108406-kings-and-bastards

== Content ==
			
This is an Article about Wildstar in which I also talk a good deal about Warcraft and how it has influenced this and many other games. I also talk about how Wildstar is doing and how maybe it can avoid the same fate as many other MMOs, I hope you enjoy it and please as always I love to hear feedback on my writing good and bad.
 
 
An investment to last a lifetime.
 
 
If I cast my mind back many years I remember my first steps into Warcraft, after a few hours I was intrigued and after a few months I was invested and hopelessly addicted. A question I've sought to answer many times over the years: what is it about Warcraft? The answer to this question I feel is the key to the survival of Wildstar and the bad news is it's a long shot.
 
 
See, we MMO players are a fickle bunch and we have also become very critical, or should I say cynical? You can't blame us - every MMO since Warcraft (not counting EvE) has flourished for a month or two and then started the familiar plummet to obscurity. Some have hung on, some have even had a notable success as free to play MMOs. But why does this happen? Are all these games so poorly designed that after a free month they become old news? I can give solid reasons for each: Conan was not finished and riddled with bugs; SWOR was a shameful waste of an IP with little to do after the excellent story ended; and Guild Wars 2, while beautiful and still doing fine, lacks any real progression. Most newer MMOs have better graphics than WoW, fresh game mechanics and radical ways of delivering content so why does this cycle continue?
 
Here's my theory: Warcraft is a safe bet. Players feel secure investing time into Azeroth because chances are it will be there next year. I think I speak for many when I say I'm getting a bit sick and tired of piling months of time into new MMOs which is then wasted when the game flops. It's a hard thing indeed to play in an MMO devoid of other players, especially when that place was once occupied by thousands of fellow adventurers. Even harder to see good friends and guild members leave the game you still enjoy - we want people to love the things we love. Even after two months our chosen server of Zhur is feeling a very empty and it also feels like our opposing faction the Dominion have all but vanished.
 
As someone who's played every MMO under the sun, you know it's coming and I'm sure Carbine do as well. After the initial burst of activity the sightseers fall away to leave the core player base, the players who will be the life blood of the game, and will ultimately decide if the game flys or folds.
 
 
 
 
Survival of the safest.
 
 
After playing Wildstar for nearly a year now I do not believe Carbine could have done any more to make Wildstar a success. They have performed virtual miracles and ticked pretty much every box in terms of what MMO players would want from a new MMO. Go and write an honest list of what you would want from a brand new MMO and then come back:
 
Fun combat that is born from skill rather than repetition? Check
A rich vibrant world full of personality and character? Check
A back story of galactic proportions? Check
An open, honest and responsive dev team? Check
A roster of amazing class choices? Check
More customisation than a Rubix cube? Check
A challenge that will test your reactions and resolve? Check
The best housing system in any MMO ever? Check
Progression and substantial rewards? Check
End game to end all end game? You're damn right!
 
 
 
When Warcraft launched in 2004 it was a basic blueprint. Over the next decade Blizzard would then add to and refine it (dumb down most would say) to the game we see today, a body of work which represents ten years of the most successful MMO ever made. There were unique factors to this success for sure, having very little competition at the time certainly helped it grow so big so fast. Do I think Wildstar is a better game? Yes I do but you can't take away what Warcraft is, was and will be in the gaming history books.
 
So imagine then, if we look at Wildstar as it is right now as a basic blueprint. It's already primed and packed with all the components it needs, what if Wildstar had ten years to grow and galvanise itself as the new king of MMOs? This all depends on whether the subscribers back the game and nurture it now when it needs our support the most. After only one month we have already been given an entirely new zone with lots of trimmings such as a new daily zone, this is astonishing and as I type the second ultra drop has just landed. Again a entirely new PVP battleground, class balances and much more. As I will go into, problems are abound but the devs are tackling them with a frightening rate of pace and for a change don't hide behind management speak or excuses.
 
 
 
You shall not pass.
 
 
The second significant reason why I think Warcraft had such a successful beginning was because the world in which you played had unreachable heights, at least for most people.The first big raiding guilds were forged from necessity and desire. The desire to hold the sword that no other person had, to ride the Phoenix mount through Stormwind with a huge sense of pride. It's the very opposite of the approach Guild Wars 2 took where everyone could have everything and when you can acquire everything with little effort players start to ask themselves "what's the point?"
 
