I find the zones less interesting than SWTOR's planets, but the PvP and Raids are at least on par with SWTOR.

The leveling though.... she is lacking something.

It's population is shrinking and forecasts aren't good:

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/102598-wildstar-so-far/?p=1051704

I think it's just going through the usual dropoff in players that most MMO's go through. It's playerbase will stabilize over time as the casuals/haters leave and the core devotees stick around.

I think most can agree that unless you can devote 20+ hours a week per toon to grinding various aspects of the game, you won't be attuned or prepared for endgame. It's definitely not as alt friendly or accessible as TOR.

It's population is shrinking and forecasts aren't good:

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/102598-wildstar-so-far/?p=1051704

 

I think it's just going through the usual dropoff in players that most MMO's go through. It's playerbase will stabilize over time as the casuals/haters leave and the core devotees stick around.

 

I think most can agree that unless you can devote 20+ hours a week per toon to grinding various aspects of the game, you won't be attuned or prepared for endgame. It's definitely not as alt friendly or accessible as TOR.

If they keep loosing Revenue I predict one of two things happening.

1: the game goes either hybrid like TOR or full f2p

2: the game gets shutdown

I would think 1 is the most likely option as it's been proven that micro transactions are very profitable for MMOs.

So how is wildstar doing? Everyone said it was going to be a great game, so how is it now that its been out for a few months?

I gave up the fastest of any mmo I've given up on and it looks to be losing subs. I ended up disliking the all aoe combat system and the questing is horrible.

It feels like endless deja vu. Same story every year, MMO crowd proclaims the next upcoming game as THE one, wow-killer etc, flux to it then abandonds it and hates for months/years while going back to WOW. I think it has to be a genuine phenomen. No other part of the gaming community in any genre acts like this.

MMOs are a stale genre and will continue as such until someone builds a compelling game that can conceptually stand on it's own without having borrowed heavily from the EQ/WoW legacy and framework.

I always thought it would be great to have a historical type MMO with bits of fantasy/magic for good measure (Game of Thrones style) that starts with early human migration and progresses through the ages like Greek/Persian empires, pre-colonial African kingdoms, Mughal Empire, Roman Empire, Germanic tribes, through the dark ages, various caliphates, and so on. Each age is a new xpack and it keeps going until modern times and beyond at which point it becomes science fiction.

It would be hybrid themepark/sandbox where players build alliances, trade networks, wage wars, and build civilizations and there's always a story backdrop with compelling characters of course. Since it's loosely based on history, there wouldn't be just 2 factions, there could be several depending on the era. What players achieve in one age influences how the devs build the next age. Story decisions and sandbox actions taken in one age influence the next, sort of like in BW games where what you do in Mass Effect 1 affects the outcomes in 2 and 3.

Obviously this would take a massive budget and a lot of sophisticated next-next-gen tech would have to be created just for the game to do it justice. Then again, all this effort would probably be wasted on the average gamer so it's probably moot.

I haven't played it, since it didn't hold any appeal for me. But judging by all the posts over on the mmorpg.com forums I'd say it's lost quite a bit of its initial population.

As someone above said, it's the same cycle all over again. Game gets hyped, sees a large initial surge of players and eventually will be lucky if even half of them stick around for longer than the free month.

I suspect it'll go F2P with an optional sub next year or so, after the company decides they've gotten sufficient box sales. Probably part of the plan all along. I think every MMO that's been released in the last two years will have a backup plan in place to quickly transition to another business model if the intial one doesn't work out.

Otherwise they have to go through a very painful conversion like TOR did, where development slows to a crawl while they work their asses off to adjust things to the new model.

I think SWTOR and some of the other MMO's like TSW taught them all a lesson there.

MMOs are a stale genre and will continue as such until someone builds a compelling game that can conceptually stand on it's own without having borrowed heavily from the EQ/WoW legacy and framework..

they don't even have to be so special, they just have to truly invest in the game. SWTOR costed $200+ million, but after the game was released they started cutting back on staff and developers within a year. That is not when you cut back. You keep pushing with content until people can't even believe they have beaten the game and there is already an expansion out. "Do I level another character? Do I do the expansion? Do I try the raids? Oh look a new raid is out and I haven't even tried the first one yet, so much to do!"

Every MMO has failed in the eyes of the demanding consumer because no MMO can compare to the pre-established beast of WoW, with it's layers of content and army of staff.

To compare, a company will have to devote as much resources in relation to the game you're producing, and long term. No company has bothered to do that yet.

Age of Conan (AoC), amazing game levels 1-20. Rip developers out of the game after a rushed launch to immediately start on the next game: A Secret World. How are both doing now? There are many sad parallels between Bioware and Funcom in the way they handled MMO resources post launch, as well as rushed launches (albeit SWTOR was not near as bad as AoC).

