I don't know what to make of Wildstar

[BloatedGuppy]

Sorry, you've got me reminiscing again, my point is that if we could have an MMO that did so many things right fifteen years ago, why on Earth can't we capture that magic again now? Maybe it's not them, maybe it's me, but these newer MMOs don't even seem to grow into greatness. They seem to stagnate and die.

It's WoW.

1. They're copying it without really understanding what makes it special.
2. By copying it they're placing themselves directly in its wheelhouse, and it's squashing them every single time because they just can't compete on an apples to apples basis. How many times have you seen Blizzard drop an expansion or content patch right on the head of a fledgling MMO? Too many to count.
3. Because they get smothered in their cribs, they never have time to get legs under them and start to deliver on vision.

Let's look at DAoC. At launch, we didn't even have any post 35 dungeon content itemized. The PvE "content", such as it was, was comprised of mobs milling around in fields. There was no realm points or reward system in place for PvP at all. The crafting and housing you enjoyed was many patches and, I believe, at least one expansion down the road. There were numerous hilarious bugs and balance issues, like archers one-shotting from stealth, or assassins getting up to 95% dodge with stacking buffs/gear.

Now imagine DAoC launches into a saturated marketplace full of games that look and play very much like it, and one in particular that has years of polish and content depth and breadth poured into it, the developers of which are already busily copying DAoC's 1-2 new innovations for their next patch. Which they probably dump right after the free month expires. What happens to DAoC?

The theme park MMOs are eating their young. We need someone to innovate, but thus far no one has had the balls, and the few that tried to be different didn't have the capital to deliver on promise. Let's hope Sony breaks the trend. EQ is a powerful enough brand in that space to trade punches with Warcraft on semi-equal footing, at least.

I'm not holding my breath for DAoC 2, as much as I would love to see it come to fruition, but as you say, EQN and that sandbox promise (as vague and nebulous as it is) is all that is keeping me interested in the genre at the moment. Cheers to you mate![/quote]

 

[Catrixa]

I dunno, I like it so far, but I don't know how long I'll like it into the distant future. The combat is fun (for me), which is what makes it interesting atm, but I could see it getting grindy at some point. I'm also enjoying the story, which may or may not spell doom for me once I find out what happens... (this happens sometimes with SWTOR, but at least every time I come back to that game, I can play another one of 8 stories, which is nice). I absolutely love the art and character design too, which helps.

I think my biggest issue with the game is: This is a hardcore game for hardcore people. Noob? Casual? Hardcore, but Not A Real Hardcore? This game is not for you, go away. I'm not saying this means the game is hard, per se, but every dev/player interaction I see is: We promise not to fix random things that make the game confusing, unfair, tediously grindy (see: the process for attuning to raids, then see the apologist reaction to it, good god), or esoteric for people who aren't completely entrenched in everything about it. Er, this is dumb. This has been dumb in the past, and this will be dumb into the future. Wow implemented nerfs and raid finder difficulties so more than a tiny fraction of players could see the content. Not be the best at it. Not get the same gear and be as cool as "real" hardcore raiders. Just see it. This idea of "having an easy mode ruins everything ever, makes the game for infants and babies, and should be eliminated" is really, really frustrating at this point. Hard content isn't going to go away if someone somewhere can do easier content.

 

[happyninja42]

As much as I want to buy this...somewhere deep down I keep hearing, "IT'S A TRAP".

It doesn't do PvP better than MOBAs.

It's PvE looks like a massive grind just to get to the fun part: 40 man raids

Why can't devs just release "40 MAN RAIDS: THE GAME" and be done with it?

Because some of us hate raids?

I personally can't stand raiding, and when I play an MMO to the point where all that's left for me to do is raids....well that's when I either start a new character and level them up, or I stop playing the game.

 

[Gorrath]

It's WoW.

1. They're copying it without really understanding what makes it special.
2. By copying it they're placing themselves directly in its wheelhouse, and it's squashing them every single time because they just can't compete on an apples to apples basis. How many times have you seen Blizzard drop an expansion or content patch right on the head of a fledgling MMO? Too many to count.
3. Because they get smothered in their cribs, they never have time to get legs under them and start to deliver on vision.

