“Our goal is to have the biggest game on the planet, not to have a crappy game that we shove out early.“- We’ll get to see a lot of it at PAX East
- Closed beta coming within the next few months
- It’s focusing on a “sandpark” model that embraces the best of both worlds
- Large-scale competitive raiding (not my cup of tea, but there you go)
- Dungeon experiences that change weekly
- Monthly story content for players of all levels
- Endgame SOLO content
- PvP that utilizes player housing… somehow
- Flying guild fortresses
- Player houses on floating islands
- Dynamic world content
- Will be able to visit other planets
- Terraforming
- “Utterly refined” questing system
- Smooth combat with an interesting telegraphing system
- Stylized art with lots of personality
- Vibrant — not muted — colors
- Quests and events that are connected over the course of the game
- The UI is completely moddable
- The path system that caters to four different playstyles
- Space cowboys!
- The game has a sense of humor — particularly about itself
- Bunnygirls. Will kick your butt.
- A solid dev team that worked on DAoC, World of Warcraft, WAR, UO, City of Heroes, Asheron’s Call, and EverQuest II
- Tools that can quickly and easily change the world for story purposes
- Ways to strategically communicate attacks to teammates without voice chat
- Three cool new videos to digest
- Underground tunnels to help explorers traverse zones quickly
- Funny dialogue and occurrences
- Soldier missions that actually introduce a lot of variety into “kill ten rats” missions
- You get to choose your skill setup to fight the way you like to fight
- A “milestone” system for character growth to make advancement noticeable
- Temporary/daily abilities for different paths, like a jetpack
- Two factions: the scrappy rebel Exiles and the “don’t know much about them yet” Dominion
- Open grouping, public quests, and shared mob tagging
- The leveling game is treated as the prelude to the full story content that begins at the cap
- Quest chains are structured like TV episodes to be done in two hours or less
- Carbine is looking to form a player advisory council to keep feedback channels open
- It looks awesome. It just does.
WildStar: 40 reasons to be geeked about its coming
Bio Break 
Two factions? That is something to get excited about? How low is your bar for excitement these days?
I have to say, that list rsort of puts me off of Wildstar as it seems to made up of items that have been done or that are pretty empty of substance. Maybe come back to this when you aren’t jumping up and down in excitement about developer hand waving?
I’ve got to be honest: I’m really struggling to understand why people are so hyped up about Wildstar. It looks sort of fun, I guess. I’ve yet to see or hear anything that makes me think, “OMG awesome.” The main defining feature, so far as I can tell, is that it has cartoony graphics and a sense of humor. Because World of Warcraft isn’t a thing?
It doesn’t help that the game’s website is atrociously laid out and makes it almost impossible to learn more about the game.
I’m trying to reserve judgment, and I’ll probably give the free trial a whirl when it releases just to see what all the fuss is about, but right now, this feels like SW:TOR all over again: feverish hype without a lot of basis.
I think it looks interesting and I am glad you wrote about it. You definitely peaked my interest in a game that wasn’t really on my radar yesterday.
Too much “Hype” about this game already. Which is like the “Hype” about almost all the other MMO games that have all been “Hyped” only to 6 months later we all wondering what the he’ll happened.
I simple want one thing from a MMO company: Make a damn good game, Under Promise and Completely Over Deliver on everyone expectations. Don’t try to sell me on game “Hype”.
I’ve become more skeptical in general about unreleased games. So I admire your ability to still get excited about new stuff. Happens to me, too, but not as often as it used to. Keep up the posting, especially the positive stuff — I’m following a few cynical blogs already and while I like them I don’t want them to be the only style I read.
The only thing that made me interested is terraforming. How it will be made? Players work together for terraform a planet? It is a crafting/harvest thing? (I don’t see how combat, PvE and PvP will work to terraform a planet). Players need plant algae/lichen for product oxigen or they need build huge O2 factories?
“Open grouping, public quests, and shared mob tagging” mmmmm…. GW2?
“Space cowboys!” mmmmm… Cowboy Beebop? Firefly? It is not outdated now?
Let’s just wait until we can play it, be that in beta or at release. Paper promises are worthless.
I’m all for keeping a weather eye on MMOs that could prove interesting, and I’ve been paying attention to WildStar since the original promo video, but I can happily wait until there’s something concrete to get worked up over.
Plus to be honest I’m more concerned about how I’ll fit any new MMOs into my available time than I am short of new ones to get excited about.
22.Space cowboys!
You know, some people call me a space cowboy.
I share your enthusiasm, Syp – I always loved the humor of WoW but prefer the SciFi setting, so I have high hopes for WildStar (plus, it always reminds me a little of Firefly and that’s a good thing). And, really, who wouldn’t want to play a kick ass bunny girl?
Nice list, this is one of the many games coming out this year that I am excited about but it has been kinda falling off the radar lately. I can’t wait to give it a try!
Eh. I, too, am more than tired of the “Two Factions” model. I’m glad that GW2 doesn’t have it in PVE, and that it’s minimal in TSW. All it does is segregate the playerbase. I am also generally wary of the hype machine here. Having said that, I am looking forward to Wildstar more than anything else on the horizon. Because Space Cowboys are never outdated.
Really wonder why I continue to follow these type of PR blogs. This and the previous blog post scream hype with Syp waving his hands in the air like a headless chicken.
@Mekhios No one forces you to read, so feel to move along. This is not a PR blog, but an avocation; which you would know if you read regularly. Syp is not hyping so much as he is expressing his genuine excitement, which not all of us share.
@Mekhios
Yes, it really is terrible to read a blog written by someone who actually likes gaming. There are many other gaming blogs that are fashionably cynical about every (non-EO related) game, so I suggest you visit a few of those. In the meantime, those of us who actually have fun playing games, as opposed to complaining about them, will continue to happily enjoy Syp’s blog.
Watching Wildstar’s development and promotional videos, I really don’t get the impression that they’re trying to overhype Wildstar. In fact, it almost feels as if they don’t even realize how good some of their ideas are, and aren’t promoting them enough!
They’re simply taking an approach of “Let’s make something fun” instead of “Let’s take a standard MMO framework and revolutionize it!”, which so far appears to be working out for them. Some studios give off an arrogant vibe. This one does not.
@Aerynne
I actually like gaming but I am tired of puffed up blogs which do nothing for the genre (MMO’s in this case) except act as mouthpieces for PR reps. I’ve read enough of Syp’s blog now to realise this. It’s a one way street here anyway as he never interacts with respondents. So after a year of following this blog I bid it farewell.
I’m of two minds… It sounds like it has the potential to be really fun and interesting, but I’m not a huge fan of the cartoony art style. And the fake twang of the girl in the Exiles video was so annoying I couldn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it. But I will definitely be watching this one and will most likely buy it upon release.
Oh and Syp, keep doing what you’re doing! Your excitement and passion is fantastic and a big reason why I keep coming back here! It’s great to read a blog written by someone with so much love and heart for gaming.
“It’s great to read a blog written by someone with so much love and heart for gaming.”
Exactly, and don’t forget about the podcast Too Long, Didn’t Listen — it’s actually the only podcast I listen to =]
I for one enjoy Syp’s positive outlook. Always have. Give me hype over depressive cynicism any day. “It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” and all that 🙂
I still remember signing up for beta at GamesCom 2011 (!). It feels like we haven’t heard that much about the game since then, although I know that’s not right. Just a feeling. I’m really curious, though, and will probably have to watch it a lot more closely from now on. 🙂