The reason why I never played it was because it looked like WOW. The characters looked like WOW, the world looked like WOW, the quests seemed like WOW, they even blatantly said they were trying to bring back vanilla WOW (IE - 40 man raids and hardcore content).
Now, flash back several years before Wildstar's release. The MMORPG community was sick of WOW clones. Trion took all of the WOW re-rollers with Rift, which just thinned out how much people could stomach more wow clones when Rift was launched in 2011. Then combine that with not so blatant WOW rip-offs being released through out the decade and people were over it. It didn't matter if Wildstar how 0 bugs, perfect execution, whatever. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to release another WOW clone (Quite arguably the biggest WOW clone ever, topping out Rift), into the MMORPG marketplace.
Eventually, the same thing will happen to MOBA's. You can only slap so many skins on the same thing before people start to realize they are playing the same game, just with a different skin. Unfortunately, for most of you, you are having a hard time figuring this out.
+1.. Additionally Wildstar followed exactly the trajectory that I hoped would befall it. With the glut of WoW clones, hard fails were the medicine required.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
+1 to the games atunment being way to hard and time consuming but games these days are way to easy and personally I think it was the goofy humor and the graphics that put a lot of people off then you add the difficulty for end game and its the perfect combo for failure. There needs to be a balance between group and solo content and not one or the other. How about making solo dungeons that gives gear thats not as good a group dungeons or somthing or solo leaderboards timed achievments I mean both can be done. Its funny because before WoW I never seen a post about lack of content in games like EQ or AC.
The reason why I never played it was because it looked like WOW. The characters looked like WOW, the world looked like WOW, the quests seemed like WOW, they even blatantly said they were trying to bring back vanilla WOW (IE - 40 man raids and hardcore content).
Now, flash back several years before Wildstar's release. The MMORPG community was sick of WOW clones. Trion took all of the WOW re-rollers with Rift, which just thinned out how much people could stomach more wow clones when Rift was launched in 2011. Then combine that with not so blatant WOW rip-offs being released through out the decade and people were over it. It didn't matter if Wildstar how 0 bugs, perfect execution, whatever. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to release another WOW clone (Quite arguably the biggest WOW clone ever, topping out Rift), into the MMORPG marketplace.
Eventually, the same thing will happen to MOBA's. You can only slap so many skins on the same thing before people start to realize they are playing the same game, just with a different skin. Unfortunately, for most of you, you are having a hard time figuring this out.
Ironically, modern WoW is non-linear (in leveling), and offers more variety for different playstyles (normal & heroic 5 mans; LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic Raids). They even had 3 man Scenarios in MoP, but removed them in WoD, which was a mistake in my opinion, since they could've elaborated on it some more.
The reason why I never played it was because it looked like WOW. The characters looked like WOW, the world looked like WOW, the quests seemed like WOW, they even blatantly said they were trying to bring back vanilla WOW (IE - 40 man raids and hardcore content).
Now, flash back several years before Wildstar's release. The MMORPG community was sick of WOW clones. Trion took all of the WOW re-rollers with Rift, which just thinned out how much people could stomach more wow clones when Rift was launched in 2011. Then combine that with not so blatant WOW rip-offs being released through out the decade and people were over it. It didn't matter if Wildstar how 0 bugs, perfect execution, whatever. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to release another WOW clone (Quite arguably the biggest WOW clone ever, topping out Rift), into the MMORPG marketplace.
Eventually, the same thing will happen to MOBA's. You can only slap so many skins on the same thing before people start to realize they are playing the same game, just with a different skin. Unfortunately, for most of you, you are having a hard time figuring this out.
"You can roll a turd in powdered sugar, but that don't make it a doughnut." God I hate WoW and MOBA'S somebody save us lol.
The reason why I never played it was because it looked like WOW. The characters looked like WOW, the world looked like WOW, the quests seemed like WOW, they even blatantly said they were trying to bring back vanilla WOW (IE - 40 man raids and hardcore content).
