117037-do-you-think-this-game-might-actually-die-page-3

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Nope just showing people are streaming.  It wasn't meant to prove anything other than the fact he took a screen shot probably late into the night if not early morning at like 3 am lol.  The people following them is irrelevant.  Because if someone like Towellie were streaming even in this games current state there would be thousands of viewers.  But its not because of the game its because of the streamer.  So ya it really holds no weight.
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Nope just showing people are streaming.  It wasn't meant to prove anything other than the fact he took a screen shot probably late into the night if not early morning at like 3 am lol.  The people following them is irrelevant.  Because if someone like Towellie were streaming even in this games current state there would be thousands of viewers.  But its not because of the game its because of the streamer.  So ya it really holds no weight.
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			There's no way this game will die simply because of how much money has been put into it. NCSoft will do w/e it takes to make the game profitable instead of killing it.	
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Right. The believers will accept no evidence of dire peril less than NCsoft turning off the lights. Which if you are paying any attention is a real possibility after they reap the holiday season sales.
 
They can announce still having 200,000+ active accounts but I genuinely do not believe either NA server gets over 5,000 concurrent users anymore. Not even on raid night. And if you're not in a raid guild or very fond of housing there's hardly any reason to log in at all.
 
Drop 3 is not the 'make it or break it' event anyone seems to want to make it out as. You don't tout housecleaning in the form of 3,000 bug fixes as a reason to 'buy now!' There is nothing there that's going to change opinions on a broad scale. People with poor rune slots will have incentive to dink around a bit (while classes with stupid stat allocations still get nothing). Lore hounds get about 4 days of new quests. The new 20 man open world events will be glorious for a week or two before becoming as dead as every other world boss in the game because events that fail to scale fail period. Everyone gets to look at a new 30 day grind for rep and mutter "cupcake me" as the game becomes even more abusive towards alts. All neatly framed by no holiday events.
 
Its a good monthly drop. But it's no play for salvation. Drop 4 seems a lot more promising as the focal point of a marketing push. AMD optimizations. Veteran Shiphands. A new lair Raid. A new dungeon. Itemization fixes. All while not staring straight in the face of the beast with 7 million backs' biggest play of the year.	
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I actually don't view their behavior in this respect as odd at all. I think it's explained very straightforwardly by the statement that however much money they make from a subscriber, they make more from a subscriber who also buys CREDD with real-world cash to trade in for plat.
 
That creates a incentive for developers to make a game where progress through the game requires you to blow through absurd amounts of plat on stuff you'll only be able to reliably obtain on a reasonable timescale through the auction house and/or a booster. That's a plat-based progression that requires you to either grind like a maniac, buy CREDD on top of a subscription, or progress at a pace that can be described in terms of geological eras. Since the average player doesn't have huge amounts of time to spend grinding and doesn't find it particularly fun to make no tangible progress in the time they do have, the only route available to them in practice is through CREDD. The more CREDD the average player needs to buy, the more real-world cash the developers make*. 
 
Think of it like playing a freemium game, only one in which you're expected to pay a subscription fee to get what a freemium game offers for free.
 
It must've sounded like a brilliant idea when they came up with it. I think maybe they didn't notice the asterisk.
 
*Unless, of course, the average player decides that a game should be more than just tolerably fun for the price of a box + sub and unsubscribes instead of buying CREDD.
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			NCsoft will make sure it will go B2P and F2P with cash shops instead of failure.	
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NCsoft will make sure it will go B2P and F2P with cash shops instead of failure.
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What would you possibly put into a cash shop for this game?
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What would you possibly put into a cash shop for this game?
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off the top of my head?
 
Mounts
Costumes (like...by the 1000s)
item skins (same as costumes but for weapons or things like particles, halos, trailing rainbows, etc)
housing items (sure Architechs will be ticked, but they'll be things that are non craftable or have absurdly low drop rates).
consumables for raiding (making it more convenient than farming said ingrediants and finding a crafter to make them for the guild).
Dyes for your housing
inventory enhancements
rep boosting pots
xp pots
pvp pots
account boosters like extra character slots bigger housing plots, etc
vanity pets (on par with costumes, can put up 100s upon 100s of silly little arfing toy dogs oh and costumes for them too).
 
That's all without being obnoxious about natural progression being part of the inventory like say Amps, Skill points, Respecs, etc.
 
That's not to say it is a given that such a shop would be obnoxious about its inventory, but the list above is all pretty much stuff that could be put in the game, but with a much more significant time requirement to find naturally (and given the state and fondness for their RNG systems..... <_< ).
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Yasfan;
Your post is particularly interesting (to me).  One of 3 friends who followed me from my old WoW guild informed me today he was cancelling his sub.  He has more time to play than I do, he hit level 50, joined a guild (forgot their name  <_< ) was informed what he needed to do to start raiding with them and after "doing the math" said;
 
"After I figured out what I needed, I realized either I P2Raid, grind ungodly amounts of time, or put off any idea of raiding for a good 4 months or more, itemization is broken, and my guild loses players every week.  WS can be all "hardcore" without me."
 
