Casuals hate raiding only because of greed. You hate your neighbour who has a ferrari only because you don't have a ferrari. Even tho you don't need one at all.
Really? I thought I hated raiding because of the immense time commitment and the monotony. But it seems you know me better than I know me - so yeah must be greed.
i actully hate large scale raiding because it normally leads to elitism. to be honest i could care less about haveing the best ubber gear in the game, why cause i dont really care about the whole e-pean thing.
to be honest if more raids where casual friendly and FUN, instead of you have to do this this exact way with this exact build, then id prob like them more, but even if devs try to make them that way its the players that tend to cause this effect.
their is only one game that did end game raids that was friendly to both casuals and hardcore players at the same time, and didnt have the eliteist fill to it, but its dead now so meh.
This is the challenge for the Wildstar devs.
Whats that? A threat, that if they comply with what the casuals want the game will be 'dead'?
Originally posted by tintilinic
Originally posted by Dogblaster
Elitism and time commitment exist and will exist in mmorpgs either you have raids or dont. This also exist in real life ... so whats the problem?
So we have to copy all very bad things from RL to computer games? Even distort it to be worse than in RL? And then wonder why they fail one by one?
Copy? Just because you are behind a computer screen doesn't mean you are any less human. You area flawed human, and you experience emotions such as envy.
There is no 'fix' for this!
Ooooh, id love to point out some history on such "envy" but my post would be deleted.
The bigger the raid the more i actually wanna do it.
Small scale raiding just doesnt have that "Epic" feeling to me.
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
The bigger the raid the more i actually wanna do it.
Small scale raiding just doesnt have that "Epic" feeling to me.
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
So again we're at the same endpoint - endless development dollars and hours spent on content <10% of the game population gets to experience. Makes total sense.
So where's the focus? Seems like raiding to me. And I guess if you're one of the few really hardcore raiders out there you'll love this.
You obviously didn't read the very article you linked. If you had, you would have seen this line:
"The last point on this topic, is to not assume that raids will be "the endgame" as is the case in many MMOs. It is simply "an endgame." For players who don't love this sort of content, there will be many other avenues and heaps of other Elder game content that will not require a player to set a foot inside a 20- or 40-man instance."
i agree
but we are still awaiting more details about the elder nonraid game -- hopefully PAX will have info
But we've all heard that before right? Every game that has raiding, Rift, WoW, EQ2, touts viable alternatives, but the raiding always ends up being the pinnacle event for progression. Raiders aren't going to share that end game shiny and non-raiders are going to see the claim and situation for what it is.
All the non-raid content in Rift, LotRO or EQ2 doesn't require a player to set foot inside a raid either. All three of those games gate the nicest equipment and shinies behind their raids. Non-raiders get second hand gear, second hand progression, but the game is true to their claim. Raiding, as it's been implemented, has been overdone and is one of the tropes that is holding themepark progress back.
edit: Also there is already another thread about this.
it is a pity there is no voting on posts on this website - or even a "like" button - or a way to give karma
This game sounds like Vanilla WoW tuned up for the 2013, and I love it, no other period in my MMO gaming history even came close. I hope they nail it and go P2P. As a note I missed EQ and I've heard many good things about those days as well, so here's hoping for some old school fun with a modern revamp.
The bigger the raid the more i actually wanna do it.
Small scale raiding just doesnt have that "Epic" feeling to me.
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
So again we're at the same endpoint - endless development dollars and hours spent on content <10% of the game population gets to experience. Makes total sense.
Whether you understand it or not, people, including yourself, don't play just for your own experience. People like knowing and seeing that there are things out of their reach. Not gonna bother writing a wall of text elaborating.
The bigger the raid the more i actually wanna do it.
Small scale raiding just doesnt have that "Epic" feeling to me.
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
So again we're at the same endpoint - endless development dollars and hours spent on content <10% of the game population gets to experience. Makes total sense.
Whether you understand it or not, people, including yourself, don't play just for your own experience. People like knowing and seeing that there are things out of their reach. Not gonna bother writing a wall of text elaborating.
I wont either sepnd a wall of thext explaining that people dont play games for content they dont want/cant do.
Funny though "i really dont want to play that but damn its GREAT!" lol, right
YOU think like that, but history has shown you are very small (i would say insignificant) part of population.
Nowadays, when theres choice, people quit and go play something else. No, 2000 aint making a comeback.
