Wildstar #HG | PrivateStar Edition

Hey guys.

I wanted to let you know that I’m stepping down as President of Carbine Studios. I’m not leaving entirely; I’ll be adopting more of a consulting role going forward with Carbine (and possibly elsewhere in the industry down the road).

This is not a bad thing. Some of our current development stars will be stepping up to lead WildStar forward while I can help work with them from the outside.

I have a personal “no bullshit” policy (which I think I’ve infused Carbine with as well), so let me give some context here without getting too personal.

“Focusing on family” is most often, in my opinion, a horseshit excuse you hear from executive types (usually departing with a forcible shove).

In my case, it is part of my reason for stepping down - through 2013, my wife and I lost six members of our families to various reasons – mostly cancer. I myself was diagnosed at the end of last year with a fatal-if-untreated form of skin cancer. I had let it go untreated/undiagnosed for over 9 months while focusing on work instead. I dodged a bullet; surgery was successful and I’m cancer-free - but (if you ever go through anything similar you’ll know) that’s a hell of a wake-up call.

I mention this now (I usually don’t talk about personal stuff, because who cares) to say: don’t be my brand of idiot, if you see an unusual mole or marking get it checked out ASAP; there’s worse stuff out there than what I had.

On the professional front, when you lead a team this size in a company this size, there are a variety of strong opinions on every major decision. It’s been a pleasure helping steer us through to launch, but I think having one less strong opinion in the mix can be a good thing too. Even if I’m always right, of course.

Anyways, all this culminates in a need to take some time off before leaping into the next set of adventures. This has not been an easy decision for me to make, as I’ve pretty much poured my life into Carbine and WildStar. I’m proud of what we accomplished; we took a no-name IP to a big ass MMO launch, which ain’t easy in this day and age. There’s more work to do (the devs are indeed listening) but we have a great team to do it with as well.

I think it’s important that the folks here coordinate together around a single vision to move forward, and as part of that I’m looking forward to working with NCSOFT and Carbine in a very supportive role moving forward. I’ll likely not be as active in the forums and community as I have been in the past (some of y’all have noticed this already as I’ve worked here on my transition over the last months). But I’m far too passionate about you and WildStar to just get up and go entirely; while my role has changed, my voice hasn’t.

Thanks guys for your support and for being passionate WildStar fans – I remain one too.

-jg

General

Fixed multiple bugs that were causing client, and server crashes.

Added a large amount of missing DE and FR translations.

New players who do not configure a payment method for their WildStar account will receive a message directing them to go back to the website and complete the registration process.

Characters

While using a vehicle, the player should no longer have issues casting spells on a target.

The gamescom exclusive dye has been fixed.

Items

Items will no longer have a chance of losing their stats and becoming a basic version of themselves; all formerly broken items should also be fixed.

Players will now be able to sell the old version of the ‘Genetic Fail-Safe’ gadget item back to the Elder Gem vendor for a full refund, and purchase the new version with updated Rune Slot counts.

Item Specials

Protection: Fixed a bug where this special could break a Stalker out of Stealth.

Classes

Esper

Blade Dance

Fixed a bug that prevented this from granting Swiftness.

Spellslinger

Resolved an issue that was causing problems with ‘Surged Charge’ and’ Release Ability’ cooldowns.

Abilities

Ignite
(Surged) T4+ GCD has been reduced to 0.5s from 1.0s.
AMPs

Trigger Fingers

Resolved an issue that was causing ‘Assault’ and ‘Support Ability’ cooldowns to be reduced more than intended.

Resolved an issue that was causing ‘Utility’ abilities to display the incorrect cooldown.

PvP

General

Fixed a bug with the Rated PvP match invite pending log-out delay mechanic.

Players may no longer leave a matchmaking queue or disband a group while they have a
pending game.

Items

PvP Runes can now be inscribed into PvP gadgets.

All PvP gadgets now have a small amount of PvP Power and PvP Defense stats in addition to their In Use effects.

The Prestige cost of the Level 50 blue-quality PvP sets has been reduced.

The Level 50 blue-quality PvP sets and the 1500-rating have been increased in effective level to narrow the gear gap between entry-level PvPers and 1800-rating gear.

Adventures

Crimelords of Whitevale

Veteran - Fixed the third Geargrinder Alliance mission "The Salvagers" so that it can be completed.

Content

Certain spawned platforms throughout the world will now clean up more consistently.

The “Into the Defile” breadcrumb quests from the Venture Board in Thayd and Illium have been disabled.

Genesis Key: Players who buy the key before the purchase step of the intro quest will be able to advance the quest by equipping the Genesis Key

Algoroc

Players now receive a warning message when they leave the challenge area for the challenge “Tremor Ridge Defender”. They will fail the challenge if they remain out of the area for too long.

