I would never condem you Mr. Murphey. In fact, you and me are old school gamers, and we all know what game your playing next. I think, games like Wildstar are more for the 20-26 players who are high alert and not as old as us, but they have a need to be pulled in many different directions at once. Their attention span is on overdrive like we have never seen in our generation.
The next gen gamers like Wildstar's base will need that constant pacifier of many directions, because only have few directions at once for that age group will be really hard to pull off. On the other hand while many players mature like you and me, (old schoolers) we tend to go to a more mature and directed game play that has a goal and purpose and has more focus on events such as Elder Scrolls Online.
As far as UI's go, the evolution of gaming's next gen of UI will be something far from what see see today, in fact the next gen UI system will have absolutely no UI on screen at all, it wont be even on the screen. Which will lead to my next post in the mmorpg pub. See you in ESO soon!
I would never condem you Mr. Murphey. In fact, you and me are old school gamers, and we all know what game your playing next. I think, games like Wildstar are more for the 20-26 players who are high alert and not as old as us, but they have a need to be pulled in many different directions at once. Their attention span is on overdrive like we have never seen in our generation.
The next gen gamers like Wildstar's base will need that constant pacifier of many directions, because only have few directions at once for that age group will be really hard to pull off. On the other hand while many players mature like you and me, (old schoolers) we tend to go to a more mature and directed game play that has a goal and purpose and has more focus on events such as Elder Scrolls Online.
As far as UI's go, the evolution of gaming's next gen of UI will be something far from what see see today, in fact the next gen UI system will have absolutely no UI on screen at all, it wont be even on the screen. Which will lead to my next post in the mmorpg pub. See you in ESO soon!
Not to be butthurt or anything but the way you keep phrasing WildStar's giving players lots of options as "pulling the player in many different directions at once" is getting annoying. Since when is having options a bad thing like you and a few others are making it out to be in this thread? You are not being pulled in any direction, you are equating having freedom with being forced to go in every direction at once. Which is a ludicrous assumption.
But, i can't fault you to much because you are right in that WildStar is not aiming at the slow-minded individual. So you got their demographic down, though to claim its aimed at 20-26 year olds is incorrect. It's more of a mindset, and less of an age group that they are catering to.
Also, as for the topic of UI. Re-learn the description of UI. User interface. The perfect UI is one that the user makes themselves. Not a minimalistic one or non-existent one. Whether this be through completely movable frames to make your own perfect UI or through the use of addon-support, the same end result is ultimately achieved.
I have had invites to ESO for a couple of months, and I think I played it for a couple of wkends. I do not remember the level I was, and that is because I have been in WS the last 3 wkends. I could have played ESO, but WS kept drawing me back to it. I have to admit though... WS did get boring after awhile, just like ESO. Neither one of them could keep me sitting at a computer all day. Only a few games have done that though.
I would never condem you Mr. Murphey. In fact, you and me are old school gamers, and we all know what game your playing next. I think, games like Wildstar are more for the 20-26 players who are high alert and not as old as us, but they have a need to be pulled in many different directions at once. Their attention span is on overdrive like we have never seen in our generation.
The next gen gamers like Wildstar's base will need that constant pacifier of many directions, because only have few directions at once for that age group will be really hard to pull off. On the other hand while many players mature like you and me, (old schoolers) we tend to go to a more mature and directed game play that has a goal and purpose and has more focus on events such as Elder Scrolls Online.
As far as UI's go, the evolution of gaming's next gen of UI will be something far from what see see today, in fact the next gen UI system will have absolutely no UI on screen at all, it wont be even on the screen. Which will lead to my next post in the mmorpg pub. See you in ESO soon!
Quit trying to speak for all of us "old schoolers". Age hardly has anything to do with target demographics when it comes to an MMO anyways. Heck, the devs at Zenimax weren't even expecting, much less aiming for, a mature rating for ESO. There are plenty of teens and pre-teens who played AOC when it launched and there are plenty of retirees that still play WoW. Putting the game you like and yourself up on a pedestal while trying to be condescending on the people who like the other game is not the way to go.
"My question for Carbine and you all is: does WildStar point the player in too many divergent directions"
This was my biggest issue with the game. I wasn't as enamored of the combat as the OP, but the sheer amount of distractions and the shallowness of the quests/content made the game far less enjoyable than it could be.
Everywhere you look there are NPCs with quests. Then there are path quests. Then there are challenges. Then you are getting calls for more quests. I ended up jumping from quest to quest because the objectives are right there in front of me. It didn't even matter what quest I was on. I was just running from point to point completing objectives, until something else popped up that required my attention.
Enjoy having a huge glowing arrow above your head... the linear hand holding content in Wild Star makes WoW look like a sandbox. I mean a literal giant arrow pops above your head and leads the way.
The game offers zero exploration to it and it is purely on rails.. after playing both.. ESO isnt nearly as linear as Wildstar at all...atleast i can go exploring in ESO and find neat things around the world. You don't ever stray off the path in WS because there isnt any path! It's a straight line...that's it!
Such a shame because the combat and the world is gorgeous but the game is for just casual scrub players who need everything circled for them and hand held the whole way.
Problem with WS is not that theres "so much to do to be overvhelmed" problem is that all that you get to do is so bland, uninspired and so goddamn boring. It has worst OW experience in 10 years.
Because there needs to be look at basic understanding what quests exactly are supposed to do for your gameplay - provide background, involve you in interesting way and in the end try to produce some emotional reaction. When you take that away, as its done in WS, you pretty much dont need quests at all, you may revert to old school and just plain grinding xp for no reason. When you confronted it with ESO, yes, ESO is much much better in that.
That all goes provided you actually read/listen the quests, those who just skip everything might as well go play WoW (and now WS).
WS has been most mind-numbing experience since WoW, the way things panned out in WS, they should have scrapped whole open world and redivert huge resources spent on that to instances, as it seems its a lobby game (INSTANCED housing, INSTANCED warplots, INSTANCED dungeons, INSTANCED raids). OW seems like its tacked on and very low priority/investment, and development on OW was left at basic drafts, how bland it is (whole package).
And before anyone jumps "ESO fanboi", i wont be playing ESO either because, while better than WS, its still no good, definately not good enough for box+sub, if i want excellent story and good questing/grinding instances ill go back to SWTOR, if i want open world/exploration and RvR ill go back to GW2, as those games did things much better in that respects from launch.
Yah, i kickstarted Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity instead wasting money on these two.
Wildstar is fine. People on the internet have too much time on their hands to over analyze every last thing in a game and forget to have fun with it. TESO has become much better over the course of the many betas I have played and will likely tide me over while waiting to play Wildstar. I don't see how TESO will retain a player base for long because I can't see how the end game will keep people interested. Just how I feel about it. As for Wildstar I think the game is designed with the end game as the priority. The journey to max level will undoubtedly be fun, but I think that once you unlock the Elder game things will become much more engrossing. not to mention that I am more interested in the paths system than the class differences. Then theres housing and crafting, and war plots and PvP, etc.
It's obviously not a sandbox and I don't fault it for that because i enjoy the themepark style games just as much. The only disappointment I found with Wildstar is the Spellslinger was kinda meh, and the lack of cross region playing is a sore spot for me since some of my old guildies are in Europe...
I enjoyed many of the quest storylines in Wildstar up to around 30ish. Many were well written, and some were hilarious. ESO is trying to be like Skyrim, no surprise. Some quests are well done, but none that I have done so far are very memorable.
In my opinion, the main difference will be the endgame in Wildstar and ESO. Since ESO's "Endgame" is highly centered around PVP, I think they will be in better shape at launch. The verdict is still out on WIldstar's endgame content.
Are there enough Full Beta members at top level to properly test endgame dungeons and raids? Will they level bump the Full Beta 32+ crowd in order to properly test high level stuff? Although I am not one of these chosen few, I sure hope they do. Also I hope that this group does not already have "beta burnout".
Comments
I would never condem you Mr. Murphey. In fact, you and me are old school gamers, and we all know what game your playing next. I think, games like Wildstar are more for the 20-26 players who are high alert and not as old as us, but they have a need to be pulled in many different directions at once. Their attention span is on overdrive like we have never seen in our generation.
The next gen gamers like Wildstar's base will need that constant pacifier of many directions, because only have few directions at once for that age group will be really hard to pull off. On the other hand while many players mature like you and me, (old schoolers) we tend to go to a more mature and directed game play that has a goal and purpose and has more focus on events such as Elder Scrolls Online.
As far as UI's go, the evolution of gaming's next gen of UI will be something far from what see see today, in fact the next gen UI system will have absolutely no UI on screen at all, it wont be even on the screen. Which will lead to my next post in the mmorpg pub. See you in ESO soon!
Not to be butthurt or anything but the way you keep phrasing WildStar's giving players lots of options as "pulling the player in many different directions at once" is getting annoying. Since when is having options a bad thing like you and a few others are making it out to be in this thread? You are not being pulled in any direction, you are equating having freedom with being forced to go in every direction at once. Which is a ludicrous assumption.
But, i can't fault you to much because you are right in that WildStar is not aiming at the slow-minded individual. So you got their demographic down, though to claim its aimed at 20-26 year olds is incorrect. It's more of a mindset, and less of an age group that they are catering to.
Also, as for the topic of UI. Re-learn the description of UI. User interface. The perfect UI is one that the user makes themselves. Not a minimalistic one or non-existent one. Whether this be through completely movable frames to make your own perfect UI or through the use of addon-support, the same end result is ultimately achieved.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Quit trying to speak for all of us "old schoolers". Age hardly has anything to do with target demographics when it comes to an MMO anyways. Heck, the devs at Zenimax weren't even expecting, much less aiming for, a mature rating for ESO. There are plenty of teens and pre-teens who played AOC when it launched and there are plenty of retirees that still play WoW. Putting the game you like and yourself up on a pedestal while trying to be condescending on the people who like the other game is not the way to go.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Witty & Wicked
"My question for Carbine and you all is: does WildStar point the player in too many divergent directions"
This was my biggest issue with the game. I wasn't as enamored of the combat as the OP, but the sheer amount of distractions and the shallowness of the quests/content made the game far less enjoyable than it could be.
Everywhere you look there are NPCs with quests. Then there are path quests. Then there are challenges. Then you are getting calls for more quests. I ended up jumping from quest to quest because the objectives are right there in front of me. It didn't even matter what quest I was on. I was just running from point to point completing objectives, until something else popped up that required my attention.
Not sure if I've seen a game that actually does that.
Enjoy having a huge glowing arrow above your head... the linear hand holding content in Wild Star makes WoW look like a sandbox. I mean a literal giant arrow pops above your head and leads the way.
The game offers zero exploration to it and it is purely on rails.. after playing both.. ESO isnt nearly as linear as Wildstar at all...atleast i can go exploring in ESO and find neat things around the world. You don't ever stray off the path in WS because there isnt any path! It's a straight line...that's it!
Such a shame because the combat and the world is gorgeous but the game is for just casual scrub players who need everything circled for them and hand held the whole way.
Enjoy that.
Problem with WS is not that theres "so much to do to be overvhelmed" problem is that all that you get to do is so bland, uninspired and so goddamn boring. It has worst OW experience in 10 years.
Because there needs to be look at basic understanding what quests exactly are supposed to do for your gameplay - provide background, involve you in interesting way and in the end try to produce some emotional reaction. When you take that away, as its done in WS, you pretty much dont need quests at all, you may revert to old school and just plain grinding xp for no reason. When you confronted it with ESO, yes, ESO is much much better in that.
That all goes provided you actually read/listen the quests, those who just skip everything might as well go play WoW (and now WS).
WS has been most mind-numbing experience since WoW, the way things panned out in WS, they should have scrapped whole open world and redivert huge resources spent on that to instances, as it seems its a lobby game (INSTANCED housing, INSTANCED warplots, INSTANCED dungeons, INSTANCED raids). OW seems like its tacked on and very low priority/investment, and development on OW was left at basic drafts, how bland it is (whole package).
And before anyone jumps "ESO fanboi", i wont be playing ESO either because, while better than WS, its still no good, definately not good enough for box+sub, if i want excellent story and good questing/grinding instances ill go back to SWTOR, if i want open world/exploration and RvR ill go back to GW2, as those games did things much better in that respects from launch.
Yah, i kickstarted Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity instead wasting money on these two.
Wildstar is fine. People on the internet have too much time on their hands to over analyze every last thing in a game and forget to have fun with it. TESO has become much better over the course of the many betas I have played and will likely tide me over while waiting to play Wildstar. I don't see how TESO will retain a player base for long because I can't see how the end game will keep people interested. Just how I feel about it. As for Wildstar I think the game is designed with the end game as the priority. The journey to max level will undoubtedly be fun, but I think that once you unlock the Elder game things will become much more engrossing. not to mention that I am more interested in the paths system than the class differences. Then theres housing and crafting, and war plots and PvP, etc.
It's obviously not a sandbox and I don't fault it for that because i enjoy the themepark style games just as much. The only disappointment I found with Wildstar is the Spellslinger was kinda meh, and the lack of cross region playing is a sore spot for me since some of my old guildies are in Europe...
I enjoyed many of the quest storylines in Wildstar up to around 30ish. Many were well written, and some were hilarious. ESO is trying to be like Skyrim, no surprise. Some quests are well done, but none that I have done so far are very memorable.
In my opinion, the main difference will be the endgame in Wildstar and ESO. Since ESO's "Endgame" is highly centered around PVP, I think they will be in better shape at launch. The verdict is still out on WIldstar's endgame content.
Are there enough Full Beta members at top level to properly test endgame dungeons and raids? Will they level bump the Full Beta 32+ crowd in order to properly test high level stuff? Although I am not one of these chosen few, I sure hope they do. Also I hope that this group does not already have "beta burnout".