115015-holiday-event-removal-not-a-big-deal

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== Content ==
			Let me tell you why not having the Halloween an Xmas holiday events is ok for everyone (IMO). Donatelli the game Director explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.While everyone is missing the holiday content, the fact that we are getting a ton of fixes and badly needed content is a worthwhile trade-off. So many good things coming like:- Mega Servers- The sorely needed and downright awesome Rune Changes- A completely new zone of new content- A ton of new quests- A new reputation with actual decent rewards- A sorely needed gear itemization update!- pvp fixes and streamlining- a new dungeon (low level)- endgame dungeon accessibility changes for the better- there a so many more incoming changes in this drop that I can't begin to list them allIn total it has been stated that after this incoming drop that it will change the game so much that it has been stated that Wildstar will finally be the game that it should have been on launch day- instead of what we actually got.This drop is extremely important and will either make or break the game in my opinion. If it's everything that they say then it will bring thousands of players back to the game and reward everyone that has decided to wait it out- literally! I say literally because they are literally going to send everyone some kind of account reward for those that have waited it out.All of this in exchange for giving up the 30 day 'Holiday Content' - a worthwhile trade-off in most peoples opinions.	
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			You can't really say that it is okay for everyone. People prioritise different things and you can't tell them how to feel and think. If your looking at things that way, then you should really consider this; we should already have had Drop 3 and with that in mind they should have had time for the holiday events.	
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I can agree it's a better deal. Even though they said the Shade's Eve stuff was more or less done, but still, Drop/Megaservers are much more important right now. That said, I am disappointed about the cancellation but there's always next year! Also, in passive protest, I'm currently putting together a christmas tree in my housing plot right now.
 
Rikudou also has a point, but I don't see a point in complaining now. True, we should have had the drop, and have the holidays to look forward to, but now I have fresh content, new changes, megaserver (and thus, new people) and my own housing ingenuity towards holidays to look forward to!	
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Rikudou also has a point, but I don't see a point in complaining now. True, we should have had the drop, and have the holidays to look forward to, but now I have fresh content, new changes, megaserver (and thus, new people) and my own housing ingenuity towards holidays to look forward to!
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Let me tell you why not having the Halloween an Xmas holiday events is ok for everyone. Donatelli the game Director explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.
 
While everyone is missing the holiday content, the fact that we are getting a ton of fixes and badly needed content is a worthwhile trade-off. So many good things coming like:
 
- Mega Servers
- The sorely needed and downright awesome Rune Changes
- A completely new zone of new content
- A ton of new quests
- A new reputation with actual decent rewards
- A sorely needed gear itemization update!
- pvp fixes and streamlining
- a new dungeon (low level)
- endgame dungeon accessibility changes for the better
- there a so many more incoming changes in this drop that I can't begin to list them all
 
In total it has been stated that after this incoming drop that it will change the game so much that it has been stated that Wildstar will finally be the game that it should have been on launch day- instead of what we actually got.
 
This drop is extremely important and will either make or break the game in my opinion. If it's everything that they say then it will bring thousands of players back to the game and reward everyone that has decided to wait it out- literally! I say literally because they are literally going to send everyone some kind of account reward for those that have waited it out.
 
All of this in exchange for giving up the 'Holiday Content' - a worthwhile trade-off in most peoples opinions.
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			It is alright to be really upset that there isn't going to be a Halloween or Christmas for their ingame character.  I think that the way people are going about releasing their frustration is the wrong way, though.I'm personally one of those who don't care whether it's coming out or not this year but I would still love to see it.  My main concern is that they give us quality content with the least amount of bugs possible. In my opinion, they should at least throw some christmasy trees and carved pumpkins and stuff in there to at least make it feel like they are giving us some sort of holidays though.  That would be awesome.	
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			I won't lie, I'm pretty bummed that there aren't going to be holiday events this year, I look forward to them in every game I have played in the past. I can respect and understand the decision but it doesn't mean that I have to be happy with the idea.Holiday events tend to help people during the "dry spells" between patches. They don't usually offer anything of real value for the long term but they are a nice change of pace. You can blow off some steam and it generally feels a bit more lighthearted. It doesn't hurt that you can usually earn a new costume/mount/title etc.Another bonus of holiday events is that they can be recycled every year. People aren't usually expecting the same thing they do from major drops. I don't mean that they should be exact carbon copies but they can certainly evolve from last year's version. New tweaks to the mini games, new rewards, and a few brand new things and so on. It helps both the devs and player base. That's why I think they are an important part of MMOs.I understand why they pulled the plug on them this year but I won't be thrilled if it becomes a reoccurring issue.	
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			What is the weight of a pixel or a data byte?  "Literal ton"? *blink*	
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Chua think not adding holiday events is bit sad. Is nice content to celebrate and do fun activities and science.
Chua can also understand why not being added.
Chua however not understand why Humans go ballistic over this and quit game.	
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It's not a deal at allWe are being punished for them doing a shitty job.He openly admitted they had QA and dev teams spread so thin to the point people working on drop 12/13 were using QA and developer timeand pretty much all of the horrible systems they have in place were heavily criticized long before the game even launched and just now they are finally realizing how bad they are 
and they basically admitted in a roundabout way they were pushing out untested content and using us as beta testers with a quantity over quality idealAnd now we have devs telling us even something as small as a holiday costume vendor is too much to ask for and we should just make our own halloween event...that's almost as insulting as the dev that tried to explain that the drop 2 pvp stats weren't horribly imbalanced we just didn't understand the math behind how they work. As though that would somehow make the end result different >_>When the players know better than the devs how to fix flawed game design something is just terribly wrongI'm pretty sure the devs still think you can only put pvp runes in pvp weapons. 	
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Humans go ballistic over this and quit game.
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...Even though they said the Shade's Eve stuff was more or less done, but still, Drop/Megaservers are much more important right now...
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How many humans has your research shown to be honest and quitting claims legitimate? Did Chua include variable that ballistic human is prone to exaggerate?  
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of course. Chua science infallible.
Chua science also shown when poking Ballistic Human, prone to more explosions, thus more science!
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Is it a big deal? Yes, saying that you can't manage to get a holiday pack out in December when its the first days of October is a big deal.
 
But is it an intolerable deal? To me, no, it's not. I'll miss a few things I would do with the costumes shown for Shade's Eve (and continue to lobby relentlessly for the ICI and black hoods outfits for players) but right now they desperately need to get their core systems sorted. And while I'm not thrilled with their timeline, it'll do.	
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My Aurin scouting campaign today on Nexus produced findings that more humans existing then ever! The results were quite polarizing to my findings on forum. *hands over doodles on several strips of bark* See see, many humans on Nexus!  
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Let me tell you why not having the Halloween an Xmas holiday events is ok for everyone. Donatelli the game Director explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.
 
