122692-wildstar-the-almost-a-year-review

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I remember back in WoW, half a year before the release of WoD (after they announced various changes and whatnot), I started asking around for a new game to play. WoD was killing WoW for me, and even though that game was my childhood and so much more to me, I just couldn't stay and watch Activision slowly kill the game that I loved -- it was becoming incredibly boring in WoD anyway, so I didn't want to play the game at all. That's when I heard about Wildstar. A game being developed by the same people who made Vanilla Wow, and promised to be everything gamers wanted out of the genre these days. I looked it up, and watched a Dev Speak video about the game... and it looked incredible. I kept watching videos and watching videos, learning as much as I could about the game. I signed up for all the betas, and pre-ordered the day I could (and sat through the website crashes and DDOS attacks to reserve my name). I was so excited for the game! On release day, I was literally shivering while trying to log in (Pergo had a queue that was like 8 hours long to get in).
 
So I started playing the game. I was having a blast! I mean, who wouldn't? The game was great for a few weeks, I tried out the classes and races, all that. So then I settled on a Spellslinger, and leveled her to about 30, but then, even though this was a new game and I had never gotten through the questline before, I just totally burned out. While the art style is bright and quirky, bringing loads of personality and life; and even though the music is fantastic for an MMO (though I still don't think it's particularly good on its own); even though the classes were fun and interesting concepts; even though the game was filled with humor and personality... it just wasn't fun. So, why wasn't it fun? Well, at first I didn't know. It could be anything, really. After a while though, I figured out what it was: the combat was just... I don't even know how to describe it. Simplified to the point that it's mind-numbing.
 
Remember how I said I played WoW? Well, the combat there was fantastic. It was the best in the genre (until WoD came out), in my mind. It was fast-paced, fluid, dynamic (meaning you don't repeat into infinity), was as complex as you wanted it to be and it was engaging and just all around fun. Every class was unique and had their own playstyles to go along with them. A Shaman was fast-paced and hectic, weaving magic and melee together to just destroy things, while a Paladin would slowly build up to a huge burst of damage, and had a cyclic rhythm to it. The classes were more or less balanced, though some had a niche they could fit into as well. Now, the playstyles in WoW weren't static, unless you made them that way. If you played the class a certain way, the rotation could hardly be called a rotation at all. Sure you might have a priority system, but it was constantly changing and adapting - to the extent that no two fights were the same.
 
Now, how about Wildstar combat? Well... it's fast-paced for sure, but that's about all it has going for it. The classes are more or less identical in Wildstar; every class has a builder and a spender, and in order to maximize damage, you have to maximize your spender usage while getting as much secondary damage between uses as you can. All the classes have slightly different approaches to this, but they all do the same thing, really. The mechanics behind the abilities are just about non-existent, leading to very stale and flat combat, whereas in WoW almost every ability had so much more than just damage to it. In Wildstar, combat is you holding down one or two keys, and spamming a few other keys on cooldown, while keeping a couple other keys for interrupting and buffing and all that. Does that sound like much fun? Of course not! So what did Carbine do? They made combat that forced you to move and pay attention, and took effort to do well in -- or that was the plan, anyway. The fights in Wildstar are pathetic, in my opinion anyway. The majority of the mechanics are skipped because of interrupts, and the "mechanics" you can't interrupt involve dodging red 9/10 times. The odd time that you don't just dodge red to deal with a mechanic, it's something so simplistic that you would have to be literally braindead to not be able to handle it. Even after doing GA several times (the first raid), which is supposed to be HARD, I just don't have any faith in the game. The only hard part about raiding in this game is dealing with 19 other people who are just as likely to wipe the group as they are to correctly handle a mechanic. Want to know how many fights involve you standing on the boss for 90% of the fight and just going through your 1-2 button rotation? Just about all of them.
 
Playstyles aside, there was one other thing that really killed Wildstar combat for me. The LAS. The Limited Action Set was supposed to make the game dynamic, force you to adapt to the situation at hand, and make the combat intelligent, rather than just a faceroll. As with many things though, it didn't really work out as intended. Since the game requires you to interrupt some things, you lose slots to those; the buffs that some classes hand out are just too good to pass up, so you lose slots to those as well. Now, the classes (minus SS) have one build that works. If you deviate from that, or remove some of your "mandatory" utility / interrupts, you're more of a detriment to the group than a benefit. So the LAS was supposed to give you freedom over how you play, but instead pigeon-holed you into playing one way, or not at all. I don't know about you, but only having 4-5 slots I can freely pick abilities for is just pathetic. Not only that, but because you can make any combination of abilities you want, the classes can't have any interesting mechanics either, lest you make overpowered combos. So we get a bunch of watered down abilities that I just can't help but question -- they have no synergy, no combos, nothing. You just have damage on your bar that somehow modifies your class resource. There are VERY few abilities that affect others, and they usually (minus one ability) just reduce the CD of another ability. Where's the engaging combat?
 
