WildStar Gets Ready for Blast Off This June

[IanDavis]

WildStar Gets Ready for Blast Off This June

The sci-fi MMO gets a summer release date.

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There seems to be a humor deficit in gaming. Whether it's due to the repetitive nature of games or the popular grimdark aesthetic, there aren't many funny games outside of a few stand-outs. Even still, I don't think I've ever seen an MMO that tries to be humorous, outside of WildStar, that is. Speaking of which, the quirky-looking sci-fi MMO from NCsoft and Carbine Studios is officially going live on June 3rd.

Aside from the tone and style, there are a few mechanical differences that make WildStar look interesting. While it's got the standard Guild Wars 2-style telegraphing and dodging, you have to manually aim all of your skills. That means that while your enemies can miss, so can you. And yes, it does have a monthly subscription fee, but you can also purchase game time using a tradable in-game item, very similarly to how Eve Online works. For more details, check out our write-up over at [a href=http://www.warcry.com/news/view/129991-Ten-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-WildStar]WarCry[/a], where Jon Prosperi has actually spent time with the game.

If this is a game you're looking forward to, you can [a href=http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/preorder/]pre-order[/a] it and also net yourself a rocket house. Exactly what a rocket house IS, however, we don't know. Presumably, it's a form of housing, with rockets. You'll also get access to the beta weekends, and get to play the game three days before it goes live for all the other plebs on the internet. Whether you buy it now, or wait until launch, WildStar will retail for $59, and require the standard $15 a month subscription. I guess between this and Elder Scrolls Online, we'll get to see if the subscription MMO will survive into 2014.

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[Falterfire]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

 

[klaynexas3]

Now this was my first time seeing a trailer for this game, but I kept expecting to see Captain Quark show up or Dr. Nefarious. Seriously, if this is Ratchet and Clank the MMO, I'd be up for it.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

Most of the hype I think is because it's been a really long time since we've seen a big-budget MMO come out that was built from the ground up as an MMO instead of adopting the MMO model on an existing license or franchise.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

I've played a few of the beta weekends for this game and now that the NDA has been lifted I can say that this game is a hell of a lot of fun, unlike certain other mmos with imminent releases it doesn't feel drab and slow paced, also it has frikken 20 and 40 man raiding, why zenimax thought they could get people to pay a sub for an mmo that has none is beyond me.

 

[GothmogII]

I was in one of the beta weekends, it's nothing mindblowing. The humour is there, in the quests and such, but it's not as enthusiastic as the trailers would have you believe. For one thing there's very little voice work (as far as the Beta went, maybe this will change) but what written dialogue there is is confined to speech bubbles that are very blink and you'll miss it. Actually...that's probably something I should have made a topic about on the Wildstar forums. x) But we got locked out once the beta ended.

The mechanics are pretty fun and even the ranged classes will rarely be standing around and just shooting. I played an Engineer, which is kind of a pet class/damage dealer/tank akin to WoW's hunter. Only with more shotgun. And tasers n' lasers. And rockets. And power armour.

However, despite trying to change things up with a variety of quests, fetch quests, kill x and such have proven un-killable and abound in Wildstar. They've got challenges though which is really just kill x in a certain time limit, but also have races and other mini-games to do.

The crafting/profession system was -messy- and needed a lot of work. And of the paths system I only got to try scientist which is a lot of scanning and collecting objects not especially fun, but you do get a cool droid you can name.

I may give it a go though, I quit WoW and even the race updates won't get me back.

 

[JayRPG]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

Most of the hype, to me (and including me), is because it has been built from the ground up by ex-blizzard devs who worked on vanilla and TBC WoW - which many consider was the best time for WoW, myself included.

It's aimed at adults, it's big budget, everything about it just looks good and it has the development team behind it to make it something great.

 

[Deathfish15]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

Player housing incorporates nearly everything you do in the game to having a place built to express yourself and/or your accomplishments. This is from heads to mount from special bounties killed, to Biomes of zones you've been in, and even mannequins that you can set gear on that you just like the look of (but don't wear). The housing feature also is a rest XP booster, a daily buff bonus provider, a mini-game hub with Challenges, a resource farm, a raid-portal entrance, and so much more.


That's just the housing. The game's mechanics are that of 99% direction based combat with provided double-jump and dodge/dash as well. It makes the game very much like an MMORPG mashed up with some FPS (although the aesthetic style seems like the specific is TF2).