Because i have zero interest in raiding, I didn't look at any of the things needed to access that content so to be perfectly honest I have no idea what he needed in order to raid.  He had more criticism to offer than just that but its not anything that hasn't been said by others in other posts already  :P   
 
As I said earlier, we're more in a paid beta, there's bound to be a lot of good changes coming, but the recovery period will be neither swift nor will the game simply refine itself, my hunch is several core design elements are going to have to be completely redone regardless of what monetization changes take place before the game seems "alive" to casual inspection.
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WoW now has flexible (10 to 20man, can be any number in between) and 20 man content which is the "new heroic content". It's been dumbed down to the extremes. People I know who have played wow since beta are quitting over 6.0 even though lorewise, it's their wet dream.
 
If carbine sort their stuff out I can see people resubbing for wildstar. It's a GOOD, colourful, quirky game with some great individual elements, it's just incredibly flawed right now and the devs know it (hence no advertisement).
 
The game was not ready for release, and I'm speculating that they were rushed by NCSoft to get it out to the public.	
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This just in....
 
Literally minutes ago, my son tried to reactivate his sub. He wanted to give the game another go to see how much it might have improved.
 
Short version is that he ran into problems with the payment system and cannot complete a transaction. Yes. He checked, double and triple checked everything. No go.
 
Is this game going to die?   Well...   If your customers have to submit a support ticket to give you money, you might be at risk of going out of business regardless of how good or bad your product is.
 
Just saying.	
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Short version is that he ran into problems with the payment system and cannot complete a transaction. 
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He submitted a support ticket.  They better act fast. He might change his mind about re-subing by the time they fix it.
 
My intent of the posting was not to provide details of the problem. It was to point out that there are problems when someone wants to pay you money and the payment system is broken. Not a good business model. 
 
Thus I am staying on point within this topic.  I'm not going to be a proxy in another forum to fix it.	
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He submitted a support ticket.  They better act fast. He might change his mind about re-subing by the time they fix it.
 
My intent of the posting was not to provide details of the problem. It was to point out that there are problems when someone wants to pay you money and the payment system is broken. Not a good business model. 
 
Thus I am staying on point within this topic.  I'm not going to be a proxy in another forum to fix it.
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ESO had way way way more problems with their payment system (in fact it was just outright broken and I couldnt play the game when I purchased it)(and personally I never had any sort of problems with WS's payment system, while with ESOs I could only pay with a debit card with some minor problems, couldnt pay with paypal at all).
 
If a person wants to play the game - he will find a way, instead of finding excuses not to. As I did with ESO some months ago, yes I was dissatisfied with their payment problems but I still played the game because I wanted to.
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Try reading Chilla's post.
 
"There are a few known issues though (depends on what you're trying to pay with, for example)."
 
He is using a known good CC from a major company to pay. It is laughable to suggest he attempt multiple payment methods until he finds one that works.
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Except there's nothing to discuss.
This game will die.
Whether it happens tommorow or in 10 years is up to the player base.
 
And the mod is right. Your issue did not belong in this topic it needs to be handled by support.
Your son is not the first one with a flunky paypal account in the world of a transaction that gets flagged as suspicious.
Payment systems have protection build in for a reason, deal with it.	
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What would you possibly put into a cash shop for this game?
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			... boomboxes...?	
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Oh, dear. Oh, that is a sweetly innocent perspective. If I were an Aurin, I'd totes hug you right now.
 
Boomboxes, of course.
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I hate boomboxes and they're free!
 
Congrats you get -1 inventory!	
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WoW now has flexible (10 to 20man, can be any number in between) and 20 man content which is the "new heroic content". It's been dumbed down to the extremes. People I know who have played wow since beta are quitting over 6.0 even though lorewise, it's their wet dream.
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... boomboxes...?
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And many of them will make their decisions based on the state of the game, and the responses of the devs. You just need to look at the history of Star Wars Galaxies to see that - a popular game the devs trashed because they didn't listen to the playerbase, nor understand exactly why their game was popular with the fans. Wildstar isn't even a popular game, so it won't take something on the order of the NGE "enhancement" to nail that coffin shut.
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Well, I guess there are a few folks who would spend mad money for the chance at a Luminous Equivar...
 
I just thought of all the trash I get from.boxes and thought I'm so glad I didn't pay for that.	
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This is why so many people are pointing towards D3 being the saving grace. When (not if) it fails to be, anyone who came back hoping for better times will feel doubly disappointed.
 
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Well, I guess there are a few folks who would spend mad money for the chance at a Luminous Equivar...
 
I just thought of all the trash I get from.boxes and thought I'm so glad I didn't pay for that.
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Whats with the heavy modding? Why did you erase the last sentence ? (I wont re-write it here or it will probably get slashed again) It was not flame/troll/insult, its just a heads up to save his time writing a reply and save my time reading it if it holds no facts to it.
 
Is there a set of rules what you can or can not write? This editing business is mighty annoying...	
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Regarding WoW's 6.0.2 patch, people are griping about the mechanics changing, especially on healers. As with other major pre-expansion patches (though more so with this one due to the ability and stat squishes) what people fail to understand is that they're playing a level 90 game ...
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Apparently one of the design goals of 6.0.2 is to make people less mobile.  I personally don't mind tab targeting but my warlock went from clutch mobility to a hard plant caster.  Same thing happened to many other classes' specs.  Eh... I'll play through the expansion content but outside of another free boost I doubt I'll play it much beyond that.
 
