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Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

Peechka posted:

How bout the mobs telegraphing the special attacks so you can "dodge" them. Its the same as TSW.

Literally every single MMO does that to some degree. Oh no, he's starting to speechify, watch out he's going to launch his big attack! Oh no he's shot a whole bunch of fireballs into the air, they will soon rain down on us. Gasp, shock, the floor is smoking...soon there will be a geyser of acid!

Telegraphing attacks isn't a TSW thing alone. Nor is limited skill slots. GW1 rode that train to glory long before TSW was ever a thing. While this looks "WoW-like" in the sense of it's aesthetic being more cartoony than realistic, otherwise it seems moderately different in actual execution as far as gameplay goes.

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Marx Headroom
May 10, 2007

AT LAST! A show with nonono commercials!
Fallen Rib
Enemies have to follow some sort of pattern for the game to be playable anyway. If the player can't predict what's coming, there's no interactivity there. That's like... the essence of game design. Or something.

Peechka
Nov 10, 2005

Eltoasto posted:

Pretty sure they specifically said that the tells get less and less obvious as the mobs get tougher. Not every player is as pro as you, if a game wants to bring in a lot of people, then they need to make it fairly easy at the start and gradually ramp it up.

Either way, my point still stands. Looks bland and boring to me. The entire questgrind alone puts me off in a major way. I dont think that I could go through another game leveling through meaningless fetch and kill quests.

Never played GW2 but from the sounds of it, that game never really saw its true potential either.

Grimby
Sep 12, 2002

Peechka posted:

Either way, my point still stands. Looks bland and boring to me. The entire questgrind alone puts me off in a major way. I dont think that I could go through another game leveling through meaningless fetch and kill quests.

Never played GW2 but from the sounds of it, that game never really saw its true potential either.

How would you prefer to level, other than questing?

miscellaneous14
Mar 27, 2010

neat
From the trailers, I get the impression they're doing a Ratchet & Clank-esque goofy space adventure sort of thing, which I'm definitely interested in. I know most MMOs generally don't take themselves seriously all the time, but it's rare to find one fully embracing a silly theme.

Magitek
Feb 20, 2008

That's not jolly.
That's not jolly at all!

Grimby posted:

I'd much rather be limited to using 9 skills in combat where I can pick and choose which ones to use and create my own builds instead of having to deal with WoW and friends 40+ skills and being forced to write macros in order to setup rotations and blah blah blah. I am personally loving ecstatic MMOs are moving away from the 4-5 hotbars full of skills poo poo. My biggest disappointment in TOR was the fact that they went with the hotbars full of skills plan rather than an approach like TSW or GW2 when it came to combat.

I can support this in principle, but the limit of 7-10 presented by other games always ends up seeming stale to me. Either the core abilities end up being too simplistic or the situational/timer skills simply aren't there. 20 abilities is the sweet spot IMO -- set up keys for one full bar, apply a modifier button (Shift, CTRL, etc.) for the second bar and you're done.

BadLlama
Jan 13, 2006

Magitek posted:

I can support this in principle, but the limit of 7-10 presented by other games always ends up seeming stale to me. Either the core abilities end up being too simplistic or the situational/timer skills simply aren't there. 20 abilities is the sweet spot IMO -- set up keys for one full bar, apply a modifier button (Shift, CTRL, etc.) for the second bar and you're done.

I think Guild Wars 2 handle it well well with the weapon swapping thing. You got 5 skills for each weapon set so 10 skills, your heal skill, 3 utiltiies, an ultimate and then a class specific button which could be anywhere from 1-3 more buttons. That end up being the perfect amount of skills to use IMO. I think only having 7 might be far to limiting to what you can do.

miscellaneous14
Mar 27, 2010

neat

Magitek posted:

I can support this in principle, but the limit of 7-10 presented by other games always ends up seeming stale to me. Either the core abilities end up being too simplistic or the situational/timer skills simply aren't there. 20 abilities is the sweet spot IMO -- set up keys for one full bar, apply a modifier button (Shift, CTRL, etc.) for the second bar and you're done.

