Wildstar MMO

[Karoht]

To play devil's advocate here, there's somewhat of an ugly assumption underlying this thought process - namely that the person who is bad is either perennially incompetent or willfully trolling the group, rather than the third scenario that they are actually trying to learn and get better. I agree that the metrics themselves are not bad, but the decisions people make based on them can be.

Practically word for word what Ghostcrawler and Bashiok said on the topic. Having the numbers isn't bad, the conclusions and decisions based on them sometimes are. Totally agree.

So you look at the numbers and you see someone dying to an avoidable mechanic. This happens repeatedly. Chances are they are indeed bad or their setup (rig, connection etc.) is too low-tech to help them react to said mechanic in time. If those are truly the case, then yes, probably the best decision for the group as a whole is for that player to sit out the content and be replaced with a better fit.

But a not-insignificant percentage of the time, the answer may simply be that they are new. You take them aside and you tell them what they should be doing but executing on that advice can be a pain. Maybe part of their job in the raid involves blowing the dust off an ability they never had to use while leveling and finding an awkward spot for it on an already-full action bar; for instance, there are a lot of elemental shamans who forget they even have Hex, or Tremor Totem, or even Purge, just because it comes up so seldom while leveling.

As far as casual raiding goes, this is entirely true, but only to a point. How many wipes does it take for someone to understand that standing in fire is bad for their health? You learn in the leveling process, red numbers and a shrinking health bar means that something is bad for you.

What does that have to do with no addons, you might ask? Well, giving those players the cover of not being instantly blamed for the wipe could encourage them to try more, and get the hang of avoiding mechanics or hitting the right button in time without the social stigma of being considered just plain bad. The above can be negative enough when the group handles it in a mature and civil way (as I know you do), but a casual player and even the devs can be forgiven, looking at most MMO boards, for coming to the conclusion that such kindness is a rarity among a more hardcore/progression-oriented playerbase.

Yet without the addons it can be very difficult to troubleshoot the problem behavior, even without looking at gear or output numbers. Output can be fixed, easily with the right metrics to identify the problems.

Guy who stands in fire, when an entire raid full of people are shouting to not stand in it, and does so after 30+ pulls, the addons are irrelevant. Is he doing it to troll? Is his computer that bad? Is he that bad? Is he playing drunk? How many times is a group supposed to tolerate the same mistake before they remove someone?
If an addon points out that someone died to avoidable damage 30 pulls in a row, it doesn't change the fact that someone died to avoidable damage every pull for 30 pulls. Addon's don't invent the reason to blame someone, the person causing the problem did. Often when someone blames addons for being kicked from a group, it's usually due to a lack of personal responsibility, or the good old attitude of "hey man I'm just here to have fun." The addon didn't make someone stand in fire every pull, the player did, somehow that gets lost in the argument for reasons I've yet to understand.

People have correlated addons to the elitist environment, to the negative behavior and exclusion. Go back to vanilla when most of these addons didn't exist and boss mechanics were even simpler to understand than they are today. You learn quickly that the elitism has next to nothing to do with the addons. It comes from an attitude and mostly from impatience.
People start using the analysis tools to seek reasons to remove people. I could go to World of Logs right now, pull up the number 1 DPS parse of a world first player, and if I were so inclined, use those very numbers to make a case for that player being bad.
Anyone can. Against any player. Yes, even the best player in the world.
No one should, but it happens.

Finally, you have the hardcores occasionally blending with the casuals. Now this happens in a variety of places but most commonly, it happens in the casual content, and it's often the story of some hardcore (or self proclaimed hardcore) giving a casual a hard time, often in content where it doesn't really matter. Does it matter if your a DPS in a Scenario and you're in your PvP gear? Probably not, but hardcore hank is going to tell off billy teh casual. Often times when I've seen this, hardcore hank is usually just an impatient jerkwad. They know that telling someone to do better (gear better, try harder, avoid stuff) is going to go nowhere, they just want to vent or make fun of someone. Addons like Recount/Skada come up as proof of someones incompetance in these arguments.

And yes, Billy teh Casual is a reference to WoWcrendor's Billy.
Poor Billy. Can't win buddy. Can't win.


To connect all this back to Wildstar for a moment...
If the tuning is to the point where output numbers aren't as relevant as survivability, if survivability/utility made up much of the core gameplay, then the only really important addons would be the ones to tell you when you absolutely need to be using a survival ability... which would basically be like an addon practically playing the game for you. That's a pretty good reason why they might not allow addons.
(It's an NC product, they've been very anti-addon for a long time, I don't know if Wildstar will allow them or not but I'm assuming no until I hear otherwise.)