I know it'll probably be an unpopular viewpoint, but I think Wildstar is too mobile.  Funky telegraphs are design crutch used in the place of interesting mechanics.  The (unintended?) consequence is that the game is extremely melee DPS unfriendly.
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Well, I guess there are a few folks who would spend mad money for the chance at a Luminous Equivar...
 
I just thought of all the trash I get from.boxes and thought I'm so glad I didn't pay for that.
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Isnt this called CREDD ? Cash shop that are just called differently?!
 
Yes and no, one is more granular with a immediate result.  I.E. you buy plat, you still have to contend with the prices set by people listing the goods (meaning if no one lists what you need, your plat is worthless).  If said goods are listed directly in a cash shop, the market is driven directly to the product. (basically cutting out the middle man).  Also if the drop of a particular item is within the game, and its rate is 1 in 10 mil, the number of players who can auction it is very limited.  Put the item in a cash shop directly, the drop is 1 per $$.  I'm not saying this is what Carbine should/will do, I'm just pointing out how I've seen it done in other games.  Item shops can be abusive, or they can be very player friendly, depends entirely on the attitude of the studio.
 
People keep saying they quit over bugs, but thats bs in my opinion, bugs are just annoying (sometimes infuriating) but nothing more than that, you dont quit a game over bugs.
 
Its BS for you, but I personally know quite a few gamers who have a very low tolerance for them, acquired from many years of having endured them already.  Its like anything else, if it annoys you at first, over time your tolerance and patience erodes; there's actually psych studies that prove both patience and willpower are resources that are depleted by exposure, and restored by no longer encountering the drain.  Right now your tolerance for bugs is high, give it 10 years of steady encountering and that tolerance is worn down to a nub.
 
Your reply to my post is very appreciated, I am at a crossroads here and I dont really know what how should I proceed with the game...(quitting is not an option right now)
 
Going to be a little bit of Captain Obvious here but I've been in a similar position with other games and what works for me is to take a break for a week and then fire up the game again.  If my feelings are that its a waste of my time at that point, I uninstall and don't look back.  Negativity is a charge that builds up, give it time to drain and your positive feelings have a chance to gain some ground.  Ultimately Sicarus, life is too short and filled with too many other serious challenges to let your recreation drag you into despair.
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Whats with the heavy modding? Why did you erase the last sentence ? (I wont re-write it here or it will probably get slashed again) It was not flame/troll/insult, its just a heads up to save his time writing a reply and save my time reading it if it holds no facts to it.
 
Is there a set of rules what you can or can not write? This editing business is mighty annoying...
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It's a valid question, and I'm happy to answer it.  The vibe I get from the forums, and other fan site and social hubs like Reddit etc.  is that people (heck,  the devs too) are saying "wait until drop three, then check the game out" to people who are interested in the game,  or interested in returning. 
 
In reality,  D3 is a new zone,  some new dailies, a bit of rebalancing,  a load of bug fixes, and I think some rune changes are part of D3?  This is not amazing or game changing by any means. 
 
Let me elaborate with the bug fixes.  There are few actual game-breaking bugs in the game right now.  Sure, they're annoying when they happen, but they don't really stop you playing the game, or regularly and frequently crash you out to desktop.  100 pages of bug fixes sounds impressive, but most users won't see evidence of the bulk of those. 
 
To reiterate and clarify,  the people who are expecting D3 to radically alter their perception of Wildstar (as the various people saying "wait for drop 3" are implying) and make it significantly better are going to be disappointed, because what content there is in Drop 3 is hardly classifiable as "significant".  It's about on par with the Strain Ultradrop, with added bug fixes,  and I don't know many folks who viewed that as a significant improvement to Wildstar (beyond extra content generally being a nice thing to have).
 
Edit for phone typos. Tiny screen and Swipe FTL.
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Agreed VicVanmeter, there are ways to do cash shops that are player friendly, even highly beneficial to players.  But people carry the emotional baggage with them of studios who took the path of the Hiwayman and lash out with blind hate at anything that reminds them of the experience.  Its a shame because if they would say "I hated how this studio did it and here's why" then constructive dialogue happens that has products responding to market wants/needs; the result being predatory studios losing customers to studios who practice a opposite ethic.  
 
That's why I've often said I don't care how a studio monetizes their product, so long as I feel I'm getting a good value for it.  It'd be like saying because my exwife was a hot redhead turn psychopath, all redheads are therefore psychopaths and should be eliminated from the gene pool. (though all guys know that hotness and psychotic are directly proportional  ;) ).
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What about all the past monthly subscription rewards stuff?
 
I brought that up in a post and it was immediately a hate magnet, but because of that "slippery slope" idea that it would inevitably lead to exclusive content.  However, nobody really hated that as a concept, including me.  I have no problem with monthly (or even more frequent) rewards for subs, stuff that normally WOULD go in a cash shop.  If you're subbed or otherwise activated that month, you get it as thanks for being active that month.  If you're not (as in the case with a lot of people coming in now who didn't have a chance to get the Highwayman's Boots or Sabotage Hat or some such), you could "pay backwards" to get those items if you want them.
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As long as monthly subscription reward items are always transparently priced, do not accumulate in value beyond what's given out to the subscriber for free, and not consumable. I'm all for it.
 
But the reason that idea draws a lot of aggro is that it sounds great until the subscriber gets a free whimsydoodle, whimsydoodles go up for sale in the item shop, and it takes an average of 10 whimsydoodles to make something you'd actually want.
 
