Wolcen Hype Release!

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Boem wrote:

Thats why i mentioned the 7 year run up to this launch. Your bassicaly crunching a lot of anticipation in this release event.

PoE's initial launch didn't have this anticipation level or build up, neither did it have this amount of visibility in the gaming community because of PR.

For example, how many people only became aware of PoE after the D3 failure and were totally oblivious to it's existence prior to this event.

As far as i recall they had one high profile streamer with market
relevance(kripp) advertising their platform, while wolcen has around 30 or so with similar or more viewcounts then kripp had at the time.

And the different era applies because you specifically stated "wolcens launch" so the comparison is with "poe's launch".

The real question will be if this is an elation spike as a result of the seven year build up or if its sustained relevance in the years to come.
It will be interesting to put the total participation counts next to one another in like five years time.

I agree with you that the launch was better then poe's launch as far as baseline numbers go, i simply think your comparing apples and oranges when doing that excercise.
I don't see a comparison thats viable at all when we consider context.

Peace,

-Boem-

I suppose what I was getting at is that obviously Wolcen developed "hype" and marketed organically more than PoE does with their content releases (and their launch). Clearly there is a market appetite that PoE is missing, for whatever reason.

Also I dont really buy into the 7 year hype concept. Wolcen wasnt on my radar in 2013, like at all. They did a very good job leading up to launch imo.

Anyways it's a moot point if Wolcen screws up, or doesnt service the game well. (I hope they do)

^My point about the seven year run up is that probably a lot of people returned for this initial launch that in the past seven years bought into the game emotionally and monetary.

For example, go over some wolcen add video's and see how many of them mention having played this game a few years ago and being suprised about the improvements etc

All the people they lost in the past seven years as time went on probably got triggered by this launch to all come back at the same time.
Thats why i think its a relevant factor when discussing this amount of player participation.

It's like having a seven year long "down-low" pr campaign and then signalling to everybody "if you left us in the past, now is the time to get back in".

Nothing wrong with that btw, im not particularly making a judgement call on their PR strategy. Just pointing out its entirely different to how PoE launched initially.

I think we roughly agree btw :p im simply not a fan of creating comparisons between PoE and wolcen to highlight the success of one or the other.
I think the positive arguments or negative ones can be made on their own merit without detracting from the other game and forcing a dichotomy.

We will get a better picture in roughly six months i think, i imagine by that time the players who came for the hype will have left leaving only the core.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

Thats why i mentioned the 7 year run up to this launch. Your bassicaly crunching a lot of anticipation in this release event.

PoE's initial launch didn't have this anticipation level or build up, neither did it have this amount of visibility in the gaming community because of PR.

For example, how many people only became aware of PoE after the D3 failure and were totally oblivious to it's existence prior to this event.

As far as i recall they had one high profile streamer with market
relevance(kripp) advertising their platform, while wolcen has around 30 or so with similar or more viewcounts then kripp had at the time.

And the different era applies because you specifically stated "wolcens launch" so the comparison is with "poe's launch".

The real question will be if this is an elation spike as a result of the seven year build up or if its sustained relevance in the years to come.
It will be interesting to put the total participation counts next to one another in like five years time.

I agree with you that the launch was better then poe's launch as far as baseline numbers go, i simply think your comparing apples and oranges when doing that excercise.
I don't see a comparison thats viable at all when we consider context.

Peace,

-Boem-

It did,believe me it did,the anticipation was there,there weren't that many hack&slash games out there. You had a few titles like sacred,titan quest,but nothing since diablo 2 that could offer you some "debth" so to speak. So the hype was there, maybe you don't remember,or you haven't played POE since the very beginning,but the hype was there.

But there were quite a few differences. 1. Expectations of a game of this genre were not THAT high. 2. The dev team did not promise you everything, like they did with wolcen. 3. The game actually delivered on the promises they did make, while the launch was not perfect,it was not even close to the shitsandwitch you had with wolcen. You had bugs,you had issues,but at least you could simply play and enjoy the game.