While everyone is missing the holiday content, the fact that we are getting a ton of fixes and badly needed content is a worthwhile trade-off. So many good things coming like:
 
- Mega Servers
- The sorely needed and downright awesome Rune Changes
- A completely new zone of new content
- A ton of new quests
- A new reputation with actual decent rewards
- A sorely needed gear itemization update!
- pvp fixes and streamlining
- a new dungeon (low level)
- endgame dungeon accessibility changes for the better
- there a so many more incoming changes in this drop that I can't begin to list them all
 
In total it has been stated that after this incoming drop that it will change the game so much that it has been stated that Wildstar will finally be the game that it should have been on launch day- instead of what we actually got.
 
This drop is extremely important and will either make or break the game in my opinion. If it's everything that they say then it will bring thousands of players back to the game and reward everyone that has decided to wait it out- literally! I say literally because they are literally going to send everyone some kind of account reward for those that have waited it out.
 
All of this in exchange for giving up the 'Holiday Content' - a worthwhile trade-off in most peoples opinions.
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Chua recommend next time to use bit more technology and write coordinates too.......for..euhm...science!
Tosses away the piece of bark
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To be honest, usually such events turn into stress-mess for me.. especially when there are locked rare achievements, once-ever costume items to collect and a ton of people to compete with for them. I guess part of me is happy they have choosen to release quality, bug-free content over a possibly untested event.
 
That does not mean I am not sad I will not get some of the amazing costumes we saw previews of (datamined?). But I can live through it, haha. :)
 
Especially if they gift us all something related from *cough* these costumes.. *cough* :P (shameless again)	
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^this
 
Carbine just doesn't have the recources to put out a massive patch like drop 3 and also make the seasonal events happen. For me this is the end of any further discussion.
Those hundrets of pages of fixes and adjustments are ... just more important.
 
The other "option" is having the events and 10 players left to enjoy them.
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Not true at all, they are spreading out their resources which is their fault. Was explained on the stream and already mentioned in this thread.
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Yeah, I didn't say it is not their fault not getting it done.
I'm just saying the damage is done and if they wanna get the events running they have to cut more important stuff, which would break their neck.
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You were saying they don't have the resources, when they do.
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Yep, they don't have the recources to get it both out cause it's too late now.
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It's not a deal at all
We are being punished for them doing a shitty job.
He openly admitted they had QA and dev teams spread so thin to the point people working on drop 12/13 were using QA and developer time
and pretty much all of the horrible systems they have in place were heavily criticized long before the game even launched and just now they are finally realizing how bad they are
 
and they basically admitted in a roundabout way they were pushing out untested content and using us as beta testers with a quantity over quality ideal
And now we have devs telling us even something as small as a holiday costume vendor is too much to ask for and we should just make our own halloween event...
that's almost as insulting as the dev that tried to explain that the drop 2 pvp stats weren't horribly imbalanced we just didn't understand the math behind how they work. As though that would somehow make the end result different >_>
When the players know better than the devs how to fix flawed game design something is just terribly wrong
I'm pretty sure the devs still think you can only put pvp runes in pvp weapons.
 
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			I don't care about  ingame holidays but I have to say, after seeing Lopp I now really care about Easter ingame! I love Lopp and they must shine!	
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If they took the resources they have allocated elsewhere, then they could have made it. They keep on making bad choices and those choices are affecting the community.
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Wait.. people are QUITTING over no seasonal events? Amazing..
 
I mean yeah it would be nice, love seasonal events, but I find it odd to pay for and play a game all year, and only really care about 2-3 two week events.
 
It's in Carbine's best interest to meet the expectations of their customers, and when they decide to go back on the whole event thing and focus on fixes, they do so with a heavy heart, because they know they'll have to upset people in their playerbase. I think it's fairly safe to say that they wouldn't have done it if they didn't absolutely have to, so imo. arguments are rather moot.	
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Are some of you saying that planning and release deliverables for things like holiday events are basically poorly timed and just not implemented? That was Frosts job- planning out stuff like Holiday events along with making sure content is designed on time. The fact that so many things are not on schedule or late fixes etc are out the window may or may not be related to Frost's departure. I suppose we won't find out what really has been going on behind the scenes at Carbine for some months. 
 
The truth and facts eventually do come forwards though. I was listening to that Wildstar Nation cast from early September where they interviewed an ex-employee of Carbine who worked on Wildstar for a few years, and he really pulled back the curtain on what has been going on there, who was responsible for what problems etc. It's too bad that show is temporarily over, other than the one goofy mustache-guy on the show, it was actually quite well done and very informative. They put a lot of blame on the former president with explanation as to why (he basically bailed a month ago and was first to go).
 
It's important for Carbine to get things fixed, streamlined and changed to the new direction the game development is taking. I would have loved Halloween content, but I think trading it off for fixes and streamlining and new content and mega servers is more important. That was the reasoning from Carbine: where to spend remaining dev resources, on holiday content that lasts 30 days or permanent urgent content fixes, changes and new content.
 
If you think Holiday content could have been scheduled better so that it actually released on time, talk to Frost he was in charge of scheduling and making sure stuff was done on time. You could literally feel the stress oozing out of that last Video Update, it was a bit somber and no more goofing around for a change. Next drop is a make or break so let's see if Donatelli's drop can save the game along with Megaservers. My guess is that it's going to be a lot better.	
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I really don't see all this "content" they are adding. 1 zone that will be completed in a few weeks if that. Itemizing my gear might take 2 weeks of running dungeons.
 
This is suppose to hold us over for 4 months? I don't think so.
Sure you have 100's of pages of patch notes but it mostly looked like bug fixes not some OMG save Jesus content patch. Maybe if they stop changing the class abilities and how they work every other *cupcake*ing monthly patch you would have had more content for the game. I'm sorry, sure some of the roles\classes were a bit buggy but the non stop changes did not help.  Nerfed abilities before fixing bugs or they were OP in PVP. This was suppose to be a hardcore PVE game and they went right into PVP the 2nd drop. No one cares about PVP the entire ranking system is a flaw and needs an overhaul. How about them warplots!
 
Carbines focus on what needed to be put into the game was way off. I sure hope they get it together and start getting us content instead of whatever this garbage has been since release. I sure hope the person that came up with the tree event had no part of this new zone.	
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I agree that they could have someway managed to drop this, but I respect their answer. That's just the thing, they are answering and replying and updating us on the forums more than they used to.
 
But, personally, I think you took your comment a little too far. Being bitter and upset with past development (or lack of) isn't right to condemn, belittle or spew hatred towards those developers that are now in forefront of working on the game. There have been 3 major leader changes, and with that comes new leaders to pick up (clean up) the pieces (mess) that was left for them to deal with. Honestly, giving them a chance to do that is what needs to be done. If there are those who still feel so mad and disheartened with the game and/or it's developers, maybe now is the time to take a break from this (and it's forums) until those feelings have gone or at least subsided.
 
All of what I have said is just MY opinion, because honestly, seeing vile and doom/gloom posts seriously is not helping anything or anyone. For sure they aren't constructive criticism.
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Wait.. people are QUITTING over no seasonal events? Amazing..
 
I mean yeah it would be nice, love seasonal events, but I find it odd to pay for and play a game all year, and only really care about 2-3 two week events.
 
