Ultra Drop!

Looks like Carbine Studios is setting up some high expectations for its players by announcing a massive content patch due out before the end of the month.  This begins a trend Carbine hopes to continue, dropping in a “huge amount of gameplay” each month, according to executive producer Jeremy Gaffney. These content updates are called “drops” by the team, and will vary in size from Ultra Drops, such as this one, to Epic Drops to Regular Drops.

The update is called “The Strain”, themed around an alien infestation that will mutate existing creatures in game and add two new zones to explore. Blighthaven is a level 50 zone, starting a solo area and progressing into group content. It ends with an open-world, multi-wing dungeon, the last boss of which will evolve based on how much of the dungeon has been cleared to that point. The second zone, Northern Wastes, will be a re-skinned and updated version of the Northern Wilds tutorial zone, with tougher enemies, quests and challenges aimed at end game players.

According to Gaffney, at any given time one-thirds of the team is working updates such as this while two-thirds are working bug stomping, reactive changing and tweaking. We can expect new gear, mounts and player housing options from this drop as well, with housing a key point for a June 26^th patch.

“The Strain” hits nexus on June 24^th, ideally (testing may change this), and though I won’t be ready to tackle it now, I look forward to seeing more about the drop. The goal is to build in elements for all player types, solo, group, raid and PvP with these drops. July’s will contain content design for PvP, so keep your eyes open for it!

Thanks for following! 

-Mac

If Mac played WildStar, turn to page 32....

Ok – E3 is over, I didn’t get as much of it covered last week as I would have liked, but it gives me something to strive to improve on next year. I will get at least a wrap-up done within the next week with games that sparked my interest most. For now back to my usual ramblings.

WildStar

I am taking my time with WildStar, partly due to a busy life lately and partly so I don’t burn out on it in one binge. Made it to level 15 over the weekend and after getting my skills settled, buying my mount, and exploring my housing a bit…I went to bed. The next day however, I set myself up for a bit of game time and entered the queue for my first adventure – The Hycrest Insurrection. Adventures are instances for 5 group members that follow a “choose your own adventure” format. At each junction, you are given three paths to choose from, and the choice that obtains the highest number of votes wins for the group’s choice. There is a final boss to fight, and everyone gets rewarded for their efforts, plus reputation to spend at the vender at the instance entrance. A major difference between this and a dungeon is the lack of exp awarded for monster kills here. And that I have heard dungeons are far more difficult.

The fact that dungeons are more difficult both excites and scares me, because the adventure wasn’t a walk in the park. Starting off in a hover-copter, we listened to a briefing and then jet-packed down to Hycrest, a territory currently heavily under Dominion control. Our job was to help them successfully rebel and throw out the oppressing forces. We hunkered down with a leader of the insurgency and were presented with our first choice. The choices range from outright rebellion and target elimination to collection and destruction of resources.

My group went with the latter, and we set out killing the guards and destroying their property as smooth as can be. The only stumbling blocks we came upon were the constant artillery barrage as a group member carelessly stepped into the warning reticules scattered about and the annoyance of the snipers knocking us down as we ran around.

At our next juncture, we set out to free some prisoners, and were presented with some heftier enemies to take down. At this point I let my enthusiasm get the better of me, forgot to watch my threat level, and bit the dust. Up on my feet again, we pressed on and finished the objective smoothly. We did encounter a bug of not being able to see one another until we met at the rendezvous point, but it cleared itself up. We finished our last mini quest and went on to tackle the adventure boss. Here we wiped a few times, all new to the experience and not knowing the tactics. These aren’t the hardest bosses in the world, but they still require a fine level of tactics and finesse.

Overall, I love the idea of adventures. As I understand it, your story sculpts visually depending on the paths you choose, including more or less friendly NPCs, destruction, etc. I am excited to grab another group and try again, choosing different paths this time. I love the change of pace from normal exp grinding without the insane challenge I have heard the dungeons present, though I look forward to those just as anxiously. It’s definitely a unique take on group content, and it helps keep you engaged in the world’s storyline in a fun new way.

Carbine Studios is doing awesome so far, and though we are plagued with gold spammers, what MMO isn’t? Patches are coming rapid-fire, fixing bugs and rebalancing what needs rebalancing. I love where the game is, and can’t wait to see where it goes.

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Google+, Twitter @Driachan or via Email or RSS to the right!

If you still haven't jumped on the WildStar bandwagon, get on board!

