Wildstar

[eKo]

Does anyone want a key for the weekend beta of Wildstar this weekend (from Friday April 25 at 7:00am PDT until on Sunday April 27 at 11:59pm PDT)? I got one on my second email address, but since I pre-ordered I can already participate in the weekend betas . I played quite a bit last weekend, but not sure if I'll have much time this weekend anyway.

It does have the same cartoony graphics of WoW (and as such is bright & colourful unlike ESO), but the combat is action based like Neverwinter Online or ESO. You do get a limited amount of skills (eight) on your actionbar, but the skills can be upgraded & swapped at will. You also have a talent tree of sorts (AMP).

They're not trying the reinvent the wheel, but like WoW (Carbine consists of ex-Blizzard employees after all) they borrow elements from other MMO's and bring it into one streamlined package. It's not the most inventive game, but I had fun so far mainly questing, doing a shiphand mission (soloable story based mission) and an adventure (group based VR mission with different branching paths). I'm not high enough to do a dungeon (there are 2 at level 20 I think) and haven't tried any PvP.

I love the cartoon style (well, I do love cartoons) and the humour, especially when rezzing ("Oh you died ... again."), teleporting ("Do you want to be transported in one piece or one piece at a time? ... So predictable!") or taking taxi's (they tell groan inducing puns). The UI and the quest tracker especially need some more work (as there are *tons* of quests). The game is also challenging and they intend to keep it that way (I've heard the first dungeon is punishing as a PuG ), which is good. (Last weekend the mobs were too easy for a day, but they patched that during the weekend. Mobs were way too easy, I could easely solo mobs meant for 2 or 3 players which removed most of the challenge.) Yes I've died quite a bit and yes it can sometimes be infuriating to be taunted while rezzing ).

[Lasiien]

The humour looks good in it Thanks for the offer but I'm away most of the w/e anyway, so wouldn't make good use of it. Keep us updated on how it's going !

[Cernos]

I was in the early beta, but lost my beta access because I didn't level quickly enough (I only got to level 15 on my Engineer). The game was fun, in a brash cartoony sort of way. Unfortunately it ran like a total dog on my system, so I wasn't able to progress very far. Unless they've made some radical optimizations to the game engine, a beta key is wasted on me.

[Saxif]

Sounds interesting but have several things to sort out this weekend, maybe look into it again in the future though!

[Shi]

open beta starts tmr, so will have a look

[eKo]

Yeah, open beta has started today until the 18th. Since all my characters ended up copied on German servers, I started a new one on Eko (Yeah they named a server after me ). Katsui, Chua engineer (I love the Chua animations, they're awesome). Though I'm planning to play Exile on live (Aurin spellslinger, Mordesh medic & Human engineer are planned already ).

[Lasiien]

/wave @ shi !

lol, they named a server after you ? Sweet !

If we can play for a couple of weeks I'll DL the client and take a look. Though I suspect I won't buy/subscribe, it all looks a bit too cutesy to me (sorry Eric!)

[Shi]

Hey Las!

I spotted now Cern's remark about the performance, weird. It seems to me a game less demanding than GW2, so must be sth wrong with the engine.
I got the beta yesterday and played through the noob zone, then landed on the planet.
I definitely enjoy such type of graphics, it feels very much like WoW in that respect
I experience though one major gfx issue, hope they fix it, getting a blank screen and weird sounds after pressing P for the skill panel, weird, can still log out, so it's not a complete system crash hehe
No clue what server I am on sth starting with V or A lol , Exile side, playing some bunny looking race, class oriented on healing.
Not sure for the release. Maybe.
June becomes quite busy with the world cup start I dont mind the scary news about the endgame, anyways i never reach it hihi but they need fix the performance and this weird gfx bug.

btw, in case you missed the news. You can pre-order the new WoW xpack.
It is worth it imo, since you get some goodies for Blizzard games, and also in the package a free lvl 90 boost
That's a new paid service Blizzard introduced, only 50e (haha), but with preorder you get 1 free for your account
And since, well, you gonna try it anyways, despite the usual "Im done with WoW" , so why not get the extra goodies
Release, coming december.
(apparently there is some sort of housing, omg, thought not gonna live till that moment )

[Cernos]

To be fair, my performance problems were with the early closed beta client, which I expect wasn't optimized at all. I didn't make it into the later closed beta stage.

I've patched up to the open beta client so will take another look. I hope it's playable as what I was able to see before looked fun.