It's in Carbine's best interest to meet the expectations of their customers, and when they decide to go back on the whole event thing and focus on fixes, they do so with a heavy heart, because they know they'll have to upset people in their playerbase. I think it's fairly safe to say that they wouldn't have done it if they didn't absolutely have to, so imo. arguments are rather moot.
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People aren't quitting because of no seasonal events
they were hanging on waiting to see the seasonal events
take away someones reason to stick around and chances are they won't
It's not like a bunch of people that were fully content with the game just saw no seasonal events and stormed off
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			It actually is a big deal… because having the kind of casual content holidays typically provide gives value to the "virtual world" and steers people temporarily off of the contrived progression path. It has retention capabilities… more than realized I think. This was probably the wrong move by Carbine.	
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The big deal is they made the right decision.
 
They aren't ready to be able to chuck in holiday period things without risking other stuff.  They haven't said it will continue this way, it's the right decision for here and now to get stuff on track.	
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The big deal is they made the right decision.
 
They aren't ready to be able to chuck in holiday period things without risking other stuff.  They haven't said it will continue this way, it's the right decision for here and now to get stuff on track.
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 explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.
 
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It actually is a big deal… because having the kind of casual content holidays typically provide gives value to the "virtual world" and steers people temporarily off of the contrived progression path. It has retention capabilities… more than realized I think. This was probably the wrong move by Carbine.
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Chua however not understand why Humans go ballistic over this and quit game.
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They most likely would be if they allocated their resources properly.
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Are some of you saying that planning and release deliverables for things like holiday events are basically poorly timed and just not implemented? That was Frosts job- planning out stuff like Holiday events along with making sure content is designed on time. The fact that so many things are not on schedule or late fixes etc are out the window may or may not be related to Frost's departure. I suppose we won't find out what really has been going on behind the scenes at Carbine for some months.
 
The truth and facts eventually do come forwards though. I was listening to that Wildstar Nation cast from early September where they interviewed an ex-employee of Carbine who worked on Wildstar for a few years, and he really pulled back the curtain on what has been going on there, who was responsible for what problems etc. It's too bad that show is temporarily over, other than the one goofy mustache-guy on the show, it was actually quite well done and very informative. They put a lot of blame on the former president with explanation as to why (he basically bailed a month ago and was first to go).
 
It's important for Carbine to get things fixed, streamlined and changed to the new direction the game development is taking. I would have loved Halloween content, but I think trading it off for fixes and streamlining and new content and mega servers is more important. That was the reasoning from Carbine: where to spend remaining dev resources, on holiday content that lasts 30 days or permanent urgent content fixes, changes and new content.
 
If you think Holiday content could have been scheduled better so that it actually released on time, talk to Frost he was in charge of scheduling and making sure stuff was done on time. You could literally feel the stress oozing out of that last Video Update, it was a bit somber and no more goofing around for a change. Next drop is a make or break so let's see if Donatelli's drop can save the game along with Megaservers. My guess is that it's going to be a lot better.
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Can't you see they're stretched to the point of snapping?
 
This should make it even clearer to those that can't!
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Can't you see they're stretched to the point of snapping?
 
This should make it even clearer to those that can't!
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It actually is quite a big deal, but to what degree varies form person to person. For me personally it was a bit of a "what!? aww damnit...*sigh*" moment and nothing more, but for others they had been looking for the holiday event to hold them over until the next Drop, which is where the big deal comes from. In a way this puts even more pressure on Drop 3 being "perfect", because those players who are leaving due to the announcement of no holidays this year will essentially be taking a break until after the patch IF said patch is good and has the fixes, additions, and changes that those players are were looking for.
 
It's more of a deep cut though because Shade's Eve was pretty well known and out there with little tid bits of preview that got a lot of folks excited. As I recall it was even expected to a point many guessed this week we would be getting more details on Shade's Eve, but instead we got the opposite which was a cancellation of it which understandably hurt a few people. 
 
Simply put when I asked a few people in and out of game why they were leaving because of the announcement it was primarily that they felt it better to either take a break or part ways with Wildstar. The difference being those that are taking a break are looking for Drop 3 to go off without a hitch and those that are parting ways from what I gather don't want to hinge their faith/money on Drop 3...
 
I'm not angry or upset with those players as I can understand how they feel and that to them this was important to some degree or rather enough to push them over that edge to break/depart.
 
All I can really say is that it basically puts more pressure on Drop 3 going off without a hitch...	
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			It may not be a big deal to you, and that's fine. To others, it is. Many play the game simply to be immersed in the game world. For some, holiday events are a big part of that. I was greatly looking forward to them, and now I am greatly disappointed. Still love the game, still will keep playing. But the point remains. To me, it is especially disappointing because the Halloween event is all but complete. It just needs testing. I'd rather they hold off on a couple of the things coming in Drop 3 and use the time to test and implement the holiday event.	
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They have people working on drops way ahead of time, a whole year worth of drops, no they aren't. They just aren't allocating them properly.
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			Personally I've never participated in any holiday events in any game because it's too damn busy during the holidays.	
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I think we have to be careful here with tense. They had people working on drops over a year away, and the weren't allocating them properly. That much they have admitted. However, they have said this is now in the past and we will have to see how they manage things in the future. 
 
I do think it is an awful shame that they are dropping seasonal events this year. I understand Drop 3 has to be a focus but there is very little new content in there. Yes massive system overhauls and bug fixes but not much content to actually get involved in. Having some sort of Christmas event, even if it is scaled back, really would have made the wait between Drops far more palatable. So while they have said they are managing resources better I am not filled with confidence .
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For all we know they still might not have re-allocated the resources. Carbine has told us a lot of things and ended up changing it.
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I think it is pretty clear they have re-allocated the resources. All of them on Drop 3. I am not convinced this is the correct way to re-allocate them (in fact I am pretty convinced it is just as much of a problem as having them spread too thin!) but I think it is safe to say they have been re-allocated. 
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			I agree that it isn't a big deal.  I would much rather have them working on making the game better and fixing existing problems than working on a holiday event that is seasonal and could potentially add more unintended problems that will eat more time. 	
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How is that pretty clear? We don't have any actual evidence of it :)
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We have NO other content at all on the horizon. I think that is clear. I am not sure what evidence you are after so I would take statements from the company with evidence of a lack of work occurring on anything as as good enough for me.
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They have prepared content for an entire year ahead of time, they've proudly said so. So I think it's pretty clear that we have no evidence of them re-allocating their resources.
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No they said they had started work on them not finished them.
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I never claimed they finished it, I said they 'prepared'. They also said on the stream that they have allocated resources elsewhere than on Drop 3, so..... We have no actual evidence of them putting all their resources into Drop 3. Simple.
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I think at this point we should agree to disagree.
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Actually Carbine have said what Rikudou said. It's not a question of agreeing or disagree, facts are facts.
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			Yeah OP would have made more sense if the game had just released a month or 2 ago. Dont get me wrong, im glad theyre finally getting their crap together and doing something productive, however many of these things shouldve already been taken care of. Bad enough some of these "fixes" made it past beta.	
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			You not see how   Donatelli  was acting . I will be shocked to see him still there through the year . You have all these forums people saying the game fine , everything fine , greatest game ever fine , while its dying at a record pace and top level people dropping like flies . Everything must not be fine . But they can correct all the bugs and postpone all holiday events and add 1000 features .But read this closely ......... If they don't introduce a normal parallel entry into end game content . They are done !!! And there was no reason why they didn't have it in the core game . Why on earth would you base your game around just elite players . 2% is 2% no matter how many ways you add it . Tell me why there isn't a lower skill entry point into the content . ..... only reason , we wanted the elite player to feel special . ... Roflmao Fail Fail Fail . Ray Charles could of saw this coming . They deserve the failure that they had . It will be a benchmark on what not to do in future MMO's . Let build a game millions would love ..... wait wait wait , lets wall 98% out of the game ... sounds great .   ... Repeat if they don't put a parallel entry level into the raid then they are done , case close , people don't care how many dungeons or shiphands they get .	
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You not see how   Donatelli  was acting . I will be shocked to see him still there through the year . You have all these forums people saying the game fine , everything fine , greatest game ever fine , while its dying at a record pace and top level people dropping like flies . Everything must not be fine . But they can correct all the bugs and postpone all holiday events and add 1000 features .But read this closely ......... If they don't introduce a normal parallel entry into end game content . They are done !!! And there was no reason why they didn't have it in the core game . Why on earth would you base your game around just elite players . 2% is 2% no matter how many ways you add it . Tell me why there isn't a lower skill entry point into the content . ..... only reason , we wanted the elite player to feel special . ... Roflmao Fail Fail Fail . Ray Charles could of saw this coming . They deserve the failure that they had . It will be a benchmark on what not to do in future MMO's . Let build a game millions would love ..... wait wait wait , lets wall 98% out of the game ... sounds great .   
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Let me tell you why not having the Halloween an Xmas holiday events is ok for everyone. Donatelli the game Director explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.
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So I want to clear up a few things and talk about how the sausage is made a little.
 