[Psyren]

Yet without the addons it can be very difficult to troubleshoot the problem behavior, even without looking at gear or output numbers. Output can be fixed, easily with the right metrics to identify the problems.

Indeed it is. I'm just saying that for a casual audience, sometimes that can be appealing - knowing that they have a little ability to take cover in the crowd and not be immediately singled out for their mistakes.

I absolutely acknowledge that that can be a source of frustration for the experienced/hardcore players, who want to fix the problem as efficiently as possible (including booting the problem player, if warranted) - but given how hard that demo can be to please anyway, it may be a worthwhile tradeoff, especially for an MMO that is actively seeking PG-rated appeal already.

[Karoht]

I think you've mostly got what I'm saying.

Lack of addon support is not necessarily a negative. Not every game needs it. NC and it's subsidiaries are mostly not welcoming of it, to my knowledge.

As far as 'hiding in the crowd' goes, lack of addons might help you dodge some of the minor nitpicky stuff (oh noez you put the wrong stat gem in the wrong slot- /gkick), but the big stuff is usually going to be pretty noticeable none the less. The big stuff tends to get the little stuff put under the microscope as well, in my experience. So how well will 'hiding in the crowd' work? Probably not as well as people estimate.

Given the stated casual audience, I do believe that lack of addons is probably for the best. I just think that the reasoning might be slightly flawed on the part of the community. Especially those on the receiving end of some criticism who would rather blame the addons than blame themselves.

[Psyren]

Oh, I definitely agree that it probably won't do much to really hide stuff.

But remember that marketing is as much about what feels good, as what actually is good. So when you tell everyone "No Meters! No Fatality!" - people will feel better about their chances of avoiding shame/judgment/ostracism. Especially since doing so adds an extra step in the inevitable finger-pointing process, and people are lazy.

[Karoht]

Well, lets be real here. I've run into my fair share of people who have anxiety issues, up to and including complete fear of ever talking to another human being, who are trying to either be involved in or actively operate a cutting edge content progression guild. And I've often wondered "if they don't like being judged and they don't like playing with other people, what the heck are they doing playing an MMO?"

This seems to be a bit of a trend lately in MMO's. Focusing a lot more on the single player experience, on individual accomplishments and merit, and taking the focus away from the teamwork, bit by bit. This covers interacting with players or having reasons for them to interact with you. I see the shift away from addons and individual evaluation tools as part of that. Even in a team environment, some people want to play like they are on their own. If they know that there are no tools judging them, like DPS meters for example, then they can be content in that they can show up, stab boss, get loot, go home, and leave all the other interaction with other people to be the fun social stuff as opposed to the heavier game/performance/evaluation talk.

I see it similarly to you. Taking away the stigma makes it more relaxed and casual, less serious. Less team sport (or even eSport) and more game with other people in it. Could work, could backfire.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, lets be real here. I've run into my fair share of people who have anxiety issues, up to and including complete fear of ever talking to another human being, who are trying to either be involved in or actively operate a cutting edge content progression guild. And I've often wondered "if they don't like being judged and they don't like playing with other people, what the heck are they doing playing an MMO?"

This seems to be a bit of a trend lately in MMO's. Focusing a lot more on the single player experience, on individual accomplishments and merit, and taking the focus away from the teamwork, bit by bit. This covers interacting with players or having reasons for them to interact with you. I see the shift away from addons and individual evaluation tools as part of that. Even in a team environment, some people want to play like they are on their own. If they know that there are no tools judging them, like DPS meters for example, then they can be content in that they can show up, stab boss, get loot, go home, and leave all the other interaction with other people to be the fun social stuff as opposed to the heavier game/performance/evaluation talk.

I see it similarly to you. Taking away the stigma makes it more relaxed and casual, less serious. Less team sport (or even eSport) and more game with other people in it. Could work, could backfire.

And I think a MMO that goes that route will fail, because WoW is already pretty good at that.

It's the "safe" option. It guarantees the largest playerbase. But it won't hold their attention for long, and that's why the safe option doesn't work for MMOs. WoW does it, and it's still wildly popular, but nobody who likes WoW really has an incentive to go somewhere with a smaller community. City of Heroes, EVE, Ultima Online, and EverQuest I would consider the only other successful MMOs, in the sense that they drew in large amounts of long-term subscribers (even if the numbers for UO and EQ would be considered unsuccessful for a modern game, but budgets were lower back then and everyone was on dial-up).

[Psyren]

Well, lets be real here. I've run into my fair share of people who have anxiety issues, up to and including complete fear of ever talking to another human being, who are trying to either be involved in or actively operate a cutting edge content progression guild. And I've often wondered "if they don't like being judged and they don't like playing with other people, what the heck are they doing playing an MMO?"

