132445-morning-coffee-925-in-to-the-sunset-edition

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The sun is setting on another chapter of the WildStar saga. This weekend marks the last of subscriber-only status. We may not even have a forum to post to on Monday, so the chances that this is the last "original WildStar" Coffee thread is pretty real. I am both anxious and a little sad.
 
So, today, instead of dwelling on what's to come, let's spend the morning talking about the good times we've had so far, in spite of (or because of) the path that's brought us all here.
 
My WildStar experience began in March of 2013. The wife and I both signed up for the Beta when we first heard about the game, but she got a very Early Access invitation, but wasn't into testing another game at the time, so she gave me her beta code and off I went.
 
Hearing those first strands of Kurtennacker's intro was like magic. The character selections were very limited back then but I made myself a Stalker (ROGUE FTW!) and ... zoned into a world unlike anything I had ever experienced in an MMO. We were level 3 already (no arkships then) and standing knee-deep in the snow of the Northern Wilds with no clue who we were, where we were or what was going on. It was like the first scene from LOST, where Jack comes stumbling out of the jungle and sees the airplane wreckage and bodies on the beach.
 
 
It was amazing, confusing, exciting ... and I was instantly hooked.
 
When I cast back on my fondest memories in WildStar, those very first minutes will always be the most special. I had been given the chance to discover something wonderful before 99.99% of the world even knew it existed.
 
Thank you, Carbine. Thank you, community. We may not all always get along, we might have our differences, but in the end, those of us who've stuck it out this long, or who were here and keep coming back, we'll always have something that the Freebots won't have - the knowledge that we saw Nexus the way it was intended.
 
Now, have a muffin and a cup of joe, and tell me what you've loved most.
 
 
Let's try and keep it positive and make this thread a good retrospective outlook.
			
				
	Edited September 25, 2015 by TexArcana	
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Phew, done with all the errands and finally back home. Woo.
 
Today I figured out that my cellphone is probably a bit old, at this point. Mainly because I discovered that the built in calendar it has... stops at the year 2014. :X	
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November 2013:
 
My friend Chris convinced me to sign up for betas. I dug my heels in because I really didn't care for the cartoon-y look of the game. I was totally ~meh~ about the whole thing, but Chris was a terrific player so I caved and signed up.
 
When I started playing in beta's I was Dominion. I liked them better than the Exiles but my friend was all like whoa whoa WHOA!! No way, get your ass over to the Exiles now!! So that is how I became an Exile  :wub: I tried to play Dominion off and on during the past 2-ish years but I always stopped because of Tex and Blazing Saddles  :)
 
Tex was one of the first people I got to know both on the forums and in game and the rest as they say, is history  :wub:
 
It's funny though, the first thing that bothered me about the game became one of the things I loved the most. The more I played the more I realized how wrong I was about the style. I think it's because the music and the lore just match the graphics so well that one becomes very attached to Wildstar. The humor and the love that was poured into the making of Wildstar is so apparent that you would have to be blind not to see it.
 
The community of Wildstar, both in game and on the forums has been incredibly wonderful and I'm hopeful that we can continue to show the love and support to all the new people that are coming. We 'old timers' need to do our best not to bite the troll bait that is sure to come until we build a community that is as awesome as this one has been  :wub:	
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My WS journey began when I was dating my wife- we both were single parents with kids and lived an hour apart. Meaning we couldn't see each other very often. I had this crazy idea to play an MMO together since we really could only see each other once a week (since we both pretty much had to be home most nights with our children). My sister pointed out WS to me, it came at the right time, so I figured we'd give it a whirl. Funny enough, the promotional video at that time was the "Warplots" one, so I thought this was a PvP game. I was surprised since my sister wasn't really into PvP, but I got in and played some beta, realized it had a strong PvE portion, and signed up girlfriend and I up.
 
So, the "let's play together" thing while we were dating didn't really work out. She played some, but I played a lot more. Pretty typical :)  But she's a nurse and works weekends, so I leveled my slinger and focused on my warrior just when she and I played together.
 