That's no longer the subscriber being given a reward. That's a subscriber being pressured to spend more than the subscription fee.
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Yes I do think this game will die and maybe sooner than people think.
 
But until that day I will continue to raid and enjoy the game with my guild.	
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			I'd like to see them do the cash shop through CREDD. Ex. Mount costs 1 CREDD, Dye pack costs 1 CREDD. You can buy CREDD with Cash and sell it or buy CREDD with plat and spend it on cash shop items.	
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I'd like to see them do the cash shop through CREDD.
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The issue with that is then everything costs the same $20. Someone may be willing to pay $20 for a mount but they're unlikely to pay that much for a dye pack, even if has a ton of dies.
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I'm talking specifically about subscription rewards as we got them for the first two drops, though, and rewards for things like authenticators.  Things like costume pieces, dyes, mounts, you could include more.  I'm not talking about putting some kind of crafting mat up there and giving one of those to the subscribers.  I'm talking explicitly about one-off things like fabkits.
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The rune changes along with AP changes will make a pretty big difference for endgame. That is, a lot of gear that gets junked will now be useful, meaning people will get more of a sense of reward when downing bosses. And of course there will be more of a desire to farm dungeons to add slots to gear.
 
One of the complaints I read over and over again is that there's very little reward for doing the content. Making it so the gear has a much better chance of being an upgrade is a big step in the right direction.
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			Game doesn't have much content @ 50.  Everyone already left. I don't see them being able to put out content fast enough to interest people into coming back.  Next patch is mostly just bug fixes plus there's the WOW expansion.  Not looking good.	
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Game doesn't have much content @ 50.  Everyone already left. I don't see them being able to put out content fast enough to interest people into coming back.  Next patch is mostly just bug fixes plus there's the WOW expansion.  Not looking good.
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I'd like to see them do the cash shop through CREDD. Ex. Mount costs 1 CREDD, Dye pack costs 1 CREDD. You can buy CREDD with Cash and sell it or buy CREDD with plat and spend it on cash shop items.
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I was thinking something similar, except CREDD could be converted to cash shop currency. For example, 1 CREDD = 2000 C, and there would be an item on the cash shop that costs 2000 C that you could purchase for 30 days of subscription time (that way you could also have things that cost less than 1 CREDD would). If they make CREDD a way to purchase cash shop currency, it remains a commodity that can be sold on the CREDD Exchange, and it allows people to buy things from the cash shop without spending any real money.
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If there is to be a cash shop in the future, let it be buying the mounts directly and not the F2P scamming of 'random reward' boxes that might contain said mount, but most likely contain other crap in it.
 
 
(im looking at you, anything to do with R2 games lol)	
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			I normally like GW2 (not rabidly so but I like it in general) but I detest the Black Lion Keys.  Sure they drop, but there's that ratio of chests to key drops that says "nudge nudge, we got keys on the shop, nudge wink" that I dislike.  I've actually destroyed entire stacks of chests in protest of the system.	
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If there is to be a cash shop in the future, let it be buying the mounts directly and not the F2P scamming of 'random reward' boxes that might contain said mount, but most likely contain other crap in it.
 
 
(im looking at you, anything to do with R2 games lol)
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I swear, after the giant turd that just dropped out of J-Tal's mouth today I kind of think this game should die... so it's broken corpse can serve as a warning to other developers. When you acknowledge 50-60% of your players are solo gamers and one of your design leads basically comes in and says solo players can lump it on progression, you deserve to have your product go down in flames.
 
I'm already confident that Wildstar's epic subscriber-base implosion will ensure no major MMO indulges in the jackassery of 'raid attunement' ever again. That's a good thing for the industry.	
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I swear, after the giant turd that just dropped out of J-Tal's mouth today I kind of think this game should die... so it's broken corpse can serve as a warning to other developers. When you acknowledge 50-60% of your players are solo gamers and one of your design leads basically comes in and says solo players can lump it on progression, you deserve to have your product go down in flames.
 
I'm already confident that Wildstar's epic subscriber-base implosion will ensure no major MMO indulges in the jackassery of 'raid attunement' ever again. That's a good thing for the industry.
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so a multiplayer game should be done solo?
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I don't play MMOs because I want to be surrounded by 1,000 people with the same goals as me who otherwise don't care if I live or die -- I go sit in rush hour traffic when I need that itch scratched. I play MMOs so that I can group up with my friends if I want to. Otherwise I can go out and simulate a bit of heroism in a large setting by myself. And I'm not alone in this. Evidence is I'm in the majority use case for this game and MMOs in general. People who naturally gravitate towards social groups go play softball on Friday nights more than they raid.
 
Do I think that I should eventually reach the same levels of power as anyone else whether I group or not? Yes. I do. Because challenge is not linked strictly to the number of players present and rewards shouldn't be either.
 
Carbine's Developers have forgotten that they have to incentivize team play -- and raids even moreso -- not because that content is automatically more challenging, they have to incentivize it because getting set up for it is a pain in the ass. Behold Wildstar's dead ques across every type of group content - the ultimate consequence for basing your motivation structure on reward instead of fun gameplay. For years the focus has been on better bait instead of making the process less onerous. Some of the other design houses caught on to that and started making group content more accessible and letting the challenge sort the winners from the losers. meanwhile Carbine decided to take a giant leap backwards through time to make the Roster Boss even more deadly with an idiot checklist that has virtually nothing to do with raid-readiness.
 
