Join Cyglaive as he recaps his journey to Planet Nexus

The Landing

Finally, the moment that I had been waiting for arrived. After the housing demonstration the floodgates were released and we were able to get some playtime with the game. While we did have a group event planned for later, we were given some time to jump into the game and go at whatever we wanted. I decided to go ahead and create my first Exile Stalker.

While I already had my planned character in mind, I immediately became distracted by the plethora of bells and whistles on the character creation screen, not to mention the gorgeous anime-like character models. While the stylized art-style may not appeal to everyone, I personally have a thing for it which is most likely from being raised on Saturday morning cartoons and a healthy dose of Japanese Anime.

The character customization itself was akin to what you might have come to expect from MMORPGs as of late. We were given the basic face, hair, eye color, hair color and accessories options (some of which were replaced with horns and ears depending on the race). After that we were free to tweak our character to perfection by adjusting the eye size, chin size, nose and other key facial features. I’d say that WildStar definitely gives you enough options to make a unique looking character, while still holding true to its own art-style. And these options are something that we’re seeing more of in recent MMOs, but hey, the more choices you can make the better if you ask me.

Once I had my character’s look figured out, I also chose his Path and Class which ended up being the Soldier and the Stalker this time around. After hitting the accept button, I was then thrust into my first journey through WildStar and immediately I was taken aback by images of cryo-pods, some intact and some broken with their hosts hanging out lifeless. It was then that it dawned on me that WildStar isn’t all fun and games. Beneath the humor and stylized look, was a deep story with a serious undertone--and I loved every second of it. While I did find the Exile opening a bit more dire than its Dominion counter-part. The Dominion opening plot seems to hint at some bigger reveals later down the line.

After the camera panned around the room a few times, I began to hear voices of two characters that were off screen. One seemed like a normal ship-hand worker while the other was the one who was obviously calling the shots and apparently looking for his wife. Accidently mistaking my cryo-pod for his wife’s, I was finally awakened and tasked with helping this character find his lost love. This was man known as “Deadeye” Brightland and immediately I drew a possible correlation to Serrick Brightland, the man responsible for helping the humans escape the grasp of the Dominion. However, the mystery behind his connection with the former Brightland would have to wait, since the 300-year old Exile Arkship was literally falling apart right before our eyes. We had to find this man’s wife as soon as possible.

Over the next few minutes I acquired my first weapon and helped my fellow Exiles, double jumping, dodging and slaying a few Dominion baddies along the way. Combat felt extremely fluid and I never felt “disconnected” from my character. I will say that a few of the abilities across the classes could have a little more impact behind them when hitting enemies, but I realize the game is still in beta and these things will continue to be worked on.

Without spoiling too much of the rest of the tutorial area regarding the story, this area wasn’t meant to be extremely difficult. It was meant to bring you into the game and story, teach you how to play with a series of quests and objectives, as well as expose you to your path through a series of starter path missions. However, visually it was definitely pretty awesome. After noticing the various sci-fi widgets, monitors and piping laid out around this decaying Arkship, I often found myself going into first-person to get a better view of this enormous structure or to just look at various NPCs and the gear they had on. At this point I already called out a few armor sets that I’ll be going after at launch. Granted, the stylized look of WildStar may not appeal to everyone, but don’t confused art-style with graphics. The spell effects, environments and environmental effects had as much visual flare as any MMO to date.

Toward the end of the press demo, we all got to hop on some mid-level characters in order to take part in a large zone dynamic event. While these events aren’t the main focus for questing in WildStar, they do pop up every now and then across various zones and, similar to other games, scale in difficulty the more people decide to participate. And we were definitely not short of Medics and Engineers, which makes sense I guess because they are the new hotness after all. For this event, we were tasked with infiltrating Osun territory, the warrior race originally created by the Eldan to serve them. You might remember them from previous dungeon videos from Gamescom and PAX Prime.

