122707-questions-about-the-games-future

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Hello, and thanks for reading!
 
-------TL;DR Beggining------  :D
     
      First time I heard of Wildstar, by the end of 2013, I immediately loved the way the game seemed to play, the mining of giant worms, the potential for PvP, the quest (more of the same, but with little extras that looked so awesome).
 
      So, as soon as preorder became available, I threw my wallet against the computer screen  :P . I played beta, made a toon for each class, and played each to level 17-18 until the end of the beta. I had fun, and couldn't wait for live release.
 
      I leveled a Granok (nothing beats Rockman) warrior to 50, and made several other to 17-20 (before unmaking them for whatever reason). But the game was so full of bugs, crashes, balance and performance issues, that life was not easy, but even so I loved to play, the combat, challenges, quests and dungeons mechanics were (and still are) the best, in my humble opinion, and more them made up for the hard times the game gave me sometimes  ;) .
 
      Then more problems came in (and few of the older ones were fixed): bots and teleport hacks to hold of the game (damn them for stealing my giant worms, several in fact), and population on my server (Evira) took a nose dive, and thus I just couldn't play the game anymore. So I canceled my subscription, and moved on  :( .
 
      Fast-foward to 2015 , hearing of the DROP 4 and the many improvements the game had gone thru, I decided to try the game again. The bots/hacks were gone, there are ppl playing the game (hurray MegaServers), and most of my issues disappeared. Sure there are still problems: the LFG tool sucks (really...), the PvP still have issues, the game is still top heavy (few low level toons going about) etc... 
 
      Still I made a new SS, leveled it to 50 and I am happy with (most) of the game,but...
 
-------TL;DR End-------  :ph34r:
 
      I have heard and read of Wildstar current financial woes and got worried. NCSOFT is know full pulling the plug on struggling games and, in the last quarter of 2014 (biggest holiday season of the year...), Wildstar had problems (very closed to City of Heroes numbers, too close for my tastes...). I got worried.
 
      Don't get me wrong I love Wildstar and right now, for me at least, it is the best game of the genre (themepark). But, as everybody here know, playing a mmorpg is about time investment (alot of time...), and I am a little worried about the future of the game  :unsure:  to make that kind of investment.
 
      My questions are: Will Wildstar endure? Does it even have a chance to do so? How?
 
      Thanks for reading! 	
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I understand your concerns, but I, and I don't know anybody who does, don't have a crystal ball that sees what NCSoft is going to do in the future.
 
As far as I'm concerned, I am having fun playing the game and the community is awesome. I will play as long as the servers are open and a monthly sub.
 
Also, there is another thread that may answer your questions and give you more insight. Might want to post in there. https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/119890-the-future-of-wildstar/page-2	
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imo it will endure for a few years.
possibly switching to another payment model within 1 year, will never have an expansion, and will close shop a few years later.
we all know that it won't suddenly become hugely popular. probably a few player surges at every drops and a big, yet temporary, one when the sub drop, but don't expect all of a sudden a 10years lifespan AAA mmo.
wildstar is just not that. for thousands of reasons.
 
BUT
 
that aside, you can still play and enjoy it when it is there! I think if you can play 3-4 years it is very much worth it!	
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			Yeah I've been wondering this a lot myself as well. Last night I started hearing whispers from within the game retailer community on social media outlets about wildstar...I'll keep this to myself until it becomes larger. Anyways I either see it getting the plug pulled or dropping the sub and CREDD model and going either B2P (please) or F2P (fine I'll take it.) Anyways I was the same at first hesitant to invest so much time into something that could be all for none, but then I realized Wildstar was pretty much my best mmo experience yet, those first 2 months were amazing. So I've been hanging on. Just for a chance that it can someday get back to that sweet spot. If it does go away well it was a fun ride, and my mmo days will be pretty much over until I see another mmo with combat similar to this.	
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I've found a new community to hang with in Wildstar, and having been an 8 year CoH veteran I was hesitant to buy into another NCSoft MMO... for good reason.  At this point, though, I'll just do what I did with my beloved Paragon City:  I'll be on Planet Nexus until the lights go out.
 
