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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.
The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar
I spend a lot of time playing around with theories about lore. I can't do a whole lot more in regard to playing with WildStar at the moment, so that works out well anyway, but I do enjoy throwing out theories and seeing what sticks. Sometimes that invalidates earlier theories I had in the process, but that's the business. This week I don't want to invalidate something I already speculated upon but build upon a previous column. People seemed to like my musings on what the deal is with Nexus, but even as I was writing that column, I noticed one screaming problem: The Luminai don't fit. Obviously the Luminai are kind of a big deal, what with their addition marking the creation of the Dominion and all that. These guys are important, and their creation was obviously intentional. But they still prompt some questions because they don't serve an obvious purpose in the larger scheme of things.
The Nexus Telegraph: Respecting the NDA on WildStar's beta
Carbine Studios is holding all of the cards for WildStar and those of us not in the beta just have to wait. Which is beyond frustrating. We have to sit back and let things slowly come out of the official PR machine, and no matter how fast we get new revelations, they're never fast enough. The temptation to look for someone willing to peel back the veil is immense because it beats pressing against the glass and waiting to find out more. But the NDA is there for a reason. Speaking as someone who isn't in the beta but is still talking about the game on a weekly basis, I will be the first to point out that waiting for official information is often like waiting for a solar eclipse before doing even the most basic tasks. It's frustrating, slow, and irritating. The problem is that the alternative -- wherein we just jump on every new piece of leaked information -- isn't good, and it comes out worse in the end.
The Nexus Telegraph: Dissecting WildStar's surprise patch notes
After I penned my last installment of The Nexus Telegraph, two things happened in very quick succession. The first is that a set of beta patch notes for WildStar were leaked to the internet by some unscrupulous individual, which prompted me and many other players to immediately shout that we wouldn't have leaked the notes if we had been selected. And there's an entire article to be written about why such an action isn't cool, how it harms the game, and why the persion responsible is a particularly toxic form of "fan." But then the second thing happened. The powers that be over at Carbine Studios, being infinitely cool themselves, decided to save people the trouble of deciding whether or not to look at the leaks. They posted the notes themselves, which means that I can now read the notes and actually write a column about them. Of course, as with any patch notes, we've been given an incomplete picture and can make only a few haphazard guesses about how the game will look. We also know that this is not even close to the final state of the game. But there's still interesting stuff here worth analyzing and speculating about.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's puppetmasters
What do the Eldan want? It's a reasonable question. In the backstory of WildStar, the Eldan are the progenitors and the ultimate source of all the conflict that's out there. They hold all the secrets to the planet Nexus, they are the source of the technology our characters will use, and they are the ultimate starting point. The Dominion may maintain its galactic stranglehold, but the Eldan gave them that imperative. And they are not answering their calls. WildStar players have been keeping a careful eye on bits of lore, and intrepid fan InnocentCivilian took the opportunity to write up a great compilation on what we know about the Eldan so far. It's enough to get you thinking about what the Eldan are all about, and it led me to ask a few questions, ones that have obvious answers that make me wonder just what we'll find on Planet Nexus.
The Nexus Telegraph: A speculative look at WildStar crafting
Sometimes my plans coincide perfectly with real-world events. Last time I wrote this column, I planned to talk about crafting, and then on Friday WildStar gave us a look at some of what we can expect in the system. Admittedly, we don't yet know how the whole circuit board system plays into crafting or what "one of two systems" means, but we can speculate, can't we? Before anyone asks, let me say that no, I had no forewarning or advance preview. I'm just pleased that everything came together by coincidence. So right now we know that the circuit board interface is the basis of one of the crafting systems in the game, and we know how the circuit boards in general work. That's enough to make some reasonable guesses. Let's start by guessing at a system in which you sidestep the entire process of finding the best stats on the best items by just making it from scratch.
The Nexus Telegraph: Walking the WildStar path
If you look at the path system in WildStar the right way, it's a pretty limiting system. After all, if path content makes up 25% of your content in any given zone, it stands to reason that there are three paths worth of content you'll never see on any given character. Any zone in the game is made up of 43% stuff you don't get to explore. For those of us who are fond of alts, this is not exactly a drawback. The idea that a zone I've done three times before can still hold new secrets on the fourth playthrough is endlessly appealing. But it can also feel very limiting from the right perspective simply because it does build in some hard limitations. You will never be able to completely clear an area out on one character. If you only want to play one character, you're just out of luck. At the same time, I think this system will grow to be one of WildStar's strengths. So even if you want to just play one character and you wind up playing a single path, there are reasons to be happy about the way that paths work.