At this point we were playing as Dominion characters so my once Exile Human was now a Draken Stalker. As we escorted the NPC through Osun territory, it was loads of fun.

From looking at forums and various WildStar fansites, a big concern that usually rears its head is the functionality of the telegraph system in large-scale encounters. Will it get in the way? Will it look like a disco show? These are questions that are commonly asked among the community and with good reason. I did not find this system to be problematic at all. In fact it actually aided in these large scale fights.

In most MMOs what typically happens in large scale events is that they end up looking like huge zergs with no real mechanics in place. Even if the mechanics are there, with abilities, spells and particle effects bombarding your screen, it can often be hard to tell what’s actually going on. In WildStar I didn’t really feel this way at all. Even though we did have a pretty large number of people tackling the same event at once, because of the telegraph system, the mechanics were easily identifiable. Red telegraphs indicate harmful effects and green telegraphs indicate ally healing abilities. Though most of us didn’t know the exact mechanics of the encounter, we were at least able to determine the basics well enough to complete the event and defeat the boss at the end. And granted, while the group event wasn’t extremely difficult, the telegraph system doesn’t make this game “easy mode” in any way. It’s not as easy or as simple as you might think to dodge out of the way of increasingly more complex telegraphs, some of which loop around, create checkerboard shaped areas or follow you for a certain amount of time before going off in one big fiery explosion.

However, if the telegraph system is still not exactly working out the way you had intended, the game includes plenty of options for customizing its visual settings. You can change the opacity, the color or even turn telegraphs off completely if you choose to--though I wouldn't recomend it.

The combat it self really rewards good positioning, but also isn’t afraid to punish you for bad positioning or making a wrong move. This is especially important for healers and their DPS counter-parts. I found that during the event the healers and the DPS needed to meet each other “half-way” in order to survive each encounter. What do I mean by this? Well, because a lot of WildStar’s healing is free-form, healers need to be able to line up their shots, position properly and in some cases, follow the DPSers in order to heal them effectively. Because of the heavy hitting telegraphs, it’s not always the DPSers fault if they’re constantly moving.

However, on a similar note, DPS players need to be aware of where the heals are actually going to land. Because you can see friendly heals marked as green telegraphs, it’ll be your job to move into them when necessary. And while Tanks don’t have to move as often due to their beefy nature, even they have to avoid being hit from time to time in order to avoid a sudden dirt nap. So keep an eye out for where the healer is located. In short, having good self-positioning and also knowing the location of your teammates can go a long way for all roles.

While most of us managed to survive this encounter, the devs did say that telegraphs are undergoing pretty significant buffs over the next few major beta patches.  White damage from enemy NPCs is being changed as well as the frequency and damage of harmful telegraphs in order to further emphasize WildStar’s movement and position based combat. All in all, the combat was extremely fun and engaging and, while it may take a lot of adjusting for some, it felt extremely satisfying to pull off.

Farewell Nexus...For now

After one last dinner with the devs we all said our goodbyes and I before I knew it, I was on my way back home after a great trip to Planet Nexus. However, I was able to snag some pretty epic loot before I left.

On top of some nice WildStar swag I can finally reveal to you all that I also left with a Press Beta Key!

That’s right folks, WildStar’s press beta has begun, which means you should definitely be seeing some more content from me in the very near future as I go over this upcoming MMORPG in greater detail. At the moment, press is limited to only covering anything from levels 1-15, but that should still be more than enough to keep those appetites satisfied for the moment since there is a ton of stuff to cover in those first 15 levels.

Before I sign off I want to thank Carbine and NCSOFT for including me for a great WildStar experience. As always, for more information, be sure to check out the official website and keep it dialed into ZAM for more news, information and updates. And don't forget to check out my interview with WildStar's Design Director, Mike Donatelli, as we discuss WildStar's Winter Beta!

See you on Nexus!

Corey "Cyglaive" Jenkins

Follow Corey on Twitter @Cyglaive