The bigger the raid the more i actually wanna do it.
Small scale raiding just doesnt have that "Epic" feeling to me.
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
So again we're at the same endpoint - endless development dollars and hours spent on content <10% of the game population gets to experience. Makes total sense.
Whether you understand it or not, people, including yourself, don't play just for your own experience. People like knowing and seeing that there are things out of their reach. Not gonna bother writing a wall of text elaborating.
I wont either sepnd a wall of thext explaining that people dont play games for content they dont want/cant do.
Funny though "i really dont want to play that but damn its GREAT!" lol, right
YOU think like that, but history has shown you are very small (i would say insignificant) part of population.
Nowadays, when theres choice, people quit and go play something else. No, 2000 aint making a comeback.
Wildstar CEO Jeremey Gaffney said that Raiders make up 20% of the mmo population and that PvP players make up 20% of the MMO population. Eventually with nerfs and better gear all raiders will see the content.
The big difference between raiders and PvP players is retention rate. One of the WS devs said at Pax last week that the reason they are making raids for hardcore raiders is that hardcore raiders are the most loyal players and sub long term. When hardcore players leave the casuals follow them. Making a game challenging for the hardcore has a positive effect on the rest of the community and helps keep long term subs.
PvP players float from game to game but rarely stay long. Raiders stay if the content is challenging and updated. This is the difference between some of the modern games that release with no tested endgame and frontloaded content. They are not made for long term. A raiding game like Rift released with endgame tested for 5 months prior to release. WS's focus is on the endgame (Eldar game) and if you can bellieve them they want to test the Eldar game now as they say one cannot just throw an End game together a few months before release and hope to retain subs.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
Complete opposite for me. I'm more interested in this MMO than any other now. It will come down to play options with specifics on a follow system and macros more so than anything that will determine if I will play the game or not. Player housing appears to be right on with regard to how it is being implemented. Instead of an after-thought, player housing is imbedded into the core of the game.
Some of the other MMOs such as Elder Scrolls Online have lost my interest recently with regard to how their combat system works and specifically on their target lock mechanism which isn't an option the user can turn off or on. Their description of a softlock which is set in how their system works isn't an option and so players that like that will enjoy it, but others than don't like that style don't have a choice but to play something else.
WildStar appears to have more play styles than any MMO set to release this year. This is the primary reason I'm looking at it right now. I'd rather have a 40-man raid system available in the game than have it not an option (such as Guild Wars 2 or other MMOs recently being released). Even if I don't ever do it, it's there for others that enjoy that play style. It's an "option" for how to play the game. Collecting mounts or companions is another play style option that any good MMO would have. It's another "option" for continuing to play the game after reaching max level. The MMOs that lack the options later when the game has lost the newness and most of the player base has reached max level will lose players more-so than MMOs which have plenty of ways to play the game.
The other thing that is interesting about WildStar is that Carbine Studios doesn't appear to be rushed in releasing the game like some other MMOs that weren't fully completed in past years. They are sure getting plenty of things into the game and working hard to get it completed, but the feeling I get is that there is more importance on getting features and functionality into the game than anything.
Wildstar CEO Jeremey Gaffney said that Raiders make up 20% of the mmo population and that PvP players make up 20% of the MMO population. Eventually with nerfs and better gear all raiders will see the content.
The big difference between raiders and PvP players is retention rate. One of the WS devs said at Pax last week that the reason they are making raids for hardcore raiders is that hardcore raiders are the most loyal players and sub long term. When hardcore players leave the casuals follow them. Making a game challenging for the hardcore has a positive effect on the rest of the community and helps keep long term subs.
PvP players float from game to game but rarely stay long. Raiders stay if the content is challenging and updated. This is the difference between some of the modern games that release with no tested endgame and frontloaded content. They are not made for long term. A raiding game like Rift released with endgame tested for 5 months prior to release. WS's focus is on the endgame (Eldar game) and if you can bellieve them they want to test the Eldar game now as they say one cannot just throw an End game together a few months before release and hope to retain subs.
You see, thats your catch - you have loaded result, if you make a game for hardcore raiders of course hardcore raiders willbe "most loyal customers". Its like saying Darfkalls most loyal customers are PvPers and concluding "every game must have FFA full loot PvP because those are generally most loyal customers".
PvP players "hop from game to game" bacause no game was made for them with at least some decent PvP (until recently GW2), and EvE is still growing.