Now, flash back several years before Wildstar's release. The MMORPG community was sick of WOW clones. Trion took all of the WOW re-rollers with Rift, which just thinned out how much people could stomach more wow clones when Rift was launched in 2011. Then combine that with not so blatant WOW rip-offs being released through out the decade and people were over it. It didn't matter if Wildstar how 0 bugs, perfect execution, whatever. They shot themselves in the foot when they decided to release another WOW clone (Quite arguably the biggest WOW clone ever, topping out Rift), into the MMORPG marketplace.
Eventually, the same thing will happen to MOBA's. You can only slap so many skins on the same thing before people start to realize they are playing the same game, just with a different skin. Unfortunately, for most of you, you are having a hard time figuring this out.
Ironically, modern WoW is non-linear (in leveling), and offers more variety for different playstyles (normal & heroic 5 mans; LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic Raids). They even had 3 man Scenarios in MoP, but removed them in WoD, which was a mistake in my opinion, since they could've elaborated on it some more.
Ya I just really feel like the LFR and LFG is where games went wrong theres no immersion for me but to each his own.
The game was fun, loved the housing and the Paths system, the style is up to taste but I liked that aspect too (graphics and humour)... and at the end all the good part was bludgeoned with the bad targeting of "we're making it for the hardcore, old-school folks out there with hardcore mindset and blah blah", plus all the lame design issues this dragged in, like rolling onto just one faction, or if you dare to have characters on both sides, they don't exist to each other; massive grind, camping, cooldown dance and rotations and macros, etc.
Now with the f2p switch is coming, they're on a course to fix that, already added the Fragment Zero and the Protostar Academy for the lower levels, there's the 20-man raids, they said there will be other changes too - to be honest, I'm not sure. The issue never was the leveling part, it was the endgame.
But I don't really care, until I can play with the housing system
Ya the housing was good I just dont think the style and goofyness of this game is what hardcore players are looking for. When I play a game like wildstar im expecting WoW easyness I always felt like the HC aspect just never fit the game design and I believe thats where I had a huge disconnect with the game. The design of the game is trying to target to many different markets between the graphics and HC endgame these graphics only appeal to casual gamers honestly I couldnt get anyone I know to stick with the game based on this alone. Can we talk about the stupid ass ticket system though like WTF is up with that crap, I hate ncsofts support system I mean I understood for GW1 because it was free but $15 a month and I cant even talk to a damn human lol.
What went wrong with all mmorpgs in these days ? I was talking with my cousin about this, honestly people are still looking for a game like Ultima Online (for old school gamers). my first mmorpg was Ultima Online, and i remember the first time that i played World of Warcraft, was awsome of course, but i miss something, the freedom. People are looking for this freedom again, because this games like Archeage or others sandbox are so hyped. But you know ? I wanna tame a dragon again ! i wanna play harp or guitar in the city, i wanna find places to tame rare mounts, pets, i wanna tame a chicken to make them fight and gamble on this. Why ? Because who makes a mmorpg fun it's the players. People wanna play mmorpgs for fun, not to be stress.
Sorry my english.
Imagine that...people want to play a game to have fun. Why have developers forgotten that? They are so busy worrying about their in game economy and such that they forgot how to make games fun.
I saw this happen with Firefall from beta .7 to now. They simply sucked all the fun out of the game. They went backwards. It makes you wonder if someone in the company is purposely trying to tank the game. It makes no sense at all.
What went wrong with all mmorpgs in these days ? I was talking with my cousin about this, honestly people are still looking for a game like Ultima Online (for old school gamers). my first mmorpg was Ultima Online, and i remember the first time that i played World of Warcraft, was awsome of course, but i miss something, the freedom. People are looking for this freedom again, because this games like Archeage or others sandbox are so hyped. But you know ? I wanna tame a dragon again ! i wanna play harp or guitar in the city, i wanna find places to tame rare mounts, pets, i wanna tame a chicken to make them fight and gamble on this. Why ? Because who makes a mmorpg fun it's the players. People wanna play mmorpgs for fun, not to be stress.
