Wildstar MMO Game Shuts Down

Wednesday November 28 was the last day the Wildstar Massive Multiplayer Online game was up and running. In September, NCSoft made the decision to shut it down. The game had gotten attention for ir's cartoony look and being one of the small number of sci-fi MMOs taking place in space and an alien planet with most being on fantasy worlds. But it wasn't enough.

Why did Wildstar fail? Some people I talk to put the blame on NCSoft, which a few years ago had shut down the superhero MMO "City of Heroes" despite please from its fans, some vowing never to play another game from them. An article by MMOS World blamed mismanagement by it's developers Carbine Studios, lack of substantial content compared to other MMOs, lack of promotion and marketing, and more. In any event, the news was sad news for the games casual and core fans, hundreds of whom stuck around on the game for it's last few hours until the lights went out.



Longrem Smalls, one of my virtual neighbors on an extended hiatus from Second Life, had been a fan of the game, playing it for some time. He filmed his last few hours for a youtube.

I am deeply saddened to upload this video, a recording of the last hurrah of Wildstar from my point of view. This was a very emotional time for me, because Wildstar has given me some very fond memories. This was the first MMO since Star Wars Galaxies where I was so enthralled that I dove in deeply and actually tried to join the community. I made a lot of new friends that I will take with me even though the game itself is gone. We roleplayed together, we quested, we dungeoned, we raided, we worked on housing and explored... Everything about this game will be missed deeply, by myself and many others. I can only hope that a similar game with deep lore, exciting combat, and amazing housing will come out again. 

 Some technical details: The Sunset party was held at Wigwalli Village in Whitevale so both the Exiles and Dominion could be in one place. Attendance was over 450 players, nearing 500 at some points, and I know there were plenty who wanted to attend but could not. The devs were having some zany fun, turning us into rowsdowers, cupcakes, various NPCs from the game, and even changing our sizes from ginormous to miniscule. This event also pushed my computer pretty hard, dropping my FPS to single digits at times, but it held up. Toward the end there are a few major lag spikes on the server side, so the video will appear to glitch out and freeze for up to half a minute, but it does come back, so please be patient. And yes, there were also weird changes in the music being played, or sound cutting out, just because there was so much going on. 

This was recorded so that those who could not make it could at least get a sense of closure and watch it when they get a chance, and has not been edited in any way.

And so, the final sunset has fell on Wildstar, a unique MMO that no doubt will be missed.

Sources: MMOS World

Bixyl Shuftan