For the average player in Warcraft you knew you would never get you hands on these things, they were in your world but far away, distant.. legendary. It might sound like a crazy notion, but I believe having that almost unreachable places in a game tricks the mind into believing that you're not quite finished here. Those individuals who did want to defeat the toughest foes in Azeroth had to turn raiding into a craft and form elite groups in which each player was an expert in their class and role. These players are still out there somewhere and it's my hope they return to Wildstar and reach for the unattainable again.
 
 
Carbine have been very clear on what difficulty setting the endgame will play on: hardcore. Many have now theorised this higher difficulty setting is going to turn casual players away and Carbine will have to consider 'dumbing down' end game. As a gamer who did raid at the highest level in the first five years of Warcraft I now no longer have the time or energy I did have to pour into these games, children and work takes priority for most 'older gamers'. Younger MMO players are just not used to this kind of challenge and even the attunement process has become an insurmountable hurdle to some. Will this lose Carbine valuable subscribers? Almost certainly but the big question is are Carbine able to sustain a paid MMO in this way?
 
It's a catch twenty two for sure, if you state your end (pardon me Eldar) game will make Chuck Norris scream like a little girl you can't then start swinging the nerf bat six months down the road. While so many people have complained about the attunement process I love it, what better way to make sure people walking into raiding have earned their place: the entire process is a training package to test you. Interrupts, phased boss fights, telegraph avoidance etc etc. If you want the best loot you have to be the best players, why would we have it any other way? I might fancy running the 100m in next years Olympics but to truly achieve something means to have to earn it and the rewards success bring don't mean anything if you haven't earned it. Entitled players who think everything should fall into their lap with a few swings of a sword are hitting a wall in Wildstar and the result is they are leaving for easier games that reward mediocrity and faceless LFR systems.
 
 
 
 
Ghost in the Machine.
 
 
In the last week almost every article and podcast I've seen and heard has been queuing up to take a shot at Wildstar. There are some very legitimate complaints if I'm fair, the PVP gear disparity is killing the competitive side of PVP. Once a player gets into 1800 rated gear they can obliterate most other players who then can't attain the rating themselves. Warplots have also never really taken off because of various reasons but in the main it's been difficult to fill them with 40 players. Most servers are also starting to feel like ghost towns now, I recently set out on a Sunday afternoon around various zones to test this and didn't find a single player from the opposite faction - not one. Of course we know Carbine had to expand the servers to fit the player base at the time of launch and this always happens, what they need to do now is shrink (merge) the remaining play space down to a point that leaves room for growth but also allows players to bump into each other again.
 
The most frequent complaint I've seen though are many variations of the same notion, Wildstar is too hard. 'Remove the silver timers' 'remove atunement' 'remove the world boss hunt' etc. It's here where I must disagree with the majority and defend Carbine. The timers on the silver dungeon runs for example, players who are not that fast on their toes have been really struggling because if you wipe once or twice it's a restart. However if you remove the timers it becomes something you can just bash your head against for a few hours until you finally limp over the finish line: this only tests your tenacity and not skill. I've just seen prior to publishing this article Carbine are indeed removing timers for the attunement.
 
 
I also see the world boss section as a great way to get players into zones they long left behind, (a constant headache for all MMOs) what better than to have a final lap around the games zones killing world bosses as you go. It's just a pity that some of the bosses seem identical but I've been told this was because they didn't have time to finish them before they were hurried out of the door by NCsoft but who knows for sure. 
 
 
 
Kings and Bastards.
 
 
I suspect that even when Blizzard unleash their next MMO onto the world, Warcraft will still endure. So many people just log in to speak to friends, an expensive chat room if you will. Some have literally grown up in Azeroth and so for these players it's almost inconceivable to not be there regardless of where the expansions and updates take it.
 
Wildstar is a true *cupcake* and no mistake having the DNA of Warcraft running through its core but vastly improved and yet like the bastards in Game of Thrones it's going to be a dangerous road. The games industry is evolving year on year and gamers have never had it so good. Many games now offer much deeper experiences that make the repetitive nature of classical MMOs seem lacking. This could be the reason why so many players switch off after a few weeks, we are no longer content to traipse from time sync to time sync. Maybe in the future MMOs and classical RPGs will be the same thing. Games like Everquest Next with procedurally generated content are going to do well but the current flavour of the month is open world experiences that offer some direction but ultimately give players the freedom to poke around at their own pace: The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition spring to mind.
 