That one's actually easy to answer - MMOs are THE primary source for abnegation in gaming today. (It used to be JRPGs.) For anxious/timid/less sociable people, they are a paradoxically good fit, and unlike the games of yesteryear MMOs continually add new content to keep things fresh.

Of course, once you get high enough, most of that content requires you to interact with people. Moreover, you are compelled to try, thanks to the host of tantalizing skinnerbox traps woven into the very fabric of the endgame. This causes friction, however, because the less sociable people from both camps frequently clash - the casuals feeling adrift and unsure how to kick off their raiding career or even how to practice, and the elites being frequently (though by all means not always) hostile to the first group.

WoW being WoW (and employing a lot of talented people to run their money train), they found a neat solution - creating a "casual end game" via LFR/Scenarios that kept the first group from becoming discouraged and leaving, yet managing to position it in such a way that the elites still felt their greater degree of effort was being rewarded. And those who had the inclination to jump the gap (in either direction) could do so.

This seems to be a bit of a trend lately in MMO's. Focusing a lot more on the single player experience, on individual accomplishments and merit, and taking the focus away from the teamwork, bit by bit. This covers interacting with players or having reasons for them to interact with you. I see the shift away from addons and individual evaluation tools as part of that. Even in a team environment, some people want to play like they are on their own. If they know that there are no tools judging them, like DPS meters for example, then they can be content in that they can show up, stab boss, get loot, go home, and leave all the other interaction with other people to be the fun social stuff as opposed to the heavier game/performance/evaluation talk.

Yes, exactly. You can market a lack of meters as being a more "lightweight" game where interaction is concerned - even if it doesn't end up being that way. (Though honestly, it should, if only because people will have to go to greater lengths to critique one another now.)

And you're right, it could backfire as well. Time will tell.

[Karoht]

And I think a MMO that goes that route will fail, because WoW is already pretty good at that.

It's the "safe" option. It guarantees the largest playerbase. But it won't hold their attention for long, and that's why the safe option doesn't work for MMOs. WoW does it, and it's still wildly popular, but nobody who likes WoW really has an incentive to go somewhere with a smaller community. City of Heroes, EVE, Ultima Online, and EverQuest I would consider the only other successful MMOs, in the sense that they drew in large amounts of long-term subscribers (even if the numbers for UO and EQ would be considered unsuccessful for a modern game, but budgets were lower back then and everyone was on dial-up).

And don't forget that oh-so-holy of metrics, the subscription numbers, that keep people thinking that WoW is dying, but still bigger than the others.
I'll throw this next bit under spoiler tags as not everyone is interested.

Spoiler: Why Subscriber Numbers Are Not The Best Metric Anymore

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1-In Asia, no one has a subscription. Their pay model is incredibly different. Think of it more like paying per hour for access to WoW.
2-People paying via timecards, including the ones sold directly via the blizzard store, do not count towards subscribed time, see point 3 below.
2A-Also note that the largest subscriber dip happened concurrently with Blizzard offering 1 month time cards on the Blizzard store, and opened up the payment options as well.
3-To qualify as a 'subscriber' as far as Blizzards investor calls are concerned, you need to have a paid subscription for more than 9 months, it must be paid with one of their subscription programs (1 month recuring, 2 month recuring, 6 month recuring, annual pass), in good standing, and those 9 months must be consecutive up until the reporting is done.

Given the number of people who play a bit and then put their account on stasis, and the number of people who now buy a month at a time with 1 month time cards, subscriber numbers are a very poor metric to gauge how many people actually play World of Warcraft. At best it is a number to represent how many people are still paying for a recurring payment plan for World of Warcraft.

Meanwhile, the amount of revenue attributed to World of Warcraft is higher than it's ever been. Paid services such as vanity pets and mounts and race changes and server transfers account for roughly 10m per quarter, which is a drop in the bucket compaired to everything else.

It's amusing because other games still look at their subscriber numbers to estimate how many people are playing their game, and use that as backdoor advertising. Blizzard still does it with WoW but to a much lesser extent these days. Meanwhile I keep hearing metrics for Runescape, how it's had 500 million players over the course of it's run (that number fluctuates greatly depending on who's telling it, I pulled 500 million out of thin air) but everyone knows that no one is really playing it.

Ultimately no one wants to get invested in a dead game, or a game with no real community, no hype, no anything. When some guild gets World First (boss X) kill in WoW, it still makes the gaming news headlines. I've never once seen that with SWTOR, Rift, Guild Wars 2, or any other game since WoW introduced their raiding model. Heck, the fact that WoW has so many sites for addons, guides, progression tracking, World of Logs and others, tells me that it's a healthy game. There are few to no indicators like that for most of the other MMO's out there.