And any "type" of player will stay if the part they like is fun, interesting and regularly updated, its not limited to raiders lol
And im glad you mentioned Rift as a glaring success of player retention *chuckle* This isnt year 2000.
Wildstar aint aiming for WoW numbers and hopes to find its niche as Rift did, it remains to be seen if it will.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
Complete opposite for me too. I am more excited about this game because of the large raids. I miss the big raids. I've been playing GW2 where the only large raids are dragon fights... which aren't that challenging. I also like that Raid Loot matters, it makes succeeding at a difficult boss fight more fun and rewarding.
If you don't care to do 40 man raids, there are still 20 man raids, and there is content designed specifically for those who don't want to raid. Are "most" developers really moving away from raiding? I don't know of many. The only game I play that doesn't have true guild raiding is GW2, and that is a feature they may add in the future. Right now they have guild missions, which are similar to raids - but non-guild members can help with.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
If this has standard scripted raiding instances ala Rift, WoW, and EQ2 with loot gating and all then it will be interesting to see if there are enough of you to actually support the game.
There are enough choices out there now that I don't have to play this sort of game anymore.
There has always been choice to it though. This complaint does not even make sense.
If this has standard scripted raiding instances ala Rift, WoW, and EQ2 with loot gating and all then it will be interesting to see if there are enough of you to actually support the game.
There are enough choices out there now that I don't have to play this sort of game anymore.
There has always been choice to it though. This complaint does not even make sense.
Raid or die aint much of a choice. Vast majority of people these days choose die part, theres a lot of competition and lot of free games to try and play, trying to keep your playerbase with stuff that they dont want/cant do will produce failure.
Though Wildstar claims they will have "all that other stuff", but many dev(s) claimed that same thing before, none delivered, and, logcal conclusion, game(s) failed.
Personally there are a lot of things that interest me about Wildstar and that I like. This is not one of them. I don't agree at all that 40 man raids = more challenging, nor fun. To me 40 man raids = more hassle and less people that will ever experience the content. In this regard I think the devs are stuck in a 2005 MMO state of mind where MOST of the mmo community is moving, or has already moved, away from that. Sure, some people will be excited about this, but who is that going to be? The hardcore raiders - and what percentage has that been shown to be in mmos'? 10-20% at the most. So again it's back to making the main focus on content that so little of the game population will ever experience or enjoy - and how does that make sense?
And that begs the question - is raiding going to be the main elder game focus? Evidence would point in that direction - what is being talked about the most over and over in videos, having articles written about it, etc? Raiding. There have been very few comments or focus about this end game solo content and a bit more regarding pvp - but not much. And the comments I've heard about the solo elder game content in videos make it sound like it's a vision they have - not something even really worked on in depth at this point, where it seems the raiding definitely has been. So where's the focus? Seems like raiding to me. And I guess if you're one of the few really hardcore raiders out there you'll love this.
I can understand where you are coming from in terms of 40 man raids seeming less challenging and I would suggest that the percentage is actually much smaller than 10%, but more in the range of 1%. Of course a percentage is not necessarily helpful in determining a size of popluation, it only compares it to the rest of the population.
The term hardcore and casual are used so much to in my opinion have lost all meaning. I think instead it should talk about commitement time to a particular style of game play.
I don't believe that the main focus of the game is going to be raiding though I do believe that both sides of the coin (raiders vs non-raiders) do believe that it is going to be the case. I do think that it is probably one of the easiest parts of the game to be able to market especially to their target audience for this "end-game" content. It also makes sense to release this first to give guilds opportunity to start finding members. That is why I expect to the next "end-game" content to be released is to be Warplots for a similar reason. Solo play will be the last to released because it has the most content (which they are still building).
I do like the fact that they have seperated the main story line from raiding (which they have said on numerous occasions) which I feel is the component that is mainly going to focus on solo players.
What would you want to see for solo players? I assume that you spend quite a bit of time soloing so what would y ou want more of?
Here’s the problem with multiple paths for eldergame/endgame in MMO’s. Once you add 40 man Raids this eldergame activity always, always, always, DEMANDS the best gear and itemisation. Raids often even become a roadblock for crafting, with the rare crafting mats that only drop in raid instances. We have seen this happen in every MMO that has ever promised a multi path endgame.
