Advertisement

The Nexus Telegraph: Dribs and drabs of WildStar

Admittedly, talking about it seems a little silly.

The past few weeks have not been a fun time to be a fan of WildStar, and we still have heard distressingly little about what's coming in the next patch. Heck, the most I can think of hearing about in recent memory is the announcement that the game will not feature any sort of holiday content this year, and as those of you who know me will probably guess I kind of wanted a Halloween event. (I like October.)

But let's talk about what we do know and where we are right now, since barring any further developments, there's not much more to be said about what isn't working. Either things get addressed or they don't. So let's talk about the next drop, what we will and won't be getting from it with any measure of luck, and about the complete lack of holiday content and why anyone should care. Yes, even if you normally don't care about holiday content!



Tell me this guy doesn't want to gorge on holiday candy and I'll call you a liar.

Why would no holidays cause anyone to quit?

Let me make something clear here: I love holiday events. Love them. The one exception seems to be Easter; every other Final Fantasy XIV holiday event has me logging in as soon as possibly to play the heck out of that holiday stuff. But I will be the first to say it's silly, inconsequential, and ultimately trivial. The very idea of people rage-quitting over the announcement that there won't be any holidays in WildStar this year seems absurd.

Except, apparently, it's happening. But I don't think it's really about the holidays.

Like them or not, holidays are a sign that the game has developers putting in the time necessary to make stuff with a minimum amount of player engagement and a general feel of ridiculousness for a few days. Some people have enormous hate-ons for holiday content (hi, Bree!) and I think most people would get tired of seeing no new content beyond the depth of holiday content (hi, Guild Wars 2!), but they're fun.

And if you're not getting that silly bit of fun, or if you're already on the fence of whether or not the game is going to keep being fun to play, being told you won't get any holiday fun can be pretty heartbreaking. It's the sort of thing that can push you over the edge from sticking it out a little longer to just saying that you're done, period, full stop.

I don't know how many people are claiming they're going to leave over the lack of holiday content compared to the number of people who will actually do so. But it's not really about that, regardless; it's about the larger implications. So I can see why people would say it, even if I'm not among that crowd.

Keep it rolling, don't come to a full stop.

State of the Game and points related

I haven't talked about the recent State of the Game letter because... well, because it came out after my last column, so that's a good part of it. The general tenor of the dispatch, of course, is to address the criticism and general issues swirling around the game recently and to give players at least a cursory idea of what's coming up next.

The megaservers explanation rings pretty false, I'm sorry to aay; it's the same sort of explanation that World of Warcraft has tried to use for its "connected realms" or DC Universe Online used for its, well, megaservers. The problem is that while it's honest about the benefits, it's also glossing over the drawbacks and trying to paint a picture wherein these server merges are called anything other than "server merges." Much like punching someone in the neck and calling it a free knuckle donation instead, it comes across as mildly duplicitous.

Also, points off for the misspelling of tout suite.

The delay to the third drop is appreciated -- fewer bugs and more polish are always nice -- but as I've mentioned elsewhere, moving the content model to quarterly over monthly invalidates a stated goal of the subscription model. That does not, inherently, bother me, as would be indicated by the fact that I play Final Fantasy XIV and that has both a subscription and a quarterly-ish update schedule.

What does make me a bit more leery is that at a glance, there's not much more in this drop than what we've seen in the past two. Slower updates can work just fine as long as those updates are meaty, but right now a new zone and a new solo adventure thingy doesn't sound all that different from what we got in the first patch a month after launch. Maybe the latter will be very repeatable and rewarding -- we don't know yet -- but longer delays make people more critical of content at the same time.

Don't get me wrong; this is the right philosophy for the team to have. Fewer bugs, slower updates, more substantial updates. It's just that the first two only work as long as the third one is there too.

As for the stated major issues that are being addressed, I agree wholeheartedly that these are important issues. Attunement is, currently, serving as a roadblock to getting into the raids, endgame itemization has issues, PvP environments have issues. The fixes are certainly a step in the right direction for fixing several of these issues, but they're just that -- a step. They're not a good stopping point.

"Training" for raids is well and good, but the biggest issue isn't not knowing what to do once you get into the raid, it's getting there in the first place. The removal of several onerous elements makes those attunements less of a roadblock, but they're still slowing up access. Someone on the forums had an interesting idea of making the bronze/silver/gold system into a challenge selection mechanic rather than simply a medal system, which seems like a worthy idea as well; perhaps completing attunements could remain in place as a way to bypass or buff rewards from content, rather than gating.

Again, it's all good stuff, just not 100% there. But we've still got the rest of the month to hear more about what's coming with the next patch, so perhaps better news awaits there.

Feedback, like always, can be left in the comments below or mailed along to eliot@massively.com. Next time around, we'll see what else we've got to talk about, be it more news on Drop 3 or even just more developer dispatches.

Here's how it is: The world of Nexus can be a dangerous place for a tourist or a resident. If you're going to venture into WildStar, you want to be prepared. That's why Eliot Lefebvre brings you a shiny new installment of The Nexus Telegraph every other Monday, giving you a good idea of what to expect from both the people and the environment. Keep your eyes peeled, and we'll get you where you need to go.