WildStar Previews

We have another duo of previews for Carbine Studios’ WildStar, which should hopefully shed more light on what the title is going to bring to the table for the MMO genre.

Destructoid:

Many gamers may be familiar with the Bartle Test, a psychological profile created by Richard Bartle that aims to classify the way people play online multiplayer games. The four main types he identified are the killers, the achievers, the socializers, and the explorers. Killers mainly play because they love combat and defeating both enemies and other players. Explorers like discovering new aspects of the game and tend to search every nook and cranny. Socializers are mostly interested in interacting with other players. Achievers want to be as powerful as possible, maxing out their stats and getting the best items.

Carbine has taken Bartle’s test and essentially implemented it into the game. In addition to picking a race and class, as you would in a standard MMO, you also select one of four paths that essentially defines your gameplay goals for you, rewards you for your play style, and gives you abilities that complement the way you want to play.

If you pick the Soldier path, you get rewarded for excelling in combat and taking down huge monsters. Soldiers also have the ability to trigger large public combat quests — they plant a battle standard in the ground, and they and anyone nearby can take on big waves of creatures. Explorers are, naturally, rewarded for exploring different areas of the map and making discoveries. They can find and unlock hidden paths for their party, and can discover and open sealed-off dungeons.

GamesRadar:

One of the more interesting features the developers spoke to us about was a type of ecology that exists in the world of WildStar. The example they used was a savannah with a group of predators you need to kill for a quest (they’re eating all the prey in the area.) In order to find where the predators will be you’ll want to track down the prey, as that will lead you to the predator. Additionally, in this example there were poachers spawning in the area, killing the predators. It would be tough to kill enough predators to finish the quest while you’re sharing them with the poachers, so it will help to take out the poachers in advance to increase the spawn count of the predators.

Keeping the innovation coming, WildStar is also implementing some new ideas in MMO combat. It’s much more dynamic and fast-paced in this game than practically any other MMO we’ve seen. There’s still a lot of the auto-attacks and spells that you’d normally find, but now bigger enemies have critical abilities that can hit for massive damage.

When they’re charging up a red spot appears on the ground and you’ve got a few moments to dive out of the way (literally dive, WildStar has some great quick movement abilities) or else you’ll get knocked back and dealt a lot of damage. But if you successfully dodge, you’ll have a few moments to deal lots of damage while the enemy is stunned. They’re aiming to create an MMO combat system where you watch the middle of the screen (your character) not your UI and spell cooldowns.