120999-wildstars-big-plans-for-2015

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Heyas Everybody,
 
As you all know, 2014 is done for and it’s onto 2015 (insert hackneyed New Year’s resolution joke). I think it’s worth noting that, even though it took some doing, Carbine was able to transition from a launch studio to a live studio. Why is that important? It’s important because we’ve learned a lot and nailed down the processes that will help us deliver solid high-quality updates. As to WildStar, let’s look to the future!
 
Over the last few weeks, it has been awesome to see key aspects of the game, such as the soundtrack and our action combat system, gain best-in-class recognition.  However, while the awards are great, we also recognize there are important areas where we can, and must, do better in 2015 — and we are.   
 
Moving forward, the team has a clear and fixed focus:
We will encourage and listen carefully to your – the player’s – feedback and focus development on making WildStar a more fun, less grindy, game.
We will make these updates with both present and future players in mind, to support a multitude of play styles, durations, group sizes and levels.
We will invest in, enhance, and grow this game.
With these three themes in mind, here is a quick list of exciting things happening inWildStar in the first half of 2015:
We will be adding lots of solo and group content to the game, including new shiphands, adventures and dungeons. 
We are focusing on revamping our customization systems and adding new ways for players to add personality to their characters.   
We are improving the Elder game experience, offering players lots of opportunities to find new and exciting loot!
All of these changes are a direct result of your feedback and your in-game activity over the last few months. Beyond these items, we plan a variety of additional improvements. For example, many players love the sophistication of WildStar’s housing system -- but some never reach the level where they can try it out. Many players enjoy dungeons -- but some find they have not been appropriately prepared for the intensity of the encounters.  We also see examples where players are unable to fully customize their characters because the system can be difficult to understand and options too hard to unlock. 
 
What it boils down to is making sure that all the great content that we are adding, or that is already in the game, is more visible and accessible.
Getting more specific and focusing on our next update, The Protogames Initiative, we are adding many new features, including:
Protogames Academy – a training dungeon to prepare lower level players for telegraphs, interrupt armor, and boss mechanics.
Ultimate Protogames – an exciting new dungeon for upper level players.
They Came from Fragment Zero! – a level  6 shiphand that introduces players to group gameplay at a much earlier level.
LFG upgrades – currently, some shiphands, adventures, and dungeons are intentionally hidden or need to be unlocked. Unfortunately, this keeps many players out of the content. Moving forward, all of this content will be added to an expanded LFG tool.
Datascape 20 – the 40-person dungeon wasn’t getting played as often as we hoped. Not only was the content challenging, but roster management was painful. In the next update we will lower the player requirement down to 20.
Looking further ahead into 2015, we will ramp up shorter-session (30-45 minute) gaming content. The intent is to give players something they can do more quickly in game that still delivers a sense of accomplishment (and meaningful loot). Some of the things we plan in this timeframe include:
A new Contracts system which will provide players with short, fun objectives throughout different kinds of WildStar content, enabling them to obtain rare and exciting rewards.
Revising overall levelling and elder games experiences and making adjustments to enhance story immersion, fight combat fatigue, and fine-tune our reward streams.
As our Raiding guilds begin to face Avatus in the Datascape, we’re working on your next challenge! A brand new 20-player experience.
This isn’t everything, not by a longshot.  We’ve got much more in store for you in the coming months and the bottom line is that we have very big plans for WildStar in 2015.  We hope that you’ll join the conversation and help us shape WildStar’s future.
 
To all the players who have been with us since launch, we want to thank you personally. Thank you for the support and your passion for this game. Thank you for your feedback and your discourse. To all our past players, and those who have not yet played, we hope to see you in WildStar soon!
 
I wish all of you a happy and successful 2015!
-- Mike Donatelli, WildStar Product Director	
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Sounds like an awesome year ahead!!
 
I'll just slide this here. 
 
DROP 4	
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			This is exactly the kind of start to the new year that I was hopping to see. And this is just to start! I look forward to see where you folks take us.	
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Really looking forward to see all these changes comming.
These are the things we really need, and I truly hope you'll be able to keep that promise of "listening closely to your players".
 
Can we please start with the removal of underpants on Chua?	
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Looking forward to this coming year for the game and the community!
 
Could we possibly get some more detail on the PvP side of things? Really been iching for PvP news :D	
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@Olivar    You mean the 'not so tidy whiteys'? 
 