 
So the big question is, can Wildstar survive in a world where casual is king? This depends on the next six months and how many Warcraft players are willing to give up feet up and face-roll for an actual challenge. I truly believe that every single game based problem Wildstar has right now can be fixed and with little fuss. I think the problem does not lie with the game but with us as players. The MMO crowd have been calling for a game just like Wildstar for years now, if Wildstar does fail it will be crying shame and will give credence to the old saying: we should be careful what we wish for.	
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			I only came into this thread to find out if Jon Snow really is a bastrd or not.	
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The MMO crowd have been calling for a game just like Wildstar for years now, if Wildstar does fail it will be crying shame and will give credence to the old saying: we should be careful what we wish for.
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I see neither Kings or Bastards!
 
....that's all I got.	
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In a way, I agree with this, but the problem is that MMORPGs are very seldom judged directly on the game that they are.  There are other factors at work.  SWTOR was reasonably popular, but was the most expensive game ever made and it would never make up its production budget without a WoW style miracle.  EVE Online, on the other hand, has been called a redheaded stepchild, niche game, and an also-ran since its inception, yet here it is over a decade later, one of the world's most profitable MMORPGs.  Then there was Age of Conan, a game outright destroyed by its initial failings in the gameplay department, regardless of all its hype at first.
 
Wildstar's eventual place in the MMORPG cosmology probably won't be known for years.  As a brand new IP, it might need an entire year just so that gamers even know it exists outside the MMORPG sphere.  With that said, I think it will have better long term success than many of its contemporaries.	
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A few things:
 
Guild Wars 2 has progression, just not in the manner that most MMO  players expect.
 
People play WoW because it is where their friends are. And those friends play because it is where their friends are. Also, it's familiar to them and a lot of people don't like change.
 
Wildstar is both familiar and VERY unfamiliar at the same time. That can cause problems. People looking for comfortable will be turned off by the new stuff. People looking for different will be aggravated by the familiar.	
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The real question Carbine needs to answer for themselves is do they want to be Mainstream or Niche. As it stands now the different between WoW and Wildstar is WoW has room for everyone. That is the key to WoW's success. People like to paint WoW as this baby game but there is still challenging content to be found. As of last month only 4 percent of raid guilds had downed SoO. Less than 9 percent had even downed the 3rd to last boss. Not bad for a baby game lol
 
The minute Carbine said the game would be for the Hardcore it was decided that the game would be niche. However, recent developments lead me to believe that there will be a shift. They have something here that could make them a lot of money with the right philosophy. If the game was fashioned similar to WoW's philosophy they'd be still opening servers. The question is do they want that. Time will tell.	
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			Good read. Thanks!	
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			Thoughtful and well composed article. Good job. Hopefully the devs get a chance to see it. 	
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Warcraft was so successful only because it came out at a time when endless grinding had been around for several years.  AC, EQ, Ultima, Swg, all had tons of grinding to get anywhere.  Warcraft streamlined that process and made grinding kind of like a mini game in the form of daily quests.  The gamers that were playing at the time who did not have time to quit their jobs and spend 90 hours straight waiting for boss kills in EQ flocked to Warcraft because it was less of a grind.  Also warcraft already was a big IP from the RTS games.  But World of Warcraft was not a very good game at first.  It had way more server and stability issues that Wildstar does, half of the features that Wildstar launched with and horrible customer service at first.  There just was no competition literally for about 4 years and then we got bastardized versions of dungeons and dragons, warhammer and lord of the rings.  Any three of those games could have knocked Warcraft off the pedestal but the companies literally went for a cheap clone of Warcraft to make a quick buck, and that is exactly what every mmo has done since Warcraft. 
 