Let's look at DAoC. At launch, we didn't even have any post 35 dungeon content itemized. The PvE "content", such as it was, was comprised of mobs milling around in fields. There was no realm points or reward system in place for PvP at all. The crafting and housing you enjoyed was many patches and, I believe, at least one expansion down the road. There were numerous hilarious bugs and balance issues, like archers one-shotting from stealth, or assassins getting up to 95% dodge with stacking buffs/gear.

Now imagine DAoC launches into a saturated marketplace full of games that look and play very much like it, and one in particular that has years of polish and content depth and breadth poured into it, the developers of which are already busily copying DAoC's 1-2 new innovations for their next patch. Which they probably dump right after the free month expires. What happens to DAoC?

The theme park MMOs are eating their young. We need someone to innovate, but thus far no one has had the balls, and the few that tried to be different didn't have the capital to deliver on promise. Let's hope Sony breaks the trend. EQ is a powerful enough brand in that space to trade punches with Warcraft on semi-equal footing, at least.

I'm not holding my breath for DAoC 2, as much as I would love to see it come to fruition, but as you say, EQN and that sandbox promise (as vague and nebulous as it is) is all that is keeping me interested in the genre at the moment. Cheers to you mate!

Right, exactly. By trying to ape WoW they are just putting themselves directly into competition with WoW, and who's going to want to pay 15 bucks a month for a lesser, buggy, unpolished version of what they already have? I don't expect any MMO to launch and be like an MMO that's been around for years, but what DAoC did do was grow into itself. Player housing was, if I recall, the first free expansion that was released for the game? I remember the releases going paid/free/paid/free and the free ones adding damned good content to the game (New Frontiers being hit and miss for people, I admit.) The game started out rough, but it held the imagination long enough and held enough promise, that it was easy to stick around as things went from "hmmm" to "MMMMM!"

Unlike DAoC, which grew into its greatness, so many other MMOs seem to try and grow into WoW's greatness and as we both know and have said, that's a formula that simply isn't going to work. I'm with you that DAoC, if released today, would not survive the landscape. But, I am convinced that an MMO can grow into its own greatness despite the heavy competition. Of course almost everyone's view of MMO success is skewed by WoW anyway, no matter what sort it is. I see people declare MMOs a failure when they are actually chugging along at a fine pace.

I guess you could say that what I want is an MMO that, while not being a diamond right out of the gate, holds enough promise, enough innovation that it can grow into being one. WAR almost did that for me and was my last best hope. Too bad it came out right at the release of WoW's WotLK.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Of course almost everyone's view of MMO success is skewed by WoW anyway, no matter what sort it is. I see people declare MMOs a failure when they are actually chugging along at a fine pace.

True dat. A lot of MMOs viewed as calamitous failures by the gaming community at large were actually quite profitable. I don't think people realize just how absurdly, anomalously successful WoW was. It's silly, really. Everquest was a GIANT, and it topped out around 800k subs. At it's peak, WoW had over ten times that number. The likelihood of that happening again with a saturated genre is vanishingly small.

I guess you could say that what I want is an MMO that, while not being a diamond right out of the gate, holds enough promise, enough innovation that it can grow into being one. WAR almost did that for me and was my last best hope. Too bad it came out right at the release of WoW's WotLK.

We need that sandbox game. We need a game that doesn't try to be the next Malibu Stacey with a new hat, but rather a different toy altogether. The genre is stuffed, but it's stuffed with a lot of games that all do the exact same things, with varying degrees of success. Do some DIFFERENT things. Offer up wildly different mechanics. Innovate. Be creative. Push the genre into new frontiers. That's what EQ did, and then Blizzard came along and polished the formula to a mirror sheen, and the fat lady SHOULD have sung and then everyone went home, but the fat lady is still singing and everyone is wondering when she's going to stop.

