WildStar Online

[Oatik]

Does anyone else remember Giants: Citizen Kabuto ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants:_Citizen_Kabuto

Sure it was back in 2000, but we're so damn old here that was like yesterday...anyway WildStar sort of made me think of it with the humor and all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sh_VuxYqBY

[Regolyth]

LOL Oatik

No, I don't remember that one.

[Morreion]

Ya got me there, Oat!

Wildstar doesn't look like my kind of game, but it's definitely unique and different-looking, which is a good thing.

[Morreion]

WildStar beta is coming this winter (Massively)

Winter is coming, and with it -- the WildStar beta! That's right fans, the wait is almost over; come December, players will be able to experience the sci-fi game for themselves as well as help test it in preparation for its spring 2014 launch.

The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Mechari of WildStar (Massively)

Of all the races in WildStar, the Mechari represent the biggest question mark. Part of that is by design; when you have a race of sapient machines controlling the information flow of an entire empire, you aren't supposed to know everything there is to be known about them. But there are a lot of questions that pose themselves based on what we do know. Starting with the fact that they don't exactly make sense.

WildStar offers cross-realm play (Massively)

In the post, the studio talks about how it's supporting cross-realm play through three primary features. Players will have the ability to talk to anyone on any realm using the chat system, they'll be able to group up with friends through the party system, and they'll be able to meet random strangers through the group finder.

The cross-realm play does have a big limitation, however. Cross-realm parties will not be able to hang out on the landscape, but can only enter instances, battlegrounds, or arenas, and these parties will not be able to trade items between each other. Players who are not interested in cross-realm play will also have the option to toggle their account to group with only members of their server.

The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar reveals; we analyze (Massively)

The goal of these quests when you do them is maximum efficiency. If you've got a choice of seven different rats, you're killing the weakest rat that you can kill the fastest. That's the tradeoff -- least effort for maximum reward. What WildStar has changed is that trade between efficiency and productivity.

Instead of killing a number, you're killing up to a limit. So let's go back to those seven sorts of rats. If you have to kill five rats in total, the easiest rats are the ones you want. But if you have to kill 1500xp worth of rats, the easiest ones are going to take you a lot of kills. The harder rats will be a lot faster, and they might even let you get away with just two or three kills. Theoretically, you'll finish the quest in around the same timeframe either way, either with a few harder fights or a lot of easier ones.

WildStar implores Dominion citizens to go space-west in a new arkship (Massively)

The latest installment of WildStar Wednesday details the luxurious amenities in all their glory, ranging from VIP lounges and ample recreational space to training simulations and a fully functional church. Those selected for the journey will be given every opportunity to excel once they touch down on the planet's surface, with experienced travelers given the option of bypassing most of the tutorial experience for a trip straight to Nexus.

The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Granok of WildStar (Massively)

The Granok are the polar opposite of the Mechari. Where the latter are covered in mysteries and elements that don't make a whole lot of sense without invoking conspiracies, the former is a race that you can pretty much understand as soon as you see a trailer involving the race. They're rock people who like to fight things and probably blow stuff up, and they don't really need a whole lot in the way of subtlety. Discussion over. Enjoy WildStar's boisterous bruisers.

The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Draken of WildStar (Massively)

Let me open this third column about the racial lore behind WildStar with a simple statement: The Draken are relentless hunters, stalkers, and combat monsters. Unlike the last two columns, this one will not suggest in any way that this is not what they are. I know the past two have raised some questions regarding the nature of the races compared to how they are presented, but the Draken are exactly what they suggest they are collectively

WildStar shows off the Warrior in its newest DevSpeak (Massively)

In every game, there has to be at least one class that focuses entirely upon hitting something really hard until it stops moving, then hitting it a few more times. That's WildStar's Warrior at a glance. And no, there's really not a whole lot more to the class than that; what you see is what you get. But what you see is also a monstrously powerful technological hitting machine in heavy armor with a power sword, arm cannon, and the strength to just kick things into place when needed.

Community puzzles out first Wildstar vehicle: Hoverboards (Massively)

The Nexus Telegraph: Winter in WildStar (Massively)

Now, though, the game has undergone some pretty thorough revamps, and it's being shown off with a great deal of vigor. That's not to say that things won't change between now and launch; I'm sure there will be a lot of changes. It's just that most of those changes will be changes of degrees, tweaking numbers, slightly reworking some functions here and there. It's akin to the changes made through Final Fantasy XIV's testing: They're visible to testers, but at the end of the day, the changed version was still recognizable compared to the original.

WildStar unveils the Esper again (Massively)

While WildStar kicked off its class re-reveals with the most physical class possible, the Esper is the exact opposite. It's all about mind games. Of course, when you're talking about a powerful telekinetic and telepathic dynamo of illusions and mental weaponry, "mind games" still involves blowing things to pieces with remarkable alacrity. So perhaps it's not quite as much of an opposite as you might think from a quick glance.

WildStar answers Esper inquiries (Massively)

Topics touched upon included the Esper's healing ability (the devs claim the class is "the best single-target healer" in the game), the lack of movement speed reduction while casting, its high burst damage potential in PvP, and that nifty Phantasmal Armor skill that was seen at the end of the re-reveal video.