When Warcraft started seeing sales fall off and subs fall off they went uber casual and became the Oprah Winfrey of gaming, at this point the former real gamers turned into esporters who tried to make raiding a esport instead of dungeon crawls, Blizzard made it worse by making every boss beatable by small kittens.  The reason most mmos have huge numbers at first then fall off because most of those that buy the game are players bored with wow for the time being but they don't want to play another game for long, they just want a short break and then they go back to warcraft.   The market is oversaturated with mmos, and there just aren't enough players to support this many mmos.  MMOS are still a niche form of gaming and companies and players are just going to have to get used to the fact that 200k people playing is fine and ok.  Carbine never should have opened up as many servers as they did from the outset.  You open up servers as needed once yours get full, not just open up tons of servers. 
 
Wildstar is much better than Warcraft at launch.  The problem is mainly in the players, the players are impatient so they wont wait on fixes while Warcraft is still there beckoning them to come back.  The other issue is most of the mmo gamers now have grown up in a selfish me instant gratification nobody can fail generation they all get trophies at the end and quite frankly Wildstar does not promote that type of gameplay.  There was nothing wrong with changing the silver requirement on dungeons, it needed to happen to try to keep some of the casuals and that instant gratification generation.  Lets face it, the hardcore crowd will not keep a game around, for one they are not big enough and for two they are not truly hardcore.  Anyone playing mmos today and are not playing ultima, or eq, or ac are not hardcore, they are esporters.   True hardcore will turn this games hardcore into puddles of crying tears. 
 
I personally don't believe gamers want challenges anymore, they don't ever get them from their parents growing up, nor the school system, nor from sports so they expect everything in the games to be handed to them for no work just like in real life.  Reason people hate dailies, because it is not instant gratification, why do people hate attunements, it is not instant gratification, why do people hate leveling, it is not instant gratification.  The first mmo that comes out and just start with raiding at max level will probably be the most successful mmo of all time.  Blizzard is seeing this, even though they are the blame for this in many ways but they are still feeding the animal.   Blizzard has just enough leveling so people wont get bored in the 10 minutes or so it takes to reach max level and they make raiding instant as soon as you hit cap, no gear, no skill, just jump in lfr and you can down the whole raid in 20 minutes, even if you afk.  It feeds selfish lazy gamers, which is most of them at this point.	
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The real question Carbine needs to answer for themselves is do they want to be Mainstream or Niche. As it stands now the different between WoW and Wildstar is WoW has room for everyone. That is the key to WoW's success. People like to paint WoW as this baby game but there is still challenging content to be found. As of last month only 4 percent of raid guilds had downed SoO. Less than 9 percent had even downed the 3rd to last boss. Not bad for a baby game lol
 
The minute Carbine said the game would be for the Hardcore it was decided that the game would be niche. However, recent developments lead me to believe that there will be a shift. They have something here that could make them a lot of money with the right philosophy. If the game was fashioned similar to WoW's philosophy they'd be still opening servers. The question is do they want that. Time will tell.
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I actually read the whole article, and honestly it seems like every time I see one of these they gloss over the glaring, fundamental problems with Wildstar.  I'm not sure if they're being biased, or trying overly hard not to offend Carbine, or what the issue is.  
 
It's not a matter of WoW vs the world. It's a matter of poor game design choices, lack of learning from past mistakes in the industry, a seeming lack of understanding that the genre has evolved, all mixed with a healthy dose of their publisher forcing them to release the game before it was ready.
 
I'm so sick of hearing the comparison of 'WoW has had 10 years to adapt!  You can't compare a new game launch to that!!!"    You know what? Yes, yes we can.  Because that's 10 years of gaming history and advances in technology and design.  If newer games don't learn from the examples of what works and what fails in the genre, how is that the fault of anyone but the game designers?
 
If Wildstar fails, it won't be because it's too hard. Almost everyone universally agrees that the most fun of the game lies in the challenge of overcoming vet dungeons. It will be because of the needlessly repetitive content, and punishing RNG mechanics that serve no purpose other than to waste a players time, money, and effort. It will be because Carbine ignores issues such as the ranked PVP boosting and 1800 geared players having such a huge advantage, or the fact that 40 man raiding died in the past for a very good reason. 
 