From the outset, I really enjoyed the humor of the game. The holocrypt guy made me laugh so much, and it was really one of the first indications to me that this was a different kind of MMO than I'd experienced in the past. Then I hit Stormtalon and I was a gonner. I got so addicted that all I wanted to do was run dungeons. I ran STL normal so many times while leveling that I hit 50 way after my friends. They were into crafting. And when I hit 50, all I did was run adventures so that I could get into Vet STL. Haha, that was SUCH A BIG DEAL to me. And the first time I go in a pug, I was nervous, got yelled at by a healer for being bad, and yet still managed to have fun. My other guildies indulged my love of dungeons, and allowed me to schedule time to run it. We pushed and pushed, and finally got Stormtalon down after many, many tries. I remember our first kill, because I was the lone person standing, Stormtalon was at 0%, and I was strafing as he bore down on me- that final assassinate and we got it. There was much chearing on TS. 
After that, it was on to KV and trying to silver Stormtalon. We merged into a bigger guild, and we all worked on the veteran dungeons. Had a blast learning them all and running them as much as we could. Was too much fun, and the raids were just way off limits. No way could I do something like that. But then we heard about a guy trying to pug X-89, so a bunch of us joined up and we wiped the floor for a bit. Guy ended up joining our guild and we started raiding. After a few weeks, we finally got X-89 down and I was hooked. Then, drop 3 hit and every just kind of left the game. We lost people, couldn't get a full group to raid, and so ended that raiding effort.
 
I got married in December. Up until that point, my wife casually played here and there, but it wasn't a big thing for her. She was still working weekends, so I just focused my WS time on that, and committed to not playing during the week for "family time". My old guild had disbanded, but a few of those folks still wanted to raid. I had met a new guild, and they also knew some folks looking to raid, so I started a raiding circle. We called it "Weekend Raiding" :)  And we raided on Fri/Sat because those were the nights my wife worked! So that started mid Jaunary of this year, and because I had experience with X-89, I became the automatic choice to lead the raids. We wiped on the minis over and over again, and finally got to "see" x-89 for a few pulls. And the next week we did it better and got to spend a whole four hours on X-89. I think it was maybe the week after that we got our first kill. It was so exciting! And this was a cobbled together group across multiple guilds, but we figured out a way to make it happen.
 
Back in those days, Kuralak was the big block. I never felt like a true "raider" until we got down Krualak. After that- well, then we started realizing we could actually do raiding in Wildstar, and it became a real focus. Phagemaw didn't take long to get down, and Prototypes was even easier. We actually downed Prototypes within two hours of our first pull. Very cool!
 
Then, one night my wife decided to play during a weeknight. She'd still done stuff here and there, but we decided to do a normal SSM. We got on TS, and that proved to be a magical moment. Everything clicked for her. SSM was long enough that she got to practice, understand how the mechanics of the game really worked, and have a lot of fun just cutting up and chatting with other people. It wasn't too long after that that I got a text at work that said "Ok, so this guy is throwing disks at me and I keep dying." I responded back "Are you in KV?" She said "I don't know- I just did a random dungeon!" And like that, she was a gonner- totally hooked on the game. She became OBSESSED with Vet SC and getting Mordaci down without dying. She would chain rune the place if she could. And I was as happy as could be.
 
At that point, it kind of sucked because I'd organized our raid schedule around playing when my wife was working, but now she really, really wanted to raid. I got her a pristine key and we did a run with Potential Intensity- and she just had a blast. She told me she wanted to be a raider. So here I was, a raid leader with a wife who wanted to raid, and she couldn't raid with us! No fun- especially since player with her was the whole reason we got into the game in the first place. So we pugged where we could, did a tone of vet dungeons, and she got a lot better at the game.Meanwhile, after drop 5 we found we were getting a lot of interested raiders, and so was the other major guild in our "circle". So we split off into our own raids. We got convergence down first, but then took several steps backward as we taught a bunch of new raiders what to do and geared up new tanks, etc. It was painful, but managed to make it work.
 
We began to find that people were getting tired on the four hour raiding schedule, and Saturday nights were continually under-manned. So we considered switching to a Tue/Fri/Sun schedule. And near that time, my wife moved to only working every other weekend. This ended up being fantastic, as she was able to start raiding with us most nights. Not am I getting to raid with my wife, but she turned out to be one of our top DPS. The guild got back to getting convergence down, we got ohmna down, and now we're working on SD.
 
