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The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's big missed (business) opportunity
We've known of WildStar's business model for about a month. I wrote about it when it was first revealed, and at the time I thought there wasn't much more left to say. The model is what it is, people are going to be unhappy about it (as they have been with every single MMO business model announced to date), and the world will keep turning. Nothing more to say. In this case, I was wrong. Nothing specifically has changed, but I've had more time to think about the model as a whole and see what people are saying about it, especially when contrasted with other utterly archaic models on display elsewhere. (Not that I'm naming names.) So let's give this business model a second glance. I still think it's got some interesting potential, but I'm increasingly of the mind that it's a missed opportunity that's going to come back in a bad way.
The Nexus Telegraph: Inspirational paths for WildStar
I've gone on record as frequently saying that I think WildStar's paths are pretty awesome in concept. The idea that you can have two characters with identical classes and races but two separate paths who explore totally different sections of the game is really compelling to me, especially when I expect that I'll have approximately nine million alts anyhow. Unfortunately, it's also a concept that winds up feeling kind of amorphous. American readers who try to convert to the metric system know that sense. You grow up with a certain basis of comparison, and trying to wrap your head around a completely new one without any foundation is a bit tricky. But I want to help. See, I come from video games. I play a lot of video games. And I think there are parallels to be drawn between existing games with certain mechanical structures and what each of the paths is trying to accomplish. So let's see if we can't fit WildStar's paths into more familiar frameworks before smashing them all into one game.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar Comix
I am a really big fan of comics. If this comes as a shock, possibly one that invites shock and horror, I apologize. But I love comics. We have bookshelves filled with comics in my house, I spend a lot of my free time reading comics, and I know a fair bit about comics. Not even close to everything, though, which is half the fun of comics in general. There's always more to learn, always something great that you've never heard of. The point I'm slowly getting to here is that I was pretty excited when WildStar started up a comic. I think this is something that more games should do because comics lend themselves to MMOs pretty naturally. So what's good, what's mediocre, and what's bad in the comics that are running thus far? Even with just two weeks of comics I've already formed some pretty strong opinions about this stuff.
The Nexus Telegraph: No WildStar reveals at PAX Prime panel
The title up there is kind of glib, I admit it. We certainly heard more about WildStar during the game's presentation at PAX Prime. But most of what we heard was filling in blanks and elaborating slightly upon what we hard already learned, sort of an extended postscript to the presentation offered at PAX East. I sat down and watched through the whole panel as it streamed, and after it was over I was left with a distinct sense of confusion about how little new information was actually included. Out of the entire panel, the biggest reveal was the fact that the game does have a dye system, plus the roundabout mention of experience earned at the level cap converting into a form of currency. (Along with more use of the term "elder game," which I increasingly dislike.) Both of these are interesting tidbits, but the former isn't all that surprising and the latter is of interest only to those invested in the game as it stands. This was not a panel stuffed with information.
The Nexus Telegraph: The impact of WildStar's new release window
It merited only a footnote when the business model was announced, and it was easy to miss for all of the screaming between players who refused to listen to the other sorts of players, but WildStar isn't aiming for a 2013 release any longer. Not that this is exactly a shock, of course; I said about a month ago that I would prefer to just be told that the game wouldn't release until 2014, which already looked to be the case. But there's something interesting to be unpacked with that almost offhand mention of the game's targeted release date, especially when you consider how many huge holes there are in our present knowledge of the game. We'll learn more at the end of the week as PAX Prime starts up, but I find myself filling in some blanks both in terms of upcoming revelations and what we've not been told yet.
The Nexus Telegraph: The price of doing business in WildStar
Now we know what WildStar's business model is, and it's not any of the options I had predicted. That's to be expected, but it also means that we have to evaluate it very differently than if it had fallen into a tried-and-true pattern. You don't know how a new business model will work until you see it in action, and we haven't seen this in action yet. The reality is that WildStar is a buy-to-play, subscription, and free-to-play title all at the same time, and that's without even dipping our toes into the muddy water of microtransactions. There's exactly one item to be bought in the cash shop, and it serves exactly one purpose, but it also opens up a complicated economic interplay that we've seen in only one other game. And I don't think we can just draw on that one game for comparison because they're just not the same.
The Nexus Telegraph: Talking tasks with WildStar's PvE
At a glance, there are far fewer problems when dealing with PvE content compared to PvP content. WildStar's PvE options are a bit better established, and besides, all you need to do is provide the enemies and a reason to fight them. It's not as if you have to deal with all of the differences that you find in PvP, after all. Toss out some dungeons, give players a daily hub, and everything will work out perfectly, right? The answer is no. Not even a little bit. Just as you need a variety of different things in PvP to serve a multitude of playstyles, you need a variety of different opportunities for PvE players. It's still a header that covers a broad field of different playstyles and preferences, and that means there are a lot of different things that the game needs to offer. Bearing in mind that we're talking about the level cap here, let's take a look at what areas the game needs to support.