It will NOT be because of WoW	
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			The "City of Guild" circle in the hell image is clever. Not outright funny, but the author is aware of their source material.	
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r the fact that 40 man raiding died in the past for a very good reason.
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I only came into this thread to find out if Jon Snow really is a bastrd or not.
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The gamers that were playing at the time who did not have time to quit their jobs and spend 90 hours straight waiting for boss kills in EQ flocked to Warcraft because it was less of a grind. 
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I actually read the whole article, and honestly it seems like every time I see one of these they gloss over the glaring, fundamental problems with Wildstar.  I'm not sure if they're being biased, or trying overly hard not to offend Carbine, or what the issue is.  
 
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I actually read the whole article, and honestly it seems like every time I see one of these they gloss over the glaring, fundamental problems with Wildstar.  I'm not sure if they're being biased, or trying overly hard not to offend Carbine, or what the issue is.  
 
It's not a matter of WoW vs the world. It's a matter of poor game design choices, lack of learning from past mistakes in the industry, a seeming lack of understanding that the genre has evolved, all mixed with a healthy dose of their publisher forcing them to release the game before it was ready.
 
I'm so sick of hearing the comparison of 'WoW has had 10 years to adapt!  You can't compare a new game launch to that!!!"    You know what? Yes, yes we can.  Because that's 10 years of gaming history and advances in technology and design.  If newer games don't learn from the examples of what works and what fails in the genre, how is that the fault of anyone but the game designers?
 
If Wildstar fails, it won't be because it's too hard. Almost everyone universally agrees that the most fun of the game lies in the challenge of overcoming vet dungeons. It will be because of the needlessly repetitive content, and punishing RNG mechanics that serve no purpose other than to waste a players time, money, and effort. It will be because Carbine ignores issues such as the ranked PVP boosting and 1800 geared players having such a huge advantage, or the fact that 40 man raiding died in the past for a very good reason. 
 
It will NOT be because of WoW
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I dunno.  I guess I don't really care that much about the "WoW vs XXXX"  business or anything.  I've spent many happy years in the land of the snowstorm, to be honest.  Blizzard's got a good game for sure.  Maybe I'm just tired of all the factional rivalry between enthusiasts.
 
One thing I do know is that when I logged into my monk to do some Timeless Isle dailies last week, I found myself instinctively using my Wildstar hotkeys instead.  I started to expect telegraphs and MoOs.  I was moving my monk like my warrior.  I guess that that was my cue that in spite of my WoD preorder and all of my level 90s, that my time in Azeroth had officially come to an end.  If it were an actual themepark, it would be time for one last souvie pic with the SO and head to the parking lot/ hotel/airport.	
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World of Warcraft was successful because it had (and we all love buzz words/phrases) a living, breathing world.Wildstar with all it's amazing art and style has probably the most boring and lifeless feeling game world I've played in a long time.  I hate when two games have exactly what the other needs and the devs can't seem to smash them together.Wildstar's world with Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system would have been amazing.  I'm not saying remove questing.  I'm saying towns should randomly get attacked and things should happen that you won't see coming while you're progressing through the content.  The game is full of idle mobs just standing around waiting to be killed.  This isn't innovation.  Even WoW has dynamic events now in the Timeless Isle.WoW has also progressed passed archaic daily quests... WS seems to be picking up all the old scraps of long since evolved systems.  Nostalgia isn't good for systems that were shitty in the first place.  Especially the fact that WS doesn't even have random dailies... How many times a week do I have to shoot spybots with a freezegun in Northern Wastes?Attunements aren't for the "hardcore".  They are for people smoking the nostalgia pipe that like wasting their time for days before they can start doing the challenging content.  If you're a 20-40 man raider adventures and dungeons are casual content for you.  Why would you want to be forced through it?  You don't need training.  It should be optional for people that need the training/gear.
 
All in all I think this game has potential.  It definitely wasn't ready for release there is no denying that.  Seems like they were pushed out the door by their wife (NCsoft) with their shoes unlaced, tie not tied and shirt not tucked in on their way to work.  I'll check back in 6 months and see if it can pull itself together.	
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			Interesting take... title's reminding me of "Wretches and Kings" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arY9LxUBdow	
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I actually read the whole article, and honestly it seems like every time I see one of these they gloss over the glaring, fundamental problems with Wildstar.  I'm not sure if they're being biased, or trying overly hard not to offend Carbine, or what the issue is.  
 
It's not a matter of WoW vs the world. It's a matter of poor game design choices, lack of learning from past mistakes in the industry, a seeming lack of understanding that the genre has evolved, all mixed with a healthy dose of their publisher forcing them to release the game before it was ready.
 