I have followed POE since I got the first hint back in 2009 about this game, and while it still has a lot of issues. You just can't compare wolcen's failed launch to POE, they are like worlds apart.

^ PoE didn't and doesnt have offline. Waiting 3 hours in a queue to play PoE wasnt exactly ideal at launch.

We won't even go into desync and connection issues, collision problems, and hit detection. PoE HAD PROBLEMS, for years. Wolcen had server issues for days because MASSIVE amounts of people beyond their expectations wanted to play.

Edit: Wolcen mechanics and bugs presumably will be addressed and tweaked. Obviously it's not perfect, but the ridiculous rose tinted PoE memories from 2013 are annoying

Grim dawn can be played offline. You saw such a failed launch with it? No you did not.

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Nosferat wrote:

Grim dawn can be played offline. You saw such a failed launch with it? No you did not.

Wolcen offline is/was fine.

I played 40+ hours with no issues. Sure there are balance & mechanics that need tweaked, but seriously this narrative of "failed launch" is absurd. It didn't fail.

I love the game even with all the bugs. It will get better, just give them some time to polish it.

I lost probably around 10 hours because of a bug where if you have non-english characters (like é) in the path to your saved game it will just not save.

Then they fixed it in the last patch but now I could not see my characters anymore, had to move my Saved games folder to its original place.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

"

Nosferat wrote:

Grim dawn can be played offline. You saw such a failed launch with it? No you did not.

Wolcen offline is/was fine.

I played 40+ hours with no issues. Sure there are balance & mechanics that need tweaked, but seriously this narrative of "failed launch" is absurd. It didn't fail.

We will have to disagree on that, on what the meaning of "failed launch" is, as in what those words mean. Did it have some minor issues that can be glanced over? Or does it still have major game breaking bugs,even in the offline mode?

"

Nosferat wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

"

Nosferat wrote:

Grim dawn can be played offline. You saw such a failed launch with it? No you did not.

Wolcen offline is/was fine.

I played 40+ hours with no issues. Sure there are balance & mechanics that need tweaked, but seriously this narrative of "failed launch" is absurd. It didn't fail.

We will have to disagree on that, on what the meaning of "failed launch" is, as in what those words mean. Did it have some minor issues that can be glanced over? Or does it still have major game breaking bugs,even in the offline mode?

Perhaps you don't fully understand bugs and technical issues with balance and skill interactions.

What game-breaking bugs are in offline?

Using passives/gems/equipment to get 100% block and block efficiency isn't a bug, its balance issue. Having a skill modifier in bleeding edge that gives dmg per aliment, but there is not limit on ailments, isnt a bug, it's a balance issue. Even the Bane of Tyranny node, which provided 2000% of you had 50^ block on your shield wasnt a bug. It did exactly what it said. It needed to be adjusted/corrected but it wasnt a bug, it worked fine.

If you are going to go to chinese symbols causing character corruption as a objective reason for a "failed launch", fine. I think that's dumb but whatever. Most of what you read is hyperbolic parroting of negative narratives.

One thing I noticed that Wolcen is doing a fantastic job in is there cosmetics. The customization and making your character look the way you want it to look is a pretty big deal for a lot of people. They've already said awhile back they will be bringing in additional dyes, cosmetics etc. So if what I'm already seeing gets even better that's a huge potential $$$ revenue for them to keep the game going. I saw some pretty cool ones already on reddit, one dude had a spider man one, and there was a terminator one too.


I'm getting close to finishing act 3, I haven't had time to really play. My biggest gripe is the clunky movement still, it's better but it still sucks. I think they are working towards being able to bind move only on the left mouse button and that should help. I think one of the biggest/coolest thing so far I saw in the game was the overview of the battle you saw from the cliff in act 3.
Someone made a few second video of what I'm talking about. Anyways, really enjoy Aether Blades, makes me feel like I'm Templar assassin from Dota 2.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Wolcen/comments/f6qy1w/look_at_them_go/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x