Adventures are basically a throwback to the Choose-Your-Adventure books from decades ago to where your party chooses how the dungeon story plays out and what does what. Didn't destroy the weapon stashes in the mines during the prison break out? Now every prisoner has a shovel, flamethrower, pickaxe, and more to attack your party with (i.e. they do way more damage and more crazy attacks than they would have).

The rest of the game is just.....it's fun. It's enjoyably addictive and you really get those "holy shit!" spit-milk-out-your-nose funny moments that keeps one coming back to the game (such as the mission were you're dealing with sick people and the NPC keeps puking on you or the experiment that causes the wolf to turn inside out, the sheep to explode, and the guy next up saying "please don't explode, please don't explode, please don't explode"). It's not just a mundane list of tasks to go from one to another like a certain other MMORPG that's set to release next month.

 

[GothmogII]

Oh it should probably mention in the OP that you can't actually pre-order it until the 19th of March.

Captcha: stop wasting time

Yessir...

 

[Colt47]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

Did a little research and it sounds like it's doing about as many tricks as Guild Wars 2. People will play it, but it's not going to be a mega-hit or anything. The spirit of the entire package is no different than the majority, unfortunately.

 

[VladG]

So everybody keeps talking about this game like it's MMO Jesus. Can anybody give me a brief explanation of why this is being viewed as the second coming instead of just another MMO? Because I'm not quite clear on what Wildstar's hook is, mainly since I haven't been paying much attention.

It's basically WoW 2.0

It shares a lot of the same base elements and improves on a whole bunch more. The aesthetic is the same, except IN SPACE! (and I'll say it looks a damn sight more pretty than TESO, or pretty much any other MMO I've played), the combat is much more active , the quests are better done (compared to vanilla/TBC WoW, I'd say they aren't as good as MoP quests), the little I've played of dungeons and similar content is MUCH more interesting and fun to play.

The paths add some interesting content depending on what you like to do (heavily based on the 4 MMO player archetypes), you either get the explorer who can open some sub-areas (like a cave, or a path up a mountain and so on) and basically explores the whole map; you get the Scientist who scans a ton of lore items, and is a completionist (for all the achievement whores out there); you get the Soldier, for people who enjoy combat in MMOs and the Settler for the wierdoes who actually like to socialize in MMOs.

Basically, as I've said, it's WoW, but better. And in space.

However, I do NOT feel this game is ready to come out so soon. There are still a TON of issues to solve, and I'm not talking about buggy quests and missing text. I'm talking about core game systems, like crafting, like progression balancing and a bunch more stuff, which still feel unpolished and lacking in direction.

I want to see this game succeed, I really do. But I don't think it will in it's current state.

 

[SecondPrize]

They may have copied the form of EVE's PLEX game-time as in-game item but it won't be anything like it is in EVE. CCP was able to get away with it for a myriad of reasons, from the way items are handled to the fact they have a functional economy. I just don't see it working for Carbine.

 

[The Apple BOOM]

The difference for me is that it looks like the combat has some actual depth to it. I've tried many MMO's, including WoW and GW2, and in the end their combat was so shallow. I'm not saying WS does have depth, but it looks like it, and I hope it's true.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Sure I have been somewhat following it since the first teaser trailer but I ain't going to get it but I still wish for it to be a success and if it does become free to play, it better not suck from the alteration to f2p!

 

[CloudKiller]

Played the beta and really enjoyed it. The group content is going to be the thing that makes this game, the 5 man dungeons are pretty hard in comparison to other mmos. Spent most of the time as a medic healer and having to actually aim your heals on the tank makes the healing aspect of the game pretty sweet.

Mobility is so key. Any dps that stands still and optimises their rotation is going to fail hard. Any Tank that just tries to take it in the face is going to fail hard and any healer that stares at the health bars is going to fail hard.

There even has to be good communication between members of a pug because without well timed simultaneous stuns from every group member some bosses are impossible.

And then theres the fact that you can only have 8 skills on your bar. So you have to choose between having a dps skill a stun or a survivability cooldown with different fights calling for completely different loadouts.

All in all I'd say its going to be a profitable game that'll sustain a good sized subscriber base as long as Carbine studios can keep supplying good high level group content. If they fail at that then the game will fail like all the others.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Played the beta, it was okay. But I'm not into paid subscription models when you have to buy the game itself. I figured it might change my mind on that if it was amazing to me, but it's not. Also worth noting I'm not a huge MMO guy, and Guild Wars 2 is the first that's managed to grab me.

That said, I liked the aesthetic and the humor there is good too, seems like one where if you like the setting, that alone might keep you invested.