WildStar will be a More Successful MMO Than WoW One Day

We'll See a More Successful MMO Than WoW One Day, Says WildStar Dev
"There’s a market out there that’s definitely interested in repeating the positive experience they’ve had with games in the past," says Carbine's Jeremy Gaffney.

Numerous MMORPGs have come along and attempted to compete with World of Warcraft, but none have managed to attract as many players--or get them to stick around for as long--as Blizzard's nearly 10-year-old game. Despite this track record, Jeremy Gaffney, executive producer at WildStar developer Carbine Studios, thinks we will eventually see an MMO more successful than WoW.

"There will be something bigger [than World of Warcraft] in our lifetimes," he told Develop. Gaffney didn't suggest WildStar, launching June 3, would be the game to manage this. He did however note that, at least player-wise, such games may already exist.

When you shell out cash every month for an MMO subscription fee, it's fair to expect regular content updates. And where most MMOs simply add a new dungeon or two every few months, the devs of wildstar have more ambitious plans: update the game with a sizable content patch every single month of the year. Great news, fellow Nexus adventurers--the first of these updates, called The Strain, will go live the first week of July. And, as you might conclude from its name, it's all about dealing with the not-so-pretty effects of a deadly, rapidly-spreading virus.

That virus mutates everything it touches. From new mounts, which sport mutant eyes and sick-nasty pustule growths, to awesome Strain-tainted costumes and housing decor (complete with a gnarly-looking Sarlacc Pit), you'll have access to all sorts of awesome themed equipment. Oh, plus there's a new emote that makes a Chestburster explode from your body, so that's awesome, too. More importantly, the content update adds two new zones for level-capped players.

Despite the fact that wildstar has just officially launched recently, there are more than 200 player-made add-ons readily available for your using pleasure. What's an add-on, you ask? Why, it's simply a mod that alters the game's default user interface--typically in order to make it more customizable or readable--without affecting the game's actual content.

Add-ons are wonderful tools for customizing the MMO experience, and playing around with the hundreds available can be a fun, satisfying task all its own. The hard part is figuring out which of the add-ons are the most useful, and which are just kind of garbage. I've been testing add-ons since WildStar's early beta sessions, and will continue to do so as the game matures. But for now, here are some of my absolute favorite add-ons that are available right at launch.

There's one secret that WildStar has to anyone unfamiliar

WildStar's business model is a hybridized. Carbine Studios will sell a monthly subscription for $15, while you can also use an in-game item called C.R.E.D.D. to earn game time. You can do this through buying it from other players using in-game gold or you can purchase it directly from Carbine Studios at the WildStar website for $20.

In WildStar, players are able to create a character that they can control through their playing session. These characters can move in an open, persistent world environment. Characters can level from 1 to 50. Gameplay mainly consists of quests, dungeons, and player versus player combat.

No matter if you are Warrior or Esper, you would need a lot of WildStar Platinum to gear up for battle and housing. Double Jumping, sprinting and dashing would be fun. But with high end items, you can enjoy much more in the fight

There's one secret that WildStar has to anyone unfamiliar, and that's that it's not easy. This might come across as a colorful and light-hearted game, but it's more punishing than you can possibly imagine. Chances are your group will wipe multiple times on the very first dungeon you enter, and you can consider yourself fortunate if you manage to complete it. By level 20 regular monsters require careful skill rotation and movement. If you get lazy you'll find yourself dying a lot. This difficulty permeates itself throughout the leveling experience, and into endgame where content feels much different than other contemporary MMOs. This isn't a game that necessarily tries to hold your hand, it makes you fight and earn not only your levels, but your gear. For hardcore players and raiders, this is great news. For casual gamers, well, they'll either need to be patient or constitute why they're playing the game. 
 
