MMORPGs are considered one of the most overcrowded gaming genres of today, tons of games being active, made and released but most of them aren’t really worth playing that much since most of them are just a “clone” of every other game, but the masterminds behind Carbine Studios actually had the guts to try and step up the ante by making a game that could literally let you “shoot your friends in the face… with heals.” with Wildstar Online, a fantasy/sci-fi MMORPG released in June 3, 2014, that offered players some fresh mechanics that could re-invigorate the genre, but with the tons of problems that hampered the original version of the game, Wildstar was considered a failure by most of its community and players left leaving the impression of the huge maps, being a ghost-town. It all changed when NCSOFT and Carbine Studios announced that the game will be re-launched as Wildstar: Reloaded with one of the biggest changes being that the game was going “Free-to-Play” on September 29, 2015. However it does beg the question… with all the things that hampered the original game, will it be worth it to log-in and explore Nexus?
Wildstar: Reloaded gives the players the chance to join two factions:
The peace-loving Exiles which consists of:
- Humans (HUMANS!)
- Aurins (Cat-people, so much fur!)
- Granoks (Stone-skinned brutes and brute-ttes)
- and the Mordesh (Semi-dead looking humanoids)
The supreme-elitist Dominion
- Cassians (the games version of “SUPREMACIST HUMANS!”)
- Chuas (a gender-hidden-explosion-loving space hamster)
- Draken (Dragon-Lizard beings)
- and the Mechari (cyborgs, terminators, robots, mecha and all that crap)
Both of which are vying control of the planet Nexus and why the highly advanced “Eldan” species have suddenly just vanished, so its up to the Exiles to make this their new home while Dominion look to claim its hidden technology their own. As you adventure through the story, you’ll be facing different enemies of different species and tons of locations that cover up the lore and story of the game.
No MMORPG is complete without character classes though as we are given six choices (some of which are race-restricted though), which have different character mechanics by the way, also decides which role you will take whether it be (Damage Per Second (DPS), Healer, or a Tank):
- The Warrior (DPS/Tank) – Armed with a two-handed sword/greatsword, arm cannon and kinetic energy.
- The Engineer (DPS/Tank) – a ranged character that can summon small robots to help you in various ways, also, you have your own POWER ARMOR! Hooray IRON MAN!
- The Stalker (DPS./Tank) – The game’s stealth class, armed with nanotechlogy (nanomachines son!) and claws.
- The Medic (DPS/Healer) – Armed with resonators (yes RESONATORS!), either heal your friends and blast your enemies with probes that you can manually blow up.
- The Esper (DPS/Healer) – armed with a Psyblade and their mind constructs (think Green Lantern) that could summon swords through their thoughts that can pierce even the air around them.
- The Spellslinger (DPS/Healer) – Ever wondered what would happen if you got to shot your friends in the face… with heals of-course? This is the class for you, touted as magic-space-cowboys with their dual pistols and arcane bullets.
The game also allows you to build your character through the AMP! system (a huge graph that has some active and passive skills) and the LAS (Limited Action Set) that allows you to bring which eight active skills to use in battle. If you do make a mistake in putting AMP points, you can reset them for in-game currency as well.
But wait there’s more! The game also gives you the choice to pick from four paths, paths can be chosen regardless of race and also has a separate experience bar that caps at level 30 that could give you different perks, costumes, titles, and activities, depending on which path you chose:
- The Soldier – which include… well… KILLING or assassinating different species, base defending, and weapons testing.
- The Scientist – tasked to scan the very diverse floram fauna, biological, mechanical, Eldan, artifacts, etc of Nexus.
- The Settler – builders of the always-popular buffing stations and and hunters of exotic species.
- The Explorer – Jumping puzzle extraordinaires that are also tasked with mapping the area and activating beacons for data-transmissions (too much lore!).
The leveling system of the game still consists “hub-questing” which mean that you have to go to certain areas, get all the quests and finish all the quests to get more exp, good thing that we do not need to go back to the quest giver on most instances, instead, we can complete quests by pressing a certain button to pass the quest. Nothing special here except the fact that sometimes the game will surprise you with the combat mechanics Carbine has implemented. There are Expeditions (solo-able mini-dungeons), Adventures (Multi-Path semi-open-world dungeons) and the endgame exslusive, raids. These instances are so unique to each other that I have never felt them to be the same thing, you got this Expedition that gets you to help scrub a deadly virus inside the ship, another gets you removing “hallucinogenic” air compounds, etc while Adventures give the group a choice on which path to take, which in-turn will produce another set of choices that end in different ways, another Adventure stimulates a MOBA/DOTA-esque/SMITE situation in which you need to capture flags and destroy the enemy totem (this mode comes complete with AI-controlled “heroes”), and well Raids, they are super-challenging and set-up so that no one is allowed to divert their attention elsewhere. All these are also scored and timed depending on the group’s performance, which at the end, determines the reward that will be given.
