Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

I played the game at PAX prime in 2011. Honestly the game felt really boring, and they weren't showing much. At that time, it was mostly level 1 characters playing in the starter area. The demo was just a bunny race that shot guns and it felt like running around a newbie area in WOW. It had normal quests and everything. I wasn't interested in quest grinding a level 1 character at a show.

Combat was fun though. Animations were solid, the art was awesome. I loved the telegraph system because you felt more involved in combat. Instead of bunnyhopping and circle strafing just for the hell of it, it actually did stuff. I think it'll really lend itself if they go full blown PVE progression in the game with raids etc.

I would love to see the game with a more developed character, and more content. I think the path of the character I had was an explorer and standing in a booth running around exploring is kind of boring. WOuld of been much more fun in the comfort of my own home.

This game won't surprise anyone, it's adding interesting layers upon the same old DIKU model. What I don't know is how many abilities people get and if you'll be using 4 hotbars or not.

Hopefully I'll be heading up to PAX East next month and they should be there for that.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...d-Weekend.html

good read.

Convo_sl said:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...d-Weekend.html

good read.

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I'm still dubious, but honestly a functional WoW clone at this point would be a welcome thing to burn time on. The only part that has me slightly intrigued is that the reviewer is adamant about no hand holding... which honestly is my biggest pet peeve about the genre in general. There's a difference between reduction in tedium and walking stupid people from point A to point B. The trick will be whether they do away with the hand holding and scale the game experience so it still feels rewarding while taking longer to do the 'old school' things like finding an NPC in a town or locating a lost caravan or whatever.

The other thing to be wary of traveling in the WildStar environment is inadvertently bringing more creatures into the fray than intended. For instance, as I was adventuring in Deradune (awesome zone, by the way), I attacked a quest wolf with an AOE maneuver. Unfortunately for me, there were several benign antelope nearby that were also hit and that then joined the fight. These are not your typical "filler creatures" that go down in a single hit either. Let's just say that I was quickly overwhelmed. Luckily, I was close to town and fled crying for Mama until the local denizens removed the threat.

These are just small examples of what is meant by no hand-holding in WildStar. Another is the quest locator or directional guidance system. While there is a quest arrow to help players if desired, it's pretty nebulous and won't point the way to the exact spot but only to a more general location instead.

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No hand holding! If you're stupid enough to attack non aggro mobs they attack you! AMAZING

Very bad article. Convo wtf man, how is that a good read? You could insert any MMO with quests in it and that article could be describing anything.

Draegan_sl said:

No hand holding! If you're stupid enough to attack non aggro mobs they attack you! AMAZING

Very bad article. Convo wtf man, how is that a good read? You could insert any MMO with quests in it and that article could be describing anything.

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There will be no coddling, no hand holding, no ring through the nose leading of players from one zone to the next. Carbine is going out of its way to erase all such notions from its fans? minds. We?ve often heard the statement ?play the game your way? but most game makers touting such things rarely make good on the comment. Not so of Carbine. From my experience with WildStar, there is great truth to the promise the dev team has made.
Combat, for instance, has a much more visceral, meditative feel to it. Players will be required to actually think about the best attacks, to plan which way is best to move, whether it is smarter to dodge or roll and other such matters all in the blink of an eye. There will be few button mash combinations in WildStar as each enemy (and there are wide varieties in every zone, plentifully packed in) has its own unique way of attacking. Players will have to think and consider the best way to take them down and the telegraphs both they and the monsters throw are essential to that plan.


That doesn't read like every mmo to me...I don't need specifics at this point to find what I quoted as "interesting." Id obviously like them to elaborate on combat and such. Just them even mentioning no hand holding is interesting at this point.. Less rail=good. It's as simple as them alluding to moving away from the current mold even if its a slight step. That's always a good read for me.

You need to read inbetween the lines. This is a columnist who is trying to write something different form all the other articles. What do you think nose leading means? It probably means something like no breadcrumbs? I duno. For someone who played the game for a short while over a weekend, in a low level zone, what do you think the author means by that? She wrote that there was still quests and quest hubs.

And visceral and meditative combat? What stupid use of adjectives. The combat is just like WOW but they added a telegraph system on top of it so you can dodge attacks and move about.

What exactly is different here though? I mean it's a shitty article.

