The team's experience definitely shone through during the presentation of the game, yet I'm not sure if this is a good thing. There's no denying that an impressive amount of production value has gone into the upcoming game, but it's also hard not to acknowledge the fact that Wildstar evokes a very strong sense of deja vu. From the wintry environment you first find yourself exploring, to the familiar weapon models, it's easy to feel like you've seen it all before.
"We want to create the deepest and richest MMO that there is out there"
Despite this, Gaffney claimed otherwise, "We want to create the deepest and richest MMO that there is out there. Clone games don't work." It was time to check out Wildstar on the show floor, to see whether Gaffney's claims rung true. Given that the game is still in pre-alpha, I can forgive the minimal character generation process. In fact, there wasn't one at all. I could only choose between a Granok Warrior, a Human Spellslinger and an Aurin Esper. Thanks to a recent fascination with tank classes, I went with the cigar-chomping, stone-faced (pun intended) Granok Warrior. I was then told to choose one of four Paths: the Explorer, the Soldier, the Scientist or the Settler, but sadly the Scientist and Settler were unavailable for play in the existing code.
It was only later that I discovered the full importance of my character selection. Though plenty of games attempt to innovate and tempt their players to life-long subscriptions, Wildstar may be the first MMO out there designed around gamer archetypes.
"It's about your character's motivations but it's also about you. What's your play-style and what motivates you to play games?" Gaffney explained. Instead of the usual DPS, Tank, and Healer classes, Player Paths in Wildstar are built around the ways people play games. Do you prefer to spend your MMO time exploring the world around you, rather than scrapping in the PvP arenas? The explorer class is tailor-made for you. Or perhaps you're a combat-junkie who wants to kill everything in sight? Hit the barracks, Soldier. Are you the obsessive-compulsive type who refuses to rest till they've earned every achievement conceivable? Do you crave lore the way a sweet-tooth craves cake? The Scientist Path is definitely the way to go.
While those three classes sound interesting, it's the last Path that excited me most. Gaffney revealed the Settler, saying, "The Settler is a social class. You help other people, you get rewards. You help a town's economy; a new vendor shows up. You help its security, somehow. A new guard appears." I'm not one to sit around and build walls all day but I know people who are. These players will love the fact that they don't have to go out and kill things, spending their time fussing over their towns instead. After having chosen my Path, it was time to get my hands dirty with the demo. Courtesy of the usual text quest info box, I was informed that I was part of a rescue team that had been assigned to rescue the victims of a spaceship crash. The scene shifted, revealing a massive valley engulfed by a blizzard, and filled with smoldering wreckage, hostile creatures and screaming settlers. In the middle of this mayhem stood a malfunctioning weather control tower, the source of the weather woes. Unsurprisingly, it was my job to fix the tower and rescue everyone nearby.
"The actual combat mechanics didn't deviate too far from the standard formula..."
It was then that I noticed the healthy range of skills that Wildstar dishes out from the get-go. Without having to unlock skills through quests, my tough mercenary was already able to charge targets from afar, attack them with a buzzsaw and ignite the ground under their feet. It was an interesting change from the norm where you're expected to wait until you've reached a respectable level before you can do anything but auto-attack with a stick. The actual combat mechanics didn't deviate too far from the standard formula though: target a creature, use attacks in a creative manner and deal more damage when you combo your abilities in a proper manner. There's also an evade button that you can use to avoid special attacks from your foe. During the demo I was similarly impressed by the fact that the ecosystem feels real and tangible. Monsters aren't only interested in me, as they'll also happily have a go at each other. I realized this when I mistakenly shot at a wolf while culling the yeti population; both started attacking me but when the yeti utilized an area-of-effect skill, the wolf, too intent on chewing on my heels, was knocked off-balance by the yeti's attack. Gaffney explained that players can lure certain creatures into attacking one another, which should make for some interesting approaches to clearing out mobs.
Despite the demo's high quality, Cass couldn't help but feel blue.
It was also here that I had the chance to check out exactly how the Player Paths worked. Each Path is equipped with a single ability unique to their class. In the case of the Explorer Path, it was the Locator, a fanciful little device that operates much like Captain Jack Sparrow's magic compass, pointing towards items of interest. I was told to use the Locator to find a suitable place to plant a Mayday beacon. That, in turn, led me to following the Locator's directions to the top of a mountain where an unusual monument sat. I dropped the beacon, saved a settler buried in the snow along the way, climbed down and eventually ran into a Soldier who was busy with a gigantic, bunny-eared boss of sorts. Naturally, I stopped to help.
Though a somewhat elementary example, this was proof positive of Carbine's attempt to ensure that those of differing disciplines would be able to co-exist and interact. "About thirty percent of the zone is all about you. The other seventy percent, you sort of share with everyone else," Gaffney said, continuing, "The key is to build content that you can do together. And we do that by a clever way; we layer things. It sounds like a marketing hype but our technology lets us do that. Some are all about you. Some are all about the story. Some are about others. Some are about the challenges you face alone, others about the challenges you face together and so on."
Carbine's promises are definitely ambitious, and sound like they're not afraid to fundamentally alter the established MMO formula. The real question is whether they're capable of fulfilling those promises, but from what I've seen at GamesCom things are definitely looking good.