Increasing character and path level also provide the things you unlock when you level to help you know whats new with your character.
PVP in this game is one hell of an experience, given the combat system, in the form of open-world active pvp, small arenas that house 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 contests, Battlegrounds (15v15)and Warplots (30v30). All of these fall in different modes whether it be deathmatch, Capture-the-Mask, however, Warplots differ as they are user-made arenas (more on customization later).
Now this is where the game starts to distance itself and reveal its unique mechanics, upon checking previous screenshots, you may have seen some colored markers on the ground, those are called “Telegraphs”, all your attacks (friend or foe) have different shapes and sizes, if you want to hit an enemy or heal your ally, you have to line up or set the graph to where you want them to be, map hazards like falling meteors, etc. have their own graphs to truly challenge the skillful players, almost similar to action combat systems but more colorful, this system is what I liked most about the game, I was never bored but instead challenged to aim so that my attack or heal would contribute to the group. However one major downside of this is that if you don’t have that stable internet connection, consider yourself warned as graphs will/may still hit you because you moved a few seconds slower. This is the only reason why I hate action combat in games that implement this combat system as it feels not as open to other players as well, however if you do master the telegraph system and kill that boss, it feels oh so rewarding. Add the fact of the different status effects (Blind, Tethered, Disarmed, etc) that also come in different effects as getting the blind status darkens your monitor, getting disarmed makes your weapon fall off, therefore you cannot cast skills unless you pick it up by moving towards it.
With graphics almost inspired by your favorite saturday morning cartoons, animations that light up the screen(seriously, may cause seizures!), the visuals and sounds of the game are great, writing is superb, tons of pop-culture references from almost every part of the world of film, art, history, etc. Customization adds another depth in the game as it has always been one of the strongest point of the game, through the “Holo-Wardrobe”, you can appear as if you were wearing raid gear equipment with only really having level 10 gear on, as long as you can unlock the skin by owning the item and manually unlocking it. Mounts, which are varied from 2/4 legged animals to motorbikes to hover-boards, can also be customized to get a more personal touch out of it
Wildstar’s housing system allows its players to customize their own sky-plot (yes, you live in the sky). You can find different challenges or collect resources, get extra EXP, etc. and yes, LITERALLY everything is customizable as long as you have the items needed, you can even build a never ending ladder if you want.
Customization has encouraged the community of players to “Roleplay” in-game and you can mostly see their chats, making the game feel more alive compared to when it was before the it went free-to-play.
With the change of payment methods also come Item malls and the Signature Subscription (VIP) (click here to know the benefits of being a subscriber), upon checking the item mall its full of aesthetic costumes, skins, mounts and some extra exp potions, etc),but what is important is that there is literally no game-breaking pay-to-win items as of writing this review, which mean that players still cannot buy power, and you can also buy item mall items using “OmniBits”, a currency dropped by any enemy in the game. Signature status still exists if you are willing to pay $14.99 per month and have extra perks as well as benefits to those who aren’t subscribed. There is also the CREDD system which is an ingame item that, if used, gives the account, 30 days of play time, basically if you can get money, you can buy a subscription even without a credit card, on a regular basis. Loyalty points are also present, every time you pay for a subscription or redeem CREDD tokens, your loyalty points go up, which unlock permanent account-wide perks, mounts, decor, etc.
However, upon checking I still have experienced tons of bugs, some are painfully and still is ruining the experience for some, I mostly experienced having increasing latency/lag on crowded areas, yes given that the area could overload, I keep wondering whether it was my internet or not as sometimes I do have no problem joining a 50-man world-event, I find it game-ruining as sometimes I do need to finish content that needs a whole ton of people and yet I cannot complete it as I keep on getting disconnections. The default UI is still slightly cluttered and sometimes decides to “break” itself as well (nothing a simple “/reloadui” command wouldn’t fix) as well but if you do know how to use add-ons (click here to learn more), you can easily remedy that by modifying it just like what I did with mine at the screenshots.
Wildstar: Reloaded is still a good and unique MMORPG, and with their switch to the Free-to-Play model helping boost the population, just gave the game it’s needed boost to compete with other MMO. The game’s system is fair and up until writing this review, is not pay-to-win. If you are looking for a fresh. funny and have that stable internet to rid of the latency issues, this game is a must try.