To again bring it back to Wildstar, initial numbers are important. But honestly, just given NC's track record, if the community is very small or quiet or lukewarm, if numbers aren't encouraging after 2 quarters, expect to hear those 3 dreaded words soon after.
"Free To Play"

And again I have to point this out. I dislike knocking a game before it's released, especially one I want to see succeed, even if it is from a publisher I dislike. I just see a bunch of design elements coming together which... may not work out as planned.

[The_Jackal]

Honestly, I want to see ANY competitive MMO succeed in the subscription market, because I think the competition will be better for innovation in the space. Yes, all offerings to date that have tried have fallen short of 'the bar', and yes, WoW has immense advantages in terms of steady income and robust featureset. But that doesn't mean WoW is unassailable, it means that the entrants into the MMO market has fallen measurably short of the standards set out by Blizzard.

IMO, many of the MMOs I've seen post-WoW have actually been inferior even to WoW's predecessors (EQ and CoH) when you disregard graphical quality as an indicator of game quality.

And again I have to point this out. I dislike knocking a game before it's released, especially one I want to see succeed, even if it is from a publisher I dislike. I just see a bunch of design elements coming together which... may not work out as planned.

My original point is that much of this 'I don't like this publisher' doesn't make any sense if you understand the business model. To recall your SAT's: Publisher is to developer as record label is to band. Yes, EA is a bunch of cross-eyed, maniacal ****bags, but that doesn't mean that Jason West and Vince Zampella don't make great games. Would you boycott your favorite band if they signed with a record label who also had a few artists you really hate?

[Psyren]

I don't much care whether it's F2P or not. F2P games can be extremely successful, LoL taught us that.

What I do want is a decent sci-fi (or at least sci-fi flavored) MMO, and one with different core mechanics than tab-targeting-mouseover-wahey. Also one that isn't Star Wars, since I couldn't care less about their lore. (Plus it kills my immersion to see how force users have been nerfed to be in line with every schmoe with a blaster.)

[Karoht]

Now I find myself even more curious about this 40m raiding experience. Will it have multiple difficulties? Are you expected to pug/queue/autogroup on all difficulties or pre-arrange something?

I might have to pay attention on Twitch.tv this weekend and see if anyone is streaming it.

My original point is that much of this 'I don't like this publisher' doesn't make any sense if you understand the business model. To recall your SAT's: Publisher is to developer as record label is to band. Yes, EA is a bunch of cross-eyed, maniacal ****bags, but that doesn't mean that Jason West and Vince Zampella don't make great games. Would you boycott your favorite band if they signed with a record label who also had a few artists you really hate?

Absolutely if said label didn't deserve my money. NC has absolutely gone that far with me. So has EA.
Not to sound patronizing, but that's how boycotts work.

I don't much care whether it's F2P or not. F2P games can be extremely successful, LoL taught us that.

What I do want is a decent sci-fi (or at least sci-fi flavored) MMO, and one with different core mechanics than tab-targeting-mouseover-wahey. Also one that isn't Star Wars, since I couldn't care less about their lore. (Plus it kills my immersion to see how force users have been nerfed to be in line with every schmoe with a blaster.)

Starcraft Universe is looking really promising. Yeah, tab targeting is a thing for SOME abilities, but not the majority of them. Quite a few involve much more than push button, but actually involve pushing it, then timing that button very carefully. Like Snipe and Jump Jets. Lots of skillshots too on every class.

[Psyren]

Isn't that that kickstarter game? Nah, I'm not impressed with it at all. I haven't been keeping up on SC2 lore anyway.

[Karoht]

Isn't that that kickstarter game? Nah, I'm not impressed with it at all. I haven't been keeping up on SC2 lore anyway.

Fan project, free, alternate timeline so alternate lore.
For a fan made project in the SCII editor, it's not bad. Still in Beta though.
Also, you'd have to see some of the skillshots in action. It's like wow but adds a bit more action to the gameplay. You don't even need to buy SCII now that the arcade is free.

[Ogremindes]

I don't much care whether it's F2P or not. F2P games can be extremely successful, LoL taught us that.

What I do want is a decent sci-fi (or at least sci-fi flavored) MMO, and one with different core mechanics than tab-targeting-mouseover-wahey. Also one that isn't Star Wars, since I couldn't care less about their lore. (Plus it kills my immersion to see how force users have been nerfed to be in line with every schmoe with a blaster.)