So, my first major issue with Wildstar is that we have combat is so mind-numbingly simple that I just can't play for more than a couple hours without falling asleep. The majority of my WoW friends and family that I convinced to try the game immediately left or didn't try it once I told them how the combat was. It's just not good, sorry.
 
Along those same lines is the lore. Since most people these days treat reading like it's some kind of deadly poison, they have a little tantrum if they have to look through quest text or read something in-game. Because of that, Carbine just went and developed lore that is spotty, filled with holes, and just isn't intuitive or easy to follow. Instead of having each zone be a chapter in a book unfolding, we have some cheesy attempt at being a movie and just explaining itself. "Tweet-length" quest text is just the silliest thing I've ever heard. One of the biggest reasons I enjoy video games is because of the lore; to get engrossed in a story and to live in another world. In Wildstar, that just doesn't happen. There is no lore to absorb, there's just a minimal backstory to justify the game being anything more than an instance lobby.
 
 
So my last little rant will be about the game's development and coding and all that. This game was in development for over eight years, and has the smallest world I've ever seen in a P2P MMO. I just don't understand how that's at all possible. The game runs like an old car you found in your grandparent's backyard that somehow miraculously starts (but dies 10 feet later). The game has so many bugs, graphical glitches, poor animations... you name it -- it's just mind boggling.
 
There's my review of Wildstar after playing for (almost) a year. Now, if I have such a negative review, why would I still be playing, right? Well, as much as I don't like the combat in Wildstar, there's literally no alternative. FFXIV is just awful with the 3s GCD and carbon copy abilities; GW2 has zero content or challenge, and can be won by spamming keys (sounds familiar!); WoW is just Facebook the MMO, and all the classes were gutted; AA is just like any other Korean grindfest; SWTOR is a cheap knock-off of WoW with a Star Wars skin... you get the picture. Wildstar is the best there is, even though I don't particularly enjoy it.
 
Pros
Bright, quirky art style that has a lot of life, rather than being dark and gritty like most games these days.
Fast-paced combat
Fantastic music for an MMO (though it fails to stand up on its own, imo)
An interesting story, albeit jumbled and poorly presented
Humor and personality all throughout the game
Cons
TERRIBLE performance
Tiny world and little content despite 8 years of development
Combat built for monkeys or something, so simplistic and easy it hurts
The LAS that limits you beyond any kind of rationality and alienates 80% of your ability list
Mechanics that I feel a toddler could handle, the majority of which are skipped by using interrupts
Classes that are so generic that they feel like copies of one another with different aesthetics
A UI and overall feel that makes me feel like I'm playing a game from the 90s
Lots of bugs
Animations that are so slutty and sexualized it's just depressing
Very ugly faces on all the characters, no customization for the massive cheekbones or wasp waists, etc.
Lore that is so jumbled and poorly delivered that I can't be sure there even is a story in Wildstar.
Very repetitive, spammy playstyles
etc.
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Just so this is on the first page and the OP, here's my little breakdown of all the comments so far.
 
 
 
Okay, so, I was going to rewrite my post to clarify a few things, but I'm not going to bother. Instead, I'll just reply to the various comments here.
 
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"Omg, stop idolizing WoW, take off the rose-tinted goggles"
 
I only compare the game to WoW because I spent 10 years of my life playing that game nearly every day, and I know the game and all its mechanics very well; it's just a solid place I can relate other games to. I'm in no way saying WoW was perfect, nor was the combat perfect, but it was more fun than I have in Wildstar. Sure, nostalgia makes everything seem better, but WoW was just a quality game until recently, so the rose-tinted goggles aren't really necessary to have a good opinion. There is a reason that the game has had over 10 million concurrent subs throughout time. (More than once, if I remember right!)
 
"WoW combat was hard? Please, I used 2-5 out of my 40 abilities!"
 
