113793-break-up-letter-to-carbinencsoft

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Carbine/NCsoft,
 
I have finally cancelled my account. I had so much faith in your game and was anticipating it for probably a year prior to release. The combat seemed cool. the content seemed cool, the atmosphere was way cool. I was a loyal fan even after things started to go south. I defended the game even to my GF (which I deeply regret now). I held on because I thought you would right this ship. You seemed like a compentent group... Unfortunately it was too little too late. A majority of your community has left for greener pastures and has made the game nearly unplayable. I would list all of the problems this game has, but you and everyone playing is aware. I am sure you still have a fan-base following the game religiously, but I know, based on populations in Thayd that it is dwindling. At 4 months after lauch... that is pretty sad/embarrassing.
 
I have to ask the question... Did you guys do any market research during development prior to lauch? I mean... the game had nothing for the casual RPG'er. Then you made it a grind fest just to get in raids, which widened the gap even more. You literally and figuratively killed your fan base. I think if you guys had the intent to bomb this game, you probably couldn't have executed it's demise any better.
 
I don't want an apology or my money back. I just want to let you know that if you guys ever come around to making another game or doing a complete refresh of this one... please use your brains. Don't be hard headed idiots.
 
With that being said I think we should see other people.
 
Scincerely,
 
Shell
 
 
 
 	
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			It's ok Carbine you still have me. Lets go make sweet love in the closet.	
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It's ok Carbine you still have me. Lets go make sweet love in the closet.
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			 I think im in a burn out phase from gaming in general myself... cant even log into anything without getting a sinking feeling that i should be investing time elsewhere.. So im taking this time to learn manga studio and maybe do some wildstar fan art.. gonna keep my sub though never know when ill get the itch to start playing..	
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Sorry, Carbine's busy with me at the moment....
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Carbine has VD...
 
I'm still with Carbine, but we sleep in separate beds, depending on the next drop (set in October, jesus christ really?) it will determine if I have grounds for divorce.	
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I have to ask the question... Did you guys do any market research during development prior to lauch? I mean... the game had nothing for the casual RPG'er. Then you made it a grind fest just to get in raids, which widened the gap even more. You literally and figuratively killed your fan base. I think if you guys had the intent to bomb this game, you probably couldn't have executed it's demise any better.
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-snip-
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Then you made it a grind fest just to get in raids.
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I've got a couple of theories about what happened here. Don't know if any of them are true, but here goes.
 
1) Possibility One: They just ran out of time. They knew they needed casual content, they intended to have casual content, but it fell off the launch schedule as they scrambled to get the large group endgame PVE content up and running. Given how buggy the raids were at launch, it seemed like they were absolutely up against the wire for time when launch day came. This would explain why Veteran Shiphands still don't exist. They focused on prepping the large group endgame content because that has been their main content stand-out all along -- "We're going to have large dedicated raids again!"  Therefore that had to take priority. 
 
2) Possibility Two: They made some key central design decisions nine years ago when development started and it was a very different MMO market -- basically an entirely different generation of gamers has come up in the time Wildstar has been in development.  The market moved on but they had too much invested to completely redo the game's core concept and philosophy (I mean, they already did a major restart about five years ago if what I hear is correct.) They realized a couple of years ago that their market had shifted again, but it was just too late to start over yet another time. 
 
3) Possibility Three: Arrogance on the part of the devs -- a true and misguided belief that WoW is really "ruined" and that what the MMO market really wanted was to go back to Vanilla.  I see this quoted a lot as the reason for the total hardcore focus, but having worked in the industry I tend to think that possibilities one and two are more likely.  While there's a chance that some of the key devs were sitting around going "Fack WoW! Fack casuals! We'll show them how a REAL gamer does it!! They dunno SQUAT! We'll show them! They RUINED OUR MMO! We'll rebuild it like it was supposed to be and SHOW THEM ALL!" -- I can't see that being true of the entire company. Certainly there are some devs who come across as "We know what really makes a game good!"  but it's hard to separate how much of that is actually them and how much of it is marketing wind. On the other hand, that bit in Gaffney's resignation letter about "strong differences of opinion" coupled with comments on Glassdoor about all the infighting and cliquishness in the company makes me think there were at least a few devs who kind of had rectocranial inversion issues about the "hardcore market". Not sure it could plausibly be the entire company, however.   
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It's one
There was a Wildstar Dev on Wildstar Nation's last podcast that complained about rushing to push out the game, it lead to the bug problem, the UI problem, and the lack of casual content.
 
