Wildstar

[Hotfoot]

So, another beta weekend, another much hyped MMO under the gaze of my ever judgemental eyes.

So, to recap, this is the game we're talking about.

[youtube][/youtube]

Looks cool, great style, some fantastic imagination at work here, and hey! Cool factions!

The Exiles:

[youtube][/youtube]

And The Dominion:

[youtube][/youtube]

But what IS Wildstar, according to the devs?

[youtube][/youtube]

I want you to watch those videos, and hell, check out the Official Channel, which includes a bevy of gameplay videos, all put out with a great sense of humor and general openness that really makes you feel good about the game.

Then I want you to understand what I mean when playing this game this weekend has resulted in a resounding pile of MEH rolling around in my brain.

I said in my deconstruction of the Elder Scrolls Online that it would have to compete with this game, and it will, because every single thing about this game is functionally better than ESO without question, with one exception. The combat is tight and fun, the world is open and fun to explore, crafting FUCKING WORKS and is far more functional than most crafting systems in games.

The story though...see, ESO has fully voiced acting, and while it's clearly phoned in sometimes, it's there. Wildstar doesn't have that, and while it's not a terrible thing that it doesn't, it is noticeable. Both games have pretty bad stories, frankly. ESO has a paint by numbers story that was painful to work through, while Wildstar's is...just kind of everywhere and disjointed. It's not easy to follow and while individual missions can make sense, it's difficult to care about the goings-on in the universe. I know that there's the evil Dominion trying to take the power of Nexus and the Exiles trying to make it their new homeworld...AND use the power to fight the Dominion, but the Exiles feel honestly just as dickish as the Dominion sometimes, and so...it's just hard to care.

Player housing is good, and frankly better than most player housing options in games like this, I like it, but...yeah, that's not enough to save this game.

It seems like they're hoping that their endgame PVE and PVP will keep people interested, and I'll admit, Warplots look cool, but...yeah.

For $60 and $15 a month, this game's asking way too much for not nearly enough to keep my attention. Gameplay-wise, Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World are functionally very similar, and both allow for me to play with my friends basically no matter what, and I don't have to worry about if I've kept my subscription fees up to date on either of those.

[Hotfoot]

Okay, I've done some additional poking around, and it looks like there is a mentoring system to let higher level characters downgrade themselves when in groups with lower level characters, so there's that. The story is still meh, but there are at least options for where you start out (some may be better than others). The Dominion story so far is...very meh, but I haven't gotten far with it yet.

[Dark Silver]

I have a couple of friends from WoW who are planning on moving onto this game when it's released - meanwhile I'm taking the wait and see approach.

While I love player housing (one of my favorite parts of Ultima Online was designing and furnishing my house) - I like having a somewhat coherent story in my MMORPG (I'm fine with not being the Ultimate Savior type story, as long as I have a gods damn story).