This Week In MMO 101: WildStar Antics

Written by: Larry Everett (Twitter @Shaddoe - Google+) | June 28, 2012 8:30 am

27 Comments

Our friends over at Massively had not one but two different interviews with developers of the anything-but-WoW MMO Wildstar: Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney and Senior Community Manager David Bass. And one of the biggest things that stood out to our TWIMMO crew was when Gaffney said that players will be able to use the environment to help in combat situations.

Gary mentioned that one of his biggest annoyances in even the most modern MMOs is when the NPCs he’s fighting do not even consider what is happening around them. For instance, if the player were to drop several feet to the ground he would take some damage, but if an NPC were to do the same, no damage would be taken. Gary exclaims that it would be nice if an MMO would do that. It’s completely possible that WildStar will.

If you are looking for the latest news from RIFT, WildStar, Final Fantasy XI, and much more, we have the show for you. Gary Gannon, Mike Schaffnit, and Mike B spin the latest MMORPG news and commentary on This Week In MMO!

3:23

World of Warcraft

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
What’s A Fire Festival

We know you've missed him so we thought we'd relive some classic memories Darnell with a trip to the Fire Festival.Read more »

4 comments
Wildstar

Wildstar Teasing Business Model Reveal??? *Updated*

Wildstar Wednesday this week could be about the pricing model they have chosen.Read more »

22 comments
50:06

Star Wars The Old Republic

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.2 is here and Damion Schubert has things to say about next gen consoles.Read more »

4 comments

Old Ben

“Including the core game with the expansion” and “giving people who already bought the core game a discount” is exactly the same as still selling the game and the expansion separately; the only difference is perceptual.

Instead of selling the original game for $15 and the expansion for another $15 (for example), they sell the expansion (with game included) for $30, and give previous owners a $15 “discount”. The end result is exactly the same. The actual values might be slightly different, but that’s the principle.

It’s like when a shop tells you that you can buy something in monthly instalments “at no extra cost”, and then gives a “discount” to people who pay in full.
- Kagitaar
  
  Stop making sense, damn it!
dekintold

<—————-scott
loki4687

Interesting thought, mikeb talking about rift doing better than swtor on the PR front.

I remember when I’m playing a game and enjoying its content, I’m out of the loop news wise. The people that consume the bad news is the people making the decision to buy the game.

Better keep your bad news to a minimum, new releases. Perhaps why WOW was so big was because they hit a time where not only is their gameplay fresh, but also the lack of gaming sites in 2001 reporting all the bad news.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  It is amazing how different the PR is between SWTOR and Rift. SWTOR has a horrible experience at level 50 and has a serous drop in subscriptions.
  
  Rift had major number of bugs in raiding and a true landslide in drop of subscriptions during the first year.
  
  But, Rift continues to have significant goodwill within the gaming community. Not true with SWTOR.
Hicks64

I admit I haven’t read up on Wildstar, ’twas so confused when they were talking about settlers and explorers and if they were storylines, professions, or rep grinds… haha. Still a entertaining show, now I need to research Wildstar
Jediwolf

The Secret World…this just in…Single Server technology FTW. Play with anyone you want anytime anywhere but still keep your home Dimension. http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/blog_single_server_technology_in_the_secret_world Looks like we wont be seeing no server merges in 6 months …just sayin. Check it out
Krzysztof Kotarba

When Tera will go f2p?
Brits will buy gamecard for €
H S

I don’t play Rift but I applaud them for their path they are on here. MikeB is spot on, SWTOR is nothing but bad PR and Trion is trying to capitalize on that.

Then stop and think about Anet’s 8/28 launch. That’s only a few days after most of the 6 month Swtor subs expire. The perfect storm is brewing for EA’s red headed stepchild. Trion wins, Anet wins, Wildstar….who knows.
- P V
  
  Well SWTOR as was said on the http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/star-wars-the-old-republic-video/the-republic-swtor-show/swtor-update-1-3-allies/ show had a better change if some people didn’t decide to launch it 6 months early.
  
  That they have bad PR is because of the wording they choose and no one cares for that as a gamer but apparently it makes sense to Bioware…
  
  The beauty of the whole SWTOR mess is that they can’t say anything that will get people back, they have to be content with their userbase and go from there.
Rich E.

