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RE: Future MMO Prospects - Rinh Hallani - 05-03-2014

(05-03-2014, 05:56 PM)ArmachiA Wrote: Wildstar was a completely disappointing experience. *sigh* I was so hoping it was gonna be good.

I felt the same way. It was hyped up so much to be innovative and different but felt like any other MMO in my experience. A combination of WoW and GW2 I suppose. Which is fine, I mean they're both games I enjoyed, but certainly didn't live up to the expectation I had for it.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Ildur - 05-03-2014

My problems with Wildstar are mostly technical: the combat can be pretty unforgiving if you lag on the overworld; there are many enemies with instant, non-telegraphed stuns or knockdowns followed by hard hitting attacks; all mobs get auto-attacks, including the elites that end up doing a load of unavoidable damage with those things alone; and repair costs have the potential of making you broke if you run dungeons a lot, forcing you to get your gold in some other way (which I guess is a way to make sure people don't level up all the way to 50 with dungeons alone. Not sure how I feel about needing to stop doing something I enjoy to gather gold, though).
Not to mention that they recently made the costume system a hassle to use.

Oh, and there's also the character creation that is okay but greatly underdeveloped.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - synaesthetic - 05-03-2014

I like Wildstar and it's fun, but I can't afford two subscription fees, and I have a larger social investment into XIV. So... yeah.

Maybe if I could play multiple classes on one character and the art direction was more stylized realism than 90s-era Don Bluth... eh. Even then, it just doesn't interest me enough to pull me away from XIV.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - ArmachiA - 05-03-2014

I'm not sure I can go into detail due to NDA? I'm not sure what their NDA is. There are a lot of design decisions in the game that are frustrating at best and unplayable at worst.

Yeah that Character Creation is LAUGHABLE

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Ildur - 05-03-2014

The Non Disclosure Agreement was lifted a long time ago. You can talk about it all you want now. And on the internet!

RE: Future MMO Prospects - TheLastCandle - 05-03-2014

Agreed on all points about WildStar. I played the last few beta weekends, and while I wouldn't say I hate the game by any means, it just feels so dated in terms of interface and overall presentation. Even the paths system wasn't as "cool" and new as I'd been led to think. ("I can give people buffs! Except instead of casting them, I leave them out in the world for people to click on!" - overheard from a settler)

Beyond that, the lore and races just didn't do anything for me, so I can't really see playing it just for RP, either. :/

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Naunet - 05-03-2014

I actually love the lore, the art style, the housing (finally something that comes close to Rift's dimensions in customizability!), the class concepts and mechanics (except for medic, which I'm still kinda meh on), and the combat... though with the combat, I really, really wish they'd said good bye to the whole tab target thing completely, instead of trying to cling to it while simultaneously trying to make action-y combat. But. I can live with it. Warplots are all kinds of awesome, and I love that you can start practicing in arenas at a low level. Also the battleground maps are super creative and make use of terrain in great ways.

Things I don't like about WildStar: Character creations is super limited (though the new body types is a vast improvement - we still need MORE COLORS for skin/hair and more hairstyles). 40 man raids (ew ew ew ew). No costumes in PvP. The change they made to the costume system that ties it to an NPC in Thayd/Illium. The inability to freely place housing decorations beyond the invisible wall border of the specific house plug (I wanna fill up all the other plugs with decorations instead of actual plugs xD).

Oh and the raiding tier sets are fugly.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Ignacius - 05-03-2014

It's not released yet, is it?

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Naunet - 05-03-2014

Nope, but I've been in the beta since August. ^^

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Ignacius - 05-04-2014

I'm sort of... divided on the game.  Honestly, the stuff everyone seems leery about is stuff I love.  If there's one thing about MMORPGs that has completely eluded most developers, it's atmosphere.  That's one thing Blizzard gets, it's one thing CCP sorta gets, it's one thing Square kind of gets, but it's something a lot of people take for granted.  Atmosphere.