Along the way I met a lot of cool people, have enjoyed countless dungeons, and WS has really been a great chance for my wife and I to have "together time" after the kids go to bed. She actually called into a radio show this week who asked "what have you picked up from your spouse" and she said "wildstar".So, anyway, that's my Wildstar story. Sorry for being overlong, but it's been an exciting time, and worth all of the time and money I've invested in it.	
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So, anyway, that's my Wildstar story. Sorry for being overlong...
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			Now I'm curious what my line would've been.	
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No way! These are exactly the kinds of stories I was hoping for!
 
Funny note, I was going to make a little "Here is what the regulars are going to talk about:" bit in the OP but decided I'd let everyone speak for themselves. Your line said:
 
"Jeff: Raiding Rules!"
 
 :lol: ;)
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Haha- it's true. Funny thing is that I played this game for a good six months before I earnestly got into raiding. But before that it would have been "Dungeons Rule!" :D
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Glad to hear that others play with their wives, too.  My wife and I met through games, comics and such and through tabletop gaming, then into MMOs.
 
Though we suffered from guild collapse due to the regional locks, we've always found Wildstar to be an amusing way to pass a few hours.  We like the dungeons too, but have not yet done any of the big raids in this game, as we play a couple of others where we can get the numbers both for small groups and for raiding while staying in our meta-org.
 
Personally I have fond memories of the journey to 50.  WS was the first game where I took one character to 50 very quickly, as we had a few people in the guild that simply couldn't be patient, but I am also an altaholic, so I had plenty of opportunities to poke into corners.  Also, of course, this game has the best housing system in existence.
 
Our play style is that, except for a very few times, "we don't leave games; games (or the gaming group) leave us".  That is, we stick with games and feel no inclination to simply play them for a month or two and leave.  The only things that drive us from them are terrible customer service or if all of the people we're gaming with leave.  Or, sometimes, the game closes.  ;)
 
Well, one way or another, we're still here and we both have subs to give the next phase a try and to see if enough others from our groups come back or decide to try it out.  Here's hoping: WS is more than entertaining enough to warrant a sub even when it goes F2P.	
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{| class="blockquote"
No way! These are exactly the kinds of stories I was hoping for!
 
Funny note, I was going to make a little "Here is what the regulars are going to talk about:" bit in the OP but decided I'd let everyone speak for themselves. Your line said:
 
"Jeff: Raiding Rules!"
 
 :lol: ;)
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My Wildstar journey began back in August of 2013.
 
It was all thanks to my son, who'd talked me into trying the game while it was still in Beta, as he had these big plans that we would play/level/adventure together in this "new and awesome" game once it launched. He seemed to the like the prospect of joining a game while it was still in its infancy, being "one of the vets" or something like that. As things go, however, plans change. His friends didn't want to take up a new game and convinced him to stick with League of Legends. So that left me alone in a brand new world, but once I stepped my foot in, there was no turning back.
 
I wasn't just trying a new game though, I was also trying a new way to play. Coming from 8+ years as a "clicker" in World of Warcraft, I decided that with a new game, I was going to try and actually use my keys/mouse more effectively. I don't think I play all that great now, per say, but if you had any clue as to how it was before WildStar, you'd know I've greatly modified my gaming habits. I've even had to "relearn" how to play WoW, to better fit my gameplay there to where my keybinds and such are at their most comfortable.
 
Now, while the combat in WildStar has definitely helped to change my way of playing.....WildStar's housing system...that's changed my life. While I do group content from time-to-time, including raiding with my guild, nothing keeps my attention more fully than housing does. If I'm not on my own plot building something, I'm snooping around others' homes looking to see what they've built. I've taken up livestreaming (something I never thought in a million years I would actually do) my projects and conducting house tours every week. When I'm not in-game messing with housing, I'm planning projects on paper, or just jotting down random notes and ideas about housing stuff. I help to maintain the big wishlist thread in the housing forum and a good many of the events I host for my guild are somehow housing related (like the custom-built decor challenge every month). I practically live, eat and breathe housing and everything I do now is with that system in mind. How I can promote it, share it, help make it better, etc.
 
Of course, housing isn't everything (though it's close ;) ), so I gotta mention the people. It's the people I've met and interacted with in this game that allows me to enjoy my time here (both in the forums and in the game, whether I'm buried in housing or not :P). I've been fortunate enough to find an awesome guild that's solid and supportive with just the right amount of friendly and goofy. The community in general is great, the Devs clearly passionate about the game and I can only see it getting better and better.
 
