Well, I guess I'm happy the hardcore crowd gets their content, but it doesn't sound like there's going to be any casual raiding and I just can't schedule my time around an MMO any more.
Hopefully the "lots of other content" will include casual large group PvE content that will be just as entertaining as raiding.
"can't" is probably incorrect. "won't" is more likely the case. Whether that means it's not worth the effort or it's not important enough to you to do so, it is very likely that you could do it if you chose to.
And the fact that they are putting in this kind of thing before the game comes out is bad to me. Something like this should only be put in place when they are sure on the numbers. This will never be something i'm into and if it turns out that the best gear is only received through this, Will really suck. It might not be so, but i don't trust mmo game dev's these days to keep their word on anything.
72man, and later 54man, everquest raids, with highly-specialised classes.... 40man wow raids with 5 classes were.... simple, at best, after that. There's always been an elitist core that keeps the casuals playing. 40-man raids with interesting mechanics? It may bring back the magic that everquest was able to pull about with tiered raids (6mans for the casuals, 18 and 24man raids for casuals/raiders who were recruiting or low on numbers, and 54 mans for the elite).
If wildstar has a mix of high-end raids, mid-level raids and group content the elites who DO farm the 40-man content will keep the casuals reaching for the top. Resulting in a community where a group of casual "mid-level" guilds raid 20-mans and recruit players from the casual-grouper pool, but have leaders who aren't much interested in moving into 40-mans. The 40-man guilds can then poach the best players from these mid-level guilds to keep themselves strong. Everquest gave us a good look at how successful this can be, especially in terms of customer loyalty, and as long as the leadership of the mid-level guilds have a solid core of 5-10 and then a "turnover" group of 10-15 who come in to gear up and then move on to 40mans will probably be the rule of thumb for the first few months of the game, with it dwindling down to single players "climbing the ladder" as-it-were after guilds settle themselves out.
This also has quite a benefit for the mid-tier guilds, as many of those players who "hopped through" forge friendships with the members of the mid-tiers as they move up into 40-man guilds and often help out with, what to mid-tier guilds seems to be, challenging content in their downtime from raiding with their main guild, and also frequently encounter skilled players in pickup-groups whom are often referred to the players former mid-tier guild.
TLDR: Tiered raiding of this type strengthens the overall community and has the potential to engender long-term loyalty to the game and it's community.
EDIT, ADDITION: Claiming that a massive "WoW-like" population is neccessary to allow for 40-man raid guilds is ridiculous. The Everquest progression servers had a population of MAYBE 10k and had 6 different 72-man guilds with 200+ member rosters until instancing kicked in. For that matter, most LIVE everquest servers, with populations of 4-12k have 3+ active 54man raiding guilds, and 8+ mid-tier guilds, as well as tons of casuals, and the top population servers have 5+ hardcore guilds, and 12+ mid-tier guilds.
You don't need millions of people to have elite raiders unless most of your players are tards, and WoW illustrated this brilliantly by making their game so simple a one handed monkey could play it while masturbating and still be able to heal through a 10man raid encounter.
I should have been more clear regarding the "best" gear only being acquired in raids. When I played WOW back in the their first years, the "coolest looking" gear came from one place only. It was not only the most "powerful", but it was a cool looking set of matching gear. For example, I played a Night Elf Druid, with my patchwork dungeon quality gear. There was no great look to my gear, even though I ran my share of dungeons. But then you had this group of players, decked out in the latest Epic quality "set gear" that not only had amazing stats, but it looked awesome. It all matched as one theme. And it could only be gotten if you ran the highest level raids over and over, and got lucky enough to roll a win.
Now I do not begrudge those players who put that time and effort into the raids, so they could acquire that cool set of gear. They certainly deserved their gear. But what about that same player who just does not like to raid. He or she likes to be a crafter in MMO's. Why should that same paying customer not have the opportunity to acquire that same cool looking "epic set" gear if they put that same effort into the type of gameplay, just not in "raiding"
World of warcraft was so warped , in that the most rare crafting ingredients and recipes were only available in the toughest raid content. But most raiders did not even want the gear created from these rare crafted recipes, because the gear in the raids not only had better stats, but it looked better as a set. What ended up happening was the raiding community were the ones who acquired the crafting items, and ended up selling them on the auction house for rediculous amounts of gold. Shouldn't the high level crafters have the means to acquire their own rare recipes and ingredients without having to be forced to play in content that does not suit them, or be forced to purchase them for astronomical prices, from players who do not need them in the first place? That is very bad game design.
Raiders should have end game content which suits their play style, and allows them to have the opportunity to acquire awesome, powerful and unique items. But so do those players who choose to devote their time in-game to crafting, or exploration, gathering, dungeon crawling, home-building, questing, pvp'ing, and any other activity that keeps the customer paying their subscription fee each month. Too many game developers do not see the forest through the trees on this.
I personally love to explore and quest. I would continue to quest and explore past level cap in any game that gave me reason to do so. One possible way to keep me content in my playstyle would be to have long quest lines, where at the end, I have to overcome a challenge. And upon success, I have a chance at something unique, or part of a set. WOW had a great idea in Faction questing. The Netherdrake faction rewards were something that kept people playing and "paying". And yet, it was a great and unique reward that had nothing to do with raids. The more ways Wildstar can appeal to different playstyles, and keep it interesting, the less a chance that this game will become just another niche game.
People can attack World of Warcraft all they want, but the bottom line is that no other game has ever had more subscriptions, and for such a long period. Blizzard continues to succeed because they provide tons of end game content, for many types of gamestyles. We may not like all the ways they have done things, but new companies, such as Carbine, can learn from the successes and failures of WOW.