Yeah, in WoW, you had something called optional complexity, something Wildstar VEHEMENTLY opposes. In WoW, you could simplify your rotation down to be streamlined and efficient while being easy to play, hence the 2-5 button rotations, and you would do the average, expected DPS, healing or tanking. However, all those abilities that just sit on your bar were valuable tools for other players; some people would take all those abilities and find a way to weave them all together, greatly improving the class's power in the selected role. If you played WoW at all, you know what a Fistweaver was -- that's a perfect example! If not, Monks had two ways of healing: First, they could stand and spam heals, like most healers did in WoW, or they could weave together a melee DPS rotation and a healing rotation, increasing their healing output by 2 or 3 times, improving utility, and adding enough damage to qualify as a low-geared DPS. The stand and spam playstyle was ~5-8 buttons, while Fistweaving used ~20. That applies to every class, too! My Shaman used ~13-15 abilities (Enhancement), my Druid used ~11, my Paladin used ~10-15 depending on what was going on, and so on. The classes were easy if you wanted them to be, but if you put in that extra effort, the class paid off far more than the "efficient" rotations did -- and we don't have that in Wildstar, unfortunately. Everyone is on a flat line, and gear + up time determines how well you do.
 
"Wildstar combat is the best thing it has!"
 
Well, I wouldn't agree with you. Sure, the combat is very good for the  genre, and it is fun, but it loses its appeal rather quickly -- in a game that's meant to be played for long periods of time, that's not such a good thing. The combat is flashy, fast-paced, and intuitive, but it's also very simplistic, spammy and easy - to the point that I sometimes nod off during fights (even in raids). Instead of being forced to deal with all of the mechanics, you can interrupt most things in dungeons, thereby effectively skipping a mechanic. The majority of abilities do NOT require you to interrupt them in order to beat the encounter, however a few do. I know most people don't agree with me, but occasionally dodging red does NOT merit such a simplified combat style.
 
"The LAS is SUPPOSED to limit what you can do!"
 
Yeah, I understand the concept of the LAS. Normally, it would limit you so that you can't have the perfect build for every situation in the game, but that's just not how it works out. What was promised to be freedom is instead a shackle and a chain, forcing you to run certain abilities and use certain builds, or you don't perform at all. Because of the way interrupts in the game are handled, you can't run a build without interrupts, or you could potentially wipe the group, or at the very least make some enemies. Then, we have raid buffs that most groups almost require you to run, and when you tell them that you don't, you don't get invited to the next raid. I get the concept of the LAS, but the system we have is just far more limiting than what I think is reasonable.
 
"Such Tahlie, much troll" (Did I do that right? xD)
 
Look, I know people don't like me, especially when I have negative opinions about things - but they're just that, opinions. I'm a very blunt person, and I don't try to sugarcoat things for people. That may come off as me being a troll, but I promise I'm not. If you don't like my opinions / ideas, cool, just ignore them. No one is forcing you to read anything I type... or shouldn't be, anyway.
 
"The lore is great! What are you talking about?"
 
Okay, so let's look at WoW again. In WoW, the quests had more text than 140 characters, which enabled the devs to tell a story through them. Each zone was like a chapter in a book, or a smaller book inside of a larger book (the world story), and was coherent and easy to follow. You felt like you were a character in a story, the way they handled quests. I do love the Wildstar lore, but the majority of the lore we're given isn't active lore. Active lore is when you are a part of a story as it unfolds, and you learn something about characters, places, enemies, and so on. Because Carbine decided to go with the whole "movie" idea for questing, a lot of it is muddled and foggy. You don't learn much about the game while questing, but rather you're given little books and notes and whatnot that give some insight -- but that insight is not current or active, it's just something you do on the side. The lore would be far better if it was a part of the game itself, rather than a sideline show.
 
"Slutty characters? What?"
 
Yeah, they really are slutty, if you look at them. First, the female models all have very, very disproportionate bodies, with exaggerated chests and waistlines (huge hips though). That would be fine on its own, honestly, since most games / animes / cartoons are designed like that. What really throws it into the "bad" area is how the females move. If you watch any female character (minus Aurin) move, they wave their butts around like they think they're in a porn shoot or something. I know it doesn't bother most people, but I can hardly stand playing a race other than Aurin. Yes, I know the males are a bit exaggerated as well, but they're not manwhores.
 
"The game is just as big as Vanilla WoW!"
 
No, it's really not. After 8 years of development, we have one questing path, and a handful of daily zones. I'm sorry, but that's just not a large amount of content, and for the length of time they worked on this game, it's actually kind of abysmal.
 
"You gave no input on how to fix things! Mods, ban this man!"
 
I've tried to give ideas and feedback before, and every time I did, people harassed me and flamed me so much that I had to ask the mods to remove my posts so that people would leave me alone. Everyone likes to pick on me and say I just torment people, but who's really doing the tormenting? All I did was give opinions, and the majority of the population freaked out and attacked me. So I'm not going to give Carbine ideas, rather I'm just going to point out what needs work and where, in my mind.
 
"The community here is great!"
 
