Friday, March 14, 2014

Not Sold on WildStar

The big news this week is that WildStar will be released on June 3rd, and the NDA was dropped.  So that means I can talk about the game, yay!  I have been in beta for a number of months now.  As you may have noticed, there has not been a lot of talk about WildStar on this blog.  There is a reason for that.

I will say this, my first impression of the game was a good one.  It was a very polished experience even several months ago.  The game was very playable.  Graphics, sound, and gameplay systems were all good.  It has some great features, like housing and War Plots.  Although, the latter I didn't get to experience but it sounds fun.

So why didn't the game click with me?  There are a few reasons.

World.  The setting just doesn't interest me too much.  I'm sure Carbine has created a deep lore, but nothing about it got me interested.  It's a very subjective thing, so I expect a lot of people will enjoy it.

PvE.  It is a very quest oriented game.  Combine that with a setting that didn't interest me and I got bored pretty quickly.  The quests also felt pretty standard.  Conversely, ESO's quests felt more like a single player game than standard MMO fare.

Combat.  I like the idea of attack indicators.  It makes combat more interesting.  Carbine takes this to the extreme though.  It felt like every skill used this system.  It also seemed like a lot of abilities were build up ( takes a second or two to fire), so attack indicators could be shown and enemies given a chance to dodge.  This made combat feel cumbersome to me.

WildStar is a quality game that I would recommend people try.  It just may not be for me.  I will certainly keep watching the game to see how it develops.