PS - I also liked WAR a lot, and WOTLK did quite hilariously squish it, but WAR was busy killing itself even before WOTLK hit. Fantastic IP, some amazing ideas, but the meta-game was utterly, tragically broken. The engine was awful too. I remember getting terrible performance and constant hitching on a PC that should've run circles around it. WAR was one of my favorite post WoW MMOs, but if I'm being fair, it was also one of the worst.

 

[Tarsus]

Got to lv 28 in wildstar and am rather unimpressed with what i have seen so far.
The questing is a down right chore with endless uninspired fetch/click/kill type quests i honestly thought we had moved on from several years ago. The only "innovation" they have brought on that front is that instead of having you click something many of the quests force you to do an annoying qte or memory puzzle.
In addition to being bombarded by tons these inane quests you are also given lots of "challenges" which usually involves killing or clicking X amount of things within a certain time limit.
Every 50+ quests or so they do break up the monotony by letting you do something fun like play around with a jet pack or kill stuff using a vehicle of some kind but those kinds of quests are few and far apart and wow typically does them a lot better.
A bigger issue is the atrocious combat. Dodging telegraphs can be fun on occasion but when every single mob has you running and dodging all over the place it quickly becomes very irritating and the fact that it seems to take ages to get a single regular mob down only exacerbates the problem.
They also seem to be a tad confused whit regards to their design direction.
In the last 6 months or so they have been claiming that they want to cater to the hard core raiding crowd that wow abandoned several years back but then they go and limit your number of hotkeys to 8. Guaranteeing that combat will be spammy and repetative and thus will quickly become boring.
One thing you will never hear a hard core raider complain about is having too many tactical options in combat.
The more options you give a skilled player the more they will stand out from the crowd and the greater their overall enjoyment of the game will be.
The only people you will hear complain about having too many buttons (up to a point obviously) are generally casuals or people with a low skill level.
Limiting you to a measly 8 bindable buttons makes no sense what so ever if you are not trying to cater to casuals.
Even then it really makes no sense since the longer it takes someone to master a combat system the more attached they will become to the game once they do and thus they are likely to stick around longer.
That is not to say there are not plenty of things to like about the game. Housing and war plots are especially great and the myriad of customization options for your character are pretty excellent, hell you can even customize your mount.
Crafting seems to allow for a ton of options too all tho i am not a fan of the architect system at all (not seen the others).
I hear the dungeons and raids are very well made and quite challenging but i doubt i will stick around long enough to find out.

 

[tehroc]

Why can't devs just release "40 MAN RAIDS: THE GAME" and be done with it?

Blizzard could have made one of the most successful console games ever. Take WOW, strip everything except dungeons, pvp and raiding, adjust levels and gear to compensate the lack outdoor content. Would have sold 10 million units easily.

 

[Muspelheim]

A group of Blizzard developers escaped from a dungeon guarded by Warmasterlord Metzen, and more or less grew their own MMO, basically.

Its just a bit of a shame that MMO happened to be a poor vanilla wow clone. telegraphs didnt add depth its just busy work and MMO's have had them for years but usually with the good sense to limit it to boss fights.

moving from dont stand in the fire to dont stand where the fire is going to be is not the paradigm shift in gameplay i was looking for.

Well, true. Wildstar seems to be very conservative in terms of mechanics. Of course, whether this makes or breaks the game depends on individual taste, and what individual players are looking for in an MMO.

Like I said, I find their lack of wheel-reinventing rather appealing, somehow. Not that I mind attempts at innovation, but I don't mind properties sticking to the old roads, either.

Whether Wildstar succeeds in this, well... Doesn't look promising by word of mouth, I must say, but I'll have to see for myself sometime. If all goes well, I'd love to be a space robot.

Why can't devs just release "40 MAN RAIDS: THE GAME" and be done with it?

Blizzard could have made one of the most successful console games ever. Take WOW, strip everything except dungeons, pvp and raiding, adjust levels and gear to compensate the lack outdoor content. Would have sold 10 million units easily.