Sorry my english.
Imagine that...people want to play a game to have fun. Why have developers forgotten that? They are so busy worrying about their in game economy and such that they forgot how to make games fun.
I saw this happen with Firefall from beta .7 to now. They simply sucked all the fun out of the game. They went backwards. It makes you wonder if someone in the company is purposely trying to tank the game. It makes no sense at all.
Aww it pains me to hear that I was in firefall beta and it had so much potential.
For me it was two things. The first one was sub+box fee. Why should I pay for it when other quality mmo's don't have that? For people who are saying devs also need to eat, the other games seem to manage just fine without gouging the customer.
Second, they marketed it as the most hardcore shit ever. Which sounds like work and suffering. You don't play games because you want to suffer, you play it for fun. There is already a hardcore game out there and everyone's playing it. It's called real life. Why do it twice?
I was one of the folks who bought it through the Humble Bundle promotion. Most of my characters are about 15ish so far. I find the game very similar to others. It really hasn't stood out as anything special so far. I'm a stubborn sort though and will continue playing until my 30 days run out before going back to other games I play.
It had at first no free trial, and I didn't want to buy it without trying it. Once it had a free trial many many months after launch, I had already lost interest.
Your characters are stuck with the same weapon types. That seems boring to me.
Not much of a choice on where to level up. You have to go through pretty much the same content when you level up multiple characters of the same faction.
The combination of an initial payment AND pay2win didn't seem attractive to me.
The graphics made it look like a game that targets very young teenagers.
I was close to buying it, but in the end stuck with the good non-MMORPG games I have.
So, I answered this same question a few months back. I really hate to copy/paste things, but I'm going to. However, most of the issues in what I'm about to post have been fixed since then. Wildstar really is a great game, but this is what happened in the beginning.
Having played Wildstar from launch until finishing GA 6/6 with my guild ... Here's my take on the game.
The combat and gameplay is wonderfully done. The leveling content does little to take advantage of those systems, so it can be a very boring process unfortunately. Housing was very robust and fun, very well done. Content was very little in terms of what happened post-release, and the quality of patches was very poor. The constant push-back of content "Drops" and promise of fixing everything really set the game back.
After reaching 50, there was little a "casual" player could do besides dailies (for which there was no real reward, unless you were also clearing raid content, which meant you didn't need the rewards anyways). This lead to the majority of casuals being bored as well at end game.
End game was the main focus, however, it was poorly designed. A high time wall was originally required to begin raiding, and it was something very few could complete without the help of people who knew the "tricks" to completing the time trials of getting Gold/Silver. This led to few people/guilds actually able to participate in 20-man content. "Casual" raiders in WS would have easily been considered semi-hardcore raiders in WoW for the time-investment and skill it took. Most people who came to WS expecting to raid left very rapidly.
I saw the fall of many (MANY) guilds, very rapidly once they reached the point where raiding was the goal. I myself went through about 6 guilds before finding one that was actually able to complete the content, had the man power to sustain, and wasn't a complete douche about it. The rest? Within a week or two they all crumbled. Disbanded, completely. Even once a few guilds reached the point of being able to enter 20-man raiding, the roster boss quickly caught up to them. Many merged, only to still disband after failing to have the numbers.
It also suffered from terrible itemization and RNG. Crafted gear was near BiS until you got an incredibly perfect roll on slots from very specific GA gear drops. Otherwise, it was a break-even at best. This lead to the feeling of lots of stick but no carrot at the end. Having cleared GA and gotten all the drops for my class (SS Healer), I probably got about 15 drops of loot. Only about 4 of which were actual, quantifiable upgrades from what I had crafted or gotten from dungeons. I can't say enough about how terrible itemization was - It reminded me of TBC in WoW. -Crit taken on healer gear? +Focus recovery on tank gear? None of it really made much sense.