It really isn't, honestly. The community in Wildstar is fine for most people, but if you're like me, then the community is more than venomous. Group content is also very exclusive, with the way the population perceives the dungeons / raids. If you don't run a build that people agree with, then you don't get to run content. With the way raid lockouts are set up (per group, instead of per boss like every other MMO is), you really can't raid without a dedicated guild spot. Most people have no issue at all finding a guild, but if you do something to tick off the raiding guilds, then you just don't get to raid and get anywhere. You have to play by their rules, and do what they say, or you don't raid. So, yeah, the community isn't the best, but it's mostly just a problem of such a small population more than anything.
 
"Almost a year? There are more than three months left!"
 
Yeah, well, I played my first beta in March, which is just a couple weeks away. So, for me, it's been almost a year. ^^
 
"Why are you still playing if you obviously hate it so much here?"
 
Well, that's a good question. I've done a lot of MMO hunting in the past few months, and while there are lots of games out there with their own appeals, none of them really appeal to me all that much. I'm not like most gamers these days, and I don't enjoy the same kinds of things. Really, I'd still be playing WoW if it wasn't for Activision totally gutting the game and ruining it for me. While I don't "love" Wildstar, I do enjoy playing it - but extended play times just really wear on me. So, why do I still play? Because it's fun to play in short bursts, and while I think it's easy, it's still the hardest game on the market that I'm aware of. That's why I roll so many alts, and I have other games I play every now and then too.
 
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Okay, so there are my responses to all the comments. Did I miss anything?
 
(Oh, and people are saying I must not have ever done the content, bla bla, yadda yadda... I've done all the dungeons (even Protogames) so many times I can do them with my eyes closed just about, and I've gotten 6/6 in GA several times over. The only place I haven't been is DS. So I do know what I'm talking about, whether you believe it or not.)
 
 
			
				
	Edited February 20, 2015 by Sciela	
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Yeah.....this hasn't been posted to *cupcake* people off or anything.....
 
Don't get you. You post a thread apologizing for antagonizing folk, then post this	
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I don't antagonize people, is the thing. If anything, all you people who troll me are the ones antagonizing. I just have opinions and ideas that don't line up with the rest of the community (that still plays), and get harassed for it - passively ticking people off without even meaning to.
 
Video game companies take good feedback and negative feedback one and the same - both help them make a better, more profitable game. I'm allowed to have an opinion just as much as you are. ^^
 
Besides, these aren't just my opinions. I'm also talking for a few family members / WoW friends who quit a while ago.	
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As a pre-preemptive post. We do encourage constructive discussion, and love feedback. Both negative and positive. However, please remember to keep personal attacks out of it, and keep it on topic, polite, and constructive. Discussing the game is great, discussing one another, not so much. There are better places for that than our forums. 
 
Thank you.
- Team WildStar 	
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If anything, all you people who troll me are the ones antagonizing.
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			Yep, I know you guys don't like it when people harass each other on here, Chillia. Just kind of happens if I'm the OP, haha. xD Should see the in-game chat. :P I wasn't planning on responding anymore unless it was like, constructive, so hopefully it stays away. >.>	
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You are very plainly being extremely antagonising, I could go back in your post history and show you some of your behaviour on these forums, including insulting one of the people who put their heart and soul into the game. How you could even put the "fantastic" music into your post for a pro after reading your absolute bullcupcake about how wildstar's music is "Terrible" and "boring" I don't know :/
 
So yet again, after that I'm reading this with a pinch of salt.
 
Seen as most of this post was just rambling about how WoW is superior and yet another rant about how the combat here sucks, yet you continue to play it (lol), I'll ask yet again, in another thread of yours Sciela, why do you still play this game if you hate it so much? 
 
Anyway, I'll go into detail. I too was a WoW fan, even played wildstar beta and wow hand in hand, enjoyed WoW a lot, but wildstar had me pumped, for what reason? The combat. It makes pvp(when it's not a train wreck) fluid and unpredictable, it makes pve fun to play, it makes the game more need to be attentive to.
 
You say that the combat is easy, and that wow is "not static" and is "flexible" compared to wildstar which is "boring". Now I'll tend to disagree, WoW is extremely simplistic in it's tab-targetting combat, the rotations are boring (it's as 1-2-burst you complained about for wildstar), the classes have been ruined in the past few expansions, and the content which is huge (bearing in mind is a 10 year old game) is also one of the slowest games that brings out content for it's users. I'm talking slow, leaving people playing the same thing for over a year at a time, with NO updates. Wildstar, whilst it may not be as big as wow (seen as it hasn't had 10 years to develop 6 continents full of quests) still has time to build up new content for us, what did you expect? /shrug
 
Again, the LAS... What did you expect from something called: "LIMITED action set". You seem to be in the minority on this opinion, tbh.
 