I'm seeing the "12-16 months' worth of content prepared" thing bandied about, and this is actually the result of a statement being repeated enough where the words change enough to change the meaning. Prepared isn't the correct term and was never actually said to my knowledge. The correct term is "in pre-production," which is closer to planned than prepared. Pre-production means the content exists in design documents, concept art, and maybe a prototype or two. It hasn't even begun becoming real content yet. Having a lot of things planned out like this is great, as you can then shift the schedule according to what you see your game needs as things progress on live. Having a fixed schedule that didn't change in reaction to live game information would have been a mistake, and the schedule did shift accordingly.
 
So now let's talk a bit about holidays and why saying "No Winterfest" mid-Autumn isn't as crazy as it sounds.
 
I was working on Shade's Eve in April.
 
I realize that sounds a bit insane, but that isn't out of the ordinary. I've worked on other games where the same was very much true. Unlike most other things in game design, holidays based around real-world times of the year are immutable. You want to harness the energy they bring, and so it's very advantageous to schedule around them, but that means starting things early so you have a buffer.
 
Now, holidays are great, but they're not as important as making sure the live game is working well. We took the time we needed to fix things players were already experiencing -- all of the departments -- and that meant that the schedule changed to account for it. But Halloween and Christmas weren't interested in our bug fixes and didn't change their schedules for us.
 
When it came to Drop 3, Shade's Eve was more or less done, but it still needed a lot of proper, rigorous testing. With limited-time events, it's even more imperative that your content work and work well, because if there's a show-stopping bug that happens, every hour you spend fixing it is an hour players miss of that content for the year. QA time was vital, therefore -- particularly with some new bits of tech we received. But QA had Drop 3 on their plate, and Drop 3 -- full of many bug fixes and content that would be around all year -- was rightly deemed more important for QA to focus on. Would we have liked to get Shade's Eve in? Of course! But with finite resources, we picked giving Drop 3 the most thorough testing it could get, and it was the right call.
 
Winterfest wasn't in the same state Shade's Eve was when we stopped -- it was a rough li'l bit of content at the time. Fun, but rough. Even if we started the train back up now, finishing some part of it, testing it, and getting it out by Christmas would be a tough prospect with everything else cooking. We'd much rather deliver something that's full-featured, fun, and high quality.
 
I've been doing holiday content in this industry a long time, and I really want to show you folks what we cooked up, because I'm very proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it next year. :)	
----
			
My two cents....
 
Fixing the bugs is GREAT!  However, waiting for a major patch to fix them is not a good idea.  As fixes come out, they should be pushed to the live server.  The weekly downtime would be the best time to do so.  We're bleeding people due to bugs.
 
Pushing them to live would help to find any bugs in the updating software as well.  I assume they have been checking the software for any other bugs since they found the last one that caused the medic 3 patch week.  Even the best miss things though.
 
Edit: @Caydiem:  I agree with your method.  Just commenting on the long delay for bug fixes vs weekly ones.
 
Also need to be able to like Carbine posts.  Forum programers, HO!!!!!	
----
			
Thanks for taking the time to post Caydiem.  Insights and explanations are greatly appreciated.
 
If you're super bummed about the loss of these events then make some of your own!  I can tell you that Ansible will be hosting a guild Halloween event (our housing plot is ALMOST done for it!) and we're already working on a Winterfest plot as well.  I know it's not the same as in game events but sometimes it can be a blast to build your own fun with the tools Carbine has given us  :D	
----
			
Caydiem, we ha a discussion before and again I'm grateful for you dropping in. Always a pleasure to speak with....BUT
 
 
 
 
*hesitantly raises her mechanical hand like a shakey frightened Chua*...
Any chance of a....Lopp easter inspired holiday next year?	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
I've been doing holiday content in this industry a long time, and I really want to show you folks what we cooked up, because I'm very proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it next year. :)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Winterfest wasn't in the same state Shade's Eve was when we stopped -- it was a rough li'l bit of content at the time. Fun, but rough. Even if we started the train back up now, finishing some part of it, testing it, and getting it out by Christmas would be a tough prospect with everything else cooking. We'd much rather deliver something that's full-featured, fun, and high quality.
 
I've been doing holiday content in this industry a long time, and I really want to show you folks what we cooked up, because I'm very proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it next year. :)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Yeah OP would have been if the game had just released a month or 2 ago.
----
			It's kinda funny they say they stopped working on the holiday stuff so drop 3 would be better. but the holiday stuff might have actually given people a reason to log in and play while waiting for the legendary drop 3.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So I want to clear up a few things and talk about how the sausage is made a little.
 
I'm seeing the "12-16 months' worth of content prepared" thing bandied about, and this is actually the result of a statement being repeated enough where the words change enough to change the meaning. Prepared isn't the correct term and was never actually said to my knowledge. The correct term is "in pre-production," which is closer to planned than prepared. Pre-production means the content exists in design documents, concept art, and maybe a prototype or two. It hasn't even begun becoming real content yet. Having a lot of things planned out like this is great, as you can then shift the schedule according to what you see your game needs as things progress on live. Having a fixed schedule that didn't change in reaction to live game information would have been a mistake, and the schedule did shift accordingly.
----
			
Thanks for the post Caydiem!  I know the forums can sometimes appear doom and gloom- especially if you are a Carbine employee or developer, but you should know that there is a lot of players out here that agree with the logic behind your recent decisions for the Mega Server and Drop 3.  You guys are really late, and for that the scheduler needs a kick in the pants; however, beyond that I believe passing up on 30 day seasonal events to allocate resources into bug fixes, new content and itemization changes in drop 3 is the right call.  The latter definitely should take priority.
 
