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WildStar

WildStar Wednesday shows off Eldan technology

by Eliot Lefebvre (3 days ago)

Sci-fi, Lore, Previews, News items, WildStar

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This has a name! I call her Vera!
Players might be exploring the world of Nexus in WildStar, but it's not their world. It belonged to the Eldan, and while the race itself might not be present, its technology is still everywhere. The newest installment of WildStar Wednesday takes a look at some of the automated robots left behind by the Eldan. They're not directly malicious, but they're also not particularly friendly, pursuing ancient objectives and antiquated functions with single-minded devotion.

While Probes are primarily meant for gathering information and surveillance, the floating eyes are equipped with shielding and directed-energy weapons to keep themselves safe. Protectors have a more direct combat function; the lumbering humanoid robots found gathered around important scientific sites. Last but not least, the Augmentors are rare but potent machines capable of injecting nanomachines into a subject to start a process of mechanical integration known as augmentation. Take a look at all of the machines on this week's installment of the preview column -- even if you don't necessarily want to blow these gadgets up, they don't have any such compunctions about you.

WildStar Thursday brings the Metal Maw action

by Elisabeth Cardy (9 days ago)

Sci-fi, Video, News items, Dev Diaries, WildStar

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WildStar Metal Maw
Metal Maw, the brain child of a live drawing session conceived at last year's Gamescom, is featured once again in this week's WildStar "Wednesday" -- and this time he's not just some concept art or a 3-D model but a fully animated death-bringer! Along with a test video featuring the big guy in action, this week's blog post has some information about the team's considerations in bringing him to life.

This destructive blue hulk is designed for about 15 level 6 players to fight at once and should give them about a three-minute battle. His abilities are designed so that things get steadily more interesting as the fight progresses. Now that the team's happy with the way he fights, Metal Maw's been put in a crate and shipped on over to the animation and effects team to get his final beauty polish before being totally ready for players in-game.

Skip below the cut to see the big guy in action!

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WildStar Wednesday discusses quality of life

by Elisabeth Cardy (16 days ago)

Sci-fi, Game mechanics, News items, Dev Diaries, WildStar

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WildStar
Mobility is key when you're adventuring on an exciting frontier planet. Taking this to heart, WildStar developer Carbine Studios is building in some quality of life improvements to speed Settlers along their way.

All players traveling on roads in WildStar will benefit from a speed boost, whether they're on a noble steed or going afoot. Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney mentions that, more than just cutting down on travel time, this allows developers to plan on players running into each other as they travel through the world as well as aiding in the design of exploration-driven content and proper timing of encounters. If players are really gung-ho about speed and being (profitable) good Samaritans, they'll have opportunities to add new taxi points to remote areas, pitch a vendor stall to sell mounts to lowbies, and set up speed-boosting machines at outposts, among other player-driven additions. Hopefully, this means that the more folks are in an area, the more luxuries are available -- or you can be the pilgrim running out into the wilds to spur on the advance of civilization.

Speaking of running out into the wilds, we know no one likes doing that only to get called in 15 minutes later to pick up a new quest. Players' communicators are a big part of the accessibility of the world in WildStar. Many quests can be picked up and turned in via comm call, freeing players from the drudgery of having to actually track people down. To sum up, Gaffney listed the goals of this design approach. "Focus on the fun parts of the game. Eliminate tedium. Keep the challenge in there for advanced gamers. Overall, let you play the way you want to play."

WildStar to support and encourage addons

by Justin Olivetti (23 days ago)

Betas, Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Previews, Dev Diaries, WildStar

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WildStar
While some fledgling MMOs may act coy or hesitant about including user-created addons for their game, WildStar is going the opposite route and embracing them full-on. Lead Client Engineer Jon Wiesman penned a dev blog explaining why Carbine is enthusiastically supporting addons for the game from launch.

Wiesman previously worked at EverQuest's Verant and is currently the driving force behind WildStar's UI engine. He reports that not only will players be able to change the look and layout of the UI from the get-go, but WildStar will support Lua to allow for addons and mods.

He assures potential players that creating such addons won't be a frustrating experience devoid of proper instruction and support: "If you can program at all, I promise you'll be able to make an addon for our game. Our commitment is to make sure the process is documented, clear, and accessible. Promise."

[Thanks to Bill for the tip!]

WildStar Wednesday showcases a rogue's gallery full of rogues

by Eliot Lefebvre (1 month ago)

Sci-fi, Lore, Previews, News items, WildStar

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Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
WildStar is shaping up to be a lot of things, but "peaceful" isn't one of them. Players watching the various previews already have an idea of what the more natural threats in the game world will look like. This week's installment of WildStar Wednesday focuses on a much more human element, however: three different criminal organizations that all have a decided interest in the region of Algoroc. As if the wildlife wasn't bad enough, you have to contend with all manner of criminals as well.

Marauders are intergalactic pirates, the Darkspur Cartel is essentially an interstellar mafia, and the Crowe Gang is a group of smugglers and moonshine brewers. But all of them have an interest in Algoroc, and none of them are open to outsiders or anything law-abiding in the area. That means players are going to have to face off against all three, and from the looks of the preview, none of these groups will go down easily.