Heh, it almost feels as if they've done precisely that already. If you are playing as a tank, you can more or less level the entire way up by tanking through instant random dungeons, never setting foot outside the city. Well, save moving to the current expansion's high level airport.

I remember that I got less gear and experience for my time when I decided to quest instead, but it felt like a shame just leaving all of that content to rot.

It isn't a bad idea, though. Certainly not in terms of PvP. If prettied up properly, it could work as a fantasy Battlefield experience of some sort.

 

[tehroc]

Heh, it almost feels as if they've done precisely that already. If you are playing as a tank, you can more or less level the entire way up by tanking through instant random dungeons, never setting foot outside the city. Well, save moving to the current expansion's high level airport.

I remember that I got less gear and experience for my time when I decided to quest instead, but it felt like a shame just leaving all of that content to rot.

It isn't a bad idea, though. Certainly not in terms of PvP. If prettied up properly, it could work as a fantasy Battlefield experience of some sort.

Major derp from me they already have a console game. Just add battlegrounds, Wintergrasp and raids to Diablo 3.

 

[Cartographer]

I can already hear the rage-quits as people hit level 20 and try out the first dungeon. Expect voice comms to be mandatory for even basic multiplayer content.

The dungeons are great, but I almost soloed the first boss in the first dungeon on my 2nd try. My group wiped and I fought him alone for 5+ minutes before mislicking into a wisp. If you have a general level of gaming knowledge and can circle strafe and aim a cone, you can do fine. I'd hardly say voice comms are mandatory.

OT: I played Wildstar for...oh I dunno. 100 hours? 150 hours? Through winter beta into the spring. What started out seeming kind of fresh and snappy ended up feeling incredibly tedious and repetitive by the end. Not a fan of the combat system...not remotely. I think it's an active, LARGE step back.

So you're saying a boss, in beta when it was likely undertuned was easy for you to solo?
Have you tried live, can you do the same thing there? Did you find the second boss as easy?
I'm curious, 'cus as the tank, without heals, I lasted 8 seconds and wasn't hit by a single telegraph.
As for not liking the combat, at least you tried it and formed your opinion based on actual experience, I can respect that but wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment and assertion. I might agree the game doesn't actively stride FORWARD with innovation, it certainly doesn't go back; it polishes mechanics and gameplay from a variety of other sources to a mirror finish and makes a thoroughly engaging game that is a joy to play.

The questing sprinkles little gems here and there in a great river of turgid boredom. There's a common refrain that it "gets better after level 15", and they're not lying...it does. It then proceeds to get DRAMATICALLY WORSE as you level up through your 30's and into 40's. Like killing an endless shit-ton of mobs for tiny incremental quest progress? I hope so, cuz you're playing WILDSTAR.

The game's sense of humor...sort of a "more juvenile" take on Borderlands...which shouldn't even have been possible...rankled me. HOLY SHIT YOU LEVELED UP CUPCAKE! I was like...heh. Then over the next X hours of play "heh" turned to "meh" turned to "oh god shut the fuck up". It's SNL sketch quality humor, stretched out over hundreds of hours. It will take a...certain type of person...to enjoy it.

Ultimately, as I have negative interest in the concept of moving backwards in time to an age where questing was boring, pointless bullshit and "end game" was the exercise in cat herding known as 40 man raiding, what promise Wildstar did show wilted on the vine for me. It's a game made by old school raiders for old school raiders, and is aggressively charmless in almost every other facet, save perhaps housing, which is great but under delivers on the promise it showed during early promotional videos.

Biggest MMO disappointment in recent memory.

By your own admission it isn't for you then, and "a...certain type of person" is both inflammatory and insulting in the context you used it; ad hominem attacks on people who enjoy something you don't is pretty petty.
As for 40-man being end game, it isn't, it's one of multiple end game progression paths. Carbine went out of their way to explain in virtually every interview they gave that the elder game progression paths are solo-PvP, group-PvP, solo-PvE, group-PvE, 20-man raiding and 40-man raiding. They openly admitted the 40-man was for 1% of their player base and filled the game with other content for people to enjoy. If all you've done is look at it and said "40-man, it must suck" then you've brought your own WoW-inspired prejudices to the party I'm afraid.
Granted, there's potential for it to fail to live up to its promises, but there's no way to know yet.

