120766-new-player-issues-and-suggestions

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After playing W* for some weeks, I would like to share some of my experiences,especially concerning "new players":
I tried different chars, maximum level reached 32. I still like the game, don´t know, how itwill be, when reaching L50 and higher challenges (more dungeons, 10 player content, raids).The content is funny. Questing is more funny than in some other mmo's, and/or as funny as questing can be.Combat system is very good. Game is more challenging and difficult as most other mmo's. Nice shiphands and dungeons.But there are issues ("->" shows suggestions), esp. concering the lack of playersIts difficult to get other friends/players into the game, because:
hardware requirements to high (PCs, where actual mmo's run ok, won´t run W*, eg. HD2000 graphic) -> requirements and performance should by improved
guest passes difficult to get, expire to fast (7 days are not much time) -> strongly suggest: provide easy trial version with restricted level (may be 10) and chat (no global chat).
expensive abo model -> reduce costs for new players  (may be timed actions with 1/3/6 month for half price, ...)
When playing, its difficult to get connection with other players:
low level areas are empty -> place open world events all over the maps, that are interesting for high levels
strict fraction separation makes it difficult to come together -> fraction transfer
high level players not very much interested in noobs, only waiting for other players ready to raid: new players feel alone and overcharged without help, most heard answer: "level to 50, then everything gets better"
no game intern voice chat, although mandatory for group content -> implement voice chat (or at least provide teamspeak server)
Its difficult to find connection to other players, esp. a guild, because:
 
many guilds are filled with inactive players
no game intern list of guilds, its not everyones matter to search through various forums, above all many forum threads are outdated  -> implement guild functionality (size, how many online), with short description and application functionn (for me a most wanted)
no global chat, so low level players can´t chat to the high levels, because they are located in higher zones -> switch on global chat (optionally)
some minor, but sluggish things like:
 
not possibly to send mail without full name writing, -> eg. "right clicking" on character, in social lists,..
moving and sizing of ui elements difficult and inconsistent -> needs improvement
-> receive traded things directly into inventory, not by circuit mail
-> send items to other players by "right clicking"
-> housing should be optionally account wide (its no fun to decorate multiple houses for every twink)
-> increase inventory and bank slot sizes
 	
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Glad you're having fun with WildStar ;)
 
Getting people into the game.
hardware requirements: Yep, this game demands decent systems and more importantly, proper configuration. Just having the most powerful CPU and Graphics Card won't cut it. Your mainboard will need to play nice as well. AMD is known to have issues. I agree though, optimization is something that would really benefit the game.
I think the idea for Trial etc was suggested before, not sure what the outcome was for that.
Sorry no. The price is standard for any MMO out on the market.
Connection with other players
Good idea, might really get people to leave the cities more often. Do you have some concrete examples or suggestions?
Has been requested for a long time, but not much moving unfortunately.
Sorry but that's not entirely correct. We have many people actually helping out newbies or lower levels. Maybe you're just unlucky and running into the wrong kind of people.
Rather not have this. Seen it in WoW, horrible experience and TS does it simply way better.
Connection with guild
Depends on the guild.
Would be nice. Seen this in many other games. But what about guilds with application processes?
global chat is controlled by players. There's global channels and circles per server, use the forums. We had global chat in beta, and the experience was horrible. Which is the reason the community and devs agreed to have it removed.
minor things
That's due MegaServers. Full name is the identifier cause many have the same surname or first name
Absolutely!
You'll appreciate the mail later on ingame when you're carrying around all that crap you need
Sounds like lazy mode to me, and prone to lose things.
You're not forced/required to do the housing on alts
maybe....	
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Glad you're having fun with WildStar ;)
 
Getting people into the game.
Sorry no. The price is standard for any MMO out on the market.Sorry yes. standard or not doesn't matter, as W* lacks new players !Connection with other players
Sorry but that's not entirely correct. We have many people actually helping out newbies or lower levels. Maybe you're just unlucky and running into the wrong kind of people.Sorry, but I had a couple of discussion with players, having that problem, and with members of guilds, who confirmed this. Of course, there are also veterans helping. But they are rare, because of the chat problem, or because thye are only online for raid purposese (e.g. see thread Guild Xfers). Fine to hear, that in your guild it's better.Connection with guild
Depends on the guild.
Of course it is. Personally I ve been in 2 guilds,one with 30 members, mostly no one online, one with 300, mostly 3-max 9 online.
 
