In an era of WoW Clones, where the term is treated as a pejorative and reviled, here comes Wildstar - the King of the Clones. It's entire claim to fan was to be More Warcraft than Warcraft.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Even though Rift tried something uncannily similar just a few years earlier, to mixed success, apparently the Wildstar team were convinced that Rift just didn't quite mimic WoW well enough, and set out to explicitly target the "Vanilla" experience - large, hard raids, subscription payment model, etc. WoW had bright cartoony graphics, so Wildstar has brigher, even more cartoony graphics. And full of irreverent humor.
I didn't mind the game - I thought it was a lot over the top, and that annoyed me more than anything, and the gameplay seemed to act more like a complicated game of Twister dodging AOE ques, but it played smooth for the most part. But it's no wonder it more or less fell on it's face. It's hard to outdo Blizzard at their own game, and Carbine was targeting that exact same market, and hard.
I hate how every ability is an AoE. The irony is they wanted to revolutionize the combat.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Really easy to answer the question here. This game was built from ground up with raiders in mind. Hard core raiders only represent a very small fraction of the gaming population these days. I enjoy the game an play it on and off myself though.
Let me give you an example what happened to the game after it came out. Everyone got to max level to learn that they had to attune themselves to do end content. Many would show up to raids and then be like what the hell I can't do this it will not let me in. Then you ask them did you complete the attunement which wasn't that hard to do just a little time consuming and their answer usually was what attunement. So then you have half a raid sitting around that couldn't do it without shouting in general looking for others to fill the raid, which also had lockouts like other games. If you didn't get back in the same group you couldn't finish the raid later. It was this that pushed out a ton of players from the start. Then it became a you have to link your attunement achievement before getting in groups for raids, even the pvp raids which were a blast if you had to good raids going at it. Now it was everyone sit around for an hour just trying to fill raids out which no one really wants to do, personally I have other things to do that stand around. If you would have been able to complete quest while they were filling out the raid it might have been different but you couldn't quest while in a raid so you had to just stand around.
Now lets move on to their update schedule which was a bad idea from the start. They had said they would release new content at a ridiculous speed. What this caused was them to push out content that wasn't finished an bugged all to hell. I can remember going into the first new zone they released and the quest givers didn't even have names for there quest. It would show up with a programming error as the name of the quest. They really did try to do what they said they would but it really wasn't something they could pull off.
Overall they marketed the game to a niche, promised more than they were able to deliver, and the anime style which I like isn't for everyone. Those were the main reasons this game fell short of what it meant to be. It was a good game but could have used about another year in development with actual testers so they could have seen what was going to happen.
Because it is Sci-Fi. I honestly think that if it was a fantasy game it would have found a bigger audience. Not that Sci-Fi does not have an audience but cartoony and Sci-Fi? Eh.
That was mostly it for me. Aesthetically, it just didn't work. All of the parts were done well individually. Responsive controls, quality voiceovers, good performing engine, good character design, good audio. But together, they didn't work well. Kinda like how I'm a fan of both green and red, but wouldn't wear them together unless it was Christmas, or how I like hotdogs and soup, but hotdog soup sounds awful.
Cartoony and sci-fi turned me off as did the focus on PvE while utilizing an action system, IMO, tend to be better in a less structured combat environment. The game just didn't jive for me, and I was left feeling directionless as early as level 30 or so. Too bad really. There are some good things to take from Wildstar.
Here comes an MMO to cater to that 1% of players...
If it expected anything to be an ultra niche MMO, that is where it failed.
The massively vast majority of MMOers (proven by WoW) are not interested in hardcore raids or challenging content.
With that said, I really like challenging MMOs like Wildstar and Vanguard. Most gamers aren't into challenging games like that though. Vanguard was the same, it was a very challenging MMO experience (as far as themeparks go), and it just didn't fit the majority who like a casual laidback/easy experience like WoW/swtor/ESO/GW2/LOTRO provide.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Recently gave it a go after browsing some games on steam. Have to say it is a damn solid title. Set my keybinds up and controls to be more like Tera/ESO and am having a blast. I could really do without the cheese humor and voiceover all the time, but the gameplay is fluid, responsive, and most of all fun. As the title says, Why is this not one of the top mmo games right now? I honestly feel like it's a better experience than WoW currently. Add to the fact that I'm laughing a little about this, but it feels less like a spam fest than WoW currently is as well.
Hmm, I felt the opposite; I mostly liked the humor and story, but did not like the combat. I had great difficulty figuring out which sequence of attacks was actually more effective, and whether I was successfully getting backstab bonuses or not. I also thought that having robots in a pet role really didn't create the feel of a pet class. And I was kind of baffled by the costume system, as well as frustrated by the crafting system.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Here comes an MMO to cater to that 1% of players...
