Review: WildStar

In my time spent as a gamer, I’ve never gotten the allure of MMORPGs. I’m a big fan of the RPG genre – as many of my previous reviews may attest – but the idea of executing that general formula in a  Massively Multiplayer environment never really wowed me. I’ve taken a whirl with Final Fantasy XI, The Secret World and even APB Reloaded (World of Warcraft just never seemed interesting to me, personally), but none ever managed to retain me beyond the first few sessions. As such, this review is written from the perspective of a noob to the MMO genre. I can’t really speak to how the DPS stacks up to other games or any of the other jargon I don’t understand. Sorry, experienced MMO-ers!

That all said, it’s doesn’t matter. My stance has changed of late. Why, you ask? WildStar is why.

WildStar first caught my attention years ago in the form of a lively “Meet the Crew” trailer on YouTube. The colourful graphics and humorous nature of the thing drew me in, until the tag at the end of the video pointed to WildStar ONLINE dot com. Its nature as an MMO instantly threw me off… until a few months ago, when that same trailer passed my way again, only with others to back it up and word of a closed beta underway. Thanks to the assistance of our very own Stevivor, I was able to get in and have a look around the game itself.

The core team at Carbine, the studio responsible for WildStar, includes several ex-Blizzard employees who were involved in WoW. This experience provided a much-needed source of knowledge for the game’s development, and provides a level of polish that helps WildStar get the basics sorted and move on to developing its uniqueness.

WildStar is set on the planet Nexus, homeworld of the ancient and absent Eldan race. Responsible for fast-tracking human development, the discovery of the Eldan homeworld is a shiny prize for whoever claims it. Funnily enough, in an MMO setting, there are two distinct factions who want to be the ones to plant their flag on Nexus for good: firstly there are the Dominion, favoured children of the Eldan made up the evolved-human Cassians, the demonic Draken, the crystal-powered Mechari and the psychotic-science-genius-hamsters, the Chua. A religious zealot group, they feel that Nexus is their entitlement due to their grooming by the Eldan. None too hapy about this is the other faction, the Exiles. A rebellion group started by humans who weren’t happy with the strictness of Dominion life, they are joined by the rock-like Granok, the tree-loving cat-squirrel people known as the Aurin, and the Mordesh, a race of space-zombies. Yep, space zombies. It’s as awesome as you might think.

The layout of the world is as one might expect. Each faction has their own early areas and capital cities, with regions at higher levels integrating the two for some competitive fun. The joy of this existing formula is in its execution. Each area has wildly varying terrain, colour schemes and thematic elements, making the journey from one zone  to another both noticeable and a good incentive to keep going to see what’s next. The rich colour schemes are also a sight for sick-of-brown-town eyes. WildStar isn’t afraid to go bright, be it the stark white of the Northern Wilds or the lush flora of Celestion.

Exploration in these zones is also great due to the action-oriented nature of the game’s movement. Players are able to quick-dodge and double-jump in addition normal move-and-strafe traversal. These come in particularly handy as many areas encourage vertical exploration or platforming-esque puzzles.The varied movement carries over to combat, with the game utilising a system based on telegraphing. Every attack has a unique area of deployment — be it circular, conical or a straight-up line — and these areas of effect are signposted in the world using coloured shapes displayed on the ground. This dynamic allows you to both target multiple enemies easily with a single attack, and to quickly dodge incoming enemy attacks by watching their telegraphs. It adds a fun quick-reaction element to combat, and at higher levels and in raids these telegraphs become epic in scope, both scale and complexity.

Level progression gives regular rewards, as there are two distinct forms of progression – your class, and your path. Classes are new riffs on the standard roles, such as the Stalker (Rogue), Spellslinger (Mage), and… Warrior (Warrior). Some are tweaked in new directions, such as the Medic whose area-of-effect abilities skew both defensive and offensive. This class levels through combat and quest completion, just like any other RPG. The path however, is a secondary class that is tailored to suit your preferred style of play. Soldiers have access to unique and more challenging fights, Scientists can investigate the world to expand on its lore, Settlers can drop buff stations and unique quest-givers into the world, and Explorers (like me) are challenged to search to the very edges of the world.

Paths level by completing specific tasks – for me as an Explorer, that meant planting flags at unique locations, fully exploring the map and completing scavenger hunts. Path progression unlocks unique items and skills, such as the Explorer ability to halve fall damage – helpful when you spend half your time jumping up mountains. The combination of class and path means that you’re always progressing somehow, getting that elusive level-up high – which I must point out, in WildStar, involves a rock-and-roll fireworks show and a unique snippet of congratulatory dialogue for EVERY LEVEL GAINED. It’s even better than the Xbox Achievement sound.

All in all, WildStar has some key element that has kept me going where other MMO’s have not. Perhaps it’s the colourful and varied world, or the game’s sense of humour – ranging from fireworks-filled level ups to enemies exploding into steaks and drumsticks on death half the time – or maybe even the constant s  ense of achievement from two complementary progression trees. Whatever it is, I’m 18 levels into the game with no plans to stop so far. If I do, who will decorate my housing plot or pimp out my awesome hoverbike mount? With a promised 18 months’ worth of unique content being rolled out by developer Carbine, I’m looking forward to enjoying this one long-term. If all goes well, I’ll check in again a little further down the line with some more well-informed opinions!

(For now, we will not be giving a final score to the game as it would be unfair to grade an MMO on its first few weeks.)