global chat is controlled by players. There's global channels and circles per server, use the forums. We had global chat in beta, and the experience was horrible. Which is the reason the community and devs agreed to have it removed.
global channels, if one finds them, they are as dead, as all the low level zone chats, so part of the problem. In a well populated game, global chats produce some serious problems. But W* is not well populated, so as long as its a problem to reach other players, this option should be switched on again. And where is the problem ? You can always mute any channel, if you don't want to read it.	OK, when then every veteran mutes the global channel ...one can comprehend waht that would mean.
	 
minor things
That's due MegaServers. Full name is the identifier cause many have the same surname or first namewhat matters ? I don´t want to remember and mistype complicated names, when adressing mails, thats antiquated.You're not forced/required to do the housing on altsno, I am not forced, but I want the usefull, but expensive or seldom, features for all my twinks, and not grind them for every char again and again.maybe.... 
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-> housing should be optionally account wide (its no fun to decorate multiple houses for every twink
 
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some comments
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Are you sure Advice is global?  I thought they zone locked that with the rest of the global channels.  Regardless, IMO the capital city's Advice, Trade and PvP channels should be changed to include (Celestion, Algoroc, Elevar, Deradune).
 
The problem with player created global channels is that nobody's advertising them in the early zones.  It's unlikely that a new person will find out about them until they hit Thayd or Illum.
 
I think that the zone order puts the capital city too late.  You should get there after the first zone off the arc-ship and not the second.	
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Are you sure Advice is global?  I thought they zone locked that with the rest of the global channels.  Regardless, IMO the capital city's Advice, Trade and PvP channels should be changed to include (Celestion, Algoroc, Elevar, Deradune).
 
The problem with player created global channels is that nobody's advertising them in the early zones.  It's unlikely that a new person will find out about them until they hit Thayd or Illum.
 
I think that the zone order puts the capital city too late.  You should get there after the first zone off the arc-ship and not the second.
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I'm pretty sure Advice is global.  At least I was talking to someone who said they were in Celestion on it when I was in Thayd.  Maybe they already did what you're suggesting?  Or maybe he was actually in Thayd?  He was a new player, but that's why I thought Advice was global.
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Could be.  I don't see a lot of /a traffic so I assumed it was locked too.
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Unless it has changed advice follows the same restrictions as zone chat. At most it could be wider to include region, but it isn't global as far I know.
 
In regard to the OP though...
What server and faction are you playing? On Entity Dominion side many people use "EntityLFM" and "WSRP"(for Wildstar RP) it is a little dry not during peak hours, but you get conversations going and during peak times it's very busy. I try to advertise both to new players and recruits in our guild (especially for my guild since we're more weekend oriented and so helping them with social options on weekdays helps)
 
Wildstar is challenging, but you don't need voice communication to do the content other than raiding in which most if not all people who raid are suually guilds with their own servers that are of better quality than all of the in-game voice systems I've played with in MMOs before. VOIPs can help, but they're not mandatory and people who say they are or request you use one have one ready to use for premade or even pug group channels. 	
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-> housing should be optionally account wide (its no fun to decorate multiple houses for every twink) 
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I'm gonna go ahead and say I'd prefer a "no" on this one...as one of many, many housing addicts, I dont think I have ENOUGH houses!
 
Also, what server are you on? If you're on Entity, I may have to call you out on what times you play. I play at various times throughout the day and the afternoons into late night are when it gets busiest, but I've seen many new players and returning players lately all throughout the zones. I've seen them grouping up to help each other, find guilds to play with and learn from, etc.
 
Also on Entity, there is a LFG channel that you can do that is global and there's usually a lot of people in there who are looking to run something (normal and vet) or who need help and get it there. The people who started the LFG channel are online and spreading their Ads quite often just so that new people like yourself can see it and join it and not feel alone. You also have a decent amount of player like Vic who are out doing good in the world because theyre either A. Superheros, B. Showing a good recruitment face or C. Just nice people!
 