Auroria

Fixed a targeting issue in the quest "Detonator Duplicates".

Blighthaven

The messaging for “Guardians of the Grove" has been adjusted to clearly state what medal the player will have earned and what is needed to reach the next tier.

Deradune

Marauders now land for the public event, "Marauders Have Landed!"

Drusera Instances, Drusera Instance 4

Players will no longer be able to use a movement spell to bypass an objective.

Drusera Instance 5

Players will no longer have their progression blocked during the Xarophet battle due to missing minions, as a result of dying, reviving, and subsequently trying again.

If the player dies while fighting Xarophet he will no longer be able to aggro the player outside of the room. Upon the players death Xarophet will reset to his starting position.

Phagelord Xarophet will no longer loose aggro and not be able to find the player.

Farside

Fixed a targeting issue with the "Light the Sky" quest.

Malgrave

Sandswept Roan will no longer drop loot.

Whitevale

Quest text for "Venture into Whitevale" mentioned Celestion instead of Whitevale has been corrected.

Dungeons

The Ruins of Kel Voreth

Items
Critical Analysis
Functionality has been adjusted with the on use effect.

Dissolve: Increases Armor Pierce by 55% for 10s.

Skullcano

Stew Shaman Tugga

Fixed issue with Tugga's AI breaking if he was interrupted before ‘Blast Force’ could resolve.

Raids

Datascape

Items
Megalith’s Resolve
Functionality has been adjusted with the on use effect.

Bellow: Deals damage to 5 foes within 15 meters of the Warrior. This damage pierces 50% armor.

Mnemesis’s Proof
Functionality has been adjusted with the on use effect.

Disintegrate: Remove 1 Interrupt Armor and deal damage every 1 second for 4 seconds to a single foe.

Pyrobane’s Insulation
Functionality has been adjusted with the on use effect.

Stasis: Makes the caster CC immune and reduces damage taken by 75% for 2 seconds, but disables the caster for the duration.

Re-entering Datascape after having previously killed the Systems Daemons no longer triggers the Oculus cinematic.

Elemental Pairs

When fighting Hydroflux & Aileron, defeating one will no longer mean the other cannot be damaged.

System Daemons

Increased the cooldown of ‘Power Surge’ by ₄ seconds.

Increased the cooldown of ‘Purge’ by ₇ seconds.

The encounter challenge will now fail correctly.
Meltdown

Removed the Moment of Opportunity for hitting a boss with an Enhancement Module.

Hit radius of is now as big as the telegraph (was previously slightly smaller).

Will now always remove exactly 5 stacks of Enhancements.

‘Purge’ telegraph and vFX now persist after going through a teleporter.

‘Interrupt Armor’ can no longer regenerate while ‘Power Surge’ is being cast.

Defragmentation Unit

Black IC disorient is now removed if the spell is interrupted.

Defrag now has a static cast time of 2 seconds, instead of reducing cast time after each cast.

Enhancement Module Phase

Armor Enhancement now increases armor by 10% (up from 5%).

Power Enhancement now increases damage by 15% (down from 20%).

Extermination Sequence

Fluctuation can no longer crit.

Data Spike can no longer crit.

Data Spike now casts slightly less frequently.

Genetic Archives

‘Making a Strand’ achievement is now disabled as it was functionally equivalent to the ‘Dread is Dead’ achievement for killing Dreadphage Ohmna.

Paths

Scientist

An issue was preventing Scientists from using ‘Summon Group’ while inside a dungeon until they had died once. This has been fixed.

Economy

Players can no longer summon their mount while crafting, and starting a craft while mounted will cause the Player to dismount.

Items that are soulbound will no longer be used as quest returns for work orders.

Auction House/Commodity Exchange

Skill Amp, Ability Point Unlocks, and Amp Upgrade Item types are now exposed to the CX.

Tradeskills

Outfitter

Fixed an issue where Wilderrun and Farside Outfitter work orders asked for an unattainable item (Forester's Lithetek Advanced Knickers) instead of the intended item (Forester's Lithetek
Custom Knickers). We advise Players to abandon the quest and re-take the work order.

User Interface

Buying an ability now unlocks it immediately in the UI for all other action sets.

Added video options to control ‘Visual Spell Suppression’. This will help tone down the amount of spell effects in large groups and may help a ton in raids!

Fixed an issue that prevented account inventory items from being shown.

Guest Accounts can no longer open the player trading UI (an attempt would fail regardless).

There is now a limit to the amount of characters that can be sent in a support ticket.

Fixed a client crash if a user had 95 slots in their bank.

Housing

The gizmo for advanced movement controls now move the decor in the correct direction.