If it expected anything to be an ultra niche MMO, that is where it failed.
The massively vast majority of MMOers (proven by WoW) are not interested in hardcore raids or challenging content.
With that said, I really like challenging MMOs like Wildstar and Vanguard. Most gamers aren't into challenging games like that though. Vanguard was the same, it was a very challenging MMO experience (as far as themeparks go), and it just didn't fit the majority who like a casual laidback/easy experience like WoW/swtor/ESO/GW2/LOTRO provide.
I'm not sure if that 1% is correct. I think it was more about only 5% cleared all contents during vanilla, something like that, so there had to be much more raiding.
But, they even failed at that. My guild--a hardcore raiding guild at that time--migrated to Wildstar for hardcore raiding alone. On second month all went back to WoW, SWToR, FFXIV, etc. and none stayed.
I know many other raiding guilds went through the same thing.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
TL;DR: They catered to the Vanilla WoW crowd and that's by no means a majority... Nor was it even "Vanilla WoW good" anyway.
They rode the "we're old gamers that looooooved Vanilla WoW so much, guys! you're gonna love our hardcore game" dick too much. I'm not even talking about raid difficulty, that can be its thing and if it's too hard for some, they can adapt and get better. I'm just talking about the general "journey" to get there.
XP rates were trash and leveling just felt like a slump. Cool idea guys, if it was 2004 and I was still in school, still super fresh for anything MMO, it would have been great. Sadly, it's what, 2012? and we're already past that. This isn't a "fun" feature anymore. The extremely linear progression model doesn't quite fit with slumpy ass slow leveling. It worked in Vanilla, but in Vanilla, I was just coming off of EverQuest and Diablo 2. One was a group-dependant game, WoW countered that for the most part. The other was an isometric 3D game from 2000. The Wildstar developers really didn't get the memo that Vanilla WoW's success, for the most part, almost purely came from when it came out, and what little competition it had at the time, and how it was the only casual/solo-friendly MMO...
No dungeon queuing system cause we're hardcooooooooooore. But in the end, it's fucking stupid. Make people travel once there to have actually travelled there once for RP reasons or whatever, but please for the love of god add some convenience in your game. Making a themepark without a functional dungeon grouping tool is suicide anymore. Specially when "what's fun about your game" is dungeons and people are quitting within the first 2 weeks left and right. You should encourage and help people get into what you deem is your strong point, rather than make them waste time getting to it.
That's about it. I don't mind slow progression if the game is interesting enough and has different interesting activities to do. In ArcheAge, I stayed level 35 for fucking ever, cause that's when I got land and found the land system amazing enough to completely derail me from the boring quest grind. In Wildstar, I couldn't do that. If I didn't wanna quest, I didn't have shit to do. I could go stand at a dungeon entrance for fucking ever, to do a dungeon that rewarded me slightly-better-but-not-really gear, and garbage XP.
That's why Wildstar didn't work for me. Because it deliberately tried to disconnect me from it by utilising "hardcore" (more like archaic) unnecessary systems.
Because MMO players claim to want hardcore, but really don't.
The issue is what do you mean by hardcore?
Hardcore as in requires a heavy time investment? Hardcore as in requires a lot of player skill? Hardcore as in you'll get a call from your guild to get on a 2am you're expected to respond to? Hardcore as in heavy consequences for failure? Hardcore as in you need a lot of people to do it? Hardcore as in the RNG is harsh?
MMO players keep throwing the word "hardcore" around but it means something a bit different to almost everyone who uses it. Everyone seems to want hardcore but nobody seems to want the same kind of hardcore.
Here comes an MMO to cater to that 1% of players...
If it expected anything to be an ultra niche MMO, that is where it failed.
The massively vast majority of MMOers (proven by WoW) are not interested in hardcore raids or challenging content.
With that said, I really like challenging MMOs like Wildstar and Vanguard. Most gamers aren't into challenging games like that though. Vanguard was the same, it was a very challenging MMO experience (as far as themeparks go), and it just didn't fit the majority who like a casual laidback/easy experience like WoW/swtor/ESO/GW2/LOTRO provide.
I'm not sure if that 1% is correct. I think it was more about only 5% cleared all contents during vanilla, something like that, so there had to be much more raiding.
But, they even failed at that. My guild--a hardcore raiding guild at that time--migrated to Wildstar for hardcore raiding alone. On second month all went back to WoW, SWToR, FFXIV, etc. and none stayed.
I know many other raiding guilds went through the same thing.
tell us why. What did your guildmates hope to find and why didn't it work out?
We found everything we hoped to find. Our only problem was combat and nothing else. People even loved the boss mechanics and everything. I personally love everything about this game but the combat. Funny thing is when we played the beta, and only did 5-man dungeons we liked it. We liked how different it was.
