Support NeoGAF

[Ploid 3.0]

I think steam has helped ws a whole lot. I know it was an ongoing joke that steam is going to save the game, but it might actually do just that.

Looking at steam charts there's a constant 3k average playing. There's also people not playin through steam

Steam have die hard loyal PC gamers. To some people a game don't exist unless their friends can see them playing it, or know that they have it. Maybe the steam overlay as well.

 

[Azzurri]

Steam have die hard loyal PC gamers. To some people a game don't exist unless their friends can see them playing it, or know that they have it. Maybe the steam overlay as well.

Yea, it's kinda crazy how much influence steam has in the PC gaming industry.

 

[Xisiqomelir]

Restarted given news of this Steam boost.

Unsurprised to find my old guild defunct, but quickly got recruited by another literally in minutes. This wouldn't have happened in February.

Here's hoping to at least 3 more raids for Wildstar!

 

[chemicals]

I just started playing this on Steam. I really like it. It runs a lot smoother than StarWars TOR on my GeForce GT 720

 

[DrBo42]

I think steam has helped ws a whole lot. I know it was an ongoing joke that steam is going to save the game, but it might actually do just that.

Looking at steam charts there's a constant 3k average playing. There's also people not playin through steam

What a difference 3 months makes. They're down to 500 or so now. Dead game is dead.

 

[~Cross~]

I still dont understand how a company with the reputation of shuttering titles like NCsoft is still leaving wildstar on life support. Im guessing it involves a tax write off or something

 

[Nev]

Hope they're happy with their decision to launch the game with subs. They succesfully killed it before they even released it. So many years of work straight to the bin because they thought better than the people who said it was crazy to go with a sub model. The game had a lot of hype but they thought they were Blizzard and set up the paywall, denying themselves thousands of players. Greed was the strongest I guess, now their desperate attempts to rectify are laughable and didn't have an effect at all. Enjoy your dead game.

 

[Retro]

Having a subscription is low on the list of reasons Wildstar flopped. It was also buggy as shit for an absurdly long time, its raid attunement process was a tedious grind and its marketing campaign was the worst sort of cringe, cupcake.

In my opinion, Wildstar failed because it tried to be a hardcore raiding MMO in 2014 (a good half decade after that sort of thing went rancid), built entirely on the premise that the kids who haunt gaming forums and bitch for the good old days of Vanilla WoW could support the game by themselves. It failed to understand that those kids are now thirty-somethings with adult responsibilities and rose-tinted nostalgia goggles with coke-bottle lenses welded to their faces. They don't miss the clusterfuck that Vanilla WoW entailed, they miss being junior high / high school / college kids who had the time and energy and freedom to stay up until 4am goofing off slaying virtual dragons with their buddies. Carbine listened to that incessant whining and didn't understand that they represent a dead niche within a niche and it bit them squarely in the ass. And the demographic for that sort of thing has moved on to MOBAs, Call of Duty and Overwatch.

 

[DarkKyo]

Not sure if anyone is interested but Wildstar is getting some interesting new content..
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2017-01-04-power-of-the-primal-matrix/

Namely a proper post-50 progression system, a new dungeon, and a new expedition. It's not much when you consider how rare it is for Wildstar to get some new content but it's something!

I still really want this game to succeed someday...

 

[~Cross~]

Not sure if anyone is interested but Wildstar is getting some interesting new content..
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2017-01-04-power-of-the-primal-matrix/

Namely a proper post-50 progression system, a new dungeon, and a new expedition. It's not much when you consider how rare it is for Wildstar to get some new content but it's something!

I still really want this game to succeed someday...

ah yes, just what the game needed, a quasi sphere grid post cap power creep system.

Thats not the sort of thing you add to a game that has dismal player numbers if you want new people in. Its the sort of thing you add to retain players you already have.

 

[Tabby]

Not sure if anyone is interested but Wildstar is getting some interesting new content..
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2017-01-04-power-of-the-primal-matrix/

Namely a proper post-50 progression system, a new dungeon, and a new expedition. It's not much when you consider how rare it is for Wildstar to get some new content but it's something!

I still really want this game to succeed someday...

Forgot to mention pre-50 instanced scaling as well, that should help for lower level players.

Got into this again ever since they've started to tease something on Facebook.

 

[Quonny]

341 people in game.

Holy crap, that's half the amount of tiny niche weeb games like Aura Kingdom.

 

[TharpDaddy]

341 people in game.

Holy crap, that's half the amount of tiny niche weeb games like Aura Kingdom.

Honestly i'm surprised it hasn't shut down yet. NCSoft's Q3 earnings call painted WildStar in a dismal light. It's at its lowest point ever in sales and less than half of what it was at in Q2. The look and music are still some of my favorite in any MMO, but I don't see it being around much longer. That 341 might be a bit deceiving though, since I assume you're going by the Steam number. It was Free to Play before Steam so it probably has some users that use the standalone client.