The problem with most MMOs is that there's no real visual punch behind the animations, which is a major issue hindering the ones that keep the amount of abilities to a minimal level; in Guild Wars 2 it feels like banging plastic on cardboard, and TSW has this weird disconnect between input and attack because of the wonky models. Warcraft manages to overcome this with satisfying procs happening pretty often to give you a sense that you're actually doing something.

TOR and TERA are the best examples of having a lot of visual and aural heft behind attack animations. If you took that design concept, and applied it to a small pool of abilities, you could end up with something more engaging without being inundated with buttons.

Peechka
Nov 10, 2005

Grimby posted:

How would you prefer to level, other than questing?

Public events, dynamic events (Rift outpost invasions but that actually worked for example), massive dangerous social dungeons like EQ had, "Epic" type quests, even some camping, AO's random generated missions, group or solo, is all better than running around collecting bear asses for some meaningless reward you will replace in 1-2 levels. Sorry but any game that takes WoW questing as their main leveling idea is already fail IMO.

Besides Im not a game designer, the people which are paid to do this for a living can come up with new unique and fun ways to level up, rather than just tossing in some fetch quests while hand holding the player from one quest outpost to another. Its a cop out by now, being lazy. How can anyone stand this type of game play anymore is beyond me. Essentially the last 6 yrs of mmorpgs gave us nothing but the same, are you not tired of this yet? Dont you want something new, fresh?

Phoix
Jul 20, 2006




Peechka posted:

Public events, dynamic events (Rift outpost invasions but that actually worked for example), massive dangerous social dungeons like EQ had, "Epic" type quests, even some camping, AO's random generated missions, group or solo, is all better than running around collecting bear asses for some meaningless reward you will replace in 1-2 levels. Sorry but any game that takes WoW questing as their main leveling idea is already fail IMO.

Besides Im not a game designer, the people which are paid to do this for a living can come up with new unique and fun ways to level up, rather than just tossing in some fetch quests while hand holding the player from one quest outpost to another. Its a cop out by now, being lazy. How can anyone stand this type of game play anymore is beyond me. Essentially the last 6 yrs of mmorpgs gave us nothing but the same, are you not tired of this yet? Dont you want something new, fresh?

I feel like the Path system is basically what you're describing, though. The game has standard quests but the different paths should provide all kinds of alternatives.

Hugoon Chavez
Nov 4, 2011

THUNDERDOME LOSER
At the end of the day, people like the WoW formula. Do something similar with a great execution (like Rift) and you'll get lots of players.

My main concern is the f2p model of which we know nothing about. Funcom is not exactly the best company out there in this regard, so I'm skeptical.

Aside from that, after being kinda let down by GW2, not liking Tera or TSW, I'm ready for Wildstar to break my hopes once again. Between this and Neverwinter, something good should come out...

Right?

Grimby
Sep 12, 2002

Peechka posted:

Public events, dynamic events (Rift outpost invasions but that actually worked for example), massive dangerous social dungeons like EQ had, "Epic" type quests, even some camping, AO's random generated missions, group or solo, is all better than running around collecting bear asses for some meaningless reward you will replace in 1-2 levels. Sorry but any game that takes WoW questing as their main leveling idea is already fail IMO.

Besides Im not a game designer, the people which are paid to do this for a living can come up with new unique and fun ways to level up, rather than just tossing in some fetch quests while hand holding the player from one quest outpost to another. Its a cop out by now, being lazy. How can anyone stand this type of game play anymore is beyond me. Essentially the last 6 yrs of mmorpgs gave us nothing but the same, are you not tired of this yet? Dont you want something new, fresh?

I do, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything, I was genuinely curious as to what you thought fun alternatives were.

I like public quests where a bunch of people have to kill some giant mob or something like that. The only issue with those are once people move on to higher levels you can't get them done unless they somehow scale the difficulty according to the number of players engaged in the quest. That was a huge issue in Rift where there would be an invasion and you had to spend the next hour not getting anything done because there weren't enough people around to fight it off.