Even Carbine realized that creating the Datascape and then locking the majority of the people out was dumb, and that they should create a solo version that allows players without guilds and without attunement to at least feel like they've seen the space.
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			Its not people becoming "more antisocial" - its that introverts are real people with real money. And they are a major component of on-line gaming populations specifically because they have more control over the degree of interaction they choose to endure. I don't expect most extroverts to understand (because declaring people "antisocial" is just so much easier), the same way most morning people are &$#(!#ing willfully ignorant that some of us are not morning people and never will be. J-Tal just decided to blurt out some neurotypical roan-crap about how introverts should be content to be second class citizens. *Cupcake* that.	
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Its not people becoming "more antisocial" - its that introverts are real people with real money. And they are a major component of on-line gaming populations specifically because they have more control over the degree of interaction they choose to endure. I don't expect most extroverts to understand, the same way morning people are &$#(!#ing willfully ignorant that some of us are not morning people and never will be. J-Tal just decided to blurt out some neurotypical roan-crap about how introverts should be content to be second class citizens. *Cupcake* that.
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Its not people becoming "more antisocial" - its that introverts are real people with real money. And they are a major component of on-line gaming populations specifically because they have more control over the degree of interaction they choose to endure. I don't expect most extroverts to understand, the same way morning people are &$#(!#ing willfully ignorant that some of us are not morning people and never will be. J-Tal just decided to blurt out some neurotypical roan-crap about how introverts should be content to be second class citizens. *Cupcake* that.
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			And this is why the servers continue to wither. Because if you don't play in groups, the people in groups tell you to go play something else.	
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And this is why the servers continue to wither. Because if you don't play in groups, the people in groups tell you to go play something else.
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And this is why the servers continue to wither. Because if you don't play in groups, the people in groups tell you to go play something else.
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			Right. Never mind. Every thing is fine and this game is in no danger being so niche NCsoft shuts it down.	
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And this is why the servers continue to wither. Because if you don't play in groups, the people in groups tell you to go play something else.
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Right. Never mind. Every thing is fine and this game is in no danger being so niche NCsoft shuts it down.
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			No. I'm trying to find some compatible folk for the third time so that I have a reason to continue giving money to Carbine. Playing with my existing friends is right out because half of them spit on this game's cartoon stylings and the other half quit after 2 months. You can ask the folks that actually responded how well it worked out.	
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I swear, after the giant turd that just dropped out of J-Tal's mouth today ...
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My fullest respect to your dignity.
 
*bow*	
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			 So far i enjoy playing solo. I can play at my own pace, and deal with life's obligations. There are bills to pay, lives to save.   ;) . I am probably missing fun things by not being able to do a dungeon or a raid, but that's life. 	
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@ mirta000:
 
I play primarily solo because it's something I do on "my time", but the moment I team up with "you" it becomes "our time"; and "my" actions, or "yours", can negatively or positively impact "our time", and thus impact "my time". I choose to not group up most times because I don't want to negatively impact "your time" if I die and decide to ragequit, or if I suddenly need to find out everything there is to know about Joe Pesci that very instant, or I just get bored and decide to go do something else. I can do all of those things with zero consequence at the drop of a hat when I play solo, but there are consequences if I do that while teamed up. I don't like to commit more than a 15 or 20 minute stretch of "my time" to someone else because I don't want to end up being a jerk and wrecking "their time". 
 
I play MMORPGs not for a multiplayer experience, but for a shared world game with a multiplayer option. Millions of MMORPG players around the world play them for that exact same reason, even if they hadn't thought to phrase it in those terms; in fact, by Carbine's own stats, my type of player is the majority. And we're the ones who continuously get screwed at the endgame for progression.
 
The more that non-raider PvE players get hosed by the endgame progression, the more trouble this game is in.
 
@ J-Tal:
 
I read your comments, and then your follow ups. I respect that you originally spoke without qualifying your remarks.
 
However, soloers and non-raiders have every reason to believe that you (as in Carbine) were saying "screw you soloers", because you are. You guys talk about putting in meaningful progression for soloers in one breath, and then in the next one you also state that raider gear will always superior to non-raid gear. The problem with this philosophy is (and a huge part of the reason why every single themepark MMORPG launched in the last five years has gone through the same boom to bust) is that it creates a "funnel effect" where the best non-raid gear is seen as entry level raid gear and thus must attainable very quickly.
 
You know this, you responded in a I thread I created about the issue.
 
Unless you separate the progression tracks via unique stat differences (ala PVE and PVP gear) or allow non-raiders to acquire raid quality gear at a significantly slower pace, the "funnel effect" will ALWAYS happen, and thus your non-raiding majority will be continuously moving from game to game because their progress effectively stops at max level. If you want to change that trend, then you have to actually change the way it's done and that means removing the glass ceiling which will definitely *cupcake* off some of your raiding minority; but if you're not willing to do that, then please stop saying you are and just give us the generic gear treadmill that every other MMORPG has, because at least that is more than what we have presently in Wildstar.	
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Semantics. 1-20 is more than significant.  
 