[Regolyth]

I think Wildstar (or would it be Massively?) needs to learn the difference between cross-realm and cross-server. That was confusing for a bit.

[Oatik]

I was a bit confused by that as well.

[Morreion]

The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Mordesh of WildStar (Massively)

The simplest way of explaining the Mordesh is that they are the dirty little secret of the Exiles as a whole. They're the assassins, the pressure, the people who don't worry about doing something awful when it absolutely needs to be done. For all that the Exiles want to think of themselves as the good guys unfairly set upon by the Dominion, the Mordesh are the subtle reminder that there are no good guys -- there are just people.

WildStar takes aim at the Spellslinger (Massively)

Spellslingers supplement their guns with teleportation and sigils. The former works just like you'd expect, allowing a Spellslinger to jump to alternate dimensions, blink about the battlefield, and even phase partly out of reality for protection. Sigils, on the other hand, are symbols that the Spellslinger places to heal allies, swap places with enemies, lay traps, or otherwise mess with the flow of the battlefield.

WildStar shows off the Stalker (Massively)

Stalkers are equipped with twin retractable claws as well as nanoskin and a variety of other high-tech gadgets. The nanoskin serves multiple functions -- it allows for Stalkers to become tougher, more evasive, and even do that invisibility trick while in combat. Combined with their natural agility and controlling tricks, Stalkers can easily be on the front lines of a battle or tuck themselves away and assassinate key targets.

WildStar unveils its final class, the Engineer (Massively)

Engineers have access to a stable of reliable bots to perform several functions, ranging from dealing damage to tanking to providing quick heals. The class also features a variety of ranged attacks, heavy armor, and a special exo-suit that allows them to bulk up and smash everything in range.

Massively's hands-on with WildStar's housing system and new classes (Massively)

Plugs define the flavor of your home. They are aesthetic add-ons to the land surrounding the home, but nearly every plug encourages interactivity with the owner and the owner's friends. For instance, a mining plug will allow you to cultivate several veins of ore that can be mined by you each day. Gone on vacation to some boring Earth place? Set your permissions and one of your friends can come mine the ore, giving each of you a percentage of the ore mined. And that's just one of many crafting plugs. Plugs can also contain triggers for events, crafting stations, mini-dungeons, minigames with prizes, and more. Most plugs also contain levels of difficulty that help scale up the rewards you earn by interacting with them...

The most exciting features I saw this time around dealt with lighting and mood creation both inside and outside the house. Lighting within the house doesn't just range from dark to light, although these settings are available; instead, it allows players to create the dusty haze of an attic or the crisp feeling of a frozen cave. Each object placed within the house also takes into account the lighting system, reacting to each source of light and the general ambiance. Even better, lighting in every room is independent of lighting in all the others, allowing for players to theme their dive-bar lighting different from the, ahem, flashy lights of their stuffies strip club.

Massively's hands-on with WildStar's Engineer (Massively)

So what about pets? You unlock your first robot at level 4, a bruiser bot that has a handy taunt to keep aggro off of you. I went for several levels thinking that this bot was the most ineffective pet ever because it never taunted until I finally realized that unlike many other MMOs, WildStar expected me to manually trigger the taunt myself (the summon bot skill turns into the taunt skill when your pet is in the field). I was much more excited to get my smaller but deadlier artillery bot at level 6. This little critter has a good long-distance attack, but you can also trigger a barrage attack to smite enemies in a small area. And yes, you can have both pets out at the same time if you want to use those hotbar slots for them.

Massively's hands-on with WildStar's Medic (Massively)

This is as good a point as any to note that WildStar can be pretty rough at times, especially as a Medic. Talk about the class having a high skill requirement wasn't just chatter; it was a factual evaluation. Medium armor is enough that you can cling to life a bit longer, your healing abilities act more as a buffer than as a constant regenerating health pool, and your damage output is not extraordinary right out of the gate. That means carefully figuring out what you're doing and how you're doing it, dodging telegraphs, and making a build that allows you to keep running and gunning for as long as possible.

Massively's hands-on with WildStar's character creation (Massively)

There are lots of individual options to like. Faces, for instance, are expressive and different for each race. The little custom touches are frequently appreciated. Cassian women can have earrings that give their ears a pointed appearance, Aurin have ear options that seem less like proper ears and more like fins, and Granok men can have beards of crystal. Draken have an impressive set of horn options and hair options. Non-humans actually feel, well, non-human, rather than just like humans with a few extra doodads here and there.

Also to the creator's credit, there is an option to save and load character options so you can pop back in to an old character and play around more. The save/load feature is done in a text string, as well, so you can even, say, copy the string, send it to a friend, and have him make an obvious sibling to your character. That, I like.

Talk about WildStar! (Keen & Graev)

Honestly, their marketing team does an amazing job ensuring all of the latest information is presented in an exciting and unique way. Videos are constantly coming out about new classes, new abilities, features, etc. Their website is one of the best in terms of functionality and information in the industry. If you don’t know about WildStar at this point it has to be by choice. It’s hard for me to write about class announcements.

