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NCsoft Announces PC MMO Wildstar
firefly2003
Member UncommonPosts: 2,527
Developer Carbine Studios is banking on a "layered" approach to MMO design to differentiate its sci-fi/fantasy MMORPG from the pack -- which it's going to need, since it looks and plays just like a Blizzard game you may have heard of.
Wildstar employs a cartoony art style to sell its unusual combination of Flash Gordon-style science fiction and lighthearted fantasy elements. The game sticks close to established MMO combat and interface conventions, from enemy cast bars to radial cooldown timers and icon-based tabbed inventory management. Sound familiar? It should: I could have written that exact same paragraph in reference to World of Warcraft (since Burning Crusade's introduction of space goats, anyway).
Carbine hopes two things will make me look foolish for hammering on the WoW comparison. The first is what the developers refer to as a layered approach to content development. The idea here is to allow casual players to attack the content like peeling an onion, engaging with one layer at a time, while progressively more advanced players can tear through several layers at once. Hardcore players will advance faster and remain interested in their efforts to juggle more balls in the air and maximize their efficiency. Carbine says that it already sees playtesters taking on the content at their own pace and giving positive feedback on the concept.
One example Carbine gave is a typical "kill a bunch of space tigers" quest. As you work through the quest, a variety of related objectives might show up. Killing a number of tigers next to a huntress so that she sees your good deeds and reports them to the village fulfills two objectives at once at the cost of paying more attention to your positioning. Likewise, an ancient blood temple might reward you with infernal gifts for slaughtering a certain number of tigers near it within a certain period of time. Many of these objectives can be tackled at your leisure, but since they can be done in parallel an advanced player can plow through more quickly.
This layered implementation sounds neat in theory, but the hour of hands-on time I had with the game didn't show it off very well. I got a few simple "challenge" objectives that rewarded me with bonus XP for killing mobs I was slaughtering for a quest within a time limit, but they were trivial to complete. It was the first hour of gameplay in a pre-release MMO, so I'm not about to throw the whole concept under the bus, but Carbine's so-called layering gets an incomplete grade from me so far.
The second key difference is in what Carbine calls "player paths." At character creation, Wildstar players pick one of four paths: soldier, builder, explorer, or scientist. This choice determines a number of secondary objectives and gameplay mechanics that will pop up throughout your career. An explorer, for instance, has gameplay surrounding getting to the top of seemingly unscalable mountains and seeking out hidden caves. A soldier, on the other hand, can trigger big public quests that spawn waves of enemies that assault allied positions. The scientist can scan items in the world to gain insight about Wildstar's backstory and lore. Builders can affect the development of towns, encouraging unique vendors to set up shop and engaging in social gameplay to unlock new buildings and the like.
This sounds neat in theory, but the two paths on display at the event at which NCsoft announced the game added little to the game. Other games would give out an achievement or a title to someone who went out of their way to climb a tough mountain rather than restrict it to the quarter of the players who chose "explorer" at character creation. Why not let everyone spawn cooperative horde defense quests if the mood strikes them? I don't follow the reasoning. Carbine hasn't shown the scientist or builder paths, so it's entirely possible that those contain unique gameplay that truly sets Wildstar apart, but I remain unconvinced so far based on what I've seen.
Wildstar doesn't look bad by any means. But a game that is so traditional in much of its design, in a genre so saturated, has to do more than Wildstar's reveal event did to get me pumped up for it.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/08/17/ncsoft-announces-pc-mmo-wildstar.aspx
Comments
devs gtfo with cartoon graphics. And wow colors. Its funny that games 10 years ago had nicer colors.
What the hell is WOW colors?
Obviously you are unaware that Blizzard invented the following colours: red, green, blue, yellow and orange. So the guy has a point new games need new colours like: turquios, magenta, navy blue......
right I'm off for me meds now.
it's just horrible, my eyes hurt
__________________________________
Remember the good old days when devs made games just for the sake of making a great game?
They are forever gone now all they care is about how much they can earn from them, if they can't make millions they won't make that game.
REMEMBER THE OLD DAYS AND REGRET THEY HAVE PASSED.
While i don't necessarily prefer the choice in graphics, I can forgive it if the game mechanics are enjoyable.
That said, I think the concept for this game sounds great. Rather than focus mainly on combat, it looks like this game is intentionally trying to fulfill the desires of the four main MMO gamer archetypes. It's been a long while since a big name developer has tried to make an MMO that has more depth than just combat, so I'll definitely be following this games development.