The Nexus Telegraph: Courting PvP in WildStar
PvP is pretty darn problematic for modern MMOs. Part of this is a balance issue. Creating a PvP environment that's actually fair is a challenge all by itself, and creating one that's unfair does not exactly foster a spirit of lively competition. But part of this is the nature of players. You have players who run the gamut, from people who don't want anything to do with PvP (mostly due to players on the other end of the spectrum) to players who assume that PvP is a mandate to do nasty things to unaware participants (especially people on the other end of the spectrum). WildStar is stepping into this minefield, and as we all know the game is trying to provide something for everyone from the top down. So today I want to look at what we know about the game's PvP and how various camps can be courted with the overall mechanics of the game.
The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing
We now know about the last two races coming to WildStar. We don't yet know about the last two classes, but that's pretty much assured for release in the near future. (I'm betting on PAX Prime, based on nothing more than speculation.) In fact, we're getting plenty of interesting and deep reveals... as well as a few things that the developers aren't talking about, things that are mentioned in passing and then allowed to just go unaddressed. Some of this doesn't really matter one way or the other, but there are some places where these unreveals are pretty worrisome. I'm not sure how much of this comes down to limited time for reveals and how much is actually shady, but in lieu of more information, I think some questions should be asked about why we've heard nothing regarding some stuff that, logically, should have gotten its own day in the revelation sunlight.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's dirty little secret races
I'm of two minds about the last two races in WildStar. And I'll be honest, the first mind is kind of bored because those of us with sharp eyes had already figured most of this out. Most of us might not have been sure of the names, to be fair. But the core concepts are fairly close to what most of us expected, with both races playing against type -- cute and fuzzy for the Dominion, creepy and leering for the Exiles. I even speculated that the last race of the Exiles would be a race that focused upon getting dirty work done when it needed to be done, and sure enough, what did we get? That being said, both of these races are pulled off with a style and panache that I should have expected but didn't. So even if I could have guessed that these were the practical upshots of the race grid, I hadn't counted on them being this nifty.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's addons
Whether you agree with World of Warcraft's approach to interface design or not, it's hard to deny that it's a fascinating case study. It's a game that was released with a broken interface, one that was very decidedly not the optimal way to experience the game... with the expectation that players would develop a better one (which could then be pinched by the developers to improve the core experience). This is pretty unusual now, and it was almost unheard of back in the day. But WildStar is going down the same road of having UI mods and addons in from day one, and it's one of the places that I think taking lessons from World of Warcraft would not only be prudent but downright smart. Including UI modding from launch means that WildStar will have the opportunity to tread down familiar paths. But some of those paths are familiarly awful, and so perhaps the developers could learn some lessons from those who have made these mistakes before. So let's look at the good, the bad, and how we can perhaps get more of the former than the latter.
The Nexus Telegraph: Getting the message across in WildStar (before it kills you)
There are no two ways about it: A a lot of WildStar's combat involves getting out of the way of something. Combat telegraphs have been reinforced as a major element of gameplay, and we've seen countless videos explaining how the telegraph system works in varying degrees of depth. And much like pretty much every other element of the game, this is a major issue for some people. I can understand why this provokes a knee-jerk reaction. I mean, now you can see exactly what's going to happen next and where you need to not stand, right? How is that still a challenge? The answer is that there's still a lot of challenge involved, and allowing people to know what's going on around them ahead of time not only preserves the challenge but actually heightens it. And to talk about that, we're going to need to step back and talk about lots of other games and the different sorts of challenge you can face in games.
The Nexus Telegraph: Points of interest in WildStar's latest beta patch
I'm beginning to think that people not in the WildStar beta are spending more time reading the patch notes than the people actually playing. Sure, they need to skim and find out what's changed, but the rest of us have an entire week of analyzing and dissecting to do. Or I do, anyway. Maybe everyone else just glances over them and moves on. I'm kind of hoping that it's not just me, but it wouldn't be the first time. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the new patch notes, and some of it makes sense only if you're playing the game. Still, there's plenty to dissect from the outside looking in, and that's where I'm coming from. So I'm going to be taking it one step at a time to pick out points of interest from within the deep confines of the patch notes, and of course, speculating wildly because that is also what I do here.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar needs a business model
To the surprise of absolutely no one, WildStar is going to have to make money somehow. You don't make an MMO as a charity, after all. But the big and understandable question is how it's going to make money because it's launching into a period when that is, in fact, a viable question. This is a new development, and not one that everyone is entirely happy with. Back in the day, there was no question about how your MMO would make money; it would charge a subscription fee and that was the end of it. Now there are at least three major potential models, all of which are viable over long periods by all indications. And that means there's some question about what WildStar will do. So today I want to examine possibilities. Rather than assume that any given model works, I want to look at all three possible launch models and try to forecast reasonable scenarios. So let's start with the most obvious one, suggested by the current environment and the publisher.