Even with the seasonal stuff out of the game for the next few holidays, I really think that Carbine at least needs to throw up some Christmas trees and garlands and the like around the capital cities.  I think we can turn an eye on Halloween decorations this time since there is so much going on for you guys right now, but Christmas....get some decorations up in Thayd my good man! 
 
EDIT: Not asking for any content....but maybe just one tree in Thayd or something?  If not whatever ;)	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Even with the seasonal stuff out of the game for the next few holidays, I really think that Carbine at least needs to throw up some Christmas trees and garlands and the like around the capital cities.  I think we can turn an eye on Halloween decorations this time since there is so much going on for you guys right now, but Christmas....get some decorations up in Thayd my good man! 
----
			
Winterfest isn't much about Christmas trees and festive garlands, and the garlands we have for Winterfest would make... less sense without context. Let's just say it's less about holiday cheer and more about consumerism in its purist form. ;)
 
Also, as I've mentioned, the city decoration isn't spawned in, but rather uses the plug/socket system similar to housing, which requires both art time and testing.
			
				
	Edited October 2, 2014 by Caydiem	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
......
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It's kinda funny they say they stopped working on the holiday stuff so drop 3 would be better. but the holiday stuff might have actually given people a reason to log in and play while waiting for the legendary drop 3.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
That said, it's not stopping me!(I do wish I had a straight pine tree though! You have no idea how annoying those lights were to put up! Still need to make presents for under it, too...)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh my goodness I utterly adore it. Don't worry people Christmas will be at Kavi's house!
----
			Unnaceptable for me unfortunately.  Sorry Wildstar...you will be missed =(	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So I want to clear up a few things and talk about how the sausage is made a little.
 
I'm seeing the "12-16 months' worth of content prepared" thing bandied about, and this is actually the result of a statement being repeated enough where the words change enough to change the meaning. Prepared isn't the correct term and was never actually said to my knowledge. The correct term is "in pre-production," which is closer to planned than prepared. Pre-production means the content exists in design documents, concept art, and maybe a prototype or two. It hasn't even begun becoming real content yet. Having a lot of things planned out like this is great, as you can then shift the schedule according to what you see your game needs as things progress on live. Having a fixed schedule that didn't change in reaction to live game information would have been a mistake, and the schedule did shift accordingly.
 
So now let's talk a bit about holidays and why saying "No Winterfest" mid-Autumn isn't as crazy as it sounds.
 
I was working on Shade's Eve in April.
 
I realize that sounds a bit insane, but that isn't out of the ordinary. I've worked on other games where the same was very much true. Unlike most other things in game design, holidays based around real-world times of the year are immutable. You want to harness the energy they bring, and so it's very advantageous to schedule around them, but that means starting things early so you have a buffer.
 
Now, holidays are great, but they're not as important as making sure the live game is working well. We took the time we needed to fix things players were already experiencing -- all of the departments -- and that meant that the schedule changed to account for it. But Halloween and Christmas weren't interested in our bug fixes and didn't change their schedules for us.
 
When it came to Drop 3, Shade's Eve was more or less done, but it still needed a lot of proper, rigorous testing. With limited-time events, it's even more imperative that your content work and work well, because if there's a show-stopping bug that happens, every hour you spend fixing it is an hour players miss of that content for the year. QA time was vital, therefore -- particularly with some new bits of tech we received. But QA had Drop 3 on their plate, and Drop 3 -- full of many bug fixes and content that would be around all year -- was rightly deemed more important for QA to focus on. Would we have liked to get Shade's Eve in? Of course! But with finite resources, we picked giving Drop 3 the most thorough testing it could get, and it was the right call.
 
Winterfest wasn't in the same state Shade's Eve was when we stopped -- it was a rough li'l bit of content at the time. Fun, but rough. Even if we started the train back up now, finishing some part of it, testing it, and getting it out by Christmas would be a tough prospect with everything else cooking. We'd much rather deliver something that's full-featured, fun, and high quality.
 
I've been doing holiday content in this industry a long time, and I really want to show you folks what we cooked up, because I'm very proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it next year. :)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So I want to clear up a few things and talk about how the sausage is made a little.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Let me tell you why not having the Halloween an Xmas holiday events is ok for everyone (IMO). Donatelli the game Director explained that because there won't be any holiday events that instead they were able to implement a literal TON of new content, bug fixes and a lot of new positive changes in the next drop.
 
While everyone is missing the holiday content, the fact that we are getting a ton of fixes and badly needed content is a worthwhile trade-off. So many good things coming like:
 
- Mega Servers
- The sorely needed and downright awesome Rune Changes
- A completely new zone of new content
- A ton of new quests
- A new reputation with actual decent rewards
- A sorely needed gear itemization update!
- pvp fixes and streamlining
- a new dungeon (low level)
- endgame dungeon accessibility changes for the better
- there a so many more incoming changes in this drop that I can't begin to list them all
 
In total it has been stated that after this incoming drop that it will change the game so much that it has been stated that Wildstar will finally be the game that it should have been on launch day- instead of what we actually got.
 
This drop is extremely important and will either make or break the game in my opinion. If it's everything that they say then it will bring thousands of players back to the game and reward everyone that has decided to wait it out- literally! I say literally because they are literally going to send everyone some kind of account reward for those that have waited it out.
 
All of this in exchange for giving up the 30 day 'Holiday Content' - a worthwhile trade-off in most peoples opinions.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I couldn't agree more with this opinion.  I was very much against the holidays anyway for a number of gameplay and non-gameplay related reasons.  I hope Carbine will take this positive feedback and rethink whether to implement them at all. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So THAT is where the grinch hides out all year long. We need to head over to your house and send some holiday cheer!
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It seems like you missed the last livestream when donatelli literally said drops 12/13 were eating up QA time that should have been used for more urgent matters. That is a bit more than just design documents
 
I understand your current predicament, I really do
but you guys need to understand how far you've been pushing your players. It's getting to a point where everything carbine says seems to just be some fantasy about how they imagine their game should be. Shade's Eve was showcased at a major gaming convention even and got poofed
 
The way he went on about how most other mmo's just use decorations for holidays. We use some overly complex spawning in new terrain method that requires us to individually test every npc and player interaction. What the hell was wrong with decorations?
----
			
@Caydiem
 
I am VERY VERY bummed by the lack of holiday event for the year, and as seen in my previous thread and posts it was a big deal for me (not a rage quit deal like some are making it, but it does show concerns).   While I understand the inability to push out something for Halloween at now, shooting down the Christmas holiday is a bit too hasty no?
 