 

[INVALIDUSERNAME]

It's a quirky little game that'll definitely find its fanbase. I absolutely loved the artstyle but the combat was a little bit "meh". Some classes, like the Stalker, play fluid and fun, but then I tried the Spellslinger and it was just spamming cones and it wasn't very fun for me.

The world design's pretty fuckin' beautiful but it's mired by some of the most boring questing I've seen in years. I get that there's not much you can do to make MMO questing exciting, because they usually just devolve into escort/fetch/kill/discovery quests but this was like bottom of the barrel Burning Crusade shit.

The comedy's pretty hit or miss, for me, when it comes to how funny or unfunny it is. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes it's just a chuckle, and sometimes you just groan because it's so bad. The "DOUBLE KILL," "TRIPLE KILL," announcements were pretty great though. I love stuff like that.

As for the whole telegraph thing, it's really not as impressive as they're waving their dicks in the air claiming it to be. In their raid video they said something along the lines of, "Every fight is dynamic because no 2 AoE's will land in the same place, keeping you on your toes! It's really intense!" But staying out of AoEs is boring and the only benefit it has over other active combat systems like GW2 or TERA is that there's no evade frames when you dodge, so it at least requires some more forward thinking instead of just dodging at the perfect time.

Pretty fun game, but not something I think will catch fire and grow to be some word-of-mouth uber tier success. It'll find its niche and have a pretty modest fanbase, I'm hoping, since a lot of the people playing are genuinely really nice from the experiences I've had so far.

Let's just see if it ends up going through a hardcore discount like a certain other MMO 2 months after launch.

 

[Therumancer]

I have mixed opinions on Wildstar. One thing that bugged me about it, and still does, is the art style. It looks too cartoony, like something a really little kid would watch. More so than say World Of Warcraft. This makes it hard for me to take seriously, especially when it turned out to be even worse than the videos they made before the game came out, and particularly when the difficulty level can be rather high. Basically it's a game aiming at an older, hardcore, audience, but using graphics that seem to be aimed at the ultra-casual crowd. This isn't much of a complaint for some people, but it's something that sticks with me as much as I try and overlook it.

I'll also say that my opinion of the telegraph system is mixed, largely because the game seems to have been built around the idea of a "trinity" and balanced characters accordingly, but then forgot about this as the game was later developed. As they put it "everyone does the dance, not just DPS" but then one has to wonder why there are even tanks in the game for example, since even early on your still spending a lot of your time dodging telegraphs. My experience has largely been that it tends to be fairly all or nothing, you dodge the stuff the boss is throwing out and your going to be nearly unscathed, either that or you die. What's more some fights seem to throw out enough telegraphs that it seems almost like a "bullet hell" shooter and there is little or no way at times to tell which telegraph is for which attack, especially when dealing with a room full of mobs.

I get where they were going with this, but I honestly think that if they were going in this direction they probably shouldn't have done the whole "character classes" thing and instead gone with a more freeform system like "The Secret World".

This is of course just my opinion after having been in beta, and having played a bit after launch. I'm not sure if this game is a keeper or not. To be honest I like a lot of things it does, and see where they were trying to go with it, but it needs some adjustment IMO. I'll also say flat out I prefer a subscription model over a "free to play" model.

Of course I admit part of it is also that I'm slowing down as I get older, due to things like developing arthritis and tendonitis.

At any rate, whether I stick with it for the long term or not, I think "Wildstar" will maintain a healthy cult following at the very least. As long as they didn't make the mistake of promising this was going to be some kind of smash hit that is going to make scads of money, they should be okay. On a lot of levels it reminds me of "The Secret World" (which I liked more, before burn out set in a while back... I might be going back for Tokyo in a bit, I'm delaying due to letting them sort the bugs first, then I'll do the last few issue expansions and Tokyo) and it's attitudes, albeit Funcom pretty much made this mistake of selling it's approach to high octane endgame masochism as something that was going to make a fortune, as opposed to be a niche game. TSW also had more serious graphics (allowing for it's limitations).