Have you ever given Star Trek Online a whirl? The combat mechanics are the same-old cooldown based tab-targeting at core, but it does have some interesting wrinkles on it.
In space, not only does the targeting system make sense for massive starships, manoeuvre is very important, with limited fire arcs and turn rates while almost everything is moving.
On the ground, you usually have a posse of 4 bridge officers following you which you can boss around, also there is an alternate control scheme: "Shooter Mode" which lets you target with a reticule in the centre of the screen, like a third person shooter.
The game itself is actually pretty dang good, apart from the F2P BS.

[t209]

So we should have Phantasy Star Online again?

[Psyren]

Fan project, free, alternate timeline so alternate lore.
For a fan made project in the SCII editor, it's not bad. Still in Beta though.
Also, you'd have to see some of the skillshots in action. It's like wow but adds a bit more action to the gameplay. You don't even need to buy SCII now that the arcade is free.

It's definitely not bad, and is indeed astounding for what it is and where it came from. But I'd prefer the polish of a true AAA MMO myself.

Have you ever given Star Trek Online a whirl? The combat mechanics are the same-old cooldown based tab-targeting at core, but it does have some interesting wrinkles on it.
In space, not only does the targeting system make sense for massive starships, manoeuvre is very important, with limited fire arcs and turn rates while almost everything is moving.
On the ground, you usually have a posse of 4 bridge officers following you which you can boss around, also there is an alternate control scheme: "Shooter Mode" which lets you target with a reticule in the centre of the screen, like a third person shooter.
The game itself is actually pretty dang good, apart from the F2P BS.

Although I like watching Star Trek, I haven't enjoyed a single game set in the universe. I'm definitely not interested in playing a starfleet officer or a klingon or romulan etc., nor am I interested in ship combat (or I'd be off playing Eve probably, which appears to have that market cornered.)

I give Star Wars a hard time about being space fantasy rather than sci-fi, but I guess when it comes down to it, space fantasy is actually what I want to play. When it comes down to it, Star Trek is about a group of talented yet mostly normal people, who occasionally run across forces of nature like the Q or a black hole or an ion storm etc., and have to deal with these things the way normal people would, by relying on technology (technobabble in some cases), ingenuity, and gumption/grit. Great for a tv show, but not very appealing for a RPG, at least not to me.

[Stuebi]

Hrm, I might have to clarify my stance a bit.

I didnt want to demonize addons, or the guy that points out "errors" in your builds/rotation/positioning. Heck, if i'd catch the same dude standing in the same aoe-effect for the fourth buzzing time, i'd usually write him m'self and ask him to pay a bit more attention. And I did my best to allways run around gemmed, reforged and downright practiced my rotation in Brawl'Gar and other places til' I had an acceptable DPS-amount for the current LFR's I participated in. These are things I consider mandatory, even for someone who's in it for "the Fun", because you're still part of a group of others, and demanding that others carry you trough content so you have to do the least work possible is BS.

But I made the experience that WoW got a lot more nitpicky as time progressed. Again, I had discussions with people who started arguing over that one attribute you reforged wrong on your shoulders, or the usual "lawl your dps sux gitgud" from the guy who enters the LFR-Difficulty with full heroic gear. I really dont want to point at Addons and say it's their fault. They just provide numbers and possibilities, and I really do agree it's the people that apply them rudely or even wrong. This "elitism" is something I had to deal with a lot, doubly so because most comitted PVE or PVP'ers will snark at you for as much as hailing from a RP-Server.

I get the attitude, you want to finish this content, and if a Guy is wasting potential, hes wasting your time. But there's a limit. And starting the numbercrunch-discussion allready before the Game is even freaking released is pushing it in my eyes. There are a lot of attitudes that come along with this stuff that I seriously detest. "You will play THIS build on THIS Class with THESE modifications and do THIS rotation, or I wont let you in my treehouse." When yoou have people whining about 3 Talent points that werent distributed "correctly" or you are wearing one blue Item in a set of purple (Because god forbid, maybe im in this raid BECAUSE I want to upgrade it), is usually something I responded with /partyleave because im still playing this for my enjoyment, not because General Antifun the fourth can harp on the 20 strength on my Shoulders that should've been Crit.

Again, not the Addons fault. Its just worrying that this is a trend that allready seems to show months BEFORE Release.

@Boycotts

I do not have any beef with NC as of yet. But I stay away from every Game that is even midly involved with EA for example. I dont care if the Dev puts out the best game of the decade, dont publish it over Electronic "Arts" or you wont get my money. Your wallet is THE power a consumer has, and you're only _reliable_ source of punishing a company for their crap.