I felt the dynamic questing in GW2 was no different than collecting bear asses really. It sounded great on paper, but by level 50 it really felt you were just doing the same half a dozen quests over and over. I personally think player created content is going to be the future of leveling in MMOs. I also like the idea of Elder Scrolls type quests in games, where you just come across something neat.

The biggest issue with MMOs these days is they're not just trying to appeal to 200,000 people who were willing to spend 6 hours walking in a group just to get somewhere. You have the Xbox generation who want it now, and they want to be rewarded for everything they do in a game. I personally don't want to go back to those days either really, I just don't have the time.

As far as devs coming up with new and interesting ways to progress in a game, I think we'll continue to see incremental changes and improvements here and there. We won't get another WoW where it turns the entire genre on it's head.

BadLlama
Jan 13, 2006

Peechka posted:

Public events, dynamic events (Rift outpost invasions but that actually worked for example)

They actually have these and they are doing them in a way that appears to be far better than in rift or gw2. From my understanding each path is able to deploy a public event of their own anywhere in the world so when you are out questing and run accross some dudes you can start the public event and everyone can join in and get rewards instead of just hanging out in the same spot cycling events like in GW2.

I do really like Rift events in rift but those got to be garbage after everyone was max level and completing the zone events were hard to do with 4 people. I am right there with you about simply leveling through doing 1000 boring quest is painful but questing its self isn't the problem they just need more diversity with what you can do to level which I am pretty sure they are addressing in this game.

Still, I would take 1000 bear rear end return quest over farming wolf's for 8 hours to gain a level.

BadLlama fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Mar 21, 2013

fakebaconandeggs
Feb 18, 2011

CREDO!
Hey if you guys are interested in getting your answers questioned for the PAX panel, there's a thread on the main forums.

Please have decent game pacing, please have decent game pacing, please have decent game pacing. :smithicide:

My Gimmick Name
Sep 11, 2004



BadLlama posted:

They actually have these and they are doing them in a way that appears to be far better than in rift or gw2. From my understanding each path is able to deploy a public event of their own anywhere in the world so when you are out questing and run accross some dudes you can start the public event and everyone can join in and get rewards instead of just hanging out in the same spot cycling events like in GW2.


How would that be different than people hanging out and starting the same events in the same spot? Like, it would be kinda a drag to be unable to check out the cave event because no explorers were around.

I'm not seeing a big gain here, especially with how much mmos are moving away from relying on other players lately.

BadLlama
Jan 13, 2006

My Gimmick Name posted:

How would that be different than people hanging out and starting the same events in the same spot? Like, it would be kinda a drag to be unable to check out the cave event because no explorers were around.

I'm not seeing a big gain here, especially with how much mmos are moving away from relying on other players lately.

I agree it would suck if you simply couldn't do an event because X and Y are there but you need Z to start it. That would be lame, but then also knowing an event starts every 15 minutes in the same exact place all day is completely and utterly boring and leads to a game feeling even more like a grind.

Paths being able to drop events make the game more dynamic and spontaneous but from the gameplay videos it also looked like there were plenty of static events such as giant monsters in crates that people could go start. Essentially we get Rift and GW2 different events systems together, at least this is what I getting from the information I have seen.

Eltoasto
Aug 26, 2002

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.



The problem with large public events is that you are hosed if playing the game after the big wave of people leveling at the start. The hearts in GW2 didn't feel any different to me then a fetch quest, and those zones with events are empty right now for people trying to level. They've tried to get higher levels back into the zones with the daily structure, but it defaults to people doing the bare minimum and finding the same, small area to get it done. I like Rift's expansion setup of quest hubs with just a quest or two that dealt with the main storyline, and the rest of the stuff was encountered out in the zone.

Give me a fun, active game with a decent story and I will be happy, regardless of how they structure progression.

BadLlama
Jan 13, 2006

Eltoasto posted:

I like Rift's expansion setup of quest hubs with just a quest or two that dealt with the main storyline, and the rest of the stuff was encountered out in the zone.