Let’s talk, though, about some of what we’re seeing publicly shown on the website, streams, etc. They just ‘announced’ (although it was leaked ages ago) the Medic and Engineer thus rounding out the Team Fortress 2 classes. Reading through some of the abilities on the website and watching the streams, there appears to be a good variety of abilities. One of my biggest gripes with the combat gameplay from day one has been the conal/aoe nature of all abilities. Some people call this stuff “skill shot” — those people play League of Legends — and some people call it spaztactics.

[Morreion]

The Nexus Telegraph: Talking a bit about WildStar's beta (Massively)

If it hasn't already been said, the presentation in this portion of the game is slick. If you told me I was playing a release build, I'd believe it, excepting a handful of placeholders and some balancing issues. This is a game that is very far along, and it shows.

The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's great big sexist elephant in the room (Massively)

Every single woman in this game is shaped like an hourglass, with all of the exaggerated anatomy that animation can provide. The male models, by contrast, are all built to be the usual mixture of stoic and physically impressive, with some variant on prison body (all of their muscle concentrated in the upper body; think of a triangle on a footstool) and a variety of scowling and angry faces available. It took me a great deal of time to make a human man that actually looked remotely pretty instead of angry or stoic.

WildStar to reduce character breast size (Massively)

Citing feedback from testers and others, WildStar developers will be reducing the breast size for Exile, Cassian, and Aurin characters in an upcoming beta patch.

Tips and tricks for surviving WildStar's active combat (Massively)

Telegraphs might just be one of those features that's a lot harder to explain in writing than it is to simply see when you get into the game. If nothing else, just remember that you're going to have to move often unless you want to take second helpings of damage. Even a small pack of mobs can take a heavily armored class down if those mobs manage to catch you in the crossfire at the same time. Trust me, I've been there.

The Nexus Telegraph: Everyone's got active combat, and so does WildStar (Massively)

In WildStar, there almost always seems to be an escape route. Yes, you can get into bad situations, tripping into another group of enemies when you're fighting the last of the prior group on low health. But telegraphs don't just tell you where to dodge; they ensure that the hardest hits don't come at a set cycle. You can see when big stuff is happening. If you're hurting and you need to get away to recover, you can plot a course and at least try to escape.

The WildStar Creation Process and Maintaining Deadlines (Gamasutra)

The designer and their lead watch as the Content Design Lead or Design Director and I play the game together. Can content be exploited, are we separated from our friends through phasing, can we access areas we’re not supposed to access? Basically we try to break it and play the game in a way the designer didn’t consider. We won’t catch every exploit, but it certainly helps identify problems earlier in the development process, when they are easier to fix.

A look at WildStar's customization options (Massively)

Mount customizations are separate for the two main categories of mount, hoverboards and ground mounts. Each customization is unlocked rather than consumed, so you don't need to worry about adding a sweet spoiler to your mount for fear of no longer having it. None of the modifications affect performance, letting you trim up your style in your own fashion without worrying about being faster or slower.

Moving day: Settling in to your WildStar house (Massively)

And let me not forget to mention how you customize your land and house. When you beam up to your island, a new interface appears in your lower-right-hand corner to allow you to modify the landscape, buy a bigger or different type of house, choose options for the structure of the house, manage your stored housing items, and purchase new ones from the vendor

The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's greatest opponent is WildStar (Massively)

Do I think WildStar will have the staying power to entrance people over ESO in the long term? I don't think that's an actual problem. I think WildStar needs to have staying power to convince people to stay long-term, and there are so many MMOs out there that no one is wanting for options. Trying to develop that staying power specifically by looking at what ESO is doing doesn't produce a game that stands on its own merits; neither does producing a game specifically meant to counter what World of Warcraft is doing or Star Trek Online or any game you can think of.

A look at WildStar's crafting mechanics (Massively)

Overcharging is meant to be a way for crafters to push the strength of an item by introducing a chance of failure, upping power while having a chance at losing the materials and failing the craft. Currently, the ceiling for failure chance is at 30%, but it may increase in the future. No one will ever be forced to overcharge an item, but those who do will be rewarded with more powerful results.

What are WildStar Adventures? (Wildstar official site)

While Dungeons take place in the "real world" of Nexus, an Adventure is a simulated environment created by the Caretaker. Adventures are all about open zones, choosing your path through the storyline and exploring unusual gameplay mechanics you don’t find in your normal levelling experience. There is still plenty of combat but it isn’t the main focus, instead we try to make combat in Adventures a bit more unusual. Instead of an epic boss encounter, you may have to fight off hordes of Exile prisoners or use a jetpack to fly up and destroy a Dominion war blimp.

The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's NDA and impending release (Massively)

The release date approaches for WildStar, and that day is... entirely unclear. Maybe it'll be next month; maybe it'll be six months from now. The official word is still silence. Mirroring that silence are the game's current testers, still under an NDA that prevents them from talking about the game even as we in the press can talk about much of the content and leveling currently in place through both text and streams.

[Regolyth]

Breast reduction, huh? LOL

[Morreion]

Make some popcorn and read the comments on the sexist elephant article!