@Singleplayer-MMO

The thing is, im gonna be honest. Apart from playing with actual buddies, I try my best to be self-sufficient in most MMORPG's. I allways had the attitude that around 80-90% of people in Multiplayer Games are idiots, flamerkiddies or just the general sort I do not want to get involved with. While being a bit of an extreme example, try playing EVE-Online, Dota/LoL/Smite or WoW in end-content, and you'll get what I mean.

Combined with the fact that I usually have my own pace of playing (Skipping Questtext I dont care about and usually allways on the move), I get massively annoyed if I have to wait for other people.

This leads to me avoiding Grouping until that magical point where it isnt possible anymore. Once you get to raiding, you'll need a raid. And once you'll get into heroics, you will need Voicechat. No way around it. But I will keep that to an absolute minimum if possible. We group up, kill a bunch of Bosses, and then we'll wave our Goodbyes and I get to ride into the sunset again.

This may seem awfully antagonistic towards the Online-Community, and I have to mention that im a very difficult person to deal with directly, which influences my stance on this a bit. I usually keep to my Guild and friends, and consider grouping-mechanics a necessary annoyance to get trough content. I would've swiped about 90% of my RP-Servers population with the biggest smile you could imagine, replacing them with programmed NPC's for raiding, and keeping the other 10% that do active Roleplaying. And I would've been the happiest dude ever.

[GungHo]

As far as casual raiding goes, this is entirely true, but only to a point. How many wipes does it take for someone to understand that standing in fire is bad for their health? You learn in the leveling process, red numbers and a shrinking health bar means that something is bad for you.

As a casual player, I'm quite happy to have someone run the numbers and explain it to me why I died. Where I run into an issue is when someone goes from Planet Fitness Lifestyle Coach to Football Coach and starts screaming and sputtering. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that it turns me off from dealing with the random personalities of a raiding guild who finds themselves short a man and then deigns to find a fool to meet the minimum requirements. Of course, then I also miss the wonderful entertainment when the Football Coach turns out to be John Madden and all of their advice is unintelligible, incomplete, outright wrong, or a combination of all three.

[Cerlis]

yea, my friend is a very intelligent person and i can usually go for him for any intellectual, logic or cultural advice or information.

But the fact is he doesnt play the game to out doing a specific button combo and treat the game like a job. I know i enjoy getting the most out of my ability but that is mostly just to feel like i'm contributing to my guild and testing how well i can do ....kinda like a mini game.

And i guess thats what it comes down to. doing your rotation near perfect is a mini game, and some people dont want to play.

He likes arcane because of the mechanics and the look. And loves to stack haste and not really care about his mana. I bet he could increase his dps by at least 30k if he played "properly" but he plays well enough to be like a more skilled player with worse gear so it doesnt matter.





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As for wildstar i wonder with the way aoe targeting works what fights are going to be like. I know in Warcraft that they dont do any ground effect based dmg abilities because they will never hit.

So i think against players its really going to require CC to land any of em, wile against monsters they are pretty much guaranteed.

[t209]

Here's my take on Wildstar:
- Well, the game only become fun after Level 20, which could get you Dungeon levels. (I got stuck at 18 since I only played at weekend beta and didn't preorder it).
- Adventure (It's somewhat bland but it played out differently if you take a choice). I just tested it to test and find a replacement for my mad-max armor.

Spoiler

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At least I get to take Twilight Sparkle with me to Valhalla after most of my group were dead fighting her).

[Karoht]

As a casual player, I'm quite happy to have someone run the numbers and explain it to me why I died. Where I run into an issue is when someone goes from Planet Fitness Lifestyle Coach to Football Coach and starts screaming and sputtering. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that it turns me off from dealing with the random personalities of a raiding guild who finds themselves short a man and then deigns to find a fool to meet the minimum requirements. Of course, then I also miss the wonderful entertainment when the Football Coach turns out to be John Madden and all of their advice is unintelligible, incomplete, outright wrong, or a combination of all three.

There's constructive criticism, and then there is rudeness/stupidity. The line between the two is pretty broad, and yet people manage to spring back and forth on the line quite often.
Typically, I just ignore people who aren't in my guild. People like that don't last long in guilds anyway, even in the hardcore elite guilds. Because those guilds all learned a long long time ago that yelling at people accomplishes nothing. You stay constructive, or you don't progress. It's that simple.

As for wildstar i wonder with the way aoe targeting works what fights are going to be like. I know in Warcraft that they dont do any ground effect based dmg abilities because they will never hit.

Bwah? I could name loads of them that do ground effect based damage. Some even have a telegraph, like Boomkin Mushrooms for example. I'm not really sure I understand what you are going for here.

So i think against players its really going to require CC to land any of em, wile against monsters they are pretty much guaranteed.

Not really, depends on the telegraphing mostly. Since most of them are "click once to aim, click again to fire" that response time isn't massive.