I am looking forward to this next step in our adventure together. It may be bumpy along the way, but it's gonna be a helluva ride. :D Wouldn't miss it for the world.	
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And here I am, two years down the road, and I've done exactly half of Stormtalon and one pass through Crimelords of Whitevale. :lol:
 
I am, however, committed to "starting over" on the Dominion, and as such, I am obligating myself to actually do group content this time around. That'll be fine, since everyone new will be just as bad as I am. :ph34r:
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			Dudes! I just posted the new "WildStar F2P Checklist" link to my Facebook page ... and if everyone who is replying or commenting actually comes to play, I will have twenty or more newblets coming in!	
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I discovered the joy that is raiding in SW:TOR.  When it was clear that the post-Dread Fortress/Dread Palace content drought wasn't going to end any time soon the guild I was part of there (Hyperspace Motivators) decided to start looking for another game and we stumbled across the Wildstar Winter CBT's.
 
Really long story short: While there was a lot to like about this game the level of customer service fail caused the loss of 30 subs about half of which moved on to WoW.  Now I was playing TOR and WS because I'm rather burnt out on the fantasy genre but I was willing to give it a shot because of the friends I had made.
 
Wow 6.0 brought about a class change that I simply couldn't tolerate and I didn't have any other characters even close to end-game so I came back to Wildstar full time.  (lesson learned: I've made an effort here to have other options available)
 
I've been raiding with TCO since late May/early June (only took me a year, lol) and it's been a blast.  While the transition is going to be a bit rocky I remain confident that I'll be able to continue with that :)	
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Somehow, the dungeons were a LOT easier the second time around (when I leveled my warrior). But at first blush, normal Stormtalon delivered much of the thrill that Karazhan in WoW did at the beginning of TBC end game.
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Good morning WildStar! 
I'm gonna keep it short cause typing a lot on the phone is a pain. 
My favorite memories are from beta. I got into beta due to an Alienware key give away, I think. I had kept an eye on WildStar since seeing a video of a sci-fi mmo where you kill dudes and they become bits flying everywhere. I think the video showed off warriors. But I never got a normal beta invite so had to wait. 
I decided to try both factions in the beta. I fell in love with Mechari but I really really wanted to play an esper. So I made an Aurin esper and off I went. Omg so much death. Being frozen in place reminded me of my hate for wow and final Fantasy xiv... But I am a huge sci-fi buff and I couldn't quit on one of the few games that was sci-fi not fantasy! 
 
I went into Stormtalon and we had so many people quit over and over. I eventually got to the end of it after two weekends. I loved all the chatting we did, I felt sorry for the poor esper healer who left cause she didn't feel she could keep us alive... Aweee. I think we got to the end with a Medic healer and a warrior tank. Learnt so much by trial and error, it was addicting. But still... Frozen in place half the time, oh how I hated it. 
 
So, with a sad heart, I gave up esper. I liked the challenge of it, I liked how squishy and weak they were, but standing in place or being melee both turned me off. So Mechari time. I had to make an engi because big guns + robot pets sounds heavenly to me. Holy shit, this was like I activated easy mode all of a sudden. I was aggroing mobs everywhere with impunity and just kiting circles around them while my abilities burnt them down. I didn't know how to feel. 
The moment I knew I had to play WildStar was my first kv. I ended up with a tank and healer team, sadly from a pvp guild, who invited me to their ts. We talked strategy, pointers, we wiped a few times, we laughed a lot. In that moment I wanted to raid in this game. (won't go into why I didn't, keeping it positive) 
 
I was still iffy about engi tbh even on live. Too easy after the suicidal way of the esper. But I eventually fell in love with engi in a kv run. Standing solo with boss at 0.01%, making my bot tank him while I bring him down. And this experience happened often, my engi was built like a truck and she stole victory from the jaws of a wipe many times. Only time in my life when I started to wonder if maybe I should play a tank. 
 
I still love engi. It's a wonderful complicated class to me. I miss the danger of being an esper, but I can't give up my metal armor. 
 
I'm getting all mushy. I hope to do group content again casually because the dungeons were the most fun I had in this entire game.
 
This was not short, omg. 
			
				
	Edited September 25, 2015 by DeaHamlet	
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My Wildstar Journey started in August of 2014. I did get an invite to the beta back in March, but decided not to pursue the game at that time because I was pretty big into ESO. ESO's entertainment value lasted a couple of weeks for me once I hit cap, but I didn't pick up WS until August, mostly because studying for the New York Bar consumed 60 or more hours a week of my life from May-July. I took my time leveling to cap and joined up with Perseus Veil after I hit 50, about a 2 weeks into september.
 