Comments
"can't" is probably incorrect. "won't" is more likely the case. Whether that means it's not worth the effort or it's not important enough to you to do so, it is very likely that you could do it if you chose to.
oh imagine the fun, 6 different classes making up 40 man raids! 1 weapon type per class. Going to be fun going back to saving up my DKP
seriously, I hate the TERA mode, your class uses this weapon and this weapon only approach, and Wildstar is following it as well.
why not give some variety, let us chose various weapons to equip
72man, and later 54man, everquest raids, with highly-specialised classes.... 40man wow raids with 5 classes were.... simple, at best, after that. There's always been an elitist core that keeps the casuals playing. 40-man raids with interesting mechanics? It may bring back the magic that everquest was able to pull about with tiered raids (6mans for the casuals, 18 and 24man raids for casuals/raiders who were recruiting or low on numbers, and 54 mans for the elite).
If wildstar has a mix of high-end raids, mid-level raids and group content the elites who DO farm the 40-man content will keep the casuals reaching for the top. Resulting in a community where a group of casual "mid-level" guilds raid 20-mans and recruit players from the casual-grouper pool, but have leaders who aren't much interested in moving into 40-mans. The 40-man guilds can then poach the best players from these mid-level guilds to keep themselves strong. Everquest gave us a good look at how successful this can be, especially in terms of customer loyalty, and as long as the leadership of the mid-level guilds have a solid core of 5-10 and then a "turnover" group of 10-15 who come in to gear up and then move on to 40mans will probably be the rule of thumb for the first few months of the game, with it dwindling down to single players "climbing the ladder" as-it-were after guilds settle themselves out.
This also has quite a benefit for the mid-tier guilds, as many of those players who "hopped through" forge friendships with the members of the mid-tiers as they move up into 40-man guilds and often help out with, what to mid-tier guilds seems to be, challenging content in their downtime from raiding with their main guild, and also frequently encounter skilled players in pickup-groups whom are often referred to the players former mid-tier guild.
TLDR: Tiered raiding of this type strengthens the overall community and has the potential to engender long-term loyalty to the game and it's community.
EDIT, ADDITION: Claiming that a massive "WoW-like" population is neccessary to allow for 40-man raid guilds is ridiculous. The Everquest progression servers had a population of MAYBE 10k and had 6 different 72-man guilds with 200+ member rosters until instancing kicked in. For that matter, most LIVE everquest servers, with populations of 4-12k have 3+ active 54man raiding guilds, and 8+ mid-tier guilds, as well as tons of casuals, and the top population servers have 5+ hardcore guilds, and 12+ mid-tier guilds.
You don't need millions of people to have elite raiders unless most of your players are tards, and WoW illustrated this brilliantly by making their game so simple a one handed monkey could play it while masturbating and still be able to heal through a 10man raid encounter.
Playing: Secret World: Legends
Waiting for: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
I should have been more clear regarding the "best" gear only being acquired in raids. When I played WOW back in the their first years, the "coolest looking" gear came from one place only. It was not only the most "powerful", but it was a cool looking set of matching gear. For example, I played a Night Elf Druid, with my patchwork dungeon quality gear. There was no great look to my gear, even though I ran my share of dungeons. But then you had this group of players, decked out in the latest Epic quality "set gear" that not only had amazing stats, but it looked awesome. It all matched as one theme. And it could only be gotten if you ran the highest level raids over and over, and got lucky enough to roll a win.
Now I do not begrudge those players who put that time and effort into the raids, so they could acquire that cool set of gear. They certainly deserved their gear. But what about that same player who just does not like to raid. He or she likes to be a crafter in MMO's. Why should that same paying customer not have the opportunity to acquire that same cool looking "epic set" gear if they put that same effort into the type of gameplay, just not in "raiding"
World of warcraft was so warped , in that the most rare crafting ingredients and recipes were only available in the toughest raid content. But most raiders did not even want the gear created from these rare crafted recipes, because the gear in the raids not only had better stats, but it looked better as a set. What ended up happening was the raiding community were the ones who acquired the crafting items, and ended up selling them on the auction house for rediculous amounts of gold. Shouldn't the high level crafters have the means to acquire their own rare recipes and ingredients without having to be forced to play in content that does not suit them, or be forced to purchase them for astronomical prices, from players who do not need them in the first place? That is very bad game design.
Raiders should have end game content which suits their play style, and allows them to have the opportunity to acquire awesome, powerful and unique items. But so do those players who choose to devote their time in-game to crafting, or exploration, gathering, dungeon crawling, home-building, questing, pvp'ing, and any other activity that keeps the customer paying their subscription fee each month. Too many game developers do not see the forest through the trees on this.
I personally love to explore and quest. I would continue to quest and explore past level cap in any game that gave me reason to do so. One possible way to keep me content in my playstyle would be to have long quest lines, where at the end, I have to overcome a challenge. And upon success, I have a chance at something unique, or part of a set. WOW had a great idea in Faction questing. The Netherdrake faction rewards were something that kept people playing and "paying". And yet, it was a great and unique reward that had nothing to do with raids. The more ways Wildstar can appeal to different playstyles, and keep it interesting, the less a chance that this game will become just another niche game.
People can attack World of Warcraft all they want, but the bottom line is that no other game has ever had more subscriptions, and for such a long period. Blizzard continues to succeed because they provide tons of end game content, for many types of gamestyles. We may not like all the ways they have done things, but new companies, such as Carbine, can learn from the successes and failures of WOW.