GA was a terribly bug-ridden raid. Some bosses caused complete crashes for over 75% of the raid group, randomly, and without known cause. Some bosses would become invulnerable, causing you to have to reset the entire instance of trash and re-clear to that boss. Some of the bosses had total cheese mechanics, which, to my knowledge, still haven't been fixed. The encounters were somewhat well-created and required pretty precise execution - It WAS fun, when it worked properly. However, even "on farm", the encounter would still cause multiple raid wipes due to bugs. This made it tedious and really annoying to keep a roster filled with 25+ people.
DS was even worse - However, I'd given up on raiding just before my guild started in on DS. However, I see now that they're abandoning 40 man content, which is likely the best idea. It will give more for the guilds (few in number) who are able to do 20 man content but not 40 man content something to do. It will probably take far too long for this content to roll around, though. They're constant lack of updates coupled with bug-ridden releases will make sure of this.
I'm not even referring to simple bugs - I mean completely game-breaking bugs. Not being able to switch hot bars, all of your gear randomly disappearing, purchases from AH changing stats once you buy them, exploits (numerous), class skills being broken (though unchanged in notes), AMPs not working, etc. So many things that would make it incredibly annoying to play the game, across the board. They delayed Drop 3 so much because they wanted it to be bug free as possible, and even then it still lead to multiple game breaking bugs and exploits being opened.
Wildstar has the capability to be an amazing game - the combat alone made it hard for me to return to other games without feeling bored. However, their target audience was small, and they failed to deliver even to them. Given time to recover and with the advent of F2P, I'm sure it will see more success.
TL;DR - Too much stick, not enough carrot. All the way through. End game was tough to reach, raiding was hard to reach, and none of it was particularly rewarding. Great potential, poor execution.
I really enjoyed reading your take on what happened, especially since you invested so much time in Wildstar. I had a couple of friends who were invested in the game as much as you. After hearing their stories which were very similar to your own; and I can fully understand what I highlighted in green. I can't really give my own detail explanation to Wildstar's current state or the reason "why" I think everyone left the game.
I personally left for performance issues. I loved the content I played especially since I was always with friends and guildmates during my level progression. And my first dungeon experience, while challenging was very rewarding. I think everyone I played with had cramping hands after defeating our last dungeon boss with a smile on their faces.
For many MMORPG gamers there's the flavor of the day. I like tab targeting over action combat, realism over stylized graphics, red instead of blue, etc, etc. But that really doesn't help me figure out as to why a game like this does not appeal to many. While everything is subjective, arguments like that aren't going to fully educate me on Wildstar.
Uninspired, generic, repetitive and very dated quests with poor quest pathing.
The PVP content was a flustercluck requiring few tactics, and this was largely due to:
The horrible combat. I love action combat, but dodging red blobs endlessly is tiring and repetitive. The combat fails because it requires a lot of attention and is also incredibly uninteresting... combat can be one or the other but not both without exhausting the playerbase.
The attention whoring "look at me! Look at me!" graphics and game design. The unsolicited achievement quests that would flash text all over your screen as you tried to ignore them. Irritating.
The difficulty jumps. Difficult content is fine but you need to ease your playerbase into it, rather than jumping suddenly from easy-mode, solo-friendly world content to difficult dungeon content.
They are the main reasons why I think it failed. For me the combat and uninspired levelling experience did most of the damage; but what killed it for me was one too many of those dam achievement quests flashing uninvited all over my monitor.
People should stop regurgitating the harcore excuse.
Fact is, most quited that game way before reaching anything that could be called hardcore mechanics.
It was just plain boring & obnoxious. That is all.
By marketing as hardcore they did lose out on potential players, but they managed to draw plenty of players anyway and couldnt keep them.
And it all goes back to bad combat.
And not understanding your target audience.
