[Column] WildStar: What Went Wrong?

SBFord

WildStar had all the hallmarks of a promising launch: promising reviews and widespread critical acclaim, queues of players waiting to log in, and a burgeoning community that was excited by Carbine’s new IP. It’s difficult to imagine a better environment in which to fire up a brand new MMO.

Read more of Gareth Harmer's WildStar: What Went Wrong?

Darwa

Where did it go wrong?

People got to play it.

Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by Darwa

Where did it go wrong?

People got to play it.

"No plan survives contact with the ene... err, MMO player?" :P

kilun

I played it for about 2 weeks or so, and my son did as well.  We both lost interest before cap.  The game had no "hook" to hit, and it lacked any real soul, although it looked like it had soul all over it.  I think part of it was that the game had way to much of a grind feel to it, Most games you see it, you know it, but short of endgame carrot on a stick, it doesn't feel that way, at least for your first character.  It felt that way to me.

rodingo

Not really fan of quest hubs any more which WS relies heavily on.

Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by Torvaldr
It didn't go wrong for me, although I can see why it did for others. I never intended to play the game long term. It's a subscription locked raid centric game. That's just not something I'm going to support for long. I threw $50 or whatever at Carbine, enjoyed my month. I'll probably visit again someday.

I had a similar discussion with a colleague the other day.

I told him the game was apparently having issues with their server populations, and he thought they were suffering from overpopulation and asked "Oh? Are they adding more servers then?" when I told him it's quite the opposite he went "Oh, and it's such a fun game too."

So obviously I went "Oh? So you play it then?" and he went all "Yeah, I played it for a month. It was fun."

But clearly not enough fun to stay. And I've seen the sentiment more than once. Apparently the game has some huge player retention issues, even among those who found it fun.

azzamasin

Simply put the core gameplay from the linear quest hub centric progression to the raid centric endgame and PvP system was all a spot on clone of WoW. We've been playing this boring, samey game for 10 years now. Plus 99% of every MMO over the last 10 years have been this style. Changing up the combat and slapping on a humorous setting is not evolutionary or revolutionary and that is what majority are looking for.

nuttob

I played in beta, and there were definitely some charming aspects of the game.  It did not grab me enough to buy the game and keep playing though.   I might come back again if they go FTP...

danwest58

WOW CLONE but tried to CLONE CLASSIC WOW.  That sums up the game.  They tried the same formula that only worked for 1 publisher.  Not like there is not already countless WOW clones out there.  

kreken

Originally posted by kilun
The game had no "hook" to hit, and it lacked any real soul, although it looked like it had soul all over it.

That's the feeling I got from this game. It reminds me of Rift. No matter how much I tried to like the game, I still felt detached and disinterested.

Kaizermos

It's easy to see what went wrong.  It's what 90% of people were saying - Sub + Box is moronic now days, there is a reason games like WoW stopped 40 man raids with attunment, the old server style is outdated, they lied about 4-6 week updates, the path system was terrible and boring, the questing/gear treadmill is exactly the same as every MMO for the last 10+ years etc etc

 

edit: I'd love to hear from the people who were excited at the prospect of playing vanilla WoW again.  There were heaps of you are one stage. Rose coloured glasses people.

Alverant

Put me in the "It's fun but I'm not playing as much" category. It's not just the empty servers, but there's no real need to team up as you play. I'm still in the mid-30s in terms of level so I haven't gotten to the raiding yet.

I think part of the problem is that there's no incentive to group up. It's an open world so if you and another player have to fight a boss you can both fight it and get credit for it without teaming then go on your merry way. Some of the quests were rather frustrating too. You also have so many options for equipment that it's hard for a casual player to optimize their stats. And when you get a new toy as a reward, it starts over again.

I'll give the game credit for trying a lot of things differently. I'm not a WoW player so the whole "WoW clone" doesn't apply. I have a year's subscription so I may come back in a while. But at this point I won't be renewing.

sn072856

I think it was a number of things that added up. 

1) the sarcastic humor wore thin after a few days.

2) the crafting requirement for prestige (i.e mandatory PVP to do crafting)  drove off a lot of the PVE  and crafting players.  The PVE crowd is a major portion of the player base.  Many (not all) crafters do NOT enjoy PVP.

3) some people didn't care for either of the faction choices.

4) graphics style choices drove off some folks. 

5) Chua - engineering evil masterminds but they can't put together a sentence...   some people felt that was a step too far.

6) some players failed to see the case of it being sufficiently different  and interesting from wow to make the investment in time and money.

WildStar is  great game with huge potential but I believe it suffered from listening to the wrong people when a number of development choices were made.  They build a game that gave what they heard players wanted from places like here.  The ugly truth in game development is that if you want  your product to be financially successful you have to know the difference between what the median player enjoys (read: pays for)  and what the advanced players want.  The big money comes from the unwashed hordes of average players...  most of them have never been to a trade show  or conference and most of them don't post ideas on community forums  like this one.  I fear that means that what most of the game features desired by elite forums posters here may get developed but the odds that the game will be wildly popular are small.  I would like to be wrong about this., but I don't think I am.

