The SciFi MMORPG WildStar has been on the market for three months. Launched with much anticipation, the development team has faced both highs and lows. A few days ago, we had the opportunity to ask Mike Donatelli, the Product Director from Carbine Studios, a dozen questions.
In WildStar, you rely on a setting with a large portion of science fiction. Both the world and the characters are quite “crazy.” What was the appeal of taking a different path than most other MMORPGs, which largely rely on a conventional fantasy setting? Was it personal preferences or did you simply want to create something entirely new?
Our development teams are really big sci-fi fans, and you can tell that from the game. Regarding the various characters within WildStar, we wanted them to be memorable so that they stay in the players’ minds – I believe we succeeded in that.
WildStar received largely high ratings in the press. Did you expect that, or were you surprised by the positive opinions? Do good reviews motivate you, or are such accolades rather secondary?
I think we tend to be very critical of our work. It is definitely wonderful to be praised for the work, but we cannot just rest on our laurels. One must always look for how to improve. It’s great that some players love the story and the quirky humor. Now, we need to focus on how we can reach a larger audience.
Do you still think it was the right decision to release WildStar in the summer, or would another time have perhaps been better in hindsight?
I would have preferred if the game had launched during the holiday season. At that time, however, there were many new releases, so WildStar would likely have gotten lost in the flood of games.
Is there something in game design that you would do differently today with all the experiences gathered?
I believe we should have focused more on easier accessibility. I don’t think the game is generally too difficult, but we should have better prepared players for the various aspects of the game. That’s why we are adding new “training features” among other things and making changes to the LFG tool. We want to focus on making the game more accessible for all players. At the same time, it should remain challenging.
What led to the decision to discontinue the monthly content drops in the future?
We wanted to maintain an aggressive release policy after the launch to offer players more for their money. The problem was that the quality of the patches suffered under this speed, and that was absolutely not our goal.
Players demanded that we slow down and fix the bugs instead of bringing a patch that is not 100% complete. We agreed to this demand.
“The devs are listening” is one of the principles at Carbine, as repeatedly emphasized in the developer videos. But how can we imagine this process until a community request is not only heard, but ultimately realized?
There are many players who make their voices heard through the forum, and that is really great. We receive useful feedback almost every day. And yes, while we always listen, we use the forum and social media as a starting point to then dig into the data and find out what the problems are, so that we can bring about a positive change.
The language in the forums, on Twitter and Facebook, on all channels where the Carbine developers communicate, is English. How does Carbine ensure that the devs also receive feedback in other languages?
I try to read the forum posts in other languages [than English] as well, but it’s not that easy with Google Translate! Jokes aside, we have a team for other languages, and that helps us make feedback understandable from all countries.
What impression do you have of the feedback from German players or Europeans? Does it align with the feedback from players in America, or are there differences?
I would say that players from different regions often share the same opinions, but we receive significantly more feedback from our German and European players regarding RP and PvP.
The raids in WildStar are well received by the progression guilds, but is the risk not too high to invest a lot of work into parts of the game that might only be used by a small part of the player base? How large is the percentage of players who raid in WildStar?
It carries certain risks, but we really wanted to provide players with challenging dungeon and raid experiences, and I believe we have succeeded beyond that. Roughly speaking, I would say that about 10% of players participate in dungeons and raids.
WildStar and the press have strongly emphasized a distinction between WildStar and today’s World of Warcraft. One of the announcements was to give players a Vanilla WoW feeling when raiding. Now, it appears in some discussions that WildStar might face the same problems World of Warcraft did at the end of Classic and during The Burning Crusade. Does Carbine not fear that the “hardcore” mindset will require the same solutions as Blizzard back then?
We look at everything, but we focus on the feedback from players who are trying to complete the pre-quest and want to raid. We absolutely want people to play our content. So, we will make changes that will largely be based on what the raiders want.
How do you assess the potential for conflict between hardcore and casual players in the long run? After the relaxations regarding the gold runs and the attunement quest, some hardcore players now fear that this is just the beginning. There’s uncertainty about which target audience is being aimed at with WildStar. Would you prefer to appeal to a broad audience or do you still believe in a niche for hardcore gamers?
We want to provide content for both types of players. We wanted to create group content that clearly differentiates itself. Crew missions -> Adventures -> Dungeons -> Raids. We definitely need to work on better communicating the tier of difficulties and already have plans on how to accomplish that. Regarding the “nerfing” of our hardest content: we don’t do that.
Many players have now reached the endgame and are engaging in the different activities available at level 50. You have probably already taken a look at what players enjoy the most. Were you perhaps surprised by anything?
Housing. I knew many would enjoy it, but I couldn’t have anticipated how many players at the level cap would invest so much time and resources to personalize their houses.
What can fans look forward to in the next content drops?
General quality-of-life improvements, the main story, new zones, bug fixes, and of course enhancements regarding content accessibility.
Thank you very much for the interview, Mike Donatelli.