As for why your friends and family didn't come back, here's the kicker: You explain to them "Oh yeah this game is alright, it looks nice but, THE COMBAT SUCKS, THE MODELS SUCK, WOW IS BETTER, PLAY WOW, IM BORED OF THE COMBAT, DID I MENTION THE COMBAT IS BAD? SO YEAH HAVE MY OPINION OF IT BEFORE YOU EVEN BEGIN... BtW DID I MENTION THE COMBAT SUCKS>?" How is that meant to sell a game to anyone? You give them the recommendation to the game, then let them forge their own opinion.
 
{| class="blockquote"
 
Along those same lines is the lore. Since most people these days treat reading like it's some kind of deadly poison, they have a little tantrum if they have to look through quest text or read something in-game. Because of that, Carbine just went and developed lore that is spotty, filled with holes, and just isn't intuitive or easy to follow. Instead of having each zone be a chapter in a book unfolding, we have some cheesy attempt at being a movie and just explaining itself. "Tweet-length" quest text is just the silliest thing I've ever heard. One of the biggest reasons I enjoy video games is because of the lore; to get engrossed in a story and to live in another world. In Wildstar, that just doesn't happen. There is no lore to absorb, there's just a minimal backstory to justify the game being anything more than an instance lobby. Thanks to the ADD generation, we've lost yet another aspect of gaming.
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There are different opinions I guess, personally I tried out WoD after 6 months playing W* and I just wanted to pull my eyes off. No dash, no sprint, no telegraphs, no MoO... The only thing you can do against mobs is interrupting them and sucking the rest while executing your rotation.
 
Boring...	
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Terrible review.
 
You want 50 abilities, 5 of which are necessary and the other 45 highly situational ala WoW and go on and on about it. I think WIldstar's ability system is hands down the best there is	
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			I've read it a few times and all I can see is an attempt to compair to WoW	
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Meh, WoW's combat was "simplified to the point of mind-numbing". I "did" a Violet Hold and didn't even realize it was over until a big *cupcake* dragon popped up on top of me. You had a rotation of a few buttons, sure you had the option to add more to change things up, but for maximum effectiveness there was a set number of skills you spammed to hit that max effectiveness. As those rotations became par for the course, WoW slowly whittled down their trees and abilities to match what the vast majority of people were using.The game's not for you, but that doesn't make you superior to those of us that enjoy it.  Having a myriad of choices and being (seemingly)complicated =/= super intelligent.  Ever heard of the KISS principle?
 
{| class="blockquote"
Yep, I know you guys don't like it when people harass each other on here, Chillia. Just kind of happens if I'm the OP, haha. xD Should see the in-game chat. :P I wasn't planning on responding anymore unless it was like, constructive, so hopefully it stays away. >.>
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What a load of tripe. Lets break down your Pros and Cons.
 
 
Pros
Bright, quirky art style that has a lot of life, rather than being dark and gritty like most games these days. Kind of. There is a somewhat dark side to it, you just have to know what to look for.
Fast-paced combat  Totally agree with this.
Fantastic music for an MMO (though it fails to stand up on its own, imo)  Thought you didn't like the music at all. At least that's what you said before.
An interesting story, albeit jumbled and poorly presented  Maybe you need to spend more time looking for lore.
Humor and personality all throughout the game Agree.
Cons
TERRIBLE performance Won't disagree with that, but that's what happens when you farm out your code.
Tiny world and little content despite 8 years of development Seems big enough to me. About the same size (if not as large) as Wow was when released.
Combat built for monkeys or something, so simplistic and easy it hurts Are we talking about Wildstar or WoW here?
The LAS that limits you beyond any kind of rationality and alienates 80% of your ability list Choices choices choices. Choices matter and you can't have it all all the time.
Mechanics that I feel a toddler could handle, the majority of which are skipped by using interrupts Really? Must not do dungeons or raiding much. Interrupts are part of successful runs and are needed to do the content. The majority of the high level content requires you to interrupt the Mob/Boss or wipe, so what game are you playing again, WoW?
Classes that are so generic that they feel like copies of one another with different aesthetics General problem with MMO's and PvP. No one can be a snowflake or you get balance issues. But I ask again, are you talking about WoW and how they turn all the classes into the same thing?
A UI and overall feel that makes me feel like I'm playing a game from the 90s Not much different then 99.9% of MMO's out there, that's why Carbine added in the tools for modding.
Lots of bugs It's getting better, but can't find fault with that statement.
Animations that are so slutty and sexualized it's just depressing Haven't seen that. No down blouse or upskirt stuff or stripping animations so far. There is the "poo shoe" though. Give us examples of this, that way we can judge if it's true, or if it's your mind that's making them "slutty and sexualized."
Very ugly faces on all the characters, no customization for the massive cheekbones or wasp waists, etc. My character has a beer gut and looks like an overweight crossing guard. It's awesome.
Lore that is so jumbled and poorly delivered that I can't be sure there even is a story in Wildstar. Yet you list the story as a PRO... Not sure you are getting the lore that is throughout the game. Seek harder grasshopper.
Very repetitive, spammy playstyles Really? Seriously? In an MMO! You have to be joking! Come on it's an MMO. WoW is the master of Repetitive and spammy play style.
Terribly terrible, exclusive community. Naw, just a bunch of people that have had enough of the kiddies out there watering everything down so they can play with their phone and watch TV while raiding. Most of us are here becuase this game and it's content is challenging and requires you to pay attention to what you are doing.
etc. Think this is just a bunch of bunk. Elaborate if you would. 
 
