allow us to increase player capacity so you will always have people to play with. This means it will be quicker and easier to find people to group with with and enjoy the full scope of WildStar. The Megaservers system will not change region restrictions though, so players will still be grouped in NA and EU Data Centers.
Q 3. Are you doing Megaservers because of declining server population?
The increased server capacity to cope with the launch rush is no longer required. Megaservers allow us to increase player capacity per server so you will always have plenty of people to play with.
Q 4. How will the Megaservers work?
After the transition, there will be one PvP and one PvE realm per Data Center. After the merge, all characters that were on PvP realms before the change will be on your region’s the PvP server; All the characters that were on a PvE server will be on your region’s PvE server.
Q 5. Will the NA and EU region lock still apply?
Yes, both NA and EU will remain on seperate datacenters and will require the appropritae regional accounts etc.
Q 6. What happens if two characters from different realms have the same name?
Along with the Megaservers, we will introduce character last names. Each characters will have a unique name comprised of a first name (this is your existing character name) and a last name separated by a space. In the character select screen, you will have to choose a last name before entering the game. You will be limited to a total 30 characters including the space.
Q 7. What happens if two guilds from different realms have the same name?
The oldest guild with an active guild leader will keep the name. All the other guilds with the same name will have something added to their name to make it temporarily unique. We will give more information about how to change your guild name in due course.
Q 8. How many characters will I be able to have?
You will be able to create up to 12 characters on a single realm. The current limit is 6 characters.
Q 9. What if I have more than 12 characters?
You will be able to play all your existing characters. However, you will be unable to create new characters until you have 11 or less characters.
Q 10. Will I still be able to play in French or German?
Yes. If you wish to play in French or German, just select the desired language in your client settings. You will be able to select between the following chat channels: RP, FR, DE, FR-RP and DE-RP. These channels will be region wide; just like the current /advice channel.
Q 11. What about RP Servers? Will they be merged as well?
Yes, all realms will become merged. We will however offer a region RP chat channel, similar to the FR and DE Chat Channels, so that RP activities can be kept seperate from the regular channels.
Q 12. Will I be able to transfer from PvE to PvP realms or from PvP to PvE realms?
No. Once the Megaservers are live, the current plan is all realm transfers will be disabled.
Q 13. Will I keep all my C.R.E.D.D., currency, items, mail, housing items etc.?
Yes, all your character data will remain intact.
Q 14. How will I know the new character name of each of my friends after the merge?
Your friend list will be automatically updated. You should see all your friend’s new name once you log in.
Q 15. What will happen to Realm First Achievements?
All the existing realm first achievements will be kept as permanent records on your character. You will be able to compete for new realm first achievements on the new Megaservers though – Start training now!