Action combat is not the way to go after the hardcore audience (they want big raids that require teamwork, not just dodging colors on ground...actual class interplay), and it was a horrible implementation of action combat to begin with
wildstar is just a bad wow clone made by a korean company that makes games that everyone likes to use to say asian games are grindy ignorantly. wow kids don't come out from living under their rock and that's the target audience. wow players leave their 1 and only glory game after every major expansion. Wow players are not long term and this whole game was never going to succeed it was obvious. But finally they'll get to releasing blade and soul after forever. And black desert will come out and maybe they will move back to where they belong. Making asian games for the truely biggest mmo market such as teccent over 20 million players just from a single territory not that wow bs pr 10millino worldwide garbage which is mostly just china.
Originally posted by Mystralz wildstar is just a bad wow clone made by a korean company that makes games that everyone likes to use to say asian games are grindy ignorantly. wow kids don't come out from living under their rock and that's the target audience. wow players leave their 1 and only glory game after every major expansion. Wow players are not long term and this whole game was never going to succeed it was obvious. But finally they'll get to releasing blade and soul after forever. And black desert will come out and maybe they will move back to where they belong. Making asian games for the truely biggest mmo market such as teccent over 20 million players just from a single territory not that wow bs pr 10millino worldwide garbage which is mostly just china.
You do realize Wildstar wasn't made by "a korean company" it was made by Carbine Entertainment which is based out of California in the US. It was published by NCsoft but they really didn't have much to do with it other than publication.
Currently I've been enjoying Wildstar again, I went back, they reduced the quest grind a tad, made it a bit easier to get things in the game, reduced the raid entry point and some other things. It has quite a few people, not a ton but enough to play the game. I did a /who in the level brackets, 1 to 10 had like 95 people online (probably from the humble bundle) and every other level bracket returned around 90+ people too. Lots at level cap doing things too.
I think what went bad for them stemmed from the fact that they pushed it so hard to be difficult. They made fights difficult, they made attunement difficult, they made everything take a lot of time. It just didn't work out for the audience they brought in. I'm hoping with the f2p launch it will bring alot of people because the game itself is pretty good. It has a nice art direction, and in general it flows pretty well. It's just a fun game to play now.
Originally posted by Mystralz wildstar is just a bad wow clone
themepark =/= WoW clone.
Wildstar is certainly not a WoW clone. As someone else said, Rift (at launch) and SWtOR are WoW clones. They are really the only 2 AAA games that are truly WoW clones.
By marketing as hardcore they did lose out on potential players, but they managed to draw plenty of players anyway and couldnt keep them.
And it all goes back to bad combat.
And not understanding your target audience.
Action combat is not the way to go after the hardcore audience (they want big raids that require teamwork, not just dodging colors on ground...actual class interplay), and it was a horrible implementation of action combat to begin with
Making a game for hardcore PvE players ain't a bad idea, there are a few millions of players like that which make them a pretty good focus group, maybe not as large as casual PvEers but if they enjoy their time they stay for years.
I think bad combat is part of it.
And maybe the setting might be less than perfect for the target group, it did feel like a kids show. I do however think a lot of the initial problem was due to them not launching with the mega servers. Having hard time to find groups for specific stuff is bad in a game focused on group and raid action.
And well, while many things are fine not much really stands out as really good and the competition is pretty hard. Fine wont cut it anymore.
By marketing as hardcore they did lose out on potential players, but they managed to draw plenty of players anyway and couldnt keep them.
And it all goes back to bad combat.
And not understanding your target audience.
Action combat is not the way to go after the hardcore audience (they want big raids that require teamwork, not just dodging colors on ground...actual class interplay), and it was a horrible implementation of action combat to begin with
Making a game for hardcore PvE players ain't a bad idea, there are a few millions of players like that which make them a pretty good focus group, maybe not as large as casual PvEers but if they enjoy their time they stay for years.
I think bad combat is part of it.
And maybe the setting might be less than perfect for the target group, it did feel like a kids show. I do however think a lot of the initial problem was due to them not launching with the mega servers. Having hard time to find groups for specific stuff is bad in a game focused on group and raid action.
And well, while many things are fine not much really stands out as really good and the competition is pretty hard. Fine wont cut it anymore.
Never before has a game had less of a clue on who it's target audience was.
If your entire game form the combat to the questing to the art style screams: this game is for ultra-casuals!