That said, I will give Wildstar high praise for developing it's zones well, the game is a pleasure to explore. Penny Arcade is right about that, they have also hidden these "challenges" around the place which can be anything from jump puzzles to timed mob killing which actually reward you for poking and around.

As far as the paths go, each is set up to represent a different "style" of play. Basically Scientist is all about very slow paced lore elaboration, settler is about building buff stations as you travel which other people can also use, the more you build or prop up, the easier the zone gets for everyone in it, the soldier is all about setting off occasional combat encounters, some of which are basically puzzles, and the Explorer is all about puzzles and basically trying to figure out how to get from point A to B which can involve finding hidden jump puzzles, odd slopes that can be traversed even if they don't look like it, and so on. This aspect of the game is kind of clever, however it should be noted that someone who goes by the name and decides "you know, I'd really like to be a scientist and do things with science" probably isn't going to be very excited, since it's basically a path all about going into well travelled areas and grinding a bit more than usual in order to click on things and read more text.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Got halfway through replying to this, browser freaked out. This is take 2.

So you're saying a boss, in beta when it was likely undertuned was easy for you to solo?

I assume you were in beta? You'll probably remember dungeon content was harder, and got tweaked downwards. Not only in part because there was virtually no itemization in the game at the time for healers on leveling gear, and abilities were virtually 100% gear dependent, so you were healing for literally 1-2% of the tank's health poor per cast.

Have you tried live, can you do the same thing there? Did you find the second boss as easy?

No. I played into open beta. Perhaps there was a patch dropped at launch that made everything significantly harder. I doubt it though.

As for not liking the combat, at least you tried it and formed your opinion based on actual experience, I can respect that but wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment and assertion. I might agree the game doesn't actively stride FORWARD with innovation, it certainly doesn't go back; it polishes mechanics and gameplay from a variety of other sources to a mirror finish and makes a thoroughly engaging game that is a joy to play.

When I say 'go back' I mean it implements changes that I'm not sure are a positive step forward. GW2 "innovated" by dumping the trinity, and it ultimately felt like a step back because the resultant combat was a formless clusterfuck. Wildstar combat, while snappy and responsive, falls down for me in a few areas.

1. I was a big advocate for the LAS in beta. I stumped hard for it. There were the usual complaints from players used to WoW/Rift/et al and large ability sets with up to dozens of situational abilities. From my perspective, there is no reason a (reasonable) LAS cannot work if the abilities are fun, well balanced, well designed, well differentiated. The longer I played, the more I came to feel this was not the case. Many classes play similarly, with mild variations on builder/spender mechanics. Most abilities fire similarly, with mild variations in telegraph size and length. Many cross class utility abilities function very similarly, and are employed to a similar purpose. A tremendous sense of repetition, of...SAMEYness set in. With only 6 classes on dock, this was particularly damning. Having two spots on the small LAS shunted aside for gadgets and the hilariously useless path abilities did nothing to help perception of poor ability breadth and variation.

2. I adore movement in MMOs. One of my first love affairs with a mobile, instant based class was the Skald in DAoC. I hate "turret" classes. Every time I have to stand still to cast, I feel a pang of annoyance. However, I do acknowledge that having "turret" abilities means there's a value, a premium placed on mobility. To quote Sid Meier, a game is a series of interesting choices, and choosing to root yourself to get off a powerful ability can be viewed through that lens. While I very much appreciate the crispness of Wildstar's movement, the fact that almost EVERY goddam fight boils down into the same circle strafing/telegraph pointing began to feel profoundly wearying. I like movement and situational awareness as a mechanic in fights, I just don't know that I want it to be the key mechanic in EVERY fight. You end up with "Don't Stand In The Fire, The Video Game".