I'm so sick of hearing the comparison of 'WoW has had 10 years to adapt!  You can't compare a new game launch to that!!!"    You know what? Yes, yes we can.  Because that's 10 years of gaming history and advances in technology and design.  If newer games don't learn from the examples of what works and what fails in the genre, how is that the fault of anyone but the game designers?
 
If Wildstar fails, it won't be because it's too hard. Almost everyone universally agrees that the most fun of the game lies in the challenge of overcoming vet dungeons. It will be because of the needlessly repetitive content, and punishing RNG mechanics that serve no purpose other than to waste a players time, money, and effort. It will be because Carbine ignores issues such as the ranked PVP boosting and 1800 geared players having such a huge advantage, or the fact that 40 man raiding died in the past for a very good reason. 
 
It will NOT be because of WoW
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Yet there' a bunch of people who want that. 40 man raids isn't for everyone, that is specific to the 1% of people who want the return of 40 man raids. I don't know what issue people have with it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it and let the people who want to do it continue having their fun.
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For me, it's very simple what is driving me away from this game.  I do not mind difficulty, I'm ok with having to run a dungeon many times in order to master it.  Wipes do not scare me.  Consequently though, when I finally master the dungeon, when I finally beat that challenge, I expect more than a fuzzy feeling of goodness as a reward.  The significant RNG aspect to loot makes me feel like my time in will not be properly rewarded.
 
I don't know many people who after going through a difficult challenge and finally succeeding who are then told that the reward should be a sense of accomplishment, don't feel like that's utter nonsense.  That may work once (I do enjoy finally beating a dungeon that was difficult) but then I'll never run that dungeon again.  When you only have 4 dungeons...
 
Also dailies.  Absolutely hate dailies.
 
P.S.  Completely random but the term dungeon seems so out of place in Wildstar.  I think they should've used the term mission....but oh well.	
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'A bunch of people'.  Who are these people, and where are they? And are there enough of them to warrant spending dev time building specifically for it?  Why not design raiding so that it scales with how many people you bring?  The issue is that in Wildstar, if you're not gearing up towards 40 man raids, what other options do you have to continue progression? What if you only have 30 dedicated people?  What if you really WANT to experience that content, but your server can't support 40 people in the right roles all at the same time of day, with enough of a window to actually progress?  
 
Like I said, there are many good reasons why 40 man raiding is a bad idea, both from a player and a development perspective.  It's too much effort for too little gain.  If you want a reason why people have a problem with it, there it is.   
 
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If you only have 30 then 40-man isn't for you. It doesn't hurt to make a little bit of content for people who can and want to do 40-man. That was one of the big things that brought people to WildStar in the first place, they want the 40-man and they're working towards it.
 
It's content for the very large successful guilds, if you really want to do 40-man, you better join a large successful guild or have the ability to create one. Not all the content have to be for everyone, they can give something for the 1% crowd.
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All they have to do to bring my faith back to this game and also give me the will to log in longer than to grind the EP weekly...is to un-nerf pvp BG healing a bit.
 
Simply dropping the 53% de-buff to 33-43% in say practice bgs (so as not to break their precious RBGs)  just to see what happens....a small change like that would take only a few minutes I bet.
 
Use PBGs on live as your test bed b/c doing controlled in house or PTR testing in perfect scenarios is insufficient.	
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I actually read the whole article, and honestly it seems like every time I see one of these they gloss over the glaring, fundamental problems with Wildstar.  I'm not sure if they're being biased, or trying overly hard not to offend Carbine, or what the issue is.  
 
It's not a matter of WoW vs the world. It's a matter of poor game design choices, lack of learning from past mistakes in the industry, a seeming lack of understanding that the genre has evolved, all mixed with a healthy dose of their publisher forcing them to release the game before it was ready.
 
I'm so sick of hearing the comparison of 'WoW has had 10 years to adapt!  You can't compare a new game launch to that!!!"    You know what? Yes, yes we can.  Because that's 10 years of gaming history and advances in technology and design.  If newer games don't learn from the examples of what works and what fails in the genre, how is that the fault of anyone but the game designers?
 