WildStar Wednesday tours Algoroc

by MJ Guthrie (1 month ago)

Betas, Sci-fi, Lore, New titles, Previews, News items, WildStar

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WildStar
Who doesn't fancy a trip to the wild and lawless frontier to try to strike it rich? Blue crystal fever has spread in Carbine Studios' sci-fi title WildStar, and galactic prospectors will have the opportunity to stake their claims in the new land of Algoroc. Complete with boomtowns, murders, slave-traders, rampaging killer security bots, and ancient ruins, this place sounds perfect, right?

Shake off those civilized shackles and prepare for a gritty adventure. Adventurous types can head toward Tremor Ridge, a small mining camp in the western part of the land. Though the area was dangerous before, recent attacks by space pirates make the stay there just that much more exciting. Fancy a trip to a boomtown? Head east to Gallow, where the the peace needs to be kept after the local lawman was brutally murdered. Or if you prefer ancient civilizations to current ones, an Eldan facility is being excavated in the western mountains -- just watch out for the security system that the archaeologists accidentally triggered!

WildStar records score, dishes out free music

by Justin Olivetti (1 month ago)

Betas, Sci-fi, Video, Previews, WildStar

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WildStar
This week's WildStar spotlight takes the focus off the look of the game and puts it on the melodious strains of its soundtrack. In it, Carbine Studios Lead Composer Jeff Kurtenacker steps in front of the camera to talk about creating and recording the score for this upcoming MMO.

"The recording process is pretty fascinating and pretty complicated, actually," Kurtenacker began. He said that the score starts with his recording basic MIDI tunes for use in the game's early testing. Following that, he assembles musicians to record the proper score, including "cues" (short pieces) and longer tracks.

His favorite part of the recording day comes when there's silence right at the beginning and then the first notes fill the air. "That always to me is a fantastically amazing moment," he said.

On top of the video, which you can check out after the jump, Carbine's provided two free music tracks to download and enjoy: Enemy Camp Battle and Rescue Mission.

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Newest WildStar Wednesday talks about creatures like a boss

by Eliot Lefebvre (1 month ago)

Sci-fi, Lore, Previews, News items, WildStar

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Spew venom! (like a boss) Consume adventurers! (like a boss) Spawn monsters! (like a boss) Eat a bagel! (like a boss)
When you're out in the wilds of WildStar, you're going to run into some creatures strong enough to throw you to the ground. That's why this week's installment of WildStar Wednesday discusses the minibosses one can expect to find out in the Northern Wilds. Only three of the denizens are given a full writeup, but the triumvirate should be more than enough to give potential players a sense of what dangers lurk in the planet's unexplored regions.

If you like your enemies with a thick carapace, the Xenobite Queen should be right up your alley, complete with vile poison and ravenous young. If you'd prefer to be pounded into the dirt by a mechanical emissary of the Dominion, the Ultrabot should provide you with all the laser-guided missile-flavored death you could want. Or you could face down a Frost Giant and enjoy watching a long-haired beast with poor eyesight hammer you into oblivion. It's all interesting flavor for fans of the game's development thus far, and it includes small factoids about the beasts that should prove completely irrelevant when fighting them. The more you know.

WildStar Wednesday highlights the deadly denizens of planet Nexus

by Matt Daniel (2 months ago)

Sci-fi, News items, WildStar

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Screenshot -- WildStar
WildStar's planet Nexus is a wild, untamed place full of various flora and fauna. It just so happens that a good chunk of said flora and fauna wants to eat your face. Thankfully, the fine folks over at Carbine Studios have decided to give players a leg-up on the competition by providing them with a bit of insight on some of the savage creatures they'll encounter in the dark corners of the planet.

The spotlight today is on three species of things-you-don't-want-to-meet-in-a-dark-alley. First off, we have masses of sentient fungus known as rootbrutes, and if their name doesn't tell you everything you need to know about 'em, then we're not sure how to help you. If that's not enough to make you think twice about your next vacay to planet Nexus, maybe the Girrok will give you pause. These huge, stocky quadripeds are known to rip boulders from the earth for a rousing game of bowling, except players are their pins. To top it all off, we have the "barely sentient" Skeech. Despite their near complete lack of intellect, the Skeech are apparently accomplished cooks... of people. So if a Skeech says it wants to have you for dinner, it doesn't mean a dinner party.

WildStar Wednesday: Shiny hover bikes

by Elisabeth Cardy (2 months ago)

Sci-fi, Galleries, Screenshots, News items, Dev Diaries, WildStar

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Yes shiny is a Firefly reference. No I do not confuse the two universes.
Everybody's favorite extraterrestrial bunnyfolk make an appearance in this week's WildStar Wednesday. While the blog is light on text, it makes up for that with some lovely shots of a female Aurin tooling around on the hover bike we've all come to know and envy from WildStar's first cinematic. A couple of the shots show off the game's lovely scenery while the Aurin performs what would be a wheelie if the bike ever had two wheels on the ground to begin with. Dreaming of the day that you, too, can nab a joyride on this beast of a hover bike? Hop on over to the blog page to check out all the shots, or browse our WildStar gallery to get an eyeful.