-Mac

Wildstar Update...AKA My newest Addiction

As you could probably guess from my initial write-up forWildstar, it has captured my interest just a bit. This past weekend marked the start of the head-start event and the official launch. I had a busy weekend away from my computer, but I managed to set aside a decent chunk of time to enjoy the comic goodness on Nexus.

My first instinct was to roll a different class than I had in beta, so I rolled a Granok Engineer. Huge difference from my Stalker, and I definitely was enjoying it. Made it through the first ship teaching grounds before deciding I like to hit things hard and fast when playing a game, so I knew that my main should be a Stalker. I have my Engineer waiting for me, and I look forward to his hard hitting, slow deliberate, bot enhanced game-play, but for now, I will explore with my fast DPS Stalker.

I rolled human this time. I usually don’t like rolling humans because well, that’s what I am in real life, why play that in an RPG? But aesthetically I like their look and it seemed to fit this world well, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
I put a bit of thought into which path to choose this time, and decided to embrace the hitting hard and fast aspect fully, choosing Soldier. I definitely enjoyed Explorer back in beta and will be choosing it on an alt before too long, but I really do feel that the Soldier path fits my “Kill Everything in sight” mentality as a Stalker.

Character rerolled and decisions made, I was ready to play. I hopped in and burned through the starter ship as quickly as I could; having enjoyed the flavor text in Beta already. I was sad to see gold spamming had already begun. I knew it was coming, but day one of head-start seems a bit ridiculous. I went to report the spammer and was greeted by my desktop. Seems that tool crashed the client. By now, I am very used to MMO launches so this didn’t surprise nor bother me, though I did find the irony amusing. What did surprise me was that a customer service rep was in the general chat replying to early complaints and that a patch hit the next day to remove this and several other bugs. There are still a good number of bugs to squish, but they definitely are doing well inspiring confidence in their commitment to getting gameplay perfect.

I still haven’t done much research into the game on the “greater internet”, just enough to build up my anticipation a bit. Upon leaving the ship, I expected to wind up back in the Northern Wilds but instead was pleased to find there were in fact multiple (2 per faction) leveling paths for the different races. I landed in Everstar Grove and was greeted with brand new quests to enjoy; an unforeseen bonus to rolling a different race. The ship every character starts in is great. It teaches some essential skills for newcomers to the genre, but I can see getting very tired of it if you are an alt’o’holic. The variety in leveling paths will lend itself well to keeping the early levels at least a bit fresher.

I have been paying attention to most of the quest dialogue as I play, wanting to take my time and to appreciate the humor and beauty that is the game, but I admit to being guilty of burning through some of the text just to keep chugging forward. I’ve made it up to level 10 so far; though I logged to go to bed as soon as hitting the level so I haven’t touched trade-skills yet. That’s this evening’s goal. So far, I am still in love with the game. The only danger I have come across is that time seems to slip by as I play it, and suddenly its 2 AM. I blame the wizards at Carbine for this sorcerous trick…..

Quests are categorized as Regional Stories and Tasks, so you can easily differentiate the ones you need to focus on to progress and the ones there for loot, experience and general fun. There are also challenges that pop up as you enter different areas, or kill different mobs. Some people find this obnoxious; I find them to be a nice flavor addition. They generally involve requiring you to kill X mobs or jump through X objectives or something similar within the given time limit. I’m not always in the mood to indulge in their demands, but when I am, the added time limit gives me a fun sense of urgency to not only beat the timer, but to do so in such a time that it makes the time given seem like an eternity. I don’t always succeed. I have heard tell that completing these can yield some pretty awesome rewards, so I will have to focus in on them a bit more in the coming days.

The other carrot that keeps the game-play fresh is the Path quests. There are eight different types of these that appear for Soldiers. Four are just simple variations of each other; given a starting point, defend the point/people around the point/against a LOT of attackers/quickly. There is also Assassination, Rescue, Demolition (which are all exactly what they sound like) and then S.W.A.T. This last mode gives you a shiny new weapon to go test out on the surrounding enemies. It’s basically just another kill quest, but the addition of a usable item as a new way to do it makes it a blast.