NCSoft has a delightful history of axing Western MMOs they don't see as profitable, so I can only hope that I get a good chunk of play time from Wildstar before I retire from MMOs forever.  This will probably be the last MMO I play because I've been burned by too much before.  WoW marginalized the Prot Warrior in BC and I never looked back; CoH was killed by its publisher for reasons they still have yet to admit to; I burned out on GW2 after working for them and seeing the internal politics.  Wildstar is to me what Nexus is to the Exiles:  A last bastion, a last chance, full of hopes and dreams and rife with the peril of losing everything.	
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I've found a new community to hang with in Wildstar, and having been an 8 year CoH veteran I was hesitant to buy into another NCSoft MMO... for good reason.  At this point, though, I'll just do what I did with my beloved Paragon City:  I'll be on Planet Nexus until the lights go out.
 
NCSoft has a delightful history of axing Western MMOs they don't see as profitable, so I can only hope that I get a good chunk of play time from Wildstar before I retire from MMOs forever.  This will probably be the last MMO I play because I've been burned by too much before.  WoW marginalized the Prot Warrior in BC and I never looked back; CoH was killed by its publisher for reasons they still have yet to admit to; I burned out on GW2 after working for them and seeing the internal politics.  Wildstar is to me what Nexus is to the Exiles:  A last bastion, a last chance, full of hopes and dreams and rife with the peril of losing everything.
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stop blaming NcSoft.
 
it is a business and if a game doesn't make money it is normal to cut it.
 
if wildstar cannot turn in a profit... are you really blaming it on NcSoft? jeez.... they got a huge amount of money and 8 years.
they failed to make something as big as that.
they made a good B game, but way to expensive for what it is.
and also were unable to keep players interested because of flawed design decisions.
 
so. who's to blame ?
 
as much as you (we) love wildstar for what it is, we are clearly in a very very small minority.
and unfortunately, the game cannot continue with just us.	
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Thanks guys, I really appreciate all this answers. In the end you all are right: there is no way of knowing if (or when) is going to get cancelled. The game situation is dire, but there is always hope (if DDO could turn things around, why not Wildstar :P )
 
So I'll just play until I can't play it anymore and rant if the worse happens  :D !	
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stop blaming NcSoft.
 
it is a business and if a game doesn't make money it is normal to cut it.
 
if wildstar cannot turn in a profit... are you really blaming it on NcSoft? jeez.... they got a huge amount of money and 8 years.
they failed to make something as big as that.
they made a good B game, but way to expensive for what it is.
and also were unable to keep players interested because of flawed design decisions.
 
so. who's to blame ?
 
as much as you (we) love wildstar for what it is, we are clearly in a very very small minority.
and unfortunately, the game cannot continue with just us.
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Thanks guys, I really appreciate all this answers. In the end you all are right: there is no way of knowing if (or when) is going to get cancelled. The game situation is dire, but there is always hope (if DDO could turn things around, why not Wildstar :P )
 
So I'll just play until I can't play it anymore and rant if the worse happens  :D !
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I wouldn't take the prophets of doom as the gospel.  Though the turnaround began happening before Drop 4, the new drop isn't in the financial reports and is probably the single biggest recuperation of accounts since launch.  If the numbers aren't even CoH level bad during their lowest point (and we are FAR from Wildstar's lowest point), and Wildstar's probably now pulling in more money than Lineage 2 again, there isn't much to worry about in the short term.
 
For the long term?  It's hard to speculate.  Wildstar is built on a very EVE Online kind of payment model, down to the son of PLEX.  EVE's taken a decade to grow to 500k subscriptions, but CCP shows that model is still profitable as they've had enough extra money to try to develop several other games piggybacking off EVE's "success", including a recently axed World of Darkness MMORPG.  With the recent return of so many players, we're seeing a crossroads appear in the game's future.
 