Playing with PV early was awesome! We ran dungeons and adventures together and we're all looking for that attunement to start raiding. I moved to DC in the middle of october and kinda ended up leaving the game for about 3 weeks. When I came back, we were starting to raid. We cleared GA in about 3 months together, with our early X-89 kill at the end of October and our Ohmna kill coming just before drop 4 in Feburary.
 
That Progression experience in GA was some of the funnest time I've had playing this game. 	
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Fun thread, hopefully the game will thrive come Tuesday. I'm not too worried about it, myself— although I've had some bias (and still do) toward F2P crowds, I don't think they're what they were six, seven years ago. Hated the idea of it back then. Now it's all changed though, I've played a bit of F2P, primarily Neverwinter when it launched. 
I started playing WS about a month before launch, dabbling in the beta. I saw some of the devspeak videos with a friend and the housing aspect impressed us. Although it doesn't do justice to what's possible in the game now, I'd always wanted to see housing done properly in an MMO.
 
When I played launch it was with a few people I knew from my old WoW guild. They were big PVPers so I ran games with them until 14th, then remembered "oh hey, there's some neat-o housing in this game!" Ran over to the Protostar compound and got my first skyplot. It was basically love at first try and I turned my piglet ship into a Firefly-themed tavern:
 
 
 
That was fun, but what really made me realize what was possible with Wildstar came when I built the upper floor of the ship. While constructing an engine I realized one could plug wires into what could be interpreted as sockets, then use bowl rims to give off the impression of nuts. At that point it became evident that the engineers behind WS's housing had managed to far surpass any housing system I'd have even imaged for an MMO.
 
 
 
That pretty much resolved me to play this game for a long time coming. Continued running PVP games with the dudes I came over with, selling everything from the reward bags just to keep building. :P  Eventually I hit 50th level, much later than others (as a few posters here have mentioned), and the main reason I even made it that far was to get gold for housing. From there I outlasted almost every person I'd befriended at launch; as they dropped off for various reasons related to progression and gamplay (not unusual for MMOs anyhow, the market had become so saturated), housing kept me around long enough to develop some decent artistic skills, which I'd never really had before. That last reason is why I encourage anyone and everyone to give housing a shot in Wildstar: It's not just a way to progress your character, it's an MMO experience unlike any other that creates a wonderful relationship between the game designers and the playerbase.
 
Lately I've had some struggles continuing with the game. Mostly build-up of angst over a few issues, but also because of life stuff. That said, drop 6 is coming on Tuesday, turns out I have no classes that day, and I'm resolved to look on the bright side again and keep building on Nexus (above Nexus?) for as long as I have the time. I keep saying this but it really is an unparalled experience right now.
 
 
For those of you who may be new to Wildstar and are interested in what housing can offer, here are some of my favourite shots from two recent builds, one Exile (just the interior of a spaceship, Hanabi is a travelling anthropologist and treasure seeker), the other Dominion (my main Proxima's plot, a machine city with underground cyberpunk lair):
 
 
Hanabi:
 
 
 
 
 
 
Proxima:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If anyone wants advice on housing, or even help getting decor and stuff, don't hesitate to ask. I'm usually on Proxima Dust but will be spending a lot of time on my alt for the first part of F2P— her name's Uta Gaus. Both Dominion.
 
 
Cheers!
 
(btw, I hope this post isn't too long with the pics; if so I can spoiler tag them)
 
 	
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So, out of those we fondly remember but miss, who was your favorite?
 
I miss the heck out of Vic and his gal. Sad that the very thought of F2P ran them off for good. Maybe some of the other "long lost forumites" will show back up though!	
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{| class="blockquote"
So, out of those we fondly remember but miss, who was your favorite?
 
I miss the heck out of Vic and his gal. Sad that the very thought of F2P ran them off for good. Maybe some of the other "long lost forumites" will show back up though!
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 Since this post is metaphorically our farewell to the old ws.. I will take this opportunity to be a straight shooter about my experience with this game. If anything good has come out of my experience playing wildstar it would be the learning experience of patience and tolerance for a video game. A set of virtues I never learned from other games.
 
