117121-1027-morning-coffee-the-slacker-edition

Content
{| style="width: 100%;"

Personally I'm not really concerned about the F2P issue. I keep seeing it crop up with, but of all the things that I find concerning (or don't), it's really at the bottom of my list. With as much pride as the team has in putting out as high quality of content as possible, I think they'd do everything they could to avoid it coming to that. I've played a lot of F2P games, and they just don't deliver the same quality in my opinion. As for the plot for the extra tracks - it's a possibility in the distant future. The one I'm doing on Malzek will be after I cap out Kelzam's plot, post Drop 3 (and after I save up money again because Kelzam's plot is going to be a giant - but worthwhile - money sink). Appreciate the offer and will have to take you up on that at some point down the line if the track on Malzek turns out well!

Yech. My condolences for that mess and lack of sleep first thing on a Monday morning.

I'm sorry to hear about that. Several of my friends in my Contest Enthusiast circle have vanished over time that I'd known since launch for various reasons, and it sucks no matter how they go.

I wish I could be happy with a more casual raiding guild. Back in WoW over the years I've ended up with a lot of server firsts and tend to prefer progression guilds, but I've also tried just hanging out casually and helping with less progress-oriented guilds and as much as I hate to say it, resentment eventually sets in. Usually it's at the behest of things like seeing a guildie die to Darkspeaker Reyna's firewalls every pull in each run, or attuning a DPS that does less damage than the tank to fill a raid slot for the sake of having it filled. As a player, I'm usually someone that picks up on fight mechanics really quickly and thus end up waiting around on everyone else to get up to speed, so despite a rather deep well of patience, it eventually gets repetitive and frustrating. It's hard to say that without sounding full of oneself or elitist. It feels great helping people and knowing they depend on you up to a point, then some point (at least in my shoes) it starts to feel like a ball and chain. Probably the most painful part of being in a casual raiding guild in the past has been getting to that point where I finally head off into the horizon, knowing that many people depend on me but that I can't necessarily depend on them in the way that I need to. Erf. It's really tough. *stares at my Ohmna quest and gear that hasn't had an upgrade in several months due to not raiding* *stares the other way at people that basically invite me to every run due to my performance consistency*


 * }
 * }

{| style="width: 100%;" I think the term rotation is fine until people start thinking in terms of one-rotation-to-rule-them-all. Especially in WS where a person's rotation is going to be hugely impacted by their skill at positioning.

WS's current LAS is a start, but it still doesn't encourage much variation.


 * }
 * }

{| style="width: 100%;" What I meant by not encouraging much variation: I'll use DPS Medic as an example: Right now we have 1 DPS builder that branches into 2 different spenders (pretty similar across all six classes). This is the sole basis for any DPS Medic, because they have no other choices. Yes, there are six other ability slots, but the way the LAS is built right now, Medics are always locked into two of these three skills. Just as a basic idea: What would happen if we threw in AMPs that could turn other skills into builders? For example, an AMP that allowed any of our five Probes abilities to build an actuator on every 2nd proc, or an AMP that offered a chance to build an actuator every time the Medic had a critical hit? These are the types of things that offer build variety. I'm all for keeping the LAS to eight skills, but right now the skill selection is limited (see edit below). The system has a lot of potential. EDIT: Also, in case I wasn't clear earlier, the skill pools in GW had several hundred skills per class, and each character was able to utilize two classes at a time. That's why I said I was spoiled with GW's skill and gear system, and that's probably why I see WS's current skill pool as very limited, whereas other people do not.

Things only ever become a "fact" of MMO life for two reasons: 1) devs aren't creative with adapting or rethinking existing systems that work...because god knows if one system works, there can't possibly be another that does equally well... (WS has already moved past this on lots of levels, which is why it stands out for many of us.) 2) people keep insisting upon relating everything back to WoW...because if WoW does it, it's now MMORPGospel <_<


 * }
 * }

{| style="width: 100%;"

Difficulty is one of those things players have a tendency to say they want but don't always actually want. It's strange that way. If I can say one thing about Wildstar, it is the game we were all asking for. People who played WoW in the past especially complained about a lot. They wanted the game to be harder, they wanted their 40 man raids back, they wanted player housing, they wanted crafting where you could individually place stats (I distinctly remember that being a recurring topic of conversation). A lot of Wildstar seems to be a series of riffs on the things people have been complaining about in mainstream MMORPGs for years. The reason they still experienced a dropoff is because a lot of people didn't MEAN they wanted all those things. Difficulty sounds fun (and is fun), but a lot of players feel like the bar is too high and won't try to jump for it. 40 man raids are fun, but take a lot of logistical work that a lot of players don't want to put in. Wildstar is a great game if you really meant all the things you'd been saying about action MMORPGs, and I did. That's why I love it so much even though I would have made a completely different MMORPG (I could enumerate it, it's really not like Dark Souls in a lot of ways, but I see where you'd get that). Wildstar delivers on a lot of promises MMORPGs made but haven't kept for the past ten years. The question really comes down to whether players really wanted it, but the build quality wasn't good enough, or whether they were blowing smoke out of their asses and they really did want WoW and everything they did to whittle bits off their own game to turn it into an arcade version of its former self. I guess we'll know soon enough; Drop 3 fixes a lot of bugs and improves the build quality at the same time they make some of the gear adjustments. And the Protostar instances are apparently back up on the PTR. At this point, I wonder whether Wildstar really did suffer at the hands of bugs or if the greater gaming population just didn't want what they say they wanted.


 * }
 * }