If Wildstar fails, it won't be because it's too hard. Almost everyone universally agrees that the most fun of the game lies in the challenge of overcoming vet dungeons. It will be because of the needlessly repetitive content, and punishing RNG mechanics that serve no purpose other than to waste a players time, money, and effort. It will be because Carbine ignores issues such as the ranked PVP boosting and 1800 geared players having such a huge advantage, or the fact that 40 man raiding died in the past for a very good reason. 
 
It will NOT be because of WoW
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Yes, but the problem arises when a great deal of the development time is spent on 1% or less of the people, and other parts of the game suffer as a result.     It's perfectly fine to have high-end, challenging content designed for the top 1%. But only if it doesn't result in a detriment to the game AS A WHOLE.  
 
And that's where Carbine seems to be failing. They're so focused on using an outdated model for end-game, that they've failed to realize that the community has mostly moved away from such a setup.  If they're willing and able to support such a small niche of the market, then good for them, I guess.  I think it's a terrible move, but if that's where they want to take Wildstar, then I hope they're well-prepared for the impact such a decision will have on their game. 
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Also, they're focusing development time on raids? Which one was that raid drop that I missed again?
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Launch.
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tell me a single MMO that
- is grind free
- is RNG free
- had players or income 
 
The normal rule is - you can't make content at the speed that the player consumes it. So for player to consume it slower you'll either need to put in heavy time gating (GW2 with one dungeon path a day, 1 boss down a day, etc) or make the content grindable (RNG drops). 
 
And no-one will ever make a WoW out of the box anymore. It would take too many people, too many funds and bug testing with such an ammount of content would be impossible. 
Now about the mistakes, if everyone learned from WoW's mistakes all we would have would be WoW clones. The Industry needs variety. Mixed questing types, mixed PVP types, mixed game modes. When it's varied the consumer has enough choice to find something to satisfy them.
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Why obsess with keeping up with the rate that people consume content?  Why not create a game that is fun to PLAY, and let that be the draw?  Games such as EVE online do this by placing most of the burden of content on the players, and seems to be doing quite well.  Games such as LOL and DOTA2 have almost no content, relatively speaking, and yet still manage to be excessively poplar. Games where you can repeat content in different ways, such as DDO also do very well for themselves. The idea of placing treadmill mechanics in a game as a staple of the genre is just bad. Your game doesn't have what it takes to stand on it's own, so you fill it will repetitive bullshit to prop it up, and place a carrot at the end in the hopes that people will focus on that instead of your weak design. This is the opposite of good. 
Learning from mistakes does not mean simply copying a good idea straight across. It means taking an idea that was originally good, and stepping it up a notch.  But I agree with you that there needs to be variety. Players value the ability to choose their playstyle. What the do not like is having their time and effort wasted. 
 
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			I love the layers of mmo hell....	
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So what you are saying, Mirta, is that the MMORPG genre is defined by the grinding and RNG instead of the "Massively Multiplater Online Role-Playing Game" part. If you are going to use that kind of definition, then we are certainly never going to get rid of the RNG or the grinding.
 
Additionaly, claiming that something can't be compared because "they are a different" genre is just lazy. You can push those boundaries; see the elements of the other genre that keeps people playing them and then trying to translate them into an MMO.
 
All MMOs follow the same player-cycle. Release, get a lot of players trying the game for a month or two, then they run out of things to do and move to the next one. Of course MOBAs need to add skins and heros and maps to keep players coming back, the same way an MMO needs to keep adding classes, raids, zones and whatever to keep their players coming back. The idea isn't to make an MMO that is eternal and unchanging: the idea is to have something that is fun to revisit. You achieve this by adding content periodically, not by forcing your players to repeat content before they can move on to the next batch. People are always going to run over those grinding bumps in the road. And a lot of people, those who do not find grinding fun, will leave because you failed miserably to engage them in your game. Your game is not fun for them. And that's fine if you are going for a specific demographic of grinding-lovers or whatever. However, Carbine spend a non inconsiderate ammount of time telling their players that they could "play how they want". Except what they really meant was "raids for the raiding throne!"	
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So what you are saying, Mirta, is that the MMORPG genre is defined by the grinding and RNG instead of the "Massively Multiplater Online Role-Playing Game" part. If you are going to use that kind of definition, then we are certainly never going to get rid of the RNG or the grinding.
 
