I was pleasantly surprise after going to the WildStar panel. I went in not knowing much about the game or really liking the graphics that I had seen; mainly because it looked like a copy of World of Warcraft. Once they started showing the details of the game that started to change. There is more to it than I expected, and now I’m kind of excited for it.
WildStar takes place on the planet called Nexus. The race known as the Eldan (the most powerful and advanced race in the galaxy) used to live here until they just vanished. Consequently, when they disappeared many races rushed to the planet to find out its secrets. There are four paths to pick from: Explorers, Soldiers, Scientists, and Settlers. The Scientist path is all about researching the planet and discovering what happened to the Eldans. So if you the story part of your games you will want to check out this path. The other path are just as they sound, Explores explore, Soldiers fight, and Settlers build.
There are two factions: the Dominion and the Exiles. The Dominion’s basic goal is to be in complete control of the galaxy. The Exiles are a group of races that have been kicked off their home planets and have teamed up to make a stand against the Dominion.
The combat moves away from the typical MMO style of spamming a few buttons and has you moving around, dogging, and side stepping attacks. If you are more of a fan of PvP, then you will want to make Warplots. These are fortresses you can build with friends to then go and exterminate your enemy.
WildStar also has something that I’ve always felt was kind of missing from MMOs, a place to call your own: housing. You can buy a land plot for your character that you can build your own house. You can furnish your whole house and customize everything both inside and out. The art director, Matt Mocarski, said that they even just made a working toilet. When you log out at your house you will gain more rest XP than any other place, and with the more items, such as furniture you have in your house the more XP you will get. Also at your home you will be able to build mines, gardens, and workshops. So now you don’t have to run all over Nexus to collect materials to craft or cook items. You can even make raid port which can give you a raid buff. Can’t play for a week? Ask a friend to house sit and they will get XP for helping you out.
Besides dungeons and raids there are other adventure’s in which you can group up and complete. Instead of just running through an area and killing mobs and bosses, you have to make choices. The one example the panel gave was of having to escort a cart and having to make choices of which path to take or who to save. The way the panel explained it made me feel like they are like the dynamic events we saw in Guild Wars 2. .
The have even added stuff for those at the level cap called the Elder Games. This is content helps to extend the games story as well as be something that people can do solo in place of doing raids when they are at level cap and don’t have a whole lot to do. As I said before, there is a very strong World of Warcraft feel to this game, but I feel that with the graphic style it will appeal a lot more to a younger generation then WoW does. I personally tend to play more solo than in groups, so I’m pretty interested in seeing how the Elder Games work out. They aren’t re-inventing the wheel, but they’ve added enough that I’ll give it a shot.