The last thing I got to experience this weekend was the basics of a guild. I hopped on board a community based guild as soon as I got word it was active, knowing that a big difference between MMOs I have stuck with and loved and those I have dropped quickly is the community immersion I experience. The interface seems good, from a member’s standpoint, though I haven’t had the chance to pick it apart just yet. It’s been a while since I have really participated in a guild and paid attention, so a feature like the Guild Tax is new to me.  I like it and think it can be a good help for end game guild play, especially with the PVP options offered. The one thing that weirded me out at first but I grew quickly to like was the way your guild crest was displayed. Some games just tag your name-plate and some add a cape or something of the like. Wildstar adds a set of projections from your shoulders and back. You can turn them on and off individually and toggle between near projection and far. I love it. I think that it fits the style perfectly.

The game has its bugs, and it has its faults, but for an MMO in 2014, I think it hits its mark quite strongly. The art design is beautiful, the character fluidity is up to par for modern game-play, the attention to detail is amazing, and the game is just downright fun. I can’t wait to delve into the content I have yet to see including, but not exclusive to, trade-skills, dungeons, furthering the Amp tree. I also anticipate my Stalker and Soldier class progressions will keep me plenty entertained for months to come.

I truly love the game, and highly recommend it for anyone looking for a new MMO, or just a good, fun, cartoon-y, over the top humor game.

I plan to keep up with the Wildstar posts approximately weekly as long as I play the game, and will have more focus in future posts. Check back in, and let me know in the comments if you think I should focus on anything in particular! I’ll happily tailor at least a portion of my playtime to explore what the community is interested in!

(Servers are currently down, and I did not think ahead to get screenshots of my own…so enjoy some more stock ones until servers are up!)

-Mac

--Sociopathic Score--

It only rates this high because it verbally rewards you for killing multiple mobs in rapid succession. I can see using this as a challenge to see how many I can kill how fast in the coming months.

--Sophomoric Score--

More cartoon-y humor; Ratchet and Clank style as I have mentioned. Haven’t encountered them yet, but fully expect actual poop jokes…

--Strategic Score--

So far, haven’t completed dungeons, raids, or upper level content, but judging off of the build structure of classes, and knowing how detail oriented the game is up to this point, I foresee upgrading this greatly as I reach end game.

Playable Pixar

Wildstar. This is a game, that I admit, I unfairly cast aside the first several times I heard it mentioned. I haven't truly played an MMO since Star Wars The Old Republic, and I burned out on that one pretty quickly. So when I heard about another MMO to come to the table, I just let it pass by for the most part.

About two months after hearing about it, IGN ran an article announcing applications for closed beta. Out of habit more than anything else, I tossed my application in. It faded out of my thoughts again until I received an email for a closed beta weekend. Unfortunately I would be out of town for it, so I deleted the email and once again let it leave my mind.

Finally about two weeks ago, all the gaming sites made the huge announcements about its open beta. Incidentally, my mood had recently turned back towards the MMO genre, and though I knew it wouldn't last, it coincided nicely with Wildstar's Open Beta. So I filled out the forms, linked my NCSoft Account, and got the game downloading. As it did, I actually took my first look into the game, and started to get excited for the download to complete.

One of my favorite game series is the Ratchet and Clank series. I am not one who goes back and plays old games once the generation is past (Sorry retro gamers, but with so many new games coming out, I rarely see a reason to look back). This series, however, inspired me to pick up the previous generations games and give them a play and I was not disappointed.

I have found this appeal mirrored beautifully in Wildstar. The art style, the game-play, the humor, all reminiscent of one of my favorite series. I was essentially hooked before I even created a character.

Disclaimer time. I have played up to level 8, on one single character, from one faction, over the course of three days in game. I am no expert on this game. I do not have any deep dark insights on the game, just my initial impressions....

This game is phenomenal. It is easily one of the best MMO's I have ever played, and I wish that I had more time to play it before open beta ended last weekend. But alas, life got in the way and just left me with the tantalizing taste of it. I've bounced back and forth on pre-ordering the game, knowing in my heart that my money is already spent, my wallet just doesn't realize it yet. As such, I expect this to be the first of many posts about this game.

The game takes itself nice and lightly. Not in an overly sarcastic manner which makes you feel as though you are playing a parody, but it makes the universe its own. In this manner, it really reminds me of Ratchet and Clank. It recognizes the overly insane weapon designs, the vast array of alien life forms both silly and fearsome, and the overall ambition of any game - to entertain, and wraps them all up nicely in some well placed humor. Each character I have met thus far add to this chosen style, and it really helps bind the universe they set forth together into a fun place to spend my time.