 

[DarkKyo]

Honestly i'm surprised it hasn't shut down yet. NCSoft's Q3 earnings call painted WildStar in a dismal light. It's at its lowest point ever in sales and less than half of what it was at in Q2. The look and music are still some of my favorite in any MMO, but I don't see it being around much longer. That 341 might be a bit deceiving though, since I assume you're going by the Steam number. It was Free to Play before Steam so it probably has some users that use the standalone client.

I still use the stand-alone client when I play.

I wish some other company would buy Wildstar and morph it into something magical like Yoshi-P did to XIV 1.0. So much work was put into the game for so long for it to just be shut down. The pieces are there for a great game if someone could restructure it and add a few innovative features.

Also some people are still plunking down money in the cash shop so it will be sad for them when they just pull the servers and they lose everything.

 

[TheYanger]

basically artifact progression? looks decent. I wishthis game did better But, that's largely on the devs too so I can't blame people for giving up on it early.

 

[NecroGiggles]

Sad to see the game doing so bad. I got it at release and loved the combat and the art style. I could never get my buddy's to play so I quit to play other games with them.

I really wish another MMO would come out with this kind of combat model that could stand up to WoW. I don't see it ever happening.

 

[Sölf]

Man, reading this I really would like to play it again, but just no one I know still plays this. D:

I like the scaling though, that's probably the best addition in there. Since I already love Mythic+ in WoW this Prime Scaling will probably work similar to that. And new dungeons are always nice, they were one of the best parts of Wildstar.

So, how high is the chance that we get at least 5 players in here to start completely fresh and form a GAF guild? xD

 

[Tabby]

Man, reading this I really would like to play it again, but just no one I know still plays this. D:

I like the scaling though, that's probably the best addition in there. Since I already love Mythic+ in WoW this Prime Scaling will probably work similar to that. And new dungeons are always nice, they were one of the best parts of Wildstar.

So, how high is the chance that we get at least 5 players in here to start completely fresh and form a GAF guild? xD

Well me and you makes 2, I've got someone that can join us but she isn't on GAF. I doubt we'll hit 5 lol.

 

[TheYanger]

The real issue for me is I can't play my old character because I have no fucking idea what anything ddoes anymore in terms of gearing etc. and relevelling is the worst as well. So iut's like...well, just don't play.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I bought this game at launch, but never played it till today. I am level 7 and so far, I'm liking it. I really love the artstyle and animations. Jumping is fun. The story is ok so far. It has Steam Achievements. And I like the assassin class that I am.

I'll try to get to level 50 and then I'll probably play something else.

 

[TheYanger]

I bought this game at launch, but never played it till today. I am level 7 and so far, I'm liking it. I really love the artstyle and animations. Jumping is fun. The story is ok so far. It has Steam Achievements. And I like the assassin class that I am.

I'll try to get to level 50 and then I'll probably play something else.

Make sure to do dungeons/group content. The game has a really fun core but it's hard to even see it when it's not challenging you to use your tools effectively (IE: most of the levelling experience when soloing).

 

[Sölf]

So, next drop in 2 days. It includes a free max level boost. Since I haven't played through Arcterra I will probably at least give that one a go and test out the new Expedition. Anyone else interested in the new patch?

 

[Xisiqomelir]

I think I'm bailing out. Even the subreddit has dried up, and I personally haven't logged on in 5 months or so.

Time to reclaim the 20 GB of disk space.

RIP Wildstar, I enjoyed you while you lasted

 

[Xisiqomelir]

Anyone gonna log in for the Nov 28th closing event?

Maybe we hope for some Overlord action?

 

[Zewp]

Hmm, not surprised to hear it's shutting down. More surprised it lasted as long as it did.

The premise was solid, but the game's style and direction matters. Unlike vanilla WoW, I just couldn't stand the goofy, over-the-top feel the game had. And in an MMO, that matters a lot because I'm going to spend potentially 100s of hours with it.

 

[Xisiqomelir]

Reposting some good comments I saw on the Death of a Game for WS (also, sub to nerdSlayer he's great):

Ex Dev on wildstar here. Watched the video and although it was quiet informative, I just wanted to chime in on some of the key factors on why this game was a huge flop. I worked on the game for 5+ years and let me tell you.. This games was destined to fail wayyy before there was any issues with servers or not enough updates. Development on this project was a nightmare. The real Development time frame was closer to 10/11 years. Coming onto the project at the 5 year mark I soon realized that the leads and big boys had no fucking clue what a good game was and they could not commit to any idea. Too many cooks in the kitchen that can't cook anything other than Mayo and Beef Jerky sandwiches... Look for the double meaning in that. It's there.

One of the most prevalent issues with the game that I noticed was bad direction from top down. People like Tim Cain specifically made way more problems than they were worth. Honestly the guy was a total dick. Awful to work with and almost nothing he "did" ended up in the game. His lack of leardership I would say was one of the reasons why the first 4-5 years of the game were almost completely thrown out. Literally... Then you have an art director who couldn't keep his nose out of anything. His selfishness drove off many of the best artists in the company including cory loftis. Literally... Cory Loftis LEFT the game which is based off of his style almost entirely because of this guy. This same art director was also responsible for hijacking the story and overall vision of the game as well. Wondering why there wasn't more raids and dungeons? Because the ART DIRECTOR thought several ALREADY MADE LEVELS didn't fit the story anymore... So they threw them away... He also made calls on gameplay... Which... is a hole other nightmare.