But when we reached the end-game content it was very different. We hated in PvP, and we hated it in raids. We hated how almost all skills were AoEs.
Maybe we were rigid and set on our ways. But that's how most of the hardcore raiding guilds are. If you they are your target audience, you gotta consider that.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Because MMO players claim to want hardcore, but really don't.
The issue is what do you mean by hardcore?
Hardcore as in requires a heavy time investment? Hardcore as in requires a lot of player skill? Hardcore as in you'll get a call from your guild to get on a 2am you're expected to respond to? Hardcore as in heavy consequences for failure? Hardcore as in you need a lot of people to do it? Hardcore as in the RNG is harsh?
MMO players keep throwing the word "hardcore" around but it means something a bit different to almost everyone who uses it. Everyone seems to want hardcore but nobody seems to want the same kind of hardcore.
I don't think most modern MMO players want any of those things.
Overall, I don't think hardcore raiding and action-combat sit well with each other. They tried to create the game focusing on first and revolutionizing the second.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Overall, I don't think hardcore raiding and action-combat sit well with each other. They tried to create the game focusing on first and revolutionizing the second.
yup. i think so too. its also super themeparky.
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
I'm one of those people who was interested in the hype but who left after a few weeks. While the game was very polished for features and humor within a narrow field of view, it succumbed to the same problem I have with all modern MMOs: each zone has only one purpose which is to level out of it as soon as possible. It was not "alive" in the sense that the whole game world was simultaneously interesting. To be fair, no game world I've played since EQ1 has had any reason to go back to earlier zones, but my tolerance for zone-levels has dramatically decreased over time. MMOs need to give up on the concept of levels for a decade or so, just to break them of the terribly bad habit of relying upon "second verse, same as the first".
You my friend need to give ESO a try. They basically solved your issue.
I bought the game at launch and enjoyed it to a point. Some areas were pretty tough, they would throw in a super elite mob with regulars who would destroy you if you were not paying attention. The whole game was kinda "busy" between the graphics and the AOE overlays there was a lot going on.
Wildstar problem is very easy to pinpoint; it is 2 separate games in one. This game has no middle ground, it is either too Casual or too Hardcore.
Game 1 = From lvl 1 to Max lvl Gameplay = Ultra Casual Target Audiance = Very Casual Player
Game 2 = End Game Gameplay = Ultra Hardcore Target Audiance = Hardcore Raiders
Casual Players hate Game 2, Hardcore Raiders hate Game 1 = No one is playing the game.
I love Raiding and personally I could not bring myself to Max level a single character as I found the leveling experience quite shallow and boring as hell. I know Dungeons are challenging, unfortunately most players were playing Solo so it was difficult to find a group. One of the worst MMO design ever in my opinion.
Comments
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/If that sounds familiar, it should. Even though Rift tried something uncannily similar just a few years earlier, to mixed success, apparently the Wildstar team were convinced that Rift just didn't quite mimic WoW well enough, and set out to explicitly target the "Vanilla" experience - large, hard raids, subscription payment model, etc. WoW had bright cartoony graphics, so Wildstar has brigher, even more cartoony graphics. And full of irreverent humor.
I didn't mind the game - I thought it was a lot over the top, and that annoyed me more than anything, and the gameplay seemed to act more like a complicated game of Twister dodging AOE ques, but it played smooth for the most part. But it's no wonder it more or less fell on it's face. It's hard to outdo Blizzard at their own game, and Carbine was targeting that exact same market, and hard.
Let me give you an example what happened to the game after it came out. Everyone got to max level to learn that they had to attune themselves to do end content. Many would show up to raids and then be like what the hell I can't do this it will not let me in. Then you ask them did you complete the attunement which wasn't that hard to do just a little time consuming and their answer usually was what attunement. So then you have half a raid sitting around that couldn't do it without shouting in general looking for others to fill the raid, which also had lockouts like other games. If you didn't get back in the same group you couldn't finish the raid later. It was this that pushed out a ton of players from the start. Then it became a you have to link your attunement achievement before getting in groups for raids, even the pvp raids which were a blast if you had to good raids going at it. Now it was everyone sit around for an hour just trying to fill raids out which no one really wants to do, personally I have other things to do that stand around. If you would have been able to complete quest while they were filling out the raid it might have been different but you couldn't quest while in a raid so you had to just stand around.
Now lets move on to their update schedule which was a bad idea from the start. They had said they would release new content at a ridiculous speed. What this caused was them to push out content that wasn't finished an bugged all to hell. I can remember going into the first new zone they released and the quest givers didn't even have names for there quest. It would show up with a programming error as the name of the quest. They really did try to do what they said they would but it really wasn't something they could pull off.