 
In conclusion. Your post is insulting and antagonistic at the least. You say you don't want to antagonize anyone, yet that is the very thing you set out to do with this post. The entire post is a Wildstar vs. WoW  and how you wear Rose colored glasses.	
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			Sciela you have been making almost this exact thread since the launch of the game.. or is it since Beta.. I don't know but it is a long ass time. I really do wonder why you continue to play the game you clearly don't like and why you keep writing basically the same post complaining about the combat and the LAS and the bosses. One can only conclude you enjoy trolling the forums and the usual stuff you post is always good for a few bites at least	
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I missed the "Animations that are so slutty and sexualized it's just depressing" point(Not a TL:DR issue, it's the white text on the deep blue/green background that causes me to look away sometimes and I miss my place).
 
It's been a while since I played WoW(the game you're so enamored with), but don't they have a stripper dance?  Don't they have a bouncing in place when they stand to long female animation?  Don't they have armor bikinis?  And I could be wrong, but aren't there innuendos spread all over that game?
 
When my Cassian female stands still for too long, she looks at poo on her shoes and wipes it off with a horrified expression on her face.
 
When my Aurin female stands still for too long, she looks around alertly and goes back to staring off into space.
 
When my Chua female stands still for too long, she either looks around alertly and twitches an ear, or does that cute little "Hey, what was that!" scuffle around thing(words fail me to describe it lol)
 
When my Draken female stands still for too long, she inspects her nails(for blood?).
 
For the other races, I haven't paid attention :P
 
Have you seen how we "dance spryly"?  Or how about "dance fiercely"(looks Native American to me, hopefully I'm not stereotyping badly there).
 
This game actually has the least amount of sluttiness and sexualization I've seen in a game.  We have a few NPC's(Artemis Zin's coat, the Torine and Draken armor, the female Draken lounging around in a few places), but very little armor and other options for our toons.  And our "assets" look so comically fake, I don't see how they can be considered "sexualized".  Kinda sad really, sometimes I want to be a little tart :P
 
Although I'm always surprised and bemused at the decrying of sex in games that are full of war, violence, torture and death.	
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{| class="blockquote"
<snip, too much text>
 
Cons
TERRIBLE performance  - Totally depends on your system
Tiny world and little content despite 8 years of development - LOL tiny world? Nexus is rather large, and the time of development is irrelevant to this.
Combat built for monkeys or something, so simplistic and easy it hurts - Right...........not even bothering commenting on this. 200% wrong
The LAS that limits you beyond any kind of rationality and alienates 80% of your ability list - That's the point of LIMITED actionset.
Mechanics that I feel a toddler could handle, the majority of which are skipped by using interrupts - You have no clue what you're even trying to say here.
Classes that are so generic that they feel like copies of one another with different aesthetics - Yes, a Spellslinger plays soo much like a warrior......
A UI and overall feel that makes me feel like I'm playing a game from the 90s - EVERY MMO comes with crappy stock UI, hence why Addons are supported. Players do it faster then own dev. It's cheap labor for the company and fun for the developers of the addon.
Lots of bugs - name me one game that hasn't
Animations that are so slutty and sexualized it's just depressing - You have issues......
Very ugly faces on all the characters, no customization for the massive cheekbones or wasp waists, etc. - Personal Opinion, I adore my Chua's face.
Lore that is so jumbled and poorly delivered that I can't be sure there even is a story in Wildstar. - BULLSHIT DETECTED, please write me a better backstory about Nexus if you can, I dare you.
Very repetitive, spammy playstyles - Are we even playing the same game?
Terribly terrible, exclusive community. - Nope, i like the community, even cross region. Making friends aint hard.
etc. - still waiting to see a real con
moderator edit: content
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When my Chua female stands still for too long, she either looks around alertly and twitches an ear, or does that cute little "Hey, what was that!" scuffle around thing(words fail me to describe it lol)
 
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Have you seen how we "dance spryly"?  Or how about "dance fiercely"(looks Native American to me, hopefully I'm not stereotyping badly there).
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You have a Chua Beattle?!
 