I understand the time frame it takes to develop and test these things are long but couldn't the team have saved current 1/2 developed holiday contents for next year and consider something simple that can be completed in a short time to help booster game moral? Considering how long it takes to develop and test a patch we would theoretically never have time to push out holiday events because at any given time there would be a drop in development or testing, and if it is always the same teams working on both (all) contents, would they never have time for for smaller events? Or does this mean that every holiday event we have from now on will mean regular content drops getting even more delay than they already are? 
 
 
From players standpoint, we want good, well thought out events. And i'm glad you guys are trying hard to meet our position.  BUT (and I hate to say this), perhaps this once, you guys might consider just this once take things from a business stand point and release some fluff material to hold on to your players. Even if it's just a GM held ingame event where GM's show up in game on the holidays and talk and do stupid stuff (bingo? scavenger hunt? pvp with GM's?). GM held events are less time and resource consuming, no real bugs so to say, players are very forgiving of errors and happenings because we understand you are only human, and they give big draws for people to interact (lets face it, social aspect of this game is VERY lacking...), and a good source of advertisement and streaming event that pretty much requires minimal back end effort.
 
 
 
And
@Lightwish01
 
As i mentioned above, but rephrasing to more directly question your topic.
 
Drop 3, which seems to be the one you have stated with the changes, is good and all, but you have to consider the fact that there will always be a content drop in development. Next year during every major holiday, there will still be some drop in development or testing. Sure this is a bit of a special case with the way Drop 3 is being handle and the server merger happening all of a sudden, but we are all expecting these things to be completed before November.... What carbine has pretty much stated is that they are unable to come out with anything (regardless of how minor) within that 1 month or so period to push things out for Christmas.  It don't need to be the BIG thing that they had originally started, but they pretty much announced that if it's not big, it's not worth their time....Are you really okay with this?
 
Frankly if they had come out and said they can't push out the big Christmas they had originally planned, but will celebrate with a more "humble" Christmas decorations and items, I believe many of us would be understanding and accepting of it.
 
 
 
sincerely
~A Chrismas-less Anvil	
----
			
Launch: "This first experience will make or break this game."
Drop1 (Strain) : "This new area will make or break this game"
Drop2 (sabotage) : This focus on PVP will make or break this game"
Drop3 (Defile) : This patch will make or break this game"
Drop - (all future drops/updates and otherwise) : "Will make or break this game"
 
Get over it. Some people will quit, some people will stick around. There will be no "10 people left around" That's just silly. There will always be people here. The game provides something for everyone and if not then those people need not play here if it's not their cup of tea. What I love is to see people complaining over content and when it was conceived then worked on then prepared and then is/was being tested to make sure we have a quality gameplay experience when we get the content.
 
I'm sad to hear there won't be holiday thingies but I'm happy that it is because they want to focus on making the oncoming content more stable and fun. Although I can understand how some people might be upset at some things It baffles me why they don't just cancel and stop cloggin the forums with the trolling. Everyone has a right to their opinion but being so definite in their accusations that "This game is failing" "this game sucks and it's devs are incompetent" "I'm canceling and I think I matter so here i'm gonna make sure I look like and ass by acting like i'm important and telling you all about it in a grandiose way."
 
Ah well. On topic, I'm excited to see the holiday content next year.
 
*not to everyone. 	
----
			
I can only hope this game is still around by next October. Even Stormtalon's daily zones have been thinning populationwise.
 
Also, I resent missing Halloween content in exchange for what Defile offers. Great, more public boss HP sacks you beat on with a zerg mindlessly without any strategy or engagement, and more 5+ man group quests that nobody else after the initial wave of players will do and will leave latecomers hanging on.
 
I wish they'd drop these silly "public events", which are a massive failure. The Tree Event is so utterly unrewarding, that people just let it fail and kill the antiprimals to quickly get that boring event done, because the trash waves drop nothing of value and most items gifted as a reward are salvage trash, and the epic quality items are worse than some dungeon blues.
 
Just stick to solo Drusera-like instances and veteran shiphands with PROPER rewards. No more dull, repetitive 30-day rep grinds for garbage, poorly itemized items please.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I do believe he said they had teams working on drops like 12, that they had too much content in queue for QA, but not that those drops specifically were eating QA time.  The direct quote below:
----
			So they i htink they should put the halloween event on the PTR and give rewards for testing the event out on PTR	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Actually that is not the direct quote that was what Sunshine wrote paraphrasing Mike (Come on you know how hard TL:DRs are they didn't get it word for word, probably because Mike rambled a bit at this point and didn't quite finish whole sentances. They also didn't include all the important nerf gun incidents so make sure you keep up with yours otherwise I miss half the fun!) The actual quote was:
 
"We had teams working on Drop 12, Drop 13 down the road. The problem was QA couldn't *pause* and it is not there fault it is legitematiate they couldsn't possibly, there wasn't enough QA people to turn around and go 'Hey we are looking at this, but then this team just got finished with their work and they, the 12 guys need someone to look their stuff. So we spread QA way too thin."
 
Note he does say the "12 guys need someone to look at their stuff" so either this means QA were indeed looking at parts of drop 12 or they just happen to have 12 guys...
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The way he went on about how most other mmo's just use decorations for holidays. We use some overly complex spawning in new terrain method that requires us to individually test every npc and player interaction. What the hell was wrong with decorations?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So I want to clear up a few things and talk about how the sausage is made a little.
 
I'm seeing the "12-16 months' worth of content prepared" thing bandied about, and this is actually the result of a statement being repeated enough where the words change enough to change the meaning. Prepared isn't the correct term and was never actually said to my knowledge. The correct term is "in pre-production," which is closer to planned than prepared. Pre-production means the content exists in design documents, concept art, and maybe a prototype or two. It hasn't even begun becoming real content yet. Having a lot of things planned out like this is great, as you can then shift the schedule according to what you see your game needs as things progress on live. Having a fixed schedule that didn't change in reaction to live game information would have been a mistake, and the schedule did shift accordingly.
 
So now let's talk a bit about holidays and why saying "No Winterfest" mid-Autumn isn't as crazy as it sounds.
 
I was working on Shade's Eve in April.
 
I realize that sounds a bit insane, but that isn't out of the ordinary. I've worked on other games where the same was very much true. Unlike most other things in game design, holidays based around real-world times of the year are immutable. You want to harness the energy they bring, and so it's very advantageous to schedule around them, but that means starting things early so you have a buffer.
 
Now, holidays are great, but they're not as important as making sure the live game is working well. We took the time we needed to fix things players were already experiencing -- all of the departments -- and that meant that the schedule changed to account for it. But Halloween and Christmas weren't interested in our bug fixes and didn't change their schedules for us.
 
When it came to Drop 3, Shade's Eve was more or less done, but it still needed a lot of proper, rigorous testing. With limited-time events, it's even more imperative that your content work and work well, because if there's a show-stopping bug that happens, every hour you spend fixing it is an hour players miss of that content for the year. QA time was vital, therefore -- particularly with some new bits of tech we received. But QA had Drop 3 on their plate, and Drop 3 -- full of many bug fixes and content that would be around all year -- was rightly deemed more important for QA to focus on. Would we have liked to get Shade's Eve in? Of course! But with finite resources, we picked giving Drop 3 the most thorough testing it could get, and it was the right call.
 