The ball is actually in NCSoft's court.  Obviously, the game's improving and population numbers are rising.  Continuing on this trajectory can make Wildstar a success, but it's up to NCSoft to decide what "success" and "failure" are.  Wildstar could have millions of subs and fail, or it can have 200,000 and succeed.  What happens to Wildstar is probably dependent on a lot of different factors, but with the population rising it isn't likely to be shut down.  The broader question is if they'll continue with the payment model they have or switch to a B2P or F2P model.  Personally, I'm on record, very seriously, saying that I'll leave in the event that those models are implemented; I've seen where that road leads.
 
However, there are a lot of other options, and not every reason to consider NCSoft will take that road.  For starters, NCSoft, unlike a lot of other companies, has a portfolio full of F2P and B2P games.  A big factor in CoH's shutdown is surely that putting too many games out on that payment model necessarily mean you are competing with yourself, and that's not a position you want to be in.  If that wasn't a concern, NCSoft could have released Wildstar F2P or B2P out of the box and made the boatloads of money that the payment model must surely be worth.  They didn't, and it's likely because NCSoft has so many games in that category already that making Wildstar F2P or B2P is going to mean it's directly competing with GW2 or Aion.  One thing is for sure, all of us playing the game right now don't mind the sub price, and there's a prevailing theory that we would be replaced if the game does go F2P.  But replaced by whom?  NCSoft may certainly see GW2 in competition with Wildstar if they have the exact same payment plan; the game is referenced heavily on these forums because Wildstar has a lot in common with it.  NCSoft, should they release it, may see a rise in Wildstar's revenues, but not in their profits, should the primary bulk of Wildstar's "new" population come from other games they own.
 
Indeed, there are several ways they can toy around with the payment model, but having a game in their library that doesn't carry that plastic-wrap stink B2P and F2P tend to carry with the high end gaming population means Wildstar competes in a smaller pool, just with bigger players.  As you may have noticed, most of our community here don't cite their history in F2P games, I personally came from WoW and FFXIV:ARR, my colleagues of which account for a large percentage of the current playerbase.  Now, you can't launch a million-subscription game overnight, especially not now.  As you've mentioned, this is a long-term investment for anyone involved.  Whether NCSoft has the cojones to hang with prestige players like Square and Blizzard or whether they're going to have to be content being the top of the development B league, playing for the minor league trophy with companies like Trion.
 
As you've noticed, NCSoft doesn't carry a mark of quality as a publisher.  CoH has stained their reputation, and their propensity to release games and abandon ship has relegated them to an also-ran status here in the States.  I know they long for that Blizzard mark of quality, but that takes time.  NCSoft may not have the patience for it.
 
For now, the game's safe and NCSoft's last word, during the nastiest part of that dip last year, was that they're still supporting the game.  So they're not looking like they're going to yank the rug out from underneath us after Drop 4.  Whether the payment model that brought us something like Drop 4 remains intact or not is another story, certainly I wouldn't be very interested to see Drop 5 if they announced a shift to F2P today.  Of course, I'm also on record saying there are ways they can add almost anything without angering their current playerbase, if they decide to be forward thinking.  A lot of the current chatter revolves around NCSoft and how they see Wildstar and it's largely their reputation that drives the discussion.
 
Still, Blizz still has people on their forums calling for F2P and saying the game's a sinking ship, so maybe that never goes away.  The only thing to do is to float on until the situation changes.  For now, the subscription model and the pursuit of a luxury brand gave us a three month patch with Drop 4 and promises that PVP is about to undergo a major positive overhaul.  And for me, that's enough to keep me month to month.
 
I'm also on record as saying that, if we get assurance that we're not going F2P (or Hell, even if they say they will go no further than the options I've brought up that wouldn't anger us) for a year, I'll buy that whole year in.  I've got a lot of faith in Carbine as a developer and I think that, given time, the game will slowly build into a juggernaut.  Right now, it's public perception from OUTSIDE the game that largely drives the opinion that it's standing on the chair with its head in a noose, but that doesn't necessarily match the reality of the situation.  If Wildstar turns things around, continues to prove people citing potential criticisms it answered three months ago to be out-of-date, and continues to grow, we'll be just fine.
 