“i need the veil to be a little more smoke and mirrors” Gary Gannon… fuk yes.

thank facking god for this show… its voices like this that push the evolution of MMO systems… so great to hear you guys talk about AI and immersion breaking aspects of typical generic MMOs. games like TERA come to mind.. perfect example of a generic ‘you walk this path, find the next bunch of NPCs, and then repeat the same combat moves over and over against a mob with a different skin MMO”. awesome graphics and animations are great but its the shallowest aspect of a MMO. its the surface that should candy the deeper, more nutritious, aspects of a MMO “world”. mobs in MMOs now are just plopped on the terrain as exp fodder.. dont care how cool my combos are, its just gets boring fast.

great to hear Wildstar is doing something different.. doesnt shock me though; as the devs are from Blizzard. say all you want about Blizzard (and im an outspoken critic of them as well) but they create the cliches, they are usually on the forefront of MMO development. they often take some great risks and do alot to evolve games.
Chiggz

“Talking about Aliens” Oh man Gary you legend LOOOL, Mike is right though, double jump needs to allow direction change
http://twitter.com/DaveyDiablo Davey Diablo

English Gamer here. Was a big fan of TSW until I saw their business model, and then was completely put off after I played the beta. As Mike B said, the whole thing is geared towards an eventual F2P model. Any UK gamer should really stop and ask themselves some very serious questions before they shell out any cash for the game and sub.
As I said recently in another thread, the people they’re hurting the most are the true fans of the game. Very foolish and quite possibly unethical IMHO
scottsummer

Sometime i can’t stand Mike S : P…
You are just way too loud sometime ..
http://profiles.google.com/gunslinger1985 Roland Deschain

what TSW originally had for the UK subscription price was 12.99pounds
http://www.facebook.com/BrianOrr.Author Brian Orr

I think Mike S. has paths in Wildstar totally wrong. From the video as I understood it, paths are not glorified harvesting professions but the way to determine what quests you get in the game. Warrior path will get “kill ten rats” style quests, Scientists will get go scan and study X plant / animal life style quests, etc. Explorer and Settler paths need to be talked about still so we dont really know what type of quests those paths will be doing.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Sad but true. As much as I want to go back and finish a few more stories in SWTOR, just cant stand what happens at level 50.
Kagitaar

FFXI came out on PS2 first in Japan, then simultaneously in the US (iirc).
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jacob-Wishon/42403350 Jacob Wishon

this is the one show i wish I was on…I have sooo much to add to each second….like ff11 chain pulls for exp gain!!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jacob-Wishon/42403350 Jacob Wishon

dude I work 60 hours a week and I still watched the last season of weeds and 90210 on Netflix while starting and getting a toon to 60 in diablo :p finish watching ancient aliens!!!! haha
http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Dickerson/23921802 Sean Dickerson

Just curious, but why is the Rift thing news? SOE’s been doing this for years. It started in EQ2 when Kingdom of Sky came out in 2006. EQ’s been doing it since at least 2007 with Secrets of Faydwer. Trion Worlds is hardly breaking new ground here. I think the bigger news here is that Blizzard still has yet to issue a new Battle Chest compilation for WoW.
jayremy

In WoW if you did something creative like kit fel reaver thing to Shattrath it would be an exploit, you could get reported and it would be hotfixed weeks later if not days. That sucked, now if Wildstar is capitalizing on using the environment and using creative tactics to take down enemies that is a huge plus to creating a more dynamic experience. A game like WoW gives a linear limited experience like boss fights in dungeons and so on throughout the world have a limited structure on how it is engaged. Also bringing in NPCs that will fight each other having NPC vs NPC factions and “threat tables”, that aren’t pre-scripted start to finish events.
http://www.facebook.com/pernille.sylvest Pernille Sylvest

Yeah, their server technology is right on the spot for me, European with mostly US game friends. Their business model does suck though, I’ll be waiting a while, before I consider wether to buy it or not.
http://www.facebook.com/pernille.sylvest Pernille Sylvest

Sounds like they are not totally into what the path is about.

Paths is about 20% of the experience from doing the type of xp’ing you like the most.

If you just like to kill shit, go the soldier way and you meet more situations with more mobs to kill.

If you like building infrastructure and culture the wilds, go settler.

If you are a collection/shiney/knowledge gatherer, choose scientist gather knowledge objectives about the stuff you find and mobs you kill.

If you simply have to get on top of the highest mountain, the bottom of the deepest sea and into the only for you visible cave, because, well, they are there!, choose explorer. 20% of your quests/objective/spontanous events will be the type of content that attracts should attract the path player type.

If you like doing a little bit of everything, find friends to group with and you get access to complete the same triggers they find for their path objectives too.

But maybe I have it wrong too :p
Johan Andersson

Where is next TWIMMO?
Revanhavoc

You guys all double jumped your way into my heart a long time ago…
DoctorOverlord

Good that you got to
talk a little bit about the GW2 stress test lol

Earlier Mike S
brought up a good point about the profitability of the MMO sub model. Subs have
been keeping UO alive all these years and we know SOE would shut it down in a
second if it wasn’t making their accountants happy. And just imagine how much money WoW is raking
in.

That’s why so many
companies have tried to follow the sub model.
They can smell the profits. The
problem is that they’re trying to take Blizzard on by copying them, a sure formula
for failure.

I’m willing to bet that
looking back at MMO history will show that subs have been one of the biggest
scams in gaming history and it’s good to see the model is slowly dying away
from MMOs.

This Week In MMO 101: WildStar Antics

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
What’s A Fire Festival

Wildstar Teasing Business Model Reveal??? Updated

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

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