Upon logging in the first time, I was presented with the standard fare of MMO beginnings. Got to choose my faction, race, class, and customize my appearance.
Factions include the Exiles and the Dominion.
Races include:
Exiles-Human (Outcasts. Renegades. Scruffy), Granok (Rock-skinned. Fearless. Hung over), Aurin (Small. Scrappy. Tree-hugging), Mordesh (Intellectual. Morose. Decomposing)
Dominion - Cassian (Wealthy. Disciplined. Superior), Mechari (Calculating. Efficient. Remorseless), Draken (Savage. Bloodthirsty. Brutal), Chua (Tiny. Brilliant. Psychotic)
Classes include: Warrior (Melee DPS/Tank), Spellslinger (Arcane DPS/Healer), Esper (Psionic DPS/Healer), Engineer (Ranged DPS/Tank), Stalker (Melee DPS/Tank), Medic (Ranged DPS/Healer).

I went with an Aurin Stalker. The Aurin was honestly just because it seemed the most interesting visually at that moment in time, and stalker was a familiar archetype for me. Character created, I logged into the server.

My first joyful surprise?  No lag. Now, I had just upgraded my computer, but new MMOs, and especially Day One Open Beta, are usually MASSIVE lag-fests at spawn in. Once my computer loaded in all the textures, the game ran smoothly, even on maxed out settings. Another pleasant surprise? This smoothness did not come at the expense of polygons and graphics. The art is definitely stylized, and they are able to keep the polygon count low because of this style. In my opinion however, unlike WoW which attempted similar methods, they have found a beautiful balance point which doesn't make their characters look like they are all steroid abusing junkies with a love of massive shoulder ornamentation.
But I digress. The textures given to the world and characters is like a beautiful cartoon. Which leads me to the explanation of the title of this post. The style of animation, paired with the optimization which leads to smooth movement and game-play, makes me feel like I am playing in a Pixar movie.

Speaking of smooth movement and game-play, this is another point at which this game shines bright. Playing as a stalker, the ability to flow one ability into another and keep me feeling like I'm actually a stealth fighter taking on an opponent rather than a card board tank hitting a bit faster and harder, is no mean feat. The dynamic combat which clearly dictates what area the attack will land in as well as the fluid dodge mechanics that let you keep out of their attack areas while keeping them in yours keeps combat moving quickly and never feels like a grind. As a damager, I was able to use my stun abilities in conjunction with dodging to keep behind the target even when soloing them, allowing me to utilize my max damage abilities. This is something I have found very lacking in most MMOs. Usually, as a damager, I am not able to use my biggest heavy hitting abilities unless grouped up. Don't get me wrong, I love grouping in MMO's (otherwise I'd just play a single player game), but sometimes I want an equally enjoyable experience in the 10 - 15 minutes I have to spare in the game.

The talent mechanics are one side that I got only a very brief glimpse into. It looks like a nice little twist on the three tier talent trees that we see in all MMO's these days, but it is set up in a circular pattern, which allows them to guide your eye to which talents blend well with others, to best balance your class to how you want to play. I look forward to seeing this more in depth as I level my main character upon release.

With all the points above adding up, I am already in love with this game. But it just keeps on giving. In what has been described as the most feature complete MMO to hit the market, I was not disappointed to find a fully functioning alternative class system in place. In what they call Paths, they allow the player to tailor the non-combat exclusive game-play to fit their play style. They have broken these up into four Paths: Explorer, Soldier, Settler, Scientist. The only one of these I played with was Explorer, so I will leave the others to future write-ups when I can give them a fair assessment. For your Path, you get a second experience bar to fill, with Path specific quests in their own quest log to advance your progress.
For Explorer, I was tasked with lifting the fog of war from the entire map of the zone I was in, for starters. But it was more than that. There were viewpoints I could access and plant a beacon, which ticked off progress on another quest. The coolest aspect of this style quest was that to get to these viewpoints, you need to be an explorer. There are click-able rocks (in the ones I have done so far) that when clicked, expose previously hidden paths up to the summit. The last type of Explorer quest I experienced is the scavenger hunt. It tasks you with collecting a certain number of items, each of which has a clue to what you are looking for and will highlight on your map a general location in which to look.

As can be surmised from my lengthy post after only playing the first few levels, I am a convert to Wildstar. I am very excited for launch and very depressed at the money my excitement has already spent, but I will none-the-less be ready to play when servers open for head-start next weekend.

Take a look at their site, delve into the lore they have provided at depth for new players, enjoy the artwork and see if it seems to be up your alley.

Thanks for following!

-Mac

Wildstar Website