Even if the ideas aren't unique, they can still impress consumers with steady content. That is the most griped about issue in every MMO.

I ran across a bit of info regarding NCSoft lately in a third party analysis of their efforts for the last year. They listed Wildstar has having performed weaker than expected and listed some rather bad numbers for WS. That said, it was just an analysis by a third party.

Their quarterly numbers will be out on around the 14th of August.

Even if the ideas aren't unique, they can still impress consumers with steady content. That is the most griped about issue in every MMO.

Rift released a lot of content regularly. Their content release system/schedule was the best I've seen. That didn't stop Rift from shrinking into irrelevance.

I agree with you otherwise. MMOs that try to emulate WoW or expect to match it revenue wise will fail.

It feels like endless deja vu. Same story every year, MMO crowd proclaims the next upcoming game as THE one, wow-killer etc, flux to it then abandonds it and hates for months/years while going back to WOW. I think it has to be a genuine phenomen. No other part of the gaming community in any genre acts like this.

how about the FPS comunity and there COD killers?

I gave up the fastest of any mmo I've given up on and it looks to be losing subs. I ended up disliking the all aoe combat system and the questing is horrible.

Same.

MMOs are a stale genre and will continue as such until someone builds a compelling game that can conceptually stand on it's own without having borrowed heavily from the EQ/WoW legacy and framework.

Yet the same can be said about many other genres and all across the industry devs 'copy' each others, players are aware of it and ain't bothered muh most of the time. So why the MMO community is the opposite lol?

Same.

Ditto I didn't even finish my months sub, I don't even know why I lost interest. The game was interesting enough it just was lacking something. I don't know the word for it... I may go back again someday though; housing was pretty good in that game.

Hehe, this guy made an amusing post on the subject.

lol

that was a fun read

This whole thing is amusing.

I see the SAME talking points that all the armchair industry analysts threw around in this game's forums before they left:

1. NCSFT won't listen to the player base. We all know how to build games better than the developers and now this game will fail because they didn't listen to us.

2. Lack of content is killing the game. There is nothing to do.

3. They promised us XYZ and didn't deliver. This game will go F2P in a month.

Hilarious really. Its almost like there is this giant cloud of MMO gamers who descend on a game just to try it(knowing full well it just came out). They know they will leave in a few weeks but post same BS talking points because they don't really have any quality criticism. They just throw out the same generic BS because it sounds good but it actually means very little. They didn't want to play the game anyway. They just want to sound like they knew it would fail... because internet.

how about the FPS comunity and there COD killers?

No. Not really like that at all. The FPS communities are relatively stable. BF players like BF. Cod players like COD. Shooter XYZ players like shooter XYZ.

 

Hilarious really. Its almost like there is this giant cloud of MMO gamers who descend on a game just to try it(knowing full well it just came out). They know they will leave in a few weeks but post same BS talking points because they don't really have any quality criticism. They just throw out the same generic BS because it sounds good but it actually means very little. They didn't want to play the game anyway. They just want to sound like they knew it would fail... because internet.

in some circles they are known as WoW tourists. or just MMO tourists. the problem is when the game developers think they can keep these tourists and turn them into permanent citizens. they cannot. so if you are counting on a game to be successful on a scale that requires these tourists to remain, you will be a failure, game will be a failure. but if you know from the start that you are building for a specific kind of player and budget for only keeping this specific kind of player... then it doesn't matter what doom and gloom crowds yell. well.. it matters becasue they are loud and they both over hype your game and then inevitably trash it. making it more difficult to grab some of that target audience you actualy want.

/shrug

I've not played Wildstar, so I can't say whether its good or bad. I can say, however, that gamers are nearly impossible to please. Every new MMO seems to be lauded with hype that no game can possibly live up to. It's the same cycle: hype, disappointment (not by all, but by a very loud and vocal group of folks), defenders defend, repeat with next title. It's utterly and completely bizarre.

It's also interesting to see gamers cry out for new and innovative, yet rarely do they reward new and innovative with money. In FPS games, why is there a new COD game or a new BF game every year? Because gamers buy it--and they buy a LOT of copies of it. As soon as gamers stop buying them, they'll stop making them and try something new. Large-scale video games like MMOs or FPS type games cost an enormous amount to create. Why spend $50 million developing a new game when there's a chance people will like it when they can re-skin BF3, update it and call it BF4 for $10 million and have a guaranteed hit? Gamers are so finicky and demanding and word of mouth is so important in gaming that innovation is too much of a risk. When gamers start rewarding innovation the way they reward the next COD or BF game, there will be innovation. But as long as gamers don't want innovation (and the money proves that they do NOT) there will not be innovation.