 
Yes!  This whole post makes me happy. I got the whole 'make sure there is plenty to do at 50' thing, which I agree with but so much was left lacking for the beginners. I am one of the solo players who was getting a bit bored of the level 50 grindfest and actually bought a second account so I could level more alts. Of course now that I can have one of everything on both factions on one account, I no longer need to sub the second one, which is nice. But getting back to the post, as the only active Admin at WildStar Wikia, I was even more worried about the fans and the community dwindling away to nothingness. I think this next patch will be a turning point and it looks to me like the future is bright ahead for Carbine Studios and WildStar. KUDOS!	
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			Lookin forward to it all!	
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@Olivar    You mean the 'not so tidy whiteys'? 
 
 
Yes!  This whole post makes me happy. I got the whole 'make sure there is plenty to do at 50' thing, which I agree with but so much was left lacking for the beginners. I am one of the solo players who was getting a bit bored of the level 50 grindfest and actually bought a second account so I could level more alts. Of course now that I can have one of everything on both factions on one account, I no longer need to sub the second one, which is nice. But getting back to the post, as the only active Admin at WildStar Wikia, I was even more worried about the fans and the community dwindling away to nothingness. I think this next patch will be a turning point and it looks to me like the future is bright ahead for Carbine Studios and WildStar. KUDOS!
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Those damned ugly whiteys!
Just look at the wallpaper of the uplifting.
NOT A SINGLE PANTS IN SIGHT!
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Then you know who is to blame! THE MECHARI!
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Removing Chua underwear?
 
Just had a cold shudder down my spine.....	
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Removing Chua underwear?
 
Just had a cold shudder down my spine.....
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Couple topics i find important but neglected:
 
Making the game alt friendly. With things such as reputation to make it easier for alts to acquire amp/ability points.
Faction transfer, or mixed factions. To open up the community and allow people to play with like minded players instead of locked to one faction.	
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Loving the game to bits and I definitely see Wildstar on the right track - but gotta call upper level management BS when I see it. Sorry Dapper but there's nothing specific in your post we didn't already know - no promises about the payment model, nothing about how you'll handle the current itemization and the MASSIVE changes you promised to that.
 
Also nothing about PvP. I play mostly PvE, but I feel a major part is missing about PvP.
 
Lastly, what will you do with the population. From what I can see there are no initiatives to market Wildstar and there's not alot of people playing. It feels like I'm playing on a small RP PVP server in WoW (which isn't that bad, just isn't very nice) and there isn't a critical mass of players to make all parts of the game come alive (rated BGs, Warplots, recruiting for PvE raids, etc).	
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Just so nice to actually see some information coming out from Carbine
 
Don't stop the ball rolling, keep pushing that info out (any) the players the game, and those thinking of playing need it.	
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Couple topics i find important but neglected:
 
Making the game alt friendly. With things such as reputation to make it easier for alts to acquire amp/ability points.
Faction transfer, or mixed factions. To open up the community and allow people to play with like minded players instead of locked to one faction.
 
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And NOTHING for the PvP Community...  -_-
 
Happy New Year Carbine...	
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Love your plans for pvp. Especially the stated intensive class balances.
 
That was a hard hit in the face of the PvP community, thanks	
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Thanks for summing up what we already know. 
 	
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Thanks for summing up what we already know. 
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Guys, I understand the desire for more info--there's things I was hoping would get mention that weren't, as well. But I'd like to call your attention to this:
 
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This isn’t everything, not by a longshot.  We’ve got much more in store for you in the coming months and the bottom line is that we have very big plans for WildStar in 2015.  We hope that you’ll join the conversation and help us shape WildStar’s future.
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And NOTHING for the PvP Community...  -_-
 
Happy New Year Carbine...
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Honestly, I'll believe it when I see it.
 
All through 2014 I've seen the line "The Devs are listening" repeated like a mantra, yet the sole focus has been on throwing buggy content at the powerlevelers who get to 50 in a few days and whine about being bored, while giving nothing but a big fat bird to anyone levels 1-49.  Worse than simply not addressing issues, it seems that decisions are made on how much they can cheese off anyone who's not "hardcore".  Like Drop 3's wildly unpopular changes to harvesting, as a recent example.
 
This looks like more "The Devs are listening". Right.	
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You know what would make me happy getting rid of the attunement quest. You want to make it easier for people to have alts and enjoy the game get rid of this huge badly formed road block. World bosses are pointless and spending time in dungeons could be meaningful but nobody is queuing for them. Most people are burned out from the push for silver during launch. The attunement quest is as arbitrary as running to a adventure or dungeon to unlock it the first time and it should be gone. 
 
