Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion
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Bondurant
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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GonzytheMage
Golden Knight of the Realm
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I'm not that enthralled with the game, but if it ever appeared that a team was giving a legit attempt at making something quality it's going to be these guys. I hope they continue to make a good game we need some competition in the market.
Rogosh
Lord Nagafen Raider
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GonzytheMage
Golden Knight of the Realm
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Until somebody figures out the next evolution in leveling in mmo's the quest system can only be done a few different ways. Remember when Blizzard figured out how to do vehicle stuff in WoTLK... pretty big overkill smashing it in your face. If anything I'm for slowing the leveling game down so you get that whole sub community of people that stay in one area for a while and get to know one another. The downside in slowing down a quest based leveling treadmill is it makes the collect 10 bear asses even more tedious, because you literally would be collecting bear asses for everyone you came across. So until someone figures something else out we're going to have the quest to cap within two weeks being status quo, which I could handle if your endgame can hold up.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Makes me glad I don't work in MMO market. Players want "extended time" but they are the first to whine and complain that something takes too long or if you have to do anything repeatedly. Hell you can look at ffxiv, primarily quest based but wholly shit you should hear the whining if people have to grind 1 level or they run out of quest or there is no breadcrumb to the next area. Imagine if they went more ffxi style and the outcry about "asian grinder". You can look at games like Aion or Tera, 80-90% quest(on release) but when there was no quest it was "omg this game sucks and its korean grind". Then you have companies that take questing with a different wrapper(PQs, rifts, Events etc) and as soon as they are done once its back to "this shit is boring and repetitive".
I'm honestly waiting for the day that someone copies EVE's progression, where its RL time based skill system. Because no matter what other system its either "too grindy" or "Too fast" to most players.
I'm quite happy with quest and grind system, I can honestly do both. Granted I don't have the time I used to for grind based games but I can still buckle down on freedays for long sessions without being bored. Since the minute I'm bored with a game I don't log in.
I do wait for the day another game has a long "progression time", ie it takes months(no matter how much you play) to even get close to or achieve a max character and the bitching that will come because it takes too long now.
Thankfully I've already played this and I had fun so its already on the "buy" column for me and anything after that depends on the rest of the game.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
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Bondurant
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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All they need to do is implement stuff in the mid-levels that matter in the long term. Most of the reason Everquest's journey felt meaningful was that the rewards didn't just become obsolete five levels later. Around level 30 you could get gear that you'd use literally until/throughout the endgame, you could get important quest items for your class (jboots, tflux staff, mage focus etc.) and you could make amounts of money that weren't completely trivial. I remember saving up during all my leveling process and being able to buy a Dark Reaver at level 40ish, which was one of the best weapons in the entire game, and certainly among the best two or three 2hs prior to planar drops. That sort of thing made leveling feel like so much less of a chore and more of a natural part of the game. These days it's a snoozefest grind which is not only so easy that it barely justifies requiring a person at the keys, it's also completely fruitless outside of the actual exp as you get nothing else of value throughout the whole ordeal. At least that's how it is in most MMORPGs, and I think it's a huge problem for the genre because you're always either leveling and thus have very little relevant content available to you, or you're done with leveling and have no reason to ever set foot in the pre-endgame content again, which also leaves very little worthwhile content to do.
rhinohelix
Dental Dammer
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Hardcoded factions really drain a game of its allure for me; set up factions and let people pick their own sides. If the sides become unbalanced, you can offer incentives and let population rebalance itself without folks having to roll up alts.
From what I can tell there is literally no chance of them not having hardcoded factions, which sucks.
^^^^^^ no one has gotten itemization as right for really making me want things as early EQ; seeing mobs with items was a great touch.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
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I've never understood how hard-coded factions make a game so compelling that it's worth segregating your playerbase and spending the development time to make two parallel quest paths.
The only explanation I can think of that makes financial and customer retention sense is alts. They must have some data that shows that people are more likely to maintain their subs by making alts. That data must also indicate that people burn out (and hence unsubscribe) when they're forced to do the exact same leveling content.
Is there something I'm missing here?
The only explanation I can think of that makes financial and customer retention sense is alts. They must have some data that shows that people are more likely to maintain their subs by making alts. That data must also indicate that people burn out (and hence unsubscribe) when they're forced to do the exact same leveling content.
Is there something I'm missing here?
Tmac
Adventurer
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1. Warcraft, the RTS, was faction based.
2. Then they released Wow, a game based on their IP, which was faction based.
3. WoW blew up.
4. WoW clones ensued.
I don't think there's anything scientific about it.
Devs like the fantasy of "two sides pitted together in BATTLE! and WAR!" In reality it's just a PVE based game where your population is split and only 20% of the population understands the lore. The only PVP people do are in instanced areas and at that point they don't give a shit about factions and teams could be made with anyone.
It's typically devs that think that one thing is a good idea because it feels good, however in practice it's really not needed.
Hard coded factions would work if a game truly pits one side against another. Whether its competition in PVE resources or straight up PVP. I have no idea how Wildstar works but from what we've seen it's your pretty typical quest treadmill experience through zones as you level, I don't see where hard coded factions work in the game world outside of lore and story.
It's typically devs that think that one thing is a good idea because it feels good, however in practice it's really not needed.
Hard coded factions would work if a game truly pits one side against another. Whether its competition in PVE resources or straight up PVP. I have no idea how Wildstar works but from what we've seen it's your pretty typical quest treadmill experience through zones as you level, I don't see where hard coded factions work in the game world outside of lore and story.
Bruman
Golden Squire
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I hate for it to be another "I like how EQ did it" but...I liked how EQ did it. It was mostly a black and white "are you a good or evil race", sure, but there was still a lot of gray area (like NFP vs EFP/WFP). I liked how it worked so that some cities were dangerous to you, and some guards, but players weren't actually stopped for working together and communicating. Although I think it might be interesting to have languages Be A Thing again, but with no common language, requiring effort to communicate if desired. Could be fun. Or it might just be seen as a boring dumb timesink with no reward (but that's what people said about travel times, corpse runs, forced grouping, no instancing, and there's backlash against a lot of that now too).