For reference, getting a scratch that bleeds is considered a significant injury. Playing 1/5th of the main story line and the first 20 levels is absolutely significant. 
 
EDIT: significant doesn't mean 'most' or 'a lot'. It means enough to be noticed / enough to have some effect. Both of which describe playing levels 1- 20 in WoW for free.
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This extreme entitlement is absolute horseshit. People get bitchy and leave because the *cupcake* developers are trying to tell me how to play the game they built. Of course they are, they made it, they know its strengths. You don't get mad because you can't grow gardens in FPSs, or there's no high end PvE Starcraft. MMOs are massively multiplayer by name and by design, and playing with other human beings is the pinnacle. The pinnacle of challenge, the pinnacle of reward. Besides, the group content in this game is FANTASTIC while the solo max level content is lacking. Yes the solo progression isn't where it should be, but a developer saying "Hey, maybe you should try the best stuff our game has to offer, it comes with bigger carrots because that's how the genre was and is designed," being taken as "*cupcake* YOU! YOU GET SHITTY MOLDY CARROTS BECAUSE YOU WON'T PLAY MY WAY." is absolutely ridiculous. Yes the game needs work, but screaming like babies over invented insults is not the way to get it there.
 
The level of entitlement makes me sick.	
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The AP changes are just a change to add complexity to gearing decisions. They'll ultimately have a fairly minor effect on players, except for an initial burst of gear switching once the patch goes live. 
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I play MMORPGs not for a multiplayer experience, but for a shared world game with a multiplayer option. Millions of MMORPG players around the world play them for that exact same reason, even if they hadn't thought to phrase it in those terms; in fact, by Carbine's own stats, my type of player is the majority. And we're the ones who continuously get screwed at the endgame for progression.
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This extreme entitlement is absolute horseshit. People get bitchy and leave because the *cupcake* developers are trying to tell me how to play the game they built. Of course they are, they made it, they know its strengths. You don't get mad because you can't grow gardens in FPSs, or there's no high end PvE Starcraft. MMOs are massively multiplayer by name and by design, and playing with other human beings is the pinnacle. The pinnacle of challenge, the pinnacle of reward. Besides, the group content in this game is FANTASTIC while the solo max level content is lacking. Yes the solo progression isn't where it should be, but a developer saying "Hey, maybe you should try the best stuff our game has to offer, it comes with bigger carrots because that's how the genre was and is designed," being taken as "*cupcake*YOU! YOU GET SHITTY MOLDY CARROTS BECAUSE YOU WON'T PLAY MY WAY." is absolutely ridiculous. Yes the game needs work, but screaming like babies over invented insults is not the way to get it there.
 
The level of entitlement makes me sick.
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Oh, dear. Oh, that is a sweetly innocent perspective. If I were an Aurin, I'd totes hug you right now.
 
Boomboxes, of course.
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Oh, dear. Oh, that is a sweetly innocent cash sink. I am an Aurin, /hug.
 
It'd go much further then boomboxes, you can likely except a total over-haul on Architect or an extinction to cool additions and instead buy the cool decor, houses, fabkit, features like ground sky etc, then costumes, dyes, Stylist customization (which with the current dye to gear plat to $credd cost this may not be a bad thing). Then if they decided to go overboard which is likely look at SWTOR they locked action bars so say hello to $ Action Skill page unlocks, AMP/ATU (which is kinda thing if you have deep pockets to buy the credd) then the obvious stuff like mounts, account wide accessibility perks like riding skill and flair.
 
My speculations aside just play it safe and say NO to cash shops!
 
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And this is why the servers continue to wither. Because if you don't play in groups, the people in groups tell you to go play something else.
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You talk about soloers and non-raiders acting entitled, but as stated many times by the developers of this MMO and many others, raiders are the minority while soloers and non-raiders are the majority by a very large margin. When the endgame content is built around a minority that cries foul whenever someone suggests opening up the progression for everyone, it's in fact the minority who are behaving like the entitled ones.
 
Back on the thread's main topic:
 
While drop 3 will contain some nice QoL changes, many of the problems that drove huge numbers of players away haven't been addressed and won't be until well into next year. For everyone who keeps saying that Carbine/NC should start an aggressive campaign to bring back players who've left, I say pray that they don't because there's too much that isn't going to be fixed: if huge numbers of those who left will come back to find the exact same crap they left then you will truly see what a disaster looks like. 
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requiring 40 damn players and even 20 to cordinate up enough time and place for a raid these days isn't really viable anymore
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			Unfortunately, NCSOFT will have the last word as to the "health" of this game.  Doesn't matter what we say, or think.	
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http://imgur.com/TWg3Ck5
 
 
What wildstar is like for aussie players... literally not enough people to gather in thayd for events or even world bosses for attunement... you might be lucky to get maybe 10 - 15 people that gather for r12 it's a ghost town, when i do get to play during us prime time with other people it's great i love the style, difficulty and mechanics but seriously i spend 95% of time doing nothing because there's no one to play with...	
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This, this is something that needs to be realized.
 
So much of the MMO that I'm working on is designed around this attitude, that people do not want to be held back made to wait and stopped from progression because they can't get someone to play with them or they're up at a latenight and wanna play around.
But at the sametime they want the option to play with friends if they want, and get rewarded for it.
 