I liked rifts active invasion things far more than GW2 setup but it also ran into problems when populations weren't leveling. If this game offers the same kind of mechanic that would be really awesome but I also think being able to start an event when ever you run across some people is a great change for when the amount of people leveling drops off.

VV Yeah thats true, hopefully the rewards make them worth stopping what you're doing to join in and help.

BadLlama fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Mar 22, 2013

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I'd lay odds that after the first few times someone drops and triggers a public quest, everyone else in the area will ignore it in favour of whatever they were doing in the first place. The novelty of these mechanics tends to wear off pretty quickly, especially if the rewards don't measure up. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad mechanic, just one that needs some extra care balancing risk vs. reward.

I hope they include something like RIFT's public grouping mechanism too. Being able to automatically form up with someone nearby and share widget-hunting or critter-stomping quests, instead of ignoring each other and wasting time poaching kills, was nice.

Catsworth
Sep 30, 2009

Who doesn't wanna be Johnny Cat?

As far as random grouping goes Guild Wars 2 has definitely been my favorite implementation so far. That is to say actually being in a group is all but an unnecessary formality most of the time.

My Gimmick Name
Sep 11, 2004



Bieeardo posted:

I'd lay odds that after the first few times someone drops and triggers a public quest, everyone else in the area will ignore it in favour of whatever they were doing in the first place. The novelty of these mechanics tends to wear off pretty quickly, especially if the rewards don't measure up. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad mechanic, just one that needs some extra care balancing risk vs. reward.


I feel bad for those leveling up behind the curve or on off hours - they're going to be missing 3/4ths of the player started events. It would be nice if they have a plan for it.

Tuxedo Mask
Feb 24, 2009

The dude with the tude.
In the new concept art they showed with all off the housing stuff they have all of the exile houses.







But then they also have these, and they fit the description and glimpse we've seen of the 4th exile race, so I think it's pretty safe to assume these are the 4th exile race.





Also Here's a link to the "What is Wildstar" trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_4_riSI7Ydg

And a detailed housing video

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/22/pax-east-2013-a-first-look-at-wildstars-high-low-and-housing/

Tuxedo Mask fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Mar 22, 2013

Beach
Dec 13, 2004

No sign of intelligent life on this planet.
I got a chance to play the demo for Wildstar a bit today at PAX. I played a Draken, I picked up quests at an NPC with an exclamation mark above it's head, interrogated a prisoner by right clicking a gearbox icon, went out in the savannah and I killed x number of monkey things until I didn't need to kill x number of monkey things anymore. I picked up some loot items, and I went over to fight a mini boss only to have another demo player tag it first and get the credit for killing it. Pretty formulaic. The game controlled like you would expect an mmo to control, with the added bonus some quick dodge left and right abilities, a double jump and a short forward dash. Positioning was important because all the Draken's attacks occurred in a short AoE melee attack directly in front or in a frontal cone of the player, and enemies had boss-like AoE abilities they would frequently use.

Things got interesting, however, when I wandered into an area with a Solider specific questline. Suddenly I found myself rocketing a dropship out of the air and frantically laying a path of carnage through an Exile base while a timer counted down the minutes I had to complete the quest. Cornered by several baddies, I decided not to give them the satisfaction of my death and detonated a fuel canister to end us all. Sadly, I don't know how effective of an end it would have been in my glorious four minutes and thirty seconds of Ragnarok because the entire demo server froze.

Then I got a free Wildstar TShirt for playing. All in all a good experience. Looking forward to more time with Wildstar.

Hugoon Chavez
Nov 4, 2011

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Beach posted:

I picked up quests at an NPC with an exclamation mark above it's head, interrogated a prisoner by right clicking a gearbox icon, went out in the savannah and I killed x number of monkey things until I didn't need to kill x number of monkey things anymore. I picked up some loot items, and I went over to fight a mini boss only to have another demo player tag it first and get the credit for killing it.