Overall they marketed the game to a niche, promised more than they were able to deliver, and the anime style which I like isn't for everyone. Those were the main reasons this game fell short of what it meant to be. It was a good game but could have used about another year in development with actual testers so they could have seen what was going to happen.
Cartoony and sci-fi turned me off as did the focus on PvE while utilizing an action system, IMO, tend to be better in a less structured combat environment. The game just didn't jive for me, and I was left feeling directionless as early as level 30 or so. Too bad really. There are some good things to take from Wildstar.
Here comes an MMO to cater to that 1% of players...
If it expected anything to be an ultra niche MMO, that is where it failed.
The massively vast majority of MMOers (proven by WoW) are not interested in hardcore raids or challenging content.
With that said, I really like challenging MMOs like Wildstar and Vanguard. Most gamers aren't into challenging games like that though. Vanguard was the same, it was a very challenging MMO experience (as far as themeparks go), and it just didn't fit the majority who like a casual laidback/easy experience like WoW/swtor/ESO/GW2/LOTRO provide.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
But, they even failed at that. My guild--a hardcore raiding guild at that time--migrated to Wildstar for hardcore raiding alone. On second month all went back to WoW, SWToR, FFXIV, etc. and none stayed.
I know many other raiding guilds went through the same thing.
They rode the "we're old gamers that looooooved Vanilla WoW so much, guys! you're gonna love our hardcore game" dick too much. I'm not even talking about raid difficulty, that can be its thing and if it's too hard for some, they can adapt and get better. I'm just talking about the general "journey" to get there.
XP rates were trash and leveling just felt like a slump. Cool idea guys, if it was 2004 and I was still in school, still super fresh for anything MMO, it would have been great. Sadly, it's what, 2012? and we're already past that. This isn't a "fun" feature anymore. The extremely linear progression model doesn't quite fit with slumpy ass slow leveling. It worked in Vanilla, but in Vanilla, I was just coming off of EverQuest and Diablo 2. One was a group-dependant game, WoW countered that for the most part. The other was an isometric 3D game from 2000. The Wildstar developers really didn't get the memo that Vanilla WoW's success, for the most part, almost purely came from when it came out, and what little competition it had at the time, and how it was the only casual/solo-friendly MMO...
No dungeon queuing system cause we're hardcooooooooooore. But in the end, it's fucking stupid. Make people travel once there to have actually travelled there once for RP reasons or whatever, but please for the love of god add some convenience in your game. Making a themepark without a functional dungeon grouping tool is suicide anymore. Specially when "what's fun about your game" is dungeons and people are quitting within the first 2 weeks left and right. You should encourage and help people get into what you deem is your strong point, rather than make them waste time getting to it.
That's about it. I don't mind slow progression if the game is interesting enough and has different interesting activities to do. In ArcheAge, I stayed level 35 for fucking ever, cause that's when I got land and found the land system amazing enough to completely derail me from the boring quest grind. In Wildstar, I couldn't do that. If I didn't wanna quest, I didn't have shit to do. I could go stand at a dungeon entrance for fucking ever, to do a dungeon that rewarded me slightly-better-but-not-really gear, and garbage XP.
That's why Wildstar didn't work for me. Because it deliberately tried to disconnect me from it by utilising "hardcore" (more like archaic) unnecessary systems.
Hardcore as in requires a heavy time investment?
Hardcore as in requires a lot of player skill?
Hardcore as in you'll get a call from your guild to get on a 2am you're expected to respond to?
Hardcore as in heavy consequences for failure?
Hardcore as in you need a lot of people to do it?
Hardcore as in the RNG is harsh?
MMO players keep throwing the word "hardcore" around but it means something a bit different to almost everyone who uses it. Everyone seems to want hardcore but nobody seems to want the same kind of hardcore.
But when we reached the end-game content it was very different. We hated in PvP, and we hated it in raids. We hated how almost all skills were AoEs.
Maybe we were rigid and set on our ways. But that's how most of the hardcore raiding guilds are. If you they are your target audience, you gotta consider that.
I don't think most modern MMO players want any of those things.
This game has no middle ground, it is either too Casual or too Hardcore.
Game 1 = From lvl 1 to Max lvl
Gameplay = Ultra Casual
Target Audiance = Very Casual Player
Game 2 = End Game
Gameplay = Ultra Hardcore
Target Audiance = Hardcore Raiders
Casual Players hate Game 2, Hardcore Raiders hate Game 1 = No one is playing the game.
I love Raiding and personally I could not bring myself to Max level a single character as I found the leveling experience quite shallow and boring as hell.
I know Dungeons are challenging, unfortunately most players were playing Solo so it was difficult to find a group.
One of the worst MMO design ever in my opinion.