Hrm, I might have to clarify my stance a bit.
I didnt want to demonize addons, or the guy that points out "errors" in your builds/rotation/positioning. Heck, if i'd catch the same dude standing in the same aoe-effect for the fourth buzzing time, i'd usually write him m'self and ask him to pay a bit more attention. And I did my best to allways run around gemmed, reforged and downright practiced my rotation in Brawl'Gar and other places til' I had an acceptable DPS-amount for the current LFR's I participated in. These are things I consider mandatory, even for someone who's in it for "the Fun", because you're still part of a group of others, and demanding that others carry you trough content so you have to do the least work possible is BS.

But I made the experience that WoW got a lot more nitpicky as time progressed. Again, I had discussions with people who started arguing over that one attribute you reforged wrong on your shoulders, or the usual "lawl your dps sux gitgud" from the guy who enters the LFR-Difficulty with full heroic gear. I really dont want to point at Addons and say it's their fault. They just provide numbers and possibilities, and I really do agree it's the people that apply them rudely or even wrong. This "elitism" is something I had to deal with a lot, doubly so because most comitted PVE or PVP'ers will snark at you for as much as hailing from a RP-Server.

I get the attitude, you want to finish this content, and if a Guy is wasting potential, hes wasting your time. But there's a limit. And starting the numbercrunch-discussion allready before the Game is even freaking released is pushing it in my eyes. There are a lot of attitudes that come along with this stuff that I seriously detest. "You will play THIS build on THIS Class with THESE modifications and do THIS rotation, or I wont let you in my treehouse." When yoou have people whining about 3 Talent points that werent distributed "correctly" or you are wearing one blue Item in a set of purple (Because god forbid, maybe im in this raid BECAUSE I want to upgrade it), is usually something I responded with /partyleave because im still playing this for my enjoyment, not because General Antifun the fourth can harp on the 20 strength on my Shoulders that should've been Crit.
Again, not the Addons fault. Its just worrying that this is a trend that allready seems to show months BEFORE Release.

I understand where you are coming from. More of what I said before, the addon might provide a metric, but if the player takes that metric and uses it to be a jerk, that's a problem with the player, not the addon, not the metric. If a player wants to be a jerk, they'll find a way to do it with or without an addon, with or without a metric to base it on. Heck, most of the time they do so baselessly.

@Guy who nitpicks you in random content
Why are you paying attention to this person? Someone whispers you, so what? Unless they manage to kick you out of the group, it's just white noise after a while. Pay it no mind.

This may seem awfully antagonistic towards the Online-Community, and I have to mention that im a very difficult person to deal with directly, which influences my stance on this a bit. I usually keep to my Guild and friends, and consider grouping-mechanics a necessary annoyance to get trough content. I would've swiped about 90% of my RP-Servers population with the biggest smile you could imagine, replacing them with programmed NPC's for raiding, and keeping the other 10% that do active Roleplaying. And I would've been the happiest dude ever.

I constantly advocate for people to fall back on their friends and guildies whenever playing an MMO, rather than not. Often people complain about organization VS convenience of queued systems, but often getting a few people together for some content isn't that hard to pull off.
"My guild is unorganized, we can't get X people online at the same time."
"Have you tried the calendar?"
"Well no, but..."
"Have you tried talking about a start time for longer than 5 minutes?"
"Well no, but..."
"Have you tried recruiting/pugging to fill the spots?"
"Well no, but..."
"Have you actually tried anything?"
"Well no, but..."
The above is all too common a conversation I have with people.
Now I'm not saying "avoid the pug/random community" because there are plenty of good experiences there among the poor players, among the jerks, among the people who don't actually want social interaction but force themselves into it for shiney lewts, and so forth.

[The_Jackal]

So, I've gotten my Cassian Warrior to level 14 this weekend. Some thoughts/impressions:

The content definitely feels thick on the ground. Between challenges, paths, and quests, I'm always busy. Writing seems mostly good as well. I can't make my mind up about Challenges. On the one hand, it makes the whole 'collect 25 bear asses' grind more interesting by putting a timer on it. On the other hand, having to drop what you're doing to make some surprise challenge is a bit jarring sometimes.

Crafting is... well, it's intricate, I'll give them that. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. They definitely deliver on the promise of 'no AFK crafting'. I'm not certain how much of a dampening effect that's going to have on the barriers to entry, because right now the crafting interface is involved I can't imagine people who aren't dedicated crafters troubling to do it. On the plus side, crafting material don't take up bag space, so I kind of expect crafting mats to be ridiculously abundant.