3. This might be silly to you, but I find it telling there's another guy even in this tiny thread complaining about the same issue, and it's that all this constant spinning and clicking is actually hell on the wrists. Wildstar is the most physically exhausting game I've played since Diablo 2, and that's a worrisome aspect for a genre that often DEMANDS heavy play time from users to extract maximum value from investment. I'm not even sure I COULD play Wildstar long term if I wanted to. The game's ADHD approach to content results in almost non-stop movement. This can be exciting in bursts, and painful in marathons. Won't apply to everyone. Most certainly applied to me, and my friend who played beta alongside me.

By your own admission it isn't for you then, and "a...certain type of person" is both inflammatory and insulting in the context you used it; ad hominem attacks on people who enjoy something you don't is pretty petty.

Well...you're right and you're wrong here. You're right that I'm being a bit of a dick about the humor, because it's a type of humor that I hold in disdain and have a hard time imagining adults enjoying. It's loud voices shouting "funny" words. This is the wit equivalent of a grown man shouting "doody" and expecting peals of laughter. So, yes, I'm having a bit of a go at anyone who wants to promote this game as being some kind of monument to comedy. That said, comedy is subjective. Some people laugh at Carrot Top and Larry the Cable Guy, and it's not really my place to judge. So if backed into a corner on the issue, I will admit that I am being unfair.

It is not, however, an "ad hominem attack". An ad hominem attack is when you attempt to undermine an argument by attacking the source. "Sure, you think Wildstar is a good game. BECAUSE YOU'RE AN IDIOT!". That would be an ad hominem attack. I'm not saying that, by the way, I'm just making an example of what ad hom looks like. Me taking a swing at the game's infantile sense of humor is not an ad hom, it's just me being smug.

As for 40-man being end game, it isn't, it's one of multiple end game progression paths. Carbine went out of their way to explain in virtually every interview they gave that the elder game progression paths are solo-PvP, group-PvP, solo-PvE, group-PvE, 20-man raiding and 40-man raiding. They openly admitted the 40-man was for 1% of their player base and filled the game with other content for people to enjoy. If all you've done is look at it and said "40-man, it must suck" then you've brought your own WoW-inspired prejudices to the party I'm afraid.

Gaffney has talked about wanting a solo PvE endgame. From everything I have understood, it's not really in the game yet. I assume you're playing hard and likely to level cap soon, because what was once promoted as a 150-200 hour journey to level cap is closer to 30-50, so once you get there PLEASE let me know if there IS a robust, solo PvE end game, what it entails, how difficult it is, what kind of loot tiers it gives access to, etc, etc, etc, etc. I am 100% serious about this. I want to know.

Frankly, the dubious quality of the solo content in the game from 1-50 hasn't left me terribly enthused about any post 50 content the solo PvE crowd might cook up, but who knows.

Granted, there's potential for it to fail to live up to its promises, but there's no way to know yet.

I see a LOT of echoes of TSW in Wildstar. Unique, untested IP. Hugely polarized reaction from players, with half hating it like poison and the rest claiming it's their waifu. Hostile, entrenched community attacking any and all criticism as heretics opposing the vision. Ludicrous expectations of success (TSW fans imagined a game that would grow like a virus, spurred by word of mouth...Wildstar fans, apparently not being students of history, imagine a "WoW killer"). Different games, certainly, but positioned similarly in the market. Now, Wildstar has the benefit of not having GW2 dropped on its head 2 months after launch (way to plan a launch window, Funcom), but it is going to have to deal with WoD down the road.

Sales are the lifeblood of any MMO. Great sales, and you get lots of content. Bad sales, and you go into maintenance mode if NCSoft doesn't just cut your throat entirely. Carbine made a TON of promises, only some of which made it into the game at launch, and some of their more ballyhooed features (cough, paths, cough) were ill conceived to the point of being outrageously stupid. I do hope the game can evolve and even thrive, because I adore the 5 man content and I WANT it to light a fire under Blizzard in terms of getting some difficulty back in their game. I'm just not incredibly optimistic. As I say, I see a lot of echoes of TSW in WS, and TSW was a commercial disaster that undersold projections by about 75% and almost killed the developer.

