Congratulations, Have A Cupcake

   Ding! Virika and I managed to hit level 50 before we signed out last night. Though we played quite a bit this weekend, we didn't devote as much time to Wildstar as we had planned. We decided to focus on leveling up the rest of the way to 50 and bypassed any adventures or dungeons this time. There was another awesome shiphand mission that I recorded (maybe I will upload that later). It had had us battling in a deadly game show and endorsing silly products. Nor did I get into any PvP like I had planned. Oh well, at least we have a plan for next Beta weekend. 
   

   Our toons had already quested their way though the Wilderrun zone before this weekend began.  Although it wasn't as novel as Farside, the lore and story was excellent. The major story line follows Tresayne Toria and her Torine sisterhood. These girls are the amazon warriors of Nexus and they would give Xena a run for her money. Completing the quests in this zone rewards the player with heaps of lore about the Eldan and how the Torine came to be. Toss in a couple of cut scenes and some gruesome monsters twisted by dangerous Eldan technology, Wildstar delivers several hours of immensely entertaining questing. Really, I am actually enjoying questing... a lot! And I only ever dabbled in RP very briefly on a WoW realm and I probably won't in Wildstar. But when I encounter a character like Tresayne Toria with such a rich back story, I feel like RP will be really amazing in the Wildstar setting.  We rushed through Malgrave.  Though this zone had it's merits, it was more bland than the zones that preceded and followed it. Grimvault came next and it was another truly epic zone. The southern portion of the zone was actually a bit buggy. There were lots of places where we'd freeze and get killed by mobs and certain mechanics seem to boot us from the game. After a rather frustrating hour or so, we made it to the north and all was right with the world. The zone had a truly epic quest line with a very satisfying conclusion. I found it challenging.

   Within Grimvault is a crashed Dominion ship called the Aziron that provides the setting for some of my favorite quests in the game. Players start out stumbling through the dark barely able see 10 meters in front of them. After some exploring and combat there is a short puzzle quest that upon completion, turns the power and lights back. It was quite a wow moment when I turned my toon around and looked over at the huge space I'd been running around in... there was so much more to go. The details and the vastness of it really blew me away.

  After completing Grimvault, we were both just a few bubbles from 50.  We headed to the Badlands but didn't take it in. We hit 50 and pretty much called it a night. Having made the journey all the way from wee level one, overall the leveling experience was much more fun than I thought it could be. Wildstar at it's heart is an MMO. In the end, players who like this type of game will find a lot that is familiar and expected.  However, the nuances of gameplay, the sci-fi comical setting, and the level and quality of detail provide a fresh experience. I do see one major flaw that could hurt the Wildstar's longevity, which I will discuss in my next post.  For now here is some video of my levelups.  I love the narrator!

Addons To Make This Beta Weekend Better For You!

Here are some addons that we reccomend you try this upcoming beta weekend. These should help you have a better game experience.

• Radar: We've already mentioned this one. I think it's great. It is easy to use. It will point out the direction of all lore objects once the player gets close (a range of about 300 meters I think). It points the way to all books, datacubes and Tales From Beyond the Fringe keys.  It will also show you to gathering nodes but I turned that feature off.
• JunkIt: The most useful feature of this addon is that it sells off the players grey items automatically. It can be set to also sell other items like weapons and armor below a certain quality threshold or always keep items that can be salvaged.
• Ern's Junk Repair: CORRECTION-this is the junk selling addon I currently use.
• NavMate: This is one we have not tried yet, but I installed it and plan on using it this weekend. It has several features but we are mostly interested in the coordinates display, in game clock, and the icons to MARK THE EVER ELUSIVE MAILBOX ON THE MINIMAP! 
• AuraMastery: This is another new one for us that I am very excited about. For former WoW players it seems to work a lot like PowerAuras did. What it does is put icons on your display to monitor things like cooldowns (awesome!), buffs, debuffs etc.

We hope you find this helpful.  Also, we'll be mostly trying to power our Dominion toons up to 50 this weekend but say hi in game.  On Nexus server: [Dominion] Dissko, VanessaRose.  Alizar server: [Exile] Gubjub, BettyKat

UPDATE: You can see the full list of addons Curse is hosting here: http://www.curse.com/ws-addons/wildstar.  Heal Buddy sounds incredible for healers.

The Ultimate Cross Game PvP

Carbine and Blizzard today announced an event bigger than any ever attempted between two rival gaming companies...

Cross Game PvP Battlegrounds
World of Warcraft vs Wildstar

This promises to be huge! Apparently, the Horde joins up with the Dominion to help pound some sense into those Exile scum. But the Alliance answers the call and brings their forces to help defend their sister faction. The fate of two worlds, Azeroth and Nexus are in the players hands. Beta testing will begin before Wildstar is even released! I can't wait! My spellslinger is gonna eat mages for breakfast. How awesome will it be to see a Granok and Orc warriors go head to head.  This is nothing short of fantastic!

On a serious note, Virika added her Quickstart Guide to Wildstar in the pages section to the right to the tabs above. We welcome any comments or suggestions. She'll put up a more advanced intro to the dungeons, adventures and PvP later.

Happy April Fools Day!

Farside of the MMOon

   I was sitting at work on Friday when I saw a post from JS Rowe about the surprise Beta Weekend. Needless to say, I was very excited and immediately regretted an earlier decision to work the whole day.  It turned to out to be a horribly rainy weekend so riding bikes was definitely out. Virika and I ended up investing most of our weekend questing on Nexus.

   Wildstar continues to impress me every time we play. There is so much I want to write about from the beta this weekend I will probably have to break it up into two posts. Most important is just how entertaining the game is. Every aspect of the game displays a fantastic sense of humor and never takes itself too seriously. However, the story lines, lore and zones still suck you in. We started off this weekend in Farside and so far this was my favorite zone. It was fun to explore and the questing was fun. I mean really fun. In other MMOs I have played, questing and leveling can often feel like a chore. Wildstar makes every bit of it exciting even when it's not really challenging. Sure, like any MMO there are the kill [x] number of these baddies kind of quests, but the zones themselves are so compelling that exploring and questing is even more fun. And there is ALWAYS something to make me laugh. So far, every zone is very unique and has it's own sort of character.  One neat aspect of Farside was that being on the moon, there was lower gravity. Jumping and floating made the whole area feel different. The missions were fun and there were some really awesome Eldan caverns to explore. We got to fly a bomber, slap around a bad guy prisoner and oh man are the shiphand missions AWESOME (I'll come back to these later). The soldier missions were challenging enough and we had a good time doing them.  

   The active style of combat is another thing that keeps me going through long play sessions. In games like WoW and SWToR, I often felt as though any player could face roll on the keyboard and still win most fights while leveling. Because of the dash and telegraph mechanics, Wildstar mobs will kill you if aren't paying attention. I'm not saying that its difficult but players have to be on their toes and take a very active role in every encounter. Spamming buttons while standing still will only cause the snarky narrator to make fun of you after you inevitably die.