Winterfest wasn't in the same state Shade's Eve was when we stopped -- it was a rough li'l bit of content at the time. Fun, but rough. Even if we started the train back up now, finishing some part of it, testing it, and getting it out by Christmas would be a tough prospect with everything else cooking. We'd much rather deliver something that's full-featured, fun, and high quality.
 
I've been doing holiday content in this industry a long time, and I really want to show you folks what we cooked up, because I'm very proud of it. I hope you'll enjoy it next year. :)
----
			
I wanna leave this quote here because I feel that Carbine might have forgotten; "Mike Donatelli: I understand that an MMO is about value. We’re asking you to pay a sub so we need to make sure that you have stuff to do"
 
 
http://gamingbolt.com/wildstar-interview-raids-more-raids-and-even-more-raids-in-your-mmo
 
 
 
Since there are so few people around, doing things in game as you know is very difficult and with the holiday events being canceled, I'm not really sure what 'our stuff to do is'.
 
 
Edit: There is a lot of other good information in that interview. People should have a re-read.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Caydiem, and I mean with with all due gentleness, but this is staggeringly distressing.
 
"I was working on Shade's Eve in April."
"Shade's Eve was more or less done",
"But with finite resources, we picked giving Drop 3 the most thorough testing it could get, and it was the right call."
 
So, just to be clear here, what you're saying is that the current state of Carbine is that even with beginning work on an event back in April, an event that had a clear and precise deadline, you could not manage to get material that was all but finished in the game on time?
 
Wow.
 
I'm not sure that you could have written a more damning state of play if you had tried. You've painted the picture of a studio in free-fall, where so many personnel are running to address critical bugs that even material that was on display and is "more or less done" has to be discarded.
 
I like Wildstar, I like it a great deal. But the quote above is just shocking, because it makes me wonder how long a company that is in crisis mode already can keep cutting things out. 
 
Edit: I hadn't realized that this material wasn't just nearly done,there are videos posted of it.  That's... yeah, looks great. Really wish it was actually, you know, going to be seen by folks at some point. I mean in game, that is.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
People complained about bugs.  They said nothing was more important than bug fixes.  They said that there shouldn't be another content drop until Carbine fixed the damn game.
 
I'm pretty consistently surprised by both A: how little people think about the repercussions of what they're asking for and B: how little time they think it takes to do all of this.  Things can look pretty good in a scenic video for promotion.  Turning it into actual manipulable in-game content without causing any kind of bugs on the live server requires some pretty epic amounts of testing.  You have to test how all of these elements work on every conceivable system in every conceivable way from every conceivable angle.
 
Me?  I thought the game was solid enough out of the gate that I didn't think they needed to hit the brakes on content drops to do nothing but bug fixes.  I think we'd be fine eating a few bugs now that the community can see how long "bug free" takes.  But I don't mind it in the long run; they're not sitting on their hands.
 
It just surprises me when people think QA is an instantaneous panacea.  They have megaservers going live this month and their new megadrop at the end of this month if not the beginning of November, sitting essentially right on top of when Halloween would be.  There wasn't QA enough to do that testing on all three.  I'm not sure why that seems so shocking to everyone.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
People complained about bugs.  They said nothing was more important than bug fixes.  They said that there shouldn't be another content drop until Carbine fixed the damn game.
 
I'm pretty consistently surprised by both A: how little people think about the repercussions of what they're asking for and B: how little time they think it takes to do all of this.  Things can look pretty good in a scenic video for promotion.  Turning it into actual manipulable in-game content without causing any kind of bugs on the live server requires some pretty epic amounts of testing.  You have to test how all of these elements work on every conceivable system in every conceivable way from every conceivable angle.
 
Me?  I thought the game was solid enough out of the gate that I didn't think they needed to hit the brakes on content drops to do nothing but bug fixes.  I think we'd be fine eating a few bugs now that the community can see how long "bug free" takes.  But I don't mind it in the long run; they're not sitting on their hands.
 
It just surprises me when people think QA is an instantaneous panacea.  They have megaservers going live this month and their new megadrop at the end of this month if not the beginning of November, sitting essentially right on top of when Halloween would be.  There wasn't QA enough to do that testing on all three.  I'm not sure why that seems so shocking to everyone.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Caydiem,
-snip-
Wow. 
 
I'm not sure that you could have written a more damning state of play if you had tried. You've painted the picture of a studio in free-fall, where so many personnel are running to address critical bugs that even material that was on display and is "more or less done" has to be discarded.
-snip-
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Haha.. 'a more damning'.. that is a fairly dramatic statement to read. :) Why did you hide it behind a white background?
 
Anyhow, it has already been explained that there is content in various stages in production (including the holiday content) but the studio priorities have changed and it halted everything until they are done with the Megaservers and the next Drop.
 
Sadly the holiday content took a hit (ready or not) because they needed to focus their resources as a studio for a bug-free quality next Drop.
No need to target Caydiem because it will not 'magically' release the content, so there are no good motives there. If nothing else, from their comment I realized they really wanted to share the content with us and are pretty bummed about it too.
 
It could have been better, yes but I would rather focus on what is coming instead. :)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
First, thanks for pointing out the white background. Ugh, terrible forum editor...
 
Second... it seems like you're disagreeing with me, but nothing you said seems to be contrary to what I said. I mean, if anything you seem to be agreeing: "they needed to focus their resources as a studio for a bug-free quality next Drop", well, yeah, that's... kinda my point. That is, suddenly having to drop everything, even things that should be very easy to implement, so that the next big thing doesn't crash and burn is a very worrisome sign.
 
Finally, I'm not making Caydiem a "target". Hers is, indeed, a tale of woe, all the more so for it clearly not being her decision (it's her work being shelved/binned, after all), and i'm honestly not sure if you're impugning my motives above or...? I mean, do you really think that Shade's Eve content that has been shelved is going to show next year? 18 months after they started work on it? Yeah... that would be a thing all right.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
While I agree with the holiday content being a sad removal, I definitely don't agree with everything you say, including the way some things are presented.
That is understandable, no?
 
You assume that 'things should be easy to implement' and that is something I clearly disagree because we just don't know that. Isn't it wrong to draw assumptions based on something you don't know?
 
Lastly, I would rather not talk on behalf of Caydiem and all the rest of the people who worked on the holiday content because we just don't have all the details. I am however eager to see the content (improved further and expanded) next time around. :)
 
Ps. Motives, no. Next year, yes.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Umm. I'm actually going to go with "no" for the first question. I honestly don't know what I am saying that you think is wrong. Simply put, I think it's a really bad sign when you have to pull all resources the way they have. You... don't think that's a bad sign? 
 
The problem with the "we just don't know" what is hard or easy is... we're not talking about a raid or something that is going to be hammered at for months on end, we're talking about a)  a seasonal event that is only available for a short period of time, b ) could be, at bare minimum, a bunch of funny hats, and c) simply by comparison, should be the simplest content to implement. Now, we can argue about those things being true, and certainly Carbine was apparently aiming for something more complicated then funny hats, but it's simply untenable to claim that Carbine knew what they were doing on holiday events while at the same time they are admitting that they have fallen flat on their faces as far as holiday events go. C'mon man, they literally cancelled "Christmas", that's not good.
 