Dead on right on that point.
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Maybe, but even if it wasn't rushed; there would still be these topics, and still be these selfsame complaints. 
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Maybe.
 
Maybe I could have been next Brad Pitt.
 
Your point?
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My point was look at every forum for every MMO ever made and you see the same complaint threads. 
 
Carbine could literally throw gold at us and we would find a reason to complain....
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So you don't think there is a problem? Really?
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			A game should be fun to play, not work. Carbine took a wrong turn and made it moore like work and now they are paying the price. I already have a fulltime job.	
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I think there is a synergistic confluence of issues that include but are not limited to warped consumer expectations. 
 
I think W* is more or less exactly what many MMO gamers have been wanting for some time; but that we are now realizing as much as we wanted that extra 5 pound gourmet cheesecake we just can't take it anymore. This coupled with some more minor issues like bugs and systems not being 100% what individuals want makes an otherwise awesome game seem less so to many potential players.
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I think there is a synergistic confluence of issues that include but are not limited to warped consumer expectations. 
 
I think W* is more or less exactly what many MMO gamers have been wanting for some time; but that we are now realizing as much as we wanted that extra 5 pound gourmet cheesecake we just can't take it anymore. This coupled with some more minor issues like bugs and systems not being 100% what individuals want makes an otherwise awesome game seem less so to many potential players.
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In other words, you don't think this is a problem.
 
Ok keep playing, let's see how fast reality catches up.
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I agree completely.  Everyone hearkens back to "the gold old days" of Vanilla WoW and yet they can't be arsed to figure out new and difficult content much less grind out some rep to get an item.
 
While I won't say WS is without flaws, we all know it has them, its a ridiculously good MMO with the best combat available bar none.  The issue is that people get this perception that its terrible because they don't like X or Y and enough people have left at this point that its going to be very very hard to remedy the damage already done.
 
I for one have no intentions of leaving the game and thinking the combat is mind blowingly good.  I couldn't possible go play some tab targeting, slow paced, single button macro rotation MMO and not with for this combat system.
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Carbine/NCsoft,
 
I have finally cancelled my account. I had so much faith in your game and was anticipating it for probably a year prior to release. The combat seemed cool. the content seemed cool, the atmosphere was way cool. I was a loyal fan even after things started to go south. I defended the game even to my GF (which I deeply regret now). I held on because I thought you would right this ship. You seemed like a compentent group... Unfortunately it was too little too late. A majority of your community has left for greener pastures and has made the game nearly unplayable. I would list all of the problems this game has, but you and everyone playing is aware. I am sure you still have a fan-base following the game religiously, but I know, based on populations in Thayd that it is dwindling. At 4 months after lauch... that is pretty sad/embarrassing.
 
I have to ask the question... Did you guys do any market research during development prior to lauch? I mean... the game had nothing for the casual RPG'er. Then you made it a grind fest just to get in raids, which widened the gap even more. You literally and figuratively killed your fan base. I think if you guys had the intent to bomb this game, you probably couldn't have executed it's demise any better.
 
I don't want an apology or my money back. I just want to let you know that if you guys ever come around to making another game or doing a complete refresh of this one... please use your brains. Don't be hard headed idiots.
 
With that being said I think we should see other people.
 
Scincerely,
 
Shell
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Don't push it Shah. I made it very clear that that WAS NOT my position. If you aren't going to listen in a discussion then you are going to turn what could be a useful discussion into a waste of time.
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This argument was made for both FFXIV and Tabula Rosa...
 
*wink*
 
There is no M Night Shambala twist for these game's fate... or this one.
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I am not invested into making you feel bad, I just made a point.
If you feel bad, it is all you.
 
I just simply asked a question, "So do you believe nothing is wrong with the game".
You dove into saying they provided everything we wanted, and that was your answer "Nothing is wrong".
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Hardly... FFXIV was a broken on a fundamental level.  The combat was mind numbingly slow, global server ticks for DoTs, telegraph timing and damage calculation, animation lockouts for days.  Don't even try to compare the two games.
 
Instead of trying to tell everyone how bad WS is you should probably just go back to club penguin and save us the time of arguing with you.
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So do you believe nothing is wrong with Wildstar?
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It is literally impossible for anyone on the internet to make me feel bad. But you could very well earn a point or two from buster. and that would put this thread off topic fast,
 
 
I never implyed nor stated there were no problems. I said explicitly:
 
 
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So correction... You are saying there is nothing wrong with the game, and it's solely the customer's fault for the non-existent problem?
My bad. Clearly simple yes and no statement requires blaming customers.
 