Sure, searching forums aren't what some people like to do when it comes to guild searches, but sometimes its what you might have to do if you dont want to go through more inactive guilds. Some guilds are very active on here, or on twitter, and have their own websites. Some guilds advertise often in game. I remember WoW had that guild search feature, but I didn't really like it. I'm not saying it was a bad thing, and I'm sure most people really liked it, but half the guilds didn't keep their info on there up to date. Many never even checked their requests tab. Maybe WS could do it better, I dunno.
 
For the internal Voice Chat thing, I'd rather a "no" on that. I've never had a positive experience with that when it's just part of the game. There's always someone on there talking poo and whining, etc. If I use a voice chat server, I always go to my guild's. For the people who say you MUST have a voice chat to run with them, they pretty much always have one ready to use. Most guilds seem to, too.
 
Oh! And for the clunky UI, I hate the default UI/HuD, too, so I use addons. I'd sugget checking out KuronaFrames or PotatoUI. I used Potato for a long time, but KuronaFrames is -very- easy to adjust, move around, resize, etc. There are a -lot- of really neat addons for this game!
 
If you -are- on Entity and an Exile, here are a few guilds I know of that are fairly active people-wise and help-wise...
 
Remnants of Hope
Black Dagger Society
The Crimson Cross
Lords of the Dead
 
Those are just the ones I pay attention to. With all the new Warhound people here, we've gained many new guilds, too!
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We can test it next time we're on!
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some comments
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[...]
Its difficult to get other friends/players into the game, because:
hardware requirements to high (PCs, where actual mmo's run ok, won´t run W*, eg. HD2000 graphic) -> requirements and performance should by improved this game is very demanding from your PC and optimization could be improved, but you can build a 60fps machine for this game on a decent budget.
guest passes difficult to get, expire to fast (7 days are not much time) -> strongly suggest: provide easy trial version with restricted level (may be 10) and chat (no global chat). agree 100%
expensive abo model -> reduce costs for new players  (may be timed actions with 1/3/6 month for half price, ...) like many have said, this is standard subscription model MMO pricing, i know WS had a black friday sale, I'm sure more sales will come as well. You can also pay your subscription using CREDD purchased with in-game currency as well. If money is tight, I suggest you read up on how that system works. 
When playing, its difficult to get connection with other players:
low level areas are empty -> place open world events all over the maps, that are interesting for high levels low level areas are empty in most games. I have yet to see a game where the starting zone is packed. There are currently events scattered throughout Nexus in all zones, I am an achievement hunter so I find myself all over the world doing events, killing, yada yada.
strict fraction separation makes it difficult to come together -> fraction transfer Not sure I agree, but definitely something to consider down the road.
high level players not very much interested in noobs, only waiting for other players ready to raid: new players feel alone and overcharged without help, most heard answer: "level to 50, then everything gets better" Please do not use a select sampling of other players to define the entire playerbase. I help people of all skill and character levels.
no game intern voice chat, although mandatory for group content -> implement voice chat (or at least provide teamspeak server) Many voice server out there have public channels that you're welcome to use. Some guilds even offer this. I've done plenty of group content without comms so mandatory is a relative term.
Its difficult to find connection to other players, esp. a guild, because:
 
many guilds are filled with inactive players and many guilds are filled with active players.
no game intern list of guilds, its not everyones matter to search through various forums, above all many forum threads are outdated  -> implement guild functionality (size, how many online), with short description and application functionn (for me a most wanted) a LFGuild interface would be lovely, we heard talks of this, yet to see it come to fruition.
no global chat, so low level players can´t chat to the high levels, because they are located in higher zones -> switch on global chat (optionally) as Olivar has said, tried and failed.
some minor, but sluggish things like:
 