[Cernos]

Well, the open beta client is definitely running better than the closed client for me. Still not getting very good fps though. I think it's because of the sheer amount of stuff constantly going on in game. Whilst the graphics are cartoony, there's a shedload of stuff always happening on screen. Speaking of which ....

I'm finding the game fun but really exhausting to play. It's very very busy and chaotic, both visually and in terms of gameplay.

Missions and tasks get constantly thrown at you from all directions and pull you all over the place, NPCs constantly jabber at you, stuff aggros you here there and everywhere, the combat is a mess of criss-crossing and overlapping telegraphs, there's constant visual effects and events of one kind or another. Even just trying to read the quest dialogue or choose a reward is usually interupted by something or other.

The game seems to have a bad case of ADHD - or perhaps that's the target audience

Not saying it isn't fun, it is in a chaotic sort of way, but it's exhausting and not the sort of game I feel I could settle into a long session of.

[Cernos]

Got a chance to play this some more over the weekend and got my Chua Engineer up to level 16. Have to say I'm having fun and my PC is handling the beta client reasonably well. Hopefully the release client will be a bit better too.

I'm still finding the gameplay chaotic and frenetic and the UI is definitely too cluttered (will have to see if there's any good mods / addons available). But I installed a custom FOV addon which has really helped make the game less visually tiring and started to get more of a feel for how the flow of the game works.

There's a lot of stuff to explore and stumble across and you aren't forced to follow too linear a path, apart from the main story of course. I bumped into a Shiphand mission at level 13 which took me off world on a mini adventure I wasn't expecting. The Challenges that pop up from time to time are fun and often have some good rewards. The general tone of the game is fun and doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes for a nice change.

Tried the PvP. The 10v10 stuff seems pretty standard, but I hear there's other modes later such as Warplots. PvP isn't really the main draw for me in a game like this, but will probably dabble.

The crafting looks interesting but was mostly buggy so couldn't progress far.

The player housing is great. I made a basic house and then wondered what was possible so had an explore around some neighbors' houses. Some people have got really creative already and I'm sure more is possible as people collect decor. One even had a mini game installed on their plot.

Since I've bailed on ESO for the time being, I think I'll take a punt on Wildstar at launch. Dunno what server to roll on though, other than a PVE one. Anyone else going to be playing?

[Shi]

didnt get my butt in seriously yet due to DAOC distraction.
But if you folks plan to play it I could give it a go
What is the release date??
ah 3rd of June.
Hmm, guess could give it a go for 2 months.
Planning on move mid July, so after then it will go hectic online-timewise..

[eKo]

Yeah I'll play for sure (since I pre-ordered). Was gonna go Exile, but my Chua is actually growing on me, so might go Dominion after all (especially since Chua can be Spellslingers, yay!). I really like how the Chua swim (paddle) and their huge grin when they shoot stuff fits well .

Talking about chaotic & frenetic: I did a world boss (Metal Maw) in a 20-man raid this weekend and it was funny having all those effects flying around (fps went down to 10-ish). We managed to kill it without deaths, but it only seemed to drop crap loot, so it wasn't really worth it.

They managed to totally bug crafting, though the patch of today is supposed to fix it. Housing really is great, though you need patience as the interface isn't so great, but it's powerful. Check the Housing forum section on the official forums to see what some people have been able to build. (Plus there's already a huge customization selection out of the box).

Still haven't done any PvP, but think I'll have to finally swap to using WASD (prefer arrow keys) or need an addon to autopress right mouse button in combat only (there's Steer & Deadlock Extended which are good, but I only need it in combat really). There's some addons already (Bijiplates to replace nameplates is good, so is BetterQuestLog) and more in the works (check on Curse), so that's looking good.

[Cernos]

I took the plunge and pre-ordered.

Exile has the storyline I can identify more with, but Dominion has the Chua - a psychotic rabbit with a heavy gun is hard to resist

So I think it's Chua Engineer for me to start with. I want to see the Exile storyline as well, so bound to start an alt - perhaps a Medic as I experimented a bit with that and enjoyed the playstyle. Spellsinger looks interesting too.

I think they are keeping the same EU server names from beta for launch. Currently playing on Eko server for the beta, but happy to roll anywhere else if anyone has a better suggestion, or knows of a guild that's forming - are any from Roses or Legion Inc going to be playing?

[Shi]

I'm for crazy rabbits on Eko, and pick a server for Exile alts, ill try resist as long as I can
Im lobbying within Legion Inc on FB, but so far the response is limited.
Will ask also among the Face Dancers from WoW. They bunch is often up for any new MMO that shows