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Wild Star: Final Thoughts On Weekend Beta
Silentstorm
Member UncommonPosts: 1,126
Final Outlook Thoughts On The Game
character customization and Intro Gameplay
I want this to be clear off the bat. This isn't an review on the game. It's just my thoughts and how I feel. I was too sick this weekend to go as far as I wanted in the game. I made a valiant ill advised try but it's a no go. So I didn't see everything to talk about all of the beta. What I am going to do is show the game a bit and my thoughts.
Wild Star is a very polished ready for ship game. With that said I don't see anything in Wild Star I haven't seen anywhere else. Not that it makes the game bad no. But if you are coming into this game thinking it remakes mmorpg. That's just not the case here.
But what you will find is an world. That makes you want to explore it and have a little fun in the process. They say don't reinvent the wheel. Well I say if you're going to have a wheel make it better. The action and flow of the game is great as is. I don't know if they will keep it this way.
You level and do things in a constant pace of quest explosions. I came up with this term for how many quests this game throws at you. A long with other objectives lore and story. You're bombarded with it constantly. So if you struggle to level in this game. Man you just need to find another genre.
The graphics and colors in this game are popping. It's happy looking even though a lot of times things are dead serious. Some people just may not like that. Maybe too close in WoW's bread basket for them. But I don't mind that at all. Because I haven't felt compelled to flesh out a game in awhile. In fact not sense Burning Crusade.
So to wrap this up here's what I like. The edge of the story they candy assing around with it. I like the worlds feel and look. Sometimes you just want to be immerse in fantasy. I like the skills and ability to customize them. It should make interesting builds. Min Maxer's will try and cookie cutter as usual. But I've already shown in the past. You can override ignorant mentalities easy.
I also like the music a few tunes had me saying "Yay what's this?". However a few had me rushing to cut the sound down. I like the trade skills as well. They seem like they will actually be useful. Some games fail in that department out of the gate.
Here's what I don't like. Right now the game memory leaks. I have programs that track my usage on the pc. And this game leaks not a lot but people with average low end pc's. Will have a problem with that. The good news is that's just a programming flaw somewhere. In this day in age a good company can nail that fast. And I sent my bug report on it. So hopefully it will get addressed.
The next thing I don't like is a double edged sword. It's the telegraphing of the game. I wish we could find another way to do this mechanic. People think this is some great new thing made up. But games have had this for ten years. I will admit it makes things in this game more interesting. But at the same time being used to Guild Wars 2 dodging. It makes this game a little too easy.
I also found a lot of dialogue errors with characters over talking themselves. And I think it's safe to say they found the limit on servers. Because lag reached critical mass several times this weekend. The great news is all of this has time and can be fixed. And if it is we may see a really great launch.
So far I gotta say I like the game. I get that fun feeling again instead of that work feeling. This is something missing the past years in mmo. It's still too early for a valid opinion. But I'll give it a go and get back to you on that.
Comments
The first moments in WildStar... Honor us by watching it (In Greek)
http://youtu.be/Frrtljhh9KY
MAGA
Good write up OP.
I have to disagree with the (common) sentiment that WildStar doesn't offer anything new except for action combat.
Here are just a few observations of things I think that make the game unique.
I spent an entire afternoon just doing challenge quests. The entire open world is filled with hidden mini-games that you can re-do at any time with any number of people. Even on lower level challenges, there was loot for my house and/or useful crafting materials as a reward.
Lore/Story delivery. The game gives you quests in Twitter sized pieces, but what 99% of the people miss is the HUGE amount of info that's available if you want it. The quests all expand into lengthy stories, plus the lorebooks/datacubes/Tales from Beyond the Fringe (TFBTF) books are everywhere and designed to allow you to go back during down time and spend hours reading through the lore and story of the game. I also love the fact that Datacubes can be re-played with full audio as well. I've never seen a game that values story and lore as much as WildStar but is perfectly comfortable allowing players to bypass it so quickly if they want.
A non-front loaded game. This is probably the best feature of WildStar. The game holds a ton of secrets and the starting areas don't make you out to be some grand hero. You're just a lucky punk that was awoken out of cryosleep. You have to prove how good you are by how you perform in game. Want gold rewards for content? Then play good enough to earn it. Time invested won't win you a gold medal in a dungeon, only skill. Without spoiling anything, entering Grimvault at level 45 things got a helluva lot more serious and real (if you give a rip about lore). Gameplay became much more challenging, I found a dynamic event I've yet to win and I'm having the most fun I've had yet (also dying a lot, which is GREAT!)
Path discussions among players are hilarious. By design, they are built specifically to appeal to different playstyles yet I'm seeing reviews like, "The Soldier path was fun, but the Scientist was dull as hell." Well, duh! If you love being a soldier, of course you'd find scientist boring. Not saying they are perfect, and I certainly think the rewards could be improved for them, they are unique and add another entire layer of stuff to do.
There's more I could talk about, but I can say that as someone who rarely chases new and shiny MMO's, and after finally having a chance to play - WildStar is shaping up to be the MMO I've been looking for.
Edits: minor grammatical fixes. words are hard.
I agree with you on the telegraphs, but for a different reason, it draws my eye away from the game and game world, and it trains me to stare at the ground. Usually its not to bad, but since, in Wildstar, every single attack is a telegraph, thats just where my eyes naturally go.
