Live Forum Q&A Stephan Frost - Wildstar

Ulorik

Regarding PATHS

 

Hi,

I'm a bit worried that the Paths may not be as central to the gaming experience as described in dev-speak etc. Imho they look a little bit like mini-games added on to the main quests, but don't contribute much to an individual playing experience for each of the paths. The main game experience looks to be the same for all. I had hoped that the paths would be Wildstars USP that create a very different game experience in terms of character building, questing, lore, access to areas etc. Is there still scope to develop the paths a bit more then they currently are? (example: Different main questlines depending on paths)

Thank you

Camulos4991

How will you make sure that the people who sell gametime  can't buy the game. And with this i mean buy all the end game content so to speak (legendary gear, and other stuff) How will you balance it with people who gain gold by playing the game

Odji

Hello again Mr. Frost,

 

I had another question to ask and didn't want to add to my previous post because I figured you would be to busy posting responses as you read comments. 

Anyways; As far as xp works, how does quest xp compare to just running dungeons?

 

Also, how about mob grinding?

 

If I choose to just grind mobs for a few hours will the xp be equivalent to doing quest for the same amount of time?

 

Or, how about if I decide to just grind dungeons to 50?

 

Or will one be greater then the other? 

 

Thanks again for your time. 

 

Edit for typos

CRB_Frost

Originally posted by Diodenosis

Hey Frost! Your'e DevSpeak narrations are pretty boss. 

Thanky!

Although I haven't gotten the chance to play the game  I had a couple questions...

1). Will more housing plots become available upon level up?

A TON of stuff for housing becomes available as you level up and earn more cash. You can also earn housing items in PvE content, tradeskills, challenges, paths, etc.

2). You stated in the esper live stream that esper healing will be the most familiar to players coming from games where the healer generally places themselves behind their friendlies and casts away. Will this style hold true through beta and into launch? 

Yeeeeeep.

3). Will different mounts have different utilities? For example,  the hover board is the only mount that can double jump and move over water.  Will the rest of the mounts be pure cosmetic items or will they have special (non game breaking) abilities? Will there be mounts that can move underwater?  

Certain mounts will have different abilities. Hoverboads can go on water and double jump. A Mordesh purple dinosaur mount runs fast but can't double jump or go on water. No underwater mounts will be available at launch.

Sorry for stacking so many questions in that last one, but I appreciate any answers you are able to give.

No worries, thanks for stopping by!

Originally posted by panzerfuchs
Are you able change your path after start. If not, any thoughts on having a way to do it so you dont have to restart a character.

You cannot change your path after you select it. You'd have to create a new character if you want to try a different path.

Originally posted by Davyroth77

Hey Frost! Of all the information ive been looking at on the internet... I havent seen anything about.... FISHING!!!

Is there going to be Fishing in Wildstar?  I would love to fish some super rare E.T. one eyed fish!!! How bout cook this fish and get a super OP alien buff!????

If you look hard enough, you can find a fishing cannon image on the internet. We won't have fishing at launch... but we've been working on it. We didn't want to release it at launch because the gameplay wasn't ready for public consumption, but we most certainly enjoy fishing, so look for it post launch.

Anything about it?????

 

Originally posted by MoarChowdawr

Currently how many C.R.E.D.D. can a single account stockpile? Is there a cool down on purchasing C.R.E.D.D.?

This is something we are discussing, presently. I don't have a definite answer for you, but know that this is something that we take very seriously and are analyzing/testing out presently.

Thanks again for doing this! 

#TeamFrost 

Pappy to be Frosted this Saturday!  

Hell yes!

Originally posted by Solcitus

I agree with beta keys for first hundred posters ^.^

 

Hey Frost, good to see a Dev getting out there amongst it in the community and taking questions.  Whilst I have many, I think I'll just pick one as there'll be a lot to get through anyways.

No worries, these are a blast. Ask away!

I'd like to hear a bit more about multi-player content, I know you can't speak on Raids, but dungeons?  What kind of numbers are we going to see (4player, 5player?), and are they designed to be quick, smash and grab loot fests, or a long, epic story with a big, badass mofo to kill at the end?

 Dungeons are 5 player instances. We will have 4 regular dungeons and 4 veteran versions of veterans. Then after that a 20 player raid, and a 40 player raid. Our dungeons basically take telegraphs and make them insanely crazy patterns that are for a more hardcore demographic. The cool part though, is that the telegraphs in the PVE realm, kind of train the player to become used to that style of combat. There are lots big, insane bosses and massive environments as well.

We ALSO have adventures, which are another style of group content. These are effectively a mix of PVE content, with 5 man group combat. They are also all different mechanically in their goal. You'll hear more about these in the coming weeks. It's some of my favorite content in our game.

Thanks again for your time, keep up the great work!

 Thanks!

Sol

 

Desphiria

I'm not sure if we can double post but I have another question, sorry if someone already asked this by the way, but, when it comes to spellslinger, medic, and esper, is there a difference when it comes to using them as healers?