I'm not angry.......just disappointed :P
 
(joking btw)
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Not have inner chua? Chua put Chua in you, might hurt little bit.
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Having played wow for 9 ½ years this sort of post is right up my street and I can see it dripping in BS.
 
Lets start at the beginning: almost a year ? Wildstar officially launched June and that's over 3 months away, 3 months are not important are they ? I mean what have Carbine done in the last 3 months!
 
Before WOD you joking right, mind you....you didn't say 5 years before.
Burnt out at level 30, this is just a guess but I'm guessing you never played vanilla wow, and you never hit those spots when you ran out of quests and really did have to kill wild boar for 2 levels. (that part of south park really is true)
 
Combat, fast flowing, double jumping dodging fun V tab target...nuff said.
 
Music ….don't even go there, the rest of your post just seems incoherent tripe tbh
 
summary: blizzard did the big nerf on your chars, you threw a wobblier, spat your dummy out, got banned from the forums, and unlucky for us you ended here....     	
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You have a Chua Beattle?!
 
I'm not angry.......just disappointed :P
 
(joking btw)
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			I think this "review" has been pretty well deconstructed.  I'd only like to add that nine months isn't really "almost" a year.  By June, we'll have another drop plus patches under the game.	
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Aww, how can you be disappointed at this cuteness? :D
 
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In no real order of response vs the OPs presentation:
 
Personally, I love the LAS. I love that I *have* to make choices about what to bring and what to leave out and how those choices affect me and my team's ability to win. I tell guildies and reluctant-to-bring-utility folks all the time "It doesn't matter what your meters say if we wipe because XYZ happens." It doesn't take long for them to figure it out for themselves either. I was not a dungeon runner or raider in WOW, but I did dungeon run and raid lead in LOTRo. I much prefer the LAS to the 40ish skills I had to dig through in LOTRo - of which I still probably only used 6 with any regularity (and I played a Loremaster - one of the more complex classes). I use every button of my LAS, and I save different skill sets for different fights. BONUS: I don't have to look at the skills I'm not using! It's awesome <3
 
I also love the combat. I love the aiming, the telegraphs, that I don't have to have my target targeted to hit them. Yea. All of that is in the super +++ category for me :)
 
I don't have any performance issues on my PC that is nearly 3 years old now. *shrugs* Rarely, when I do have issues, it's been an addon causing some lag vs the game.
 
I think my toons are totally adorable.
 
The storyline is quite dark.
 
I dunno - I've been playing for over a year, and I'm more in love with Wildstar now than I was when I started. To each their own.
 
My mom taught me that when work made you miserable, or at least consistently unhappy, it was time to look for a new job. I think this is triply true for video games you play.	
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			Well you're certainly entitled to an opinion. Sorry you get so much hate. I still find you to be an interesting human don't let the hate get you down dude. <3 	
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Just gonna drop this in here...
 
Here was my last rotation in WoW as a Prot Warrior:
 
Taunt > Shield Block > Devastate > Devastate > Devastate > Devastate > Devastate > Shield Slam > Heroic Strike (if threat needed) > Repeat
 
Riveting combat, yo.  Riveting.	
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Moderators... back in the day, this type of post would be closed immediately for being flamebait. There's no room for discussion here, as the OP hasn't even offered resolutions to what he/she thinks are problems; and is obviously resistant to differing opinions.
 
The OP has been labeled as a troll in the past, so moderate you should. Wake up. There is no constructive conversation here.	
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Moderators... back in the day, this type of post would be closed immediately for being flamebait. There's no room for discussion here, as the OP hasn't even offered resolutions to what he/she thinks are problems; and is obviously resistant to differing opinions.
 
The OP has been labeled as a troll in the past, so moderate you should. Wake up. There is no constructive conversation here.
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Animations that are so slutty and sexualized it's just depressing
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Wait what?
 
This is one of the least sexualized games I've ever played in the MMORPG segement.
It's got equalistic armor, and almost no sexually charged animations at all.
The most you get is the aurin female cutie pie flirty animations. But that;s it.
 
Where the hell did you get the sexualization problem?
WildStar is one of the least sexualized games I've seen in the MMORPG market, if not being the least sexualized.
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Wait what?
 