Then you turn around and design your endgame for hardcore players with almost no casual content for the people who might actually like the rest of your game...
Yeah, your game is going to be wildly unsuccessful.
Yet everyone who doesn't like hardcore content wants to throw the hardcore crowd under the bus because Wildstar tanked.
(Also all the fps issues people were having didn't help either.)
I wrote a response similar to this thread a while back which covered all the points i could remember at the time of playing;
Paths isolated from each other too much;
dynamic events not really dynamic
area effects where barely part of the game-play
melee combat much more difficult than ranged - especially in pvp
unbalanced pvp combat
not good/great pvp maps/objectives
story was not good - expect towards the end where it picked up pace
end game grind - removing accessibility to draw people to great content such as pre -raid pre-requisites
crafting was not great either,
Maybe also since i am more accustomed to VO quality, that side questing or quesitng with text boxes puts more emphasis on the script which WS did not do a great job at
lacking in other wanted features such as mini games (pvp - e.g. cards ) albiet their diversidifed quest mechanics was nice.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Comments
+1.. Additionally Wildstar followed exactly the trajectory that I hoped would befall it. With the glut of WoW clones, hard fails were the medicine required.
Ironically, modern WoW is non-linear (in leveling), and offers more variety for different playstyles (normal & heroic 5 mans; LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic Raids). They even had 3 man Scenarios in MoP, but removed them in WoD, which was a mistake in my opinion, since they could've elaborated on it some more.
"You can roll a turd in powdered sugar, but that don't make it a doughnut." God I hate WoW and MOBA'S somebody save us lol.
Ya I just really feel like the LFR and LFG is where games went wrong theres no immersion for me but to each his own.
My vote is with all those above, saying "HC".
The game was fun, loved the housing and the Paths system, the style is up to taste but I liked that aspect too (graphics and humour)... and at the end all the good part was bludgeoned with the bad targeting of "we're making it for the hardcore, old-school folks out there with hardcore mindset and blah blah", plus all the lame design issues this dragged in, like rolling onto just one faction, or if you dare to have characters on both sides, they don't exist to each other; massive grind, camping, cooldown dance and rotations and macros, etc.
Now with the f2p switch is coming, they're on a course to fix that, already added the Fragment Zero and the Protostar Academy for the lower levels, there's the 20-man raids, they said there will be other changes too - to be honest, I'm not sure. The issue never was the leveling part, it was the endgame.
But I don't really care, until I can play with the housing system
Imagine that...people want to play a game to have fun. Why have developers forgotten that? They are so busy worrying about their in game economy and such that they forgot how to make games fun.
I saw this happen with Firefall from beta .7 to now. They simply sucked all the fun out of the game. They went backwards. It makes you wonder if someone in the company is purposely trying to tank the game. It makes no sense at all.
Aww it pains me to hear that I was in firefall beta and it had so much potential.
For me it was two things. The first one was sub+box fee. Why should I pay for it when other quality mmo's don't have that? For people who are saying devs also need to eat, the other games seem to manage just fine without gouging the customer.
Second, they marketed it as the most hardcore shit ever. Which sounds like work and suffering. You don't play games because you want to suffer, you play it for fun. There is already a hardcore game out there and everyone's playing it. It's called real life. Why do it twice?
I was one of the folks who bought it through the Humble Bundle promotion. Most of my characters are about 15ish so far. I find the game very similar to others. It really hasn't stood out as anything special so far.
I'm a stubborn sort though and will continue playing until my 30 days run out before going back to other games I play.
I really want to like it *shrug*
For me...
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I really enjoyed reading your take on what happened, especially since you invested so much time in Wildstar. I had a couple of friends who were invested in the game as much as you. After hearing their stories which were very similar to your own; and I can fully understand what I highlighted in green. I can't really give my own detail explanation to Wildstar's current state or the reason "why" I think everyone left the game.