If you want to support Wildstar, if you REALLY want to see the game survive in its current vein, it's just a matter of going out and saying what you like about the game to your friends.  I've heard of a lot of people coming back lately to fire up the trial, and a LOT of my new guildmates are lapsed players coming back and getting re-addicted to the game through Vet Shiphands and Protostar Academy.  So it's a time of good news!
 
For now, all you can do is continue on, tell people what you're playing, tell them they're wrong if they state a common misconception about the game.  Hell, tell them to take a free 10 day trial if they don't believe you.  If anything, I think a free 10 day trial, with all the restrictions in place on it, are good indicators that NCSoft doesn't have any short term plans to change the payment model.  If they were going F2P or B2P, they wouldn't be spending the resources to limit anyone's whispers, levels, or guilding abilities.
 
Otherwise, just relax and sit tight.  If you're paying your sub and you've got good things to say to your friends, the rest takes care of itself.	
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I blame NCSoft because they killed a game that was not losing them money, nor was it teetering on the edge of making them money.  CoH, according to financial reports, wasn't doing spectacular but it wasn't a failure in profit by any means.  On top of that, NC has killed 6 other Western MMOs while simultaneously trying to push Korean MMOs into Western markets (with little success; played Blade & Soul or Aion lately?).  They've done some shady things in the past with those titles (like the Aion "Fast Track" server bait & switch).  From my POV they're not trustworthy in this market.  That alone says more about my wanting to play Wildstar than anything.  I enjoy this game so much I'm willing to play under a publisher who's burned me before -- twice, even.  I loved Exteel.
 
That's a different can of worms though and I'm not comfortable talking about it here.
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			I wouldn't read too much into the financial report until the next one is released. The eye test says tons of people are coming back to play. If the 1Q15 report shows growth, then that's a good sign and means the Drops are doing their job of improving the QoL and systems of the game.	
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I've found a new community to hang with in Wildstar, and having been an 8 year CoH veteran I was hesitant to buy into another NCSoft MMO... for good reason.  At this point, though, I'll just do what I did with my beloved Paragon City:  I'll be on Planet Nexus until the lights go out.
 
NCSoft has a delightful history of axing Western MMOs they don't see as profitable, so I can only hope that I get a good chunk of play time from Wildstar before I retire from MMOs forever.  This will probably be the last MMO I play because I've been burned by too much before.  WoW marginalized the Prot Warrior in BC and I never looked back; CoH was killed by its publisher for reasons they still have yet to admit to; I burned out on GW2 after working for them and seeing the internal politics.  Wildstar is to me what Nexus is to the Exiles:  A last bastion, a last chance, full of hopes and dreams and rife with the peril of losing everything.
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Yeah I've been wondering this a lot myself as well. Last night I started hearing whispers from within the game retailer community on social media outlets about wildstar...I'll keep this to myself until it becomes larger. 
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henzilla, come on! What did you heard about? Tell us please!
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I'm telling the forums how easy modern technology is that you can go to social media websites, type "Wildstar" and find some interesting information.
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Way to fail at keeping it to yourself
 
you're effectively saying to the forums "neener neener I know something you don't know" *sticks tongue out*
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I'm telling the forums how easy modern technology is that you can go to social media websites, type "Wildstar" and find some interesting information.
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Anyone remember Chicken Little?
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I have several 'ins' in the industry and I don't discuss them in the games I play, because A: I don't want to feed the rumor mill and B: no one believes me anyway.  It's easier to just keep it quiet.  I know your pain, Henz.
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I'd rather not as it's still new and small whispers...but if it's true pretty sure within the next few weeks we'll see an article about this.
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Our world is a small once Vince, those rumours happen anyway.
Devs talk with each other, even from different companies.
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