I noticed that in the description as well being a title from a indie studio with a big money backer publisher like NC Soft lets hope they can pull it off for once, thier art style may not impress me but it was never the graphics i cared for in video games its the gameplay and its features is what is the most important to me.
I'll try to keep posting news on this game as I come across it
I think it looks great, nothing wrong with animation style graphics IMO.
looks good to me, beats the current generation color scheme of dark brown, brown, light brown, dark gray, gray and light gray any day.
mmorpg.com, the 4chan of mmo forums.
I heard WoW invented the rainbow.
Initially the 2 screenshots that were released grabbed my attention.
After seeing the video and reading what has been made available so far I can cross another game off my 'possibly' list. I was looking for something more... serious. Don't get me wrong, jokes and humor and good and all.. but all that combined with the style just doesn't do it for me. I appreciate the style for sure, it's just not what I was hoping for.
That is incorrect. Game workshop invented those colors, but Blizzard copied them for Warcraft.
Hahaha no thanks.. No, I mean really thanks.. I needed a laugh today.
Yes, it's obviously a wow clone because it has toolbars, an inventory system, and cool down timers. Wow was the FIRST mmorpg in the history of gaming. I think they even invented the internet just so we could play wow...
I'm so tired of these ignorant statements. When will people get off the blizzard crack?
Never, because most of them lack the ability to create original thought of their own, so they are still riding the anti-wow bandwagon.. and probably will until WoW closes all its servers, then we have atleast 4 years of "See, I was right, told ya WoW Sucked".. who knows after that :-)
come on some of you can't be that dense. i knew exactly what they meant when the guy said "wow colors" the overly bright overly vibrant color scheme to the landscape and characters.
i think the word your searching for is "theme"
Of course they did.. You obviously are that dense to not see the sarcasm in play :-)
I personally love the art style, but the game still reeks of terribad lol
Who cares about the castbars, cooldowns and timers etc. These mechanics do work well, and they worked well before WoW was even released. So stfu with your constant comparisons in that regard.
The only part of interest is, if this game is fun to play or not and if it has enough worthwile content to play around with.
The art-style is actually fantastic for a MMO and I do hope that the sense of humor in the trailser transfers over to the game, like in Borderlands for example.
So yeah, I'll follow where this one's going.
If the trailer is any indication of the over all feel of the game, I am there. LOL! The trailer was awesome. I love a game with a sense of humor. I just read that this game is made by gamers who actually have worked on some pretty big game titles in the past. If they play their cards right and make this game fun to play, give us lots of character custimization options, and cool looking space ships like the one in the trailer - with lots of planets to explore, and keep it lighthearted and funny...I am there!
I just wish the game would have the type of graphics we saw in the trailer.
Someday soon though...we'll have that level of graphics. Until then, I can deal with what they have as long as the game is fun to play.
OMG it is time to learn more about this game!
So another game that looks like WoW in space...
Does this make this game an SWTOR clone
?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
It may look like WoW graphics wise, but If you read the intended game design you'd see that it's not trying to be gameplay wise.
The game will have 4 main archetypes, Soldier, Explorer, Settler, and Scientist. Depending on what archetype you choose you will get different quests and generally play the game differently than the other archetypes. For example Soldiers are your typical fighter and most of what you do revolves around your standard fighting quests present in most MMOs. Explorers will get quests and gameplay that involve traveling around to find things or get to places, such as climbing a mountain. Settlers will be involved in expanding settlements and building things. And finally scientist gameplay will be more about completing tasks to learn about the lore behind the game.
If they can do this well, it will be a breath of fresh air to the industry. I really like the idea that there will be focus on more than just the plain old boring combat aspect of the game.
Count me as another one that is really, really tired of brown everywhere. The colors and animation here are high quality.
This is fabulous. I am looking forward to it the humour was refreshing.
the art style looks like a big step ahead oF wow, not sure if id just say every stylized mmo on the market should be considered a wow clone. the game world is original and the art sort of reminds me of the old video game space-ace.
good to see ncsoft back the game and its nice to see an upcoming mmo not take itself so seriously
lol first person says "wow colors".
Honestly, some of you people should try to read some more to expand on your vocabulary a bit. "WoW" everything is not a good way to go about describing things. In the real world, being able to get your thoughts and expressions across will get you far.