Played almost every MMORPG made since the Realm Online first opened. This might just be the worst one I've played. About the only good thing I can say about it is the world is a bit different than most. The combat is simply atrocious, the quests are way too linear, the story is just awful, the graphics make WOW look good and no that isn't a good thing. I guess actually the character progression system is decent, that sure beats the old talent tree method.
3 things really hold me back from pre-ordering WS.
2 faction PvP (needs to be 3, 2 gets unbalanced)
40 man forced raids. 40 man raids = work and boredom waiting for them to form.... waiting for 1 guy to go pee, 1 guy with his kid up crying, 1 chick who is arguing with her significant other, 1 guy getting yelled at by his mom to get his homework done.... 40 man raids are too many possible issues from a single person, affecting the outcome for the rest of the group.
Addons... Sure others like em, others "need" them, i abhor them. those things should be provided by the game or not be apart of the game at all, the developers need to just include those things as Ui options and not allow 3rd party mods to an online game.
I know that the mod thing is my opinion, but it is really keeping me from wanting to play WS.
Lolipops !
Am I the only one who think the zones is stuffed too much, it just feels messy? (At least up to lvl 15). You can go a few meters then there's a new questhub which offers the same type of quests as the previous one. Different mobs, a few m^2 where the mobs have their headquarter, you do this and that and move on.
I would rather see big zones, some meaningful quests with some travel distance over larger open areas or thick forest or something. A red thread that follows the whole zone, and not a mixture of a million different type of mobs, vegetation, landmass.
Will I see that later in the game or is it like this all the way to 50?
I have to agree. This and ESO, make 1 lousy year for new upcoming MMOs.
I agree Eso will be a trainwreck. That's why I'm not going to cover it until later. And giving away the free copy I got on twitch. But I see potential in Wild Star. I do agree all the quest stuffed into zones. Does make you feel a bit overwhelmed and cluttered. I think maybe they need to find a way to intregate it better. Then every other step you take hey here's a new quest lol....It happens so much you lose focus most of the time. But I will go as far as say I'm straight up paying for this game.
If you play either this game or ESO for their solo quests, you are going to have a bad time. Both of them have the worst quests I have encountered in a long time. That being said, the combat of Wildstar makes their quests less of a chore. Although once I was able to PvP, adventure and dungeon, I felt no desire to go back to questing.
The combat at its core is fun, which is the main thing. Regarding the telegraphs, turn off the blue ones and tone down the red ones and its less of a disco. You really don't need them for your own skills.
I don't think the telegraphs make the game easy. There are some very complex telegraphs going around, and some are quite fast. Also how you deal with each one can be different. it isn't always a GTFO marker.
I must have missed the part where Carbine said they were going to revolutionize anything at all. They have only said that they are taking ideas from other games, and either updating them, or putting a Wildstar spin on it. Not every MMO has to revolutionize, they just need to do things well.
I find the dungeons while leveling to be quite engaging. Many of the bosses do require you to coordinate with teammates. I haven't encountered a boss yet that gave me an underwhelmed feeling.
I can fly higher than an aeroplane.
And I have the voice of a thousand hurricanes.
Hurt - Wars
After
-turning off blue telegraphs and setting the red one to way transparent
-turning off the annoying tiny UI-element that pops up near a clickable NPC or item (F)
-disabling the sprint meter addon
-setting Gamma to 1.5 for more darker visuals and less screaming colors
-remapping V to loot with my mouse thumb button
-resizing the UI to 0.9 (0.8 would be even better, but then the ridiculously bad font becomes unreadable altogether)
-finding the right camera distance
the game got a whole new feeling to me. It became way more intuitive and relaxed.
@Volgore
Nice I'll do that at launch
Also I never said I wanted Wild Star to invent anything. As an reviewer I try to get rid of misconceptions fast. I see a lot of guys various places. Raging at WS wanting it to be the Holy Grail. And claiming nothing new here and dismissing it. I'd like to start a culture of gamers not thinking like that. Sometime you just don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just improve it and maybe make it more fun.
+no costumes on PvP (wysiwyg combat = perfect)
+faction lock PvP servers = perfect
+i can skip ,Mario Bros™ jumping puzzles AKA.Matrix cubes,jumping puzzles of GW 2.And people who likes that kind of stuff can just choose explorers path. = perfect.
etc.
I like these devs.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
To be fair, we're probably harping on the vocal minority of forum posters who demand every game come up with something completely new and revolutionary.
I can fly higher than an aeroplane.
And I have the voice of a thousand hurricanes.
Hurt - Wars
overall i agree what you wrote, except for the path piece. here i think you are missing the point. sure, if you like soldier, play that, you will have fun and non of the scientist things will get in your way.
do you know what the problem is? as of yet i didnt meet ANYONE who doesnt think scientist path is boring, which simply means that that path is not well done (and explorer path also doesnt get cheered much, but its mostly because most of the people is of an opinion that it doesnt give you much you would not be able to do w/o choosing it).
@Kaladin
I don't know man those types are every where now. It's like a virus that just gets worse every year. And you can never cure it ever. It's so bad now that game reviewers are starting to act in that manner as well. When they're supposed to be objective.
3 faction PVP never gets unbalanced. Said no one ever.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
My thoughts on Beta was there where to many Instanced zones.
I felt closed in, like there wasnt that open and free feel enviroment.
Also pvp had so many spamming flashy sparkles pew pew particle effects that it was hard to notice who is doing what.
As for stability its okay, i notice some bugs like floating NPC's in the air and skipping NPC pathing.