I haven't played the game.. You have. obviously you would interpert that article differently in regards to the combat but for someone who has never tried the combat do you think they would draw the same conclusion after reading the article? Sounds like your hands on experience is why you find the article terrible. I simply read a game trying to be less on rails and make combat a bit more interesting. Just those 2 mentions were enough for me to follow this game more. I don't quite dissect things as deeply as you man.

I guess I should also add. I've read very little on this game overall. I do find the graphics to be awesome tho.

Ok you've played MMOs I think right? Hopefully your only experience isn't just "I played EQ" and you have some point of reference to current gen games. When you read "visceral and meditative combat" what the hell do you think that means? There is no context in the article that lets you know "visceral" could mean that you have to dodge and move in combat rather than just plug away at your hotbar. Visceral I don't have a problem with. But "meditative"? C'mon.

And no "leading by the nose"? That just sounds like the author took whenever the devs said hook line and sinker. If a dev tells you "We don't lead you around the nose! You have to explore! and find stuff to do on your own!" That's just dev-talk for saying they don't offer breadcrumb quests and you have to run around the world finding quest hubs for stuff to do. Or breadcrumb quests are replaced by the "paths" the game has. Doing these path thingies brings your through the game and puts these quest hubs in your path.

Gotta look at what that shit really means.

Who remembers the first time they attacked a Kodo in WoW?

I do, it made a loud noise and started to trample over me.

And visceral is the new epic. It sounds like guts and blood, so it's really fucking cool.

visceral doesn't actually mean anything in video game context

Draegan_sl said:

Ok you've played MMOs I think right? Hopefully your only experience isn't just "I played EQ" and you have some point of reference to current gen games. When you read "visceral and meditative combat" what the hell do you think that means? There is no context in the article that lets you know "visceral" could mean that you have to dodge and move in combat rather than just plug away at your hotbar. Visceral I don't have a problem with. But "meditative"? C'mon.

And no "leading by the nose"? That just sounds like the author took whenever the devs said hook line and sinker. If a dev tells you "We don't lead you around the nose! You have to explore! and find stuff to do on your own!" That's just dev-talk for saying they don't offer breadcrumb quests and you have to run around the world finding quest hubs for stuff to do. Or breadcrumb quests are replaced by the "paths" the game has. Doing these path thingies brings your through the game and puts these quest hubs in your path.

Gotta look at what that shit really means.

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Not really looking to go back and forth over this lol as I don't care enough but when I read something like this...

These are just small examples of what is meant by no hand-holding in WildStar. Another is the quest locator or directional guidance system. While there is a quest arrow to help players if desired, it?s pretty nebulous and won?t point the way to the exact spot but only to a more general location instead.
Additionally, while there definitely are quest hubs and the traditional exclamation points over NPCs? heads, those quests only represent a tiny minority of what players will discover simply exploring the world. As players move about the world, they will run across hidden quests or be called by a nearby resident asking for assistance. In short, Carbine is rewarding players for staying off the beaten path.

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DId it provide some crazy new insight? not really..but At least it spoke to my interest as not wanting a game that was all just quest hubs. She was hitting on things I prefer in a game. Basically, less on rails. I took that paragraph as exploration might be a bit more interesting than some other games. I like the idea of hidden quest and NPC's flagging you down. Now could they be feeding her BS? Maybe, but following that logic nothing should be considered a good read from a players perspective until it's actually out of NDA.

I obviously don't play the amount of games you do. I'm sure those things exist to some extent in other MMO's. The last game I played was Rift and that was for about 4 months after launch. MMO's have lost me. I know that's hard to understand for someone who enjoys the newer games. I just can't get into them. I wish I could but I find myself just bored and even that 1 sentence was enough for a player like me. TO peak my interest just a bit..

Convo that blurb you quoted sounds like GW2. stationary quests just happen in the area without a dialogue trigger, and sometimes npcs are scripted to run somewhere else and ask for help or do other things when "quests" start (they're called dynamic events there, most are simple scripts but the world seems more lively then the exclamation mark jungle in every town).

New trailer today. Not sure if it gives any new information, but it does show some of the PvP warplots and housing.

The blog post that went with it stated "free form" targeting which I didn't know. I assume that means what it means in GW2. So it's not strictly tab target. Also they plan on having hard core progression raids, "dynamic" dungeons, meaning there will be some random etc.

Game looks good I have to admit. Love the marketing at least.

As long as its polished and feature-complete it should pull a fair number of WoW subs.

Loved the video and definitely looking forward to this.