Quick Look: WildStar

People drop hundreds of hours and dollars into Dota 2 while only playing 1 map with 1 mode. Quantity is not the problem as almost every failed MMO has hundreds of hours of content available. What keeps players coming back is quality content and the most popular MMOs typically turn into a bunch of players running the same content over and over again. At this point the grind up to max level in theme park MMOs seems like a pointless relic of the past since levels become meaningless the instant players hit max level and the end game gear grind begins. To me it seems like an MMO developer would be much better off putting all their efforts towards building quality content that the players can access immediately instead of putting a bunch of resources into building sprawling environments filled with hours of tedious grinding that the community will have abandoned 2 months after launch to focus on endgame.

EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH ALEX!

So much MEH.

After abandoning WoW many many years ago and just watched 10 minutes of the video and I can safely say: I haven't missed much since. Still feels the exact same.
Sure the combat is slightly different, new environment and such, but the art style looks alot like WoW and so is the type of quests, ingame icons, UI, etc.

For me this is not enough innovation to get back to such a game, not enough at all,

As a current WoW player, parts of this look really, really nice. But, there is no reason for me to switch, and there is even less reason to play both. The extra cost and the time needed are hurdles that are way to big to overcome. It looking good should not be a surprise with it being some ex-Blizzard and all. Good job Wild Star.

I have over 50 hours played in this game, and I loved every minute of it. I'm lvl 41 so ill temper my excitement until i experience this "end game" carbine says this has so much of, but so far its been great! :D

@tenorsounds: I think it's juvenile and dumb. That's the entire reason I don't think it's funny. It's probably the same reason other people think it *is* funny. It's literally no deeper than that. If you have some deep, complex, philosophical reason why you think it's funny that goes beyond that, I'd sure like to hear it.

This looks so generic and uninteresting...

This game seems to be interesting. I think I'll check it out.

Hey @alex, I laughed at your Sandy Kenyon NYC cab joke!

At least someone else has had to deal with the inanity of the NYC in cab entertainment system!

Guild Wars 2 is a really good game, you guys.

I don't think they mentioned it here, but one thing that sort of surprised me when I played this during the last Open Beta weekend was that the music is really good. It goes in a lot of directions, too.

think this 3min video can do more justice than any QL of it can,been playing since headstart the early stuff is pretty standard but once you get out of the 15 + range the game gets a lot harder and fun

MMOs are for jerks.

I think this quick look sold me on this game that combat looks real good.

Has Brad some clause in his contract which says "you always have to play Human Warrior (even though its the most boring thing) in every game possible" ?

Oh look a quick look that doesnt actually explain anything about a game and a ton of misinformation gets thrown around because you have played a couple hours and have done 0 research on the features.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we'll have to wait until @rorie gets to sink his teeth into this. If anyone can give the game a fair shake, it's him.

Jesus, this is the Braddiest quick look in a while.

It's always really strange to listen to the GB dudes talking about MMOs. Even Rorie which supposedly is their MMO guy is so disconnected from what the playerbase for these game wants.

People should basically treat this the same way you should treat QLs of sports games. If you want actual information about the game, this is not the place for that.

I can't believe how much this resembles WoW; it's uncanny.

Lol, "this game is super easy those far", and then dies 10 times in an hour.

@ares42 said:

Rorie cares for WoW and WoW alone. It's partially understandable, when you're deep in an MMO, there isn't really a reason to switch (graphics won't be enough of a reason), but the fact that they can't fathom how anyone would enjoy Wildstar or Final Fantasy XIV is disappointing, especially for games journalists.

Anyway, I don't really have the time to play subscription based MMOs, but I hope Black Desert Online is gonna be good.

Why does it have so many color? That's just annoying. For example, a blue and green. What the hell? Jesus mother of God in heaven and Moses help me I'm sick of it after 2 minutes.

Hmm GB doing a MMO QL....can't wait. Hopefully it isn't as terrible as their Guild Wars 2 QL.

For some reason I can't stand this game's art style. It's cartoon-y without being "cute", just ugly.

Yup, I still hate MMOs.

The Secret World.

"Me-me"? What?

Rorie is the only guy on the staff who ever seems to heavily engage in MMOs enough to give a reasonably full perspective on new MMOs when they come out. I like Brad's contributions to everything on this site, but I really would like to see Rorie in the driver's seat for the next MMO QL.

I really wanna know who "healing guy" was. Dude seemed pretty cool

"You get some healing! And You get some healing! And ahh... man, you should of really moved out of that red zone but.... eff it, You get MORE healing!" healing man is the bomb

"me me"

@xshinobi: That would not be hard, since it may be the worst QL they ever did.

Anyone actually care about accuracy look up the Wildstar Devspeak videos on Youtube. I actually think Brad was actively trying to mislead people in this quick look. This was the opposite of journalism.

Journalism. Actively.

Someone give this man a job making MMOs.

Also, I seriously don't understand why people keep subscribing to what seems like the same game, again and again, under a fresh coat of paint.

The only MMOs that I've ever really enjoyed have been FFXI (pre-Abyssea), EVE Online, the original Guild Wars, Warhammer Online (due to the prevalence of and focus on open world PvP and battlegrounds) and FFXIV (to a much lesser extent than FFXI). I never got the appeal of WoW, despite trying it under pressure from friends on several occasions, or the appeal of games heavily derivative of it.

I don't like ANYTHING about the aesthetic of this game. No thank you.

Probably not along the same lines (I haven't played WoW beyond level 7 so humor me), but Final Fantasy 14: Realm Reborn is holding my interest despite being, well, Final Fantasy.

If they have a trial why not try that one too? You never know.

As for WildStar itself? Eh...just not feeling it for some reason. Was never a big MMO guy though so, you know, opinion null and void I guess.

The levelling experience has a very important function that's easily forgotten by experienced players. For a new player being dropped straight into end-game group content in an MMO would be completely impossible to comprehend. You could argue that it might be too long for basically being a tutorial, but gradual learning and understanding how things works is pretty essential for your enjoyment of these games. Having spent a good 20+ hours with the game first makes a lot of things become second nature in a way that's absolutely necessary for being able to deal with everything else going on in dungeons/pvp.

Dude, this QL was made for simple people that don't really care that much about MMO's. If what you saw here you did not like, then hey, you'll probably not like the game as well. If you're an avid MMO player, then you should already know that this QL will not show everything. People seem to forget that the GB crew usually cannot spend 50+ hours on playing just one game. I don't get what you are so angry about, Brad showed off how the world looks like, showed how different characters look like, what the enemies in the beginning look like, how the combat works. Everything was fine. There has been a lot of people pissing and moaning about the QL's for absolutely no reason lately.

@karkarov: Yeah, I don't understand this.

Also I thought this game was like an MMO third person shooter with customizable guns or something? Turns out it's just an MMO-ass MMO.

Another entry for the list of QLs where Brad starts by talking about how stupid easy the game in question is but then proceeds to die repeatedly over the course of the QL and complains about the difficulty.

It's almost as if video games start easy and get increasingly difficult as you progress in them. Weird innit?

I thought he said Mimi and had no idea what he was talking about, good thing the chat mentioned it was Meme, which is pronounced as Meem.

From Richard Dawkins twitter.

The pronunciation of meme was specified when the word was defined, in The Selfish Gene. Rhymes with cream.

Ugh... MMOs. I will never understand the attraction. This just looks like a way to grind away your time without having any fun while you wait to die in real life.

Jeff sums it up for me --

Jeff: "Is it a fruit picking challenge?"

Brad: "Yep"

Jeff: "... ... fun."

@ravelle: I took it as saying the game was memey, as in having a lot of them.