Raiding regardless if its 40 man, 20 man or 10 man demands the best drops, because let’s face it, if the best gear in the game could be obtained in any other way it would make the allure of raiding rather void.
On the flip side as soon as you give the best gear to one single eldergame activity or make raiding required to be the best crafter or pvp’er you invalidate all other endgame. Your players will just see raiding as the endgame and everything else as a waste of time or fluff.
Despite the best intentions of the developers, the beta fills with the critical endgame centric MMO player base that will give the dev’s holly hell if the endgame is itemised in any other way.
This often is misrepresentative of the player base the game will attract at launch however the dev team end up tuning the game for the top 3% and F-up the game for everyone else that doesn’t fit into that box.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
I kind of felt the same way but it seems to have enough other cool features that I'm still interested. Plus if they develop the end game solo content as they are talking about it should be alright.
First there are a ton of MMOs out there with raiding in them and raiding overall is going downhill as the only endgame content. One can argue against this fact all they want, raiding is loosen interest and more and more people want sandbox type MMOs or Small 10 or less group content
Second they can say all they want and the hardcore crowd can say all they want that 20 and 40 man raiding is great, guess what the average MMO population disagrees. You are not going to have successful 20 or even 40 man raiding with a niche group of players like just the Hardcore raiders. It will not happen, that is why WoW and EQ2 got away from the large raids and moved down to 25 and 24 man raids respectively after just 2 years. After 4 more years we have 12 and 10 man raids which are 92%+ of overall raiding guild population. Fact is Large raiding is die never to come back in the way EQ2 and WoW did it
Third for 40 man raiding to be successful WoW had 5 Million players during vanilla, WildStar WILL NOT have that size population off of just Hardcore players. Hardcore players were less than 1% of WoW’s raider population back during Vanilla. So a 50K to 100K players will not make this game move forward.
The hardcore EPEEN population can disagree with me anytime, however the fact is when guilds like Paragon close down from a 25 man raiding guild to a 10 man because how hard it was to find hardcore raiders. Just this alone will tell you that old school hardcore 40 man raids WILL NOT work there is no way it will last long term. Games can talk all they want about being Niche the problem is the only way these Niche games can remotely work is if they have a subscription base that can support the cost of the development of the game, and the operation of the game. Right now Subscription WoW clone based games are not working and have to go F2P with a subscription and a cash shop to make up the money that they spent. The business plan with today’s MMO market does not make any sense.
Here’s the problem with multiple paths for eldergame/endgame in MMO’s. Once you add 40 man Raids this eldergame activity always, always, always, DEMANDS the best gear and itemisation. Raids often even become a roadblock for crafting, with the rare crafting mats that only drop in raid instances. We have seen this happen in every MMO that has ever promised a multi path endgame.
Raiding regardless if its 40 man, 20 man or 10 man demands the best drops, because let’s face it, if the best gear in the game could be obtained in any other way it would make the allure of raiding rather void.
On the flip side as soon as you give the best gear to one single eldergame activity or make raiding required to be the best crafter or pvp’er you invalidate all other endgame. Your players will just see raiding as the endgame and everything else as a waste of time or fluff.
Despite the best intentions of the developers, the beta fills with the critical endgame centric MMO player base that will give the dev’s holly hell if the endgame is itemised in any other way.
This often is misrepresentative of the player base the game will attract at launch however the dev team end up tuning the game for the top 3% and F-up the game for everyone else that doesn’t fit into that box.
I will agree, Titan and EQnext are going away from raiding as the only end game content. Not saying they will not have raiding but it will be a path. Raiding does not need the best content if you do easier casual raids that do not take hours of work and prep time to master. Look at SWTOR their raids are easy unless you want to do the nightmare modes and even them are ok.
First there are a ton of MMOs out there with raiding in them and raiding overall is going downhill as the only endgame content. One can argue against this fact all they want, raiding is loosen interest and more and more people want sandbox type MMOs or Small 10 or less group content
Second they can say all they want and the hardcore crowd can say all they want that 20 and 40 man raiding is great, guess what the average MMO population disagrees. You are not going to have successful 20 or even 40 man raiding with a niche group of players like just the Hardcore raiders. It will not happen, that is why WoW and EQ2 got away from the large raids and moved down to 25 and 24 man raids respectively after just 2 years. After 4 more years we have 12 and 10 man raids which are 92%+ of overall raiding guild population. Fact is Large raiding is die never to come back in the way EQ2 and WoW did it
Third for 40 man raiding to be successful WoW had 5 Million players during vanilla, WildStar WILL NOT have that size population off of just Hardcore players. Hardcore players were less than 1% of WoW’s raider population back during Vanilla. So a 50K to 100K players will not make this game move forward.