While I don't want to sound pessimistic, my experience with wildstar has been riddled with murphy's law and many dissapointments sprinkled with some good times. A good example of this..today marks the 4th week after winning the musical score soundtrack from casual friday stream. I have yet to receive it. Though I sent a message asking if something had gone wrong.. I received no response. Does this upset me.. sure it does a little bit.. but most likely it had gotten lost somewhere in the mail so once again its a murphy's law rearing its ugly head and not so much carbine's fault. This is just a stated example of my experiences with ws and just bad circumstances in general. Im sure all of you can relate to it somewhat in one form or another.
 
Despite my personal experience where the pros greatly outweighed the cons. Like most of you, I believe in the potential of this game which is the primary reason we stuck around. With each drop the game has shown more and more of its valued potential, though it might not have happened over night like many players expect it to.. Its an ongoing work in progress and will continue to be so.. well into the future.
 
I don't see this transition in a negative light, I welcome it besides personally i have better luck in f2p games vs subs for some reason lol. There will be new opportunities to come, new experiences, new friends to make. As well as positive changes that will only enhance our gaming experience on nexus. Sure there are many uncertainties out on the horizon but its pointless to be fearful of them if we don't even know what they are.. 
 
This game has a future and one that is hopefully prosperous in the end. Sure ws is a diamond in the rough but its also a gem of a game as well.. lets hope others see it that way as well.	
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwNOuEVMobs
 
Oh god. I didn't know I needed that. Now I want it.	
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I'm pretty bad with timelines, but I started gaining interest in WS in early 2014. At that point, I had gotten my first full-time job and could actually afford a decent computer for once. I was playing Planetside 2 at the time (still a great game), but I had played WoW for a handful of years earlier and wanted to recapture that sense of community and friends and the "good times" I had from that. Now that I had money, I preordered (the first game I've EVER preordered) and got into the little preorder beta just before launch and felt pretty at home with the game. The controls were familiar, the combat was interesting, the world was immersive, but I still couldn't get the friends I knew from WoW to play.
 
So, I solo'd and pugged from 1 to 50 by myself in the hopes I would make new friends along the way, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I decided to get to 50 and see if I could just find a guild to join. I never liked large or powergamer type guilds. I prefer more casual guilds that just happen to do PvP and raiding as well. Unfortunately, by this time a lot of people were upset with a lot of stuff. Personally, a big locked me out of Drusera instances and I had been sitting on a ticket for weeks. Finally, I remember trying to do dailies to get beloved with exiles, but getting really fed up with the same tasks over and over again and no real endgame plan for myself or people to play with (even though I knew the content was there). I went back to Thayd to do something else and it was a ghost town. Finally I said "It's not worth it" and unsubbed. I would go on to be pretty jaded about it and sort of upset that I'd spent the time and money on a game that I was REALLY convinced had great potential, but just wouldn't work out.
 
I know you said to keep it positive, but that was my honest experience. The good news is I think that potential is still very much present, and even moreso now. I see a lot of capability in the game that it might not have had before and I really want to give it a second go. Hopefully I'll actually have people to play with this time (my friend finally came around to the idea and it planning on playing when he can).	
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I had never been into MMOs. I played Runescape when it first came out because I was a kid and it was free :P. I tried many, many MMOs after that (people kept asking me to play) but always lost interest quickly. While some were just boring to me, it was often the communities that were really the problem. I have an anxiety disorder and seeing players bickering in chat quickly makes me quit (or just solo the game until bored). That's more a personal issue and after a while I just concluded that I wasn't cut out for MMOs (and maybe that's true, ha).
 
My old roommate, however, loved MMOs and he was very, very excited for WildStar. He was in the beta and it was all he talked about for months. He kept trying to get me to play but I kept responding with "I don't play MMOs" and "I'm definitely not PAYING for one!" Finally, I got curious and checked out the website one day. I don't know why but seeing the races and classes got me interested. It was something about the style of the game.
 
I had a preorder so I played on launch. I had NO idea what I was doing. I remember trying to dodge auto attacks for a while :P. For someone brand new to MMOs (and also new to playing an action game on keyboard), the game was HARD. I have a memory of being in that spot in Deradune with all the Moodies. It's a narrow path up a cliff and there are some Primes that are really hard to avoid. I pulled too many mobs by accident, panicked and ran into a Prime, and panicked some more and fell off the cliff. I barely survived the fall but was now in a new zone with tougher monsters and I immediately pulled another Prime and died :P. And then I respawned and the Holocrypt guy said something about stealing my shoes and I just cracked up. I was hooked.
 