This is really discouraging... After GW2 I was hoping more games would realize that tagging mobs and competing for quest stuff sucks for everyone. I guess it makes sense between exiles or dominion to compete, but people on the same side should work together easily...

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Teerack posted:

In the new concept art they showed with all off the housing stuff they have all of the exile houses.

This is really neat. Especially like the Aurin and Dregg housing, and whether I play the former or latter will probably come down to if the Dregg can play the class I want to and don't have to be so enormous; the idea of being a monstrous tech-zombie is appealing, but characters half as wide as they are tall don't appeal to me much. Or, well, I guess human is an option maybe, but I'd like to try one of the different things this time around I think.

I do hope that some of the revealed races get more class options, though; at the moment the Granok can only be Warriors, which seems ridiculous, since even if they get both hidden classes that only leaves them with three choices, while some current ones (humans) already have four. Mechari aren't much better off, getting only two of the four revealed classes.

Hugoon Chavez posted:

This is really discouraging... After GW2 I was hoping more games would realize that tagging mobs and competing for quest stuff sucks for everyone. I guess it makes sense between exiles or dominion to compete, but people on the same side should work together easily...

Well, it's still early enough in development for that to change. Hopefully they change it.

eonwe
Aug 11, 2008



Lipstick Apathy

Beach posted:

I went over to fight a mini boss only to have another demo player tag it first and get the credit for killing it.

There is pretty much no way this won't be changed before release.

Merope
Apr 19, 2010

Smurf it up
drat, that housing video looks cool. I really like their presentation videos (or at least the latest 3 or so they released this month), they show interesting, to the point stuff in a fun, laidback tone.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Eonwe posted:

There is pretty much no way this won't be changed before release.

It's small and common enough to slip through while bigger issues are being hammered on, but at the same time splitting XP by damage dealt isn't rocket science. Lots of bonus points if they worked out an algorithm for awarding a share of xp from damage mitigation through healing/debuffs/etc.

Pryce
May 21, 2011

Beach posted:

I picked up some loot items, and I went over to fight a mini boss only to have another demo player tag it first and get the credit for killing it.

They addressed that during one of the Q&As... shared credit is going to be in the game, just not in the PAX demo.

Tupper
Sep 1, 2007

Fun will now commence.
Doesn't look like anyone's posted this yet. 45 minutes of video a good chunk of which is dedicated to player housing (including the DevSpeak posted above). Looks absolutely awesome.

Warning, intro is loving loud and annoying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtl_tBRPWDU

Meowbot
Oct 12, 2005

I havent had a plrecription for my eyes in years so the other day I went and got a new one and it hasnt changed. The doctor was like why havent you seen us in 4 years? I told them im scared of op tomietris when the air shoots into your eyes and dilation. They told me my eyes cold get worse....

Tupper posted:

Doesn't look like anyone's posted this yet. 45 minutes of video a good chunk of which is dedicated to player housing (including the DevSpeak posted above). Looks absolutely awesome.

Warning, intro is loving loud and annoying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtl_tBRPWDU

Thanks, ever since I watched that 4 1/2 minute video they released I can't stop thinking of this game. The last few MMO were kind of a disappointment so hoping this one is the ticket.

Ulvirich
Jun 26, 2007

That vending machine boss fight is extremely entertaining to watch. Also seems to invoke :negative: rather well.

My Gimmick Name
Sep 11, 2004



Tupper posted:


Warning, intro is loving loud and annoying.



The outro is the same thing, that was a nice surprise.

Liked the idea of having a house plot be a random mini dungeon/encounter. Also really liked when they asked themselves "Will this Break the Narrative?" they said "Whatever, it's a game. Fun is first."

Cautiously optimistic, even with the holy trinity baggage and gear grinds.

LuckyCat
Jul 26, 2007

Grimey Drawer
That video looks really great. It looks like everything they're designing has a modern, intuitive look to it. Like in the housing section, moving items around and decorating seemed a breeze compared to other MMOs with housing. The UI looks incredibly clear and polished. My absolute favorite thing about this game so far is the graphics. At it's worst it looks like a more advanced WoW aesthetic (maybe even TOR), and at its best it looks like a bright vibrant painting with tons of personality and life.