The hardcore EPEEN population can disagree with me anytime, however the fact is when guilds like Paragon close down from a 25 man raiding guild to a 10 man because how hard it was to find hardcore raiders. Just this alone will tell you that old school hardcore 40 man raids WILL NOT work there is no way it will last long term. Games can talk all they want about being Niche the problem is the only way these Niche games can remotely work is if they have a subscription base that can support the cost of the development of the game, and the operation of the game. Right now Subscription WoW clone based games are not working and have to go F2P with a subscription and a cash shop to make up the money that they spent. The business plan with today’s MMO market does not make any sense.
I agree with your assumption, but for different reasons. 40 man raids are epic. That along with battlegrounds can't be your main plan for endgame though.
I like the idea of 40 mans myself, but I cannot understand why so many people seem willing to write the game off entirely because of 40 mans.
How does the fact that the game has a feature aimed at a specfic demographic affect you if you are not in that demographic? I feel its like saying, "Oh they have PvP in this game and I don't like PvP, therefore the game sucks."
40 mans are just one of many features. If you don't like 40 mans I don't see why that should turn you off from the game any more than someone who doesn't like arenas. If you don't like them, dont play them. Play the other parts you do like, simple as that.
To me one of the most potentially exciting things about this game is the fact that there seems to be a lot of *legit* endgame content outside of raiding. The housing system looks very robust and seems to be something a lot of time could be spent in. Same with Warplots. And then the standard BG/Arena pvp.
Very nice to hear raiding is going to be a focus... i always thought it was the pinnacle of what an MMO is supposed to be.. teamwork in a large grp etc...
In fact, i would love to see them NOT have battlegrounds for once and promote some good world pvp too...
Comments
Ooooh, id love to point out some history on such "envy" but my post would be deleted.
1. Its not envy
2. theres an easy fix
Well enjoy your pug zergs then. Id rather do some smaller raids with reliable guild members, where boss fights are interesting
It all depends on the difficulty of the raids and the bosse's mechanics.Just take a look at vanilla wow's raids and you will get what the Wildstar developers want to achieve with their 40 man raids (he talks about raid at 7:55) : http://youtu.be/dDfQEhnHFak
Watch that and you will get how hard 40 mans where back at the older days,where not everyone and their moms where able to complete them.They weren't zerg fests at all.
Btw, good luck puging 40 man Nax and AQ or even finding a guild that would complete them.
So again we're at the same endpoint - endless development dollars and hours spent on content <10% of the game population gets to experience. Makes total sense.
it is a pity there is no voting on posts on this website - or even a "like" button - or a way to give karma
1000+ karma with a thumbs up icon right here
Whether you understand it or not, people, including yourself, don't play just for your own experience. People like knowing and seeing that there are things out of their reach. Not gonna bother writing a wall of text elaborating.
I wont either sepnd a wall of thext explaining that people dont play games for content they dont want/cant do.
Funny though "i really dont want to play that but damn its GREAT!" lol, right
YOU think like that, but history has shown you are very small (i would say insignificant) part of population.
Nowadays, when theres choice, people quit and go play something else. No, 2000 aint making a comeback.
Wildstar CEO Jeremey Gaffney said that Raiders make up 20% of the mmo population and that PvP players make up 20% of the MMO population. Eventually with nerfs and better gear all raiders will see the content.
The big difference between raiders and PvP players is retention rate. One of the WS devs said at Pax last week that the reason they are making raids for hardcore raiders is that hardcore raiders are the most loyal players and sub long term. When hardcore players leave the casuals follow them. Making a game challenging for the hardcore has a positive effect on the rest of the community and helps keep long term subs.
PvP players float from game to game but rarely stay long. Raiders stay if the content is challenging and updated. This is the difference between some of the modern games that release with no tested endgame and frontloaded content. They are not made for long term. A raiding game like Rift released with endgame tested for 5 months prior to release. WS's focus is on the endgame (Eldar game) and if you can bellieve them they want to test the Eldar game now as they say one cannot just throw an End game together a few months before release and hope to retain subs.