The Nexus Telegraph: Party like a WildStar at PAX East
The WildStar afterparty at PAX East was a lot of fun. The part where I managed to injure myself in the process? Not so much fun. This is not the first con at which WildStar had a presence, but this year it was not just a presence but the presence. You literally couldn't walk down a hallway without seeing some of the promo art. WildStar videos were on display all over the monitors throughout the convention center, and the afterparty consisted of approximately everyone. For those of us who have been following the game for a while, the convention provided a lot of information. For people who had literally never known it existed until this weekend, it had a huge impact, and I think it drew in a lot of surprise converts. So let's talk about all the fun there was to be had during the event and discuss how I was dumb enough to put myself out of commission for the entirety of Sunday.
The Nexus Telegraph: More WildStar class speculation
WildStar got a website overhaul not too long ago, giving those of us watching the game a bit more information about the class setup. All four classes have their limitations on display along with the roles that those classes will play -- meaning we're now sitting at two healers, two tanks, and two more class placeholders that have yet to be revealed, which did nicely shoot my speculation about the class/role division in the throat, but I'm not exactly complaining. Of course, knowing who can be what means that we have a clearer picture of WildStar's structure, and that means we can speculate about how the rest of that structure will be filled in. So with full knowledge that I might turn out to be wrong before the week is out, I'm going to guess at what's coming around the bend in terms of the game's classes and how the classes will play in their respective roles.
The Nexus Telegraph: All your WildStar speculation is wrong
This column is wrong. I wrote it about two months ago, and it's wrong. It contains two major pieces of speculation, both of which have subsequently been confirmed as wrong, wrong, wrong. This does not exactly surprise me, as when I originally wrote it I assumed that odds were even or better that every part of the column would be proved wrong before the week was out. It's not the only thing I'm going to write about WildStar that will be wrong, even. I could be wrong about the Exiles. I could be wrong about the Dominion. It is entirely possible that all of my speculation will fall handily under the header of "very wrong." Yet I persist all the same. And if you want to understand why I keep talking about things when I know they might be completely wrong, that's the subject of this week's column. I love speculation columns, I will be writing more in the leadup to WildStar's release, and I wanted to explain why I do that when I have no doubt many of them will be proven wrong.
The Nexus Telegraph: The dark side of WildStar's Exiles
I feel sort of bad for the Exiles of WildStar. This column kicked off with speculation about the Dominion, and not too long after that we started learning about the Dominion. As a result, those three races that we still haven't gotten to play in this unreleased game are so last month and no one wants to hear about them any more. Also, the Exiles have been systematically removed from every system they've ever collectively called home. So I also feel bad about that part. But mostly the timing thing. But it's time for equal treatment, at least insofar as the Exiles deserve more unpacking than they've gotten. On the surface, the Exiles are just a little easier to understand and a lot easier to see as a sympathetic faction. But just as the harsh presentation of the Dominion hides a more positive and benevolent side, the much shinier presentation of the Exiles hides elements that I don't think the faction itself is necessarily all that comfortable with.
The Nexus Telegraph: Bringing class into WildStar
Last week's column was all about unpacking the Dominion, something that I'll be doing more of over the course of this week, but not every reveal was focused around the more aristocratic side of WildStar. I suppose that the Stalker could be seen as aristocratic with the right concept, but the point is that Stalker is the fourth class revealed and the first new one we've heard about since the original three. Knowing the name alone gives a pretty clear picture of what the class is all about, but we've also had a chance to see a little of the stealthy claw machine in action. Of course, at the moment we don't know much beyond those basics. They're sneaky, they're dangerous in close combat, and they apparently play very well with the Draken philosophy. So let's talk about the classes in general and how they relate to what we know of the game thus far, including the obvious question about whether or not this is all we get in terms of classes to play.
The Nexus Telegraph: Now that the Dominion has your attention...
So let's unpack the Dominion a little, shall we? Because we've just met them. When WildStar first announced the existence of the Dominion in a roundabout fashion, I honestly didn't expect they would be playable. As I've seen more and more hints about them, I've grown progressively more interested in their outlook. Here we have a faction that has done unquestionably awful things and is completely evil as far as one faction is concerned... but what do they think of themselves? What is the Dominion like on the inside? As it turns out, WildStar has hit exactly the notes I was hoping for. The Dominion doesn't come across as being terribly pleasant at first glance, but the sheer amount of character in the factional intro video makes it clear that they could not care less about how they come across to you. They are refined, they are elegant, and at the end of the day, they represent everything the Exiles are fighting against. So let's talk Dominion.
The Nexus Telegraph: Unpacking WildStar's big reveals
There are times I both love and hate being a journalist. Case in point: the recent WildStar hands-on that Bree got to play with. I knew about it a while ago, and got a peek at most of the reveals, which was great. But I had to sit on that knowledge, which was not so great. Also I couldn't go myself, which comes down less to the job of a journalist and more to the fact that I live on the other coast, but I still didn't like that. But we aren't here to talk about that. We're here to talk about a groundswell of new information that we got from that experience, and while I don't want to step on Bree's toes at all, there's a lot of stuff that deserves further discussion. And we know that the developers want this game to launch in 2013, which means that as of right now we are looking at a ticking clock. I'll talk about that later.