One other thing I would love to see now that we banished they idea of 40 mans being a great idea is a 10 man raid. Something that you can do maybe a little faster but with the bosses keeping that 20 man difficulty going. Either that or leave trash dead and create boss lockout points during raids. Spending three hours in one night and then have to clear the same trash on night two is really pointless and a waste of time. The trash doesn't seem to drop anything relevant very often so why have so much of it respawning. 
 
You do have the best combat in the business and that's the only thing keeping me around. I tried to go back to SWTOR after their last patch and combat just feels clunky and boring, but there is no real content here for people that can't commit to 3-4 nights a week for 3-4 hours. I love raiding but I have other commitments outside of work that make these huge raids almost impossible. 
 
 
Just a few things to keep in mind.
 
 
P.S. Maybe you could add an attunement coin to the elder gem vendor, for people that have already completed it once. Something you buy maybe a completed key for 150 elder gems instead of the basic key. 
 
P.S.S. Also might be nice to throw an extra incentive out to people to queue there level 50's for lower level content. Something for maybe completing 1-49 content in the group finder while queuing solo extra elder gems or glory bonus for helping the new players. If you are just coming to this game the 1-49 content is dead and that is a huge road block to get new people to 50. Some extra incentive to get 50's queuing for content in both level 50 and below would be nice. 
 
P.S.S.S. I also agree that harvesting at low levels seems a little bugged. I have to hit some plants longer then the mobs I'm killing. 	
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			Oooo exciting :D	
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Well, of course, those who were here for the entire time knew a lot of this had been talked about.  There's no new information here for us.
 
But there are a lot of returning players who have been asking, "What's changed and what's coming?"  Well, this at least deals with a summary of what they are trying to bring us.
 
I appreciate the news, but I know I'm not really the target audience here.  It is nice to get all this in one place, even if it exists in other forms scattered across the forums.  At least we have a nice sheet telling us what they've got nailed down.	
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			Hey Carbine, you need to pull the reins in on your itemization dev. He has shown repeatedly that he doesn't know what he's doing with itemization and the recent changes are the icing on this cake.	
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			Not to break up the party but there are quite a few names in here that were steadfastly against, a lot of what he intends to do, a few months ago. My how times have changed. The names I was called. The bans, I recieved!	
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Not to break up the party but there are quite a few names in here that were steadfastly against, a lot of what he intends to do, a few months ago. My how times have changed. The names I was called. The bans, I recieved!
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			My play style involves leveling and playing multiple toons but what sucks is maxing out their amp\ability points. I don't mind grinding rep or gear or whatever but it takes way to long to get maxed out and be able to compete. I typically have 1-2 raiding toons and 2-3 pvp toons. I enjoy leveling. Its my mind numbing activity. Making them drop more often just fattens pls wallets and only the wealthy get to purchase them. I don't mind grinding for them but make it less of a 12 month venture. Thanks	
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			LOL CTRL+F PvP.... NOTHING FAILBINE	
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Don't worry about us PvPers, Dapper Donatelli.  I know you probably didn't even make that post yourself, but keep in mind that choosing to go into 2015 without any indication that you're going to put effort into PvP is very disheartening.
 
I simply have to show you the EU/NA pvp servers, how they're empty and failing, for you to understand this.  There is no doubt in my mind that Carbine management as a whole is failing its target audience, failing its developers, and failing all of us consumers here. 
 
I wish I could take back the 6 months of subscription time I've been paying for, as you haven't made good on your end of the bargain here.  Unfortunately, that's in the past.  Please, get to work.	
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			You guys are doing a great job balancing pvp and making it competitive. Once the changes in drop 4 go live, along with the ratings floor, PvP will rebound like never before. I can not wait!. Thank you for your continued efforts in 1. Identifying the issues 2. Making the necessary changes even as certain players whine and cry non stop about them.	
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And as for underpants for chua, that is not what any of us had in mind when we asked for moar phat booty.   ;)
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			I remember something about guild housing but i don't see it in any of the posts for this year, is this idea abandoned? 	
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I remember something about guild housing but i don't see it in any of the posts for this year, is this idea abandoned? 
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Remember, Mike's post is only a "glimpse" of some of the things coming in 2015. There's a lot of detail we couldn't go into, as some things will be quite far out and we want to keep a few surprises in our pocket.
 