As for your last point... I'm basically going to go back to my first point and say I don't know what you're trying to say. 
----
			
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I actually do find it can be a good sign too. Depends on how you choose to see it. (keyword: choose?)
 
After thinking about it, I am actually glad I see a company making bold moves to secure the quality of the game for the next months. To me, this means they have long-term goals. The easy solution would be to release a potentially buggy event that would cause more stress, chaos and harm than give joy. They could just cash-in the earnings from the people who would return for the holiday event and back to the same old.
 
I wouldn't like that to be fair.
 
Instead they made it clear that they are focusing on the future of the game by fixing things up, for the long run. That is hopeful and promises a stable future.
 
I want that for Wildstar.
 
That does not mean I am not sad about the game event.. Haha.. you really should see my first reactions, I am quite sad I will not be getting any new costumes.
 
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What you seem to be missing, possibly by intention, is that this so called "bold move" should never have been necessary to begin with
 
what you see as a bold move others are seeing as a company putting tons of work into something, promoting it right until release, then pulling it away in some sort of panicked obsessive state
 
"we've taken our game to the brink of death so cancelling everything except our miracle patch which will also be delayed indefinitely" is not confidence inspiring
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What you seem to be missing, possibly by intention, is that this so called "bold move" should never have been necessary to begin with
 
what you see as a bold move others are seeing as a company putting tons of work into something, promoting it right until release, then pulling it away in some sort of panicked obsessive state
 
"we've taken our game to the brink of death so cancelling everything except our miracle patch which will also be delayed indefinitely" is not confidence inspiring
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Hey folks,
 
So, Caydiem has posted all the "inside info" from the Dev side and she has way more insight into that side of things. But I do want to try and clarify why folk shouldn't be worried about the future.
 
This all comes down to prioritization and more of a managerial issue, rather than being able to develop and implement awesome content.
 
As Donatelli mentions in the Nexus Report, QA was spread too thin on content that is faaaar ahead in the future. There was too much of a "TEST ALL THE THINGS" thing going on and that was causing issues.
However, we know this now and we're addressing it. Yes, it means that things like Shades Eve and even Winterfest need to go and that absolutely *sucks*. I was really hyped for both myself, especially from a Community aspect. But, it means that we can deliver much more polished, stable, quality content in the main drops for content that will stick around.
 
I don't think there is anybody here at Carbine who will argue that we should have had this in-hand from the start. But we can't change the past, instead we can focus on the future and do our best to ensure we deliver moving forwards.
 
The next drop is not a "miracle", it's solid new content and with tons of fixes, updates and changes we know a lot of people are eagerly awaiting, but we do want to get this one *right*. That's why we're focusing so much on it, why it's resulted in cancelling Shades Eve etc.
 
I understand folks will be upset and I do not blame you, I'm upset too. But this is the state of things and we're ultimately trying to do what's best for the game moving forwards.	
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Thanks for the update Anlath!
 
I am very pleased with Carbine taking a more active approach to QA.  I am sure once they streamline their processes and testing, content drops will get back on the path they promised.
 
This is a learning experience and I am happy that Carbine has the Humility ( unlike other MMORPG companies ) to admit to the players, that they are working on things to make their product better!
 
Well done Carbine and Thank you! :)	
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Thank you for the reassurance Mark. Caydiem's responses really were insightful and helpful and I am trying not to be negative. I just worry as I seriously enjoy this game and do not want bad things to happen to it, ever. While I understand mistakes were made in the past, I worry that the new priority of so much focus on Drop 3 is not for the best either. There needs to be a balance between looking to the future and looking to the present and it is not clear if that has been reached.
 
However, I thought you were the UK CM:
 
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This all comes down to prioritization and more of a managerial issue, rather than being able to develop and implement awesome content.
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Thank you for the reassurance Mark. Caydiem's responses really were insightful and helpful and I am trying not to be negative. I just worry as I seriously enjoy this game and do not want bad things to happen to it, ever. While I understand mistakes were made in the past, I worry that the new priority of so much focus on Drop 3 is not for the best either. There needs to be a balance between looking to the future and looking to the present and it is not clear if that has been reached.
 
However, I thought you were the UK CM:
 
 
Disgraceful! 
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Haha! As I often write up newsposts and stuff, my spelling/grammar checker is set to NA. :P They don't like me correcting all their Z's and lack of U's! :P
 
Anyway, we are definitely still looking at the future. We have plans beyond the next Drop and hopefully we will have another "state of the game" style update to talk a little about those plans and let folks know it's not "Next Drop or Go home".
 
But I do think making sure the next drop is as stable and solid as we can make it, is very important. I'm firmly "on the team" when it comes to that decision. Once this drop lands and everything is gravy, then we can probably shift the balance a bit more but not spread it too thin. Not my call, but that's my view anyway.
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			As others have already mentioned, why is the Xmas event being skipped? It's past Halloween and should definitely be past Drop 3.	
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As others have already mentioned, why is the Xmas event being skipped? It's past Halloween and should definitely be past Drop 3.
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Once this drop lands and everything is gravy...
 
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I'm afraid Caydiem or somebody from the production side of things may need to weigh in with a firm answer on that, but I suspect it will be about priority and what is coming in the drop after this next one.
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Forgive me for being persistent, but that kinda feels slightly wrong since at that point there should be time for both? We surely won't be seeing Drop 4 until next year - January/February?
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I am still unsure why this means we get nothing instead, but that is the reasoning for no Winterfest currently provided. I understand it would normally come out before Christmas so you are looking at mid-December rather than the end, but that should still give a month and a half after Drop 3. 
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Forgive me for being persistent, but that kinda feels slightly wrong since at that point there should be time for both? We surely won't be seeing Drop 4 until next year - January/February?
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Failure to prioritize lead to holiday cancellations.
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Did you see the earlier part about how long they prepare this code in advance?
 
No one here has any idea how long it takes to code a winter event, but a month and a half to full code and QA anything is a pretty aggressive timeline.
 
And even if it were quick, for me, if it's between winter event or new dungeon in January, I'd take the new dungeon every day and twice on Sunday.
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What fixes/features that have been done since launch (or are part of drop 3) would you have prioritized below the holiday events?
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It also should never be a choice between a holiday event or a dungeon. It should always be both.
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The next drop is not a "miracle", it's solid new content and with tons of fixes, updates and changes we know a lot of people are eagerly awaiting, but we do want to get this one *right*. That's why we're focusing so much on it, why it's resulted in cancelling Shades Eve etc.
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Unless you are a game developer and familiar with their code base, you have no basis on which to make this statement.
 
One of my pet peeves is when people, especially non programmers, tell me how easy or timely it should be to make changes to code or create features.
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More like testing the holiday events over wasting QA's looking at drop 8-12 that's still a long way off from even being a reality.
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Actually my basis for that was the next sentence, which you failed to quote, where I explained that the company told us they COULD deliver monthly content and even stated that this was the reason they were asking us to pay a subscription. I am not guessing I am just going from what this company said.
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