No, what I'm saying is that both is a part of MMO. The same way that both is a part of any RPG (look at elder scrolls and dungeon crawling to raise your level). Plus there were MMOs that tried to get rid of it all, but it also lost their consumers. the general rule set is, if you're not going to put in hard to achieve items and content that is meant to be repeated multiple times, you will either have to provide sandbox content (and be mostly a sandbox MMO) or you'll bleed players fast.
 
Additionaly, claiming that something can't be compared because "they are a different" genre is just lazy. You can push those boundaries; see the elements of the other genre that keeps people playing them and then trying to translate them into an MMO.
Sandbox and Themepark are two completely different genres that separated from each other after Ultima Online. It's kind of like comparing RPGs to building games. One is heavy on the lore written by a developer that is meant to be experienced the way that they want you to experience it (even in mutl choice games you're limited to whatever choices you see on the screen, you can never take the unexpected route) and that's why it's called themepark, the other one is limited only by your imagination, but depends heavily on player creations and tends to have very little world lore and is called sandbox.  
 
The same way you wouldn't compare a PvP based MMOFPS (Planetside 2) to sandbox MMORPG (Landmark or ArcheAge).
 
You achieve this by adding content periodically, not by forcing your players to repeat content before they can move on to the next batch. People are always going to run over those grinding bumps in the road. And a lot of people, those who do not find grinding fun, will leave because you failed miserably to engage them in your game
 
if content is supposed to progress in difficulty levels, then it makes sense that you have to do the content previous. That's why we tend to have leveling in the game. That's why in action games you can't just skip to level 5.
 
And even if this game was sandbox you would end up repeating content, except you would think that it's the core of the game so you wouldn't complain. For example what if our end game was more like Planetside? 1 giant zone meant for building, holding forts and machines for invading the enemy territory. Everything, starting with what kind of gear you can buy to how much currency you get would be tied to that one zone. We all would be sitting there day and night making sure that our side is wining. 6 months later we might get a new map for that zone. But we would primarily just be running around in that 1 zone. But it wouldn't be considered grinding, it would be considered playing. 
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			someone rang?	
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Apparently it hates colored text and nested quotes as much as I do. Just to chime in, I think you'll find a pointed lack of RNG and grinding in Bioware RPGs. Jade Empire, Mass Effect.. Dragon Age probably had some? Couldn't get invested in Yet Another D&D Campaign In the Kingdom of Grayandbrown. But the point, generally, stands... there are RPGs that divested themselves of these 'inescapable qualities of the genre' and did pretty well for themselves.
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Yet there' a bunch of people who want that. 40 man raids isn't for everyone, that is specific to the 1% of people who want the return of 40 man raids. I don't know what issue people have with it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it and let the people who want to do it continue having their fun.
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40 man?!  I want the 70 man raids revived.  I want contested raid content revived.  No more of this instanced bullshit.
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40 man?!  I want the 70 man raids revived.  I want contested raid content revived.  No more of this instanced bullshit.
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 that would be cool to see return the genre.
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And to see the rage of so many more players screaming "All the other classes and faction numbers are OP except mine! Nerf naow plz!" in the PvP servers.
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1. EVE is very very grindy. If you want any kind of ship that would hold in battle you're going to spend years (yes, years) grinding it out. And then it's horribly OP. One guy spent about 5 years saving in EVE and bought a ship that 40 000 people couldn't bring down for hours. 
2. LoL and DOTA2 are mobas. A completely different genre. And even then a moba loses its customers without adding new heroes and it loses income without adding new skins. 
3. No MMO has what it takes to stand on its own. Go to WoW forums. Even there you'll find "not enough content". That's why WoW tends to lose subs for half a year at a time sometimes. People consume the now casual content and move on. Look at GW2, due to a temporary approach to the game it got very little permanent content and the players simply left. 
And then every single MMO even limits what you can do in a day. I'm very very glad that here it isn't limited. 
 
Now games that can sort of stand on their own - sandbox MMOs. But those are a completely different genre. 
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However, recent developments lead me to believe that there will be a shift. They have something here that could make them a lot of money with the right philosophy. If the game was fashioned similar to WoW's philosophy they'd be still opening servers. The question is do they want that. Time will tell.
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