Gallery: WildStar

WildStar Wednesday examines redundancies in quest text

by Eliot Lefebvre (2 months ago)

Sci-fi, Game mechanics, New titles, Previews, News items, WildStar

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I've been in a firefight before... well, in a fire. Actually, I got fired.
Can you really produce a meaningful set of quests while keeping each snippet of text down to 140 characters? The team developing WildStar certainly thinks so. In a previous installment of the regular WildStar Wednesday feature, fans were introduced to the concept, but this week's developer diary is all about explaining how you keep all of the flavor of a quest while trimming it down to the bare minimum necessary. It's not about stripping out flavor -- it's about exactly the opposite.

Senior narrative designer Cory Herndon explains by example that a lot of quest text winds up repeating unnecessary facts or stating something that should be immediately clear. Herndon starts with a longer example of quest text and steadily pares it down to the most important bits of information, keeping all of the flavor while posting each bit of communication in quick and comprehensible bursts. Combined with the discussion of adding further bits of quest dialogue after important objectives are completed, the diary shows just how you can get a lot of flavor into the quests without quite as many fancy words.

WildStar unveils questing with a Twitter budget

by Eliot Lefebvre (3 months ago)

Sci-fi, Previews, News items, WildStar

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No force in the 'verse can stop me.
Nobody likes reading quest text. Having to sift through five paragraphs of text just to figure out what you're doing isn't anyone's idea of a good time. The latest entry in the WildStar Wednesday series of developer blogs is all about how the team has tried to do away with mind-numbing and ponderous quest text. And the narrative design team does so by paring down quest text to a quick snippet no longer than a Twitter post.

While there are ways to construct smaller entries, of course, the entry discusses how the 140-character limit makes for a good building block to keep players engaged -- it's short enough that you can read it quickly but not so short that it omits important information. In addition to showing a quest get brought down to a quick bite-sized snippet, the entry also talks about keeping control in the hands of the player and letting the story unfold organically, both things that should be of interest to WildStar fans eager for more information.

WildStar's Troy Hewitt talks about the game's design philosophy

by Eliot Lefebvre (3 months ago)

Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Interviews, New titles, Previews, News items, WildStar

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It never goes smooth! Why can't it ever go smooth?
It's likely to be a while longer before anyone gets to lay hands on WildStar's beta, much less the finished game, but there's still a lot to look forward to. A recent interview with producer Troy Hewitt might help salve a bit of that anticipation as Hewitt discusses the game's design philosophy and content systems. As he explains, Carbine Studios embraced the idea that players should be allowed to play how they want, when they want, and with whomever they want.

This extends to the game's content at multiple levels; Hewitt explains that solo and group content shouldn't be at odds, that even people who prefer to level and play solo are still enjoying the fact that they experience a persistent world with other players. There's also a lot of talk about players crafting their own stories as they explore the game world, something augmented by the game's split between different player types. Take a look at the full interview if you're following the game avidly, as there are plenty of interesting tidbits -- even if you might have preferred a release date.

WildStar Wednesday talks about the game's narrative design

by Eliot Lefebvre (3 months ago)

Sci-fi, Culture, Previews, News items, WildStar

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This is your captain speaking. We're having a little problem with our entry sequence, so we'll be experiencing some turbulence followed by... exploding.
Unless you were at PAX Prime last year, about all you've seen of WildStar in action has been the game's cinematic trailer. While it didn't give much of an idea of how the game played, said video certainly had a lot of style. According to the latest WildStar Wednesday community blog post, that style was a big part of the game's narrative design, which is seen as one of the main points of development -- making a game that feels large, engrossing, and epic.

As lead designer Chad Moore explains it, the narrative design team is responsible for outlining the world of Nexus, which was in part created to serve as a perfect locus for a variety of different adventures. While this design team isn't particularly concerned with mechanics, it is concerned with ensuring that every part of the game has the same degree of personality as the first cinematic trailer. If you're one of the many people anticipating the game heavily, take a look behind the scenes to see how it produces its feel.

WildStar discusses the exotic and alien human race

by Eliot Lefebvre (3 months ago)

Sci-fi, Lore, Previews, News items, Races, WildStar

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Try and read the entry out loud without trying to fit in the word 'shiny' or 'verse' a couple times.
Humans are the standard basis for comparison in games that feature non-human races, almost as if said games were being made by humans for other humans. But there's still a distinct flavor to the human race depending on the setting. Case in point, the latest WildStar "interview" with one of the three lore characters from the cinematic trailer gives players a peek at a typical human, and he's a bit different than what you might have been expecting.

While the other major characters identify a specific world as "home," humans are portrayed as being a bit more free-forming, having roamed out in space for so long that they're really not bound to a location. The entry also discusses some of the lore behind being an Explorer and some of the perils associated with intentionally venturing into the unknown (it involves lots of things that try to eat you, if you need the short version). If you've been enjoying the flavor of the world Carbine Studios is slowly building, you'll probably enjoy this latest look as well.

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