Doofmaz

In Elder Game, what will the PvE difficulty progression curve be like?

In a game with challenging content, there will naturally be stages that are a "barrier to entry" to further PvE content for many players due to their difficulty. Is your team comfortable making veteran dungeons challenging enough that they prevent some players from experiencing the newest raids?

Does your team have a design philosophy regarding PvE difficulty that you will stick to even if complaints arise from a vocal minority of stuck players who feel entitled to beat everything?

Mechanism

Path content seems to be very tightly tied into open zones. So does this mean new path content will mostly only arrive with new zones?

I'd personally worry about how loudly soldiers or explorers or whomever is going to complain if new path content in patches isn't doled out evenly enough.

evryman13

Frost,

I am concerned about the seamlessness of the world.  I haven't played the game yet, but could you expound on the seamlessness of the world.  I was thoroughly disappointed with swtor and their idea of open world. It really affects exploration when you have a boxed in feeling, it feels like less exploring and more just unlocking the map.  Can you add any further detail to how seamless the world is? 

IceAge

Mr Anderson .. erm .. Frost ,

"You are the reason for why i'm here". From what movies is this line?

So , question :

I heard that before every DevSpeak , you are eating/drinking a raw egg to.. warm up your voice. Is that true?

Also, who's behind the Dr Victor Lazarin voice? I love it !

CRB_Frost

Originally posted by Pirschjager84
Are there plans for Guild Achievements or Perks?  If so, can you share any info about how they work / what they might be?

Yep. You'll see more info on this in the coming weeks. Social Systems are important to us, so much so, that we have an entire team dedicated to making guilds a priority in Wildstar. Joe Piepiora is our Social Lead and will likely talk ears off in the future about this subject.

Originally posted by Kalineth

Sup Frost  

 Hi there!

Haven't seen much information about Guilds. Is there much you'd be able to tell us at this stage? For eg. Guild banks, Guild sizes, Guild leveling or Guild quests etc. 

 We will talk more about Guilds in the coming weeks. Just know that it's something we are actively working on with Guild Perks, Currency and other fun stuff to encourage grouping up in Wildstar.

You also said there would be more information being released in the 'coming months'.. Makes me wonder how far in the future release is planned for? :P

I wonder...

Originally posted by geistwolfe

I have two crafting related questions:

I particularly like the costume system, it seems like an elegant solution to customization of appearance. One question: will all of the costumes be quest/reward, or will some of them be craftable?

 You can use any piece of armor or clothing and turn it into a costume, so in theory, you can create a shirt via crafting and use that as a costume piece.

Someone brought up an excellent idea during one of Anhrez's wildstarfans/twitch streams: adding a unique maker's mark as an icon to crafted items. similar to a guild tabard, but on the item icon. Any chance of that?

That sounds like something we've worked on... maybe you'll hear more on that soon? ;D

Originally posted by stragen001

Is the "Super Dodge" where you can jump, dodge in mid air, then double jump to move out of the way really quickly intended, or is it a bug that will be patched out?

 You know how we say "The Devs are Listening?" Well, we'll see how people use/hate/love/abuse this ability and react accordingly.

 

bbates024

Just wanted to say I love the streams on Saturdays! I can't wait to see what you start streaming about after the Stalker looking forward to that reveal. 

For pure end game raiding is it going to be basically manditory to spend all your AMP's in your spec to remain competitive with your class.  AKA all your points in support as a healer, tank, dps ect...

xArsonistx

Will you have GM's on every server to combat bots/hacks and general support issues. Kinda of like WoW?

 

Ncsoft games are famous for bad customer support and not caring about hacks or bots. Could you tell us why wildstar will be different? Will wildstar be autonomous in this ? Or will you be using ncsoft universal support?

Malvolg

Originally posted by Malvolg

Thank you for taking time to answer our questions! Frost FTW.

In the engineer livestream, it seemed like the engineer's bots were having trouble keeping up with him as he was moving. Is this something that needs to be addressed before live or was the engineer in the stream merely experiencing lag causing the bots to experience a small delay? Are they intended to move at the same speed as the engineer?

If it was addressed in the livestream and I just missed it, my apologies!

We continuously work on improving our classes and their various companions... Our creature AI guy is a pretty busy dude and has been working on some fixes for stuff like that, and we also have commands that help bots keep up with ya. Oh and thanks for watching the streams! See ya on Saturday, where I will wreck Pappy in PvP.

Thanks for the response! I know that not only your creature AI guy but all of you are putting in tons of hard work to make this game fantastic and I can't wait until the public is able to enjoy the world of Nexus! Release can't get here fast enough. Also, Saturday is going to be epic.

CRB_Frost

We're discussing that right now. I'd have to follow up with Jen Gordy, our PvP guru. (Although personally, I'd want it turned off for competitive ELO ranking.)

jbombard

It is great to hear that you have put a lot of thought into endgame.  While endgame is important, I am a big fan of games with a sense of journey and adventure.  While in WoW there was initially a sense of journey, leveling content has been sped up so much that it feels like a blur and nothing more than a race to max.