The ability to install mines, farm vegetables, raise animals for wool and other things, on your plot of land seems like the next level of housing that goes beyond just a place to show off trophies. I like how they mentioned that your friends can come in and tend your gardens and so forth if you go on vacation, and they'll get part of the reward.

The combat doesn't look like anything extraordinary. The newness of dodging out of red areas is gone, with most new MMOs these days using that system. But honestly it's the best system anyone has come up with so far, so I'm not complaining that they're going that route necessarily.

I'm interested in the non-Soldier classes, because platforming and exploring in an MMO world is one of my favorite things. They're doing a really good job of hitting my "wish list" for an MMO. Non or limited combat classes, player housing with a purpose, great art style, personality, and a setting that isn't high fantasy.

Sorry if this was a long rambling post, but those are my impressions after watching that Press Demo. :)

AllanGordon
Jan 26, 2010

by Shine
Feel the same way Droid Washington. Have they said anywhere when the beta invites will start to go out?

Beach
Dec 13, 2004

No sign of intelligent life on this planet.
After playing the Wildstar demo my interest was piqued so I went home that night and did some research. Armed with a new understanding of the game I went back again this weekend and got in round 2 with Wildstar at PAX. Last paragraph for general Wildstar impressions if you don't want the play by play.

This time I played a Cassian (Imperial Human) Spellslinger (guns and magics) with the Explorer path. Cassian's were limited to female characters in the demo, and customization included hair, hair style, hair color, face, skin color and eye color. There was an "advanced" button that included facial sliders.

I arrived in the savannah village again, picked up some quests, interrogated a prisoner by clicking a gearbox icon, then headed out into the wilderness. The Spellslinger was armed with ranged attack abilities. The first ability was a rapid fire shot that hit targets in a long thin cone in front of the character. I found that if I kept a long enough range on my enemies I could hit multiple baddies at the end of the cone. The firing animation was very fluid, and each subsequent attack changed the animation slightly, giving the Cassian lady a sort of pistol dervish dance.

The second ability was a charged shot that I couldn't seem to get to work in or out of combat. The third ability was a blink-like teleport that would transport the character a short distance forward, stunning any enemies that were in her path. Fourth was a snare, which had a nice animation of the character drop kicking a block of ice ahead in a straight line, and the fifth ability was rapid fire redux, with a cooldown and the ability to shoot while moving.

Finally, the Spellslinger also had a spellcharge mechanic that could be prepped with three charges, represented by three red orbs on the UI. According to the tooltip, the Spellsingers abilities would change depending on how many charges she had saved up. Like the charging shot, I couldn't seem to get this ability to do anything in combat, and I ended up running around for the duration of the demo with three orbs up. This may have been user error.

Combat consisted of hammering the 1 key for rapid fire with the occasional blink/stun. While the Draken Stalker was all about positioning and slipping behind stunned or casting enemies for backstab, the Spellslinger is all shooting all the time. I tried using the snare ability mixed with the run and gun ability (when both were not on cooldown) and found that the ranges were a bit short to make much difference, the enemies were never really far enough away to make the snare effective. Combat seemed to go best by just hammering 1 repeatedly, and hitting run and gun when I needed to move out of an enemy cast area. Blinking around the combat area was very satisfying and the stun mechanic is a nice touch, but again the combat really came down to just hitting 1 as fast as possible.

I want to note here that I do find the combat fun, it seems like the natural evolution of combat in MMO's, mixing elements of previous games and sort of bringing together multiple concepts. It also looks great, very fluid and natural. Even with all that, however, it does get repetitive, as I will mention later.