not possibly to send mail without full name writing, -> eg. "right clicking" on character, in social lists,.. there are several addons that can easily help you with this, but since megaservers were sort of an afterthought, there is currently no in-game functionality to this, which can be problematic.
moving and sizing of ui elements difficult and inconsistent -> needs improvement agree 100%, I have used UI addons since beta, much easier for me.
-> receive traded things directly into inventory, not by circuit mail I would never have bag space if this happened. If someone farms my houses, my bags would constantly be filled.
-> send items to other players by "right clicking" still need to be near a mailbox, unless you're speaking of the trade function?
-> housing should be optionally account wide (its no fun to decorate multiple houses for every twink) I have 6ish characters, yet I have only decorated my main. My alts serve as farming plugs and portals, which you will later come to love.
-> increase inventory and bank slot sizes since this is relative to the bags you get in game, i can agree to an extent. I've often thought the band should be like guild banks, using tabs of a set size as opposed to the same bag requirements as your inventory. Hopefully this feature will be implemented eventually or more bags will eventually become available.
 
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I'll give you that if the box price was lower we might see an influx of new players...
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			Housing....you have no idea how into this some players are, they'd be happy with 10 plots per alt  :D	
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			Hope they do make some changes,I just came back,the two names thing is annoying to work around but I hear they are making improvements.	
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no game intern voice chat, although mandatory for group content -> implement voice chat (or at least provide teamspeak server) 
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Box price is lower. It's only $39.99 for the standard edition now.
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I'll give you that if the box price was lower we might see an influx of new players...
everything else here is a trivial, personal problem caused by the way you are (or are not) playing the game. Global channels exist. If you need help leveling, you're already in trouble. There are plenty of guilds with full, active rosters, I recommend joining one of them rather than one of the many stubborn guilds that don't understand that they're hurting the game; not a Carbine/WildStar issue, the blame lies entirely with the players here. Other than lowering the box price, I really don't see what can be done that already hasn't been done to address your concerns.
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Can people just stop using the term "veteran" player?
The game is not even a year old.....And no playing the CB like we did does not make you a veteran player...
 
 
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what an ignorant kind of view.
If all was simply my personal view, and no one else would see things same way as I have stated, I had no need to write it down in the forum.
The view of veteran players, is differs very much from that of new players.
During my search for guilds, trying to contact players online, to find groups, to get an guild invitation, I was often contacted by newbie players in the same situtation.
 
Did you even bother to look on the official forums?
Many guilds have recruitment posts up, many guilds advertise ingame that they are recruiting.
So not being able to find a guild? Sorry, that's really hard to believe.
It's not that hard you know to ask someone if their guild is recruiting when you see them run around.
 
After they unsuccessfully tried to LFG, they were searching for a guild invitation from an active guild, to get help in leveling and running low level dungeons. Guild invitations came, but still it was hard to get a group of 5 to run dungeons, because too less members online or to less interest in doing low level content. Even returning L50 had problems to find contacts.
 
That's more an issue of said guild then.
If you joined a guild that is not to your liking, then you move on.
There's numerous guilds out there with enough people online daily to do group content.
 
Generally responds to chat questions were very low. Global channels ? How to find, if you are not a veteran, that already knows everything ?
And the global channels that someone recommended, were as dead as all the channels from the chat channel list.
 
maybe ask?
Maybe post on the forum that you're looking for this?
They exist, they're there and they're used. There' even threads about it on various server forums and the community forum.
 
May be, EU servers are less populated than NA servers.
 
This is true.
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Something that a lot of people also need to keep in mind:
The average player of MMORPG games is no longer the 14y old that has a lot of vacation and free days.
Most people playing these games are either high-school/university students or people with a full-time job and family lives.
This means that general activity during the day is a lot lower compared to evenings.
Especially in a game like WildStar where the average population is considerably lower compared to World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy Online.
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Can people just stop using the term "veteran" player?
The game is not even a year old.....
And no playing the CB like we did does not make you a veteran player...
 