Player housing is impressive, but geez, I can see already it's shaping up to be an immense resource sink. Maybe that's my lowbie poverty talking, though. It is pretty though, and very customizable.

Still and all, things are shaping up pretty good, and I've been enjoying myself quite a bit. The twitchy combat is lots of fun, and the content variety really keeps things feeling nice and busy.

[t209]

So, I've gotten my Cassian Warrior to level 14 this weekend. Some thoughts/impressions:

The content definitely feels thick on the ground. Between challenges, paths, and quests, I'm always busy. Writing seems mostly good as well. I can't make my mind up about Challenges. On the one hand, it makes the whole 'collect 25 bear asses' grind more interesting by putting a timer on it. On the other hand, having to drop what you're doing to make some surprise challenge is a bit jarring sometimes.

Crafting is... well, it's intricate, I'll give them that. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. They definitely deliver on the promise of 'no AFK crafting'. I'm not certain how much of a dampening effect that's going to have on the barriers to entry, because right now the crafting interface is involved I can't imagine people who aren't dedicated crafters troubling to do it. On the plus side, crafting material don't take up bag space, so I kind of expect crafting mats to be ridiculously abundant.

Player housing is impressive, but geez, I can see already it's shaping up to be an immense resource sink. Maybe that's my lowbie poverty talking, though. It is pretty though, and very customizable.

Still and all, things are shaping up pretty good, and I've been enjoying myself quite a bit. The twitchy combat is lots of fun, and the content variety really keeps things feeling nice and busy.

For crafting materials, sometimes I ripped apart old gear to get materials, especially power cores and rune stone that are rare in stores (well, the reusable ones for power cores since the temporary one can be bought in capital). My peeves are length of time for characters to render and level caps since the level cap was at 20 for those who didn't have close beta recently and can't get a helmet until level 24 (I took up crafting to find a suitable replacement for my Outpost M13 armor and a helmet).

[Togath]

Since I've started to get curious about this game... How open is the world? Are there a lot of loading screens, or could you walk from one end of a continent/region without hitting one?
Admittedly, it sounds interesting either way, but it was something I was curious about

[Psyren]

Just the fact that the combat is described as "twitchy" is enough to pique my interest. That's one of the main things I'm looking for in an MMO now.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Just the fact that the combat is described as "twitchy" is enough to pique my interest. That's one of the main things I'm looking for in an MMO now.

I can definitely vouch for the 'twitchy' part. It varies a bit by class, but there's a lot of button mashing and every enemy no matter how weak will force you to run around and dodge out of Bad Stuff. I've found combat in this game to be an absolute blast. If you execute well, you simply rip things to shreds, but if you mess up combos or fail to dodge properly, things can get pretty rough. The game doesn't pull it's punches after the first few levels.

[t209]

Since I've started to get curious about this game... How open is the world? Are there a lot of loading screens, or could you walk from one end of a continent/region without hitting one?
Admittedly, it sounds interesting either way, but it was something I was curious about

All of these yes, though I am figuring out how to go to Islands (Crimson Isles) by swimming but sometimes you have to wait for some time for characters to appear.

[The_Jackal]

I can definitely vouch for the 'twitchy' part. It varies a bit by class, but there's a lot of button mashing and every enemy no matter how weak will force you to run around and dodge out of Bad Stuff. I've found combat in this game to be an absolute blast. If you execute well, you simply rip things to shreds, but if you mess up combos or fail to dodge properly, things can get pretty rough. The game doesn't pull it's punches after the first few levels.

Seconded, especially when enemy mobs start stacking status effects with telegraphs. That's when stuff can REALLY hurt you. Yesterday I ran into a blinding mob who had a big AOE telegraph, and I was already 3/4ths dead by the time the blind wore off. Dirt nap time.

[t209]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAX5HkgOHQ
Guess who just took the challenge.
Anyway, I felt that Dominion is a bit pragmatic in their belief when compared to other Galactic Empires.
- They have Universal Education, even though they practiced caste system.
- Tolerance towards non-human races, as long as they are loyal (They have cute Lopps, which are bunny species that are interested in precious metals, in their territories).
- Nationalizing Protostar properties, especially the mine in Auroria (It even hinted that they are cutting ties with them).
- Diplomatic relationship with local Communist Robots by giving them the nationalized mine.
- Outlawing Slavery and persecuting Pirates and Mobsters.
They may not be the saint but they're a bit less brutal than Star Wars Galactic Empire.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

They may not be the saint but they're a bit less brutal than Star Wars Galactic Empire.

All good points, true enough.

On the other hand... The very first quest you take as a Domi player is to "encourage" your fellow citizens to go get their minds scanned for treasonous thoughts. With a giant cattle prod.

So y'know. There's that too.