Did not ask that :)
 
I asked, "so do you believe there is nothing wrong with Wildstar and the current situation?
Dodging the question aren't we? *wink*
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So correction... You are saying there is nothing wrong with the game, and it's solely the customer's fault for the non-existent problem?
My bad. Clearly simple yes and no statement requires blaming customers.
 
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Where in the term
 
 
Do you read "there are no issues" ?
 
You are literally claiming the opposite of my statement.
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Perhaps another option:
 
4) Carbine gave MMO players exactly what they asked for. Then MMO players realized that they got what they wished for....
 
I know you don't like blaming the customer; but honestly I think in this case it really is one of the major issues. Certainly not the only; but one that's probably a lot more influential than we may like to think. From a gameplay and systems perspective; W* is pretty much everything MMO gamers could have dreamed of.... But now were stuck with getting what we once wanted....
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			 consumers aren't at fault here... Carbine rolled the dice on a new IP and while it has potential also experimented with some alternative approaches. Unfortunately just because its an idea and looks good on paper doesn't mean it will be well received this isn't consumer error nor is it developers error as well.. no one can predict fully on the expectations of a diverse community nor can they get a perfect chemestry.. if this was the case the forums would look entirely differant right now.	
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The way you state this it's like the Carbine devs were innocents, taken advantage of by the evil MMO players who said they'd pay for Wildstar, and then coldbloodedly jilted Carbine and left the devs weeping bitter tears of betrayal in the rain.  Shame on those faithless MMO players, lying to poor naive Carbine like that!  Shame!  ....Except NOT.  Carbine is made of adults who are experienced devs, and trying to claim the MMO players were somehow responsible for their crappy decisions making is just a mind-boggling bit of self-deception.  
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"Not limited to" meaning...
-it is the problem with the customer
-it extends further on the customer or beyond the customer, still blaming the customer.
 
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The MMORPG market itself is quite niche May (at least in the traditional MMORPG sense), and it's only growing smaller by the year. I am not suggesting the consumers are big baddies; I'm suggesting that the MMORPG genre is on it's way out of vogue. 
 
Like I said, I think A major influence is in fact warped (or if you prefer, shifted) consumer expectations; but I believe I made clear that that is by no means the ONLY issue plaguing W* as well as the broader MMORPG market today. NCSoft is moving towards Mobile games this year; most other development / publishing studios have already done so... because that's where the money really is in today's MMO market.
 
As weird as it may sound to some people; NCSoft and the few AAA MMORPG publishers are in all likely-hood the last hurrah of MMORPG's as we know them. 
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 On a consumer note here.. i think one of the biggest issues developers have now a days is covering bases on diversity since most of the players come from diffferant mmo's we have tastes. the more games we play the more we become selective on what we will and will not tolerate. We all have the infamous.. wow i wish this game had a such and such like (insert game here) it would make it some much more enjoyable here if they had it... all of us play into this to some extent. Kinda like dating if you do a lot of it you start becoming more selective on your wants and needs because theres more options available.
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The MMORPG market itself is quite niche May (at least in the traditional MMORPG sense), and it's only growing smaller by the year. I am not suggesting the consumers are big baddies; I'm suggesting that the MMORPG genre is on it's way out of vogue. 
 
Like I said, I think A major influence is in fact warped (or if you prefer, shifted) consumer expectations; but I believe I made clear that that is by no means the ONLY issue plaguing W* as well as the broader MMORPG market today. NCSoft is moving towards Mobile games this year; most other development / publishing studios have already done so... because that's where the money really is in today's MMO market.
 
As weird as it may sound to some people; NCSoft and the few AAA MMORPG publishers are in all likely-hood the last hurrah of MMORPG's as we know them. 
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Do you believe that nothing is wrong with all the mmo's out there?
Oh come on!!!  Every MMO has issues.  Just cancel your account, and give your stuff away already.
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Naz, this is the way your posts are coming across on this issue:
 
Players: "We want hardcore raids!"
Carbine: "Okay! Give us a while -- okay, nine years -- and we'll make those for you!"
Players: "Oh, turns out we didn't know what we wanted. Sucks to be you, I guess!"
Carbine: "WHAT?!  No! No! You can't do this to us!!"  
 