 
 
Something that a lot of people also need to keep in mind:
The average player of MMORPG games is no longer the 14y old that has a lot of vacation and free days.
Most people playing these games are either high-school/university students or people with a full-time job and family lives.
This means that general activity during the day is a lot lower compared to evenings.
Especially in a game like WildStar where the average population is considerably lower compared to World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy Online.
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And, for whatever reason, Wildstar seems to skew a lot older than even other MMORPGs.  In WoW and FFXIV:ARR, The average player I met was in college, some younger, some older.  Wildstar often "feels" populated with older people than even EVE Online, with probably a good 95% of my guild being in their late 20s or early 30s.  I have a lot of members who are married, and quite a few with children.
 
I have no really concrete idea why this is, but Wildstar is the first game I'm just assuming everyone is a 9-5 worker at 30 years old and I'm generally right.
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global chat is controlled by players. There's global channels and circles per server, use the forums. We had global chat in beta, and the experience was horrible. Which is the reason the community and devs agreed to have it removed. 
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I think because Wildstar really at first peeked alot of the nostalgic interest in a lot of older MMO players who began playing MMOs between the EQ1 and early WoW "era". Also with the notion of the devs being to my understanding being a mix of former vanilla and BC WoW members it further grabbed people from that time period who miss those days. That mixed with the advertising that to some gave the  impression it was meant for people who miss that time seemed to have brought a bunch who started or were playing 10+ years ago
 
Most if not everyone I've encountered so far seems to have started during or before that time, with very few people who started in the genre recently. 
 
It is a very interesting thing though.
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In beta yes, betas are known to be filled with trolls and other people thats just in it to play a little and to mostly be a pita and a clown and these people never even intended to buy the game once its released. They are mostly all gone now and a global channel wouldnt be as bad at this point in game. Its what i miss also in game and have since it was released.
 
I cant even bother to log on anymore and is having much more fun in EQ2's expansion where i get groups and bg's anytime of the day and people chat in general chat which is the global channel so when leveling alts it dont feel so damn lonely. Im having a blast in a game ive played since dec -04 and i wish i would get that feeling in this game since i really like it but its impossible for me to play atm in the current state and i get everything i want in a game in EQ2 so why play WS thats lacking so much. I agree with all of Op's ideas and i wish carbine listens to us who brought this up so many times. Ill log in the day these changes are in place. Think i have a day or two left on my CREDD then im out sadly since i had huge hopes for this game :(
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In beta yes, betas are known to be filled with trolls and other people thats just in it to play a little and to mostly be a pita and a clown and these people never even intended to buy the game once its released. They are mostly all gone now and a global channel wouldnt be as bad at this point in game. Its what i miss also in game and have since it was released.
 
I cant even bother to log on anymore and is having much more fun in EQ2's expansion where i get groups and bg's anytime of the day and people chat in general chat which is the global channel so when leveling alts it dont feel so damn lonely.
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Nothing stops you from creating your own circle or chat channel especially for that and get stuff organized.
Not everything needs to be handed on a silver platter.
This is people not wanting to put in effort to get things done. You have the tools to organise these things.
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what an ignorant kind of view.
If all was simply my personal view, and no one else would see things same way as I have stated, I had no need to write it down in the forum.
The view of veteran players, is differs very much from that of new players.
During my search for guilds, trying to contact players online, to find groups, to get an guild invitation, I was often contacted by newbie players in the same situtation.
After they unsuccessfully tried to LFG, they were searching for a guild invitation from an active guild, to get help in leveling and running low level dungeons. Guild invitations came, but still it was hard to get a group of 5 to run dungeons, because too less members online or to less interest in doing low level content. Even returning L50 had problems to find contacts.
Generally responds to chat questions were very low. Global channels ? How to find, if you are not a veteran, that already knows everything ?
And the global channels that someone recommended, were as dead as all the channels from the chat channel list.
May be, EU servers are less populated than NA servers.
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Nothing stops you from turning it off if you dont like it. You have the option to stick to your zone chats if thats what you prefer while we who would want a global channel can use it if we prefer that.
 
What would you say if you had to create a zone chat for every zone cause there was none to start with in game? Then have to announce it everywhere so a few peeps will join? Yea, not my idea of fun and what i wanna do in game. I want a working community to easier find people and make it feel like its alive. Atm it doesnt, at all... Having everyone hang around in cities talking in zone chat is not my idea of a healty population in game.
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