The Nexus Telegraph: Let's hear it for the tweet-quest
There are many parts of WildStar that are treading familiar ground in unusual ways, and quests are no exception to that. We know that the game will have quests, but those quests are compressed into 140-character, Twitter-style soundbites. They're quick nuggets of information sending you to a place to do a thing, and that's it. Needless to say, this has sparked some outrage from people absolutely certain that this is catering to ADD-afflicted jumpy maniacs concerned only with getting the most loot the fastest rather than people who actually care about playing a game. For starters, I'm not sure these people actually know how ADD works, but that's not the point. The point is that there's a lot to like about the concept of the game's tweet-quests. Obviously we don't know how well the idea will work out in practice, but from what we do know, there's plenty of reason to look forward to the different format. I should note that those of you who caught my appearance on Nexus Weekly got a preview of some parts of this column, so congratulations for reading ahead. Listening ahead. Whichever. If you didn't catch it, you can listen before or after. It's up to you.
The Nexus Telegraph: Giving trust for WildStar
Some of you are probably well aware that I used to write this site's column about City of Heroes. And you may also be aware that I'm talking about that column in the past tense because it's objectively impossible to write anything about City of Heroes in the present tense. NCsoft closed the doors to the game and left me more than a mite unhappy with that decision. Some of you are also well aware that NCsoft is the company behind WildStar. That might seem like a bit of a cognitive disconnect -- why in the world would I trust a company that just made me very unhappy? Lots of reasons. I can understand the vitriol and the anger, but I also think they're just a wee bit misplaced. There are plenty of good reasons to cheer for this game even though I harbor no small amount of bitterness about those we lost before.
The Nexus Telegraph: Sci-fi commonalities to expect in WildStar
There are certain bits that sort of obscure this fact, but when you get down to it, WildStar is a science fiction game -- a science fiction game taking lots of cues from more fantastical offerings and Westerns, but still science fiction at its heart. And that means that it has certain expectations from potential players, just like fantasy games are expected to have elves and superhero games are expected to have someone who is only distinguishable from Superman by the lack of a logo. Here's the thing, though: Science fiction covers a pretty wide range of setting, so some of those expectations may or may not come to pass with the game. Today I want to talk about some of those reasonable guesses, the sort of thing that you just think has to be in a science fiction game. Is WildStar going to feature these elements? I'm not sure, but I can make some guesses (which might be proved wrong before the week is out, but guessing is fun like that).
The Nexus Telegraph: Putting the war in WildStar
It's no mystery that WildStar is going to feature combat. This column derives its name from one of the combat features we already know about, so you know it's not going to be a game where all conflicts are resolved with hugs and ice cream. People come at you with weapons, and as another person with weapons, you will have a duty to ensure that they do not draw another breath. Possibly it will even be your pleasure to do so. Scratch that -- hopefully it will be your pleasure to do so. The last thing anyone wants is a game with combat that bores you to tears, since you're going to be tasked with slaughtering all manner of critters and ne'er-do-wells as you play. What we know about WildStar's combat at the moment can fit comfortably into a manila folder, but I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the potential mechanics and what we might derive from the very limited previews.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar is serious business
Science fiction. It's a genre all about man's eternal struggle against space aliens, cyborgs, and people with British accents in very large flagships. Or, you know, about things larger than humanity, about exploring the unknown, and about the sense of wonder at exploring strange new frontiers of a world similar to our own but unfamiliar at the same time. It's a chance for us to step beyond the boundaries of our own world and into the great beyond just a few paces at a time. But it's mostly the cyborgs and flagships. That stuff is really cool to watch. WildStar is a science fiction game. But it takes more than a few cues from a show that also had the audacity to lend a lot of the wild west to a deep space setting. It's hard not to pick up on the Firefly vibe from the previews, after all. But it's been very illuminating to see what the designers have to say about influences and the direction they want to take the game's storytelling because it's very different from other science fiction games on the market right now.
The Nexus Telegraph: Who's afraid of the WildStar Dominion?
From where we are now, it's hard to see a whole lot of good about the Dominion. Everything we've heard about WildStar's other faction thus far has been that it's made up of pure evil, absolutely the antithesis of everything you would ever want to stand for. These are not good people, to the best of our knowledge, and it comes as a bit of a surprise that they make up a playable faction in the game rather than a helpful organization of mooks in need of a good face-punching. Those familiar with my past work will know that I love rooting for the team that looks like the transparent bad guys. Unfortunately, right now we plain don't know enough about the Dominion to be sure of exactly what its deal is. Could be that it's as evil as it looks; could be that we only have half of the picture. So I'm going to go ahead and look at both possibilities.