WildStar has officially vanished from my radar. It was looking good too, but I am not going to play a game where I'm basically leveling just to do horrible 40-man raiding. That shit just isn't fun.
In the end, though, with most devs steering away from raiding, WildStar can have its share of the population that enjoys it.
Complete opposite for me. I'm more interested in this MMO than any other now. It will come down to play options with specifics on a follow system and macros more so than anything that will determine if I will play the game or not. Player housing appears to be right on with regard to how it is being implemented. Instead of an after-thought, player housing is imbedded into the core of the game.
Some of the other MMOs such as Elder Scrolls Online have lost my interest recently with regard to how their combat system works and specifically on their target lock mechanism which isn't an option the user can turn off or on. Their description of a softlock which is set in how their system works isn't an option and so players that like that will enjoy it, but others than don't like that style don't have a choice but to play something else.
WildStar appears to have more play styles than any MMO set to release this year. This is the primary reason I'm looking at it right now. I'd rather have a 40-man raid system available in the game than have it not an option (such as Guild Wars 2 or other MMOs recently being released). Even if I don't ever do it, it's there for others that enjoy that play style. It's an "option" for how to play the game. Collecting mounts or companions is another play style option that any good MMO would have. It's another "option" for continuing to play the game after reaching max level. The MMOs that lack the options later when the game has lost the newness and most of the player base has reached max level will lose players more-so than MMOs which have plenty of ways to play the game.
The other thing that is interesting about WildStar is that Carbine Studios doesn't appear to be rushed in releasing the game like some other MMOs that weren't fully completed in past years. They are sure getting plenty of things into the game and working hard to get it completed, but the feeling I get is that there is more importance on getting features and functionality into the game than anything.
You see, thats your catch - you have loaded result, if you make a game for hardcore raiders of course hardcore raiders willbe "most loyal customers". Its like saying Darfkalls most loyal customers are PvPers and concluding "every game must have FFA full loot PvP because those are generally most loyal customers".
PvP players "hop from game to game" bacause no game was made for them with at least some decent PvP (until recently GW2), and EvE is still growing.
And any "type" of player will stay if the part they like is fun, interesting and regularly updated, its not limited to raiders lol
And im glad you mentioned Rift as a glaring success of player retention *chuckle* This isnt year 2000.
Wildstar aint aiming for WoW numbers and hopes to find its niche as Rift did, it remains to be seen if it will.
Complete opposite for me too. I am more excited about this game because of the large raids. I miss the big raids. I've been playing GW2 where the only large raids are dragon fights... which aren't that challenging. I also like that Raid Loot matters, it makes succeeding at a difficult boss fight more fun and rewarding.
If you don't care to do 40 man raids, there are still 20 man raids, and there is content designed specifically for those who don't want to raid. Are "most" developers really moving away from raiding? I don't know of many. The only game I play that doesn't have true guild raiding is GW2, and that is a feature they may add in the future. Right now they have guild missions, which are similar to raids - but non-guild members can help with.
awww pls no =(
There has always been choice to it though. This complaint does not even make sense.
http://chroniclesofthenerds.com/nerdfight/
Y U NO FLIP TABLE?!?!?!
Raid or die aint much of a choice. Vast majority of people these days choose die part, theres a lot of competition and lot of free games to try and play, trying to keep your playerbase with stuff that they dont want/cant do will produce failure.
Though Wildstar claims they will have "all that other stuff", but many dev(s) claimed that same thing before, none delivered, and, logcal conclusion, game(s) failed.
I can understand where you are coming from in terms of 40 man raids seeming less challenging and I would suggest that the percentage is actually much smaller than 10%, but more in the range of 1%. Of course a percentage is not necessarily helpful in determining a size of popluation, it only compares it to the rest of the population.
The term hardcore and casual are used so much to in my opinion have lost all meaning. I think instead it should talk about commitement time to a particular style of game play.
I don't believe that the main focus of the game is going to be raiding though I do believe that both sides of the coin (raiders vs non-raiders) do believe that it is going to be the case. I do think that it is probably one of the easiest parts of the game to be able to market especially to their target audience for this "end-game" content. It also makes sense to release this first to give guilds opportunity to start finding members. That is why I expect to the next "end-game" content to be released is to be Warplots for a similar reason. Solo play will be the last to released because it has the most content (which they are still building).
I do like the fact that they have seperated the main story line from raiding (which they have said on numerous occasions) which I feel is the component that is mainly going to focus on solo players.