After a few minutes of laying waste to the savannah with dual pistols I was excited to see an Explorer icon pop up on the mini map. Explorer is one of the four paths you can choose for your character, which is separate from your race and class, and gives you unique ways to interact with Nexus (the game world). I ran to the icon's location near a tree in a clearing and was disappointed to find nothing there. I jogged around the clearing a bit to see if I was missing an interactive object or quest toggle, but it looked like the minimap indicator was a fluke. It only occurred to me at the last second to look UP the tree and sure enough, above me was a complicated twisting tree trunk with an objective at the top. I started my climb and ran into a frustrating case of the game's mechanics working against itself.

The explorer mission up the tree was very platformer-esque, the twists and turns of the narrow wooden path had to be navigated carefully or the character would fall. Unfortunately, lightly tapping a movement key would send my Spellslinger flying into a rolling dodge, somersaulting off the tree trunk back to the ground. Using the run/walk toggle didn't prevent the character from attempting a dodge, and in several places the trunk was so narrow anything more than a few steps of movement would send you to the ground. After making it about half way up the tree four times only to have my character dive like an idiot head first into the ground each time, I gave up on the platforming to finish up the combat quest.

The combat questing ended with a Good Ol' Boss Encounter. Here is where I will say the combat being a bit repetitive showed, as every enemy I had fought to this point had a boss type AoE or special attack, and the boss itself was no different, just bigger. Bigger model, bigger AoE's, exact same strategy of shoot shoot shoot, move left, shoot shoot shoot, and so on. My demo time ended with me killing the boss.

I made sure to track a developer down to ask about the PVP Warplots system. The words I was desperate to hear were "Open world" and "Sandbox", but it sounds like they are going for a heavily instanced system where you and your team spend time constructing your base, then challenge other teams to combat. Within the instance, the flags go up and the gates come down and you can charge across a landscape to attack an opposing player base that the other team has constructed. The developer I spoke to said the system was still in the works and they were saying nothing official yet. I asked if it was possible to see an open world pvp system with contestable resources and warplots in an open persistent area, perhaps on one of Nexus's moons. He wouldn't comment.

My overall impression of Wildstar is that it is a spiritual successor to past accomplished MMO's, taking ideas and mechanics and perfecting and polishing them into a very tight presentation. It is clear from the various Wildstar video's that a lot of heart has gone into this game, and it has a lot of CHARACTER. The game looks great, the animations are fluid and the characters are at the very least unique. The demo starts at level 6, so it is hard to say how much tutorial the actual game will have, but the demo launches you into the world expecting you to already know some MMO basics about combat and ability timing, particularly the movement of combat that has in past MMO's been reserved for boss and instance type encounters. I personally feel like current generation MMO's succeed or fail in the end game, as a certain sci-fi MMO learned fairly recently you can have the best leveling and gameplay system out there but if you can't keep players interested in the end game you are going to lose your subscribers. I think Carbine is banking on player housing and PVP Warplots to carry them, and it should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Cabbit
Jul 19, 2001

Is that everything you have?

quote:

it has a lot of CHARACTER

Despite what they think they're banking on, I'm thinking this is what's going to carry them to success if anything does. It seems like character it's the missing ingredient that all the past WoW Killers and knock-offs have failed to replicate, and this game seems to have it in spades.

Beach
Dec 13, 2004

No sign of intelligent life on this planet.

Cabbit posted:

Despite what they think they're banking on, I'm thinking this is what's going to carry them to success if anything does. It seems like character it's the missing ingredient that all the past WoW Killers and knock-offs have failed to replicate, and this game seems to have it in spades.

I tried hard not to name any names in my mini-write up there, but I really think it was WoW's character and presentation that carried it through the rough patches and growing pains of it's first few years and made it the power house success we all know and love/hate.

Bird Law
Nov 5, 2009

Hummingbirds are a legal tender.
Really excited about this game. I've yet to find an online game that I like as much as CoH. Loving the style and setting of this so far. I'm planning on an Exile Spellslinger as my first character.

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Tupper
Sep 1, 2007

Fun will now commence.
Someone got a camera on a demo for 41 minutes at PAX. The guy says he has another 40 minute segment of video he'll upload after some editing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veB3Qf6dvgE

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