PS - I forgot to address "WoW inspired prejudices". I've been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. My favorite MMO of all time was EQ. While I enjoy WoW and feel it is still king of the theme parks...a difficult to dispute reality when you look at market share and player retention...I am not a "WoW fanatic" looking at everything through WoW blind eyes. I am an MMO fan. Go far enough back in my post history and you will find me writing long posts on these very forums PIMPING WILDSTAR. I was incredibly excited for the game. My agitation towards it was acquired through long hours of play, not through MMO tribalism or a pointless desire to see it fail.

"the mmo market" is far, far bigger than most people realise and simply put not everyone likes orcs, elves, dwarfs etc.

there is plenty of room for "wow contemporaries" of legitimate quality and wow is not the all encompassing sponge in the marketplace people think it is.

Precisely. Which is why it is so tragic that WoW's ludicrous financial success and market dominance has lead investors in newer MMOs to go "safe" by attempting to ape its game play conventions and generally doing a shit job of it. You want to grab a slice of the "massively multiplayer" pie? Stop squabbling over the piece Blizzard already cut off for themselves and INNOVATE for fucks sake.

 

[seedcow]

Played the beta for a few hours but got bored extremely fast. The quests are boring as hell, you get the same dialogue line over and over for different quests, a lot of bugs (well it was a beta...), combat system wasn't my cup of tea either. World design is kinda neat though.
Stuff like the professions sounded cool at first but when you realize that "Scientist" only means "click on 5 different items in every region" it loses quite a bit of it's charm. At least the explorer or how it is called should be somewhat fun.

If you want dialogue you actually have to read the quests. The NPCs only have a few lines voice acted (which is fine with me, I got a little tired of it in Skyrim).
And Scientist is a Path; its an entirely optional side skill to grind out for certain abilities. Like summoning party members to you or a free portal to the main city.

 

[scotth266]

Bought it, glad I didn't buy a sub with it because it just ain't quite there for me yet.

The game has some really dumb audio bugs (or just piss-poor sound design) which makes bits of sound overlap when they really shouldn't or just has music dropping/playing randomly. The game runs at 20 FPS or lower for me unless I turn the render quality to low and make everything look like ass, which only gets me 30 FPS (I'm well above recommended specs and I've been messing with all sorts of stuff to try and fix it, but no luck so far.)

The humor is a love-it-or-hate-it affair along with the art style - it reminds me of Ratchet and Clank, which I love, but your mileage may vary.

Combat is reminiscent of Tera and I get the feeling that it's gonna be the same boring grind to get to the good part of the game - virtually every review I've read thus far has been HOLY SHIT DUNGEONS ARE AMAZEBALLS so I'm aiming to stick it out to there at least.

We'll see I guess. If this doesn't pan out I'm gonna renew my FF14 sub to get my mmo fix.

 

[raeior]

Played the beta for a few hours but got bored extremely fast. The quests are boring as hell, you get the same dialogue line over and over for different quests, a lot of bugs (well it was a beta...), combat system wasn't my cup of tea either. World design is kinda neat though.
Stuff like the professions sounded cool at first but when you realize that "Scientist" only means "click on 5 different items in every region" it loses quite a bit of it's charm. At least the explorer or how it is called should be somewhat fun.

If you want dialogue you actually have to read the quests. The NPCs only have a few lines voice acted (which is fine with me, I got a little tired of it in Skyrim).
And Scientist is a Path; its an entirely optional side skill to grind out for certain abilities. Like summoning party members to you or a free portal to the main city.

Well yes I did read them and a lot of them were exactly the same. You got 3 quests in an area and after finishing each one of them you got the exact same quest text for your success. This wasn't targeted towards the voice acted parts but to the quest texts in general.
As to the professions. Okay they are called paths. What does that change? They make stuff like settler sound like you really change something in the world but it simply doesn't. It sounds far better than it is.