 

What are your thoughts concerning the journey experienced while leveling?

Is it more of a means to an end, or should hitting max feel like an accomplishment in and of itself.

How much leveling content are you shooting for time wise?  

coolbeans321

Good Day Mr. Frost..

Will Wildstar Fully Support SLI/Crossfire Setups?

xArsonistx

You kind of dodged a question earlier in this thread when asked about amount of content could you please give a more straight forward answer?

 

Will wildstar AT launch have as much content as say SwTOR and vanilla WoW?

 

A yes or no would be great.

AzurePrower

Just arrived and skimmed through the thread. But didn't see if this question was asked yet.

Edit: Guess I'm the first to ask this question. And you're the guy who does DevSpeak? Love your informative and entertaining videos.

Player Housing:

How many houses can you have?

Are your houses shared between your account, faction or characters?

rannox

Will there be a Linux client?

 

If not... why?

Sokoren

Hey!

 

Frosty boy, can you explain me something?

 

I get chosen to try close beta, but key come to spam box and i miss dates of stress test. And now i cant use key because "its disable" and i tal kwith support and i cant understand i had bad luck and support said they cant do soemthign with that and i ask them if i get chosen but get bad luck and miss thsi mail(can prove it) so what is problem to get me new beta key because at least i was chosen. Cant undersatnd policy of your support. pretty messy vs other support(for example blizzard's or riot's), mostly against player ;/

 

If you get any ideas go ahead, cheer me somehow ^^

 

Sry for cring but its pretty sad when i almsot got it but its gone.. ( T T ) 

CRB_Frost

Originally posted by Ticklish
What is yalls method of sending betas just wondering i got alot of hope for wildstar i follow it everywhere. 

Random. Although we give priority to peeps that fill out our beta survey!

Originally posted by drumchannell

BETA KEYS FIRST 100 POSTERS!

 

How many starting areas are there in Wildstar?

2 tutorial zones and 4 zones thereafter

Originally posted by Slasher29
will they be raids when the game launches ?

there will be two raids, BUT it will be a ton of work accessing them day one and fairly difficult completing them.

Originally posted by Ravenyr

Q1. Probably a long shot, but any chance of a brolease date? (That's release date for those not versed in bro.)

 

Q2. Can I get a bro-eta (beta) key for ina-bro-priately fitting 'bro' into everything?

Your use of the word Bro as a compound word amuses me, but I can't really answer either of them a-bro-priately.

 

Puldus

Hey just a little question about achievements:

Will there be server first lvl 50 , first lvl 50 mechari/warrior etc. achievements that everyone on the server can see? Realy love that kind of motivation for fast leveling!

Metaskie

In that super dodge video, did I just see a freaking hamster ball as a mount? THAT"S AWESOME!

Dust13

for dungeons and raids is there going to be any difficulty settings....   like choosing hard mode?

CRB_Frost

Originally posted by Jayden

Hi there Frost!,

First off, from all the art and videos I've seen, the game looks amazing. Secondly, all your Dev Speak and Live Streams crack me up, so keep up the awesome work.

Thanks! Glad you like em!

I was wondering, if I was to rename my cat Wildstar and only feed him Chua on a daily basis if I could happen to weedle a beta key from you? If not.. it was worth a try, right?!

Well, I'd be impressed if you ACTUALLY fed your cat (named Wildstar) Chua, because Chua don't really exist IRL. I mean, wow, if you can prove that, you'd probably get a beta key. Otherwise, you'd have to wait like everyone else. :P

Ok, so since it wasn't listed in the "Do Not Ask", when is a more open-ended beta going to be put into effect? I mean I really hate to waste my time on ESO and such when I could help make Wildstar better as soon as possilbe

Hehe, nice try. I can't answer this one. :P

Originally posted by Annekynn

Another question, the game seems to have an abundance of (dark) humor. How much of this is spur of the moment type things versus an active effort to enhance the games style and differentiate it from the massive glut of soulless (and laugh less) games?

We here at Carbine love humor. Personality was something we wanted in the game, because we have a bunch of people that love (dark) humor. It wasn't a marketing decision, it was a studio decision. Whether it's character design, props, content systems, narrative design, animation or combat, we put it in our game because we love it.

Originally posted by h00ktastic

Frost, 

1.  Was there a collective decision to exclude sliders for body customization plenty comments about that in the forums please share where the Devs are with the customization creation stuff.

It was an animation tech issue for a majority of that decision. Rigs and clipping were issues with sliders and we didn't have the time to address those issues and get the game out at the appropriate time. We'll see in the future, though!

2. Any info as to a timeline where we can  expect  higher level cap in beta? or in the NDA for those players streaming content?

Soon...ish.

3.  How bad will you own Pappy on a scale of 1- 1 zillion?

2 Zillion and a half. That's how bad I will own him.

4. Any plans for new Voice Actors/ talent  to provide additional voices ever... maybe a contest?

No plan as of right now!