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Carbine/NCsoft,
 
I have finally cancelled my account. I had so much faith in your game and was anticipating it for probably a year prior to release. The combat seemed cool. the content seemed cool, the atmosphere was way cool. I was a loyal fan even after things started to go south. I defended the game even to my GF (which I deeply regret now). I held on because I thought you would right this ship. You seemed like a compentent group... Unfortunately it was too little too late. A majority of your community has left for greener pastures and has made the game nearly unplayable. I would list all of the problems this game has, but you and everyone playing is aware. I am sure you still have a fan-base following the game religiously, but I know, based on populations in Thayd that it is dwindling. At 4 months after lauch... that is pretty sad/embarrassing.
 
I have to ask the question... Did you guys do any market research during development prior to lauch? I mean... the game had nothing for the casual RPG'er. Then you made it a grind fest just to get in raids, which widened the gap even more. You literally and figuratively killed your fan base. I think if you guys had the intent to bomb this game, you probably couldn't have executed it's demise any better.
 
I don't want an apology or my money back. I just want to let you know that if you guys ever come around to making another game or doing a complete refresh of this one... please use your brains. Don't be hard headed idiots.
 
With that being said I think we should see other people.
 
Scincerely,
 
Shell
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that is hardcore
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I get your point; but w* also has a plethora of 5 man and casual content and more INC. I wouldn't disagree that they might have miscalculated what their ideal content proportions should have been... But I would say it's probably more of a timing thing than a content proper thing. Clearly they have had a LOT of casual content in the pipeline for drops for a while... (at least 4-6 months to be hitting live soon).
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I never claimed or suggested MMO players were at 'fault'. 
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Given that their drop schedule has officially been crumpled up and thrown in the trash, I think you must've meant to say "to be hitting live soon, in at least 4-6 months".
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Naz. Dude. That quote in my post was verbatim word-for-word what you originally wrote. ("MMO players are at fault for not knowing what they actually wanted.")     I went back to your post to find it...and saw that you had changed the wording so now you can state you "never claimed or suggested that" when that's exactly and precisely the word and phrase you used. 
 
I really thought better of you than that. If you misspoke your meaning, at least acknowledge that rather than editing your post and stating that you never said exactly the thing that you said. 
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I know you don't like blaming the customer; but honestly I think in this case it really is one of the major issues. 
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This is how it now appears. It used to say "I think in this case MMO players are at fault for not knowing what they actually wanted."  That's where I pulled that quote from. Note you said "blaming" here, which goes much better with the original "fault" phrase than the new "it really is one of the major issues."  The sentence as you rewrote it is borderline incoherent.
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Naz, this is the way your posts are coming across on this issue:
 
Players: "We want hardcore raids!"
Carbine: "Okay! Give us a while -- okay, nine years -- and we'll make those for you!"
Players: "Oh, turns out we didn't know what we wanted. Sucks to be you, I guess!"
Carbine: "WHAT?!  No! No! You can't do this to us!!"  
 
...and then you say that the problem is that "MMO players are at fault for not knowing what they actually wanted." But it's up to the product developer to track trends and make sure he has a good idea of what's actually in demand. It is in no way the consumer's job to keep him informed of their changing tastes, nor to buy a product they might perhaps have been interested in at one time but no longer want.  It's up to the product developer to accurately judge the market -- it's not the market's responsibility to keep him informed and give him time to refine and adjust his business plan. When you say stuff like:
 
 
...I just can't take you seriously. Blizzard knew many years ago that most MMO gamers were not dreaming of hardcore raids -- that most of them could honestly care less.  Wildstar is not "everything MMO gamers could have dreamed of", not by a long shot, and it is not even close to "What we once wanted" for the vast majority of gamers.  Generalizing a few hundred whiny ex-WoW players griping about how the game isn't "their game" any more because of all the casual filth around these days with their "welfare epics" into "everything MMO gamers could have dreamed of ..[and]...what we once wanted" is just...just... Come on, it's just WRONG.  I can't come up with any better word than that. It's wrong.  There never was a time when very many MMO gamers dreamed of and wanted 40 man raids. Never. 
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You must have picked off your original copy while I was still typing out that post.
 
If you haven't noticed, I post a comment, then spend the next 10-30 seconds fixing typos / idea arrangement. 
 
I honestly don't recall ever having typed that term (fault) in because that was never what my claim has been. But for your piece of Mind I will indicate in that post what you are saying here. 
 