What would you want to see for solo players? I assume that you spend quite a bit of time soloing so what would y ou want more of?
Here’s the problem with multiple paths for eldergame/endgame in MMO’s. Once you add 40 man Raids this eldergame activity always, always, always, DEMANDS the best gear and itemisation. Raids often even become a roadblock for crafting, with the rare crafting mats that only drop in raid instances. We have seen this happen in every MMO that has ever promised a multi path endgame.
Raiding regardless if its 40 man, 20 man or 10 man demands the best drops, because let’s face it, if the best gear in the game could be obtained in any other way it would make the allure of raiding rather void.
On the flip side as soon as you give the best gear to one single eldergame activity or make raiding required to be the best crafter or pvp’er you invalidate all other endgame. Your players will just see raiding as the endgame and everything else as a waste of time or fluff.
Despite the best intentions of the developers, the beta fills with the critical endgame centric MMO player base that will give the dev’s holly hell if the endgame is itemised in any other way.
This often is misrepresentative of the player base the game will attract at launch however the dev team end up tuning the game for the top 3% and F-up the game for everyone else that doesn’t fit into that box.
I kind of felt the same way but it seems to have enough other cool features that I'm still interested. Plus if they develop the end game solo content as they are talking about it should be alright.
"we want one cool enough where the best raiding guilds come to WildStar."
Wonder who their target market is.
This game will straight up fail and here is why.
First there are a ton of MMOs out there with raiding in them and raiding overall is going downhill as the only endgame content. One can argue against this fact all they want, raiding is loosen interest and more and more people want sandbox type MMOs or Small 10 or less group content
Second they can say all they want and the hardcore crowd can say all they want that 20 and 40 man raiding is great, guess what the average MMO population disagrees. You are not going to have successful 20 or even 40 man raiding with a niche group of players like just the Hardcore raiders. It will not happen, that is why WoW and EQ2 got away from the large raids and moved down to 25 and 24 man raids respectively after just 2 years. After 4 more years we have 12 and 10 man raids which are 92%+ of overall raiding guild population. Fact is Large raiding is die never to come back in the way EQ2 and WoW did it
Third for 40 man raiding to be successful WoW had 5 Million players during vanilla, WildStar WILL NOT have that size population off of just Hardcore players. Hardcore players were less than 1% of WoW’s raider population back during Vanilla. So a 50K to 100K players will not make this game move forward.
The hardcore EPEEN population can disagree with me anytime, however the fact is when guilds like Paragon close down from a 25 man raiding guild to a 10 man because how hard it was to find hardcore raiders. Just this alone will tell you that old school hardcore 40 man raids WILL NOT work there is no way it will last long term. Games can talk all they want about being Niche the problem is the only way these Niche games can remotely work is if they have a subscription base that can support the cost of the development of the game, and the operation of the game. Right now Subscription WoW clone based games are not working and have to go F2P with a subscription and a cash shop to make up the money that they spent. The business plan with today’s MMO market does not make any sense.
I will agree, Titan and EQnext are going away from raiding as the only end game content. Not saying they will not have raiding but it will be a path. Raiding does not need the best content if you do easier casual raids that do not take hours of work and prep time to master. Look at SWTOR their raids are easy unless you want to do the nightmare modes and even them are ok.
I agree with your assumption, but for different reasons. 40 man raids are epic. That along with battlegrounds can't be your main plan for endgame though.
I like the idea of 40 mans myself, but I cannot understand why so many people seem willing to write the game off entirely because of 40 mans.
How does the fact that the game has a feature aimed at a specfic demographic affect you if you are not in that demographic? I feel its like saying, "Oh they have PvP in this game and I don't like PvP, therefore the game sucks."
40 mans are just one of many features. If you don't like 40 mans I don't see why that should turn you off from the game any more than someone who doesn't like arenas. If you don't like them, dont play them. Play the other parts you do like, simple as that.
To me one of the most potentially exciting things about this game is the fact that there seems to be a lot of *legit* endgame content outside of raiding. The housing system looks very robust and seems to be something a lot of time could be spent in. Same with Warplots. And then the standard BG/Arena pvp.
Very nice to hear raiding is going to be a focus... i always thought it was the pinnacle of what an MMO is supposed to be.. teamwork in a large grp etc...
In fact, i would love to see them NOT have battlegrounds for once and promote some good world pvp too...