Everything in the game I'm working on is developed to be solo able by the sheer skill of the player alone(for the most part, 3~5 player essential some of it) and this is done in part with the observation that people don't come online to play games specifically with a group of friends at specific time frames like they did years and years ago.
We grew up, we all got jobs, kids, responsibilities, and things to do, and designing a game around the aspect of essentially having a player pick up a 2nd job in terms of time set aside is not really a good idea anymore.
 
When I play an MMO I want to log in have something to do right on the spot and keep on trucking when my dailies are over with a clear goal that I canm work for, and I don't like having to sit there and wait around and try to rally up some players and hope that I can get something done that day.
 
Instead i'd rather play a game that lets me keep on working and progressing as long as I can find something to do so with, and if I can do it with friends and it makes it easier, quicker, and more fun, that's the game I'd play over any other anyday of the week.
 
requiring 40 damn players and even 20 to cordinate up enough time and place for a raid these days isn't really viable anymore especially when a lot of guilds are very small and alot of guilds are full of players who come and go based on what life is throwing at them.
 
Imagine if you could pick up a team of 3~5 players and still get your end game progression and character developement going along and they could be randoms, or they could be a dedicated team that you set up, that's more fun than trying to get 20, muchless 40 in on a single thing to work on progressing anything.
 
People don't like playing a game that holds them back because they're maybe not able to throw in some extra time into a scheduled raid roster, or something requiring abitrary crap that requires other players to progress along, but they do like working on progression with other people.
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This extreme entitlement is absolute horseshit. People get bitchy and leave because the *cupcake* developers are trying to tell me how to play the game they built. Of course they are, they made it, they know its strengths. You don't get mad because you can't grow gardens in FPSs, or there's no high end PvE Starcraft. MMOs are massively multiplayer by name and by design, and playing with other human beings is the pinnacle. The pinnacle of challenge, the pinnacle of reward. Besides, the group content in this game is FANTASTIC while the solo max level content is lacking. Yes the solo progression isn't where it should be, but a developer saying "Hey, maybe you should try the best stuff our game has to offer, it comes with bigger carrots because that's how the genre was and is designed," being taken as "*cupcake*YOU! YOU GET SHITTY MOLDY CARROTS BECAUSE YOU WON'T PLAY MY WAY." is absolutely ridiculous. Yes the game needs work, but screaming like babies over invented insults is not the way to get it there.
 
The level of entitlement makes me sick.
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One of the problems with being able to log on and play the content *right now* is that this would mean content would have to be easy enough that any random group of strangers can do it without coordination. Unfortunately, that isn't fun for a lot of people. 
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This extreme entitlement is absolute horseshit. People get bitchy and leave because the *cupcake* developers are trying to tell me how to play the game they built. Of course they are, they made it, they know its strengths. You don't get mad because you can't grow gardens in FPSs, or there's no high end PvE Starcraft. MMOs are massively multiplayer by name and by design, and playing with other human beings is the pinnacle. The pinnacle of challenge, the pinnacle of reward. Besides, the group content in this game is FANTASTIC while the solo max level content is lacking. Yes the solo progression isn't where it should be, but a developer saying "Hey, maybe you should try the best stuff our game has to offer, it comes with bigger carrots because that's how the genre was and is designed," being taken as "*cupcake*YOU! YOU GET SHITTY MOLDY CARROTS BECAUSE YOU WON'T PLAY MY WAY." is absolutely ridiculous. Yes the game needs work, but screaming like babies over invented insults is not the way to get it there.
 
The level of entitlement makes me sick.
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What would be the point in massive group content if you could be rewarded the same without actually doing the hard part of it, which includes teamwork and socializing? 
Yes, I like spending time farming meat in various locations. Yes I solo leveled. Yes, I don't invite my friends to run mini dungeons with me on my housing plot. But this is an MMO. Not a game with a chat on the side. Every day in my guild we solve our differences have our disagreements and learn to live with it. Do I feel bad if I die as a healer? Of course I do! I'm not perfect. Even though there were new guys running yesterday 3 out of 5 wipes was because I took the wrong step, not them. But that's okay, nobody can be perfect. 
 
Do I spend majority of my in game time solo? Yes. Would I like to spend the whole game that way? Heck no. That makes MMOs pointless. You might as well go out and play Monster Hunter then.
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			It won't die for a while. But it will go free to play sooner than later, and they will milk that for quite some time to make their money back. As for SWTOR, even if you don't like that particular game, it makes wildstar look like straight unpolished trash. Coming from someone who wishes this game would just get back on the pavement.	
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For YOU.
 
There's nothing about life that has changed that makes raids less viable for people in general than they have been in the past.
 
I get what you are looking for, but *right now* this isn't that game. Perhaps in time they will be able to add something for everyone. Right now it's a new game that offers a taste for everyone for what it could be. There is a LOT of solo content, just not much at end game (but it seems to me that the majority of content in this game IS the leveling content- it's just not what we spend time repeating).
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For YOU.
 
There's nothing about life that has changed that makes raids less viable for people in general than they have been in the past.
 
I get what you are looking for, but *right now* this isn't that game. Perhaps in time they will be able to add something for everyone. Right now it's a new game that offers a taste for everyone for what it could be. There is a LOT of solo content, just not much at end game (but it seems to me that the majority of content in this game IS the leveling content- it's just not what we spend time repeating).
 