EDIT: updated the post in question
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 -- that Carbine is basing all its design decisions on what players are whining about in game forums and they have been doing that since the early design days (using WoW's forums back then instead of their own to formulate their business plan.)  I'm sure they are using game forums as a source of certain kinds of information, but do you really think the problem is the consumer if Carbine blindly follows the dictates of the loudest screamers in the player market when it decides what to base a game's design on or what changes to make to it later on? Again -- 
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			I loved how they promoted We have 20 mans and 40 mans and Warplots and when in reality they mean 2-3 % has 20/40 man raids , About 5 people ever saw Warplots and oh for the 98% we give you dailies , lots and lots of dailies and for what no hope of anything beyond that. Even though not many people progression raid in wow  A lot still works toward the hope one day of raiding. In Wildstar  they make it clear not going to happen and if you want to try , here a grind from hell to dishearten you from thinking about it 	
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While I enjoy the game, I think the Developers based a lot of decisions on the assumption that they were entitled to a starting population of 2,000,000+ subscribers.There are a lot of end-game systems like Warplots, and 40-man raids, and frankly the boring ass busy-work of attunements that only work if the game is a mega-hit. Its not. Its got a modest population and it can -- if well-tended -- grow. But it can only grow by giving something non-repetitive to do for the 99% that are never going to see the flagship content.
 
It's an industry-wide DISEASE: These games get started as a series of bullet points on a white board, and then for the next 5 years they IGNORE changes in the playing field, innovations that players have come to take for granted years before your product arrives, and just general player experience though other games that came out between that first meeting and ship-date.
 
Devs, you could really stand to be listening... to what other Devs are doing that works.	
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In Wildstar  they make it clear not going to happen and if you want to try , here a grind from hell to dishearten you from thinking about it 
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This means effectively that the community of today is both overly specific in what they will play based on the sheer availability of games of a variety of genres; coupled with the lower focused play times among game players; and a shift to more instant-gratification genres + a lot of muddled psycho-sociological complexities that have changed the consumer base for MMORPGs from a more stoic state to a more dynamic and game-mobile state.
 
 
Does that make sense? If not I will do what I can to clarify. 
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@Maytree ; I love reading your posts, it's the most neutral posting i've seen around these forums where logic seems to be lacking, but in all honesty most of the people here are white knights with a mindset that stop them from looking at the mmo community with different perspectives, a lot of them actually still have the elitist attitude of meritocracy for players that should *earn* their spots/gear/etc, bashing casuals to the side and obviously ignoring anything that isn't their opinion in what should matter in the game.
 
I posted several times with a mindset that we need a healthy community with x individuals that altho skill lacking, should still be able to do content. Carbine clearly oversold the game with the very exciting videos that praised highskilled players and spit on *casuals* ( remember the silly looking chua that was posed as a gimp for not raiding hardcore?), which by the sheer attitude mislead people into the old logic of * wow cupcake, if you guys have that badass attitude about your game on your video, you better deliver or you'll look like a bunch of assholes*.
 
I rarely ever get that *attitude better match the image behind it* view for comercials, because everyone plays safe when they are trying to sell a product, but the devspeak videos were so full of themselves as a PR move, that it ended up creating a huge hype that was shutdown in the endgame, if anything Wildstar went the same route Tera did, great combat, horrid endgame and class inbalance for pvp, i think i lasted 2 months in Tera because the endgame was so stupid i could see a mile before going too deep in it on how bad every idea behind it was. BUT Tera had the excuse that it was originally a korean game for the korean market, so it couldn't be made less grindy for the ocidental side of the world because the asian side wouldn't let the NA devs change stuff in their game.
 
Here we are with Wildstar, a game, that as you stated  in one of your options, ran out of time to create content, so the devs added SEVERAL GATES amp/ability points, EG half assed system and whatnot, to give people the illusion their characters were progressing. Anyone that ever played WoW during mop, can see the amount of content in that xpac, in ONE xpac destroys this entire game, yeah yeah u can say WoW is old and had many many years of income to mold their game into what it is now, but you see when 1 xpac have more options then a entire new IP in every possible way, it's clear the game took a wrong turn mid production and that we are paying for a half assed product that shouldn't have been released the way it was, every system in this game save combat/costume/housing is archaic, this game needed at least 2 more years to have enough content at 50 to keep people interested, but time kept ticking devs kept slipping and down the drain we go.	
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Thank you for your feedback.
 
- Team WildStar 	
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