My roommate ended up quitting and never returned. I quit in October 2014 because I'm a casual player and there just wasn't much to do at endgame, the elder gem grind seemed endless, and attunement seemed impossible. I came back with the free trials, was just curious about some of the new content. A lot of the problems I had with the game had been solved, I loved veteran shiphands and contracts, and the people on global chat (EntityLFM) were so helpful and friendly! I'm having a ton of fun and am slowly getting more "serious" about the game :). And I got my boyfriend playing (thank you, $10 Gamestop boxes!) and he's enjoying himself a lot so far (he's level 24).
 
Found an early screenshot I took when I was new:
 
 
See you guys on the other side! :) I hope to see some familiar names on F2P day!
			
				
	Edited September 25, 2015 by Reekah Taz	
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Wonderful stories and experiences from everyone today. 
 
This thread makes my heart happy and fills my WildStar cup until it runneth over.
 
I'm gonna make dinner, feed the family and get me some game time!
 
See y'all over the weekend and on the flip-flop!
 
"Is that how you end an era, Tex?"
 
Why, yes, Other Tex. Yes, it is.
 	
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			Wow .... F2p is apon us Tex are you ready for me to come back?	
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Oh goodness. I have... a lot of memories connected to this game. xD
 
They start back in 2011 when I first caught wind of an MMO with a sci-fi western, Don Bluth-esque style. My husband and I were playing FFXIV at the time, and I was feeling pretty... frustrated with SE, to say the least, so I was kinda browsing around. The description was just absolutely captivating, and I was instantly smitten with the art style. So, I signed up to maybe get an invite into the closed beta! And then started interacting with the one WS forum that was around at the time (Wildstar Core or something like that... can't remember - it was actually where the devs posted xD).
 
My husband (well, then-fiance :3) was SUPER jealous when I got a closed beta invite... he made me play it while he was at work so he didn't feel too sad. xD Made an aurin esper the first time around. Second round of cbts was Dominion-side so I played Cassian instead (not that there were many options at the time xD). I remember feeling pretty engaged with everything and enjoying the combat (though the graphics were pretty crappy at the time... everything was super fuzzy/low-rez o_o it hurt my eyes). But I left Carbine some pretty scathing feedback on their female Cassian and aurin models. :P I loved the combat and such, but I was so turned off by the... ahem, character models that I ended up giving up on the game. I just couldn't do it!
 
Then I read an article about Carbine adjusting female models in response to player feedback, and honestly? I knew I'd be playing WildStar! :D Dove back into the closed beta to help test and... it's pretty much been a love affair ever since. I remember really wanting to play a Mordesh esper, from the moment Carbine released that teaser image of a rotten arm (Forsaken in WoW... undead4lyfe? lol), but... I think I'm pretty happy with my aurin as she is. :) Definitely would feel fulfilled if I could ever make a Mordesh esper, though.
 
Think my favorite memories have involved working on housing projects with my husband, AWESOME rp, and... that very first Stormtalon's Lair run. I think we've all had that memory. ;) Kind of WS rite of passage in a way? Experiencing STL for the first time was just intoxicating! I'd been so challenge-starved in FFXIV, so this was like a breath of fresh, delicious air. I'm also super glad we joined the Blazing Saddles. We were having a difficult time engaging with the community, and the guild really helped us connect with people outside our little "clique". I will cherish fondly my (more recent) memory of Jack and I's first time in SSM! Lots of wiping, but I had a blast!
 
[edit] I'd post my first screenshot, but it still has the watermarks on it... am I allowed to post those now?? xD
			
				
	Edited September 26, 2015 by Naunet	
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Then I read an article about Carbine adjusting female models in response to player feedback, and honestly? I knew I'd be playing WildStar!
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Wow .... F2p is apon us Tex are you ready for me to come back?
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			Bahahaha indeed. I thumbed my nose at those people. :P Of course, then we got body types (FROM OUT OF NOWHERE - seriously one of the best things Carbine has surprised me with xD) so... best of both worlds, I suppose! But yeah, the feedback I left for them during those CBTs about the character models was... not nice! :O	
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 i know you saw this tex.... you dont miss me
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