 

renegeed

They wanted to have their 'hardcore' game, but it's more tedious than hardcore.

Does a lot of stuff right, yet the same time so many things wrong.

I don't blame the P2P model, it still works, just look at FFXIV, you just need to price it right, offer easier ways to sub.

It can still be saved, but they're dropping their 'monthly' updates at the wrong time, I'm sorry Carbine, but you promised 1.5 years of extra content was already done and ready to be dropped, that was a lie, and I don't like being lied to.

Get your act together and save what you've created, because for all it's flaws, it's a terrific starting point, make a gem out of this flawed rock.

Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by Alverant

I'll give the game credit for trying a lot of things differently. I'm not a WoW player so the whole "WoW clone" doesn't apply. I have a year's subscription so I may come back in a while. But at this point I won't be renewing.

You must've been very excited about it at first to do that. O.O

Bigdaddyx

Sub based game that bring absolutely nothing new to the table and shamelessly rips of WOW.... if anything Wildstar made me appreciate WOW even more. Thanks to Carbine i went back to WOW after 3 years.

Combat wasn't a problem for me but i know many people who quit because they felt exhausted and irritated by it.

They used to tell me 'man this game makes me tired..i don't want to feel tired, i want to feel i am having fun after 9 hours of hectic work'.

People want to relax and enjoy the game and WS actually makes people irritated.

observer

What went wrong?  Over the top humor.  Cartoon art.  "Raid or die" mentality.  Quest hubs.  And the most important, a required subscription.  

damusic2me

Wildstar for me is too much like working. It feels like a have to force myself to do stuff. 

For me it's not that i don't like it, hell i like it a lot, but i have to pay too much attention/concentration  to playing, while levelling a toon.

I really don't mind a hardcore attutude towards dungeons and raiding, but sometimes after a hard day at work i just wanna chill, and level a toon a bit, giving me the idea that i did accomplish something, but in a relaxed way.  

This part of relaxed gaming is not available in Wildstar.

Everything needs to be hardcore, including levelling, and that made me stop playing it.

Too bad, i still would love to max a character, and see some of the new content. but i need to take a vacation for that, and explain to my family that i'm busy plowing through the content. 

If they wanna alianate working people with families from this game, well they succeeded. 

 

Battlerock

I think the combat was just to busy for an mmorpg, mmorpgs need room to be social and relaxing, wildstar just didn't give the player that chance.

rylaar

I'd install it again if it went FTP.

steuss

Combat is the same lackluster crap every other mmo has had. It looked different, but was essentially the same number game . That is what ruined wild star.

Alverant

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by Alverant

I'll give the game credit for trying a lot of things differently. I'm not a WoW player so the whole "WoW clone" doesn't apply. I have a year's subscription so I may come back in a while. But at this point I won't be renewing.

You must've been very excited about it at first to do that. O.O

I was. I think not being a WoW player was a factor (to be fair, I did try WoW a few months early and couldn't get into it. It felt so sluggish and now after Wildstar I can't see going back to WoW). I prefer sci-fi over fantasy and here was a new IP that I felt had potential. I was enjoying it at first but even in the early days I felt I was advancing too quickly. The IP still has great potential. They just need to do some big reworking on the game first.

I think damusic2me and Battlerock made good points that the combat was too busy and it felt like work. My previous main MMO was City of Heroes. The combat wasn't as busy, it felt relaxed, teaming was easy since it had "dungeons". Another thing CoH had that W* doesn't is that it's easy to get to the different zones. If my guild-mate needed help with a mission, I could get there quickly from nearly any point on the board. But the lack of fast travel makes it impractical to do the same thing in W*.

I think W* has a bunch of little things it could do to improve the game and make it fun, but at the same time the combat feels broken. It's too busy and too much work to have fun. That's what games are about, fun.

Alverant

Originally posted by Battlerock
I think the combat was just to busy for an mmorpg, mmorpgs need room to be social and relaxing, wildstar just didn't give the player that chance.

 

QFT

Thanks for saying that. You said what I wanted to put into words.

deniter

Linear easy mode questing, AoE skills, AoE loot (i had to check my bags every time i looted something), arcade game feeling, humor and graphics could have worked if it was made for grown-ups (which was not the case)..

I only made it to level 15 or so before i hit cancel.

And let me tell you, this game has nothing classic wow style gameplay.. nothing.

43%burnt

Simple: Leveling is boring as hell. I lvlcapped 2 betas, I really wanted to like it. You get drowned in quests, but most of them are the same crap over and over, same with the "challenges".

I have nothing against a grind, hell I got a pr80+ char in rift, but somehow WS never managed to make that dangeling carrot shiny enough to keep chasing.

bcbully

Things went wrong 7 years ago when they said they were going to make a mmorpg like WoW. It's as simple as that. The development team showed no foresight from top to bottom. 

 

edit- Stop with the hardcore nonsense.  Endless rep grinds =/= hardcore.