The leveling experience is much more traditional than a game like, say, EVE Online or The Elder Scrolls Online. You'll advance through main story missions, while coming across zone quests and some surprises peppered around the world. Many of these are derivative, calling on you to kill a superfluous number of mobs or gathering materials. They can also be a bit of a headache to decipher since the map feels a bit underdeveloped. Nonetheless, just when you feel like you're playing the same MMO leveling content again, it'll toss a well thought out quest your way that brings a smile to your face. With its wacky personality and gameplay mechanics, WildStar has the ability to deliver quests that few other MMOs are capable of.

The gameplay is surprisingly fun in Wildstar

 At the first glance, Wildstar is no different from the other games of the genre. The main source of inspiration was, of course, World of Warcraft, because many workers of Carbine Studios previously worked on the Blizzard’s MMO. In the game, however, some pretty original solutions were used. The innovative character development system that allows you to run the game to your liking is particularly noteworthy. In addition to the selection of race and class, the player must one of the paths of specialization. There are four roads – fight, collecting, construction, and exploration. Development of the representatives of the different paths depends on actions taken by the player. For example, warriors are rewarded for defeating enemies, and those who chose exploration receive experience for exploring the world and discovering new lands. Thanks to this solution, the game does not favor any play style. In addition, the gameplay is varied by randomly generated challenges that allow you to get additional perks for your character.

 What’s better than unlocking that devastating new spell, or crafting your first piece of armour, or tearing your eyes from the monitor to speak to your girlfriend for the first time in days? It’s that sweet, sweet feeling of a 22.5% increase to out-of-combat movement speed.

But Carbine Studios have somehow managed to make that familiar feeling even sweeter, injecting raw cane sugar straight into the veins of the mount experience.

In a continuation from the genius housing system, mounts are also heavily customisable. We’re not just talking about shitty low-res emblems either, you can add objects to your mounts as easily as adding a decoration to your house, and they range from cool, to very silly. If you want to put a bowl of noodles on the tail of your lizard mount, go for it, and worry about the messy consequences later.


WildStar remembers what it was like back when you had to actually work towards things in games though, so don’t expect your mount to be handed to you on a plate from the beginning. If you want one straight away at level 15, you’re gonna need to budget wisely from the start (a task made very difficult by the temptation of housing). Of course, this just makes finally getting your mount that much more rewarding.

Also, you can ride around on a hoverboard. Oh, sorry. You haven’t immediately left this page to purchase WildStar yet, I can’t have made myself clear enough. You can own a hoverboard. You can be an intergalactic Marty McFly. Better, in fact, because WildStar’s hover-boards don’t shit themselves when they travel over water.

An MMO should always provide players with something worthwhile to work towards, and WildStar’s crazy, customisable mounts are reason enough for anyone to start budgeting their gold.

There's one secret that WildStar has to anyone unfamiliar, and that's that it's not easy. This might come across as a colorful and light-hearted game, but it's more punishing than you can possibly imagine. Chances are your group will wipe multiple times on the very first dungeon you enter, and you can consider yourself fortunate if you manage to complete it. By level 20 regular monsters require careful skill rotation and movement. If you get lazy you'll find yourself dying a lot. This difficulty permeates itself throughout the leveling experience, and into endgame where content feels much different than other contemporary MMOs. This isn't a game that necessarily tries to hold your hand, it makes you fight and earn not only your levels, but your gear. For hardcore players and raiders, this is great news. For casual gamers, well, they'll either need to be patient or constitute why they're playing the game.

WildStar is an fantasy/science fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game

WildStar is an upcoming fantasy/science fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game that takes place on the fictional planet Nexus, where a mysterious and powerful race known as the Eldan has disappeared leaving behind a wealth of technology and secrets for players to explore.saturated with bright, inviting colors, and loaded with ornate details that bring this massively multiplayer role-playing game to life. 20 hours in, and the most striking sight must still be the herds of gazelle-like grazers that elegantly leap across the screen. With such a rich-looking world, I'm drawn to explore it because I might find something unexpected. The mix of fantasy, science fiction, Saturday morning cartoon, and comic book makes WildStar stand out. You might be tempted to compare WildStar's aesthetic to World of Warcraft's, given the exaggerated shapes and hand-drawn textures, but on a whole, WildStar's art design is very much its own, in spite of its obvious inspirations.


