CRB_Gaffer

As an ex-lead programmer, I used to be the clued tech guy :/

Every year I don't program, I lose about 10 IQ points; I should be qualified to run for Congress soon.

I hope so, I want it.

Edit: Yep. In the interim, /u/Notturno below suggests JunkIt. (Go go moddable UI)

Monday edit: Also, /u/nervez suggests SpaceStash which has auto-repair and auto sell junk as well (though buyer beware, I've seen the occasional thread that folks using auto-repair mods end up burning more gp than the average since you can often find better stuff in the midlevels before having to repair your stuff. YMMV)

Our #1 market is probably ex-MMO players, truth be told. That's many of us as well :)

Edit: I added a list of stuff we IMO do very well to the intro post above since this question came up a lot.

I pinged this on the stream a bit, but here's the scoop:

In the hopper right now are SLI and Crossfire support (driver support will help this too) - should be in a hotfix soon (I think some support went in earlier this week). From the lead programmer:

"For those of you with SLI and Crossfire graphics cards. The code changes have been made to support these cards are done and are being tested internally. Those of you with these cards should see a substantial improvement in frame rate."

(JG: substantial is his word, not mine :) But being able to use both cards will help a lot; I run a dual titan setup which runs just fine at the moment but I'm looking forward to this upgrade too)

Other stuff from him (this will likely go up on the forums soon in some fashion, maybe edited further, so if it changes before it goes up, that's why):

"We’re also optimizing our new UI. The new UI (UI 2.0) is much better looking than the previous version, but there are significant opportunities for performance improvements that we’re pursuing. In particular, the raid frame and nameplate add-ons are being improved. There were also major changes to chat log, target frame, and the health shield bar.

We continue to increase CPU performance by moving more and more code off onto separate threads. We’ve also been making improvements to PVP and Raid content - areas with lots of players casting spells.

We’re also looking at specific areas in the game which have degraded performance. Sometimes these are due to bad collision objects, bad geometry, or the occasional content bug. We’re eliminating these as fast as we can find and diagnose them.

Our optimization efforts will also not stop with launch. There are a number of changes we’re planning on making which have the potential for major improvements but that can’t be done in the launch timeframe.

In the meantime, there are a number of graphics settings which can be used to coax better performance out of the game. We’re planning on adding the Render Target Scale back in to the graphics options, but until we do, you can set the variable in your ini file by adding the line

lod.renderTargetScale=0.5

to your user.ini file in Users[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\NCSOFT\Wildstar. "

So, yes, there are things going in for launch - we don't promise perfection per se, but hopefully the worst offenders will see some improvements, and there is more in the hopper (some rearchitecturing for instance that will let us split thread support even more efficiently) for post-launch as well.

-jg

I've heard some of the threads on early levels (I hit performance elsewhere) - here is my personal take on this:

a) The tutorials work well (we've focus tested the heck out of them) for folks new to MMOs, but if you've played an MMO, they are too slow paced. b) The more skilled of the player you are, the more you want things to go "off the rails" and have more abilties/etc. in combat sooner - and more difficulty. You often hear quoted "the game kicks in at level 15" (or 20).

So our answers: Just recently we added in more powerful monsters across all levels/areas. This means that a kill quest gets more interesting - kill one huge creature, or slews of easy ones? It's your choice. We're looking to let folks opt out of the arkship levels. Not sure when that will hit, but it'll help for those who are like "yeah yeah I know".

We also look at the data for when folks drop out - believe it or not (I know everyone feels like their experience is that of everyone) there isn't a HUGE amount of data support; we have really high retention levels through 10, 15, and 20. But there are some hot spots where drop rates go up (and we work on fixing those places).

Another thing we can do better: communicate all the ways you can play. If you don't like the 6-20 experience, PVP is a great option (but we don't really highlight this in the UI) Etc. etc. Some lowbie dungeons might help the hardcore too (but aren't really in the hopper per se unless we move some items around - feedback welcome).