The Nexus Telegraph: It's all right if people don't like WildStar
I like WildStar a lot. You knew from an early time that I liked the game's aesthetic and sense of humor, and as time went on it became clear that I also liked the mechanics and the approaches it has toward an endgame. When I finally got my first hands-on playtime with the game, I liked that, too. What I'm getting at here is that WildStar is currently fighting with Final Fantasy XIV for the title of my absolute favorite MMO, and they both coexist in a space of I want to play you both all the time. But some people aren't in that boat. Some people aren't that wild about the game, even some people whom I work alongside. And that is totally fine. Last week's events made me decide to do one of my periodic column-topic-switches to discuss the fact that there is going to be bad press about WildStar out there, sometimes even bad press that complains about things that you don't think are relevant. And the best thing you can do is be cool.
The Nexus Telegraph: Raiding in WildStar is its own creature
When WildStar comes out, it is going to have raiding. It's going to have the sort of raiding and group content that is meant to be challenging. No facerolls intended here; you'd better bring your A-game on raid night, or you will be facedown in the dirt so often that people will think you're doing a performance piece on the Kennedy family tree. I am not a lover of raiding. This is not difficult to find evidence of on this site because I've talked about the issues with group-only endgame antics on more than one occasion. Heck, I wrote about how raiding turns you into a horrible person. So you would think I'd look at what we know about WildStar's endgame and start facepalming, possibly whilst shaking my head and muttering obscenities. But I'm not. I'm totally cool with what we've been told so far about the endgame because there's much more than just the raiding aspect in the game, and I'm intrigued by how it's working out.
The Nexus Telegraph: Playing a WildStar mind game
We still don't know exactly what the last two WildStar classes will look like, unless my speculation turns out to be true (and you'd better believe that I believe it). But as it happens, we don't know quite as much about one of the four we are aware of. Espers are a known quantity, but they've been... not hidden, precisely. But they're also not as visible as Spellslingers, Warriors, and Stalkers. Ironic, since they were one of the first classes we knew about. Last week I was focused on unpacking paths from the recent preview event. This time, I want to talk about Espers. I also want to talk about leveling your character and dissecting some of the other information we've been getting about the title, while leaving out one crucial bit of WildStar discussion in anticipation of next week. Yes, I have plans. You'll figure it out or see it in the "next week" blurb. Either way.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar forges a path
The latest news out of WildStar's new previews isn't going to quiet people who dislike the concept of the game's path system, nor will it stanch the flow of complaints about the game's art style. Those of us simply waiting at attention, however, found ourselves rewarded this week with a wealth of new information, not to mention the best look we've yet seen at how the paths will work together in action instead of concept. And that's only the tip of the iceberg; Jeremy Gaffney has said so many things that merit unpacking that it's almost impossible to swallow some of the implications. There is, in fact, far too much to unpack in a single week. So I'm going to look at paths and start figuring out everything else next week. I may also gush about the Mechari at some point. It's like GLaDOS, Hal, and Starscream had a kid.
The Nexus Telegraph: Still moving in WildStar
The downside to writing about WildStar in this stage of the game's lifecycle is that because of the very nature of beta tests, I'm going to be spending a lot of time speculating instead of talking about certainties. Last week, I speculated. I was wrong on some points, as I found out when I got a letter from Carbine clarifying some things that had previously been ambiguous enough for speculation. The upside to writing about WildStar in this stage of the game's lifecycle is that sometimes I get letters from development staff letting me in on valuable inside information. Aside from being able to clarify my previous incorrect speculation, I also have for you a number of other important bits of information regarding the game this week, including a brief discussion of whether or not the game will allow for flight on a regular basis. So since that's well worth discussing, let's go ahead and just make this column another dialogue about movement.
The Nexus Telegraph: Getting from place to place in WildStar
Nexus is a big place. We saw last week what it's going to be like getting from spot to spot in a smaller sense with last week's overview of movement, but there's more to movement in WildStar. After all, there are a lot of zones stretched out over big chunks of land, and even if you're sprinting as much as you can you'll eventually find that you can't traverse an entire continent by foot, much less the ocean. No, for this sort of transport you need something more robust. You'll need vehicles, both personal and otherwise. You'll need boats, you'll need ships, you'll need something that can move faster than you can move even if you can jump out of a dodge. But a lot of what you need will depend upon what the game's layout looks like, so it's time to fire up the speculation machine and ask some questions, starting with those of location.
