Wolcen Hype Release!

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

...Because a league is exactly what this game needs...

https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/424370/view/2907599623109403383

It needs to get shut down, abandoned because it is beyond repair now.

From what i read people dont have any hope left , even in that new patch and have found their piece that this product will still be a trainwreck after the new patch.

I mean im happy for the 2k people left that will constantly play it after it comes out.

A strange reponse to the news that they have been quietly plugging away on a substantial update, but I rarely expect normal reactions from Exiles.

Anyone who was really interested in the status of the game joined their official discord anyway. The CMs were privately quite active there, PMing those who gave decent feedback. Very jarring after GGG's MO of seeming utterly transparent but I suspect it allowed them to focus on genuinely useful interaction and ignore the admittedly well-deserved acrimony.

If your only option is to put your head down and fix something seriously broken, you are likely not going to get it done obsessing over those who won't let you, who just want you to keep on failing. Not that I am expecting a Redemption arc like Hello Games', but there is no denying that Wolcen Studio followed their lead here.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

A strange reponse to the news that they have been quietly plugging away on a substantial update, but I rarely expect normal reactions from Exiles.

Spoiler

Anyone who was really interested in the status of the game joined their official discord anyway. The CMs were privately quite active there, PMing those who gave decent feedback. Very jarring after GGG's MO of seeming utterly transparent but I suspect it allowed them to focus on genuinely useful interaction and ignore the admittedly well-deserved acrimony.

If your only option is to put your head down and fix something seriously broken, you are likely not going to get it done obsessing over those who won't let you, who just want you to keep on failing. Not that I am expecting a Redemption arc like Hello Games', but there is no denying that Wolcen Studio followed their lead here.

Would it be soo strange to think otherwise considering what Wolcen Studio delivered in the last 9 months patch-wise and how bad of a communicating job they did?

What makes people still confident or believe that they can pull off any major improvements in regards of gameplay mechanics and content?

Dont get me wrong. I wish this game would be in a bettr place so there are more contenders in the H&S/aRPG genre.

But all Wolcen Studios did after they got rid of the inital ,potentional more interesting, (Umbra) plans was to deliver a worse PoE/D3 clone.

The game in its current iteration & core is not that appealing at all since all aspects that it delivers are already covered by other H&S products, except maybe the graphics (but with bad/mediocre animations).

250 players average? Damn, when I feel down I'll just take a look at Wolcen's steam chart to make myself feel better.

A small QoL but I'll take it! Note also quite a few new nodes in the wheel...especially between the sectors, making it a little harder to just jump between them.



Dedicated 'damage conversion' nodes for every active skill is an altaholic's wet dream.

Source

And from a German site known to cover Wolcen:



Clarity with crafting outcomes is always nice. Good to see a dedicated window to currency-based craft rolling.



Of the new environments, this one strikes me as the coolest. Exploring windswept peaks is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Source

Interesting to note that, as usual, Gamestar remain quite critical of Wolcen despite the coverage. They are healthily wary that this might be too little, too late, and the core issue of lacking variety at endgame will remain. Not a problem for a bottom-feeder like me but absolutely one of the nails in the coffin of the game's overhyped release.

Still, between this and Last Epoch's massive patch in a few days, I may just have an ARPG or two to play in December rather than Cyberpunk 2077 after all.

Damn, Charan, those look cool ('specially the wind swept cliffs), may have to update and play some Wolcen again.

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DoubleU wrote:

Damn, Charan, those look cool ('specially the wind swept cliffs), may have to update and play some Wolcen again.

I can't speak to their decision to remain infuriatingly tight-lipped for the past 6 months, but I have my suspicions that they don't need to be as forthcoming as a developer relying on the game-as-service model. What I suspect is that a lot of people *didn't* refund the game even though the vast majority of them stopped playing before long. This means they already own it and Wolcen Studio already have the funding, and owners have no reason not to try a 'sudden' new update. The plan is probably a turn-around of opinion based on this update, restoring enough goodwill to sell a proper expansion in the future.

I'm not saying it's a good plan or even that it will work, but I do like the fundamental implicit rebuke of the game-as-service model where people need to be drip-fed teasers and updates just to keep buying support packs or season passes or whatever. I miss discrete game design -- and I said from the start that I played PoE *despite* it being free, not because it was. It was a perfectly good game worth paying for from the get-go, and years of being used as a platform for selling mtxes have left it looking abused and ragged.

But it's probably too late to return to that older 'sell expansions' model now. Grim Dawn still clings to it, but Last Epoch definitely doesn't despite being a buy-to-play ARPG. Maybe it will after launch -- I think THEIR current plan is to prove how active they are now and to deliver something truly replayable for months during which time they'll work on their first substantial update. They can't keep up their current momentum post-launch without a loss of quality. Not even GGG did that.

Either way, I think that's the plan. In an interview, the lead dev of Wolcen claimed they'd finished internal bug squashing 'in September' and have been working on new content ever since. That's a crazy statement in itself -- if you've squashed that many bugs, surely you deploy a bug fix and see what's actually still screwed! Unless, again, they simply don't have to. They sold over a million units, there weren't that many refunds, but virtually no one's playing. In which case they keep their hand close to their chest and, with little warning, slam down what better be a killer flush. I do agree this is their last chance to claw back.

All else aside, it's been an interesting example of an indie ARPG that didn't do anything typical. It took an engine designed for FPSes and hammered it into a relatively smooth shape. It started as one genre and, by virtue of realistic goals, shed a lot of its lofty aspirations and settled on functional Diablo 3/Poe hybrid. It languished in early access for years, and then had a surprise and somewhat breakneck speed beta period. It came out of the gate with *9* hours of full orchestral score, whereas I believe PoE launched with maybe a few hours of ambient synth. It also launched with 3 acts of full voice acting by industry veterans. A lot of polish. A pity so much else was wrong with it.

By all rights it should be dead. Even I thought they'd do a runner with the money.

And maybe my experiences with GGG have skewed my opinion, but I still say 20-40 bucks is perfectly fair for what launched. I have to wonder if the reception would have been better had they launched as f2p with exactly the same product but some arbitrary gameplay loop at the end of the road to keep people buying mtxes. On balance, I find Wolcen less buggy than PoE. the ONLY crash I experienced with Wolcen was a memory leak now and then and to work around that I just had to limit fps to 60. The multiplayer was a mess but again, it's not a multiplayer game by default. It has a robust offline mode for a reason.

Funny, given that's one of the number one requests from long-time Exiles of PoE.

Anyway, should be an interesting development. At worst, it'll improve the game significantly for those who still enjoy it. I suspect it'll improve it for those who enjoyed it but didn't find much to hold on to, if only for a little while. It probably won't convert those already committed to the cause of naysaying it.

Not even Hello Games have managed that.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/424370/announcements/detail/2907599623119862111

Bam. Today.

https://youtu.be/QCE47nTUdVw

Jesus that trailer is so much more than I expected.

Last Epoch and Wolcen both change dramatically this week.

Neither feared Cyberpunk 2077.

12.1 GB cant wait to get home from work!

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DoubleU wrote:

12.1 GB cant wait to get home from work!

Just watched the trailer on my bigass tv. Fucking gave me chills. That. Dragon.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/424370/announcements/detail/2907599623119886016

Patch notes!

Whew, that took a while to read.