First and foremost it's important to note that WildStar is a brand-new IP. Set in a fictional sci-fi world, all of its zones are based on the planet Nexus, a place where the mercenary-like Exiles and autocratic Dominion factions collide. Due to the nature of WildStar being a new IP, Carbine Studios has had the freedom to design the game however they would like from the ground up. Although that means everything here has no connection to other mediums, it also means the game has been made in a way that is focused on the gaming experience, rather than having to make sacrifices to adhere to lore or laws. This proves to be one of its greatest assets.

As with most MMOs, the game begins by allowing you to make a character. There are several options to choose, beginning with a selection from one of two factions you want to play on, and which of the four races on each suits your style. Each race has no benefit over another, so it's merely a stylistic choice. In regards to Exiles versus Dominion, neither is necessary evil, but the latter certainly comes across as the much more domineering of the two. Depending on which you choose you'll begin in a completely different area of Nexus, and will spend the majority of the leveling experience in faction-specific zones.

WildStar Review – WildStar makes a striking first impression. It's an absolutely gorgeous game

When WildStar launches this summer, you'll be able to buy two versions of the game. The Standard Edition will include the game, 30 days of play time, and three 7-day friend passes, as well as an Eldan-themed housing decor item. For $75, you can buy the Digital Deluxe version, which includes everything from the Standard Edition, as well as exclusive digital content like an Eldan Hoverboard, a unique costume, a unique Eldan player title, and a limited-edition Eldan dye set.

WildStar's business model is a hybridized. Carbine Studios will sell a monthly subscription for $15, while you can also use an in-game item called C.R.E.D.D. to earn game time. You can do this through buying it from other players using in-game gold or you can purchase it directly from Carbine Studios at the WildStar website for $20.


It's almost hard to believe, but it's been seven years since NCSoft acquired Carbine Studios who at the time was working on an unannounced MMO. Formed by a team of talent comprised of 17 original World of Warcraft development members, and an armada of other experienced programmers, artists, and designers, Carbine Studios quickly became the most promising studio in the MMO world. By 2011 it was finally revealed that the MMO was an ambitious game looking to move the genre to a new era. Called WildStar, it's finally here after years of painstaking labor and over a year of beta testing to reveal the vision of its veteran developer cast.
Many MMO fans, including myself, have been watching WildStar diligently for the past few years, eager to move on from recurring cycle of imitative World of Warcraft. Will WildStar break the trend?

 At the first glance, Wildstar is no different from the other games of the genre. The main source of inspiration was, of course, World of Warcraft, because many workers of Carbine Studios previously worked on the Blizzard’s MMO. In the game, however, some pretty original solutions were used. The innovative character development system that allows you to run the game to your liking is particularly noteworthy. In addition to the selection of race and class, the player must one of the paths of specialization. There are four roads – fight, collecting, construction, and exploration. Development of the representatives of the different paths depends on actions taken by the player. For example, warriors are rewarded for defeating enemies, and those who chose exploration receive experience for exploring the world and discovering new lands. Thanks to this solution, the game does not favor any play style. In addition, the gameplay is varied by randomly generated challenges that allow you to get additional perks for your character.

Some changes were also introduced in the combat system. It is still about marking the opponent and pressing the buttons responsible for given abilities, but introduction of such possibilities as avoiding the incoming blows (e.g. jump to the side) made the player's skills much more important to the outcome of a fight.
Graphic design resembles that of the aforementioned WoW, but the developers gave it a little comic-like look. A large, open world, consisting of several different lands was designed for the game. Its area are quite substantial in size, so nobody should be too tight.