Arenas Sent Me Packing...Hello Wildstar:)

oh? I haven't gotten far enough as I really didn't enjoy the environment or animations or well... much of anything really :/ but I've read that its automatic, like in ESO. if its targetable (like say Neverwinter) then there's hope for it yet.

as for "working" to raid? I think there should be a balance of how many people can actualy access the content. but it sounds like developers are stuck in Vanilla WoW mode, you know the one where only less than 5% of the population saw inside of Naxxramas, let alone cleared it. it is their prerogative, of course, and if they are willing and can afford to design content that so few people will be able to play through - more power to them.

I wouldn't consider myself a super hardcore raider, becasue I'm neither willing nor able to spend copious amounts of time in a row on it. I raid consistently 6 hours a week. occasionally jumping in on other groups on alts or whatnot, but consistently? 2 nights a week, 3 hours each. which as an adult is more than it seems. when I do - I go all out though. but.. /shrug. like I said, to each their own.

if WIldstar can manage to grab their niche, keep them and be profitable enough to continue to do so? more power to Carbine. but Wildstar IS a niche game. its not an MMO panacea some people claim it is.

There are freeform heals and there are targeted heals. Here is the problem. Everyone thinks they should be entitled to raid just because they purchased the game. For the majority of games that have released in the last 5 years that is how it is. No matter what you got to raid. Wildstar is taking that and changing it by making to you have to work your way up to raids. If you don't have a schedule that can fit with raiding there is plenty of other content you can do. If you really wanted to raid you would find time to raid. Even if it is 2 hour a night 2 days a week. You could still make progress.

When comparing vanilla WoW to todays standards. A lot of MMO players were very very new. Not to mention how long it took just to hit cap in vanilla wow, that was a huge chore in itself. Getting ready to raid in vanilla wow helps attribute to the 5% that saw inside classic Naxx. Wildstars raiding isn't the grind that vanilla wow was just to raid. There is no resist gear grind in wildstar. They have an attunement questline that realistically is quite short.

They aren't blocking anyone from raiding in Wildstar. People are blocking themselves from raiding. Too many people feel that they should get to see all the content no matter what because they paid money. The devs have given everyone the tools to be able to raid. It is up to the players if they want to dedicate time to raid.

you underestimate how much more difficult it is to gather 40 people to be able to be on and stay on at the same time for a set chunk of it. as for making some progress in two hours? maybe. will that be enough to feel like actual progress, given the number of bosses and rooms? and its not like there weren't MMO's before, there were other MMO's who had raids that took even more people and more time - WoW made raids MORE accessible and it still wasn't all that accessible at first.

see, its not about being entitled to raid. its about dedicating a large chunk of development time (and trust me, raids take a long time to develop) to something very people people will be able to access. will they have enough time and resources left over, to design other content, that's more accessible to the rest of their players? is that "plenty" going to be enough? especially for someone who might want to raid and not be capable of it for reasons above?

accessibility (not passability as much as accessibility) is important, because you want people to pay you money. if they can't access enough content, they won't pay money.

well... only time will tell.

I know how hard it still is to gather 40 people to do content. I am working on doing it now in preparation for launch. Some people have a knack for organization and some don't. With all the mini bosses they have throughout the raids you could make some good progress working through them and working on 1 major boss in a few hours, and still make some good progress and get gear. It is still about being entitled to raid. There is already tons of content leftover for other players that decide not to raid. The insane amount of housing stuff you can do. There are shiphands, adventures, dungeons, veteran dungeons and adventures. Finishing your path abilities. Hunting achievements. Getting more of the lore items in the game.

If someone wants to raid, they can find the time to do so. No matter how short the time is. If someone wants to raid they will find time to do it. Nothing stops them from doing it.

Carbine made content for everyone, but not all content is meant for everyone. If people cannot access the content that is something that is wrong on the players end. Not on the developers. They have given everyone the tools to be able to raid. There isn't some checkbox that says you have to play x amount of hours to raid. Everyone can raid if they choose. Most players are so used to just being able to que up for a raid now. Or have watered down versions of raids where you don't have to think and you can glide through.

There is nothing stopping people from accessing content.

arenas sure did decrease my interest in pvp in this game.. 8v8 is allright but not as much as one would expect from SW. but 4v4? come on!? what this game really needs is large scale combat as far as pvp is concerned.

I still cannot figure out why BW would go with 4v4 instead of the normal 2v2 3v3 and 5v5 that so many people have become used to. 15v15 warzone would probably do pretty well. It is just kind of sad that competitive pvp has come down completely to 4v4 and that is it :/

As far as raiding in Wildstar goes, I think that many who are talking about it overestimate th imapct it will actually have on the game's population. What piqued my interest in WS wasn't raiding or PvP: it was an interview the ead designer gave roughly a year ago where he pretty clearly stated that the bulk of their scheduled content updates would actually be focused on solo amd small group content; and this was because their numbers say 60% of MMO players do not bother with large group content, like raids. The devs there are making a bunch of noise about PvP and raids, but in reality their largest focus is is in fact "those filthy casuals".

Makes sense to me: design hardcore content for your most traditionally loyal customers that requires infrequent updates due to the time it's takes the bulk of those using it to become bored of it, thus you're free to push more frequent content updates to retain the most traditionally transient ones.

You forget Ilum. The game engine can't handle large scale battles. Personally I would like to see a Wildstar 10v10 or a scale from 2v2 upwards but its clear Bioware want to copy and paste WoW and all its mistakes

The only reason why it's difficult to find 8 let alone 40 players in SWTOR is purely and simply down to BIowares draconian freemium model and the limitations placed on players.

If you have an active community team, like Carbine have, a strong player base, which they will have at launch - then that's a great mix.

Carbine's Community Team have been SO active all over twitch, twitter, facebook etc that community sites will help drive people to the game. Had Bioware did this, SWTOR would probably be in a much better place in terms of numbers. A Community makes or breaks an MMO, its as simple as that.

But again you live in a land of idealism. TOR had the same steam going in. ESO had just as much going in. Just look back at the ESO thread and everything you just posted was pretty much said by that Mal guy. I'd love for Wildstar to be a success and all, but what I don't appreciate is when we have people trying to convince fans of TOR how stupid they are to like TOR or how bad TOR is. Why not praise Wildstar for its merits? Oh wait you can't because it isn't out yet! Why not wait for it to come out then come tell us how good the game is and how Jesus Christ rose from the dead just to play it?

I'm just so confused as to why MMO gamers are so dense. I thought CoD players were bad, but MMO gamers are much worse. So blind to their delusions of grandeur.