The gameplay was once good... I would say around the 7 year mark. 1v1 combat was very fun at this point and each class felt very unique and fun. Unfortunately most of that was thrown away and replaced with alot of new stuff that was just NOT tested enough. I repeat... most of what launched in Wild star combat wise was BARELY tested. Stuff like Warplots was broken to shit from start to finish. The designers leading WarPlots were absolute lazy trash and would knowingly put in broken systems and call them done just to appease their bosses. The only reason that warplots was even REMOTELY playable on launch was because of some amazing talent on the 3D prop team. I am not joking.. Artists LEANRNED HOW TO SCRIPT TO FIX THIS CRAP.

Pvp in general was absolutely broken. I didn't even work on paper let alone work in a multi million dollar game. The idea of telegraphs is pretty straight forward and seems to just work for most cases in combat.... except in any fight larger that has more than two characters per team... Attack telegraphs drawing on the ground is very clear when you have a small amount of people fighting but in medium to large pvp fights ( pretty much every fight that matters) the entire ground becomes a multi colored disco dance floor. Casual to moderate gamers were like deer in headlights during the VERY FEW playtests that were had for larger pvp battles. SO MUCH FEEDBACK was given by the teams that participated in these tests and almost nothing was fixed about it. The leadership was god awful. Proof of this was that most of the BEST things in the games that players loved the most such as Double Jump and Hoverboards were things that were never planned for or schedules by leads. Those were passion projects.

Double Jump was made by an ARTIST. That artist got in trouble for making double jump and eventually fired for other reasons. Never got credit either. Hoverboards were snuck in by an animator... He got written up for secretly working on hoverboards in his freetime with other coworkers. The place was a prison of ideas and everyone was getting shanked for even THINKING that they WANTED to think of something to improve the game.

Oh did I mention mandatory Crunch? We would crunch for months at a time. Mandatory. I remember working from 10am to 3 am everynight 6 days a week for about 3 months straight. And I got a talking to once because I was 10 minutes late to work. ONCE. Because Jeremy Gafney saw me coming in late. Everyone working on this game was absolutely DONE with the BS and it shows. The love died way before this game launched. No one in the studio really wanted to play the game. And then we shifted to try to cater to the hardcore audience?! ( this was the version on launch. The hardcore not for pansies mmo) During a time where pretty much almost every successful game was being carried hard by more casual players. I can go on but... I think you get the picture. These devs thought they were clever enough to ignore pretty much every other successful business model and all other mmorpgs to make this.. There you have it...

Artist who implemented double jump here chiming in. everything in here is true, the game's faults weren't in the decisions after launch or the pricing model. the company was a fucking nightmare to work for. all due to the higher ups being so poor at their jobs. i got in trouble multiple times for implementing features in my free time or even giving opinions that didn't agree with the people in charge. wast constantly told to just sit at my desk and make props and nothing else. even though i implemented one of the features players loved the most.

People who knew me there knew i could implement fun features and had an eye for game feel but i got in trouble for everything i made even if it was fun and added to the game. the art director was awful, him and i had a disagreement in email and the guy called me into his office privately and cursed me out and told me to go home. then he had my lead fire me "for being unprofessional" the following week. coward didn't even have the balls to face me himself probably because he knew he was wrong. of course i've heard many other stories as to why i got fired afterwards but almost none of them mention how he called me into his office just to berate me. that should give you an idea as to how this company was run. that's the kind of people who were calling the shots. just the shadiest people were in charge. the game didn't fail because of server issues or business models. it failed because the company was awful and the people in charge were always on a power trip and couldn't stand to have their egos get hurt.

I have no problems being 100% open and honest about how shitty this company and the people in charge of it were. i'm sorry to the fans of the game that had huge expectations and were let down. you absolutely deserved more and some of us tried our best to deliver that to you. people like gaffney, cain, and mocarski were nothing but con men making false promises to ncsoft in exchange for their paychecks they didn't deserve. they had the power, the money, and the time to make a truly wonderful mmo and instead they were more concerned about themselves and not the project. us passionate devs tried our best to make changes in the game and literally put our jobs on the line to do so.

double jump and action oriented combat were both things that artists had to risk their jobs to try and get implemented and even then we never got to see everything implemented the way we wanted to. we had so many big ideas and constantly were benched or fired. some of us really do care about making amazing games in this industry and we will risk our jobs to do so but there are some in this industry that are just con men looking to pad their resume with fancy titles and making promises they can't fulfill. that's how bad games are made.

 

[Bigrx1]

341 people in game.

Holy crap, that's half the amount of tiny niche weeb games like Aura Kingdom.

I play Project: Gorgon. It has like 75-150 online at a time lol