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Wildstar Population?
So my son decided to go ahead and grab a free 7 day trial to give this game a try and he asked me if it's normal for all the servers to say low population. I was like well its Monday afternoon so I'm pretty sure by tonight most of them will be medium or high but was surprised to see on a that at prime time there was only 1 server at medium and all the rest were low..
Also in the starting area there was like only 2 or 3 people running around and that seemed odd to me for such a new game that is suppose to be HUGE!?
What's the deal?
Comments
It's telling of the product.
FFXIV ARR came out last August and I actually took a picture of the population last night....FILLED to the brim. Still had no trouble finding groups for dungeons and you cant even create toons on alot of the servers cuz they are so packed.
I even tried Wildstar last night with the 7 day thing thinking that I might turn around and actually like the game but nope...logged after about 1 hour of play....it's just too railed to be fun.
I don't know. There are a lot of instances that players can hide in. And the open world is huge. Those two factors work against each other when wanting a game world to be full of people.
The game is suffering right now on player population. There just isn't enough pull to bring in enough casual players at the moment to make the servers seem populated. I'd look for them to introduce a lot of casual content or merge servers in the near future, either way should solve some of the problems WildStar is currently facing.
It's a good game, it just needs some TLC right now.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
I am still enjoying Wildstar but it definitely feels dead already. Even the main cities feel like ghost towns but it could be due to the size and the fact that I think Carbine runs multiple instances of them. However, my RL buddies and most of the guild I joined seemed to have bailed already.
I queued for one of the level 20 dungeons last night as a healer and got into a group after about 15 minutes. Not very impressive for a game that's been out for less than 2 months.
In WoW, I recently picked up a level 55 Resto Druid I had sitting around and I'm able to get into dungeons groups as a healer in less than 5 minutes. Keep in mind, that's at level 55 which is typically when it takes the longest to get groups together via the dungeon finder.
I also agree with Randayn about FFXIV. That game still feels really active in most zones. The community is also one of the better ones I've experienced in newer MMO's.
I think Carbine made a really fun and challenging MMO that feels unique in terms of game play but didn't have the hook that they needed to keep people engaged and paying to play.
OP, I play every night and there are no shortage of players. The server population status is based off max capacity not a set numbers of players, so in theory keeping the servers low to medium is actually better for performance. It's all relative no one knows what the maximum is so if a server can have 50k concurrent logins and it's at 22k it may say low, where as if a server has 20k login capacity it may say high with 17k.
The reason why the game feels empty at first is because most people are at or near max level by now and unlike most MMOs out there the game starts at max level. This is not an alt fest type of game, you need to actually invest time in your character to advance.
I can tell you that there are plenty of people playing and that the servers are not dead. You can either take it from someone that logs on and plays every night or from people that didn't like the game and left.
Happy hunting!
What about people who can still log and see that some servers are indeed dead? Not all of them are mind you, but the issue is still there whether it's 2 low pop servers or 20. Gauging population has nothing to do with liking the game, and without numbers from NC$oft or Carbine, the best metric we have is playing the game ourselves. It would be different if this was the first post or person to mention the issue, but there are 3 posts like this every day on here right now.
Anecdotal evidence > no evidence at all I guess is my point.
When they add some more casual friendly content and drop the sub later this year, I don't think population would be an issue. I also think it could be solved by combining all the servers if they want to keep it a hardcore only type of game. Either way is fine, but the issue is still there until they come up with the solution Carbine thinks is best. I wish them the best, as it truly is a hard decision.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
They wont go F2P. Also the only people complaining about low population is new players. Then everyone comes in here saying the end content is still flooded with people. Also like everyone said the servers are bigger than most other servers and no one knows how they judge low, medium, or high pop. I played during the first week during the free play week and the servers were only medium and low and I saw tons of players. Each area had 20+ players running around me at all times.
a Mod addressed this in one of the COUNTLESS forum threads about it on the wildstar forums. She was asked why during primetime the servers all read low population except for a couple and was told, I kid you not, that their low is other games medium.
Either:
1. She is a forum moderator who not only knows the server size of wildstar servers but also of other games and was able to compare the sizes of the two.
or
2. Someone who is dishonest.
I also read a lot of people talking about how they intentionally added a bunch of servers for the lauch so there wouldn't be long queues.
Either:
1. Carbine purchased and set up servers so that there wouldn't be queues for a short period of time knowing that the population would settle and the servers would seem barren
or
2. Carbine grossly misinterpreted interest in their game
OP: Don't throw your money away. 60 dollars can buy a lot of pie. Steam always has game sales so you can buy a BUNCH of games there. You could easily fill up your gas tank and then some. Take it from me: They don't give refunds. Buyer Beware.
This is exactly what many people said about FFXIV:ARR, a few weeks into it's release also, but it never happened. Everyone was afraid the FATE system had doomed the game and yet it continues quite strongly. Give games time to find their niche players and usually things work out fine. "usually".
I miss Warhammer and Tubla Rasa, but some things are not meant to be with a sub or not!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I abandoned my 7 day trial. Zone chat is non existent and actually seeing other players is like finding a rare spawn.