I don't know how far back most people remember, but I distinctly recall in 2004 that there was a minor war brewing.  It was around the releases of two critically acclaimed FPS sequels, id's Doom 3 and Valve's Half-Life 2.  I also distinctly remember being outnumbered in any conversation about my preference for Doom 3 over Half-Life 2, but the reason why I liked it better is the same as the reason I sometimes feel unimpressed by MMORPGs everyone else seems to be excited about.  It's all about atmosphere.  Half-Life 2 was fun to play and had a very detailed environment and physics engine, but Doom 3, to this day if I play it, scares the ever-loving shit out of me.  It's all about the little things, from reality bending to just having sound effects that have nothing to do with the game, just existing to scare you.

Given everyone seems to worry about its art style, that's the one thing I actually really feel excited about.  It's stylized and it has a definite presentation where most games tend to be glitzy re-enactments of the Battle of Helm's Deep from Peter Jackson's The Two Towers or the thousandth forest scene where they've tried to slightly improve the light engine.  Wildstar looks like it only takes itself half-seriously and it feels like almost a cartoon.  That's a distinct change of pace for me.  Considering I tend to really like games that know how to stand out with atmosphere alone (e.g. the Silent Hills, Killer 7, Eternal Darkness) I could care less if there are fewer eyebrow options.

Now, all the atmosphere in the world won't polish a turd if the mechanics and gameplay turn out to be a complete wash.  Atmosphere only takes you so far.  I just think you have to have it in your game.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Zyrusticae - 05-05-2014

(05-03-2014, 06:44 PM)ArmachiA Wrote: Yeah that Character Creation is LAUGHABLE
I don't even look at games with poor character creation. If the art style didn't turn me off, the character creation would have done the same.

But I'm really surprised that some people came into the game expecting something other than what it is (i.e. a standard themepark MMO with a few tiny innovations). It was kind of signposted from the very beginning that it would be like this, especially with that emphasis on raiding.

Edit: To comment on the character creation further, the body types being picked from a list seriously irritates the hell out of me, same thing with Guild Wars 2. Stuff like having small breasts only on one particular petite frame, as if small-breasted women with more burly frames cannot exist. It's seriously discouraging. No muscle slider either.

I actually have similar issues with FFXIV, BUT FFXIV at least uses a generic athletic frame that is realistic and passable for many types of characters, as opposed to Wildstar's default assumption that every single female is going to be an hourglass-figured bombshell which actually grosses me out on a few levels, especially when you get to the absurdly disfigured waists that can't possibly house any internal organs.

When it comes to character creation I feel like the way the developer handles it says a lot about the way they view their game and their customers. A particularly strong character creation suite says they are at least aware of the diversity of their own customer base, as opposed to games with poor character creation (WoW in particular among them) where they're just aiming for the lowest common denominator.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Naunet - 05-06-2014

(05-05-2014, 04:04 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: I actually have similar issues with FFXIV, BUT FFXIV at least uses a generic athletic frame that is realistic and passable for many types of characters, as opposed to Wildstar's default assumption that every single female is going to be an hourglass-figured bombshell which actually grosses me out on a few levels, especially when you get to the absurdly disfigured waists that can't possibly house any internal organs.

Y'know, I never thought I'd be the one saying this, because I was the person who railed against the old human and aurin boobs back in the day (even gave Carbine explicit feedback on an e-mail survey at the end of one of the closed beta sessions stating that it was keeping me from wanting to play the game), but...

[Image: titangang.jpg]

[Image: 9c93faedf387276500624f67f1f60bd3.jpg]

[Image: treasure-planet-mr-arrow.jpg]

[Image: treasureplanet5.jpg]

[Image: amelias.jpg]

That's the style. The females are varying shapes of hourglass (unless they're a funky side-character), while the males tend to be varying shapes of inverted triangle (again, unless you're a funky side character).