The 20 man raiders want more- they want more 20 man raids without having to do 40s and they complain about it. The people who love 5 mans want more without having to do raids. The 40 mans have plenty of content for the moment, but are fighting population issues. The soloers consume whatever Carbine creates faster than anyone.
 
One of the problems with being able to log on and play the content *right now* is that this would mean content would have to be easy enough that any random group of strangers can do it without coordination. Unfortunately, that isn't fun for a lot of people. The dungeon tuning is great right now- talented/geared groups can blow through it and less talented/geared folks will spend hours wiping on it.
 
While solors may make up a huge percentage of the player base, what Carbine has told us previously is that those who've done dungeons are the people most likely to stick with the game and play it long term. This makes promoting dungeons and preparing people to be able to do them their highest priority. And getting more people into dungeons and praticed at them will create more of what you are looking for anyway: the chance to get on and do them right away. Because despite their reputation, they *are* puggable if you go in geared and have learned the fight mechanics.
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			It would be cool to see a themepark mmo that doesn't have raiding as a focus.	
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You're basically saying "if you don't want to raid, you should leave the game" to players who represent the statistical majority in a thread about the visible population troubles of this game, and likely financial ones as well. Building an endgame that requires large group participation, thus catering to maybe 20-25% of the potential market, is not viable when you spend 80 million dollars developing the product. Removing group requirements from endgame progression, while still favoring grouping for speed in progression, opens up the endgame to the entire player base while having zero negative effect on the minority that want to do large scale group content: and that is smart business.
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Where's my PVP Progression? I can't even get to level cap through PVP as I was told I would be able to.
 
 
 
PVP Progression
For PVPers, being able to do what you enjoy throughout a game's entirety is something that is required for an MMO to keep its player vs player audience entertained these days, and for good reason. No PvPer wants to be told that the content they enjoy the most is only accessible after you've reached the end of the game. Good news for this crowd - WildStar is allowing the PvP crowd to do what they love pretty much from the start. At early levels players will have access to Open-World PVP and a variety of Battlegrounds. Once you've hit level cap the doors open up a bit more, letting players participate in 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 Arena Matches. Let's also not forget one of the most anticipated PvP features--"Warplots". These 40v40 "fortress vs fortress" style matches will also become accessible upon reaching max level.	
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No. And no its not going fail2play. Heres my response from another thread.
 
 
Mamatereza, on 24 Oct 2014 - 01:00 AM, said:
 
 
Now that we've heard FICTION, how about FACTS.
 
1. "Imho if they had close to 100k paying subs they would be extremely happy." -WRONG
 
Its been clearly stated by Donatelli they not only have 100k subs but MORE in a blatent interview on MASSIVELY
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2. "They would remain as it is as a team and waited for Megaservers, Drop 3 and other improvements to bring ppl back. Sadly there is no such thing in the horizon."- WRONG
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There is big drops with tons of improvements coming. Its been said by Moore and Donatelli. It's called NOVEMBER (it comes after the month of October)
 
3."I m not saying WS could not be a great game in the long term and bring ppl back, but in its current state and with the current sub numbers it cant go far."-WRONG
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Clearly stated they have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS (as in more then one 100k just to help you along here) and they are very happy with that and can't wait to get more.
 
4.", WS needs to turn to B2P ASAP!"-WRONG
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It has been stated by Donatelli in the same massively interview they have no plans whatsoever to go B2P or fail2play
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It would be cool to see a themepark mmo that doesn't have raiding as a focus.
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Lord of the Rings Online did that spectacularly well for a long time. It launched with the best crafted gear (which took mats from formidably badass landscape critters in addition to months of play to build your craft skills) absolutely on par with the raid drops. 6 man groups (their party size) willing to put in the time were fully competitive in all aspects of play for years. There was a period where raid gear pulled ahead about 2-3% that was still pretty excellent, and since then it went back to single party play being the top tier with solo dailies being the source of best in slot for 2 of the 15 slots. I loved raiding in that game because the fights were crazy complex and you were fighting chiefly for the joy of it - the gear was better but only fractionally so and usually in ways that were specific to that raid - for example all the gear off of Boss A gave resistance to a damage type uncommon in the open world but heavily utilized by the second boss of that raid. Every time you beat Boss A you were a little better situated to beat Boss B. And you were building an armor set you'd probably never wear outside the raid except to show off your progress in town.
 
Perfect game? No. Filed with virtues worth learning from. Oh yes. Wardrobe system for starters...
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You talk about soloers and non-raiders acting entitled, but as stated many times by the developers of this MMO and many others, raiders are the minority while soloers and non-raiders are the majority by a very large margin. When the endgame content is built around a minority that cries foul whenever someone suggests opening up the progression for everyone, it's in fact the minority who are behaving like the entitled ones.
 
Back on the thread's main topic:
 
While drop 3 will contain some nice QoL changes, many of the problems that drove huge numbers of players away haven't been addressed and won't be until well into next year. For everyone who keeps saying that Carbine/NC should start an aggressive campaign to bring back players who've left, I say pray that they don't because there's too much that isn't going to be fixed: if huge numbers of those who left will come back to find the exact same crap they left then you will truly see what a disaster looks like.
 
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What would be the point in massive group content if you could be rewarded the same without actually doing the hard part of it, which includes teamwork and socializing?
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