Please note that I was only in a level 13ish area. The beginner zone had some people in it but not many. After that...ghost town.
yeah.....its a new game that has been out for what? 2 months if the first zones are empty something is wrong...
The open beta was the same. They had to remind people that it was still going on. That's when I knew there would be trouble.
There are so many issues with the game that everyone (except the hardcorest of hardcores) is abandoning ship. They focused on the wrong group of people for the game and they are going to end up not doing as well as they hoped. The game is slowly dying just as many MMOs before.
People will use the whole "they said low population really means medium/high in other games" defense, but until Carbine releases the true numbers, which they should have done by now (always a bad sign), there is no proof.
You mean like in the case of GW2 which is going on it's second year?
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I wouldn't be bragging about a game that had to make a megaserver merge just to have enough people to do events, and that also lies about how many people are on their servers any given time. Don't get me wrong, I played GW2 for most of those two years, enjoyed it greatly, and it's not in danger of dying anytime soon, but to say population downturn hasn't been an issue for GW2 as well is living in denial.
Well, maybe lie is a strong word. Intentionally mislead is more fitting. No one counts server populations by accounts attached to a server, especially when they are counting inactive accounts. It's a completely asinine way to quantify population and masks the issue rather than making Anet deal with the population issues head on.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
While I will agree that Wildstar has been losing players and maybe more importantly not gaining new players fast enough one has to keep in mind that the game is top heavy everyone is level 50. Wildstar has ultra fast leveling where one can reach level 50 in 25-75 hours so anyone that actually plays the game has long been level 50. Tthese thrrads that no one is playing are greatly exaggerated as they are all at level 50.
But here are my reasons why the game is losing subs:
1. The game is not gaining new players. Anyone who was interested bought the game at launch. This is not a game like GW2 or Tor where it can offset massive losses of players because of a huge brand name that gurantees lots of new players. It will take time for the playerbase to stabilize.
2. The vast majority of MMO players simply do not have the patience or attention span to play a MMO. This is even more so in a game like Wildsatr that has a high individual skill check.
3. The game was simply released far to early. Lots of bugs, confusion for new players and the endgame is poorly done.
4. The endgame is poorly done. It is either do vet dungeons, advents or nothing. The individual skill check is too high for moden MMO players. The emphasis on movement is overdone meaning most players are not skilled enough to include in a group. I have no problem with this. It happened at Rift's release which was arguably a harder game at release but the problem here is these players need something else to do and a stepping stone to get better and activities for these players. There is nothing for them so they leave. Rift did a much better job with their dungeon nerf along with a much broader and finished endgame allowing players to slowly improve into raiding while providing alternate activities.
5. Many of the players that are attracted to Wildstar simply are the kind that will never succeed. By appealing to what I call the newer casual type players that want movement based combat and LAS or GW2 type gameplay they are attracting players that simply will never have the patience or maturity to play a MMO. So a large majority of them will leave quite quickly.
6. Wildstar does not handhold. It can be confsing and difficult for many of the lazy bad players who expect everything handed to them. They will quickly get bored during the leveling process. That is ok they will do that in everygame but my bet is more quickly in Wildstar.
7. The endgame I have to say it again. It segregates players and guilds. It will kill guilds before they can start.
8. Modern MMO players - I have to mention them again. They are bad. They have no patience. No attention span. No courtsey. No communication skills. No skill. They want everthing handed to them. While they provide box sale money that helps pay development they are a plague on MMOs dumbing down every game to suit their ever changing demands.
9. Customer service The worst I have ever seen.
Wildstar is a good game that was released IMO far too early. Its key to success is the same as Rift and what made Rift probably the only MMO released since LOTRO that had a decent retention rate at least for 2 years. To stay alive Wildstar has to keep the hardcore players. If they leave everyone else will quickly go. But they also need to provide activities at level 50 for the non hardcore too do which Rift did an a very good job of and Wildstar fails miserably. Right now I think Wildstar is losing both groups. At some point once the casuals leave the game will solidify around the hardcore and possibly have a period of growth like Rift did. But I think that is some time away and long after server merges. One thing Rift did that helped stop people leaving was the free server transfer option. Instead of losing massive subs like Tor did because people became trapped on dead severs Rift was able to stay afloat thanks to free transfers which also greatly helped guild recruiting in a raid game.
I'm not really bragging, just stating what has happened. The fact of the matter was months before and after it's release everyone doomed it to die and go f2p within the first year. You have been here enough to know that the team at ANet hasn't had any employees let go after the release, and that is very uncommon for an mmorpg developer. To me that means they are working at McDonald employee wages, or they are pulling in some cash, and that has to come from people. Even if the people are on a megaserver, money makes it all happen!
Maybe the sales in China will let the ANet employees buy new mouse pads now!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Wait wildstar is to railed to be fun after an hour. Yet you play FFXIV which the first 2-3 hours is literally just talking absolutely nothing really happens. I actually like FFXIV ARR but come on that first few hours is probably the most boring MMORPG experience ever.
This is actually true. The game is indeed in a bad state. I have yet to see a HIGH pop server during peak times. I usually see about four mediums and the rest are low pop. I like the game, but it just feels like it's missing a certain something. I don't know if it's the skill system or the dodge system but Carbine certainly lost numbers after the first month.
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" -- Mufasa
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