I personally left for performance issues. I loved the content I played especially since I was always with friends and guildmates during my level progression. And my first dungeon experience, while challenging was very rewarding. I think everyone I played with had cramping hands after defeating our last dungeon boss with a smile on their faces.
For many MMORPG gamers there's the flavor of the day. I like tab targeting over action combat, realism over stylized graphics, red instead of blue, etc, etc. But that really doesn't help me figure out as to why a game like this does not appeal to many. While everything is subjective, arguments like that aren't going to fully educate me on Wildstar.
To answer the OP; many bad design choices: -
They are the main reasons why I think it failed. For me the combat and uninspired levelling experience did most of the damage; but what killed it for me was one too many of those dam achievement quests flashing uninvited all over my monitor.
I can only say why I had no interest:
1) WOW clone
2) Targeted hardcore raiders
3) Too cartoony
4) sub based
5) IP I had no attachment to
By marketing as hardcore they did lose out on potential players, but they managed to draw plenty of players anyway and couldnt keep them.
And it all goes back to bad combat.
And not understanding your target audience.
Action combat is not the way to go after the hardcore audience (they want big raids that require teamwork, not just dodging colors on ground...actual class interplay), and it was a horrible implementation of action combat to begin with
You do realize Wildstar wasn't made by "a korean company" it was made by Carbine Entertainment which is based out of California in the US. It was published by NCsoft but they really didn't have much to do with it other than publication.
Currently I've been enjoying Wildstar again, I went back, they reduced the quest grind a tad, made it a bit easier to get things in the game, reduced the raid entry point and some other things. It has quite a few people, not a ton but enough to play the game. I did a /who in the level brackets, 1 to 10 had like 95 people online (probably from the humble bundle) and every other level bracket returned around 90+ people too. Lots at level cap doing things too.
I think what went bad for them stemmed from the fact that they pushed it so hard to be difficult. They made fights difficult, they made attunement difficult, they made everything take a lot of time. It just didn't work out for the audience they brought in. I'm hoping with the f2p launch it will bring alot of people because the game itself is pretty good. It has a nice art direction, and in general it flows pretty well. It's just a fun game to play now.
themepark =/= WoW clone.
Wildstar is certainly not a WoW clone. As someone else said, Rift (at launch) and SWtOR are WoW clones. They are really the only 2 AAA games that are truly WoW clones.
with a combat style best suited for shorter play sessions.
Making a game for hardcore PvE players ain't a bad idea, there are a few millions of players like that which make them a pretty good focus group, maybe not as large as casual PvEers but if they enjoy their time they stay for years.
I think bad combat is part of it.
And maybe the setting might be less than perfect for the target group, it did feel like a kids show. I do however think a lot of the initial problem was due to them not launching with the mega servers. Having hard time to find groups for specific stuff is bad in a game focused on group and raid action.
And well, while many things are fine not much really stands out as really good and the competition is pretty hard. Fine wont cut it anymore.
Never before has a game had less of a clue on who it's target audience was.
If your entire game form the combat to the questing to the art style screams: this game is for ultra-casuals!
Then you turn around and design your endgame for hardcore players with almost no casual content for the people who might actually like the rest of your game...
Yeah, your game is going to be wildly unsuccessful.
Yet everyone who doesn't like hardcore content wants to throw the hardcore crowd under the bus because Wildstar tanked.
(Also all the fps issues people were having didn't help either.)
I wrote a response similar to this thread a while back which covered all the points i could remember at the time of playing;
Paths isolated from each other too much;
dynamic events not really dynamic
area effects where barely part of the game-play
melee combat much more difficult than ranged - especially in pvp
unbalanced pvp combat
not good/great pvp maps/objectives
story was not good - expect towards the end where it picked up pace
end game grind - removing accessibility to draw people to great content such as pre -raid pre-requisites
crafting was not great either,
Maybe also since i am more accustomed to VO quality, that side questing or quesitng with text boxes puts more emphasis on the script which WS did not do a great job at
lacking in other wanted features such as mini games (pvp - e.g. cards ) albiet their diversidifed quest mechanics was nice.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble