Wildstar will look so stupid when they don't have enough players to fill those 40 man raids. This game will probably reach the same numbers rift did and then tail off and become f2p.
A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
I always find it funny when people state absolutes about the future. My friend told me once when I was watching him play MUDDs that a graphical online game where everyone could play together was impossible and would never happen. He made this comment after I stated imagine one day all of this happening in a world with graphics. I really get a good laugh thinking back to that comment.
World of Warcraft didn't know how many subscriptions they would have at first either but they had large scale content in the works. As a designer I imagine you make a game based on a vision of what will make a great game. I myself am looking forward to playing Wildstar. I can't wait.
I played WoW from the very beginning till Ulduar. The time i remember most fondly was when there were 40 man raids. Our guild didn't always get an entire group together but when we did we all had a laugh, in TBC we started to raid the 25-man with 15-18 ppl and had no probs with it. And in WotLK I soloed most if not all 5-man quest. And yeah I was a tank (Tauren Feral Druid).
I hope Wildstar will bring back some of that vanilla WoW feeling.
the steel shines red with enemy blood. It sings of victory, granted by the gods. And as they return bleeding but proud, the horizon burns and the song is ringing LOUD!
A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
I always find it funny when people state absolutes about the future. My friend told me once when I was watching him play MUDDs that a graphical online game where everyone could play together was impossible and would never happen. He made this comment after I stated imagine one day all of this happening in a world with graphics. I really get a good laugh thinking back to that comment.
World of Warcraft didn't know how many subscriptions they would have at first either but they had large scale content in the works. As a designer I imagine you make a game based on a vision of what will make a great game. I myself am looking forward to playing Wildstar. I can't wait.
Your comparing technical limitations vs Consumer Trend.
And yes Blizzard knew WoW would be huge. Warcraft 3, Starcraft and diablo 2 both had big sales.... They had huge amounts of buyers who would buy anything they put out. Sorta like making Grand Theft Auto online 2 (and charging for this one).
So yes they knew that it would be big, it just turned out bigger. The success of WoW is more complicated than just they had vision or they made there game like this... blah blah blah..
A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
I always find it funny when people state absolutes about the future. My friend told me once when I was watching him play MUDDs that a graphical online game where everyone could play together was impossible and would never happen. He made this comment after I stated imagine one day all of this happening in a world with graphics. I really get a good laugh thinking back to that comment.
World of Warcraft didn't know how many subscriptions they would have at first either but they had large scale content in the works. As a designer I imagine you make a game based on a vision of what will make a great game. I myself am looking forward to playing Wildstar. I can't wait.
Your comparing technical limitations vs Consumer Trend.
And yes Blizzard knew WoW would be huge. Warcraft 3, Starcraft and diablo 2 both had big sales.... They had huge amounts of buyers who would buy anything they put out. Sorta like making Grand Theft Auto online 2 (and charging for this one).
So yes they knew that it would be big, it just turned out bigger. The success of WoW is more complicated than just they had vision or they made there game like this... blah blah blah..
Exactly, they didn't know how big nor can anyone predict how big or not so much this game will be. People can assume. If market trends are a sign then we would have a lot of rich developers instead of the game flops we have seen. Who predicted how big Minecraft would be? No one. If you can give future absolutes then you should be one rich man. Not saying you are going to be wrong, I am only saying stating absolutes about the future is wrong because it hasn't happened yet. There is no way of knowing.
A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
I always find it funny when people state absolutes about the future. My friend told me once when I was watching him play MUDDs that a graphical online game where everyone could play together was impossible and would never happen. He made this comment after I stated imagine one day all of this happening in a world with graphics. I really get a good laugh thinking back to that comment.
World of Warcraft didn't know how many subscriptions they would have at first either but they had large scale content in the works. As a designer I imagine you make a game based on a vision of what will make a great game. I myself am looking forward to playing Wildstar. I can't wait.
Right, but does it make sense to compare Wildstart, a completely unknown IP, to the Warcraft franchise that was already huge before WoW? I'm pretty confident that Blizzard had a fairly good idea that their IP would be popular as an online multiplayer game. I can accept they didn't foresee the scope of their popularity, but I can't accept the correlation between the success of WoW and of Wildstar.
You being a designer and projecting your vision for game design motivating you to play the game, don't really apply to your retort. They are irrelevant.
What makes you think Wildstar even stands a chance at success on a scale of Warcraft? I don't even have confidence that Blizzard could reproduce that measure of success with their next MMO. I can agree that absolutely dismissing the possibility of that scale of success is overstated, but I have seen nothing at all to think that Wildstar or any other game on the radar, will be the next exception to the rule.
Minecraft, that came from no where. :P I am sure Blizzard hoped for great success, no one knew who popular that game would be. I think Wildstar has a chance to be as big as WoW if it is a good game and the stars align, just as much as another other great game in the right place at the right time.
I am not going to say Wildstar will be a huge success because that is the future and I do not know. Do I think it will likely have as many subs as WoW? Probably not, but not absolutely certain!
I consider it a very bad sign that the Wildstar developers are making a point about attracting the "top raiding guilds in the world" . The 99% of us MMO players who play for fun, adventure and a little friendly social interaction could not possibly care less about the top raiding guilds.
Put a big focus on large scale raiding and for every raider you attract you are likely to lose a dozen casual players. The primary reason that raiding still persists as a focus in WoW is because Blizzard has made raiding accessible to the average player.
If you focus on "hard-core" raiders you may well find that there are not as many of them as you think. A lot of the people who loved hard-core raiding back in the days of vanilla WoW are now 30 years old with jobs and kids and 8 years spent grinding away in MMOs. These players are much less open to miserable grinds and painful challenges than they were a decade ago.
I like raiding. Raiding is and was fun. But, I dont miss the 40 man raids. As far as I'm concerned those can go the way of the dinosaur. 20 man and 10 man raiding is where the real fun and challenge is. Not sure why they are sticking with 40 man, but I dont think they will like the turnout for those.
I like me some raiding but 20/40 man is going to be tough. I sure hope they have backup plans to scale the numbers down after the population peaks and declines.
Have to be honest, for a while I was been kind of 'MEH' about this game. The more I read and hear from the devs though, the more I am interested. I just hope most of what they say isn't spin. My main concern right now is combat and classes.
In most games when they introduce new classes, I have a hard time finding one I like. By trying to make new classes most games try new mechanics or to meld abilities from two classic classes into this new one(You no longer play a Wizard, but a Wizard that backstabs and carries a greatsword!). Most of the time I end up really disliking the classes and never finding one that fits. My other issue is the emphasis on telegraphs. I have no clue how this will play out but just from observation alone, it makes it seem like it will turn the fun of killing monsters into the MMO waltz.
As for what they are saying about raiding, I like it. I am not a hardcore raider, never have been, but I think having a portion of the game that not everyone, or even a majority, gets to experience is an undervalued part of MMORPGs. I think it keeps players reaching, which will keep them playing. So far I am looking forward to this one.
Over-valued in my opinion. It only keeps a small niche of gamers reaching. What's worse, they are a very vocal and abusive group of gamers who constantly scream about new content, usually only the kind they like at the expense of everyone else, especially the masses who foot the bill for said raid content. I think the typical formula of abusing regular gamers in order to subsidize elitist content is getting really, really old.
Its not as small niche as you think look at sub numbers from wow the more they headed away from epic raids the less folks they have I would say if anything 50-60% of the mmorpg community is like myself having very fond memories of molten core and illidan etc and we have been endlessly searching for that experience again as blizzard moves farther and farther away from it. Unfortunately no other game has delivered this gameplay back to the community on the scale Wildstar aims to. Who better then to put down a sick dog then the parents of that sick dog go go carbine!!!
Hmmm, the last I checked, when WoW started moving down to 10 man raids and more casual oriented alternative end game content, the game itself was still increasing in sub numbers and remained stable long after the changes. The decline you mention is more likely in regards to the sheer age of the game and not its more casual gameplay.
In fact, it was at one of the Blizzard Fan Faires at the height of the game's 40 man raiding content, where Blizzard famously released the data that less than 20% of the player base participated in raiding content. It was subsequent panels and player discussions along with that data that would eventually take Blizzard down that road to 10 man raids and 5 man heroic dungeons.
This caught my attention. Definitely going to try Wildstar and see what raiding is like. I quit WoW because raids became trivial, and rewards stopped being exclusive for the best guilds to become a handout for every mediocre guild.
The way Wildstar raiding sounds, it might just be the thing that I've been looking for.
My opinion is my own. I respect all other opinions and views equally, but keep in mind that my opinion will always be the best for me. That's why it's my opinion.
I consider it a very bad sign that the Wildstar developers are making a point about attracting the "top raiding guilds in the world" . The 99% of us MMO players who play for fun, adventure and a little friendly social interaction could not possibly care less about the top raiding guilds.
Put a big focus on large scale raiding and for every raider you attract you are likely to lose a dozen casual players. The primary reason that raiding still persists as a focus in WoW is because Blizzard has made raiding accessible to the average player.
If you focus on "hard-core" raiders you may well find that there are not as many of them as you think. A lot of the people who loved hard-core raiding back in the days of vanilla WoW are now 30 years old with jobs and kids and 8 years spent grinding away in MMOs. These players are much less open to miserable grinds and painful challenges than they were a decade ago.
They seem to understand that and appear to be providing a variety of content for everybody. I think having exclusive content is great, even if I likely won't do it. It is cool for some things to be rare, and when you see someone with something you go, "wow that's really cool where did you get it?" . I agree though if they don't provide enough content to keep the casual player busy they aren't going to see big sub numbers.
You could make that argument about any game released. "You never, know this could be as big as WoW!" That's not a very realistic perspective is it?
What are the differences between Minecraft and Wildstar (or any other standard fare MMO slated for release). Minecraft reinvented a gameplay mechanic, on a fairly unique technology platform, in a manner that hadn't been previously accomplished on that scale. It allowed players to do things they really couldn't before in a way that had it's own unique twist. Wildstar is doing none of that. In fact there is nothing distinguishing, in that manner, about Wildstar at all.
I will agree that the next "big" game that offers those, or similar, original qualities will definitely have a likely potential for that scale of success.
How do you see Wildstar accomplishing that?
Read my post below, I never said Wildstar will accomplish that, I said we don't know how it will do. There is the chance it could see the same success WoW did. Why you ask? Because anything is possible when the outcome is unknown. My point is you stated an absolute and I you can't do that with the future.
Qombi wrote:
Minecraft, that came from no where. :P I am sure Blizzard hoped for great success, no one knew who popular that game would be. I think Wildstar has a chance to be as big as WoW if it is a good game and the stars align, just as much as another other great game in the right place at the right time.
I am not going to say Wildstar will be a huge success because that is the future and I do not know. Do I think it will likely have as many subs as WoW? Probably not, but not absolutely certain!
Edit: I do want to add I think a couple 40 man raids are awesome as well as 20 man raids. I am sure they will have small group content as well such as 5 - 10 man dungeons. I think variety is great, why does everything have to be the same? I am more excited about using crowd control and strategy once again in a dungeon to survive. Not only is that exciting but the combat videos are even more so due to the way battles take place.
The worse thing to me about WoW now isn't the smaller size raids or the theme of the game ... it is the removal of any challenge dungeon crawling. People run in and AOE zerg monsters in dungeons, in the world there is nothing to be afraid of .. people solo packs of mobs at a time when in the original game you would die if you got more than 2 your level on you without using some CC. I would probably play WoW today if the dungeons were still fun. I loved tanking, but not mind numbingly like it is now standing in one place AOE taunting while people burn everything to the ground. What a freaking snorefest, I can't understand why anyone would want to be in one of those dungeons.
To the people that say the game is only easier because everyone is soooo experienced now .... bull larkey and you know it. If people played as sloppy and zerg like as they do now .. they would wipe until there is no tomorrow. The game was fun, not any longer, bring back challenge. Casual does not equal snorefest, I thought people that play casually had time issues not brain issues.
A dungeon doesn't have to be hours long ... when Blizzard reduced the time to do things for the so called "casual" player ..they also made it so Mr. potatoe could succeed. I find it insulting really to my intelligence that if I was a "casual" player they also assume I am mentally retarded.
WoW didn't have 10million players when 40 man raid were popular as far as I know. So perhaps Wildstar is betting on maybe a couple million, which would be plenty if they have the right amount of players per server.
Originally posted by Maelzrael WoW didn't have 10million players when 40 man raid were popular as far as I know. So perhaps Wildstar is betting on maybe a couple million, which would be plenty if they have the right amount of players per server.
WoW's fastest period of growth was when they had 40 mans. But note that was also the period when far less people raided. WoW saw significant growth through vanilla and BC, that growth slowed to a trickle in Wrath and started a steep decline at the start of Cataclysm.
If Wildstar understands that only a small number of people actually will raid 40s, and provide enough other content to keep the other players having fun I think they will do fine. I also think they do understand this because these are the very same people who were developing WoW during it's fastest period of growth. Note that there were more subs at the end of vanilla than we have currently in WoW and that was with 40 man raiding. It will be fine as long as it isn't the main focus of the game.
Originally posted by Maelzrael WoW didn't have 10million players when 40 man raid were popular as far as I know. So perhaps Wildstar is betting on maybe a couple million, which would be plenty if they have the right amount of players per server.
WoW's fastest period of growth was when they had 40 mans. But note that was also the period when far less people raided. WoW saw significant growth through vanilla and BC, that growth slowed to a trickle in Wrath and started a steep decline at the start of Cataclysm.
If Wildstar understands that only a small number of people actually will raid 40s, and provide enough other content to keep the other players having fun I think they will do fine. I also think they do understand this because these are the very same people who were developing WoW during it's fastest period of growth. Note that there were more subs at the end of vanilla than we have currently in WoW and that was with 40 man raiding. It will be fine as long as it isn't the main focus of the game.
WoWs fastest growth was not during vanilla WoW. If I remember correctly is that BC had 10 and 25 man raids, not a single 40 man.
Just wondering where you think WoW had the highest player growth. Because Im pretty sure that was after BC.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 Raids just kill open world immersion. why don't they just make lobby based games with 40 man raids because that's all that most mmo's are these days. Some of us more intelligent folk want a deeper experience. I think a split in the genre is badly needed.
Its pretty clear that players prefer gamey to worldy mmo's. While I am not saying that a worldy mmo cannot be successful, its makes sense why developers shy away from them on projects as risky as an mmo is.
Originally posted by EvolvedMonky
Your comparing technical limitations vs Consumer Trend.
And yes Blizzard knew WoW would be huge. Warcraft 3, Starcraft and diablo 2 both had big sales.... They had huge amounts of buyers who would buy anything they put out. Sorta like making Grand Theft Auto online 2 (and charging for this one).
So yes they knew that it would be big, it just turned out bigger. The success of WoW is more complicated than just they had vision or they made there game like this... blah blah blah..
Really? If that is the case perhaps you should hop into IRC and have a chat with Pyaray (Carbines lead network engineer who also worked for Blizzard in a similar capacity during WoW's launch), He has a great story about how they had ordered 40 servers with 40 backups so if there were hardware issues they could just hot swap them out as needed but demand was so high by the end of the first week they had brought all 40 online aswell and had another 120 on order.
Originally posted by sirchive
I consider it a very bad sign that the Wildstar developers are making a point about attracting the "top raiding guilds in the world" . The 99% of us MMO players who play for fun, adventure and a little friendly social interaction could not possibly care less about the top raiding guilds.
Put a big focus on large scale raiding and for every raider you attract you are likely to lose a dozen casual players. The primary reason that raiding still persists as a focus in WoW is because Blizzard has made raiding accessible to the average player.
If you focus on "hard-core" raiders you may well find that there are not as many of them as you think. A lot of the people who loved hard-core raiding back in the days of vanilla WoW are now 30 years old with jobs and kids and 8 years spent grinding away in MMOs. These players are much less open to miserable grinds and painful challenges than they were a decade ago.
You would have a point if that were the only playerbase they are trying to attract. Keep in mind its only launching with a single 40 and 20 man. There are also the dungeons, solo dungeons, adventures, shiphands, I don't remember how many battlegrounds, arenas, warplots, housing. They offer 3 full gear paths for advancement, based on raiding, pvp and solo/small group. This is all without touching on the elements of the open world too, like the path system, world bosses, bams, limited zone events etc.
Anyone who thinks Wildstar is just about raiding either has not taken an actual look at the game or has another agenda.
Originally posted by onlinenow25
WoWs fastest growth was not during vanilla WoW. If I remember correctly is that BC had 10 and 25 man raids, not a single 40 man.
Just wondering where you think WoW had the highest player growth. Because Im pretty sure that was after BC.
WoW had 6.5m subs just prior to BC release and just over 11m just prior to WotLK. There is plenty of evidence with a single Google search. As much of the stagnation of WotLK can be attributed to China not getting that xpac until nearly Cata launch as any perceived loss of quality,
Originally posted by Maelzrael WoW didn't have 10million players when 40 man raid were popular as far as I know. So perhaps Wildstar is betting on maybe a couple million, which would be plenty if they have the right amount of players per server.
WoW's fastest period of growth was when they had 40 mans. But note that was also the period when far less people raided. WoW saw significant growth through vanilla and BC, that growth slowed to a trickle in Wrath and started a steep decline at the start of Cataclysm.
If Wildstar understands that only a small number of people actually will raid 40s, and provide enough other content to keep the other players having fun I think they will do fine. I also think they do understand this because these are the very same people who were developing WoW during it's fastest period of growth. Note that there were more subs at the end of vanilla than we have currently in WoW and that was with 40 man raiding. It will be fine as long as it isn't the main focus of the game.
WoWs fastest growth was not during vanilla WoW. If I remember correctly is that BC had 10 and 25 man raids, not a single 40 man.
Just wondering where you think WoW had the highest player growth. Because Im pretty sure that was after BC.
WoW grew at the rate of 6 millions subs in the first year and had 8 million subs at the end of vanilla. BC continued on at the rate of 2 million per year with the rate neither increasing nor decreasing since the end of vanilla. We saw a teeny tiny surge of new subs at the beginning of Wrath but subs remained more or less flat for the entirety of that expansion but peaking out at 12 million around the release of ICC. Cataclysm was the beginning of the decline dropping subs at the rate of around 2 million per year. So the fastest period of growth was the first year of vanilla when we had 40 man raids.
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A recommendation to MMO developers: Don't waste time and resources developing 40 man raids unless you're absolutely sure you'll have a large enough player base to support it.
Maybe Wildstar will. But the verdict's still out on that one so that development time and money could have gone elsewhere, IMHO. WoW had the playerbase to support 40 man raids, but Wild Star is never going to have the same size playerbase as WoW (NO MMORPG ever will again, EVER, really), so developing 40 man raids is literally risky business.
I always find it funny when people state absolutes about the future. My friend told me once when I was watching him play MUDDs that a graphical online game where everyone could play together was impossible and would never happen. He made this comment after I stated imagine one day all of this happening in a world with graphics. I really get a good laugh thinking back to that comment.
World of Warcraft didn't know how many subscriptions they would have at first either but they had large scale content in the works. As a designer I imagine you make a game based on a vision of what will make a great game. I myself am looking forward to playing Wildstar. I can't wait.
I played WoW from the very beginning till Ulduar. The time i remember most fondly was when there were 40 man raids. Our guild didn't always get an entire group together but when we did we all had a laugh, in TBC we started to raid the 25-man with 15-18 ppl and had no probs with it. And in WotLK I soloed most if not all 5-man quest. And yeah I was a tank (Tauren Feral Druid).
I hope Wildstar will bring back some of that vanilla WoW feeling.
the steel shines red with enemy blood. It sings of victory, granted by the gods. And as they return bleeding but proud, the horizon burns and the song is ringing LOUD!
Your comparing technical limitations vs Consumer Trend.
And yes Blizzard knew WoW would be huge. Warcraft 3, Starcraft and diablo 2 both had big sales.... They had huge amounts of buyers who would buy anything they put out. Sorta like making Grand Theft Auto online 2 (and charging for this one).
So yes they knew that it would be big, it just turned out bigger. The success of WoW is more complicated than just they had vision or they made there game like this... blah blah blah..
Exactly, they didn't know how big nor can anyone predict how big or not so much this game will be. People can assume. If market trends are a sign then we would have a lot of rich developers instead of the game flops we have seen. Who predicted how big Minecraft would be? No one. If you can give future absolutes then you should be one rich man. Not saying you are going to be wrong, I am only saying stating absolutes about the future is wrong because it hasn't happened yet. There is no way of knowing.
Minecraft, that came from no where. :P I am sure Blizzard hoped for great success, no one knew who popular that game would be. I think Wildstar has a chance to be as big as WoW if it is a good game and the stars align, just as much as another other great game in the right place at the right time.
I am not going to say Wildstar will be a huge success because that is the future and I do not know. Do I think it will likely have as many subs as WoW? Probably not, but not absolutely certain!
My main concern currently is the classes or lack there of.
I'm a fan of many varied play styles and 6 classes doesn't seem nearly enough to me.
I consider it a very bad sign that the Wildstar developers are making a point about attracting the "top raiding guilds in the world" . The 99% of us MMO players who play for fun, adventure and a little friendly social interaction could not possibly care less about the top raiding guilds.
Put a big focus on large scale raiding and for every raider you attract you are likely to lose a dozen casual players. The primary reason that raiding still persists as a focus in WoW is because Blizzard has made raiding accessible to the average player.
If you focus on "hard-core" raiders you may well find that there are not as many of them as you think. A lot of the people who loved hard-core raiding back in the days of vanilla WoW are now 30 years old with jobs and kids and 8 years spent grinding away in MMOs. These players are much less open to miserable grinds and painful challenges than they were a decade ago.
Hmmm, the last I checked, when WoW started moving down to 10 man raids and more casual oriented alternative end game content, the game itself was still increasing in sub numbers and remained stable long after the changes. The decline you mention is more likely in regards to the sheer age of the game and not its more casual gameplay.
In fact, it was at one of the Blizzard Fan Faires at the height of the game's 40 man raiding content, where Blizzard famously released the data that less than 20% of the player base participated in raiding content. It was subsequent panels and player discussions along with that data that would eventually take Blizzard down that road to 10 man raids and 5 man heroic dungeons.
This caught my attention. Definitely going to try Wildstar and see what raiding is like. I quit WoW because raids became trivial, and rewards stopped being exclusive for the best guilds to become a handout for every mediocre guild.
The way Wildstar raiding sounds, it might just be the thing that I've been looking for.
My opinion is my own. I respect all other opinions and views equally, but keep in mind that my opinion will always be the best for me. That's why it's my opinion.
They seem to understand that and appear to be providing a variety of content for everybody. I think having exclusive content is great, even if I likely won't do it. It is cool for some things to be rare, and when you see someone with something you go, "wow that's really cool where did you get it?" . I agree though if they don't provide enough content to keep the casual player busy they aren't going to see big sub numbers.
Read my post below, I never said Wildstar will accomplish that, I said we don't know how it will do. There is the chance it could see the same success WoW did. Why you ask? Because anything is possible when the outcome is unknown. My point is you stated an absolute and I you can't do that with the future.
Qombi wrote:
Minecraft, that came from no where. :P I am sure Blizzard hoped for great success, no one knew who popular that game would be. I think Wildstar has a chance to be as big as WoW if it is a good game and the stars align, just as much as another other great game in the right place at the right time.
I am not going to say Wildstar will be a huge success because that is the future and I do not know. Do I think it will likely have as many subs as WoW? Probably not, but not absolutely certain!
Edit: I do want to add I think a couple 40 man raids are awesome as well as 20 man raids. I am sure they will have small group content as well such as 5 - 10 man dungeons. I think variety is great, why does everything have to be the same? I am more excited about using crowd control and strategy once again in a dungeon to survive. Not only is that exciting but the combat videos are even more so due to the way battles take place.
The worse thing to me about WoW now isn't the smaller size raids or the theme of the game ... it is the removal of any challenge dungeon crawling. People run in and AOE zerg monsters in dungeons, in the world there is nothing to be afraid of .. people solo packs of mobs at a time when in the original game you would die if you got more than 2 your level on you without using some CC. I would probably play WoW today if the dungeons were still fun. I loved tanking, but not mind numbingly like it is now standing in one place AOE taunting while people burn everything to the ground. What a freaking snorefest, I can't understand why anyone would want to be in one of those dungeons.
To the people that say the game is only easier because everyone is soooo experienced now .... bull larkey and you know it. If people played as sloppy and zerg like as they do now .. they would wipe until there is no tomorrow. The game was fun, not any longer, bring back challenge. Casual does not equal snorefest, I thought people that play casually had time issues not brain issues.
A dungeon doesn't have to be hours long ... when Blizzard reduced the time to do things for the so called "casual" player ..they also made it so Mr. potatoe could succeed. I find it insulting really to my intelligence that if I was a "casual" player they also assume I am mentally retarded.
WoW's fastest period of growth was when they had 40 mans. But note that was also the period when far less people raided. WoW saw significant growth through vanilla and BC, that growth slowed to a trickle in Wrath and started a steep decline at the start of Cataclysm.
If Wildstar understands that only a small number of people actually will raid 40s, and provide enough other content to keep the other players having fun I think they will do fine. I also think they do understand this because these are the very same people who were developing WoW during it's fastest period of growth. Note that there were more subs at the end of vanilla than we have currently in WoW and that was with 40 man raiding. It will be fine as long as it isn't the main focus of the game.
WoWs fastest growth was not during vanilla WoW. If I remember correctly is that BC had 10 and 25 man raids, not a single 40 man.
Just wondering where you think WoW had the highest player growth. Because Im pretty sure that was after BC.
Whats the difference between a 20 man raid and a 40 man raid?
Twice the number of mobs to kill and a boss with twice the hitpoints.
Oh and twice the hassle of getting it all started and actually finishing it.
No thank you!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Its pretty clear that players prefer gamey to worldy mmo's. While I am not saying that a worldy mmo cannot be successful, its makes sense why developers shy away from them on projects as risky as an mmo is.
Really? If that is the case perhaps you should hop into IRC and have a chat with Pyaray (Carbines lead network engineer who also worked for Blizzard in a similar capacity during WoW's launch), He has a great story about how they had ordered 40 servers with 40 backups so if there were hardware issues they could just hot swap them out as needed but demand was so high by the end of the first week they had brought all 40 online aswell and had another 120 on order.
You would have a point if that were the only playerbase they are trying to attract. Keep in mind its only launching with a single 40 and 20 man. There are also the dungeons, solo dungeons, adventures, shiphands, I don't remember how many battlegrounds, arenas, warplots, housing. They offer 3 full gear paths for advancement, based on raiding, pvp and solo/small group. This is all without touching on the elements of the open world too, like the path system, world bosses, bams, limited zone events etc.
Anyone who thinks Wildstar is just about raiding either has not taken an actual look at the game or has another agenda.
WoW had 6.5m subs just prior to BC release and just over 11m just prior to WotLK. There is plenty of evidence with a single Google search. As much of the stagnation of WotLK can be attributed to China not getting that xpac until nearly Cata launch as any perceived loss of quality,
http://chroniclesofthenerds.com/nerdfight/
Y U NO FLIP TABLE?!?!?!
WoW grew at the rate of 6 millions subs in the first year and had 8 million subs at the end of vanilla. BC continued on at the rate of 2 million per year with the rate neither increasing nor decreasing since the end of vanilla. We saw a teeny tiny surge of new subs at the beginning of Wrath but subs remained more or less flat for the entirety of that expansion but peaking out at 12 million around the release of ICC. Cataclysm was the beginning of the decline dropping subs at the rate of around 2 million per year. So the fastest period of growth was the first year of vanilla when we had 40 man raids.