I've not played Wildstar, so I can't say whether its good or bad. I can say, however, that gamers are nearly impossible to please. Every new MMO seems to be lauded with hype that no game can possibly live up to. It's the same cycle: hype, disappointment (not by all, but by a very loud and vocal group of folks), defenders defend, repeat with next title. It's utterly and completely bizarre.

 

It's also interesting to see gamers cry out for new and innovative, yet rarely do they reward new and innovative with money. In FPS games, why is there a new COD game or a new BF game every year? Because gamers buy it--and they buy a LOT of copies of it. As soon as gamers stop buying them, they'll stop making them and try something new. Large-scale video games like MMOs or FPS type games cost an enormous amount to create. Why spend $50 million developing a new game when there's a chance people will like it when they can re-skin BF3, update it and call it BF4 for $10 million and have a guaranteed hit? Gamers are so finicky and demanding and word of mouth is so important in gaming that innovation is too much of a risk. When gamers start rewarding innovation the way they reward the next COD or BF game, there will be innovation. But as long as gamers don't want innovation (and the money proves that they do NOT) there will not be innovation.

To be honest, even that behavior leads to innovation.

Take the Frostbite 3 engine for example which will power Dragon Age Inquisition and the next Mass Effect game.

It was created on Battlefield money. And if I'm not mistaken, engines are a major undertaking and a huge investment for a company due to their complexity and how long it takes to make them.

I've not played Wildstar, so I can't say whether its good or bad. I can say, however, that gamers are nearly impossible to please.

Not nearly.

Impossible. Period.

And quite frankly they only have themselves to blame. They buy into the marketing (every single time... I mean you'd think they would eventually learn, but nope) and set themselves up for a huge disappointment when the game that was supposed to be "everything they ever dreamt of" is not quite that. Also, people have no patience anymore. There used to be 2-3 online games and the one was more buggy than the other, so people stuck with the one they enjoyed for and waited patiently for developers to fix the problems. Now people expect everything to be fixed within a week or a month and if it's not they leave. There is no sense of loyalty or investment in anything because the supply is much, much larger than it used to be.

The one and only way to ever please the majority is to take them by surprise.

WoW didn't succeed because it was the perfect game or because the lore was THAT well-loved, but because it was a (sort of) different thing that became "cool" unexpectedly.

The same goes for every form of entertainment: movies, books, TV shows, music etc. Things work out best when people least expect it.

(of course afterwards there are always 5324299 sequels to the point of completely eradicating the initial enthusiasm but whatever...)

To be honest, even that behavior leads to innovation.

Take the Frostbite 3 engine for example which will power Dragon Age Inquisition and the next Mass Effect game.

It was created on Battlefield money. And if I'm not mistaken, engines are a major undertaking and a huge investment for a company due to their complexity and how long it takes to make them.

I believe you are correct: engines are a big deal and not easy to make. But that engine is going to be used to make another Dragon Age, another Mass Effect--and likely more and more of the same. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are known quantities, known intellectual properties. I'm not saying they're bad, I'm saying we've already seen a ton of them. And the new ones will feel very similar and likely have mostly the same gameplay.

I'm not saying that that's bad--I'm saying that that's what will sell. Gamers want existing gameplay with little tweaks, not massive departures and completely innovative products. They SAY they don't, but the games that make the most money are always "more of the same" type games. That's not to say that some new, different games don't occasionally succeed--there certainly are exceptions. It's not impossible for original games to succeed, it's just less likely. The next COD 100% will be a hit and will make a ton of money, period. The next $50 million original game might be a hit, and might flop hugely. Where would you invest your money if you were making the games?

I believe you are correct: engines are a big deal and not easy to make. But that engine is going to be used to make another Dragon Age, another Mass Effect--and likely more and more of the same. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are known quantities, known intellectual properties. I'm not saying they're bad, I'm saying we've already seen a ton of them. And the new ones will feel very similar and likely have mostly the same gameplay.

 

I'm not saying that that's bad--I'm saying that that's what will sell. Gamers want existing gameplay with little tweaks, not massive departures and completely innovative products. They SAY they don't, but the games that make the most money are always "more of the same" type games. That's not to say that some new, different games don't occasionally succeed--there certainly are exceptions. It's not impossible for original games to succeed, it's just less likely. The next COD 100% will be a hit and will make a ton of money, period. The next $50 million original game might be a hit, and might flop hugely. Where would you invest your money if you were making the games?

Yeah, although it will probably lead to new IPs too. I suspect that "Shadow Realms" (Bioware's new IP) will be using the engine too.

I don't think the flocking to familiarity is entirely limited to gamers either though. People also tend to do it with novels, movies and even cars (when they trade in their's for the newest model of the same manufacturer).

With certain games you also have the whole problem of "reinventing the wheel". How are you going to make an entirely original shooter that's like BF and COD while still leaving it an FPS game? (and thus keeping your fanbase)

Not much else to do except improve on the design by adding new features, graphics and a new story.