There's lots of projects we have mentioned in the past that may (or may not) be coming in 2015, but that doesn't mean we have discussed them here.
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Something I'd like to see, to help do some QA testing for you guys on the PTR is to  make anything on the PTR 'free'- so we can test for buggy content (houses, items, ect)- or even be suited up with some sort of equivalent gear for the content you want us to test (such as future raids)- maybe even make announced 'PTR raid nights' for folks to clamber together and work on testing that content as well.
 
I think that will help with the implementing it live a lot and encourage more players to 'play with things' on the PTR to report bugs.
 
Maybe even throw extra boom boxes to players who did go to the PTR. 	
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Love your game with every fiber of my soul :)
Looking forward to bug squishing, adding new content and more, MUCH MORE!
We need more activities for elder game. Because right now it starts to be boring. 4 same dungeons, 4 same adventures, 1 crafting daily, 3-4 daily zones with same quests. Housing remakes, and this is generally all I can do as lvl 50. Oh, yeah, several times GA raid, but I think we will be happy spend more time in game with something different, fishing maybe?	
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Hi together,
 
indeed, there was not that many information in the OP, veteran players not already knew. The parts that are new to me, are the lines that made my eyebrows lift the most:
 
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[...]
We will encourage and listen carefully to your – the player’s – feedback and focus development on making WildStar a more fun, less grindy, game.[...]
For example, many players love the sophistication of WildStar’s housing system -- but some never reach the level where they can try it out. Many players enjoy dungeons -- but some find they have not been appropriately prepared for the intensity of the encounters.  We also see examples where players are unable to fully customize their characters because the system can be difficult to understand and options too hard to unlock. 
 
 
What it boils down to is making sure that all the great content that we are adding, or that is already in the game, is more visible and accessible.
Getting more specific and focusing on our next update, The Protogames Initiative, we are adding many new features, including:
 
[...]
LFG upgrades – currently, some shiphands, adventures, and dungeons are intentionally hidden or need to be unlocked. Unfortunately, this keeps many players out of the content. Moving forward, all of this content will be added to an expanded LFG tool.[...]
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			This is a nice start, I agree that we need some fresh things for PvP....   also there was talk about special holidays in the game,  a liberty type day around the 4th of July timeframe, a winter festival and one for Halloween.  Are there still plans to add these to the game.  It would be nice to have small little missions scattered about and decorations for different holidays as time goes on.    Glad to hear you will be working on costuming.  There are also many additions that could be made on characters.  Hairstyles, hair colors, there is no albino chua for example,  and expansions in that area to make your character your own.  Adding Lopp as a cross faction toon would be fun idea....  slight changes in the toon graphics would make the toons slightly more substantial so that colors and costumes would be more prominent.   Slowly expand the selection of mounts, add pets/companions or toys...  and ways to customize mounts a bit, bling for the dinos, glitter and lights for the ball, colors for the hog etc.	
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I hope for draken Espers and racial change CARBINE PLS :>
 
Until then 
 	
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			Can't wait for the pets and the customization update! Love everything in this letter! ^_^	
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Oh, here it is:
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			What is the chance of having a more humanoid choice of avatars?	
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With the recent avaliability to re-customize your character, what do you think about adding new faces, hairstyles and colors across the board?
 
That would be so nice, the game is out for quite a while and we never saw anything regarding this.	
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With the recent avaliability to re-customize your character, what do you think about adding new faces, hairstyles and colors across the board?
 
That would be so nice, the game is out for quite a while and we never saw anything regarding this.
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Please oh please oh please
 
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my question exactly! Please give us new faces, hair styles and colors to mess around with! I've been waiting for this for quite some time now, and after a year, it's about time to add some more.
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			Ok, now the developers have heard “let me look the way I want, (paraphrasing). What’s the plan Sam	
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Man I would love to see more choices come in, even if it were customization stations only. Would be great!
 
But realistically, I (personally) wouldn't expect them until Drop 6 or soon after. Game isn't even at the one year mark yet on live, so I'd imagine it's not a priority at the moment.
 
But man, I hope I'm wrong! Aurin Mohawks. Just sayin'!	
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Man I would love to see more choices come in, even if it were customization stations only. Would be great!
 
But realistically, I (personally) wouldn't expect them until Drop 6 or soon after. Game isn't even at the one year mark yet on live, so I'd imagine it's not a priority at the moment.
 
But man, I hope I'm wrong! Aurin Mohawks. Just sayin'!
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			Sounds Awesome	
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			Woo	
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			Good stuff!	
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			when its going free to play?	
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when its going free to play?
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