Now, I'll give you the boobies. I'd love it if they had a chest slider at the very least and let us pick what breast size we wanted with our various body types. But I think your complaint is with the art style as a whole, not with Carbine's treatment of character models.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Ignacius - 05-06-2014

(05-06-2014, 12:52 AM)Naunet Wrote:
(05-05-2014, 04:04 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: I actually have similar issues with FFXIV, BUT FFXIV at least uses a generic athletic frame that is realistic and passable for many types of characters, as opposed to Wildstar's default assumption that every single female is going to be an hourglass-figured bombshell which actually grosses me out on a few levels, especially when you get to the absurdly disfigured waists that can't possibly house any internal organs.

Y'know, I never thought I'd be the one saying this, because I was the person who railed against the old human and aurin boobs back in the day (even gave Carbine explicit feedback on an e-mail survey at the end of one of the closed beta sessions stating that it was keeping me from wanting to play the game), but...

[Image: titangang.jpg]

[Image: 9c93faedf387276500624f67f1f60bd3.jpg]

[Image: treasure-planet-mr-arrow.jpg]

[Image: treasureplanet5.jpg]

[Image: amelias.jpg]

That's the style. The females are varying shapes of hourglass (unless they're a funky side-character), while the males tend to be varying shapes of inverted triangle (again, unless you're a funky side character).

Now, I'll give you the boobies. I'd love it if they had a chest slider at the very least and let us pick what breast size we wanted with our various body types. But I think your complaint is with the art style as a whole, not with Carbine's treatment of character models.

Honestly, a lot is going to depend on the game itself.  If it functions on a higher level than other games mechanically, it'll have traded a long-winded character generator for something useful.  However, if they're making a game that lives on art style alone and is otherwise vapid, it will have just been laziness.

If it's a middle-of-the-road game, I'll still be pleased with the art style.  I remember the cartoons I watched as a kid often having this look, and the game seems to not be taking itself too seriously.

Luckily, I have made sure I am never excited anymore for anything.  The only games I have been excited for since WoW have been Diablo 3, Final Fantasy XIV (original release), and Age of Conan.  So I'm one for three in having my expectations met.  I'm not going to hold my breath for anything.  At least then I'll be pleasantly surprised when four months after launch some game is actually good.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - Flickering Ember - 05-06-2014

I prefer cartooniness/stylized video game art to realism. It really surprised me that I was able to get into FFXIV at all since the game is so pretty, leaning towards realism, and has mostly human player races. Wildstar really feels like it is the sort of game that would appeal to me more in its art. 

But it didn't. I got into the beta, got to the character creation screen and was immediately disappointed. It goes far beyond the whole "men are triangles, women are hourglasses" thing. Before you even start your game, unless they changed it since I was in beta, all the women stood in poses that looked like they should be on a pin up calendar. That was your first introduction to player female characters. Your female character starts off half dressed while the male is properly covered. Your female character will walk and run in stereotypically feminine way. Sashaying is a requirement, not an option. 

But the hourglass bothers me too because you can at least tell there is a difference in body types between a male aurin and a male granok. You can't do the same with a female aurin and a female granok--they have the exact same body type. 

The hourglass may be exaggerated in a comical way but it comes at a time when people are clamoring for better representation of women in video games. Their attempts at cartoony smell more of the same old stereotypical female characters rather than something pleasantly nostalgic.

RE: Future MMO Prospects - TheLastCandle - 05-06-2014

Art and character design aside, the gameplay itself just isn't that compelling to me. It feels like every other DikuMUD-based MMO except - oh, I don't have to tab target these guys to hit them with my sword. (I will say that I like the "every normal attack is an AoE" feel of Warrior in that, even though it doesn't really feel like the sword strikes have any weight to them.) Which is fine. I don't hate the MMO genre, obviously. But I'm already invested in that type of game, so why would I pay $60 + $15/month to play the same thing dolled up in a Don Bluth inspired art style?