This is one of the least sexualized games I've ever played in the MMORPG segement.
It's got equalistic armor, and almost no sexually charged animations at all.
The most you get is the aurin female cutie pie flirty animations. But that;s it.
 
Where the hell did you get the sexualization problem?
WildStar is one of the least sexualized games I've seen in the MMORPG market, if not being the least sexualized.
 
The only difference between male and female is how much space I have for my characters breasts, which considering I choose the largest breast size, is noticable but still my character has huge breasts, it's kinda expected. Female characters with smaller breasts the difference is much slimmer.
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Do you have any idea how happy my wife was that most of the Heavy Armor on females were identical to males - just shaped appropriately?  Guild Wars 2 has the biggest problem with that realm of design -- what makes a male character look like a walking tank makes a female character look like a cheerleader.  Fully agree with Fran here.
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Read my edit, you're gonna like what I added.
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And I should point out that having large breasts doesn't make a person slutty or sexualized, in case that's where the OP was going.
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Wait...slutty animations in Wildstar? Three words for ya:
 
"Female Nightelf Idle."
 
Or better yet...
 
"Female Orc Dance."	
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Pros
No Tahlies.
etc.
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Wait what?
 
This is one of the least sexualized games I've ever played in the MMORPG segement.
It's got equalistic armor, and almost no sexually charged animations at all.
The most you get is the aurin female cutie pie flirty animations. But that;s it.
 
Where the hell did you get the sexualization problem?
WildStar is one of the least sexualized games I've seen in the MMORPG market, if not being the least sexualized.
 
The only difference between male and female is how much space I have for my characters breasts, which considering I choose the largest breast size, is noticable but still my character has huge breasts, it's kinda expected. Female characters with smaller breasts the difference is much slimmer.
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At least you can change your body shape in wildstar, in wow you always look like a skinny minny as a belf, but curvy as an orc. Both are sexy in their own ways, but seriously saying wildstar is highly sexualised then seeing the dance animations and some of the... lore/books on wow... lol :P
 
I like that there is choice to change your shape in wildstar, there may not be everything to everyone's taste, but at least there is a wide variety of caricatural body types for both genders. I mean, have you SEEN some of the shoulders on male granoks and drakens? Damn that is just so unrealistic to irl men omg such oppression.
 
 And as for the armour, it's all equal and hardly any "armorkini's" although I think they would be awesome to add (I love sluttin up my chars...) I'm happy with the unique armor styles and all the characters looking sexy fully clothed ^.^	
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And as for the armour, it's all equal and hardly any "armorkini's" although I think they would be awesome to add (I love sluttin up my chars...) I'm happy with the unique armor styles and all the characters looking sexy fully clothed ^.^
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At least you can change your body shape in wildstar, in wow you always look like a skinny minny as a belf, but curvy as an orc. Both are sexy in their own ways, but seriously saying wildstar is highly sexualised then seeing the dance animations and some of the... lore/books on wow... lol :P
 
I like that there is choice to change your shape in wildstar, there may not be everything to everyone's taste, but at least there is a wide variety of caricatural body types for both genders. I mean, have you SEEN some of the shoulders on male granoks and drakens? Damn that is just so unrealistic to irl men omg such oppression.
 
 And as for the armour, it's all equal and hardly any "armorkini's" although I think they would be awesome to add (I love sluttin up my chars...) I'm happy with the unique armor styles and all the characters looking sexy fully clothed ^.^
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I was so incredibly happy when I found out my Medic could be the same shape I am.  That shape, by the way, is "barrel."
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Okay, so, I was going to rewrite my post to clarify a few things, but I'm not going to bother. Instead, I'll just reply to the various comments here.
 
---------
 
"Omg, stop idolizing WoW, take off the rose-tinted goggles"
 
I only compare the game to WoW because I spent 10 years of my life playing that game nearly every day, and I know the game and all its mechanics very well; it's just a solid place I can relate other games to. I'm in no way saying WoW was perfect, nor was the combat perfect, but it was more fun than I have in Wildstar. Sure, nostalgia makes everything seem better, but WoW was just a quality game until recently, so the rose-tinted goggles aren't really necessary to have a good opinion. There is a reason that the game has had over 10 million concurrent subs throughout time. (More than once, if I remember right!)
 
"WoW combat was hard? Please, I used 2-5 out of my 40 abilities!"
 
Yeah, in WoW, you had something called optional complexity, something Wildstar VEHEMENTLY opposes. In WoW, you could simplify your rotation down to be streamlined and efficient while being easy to play, hence the 2-5 button rotations, and you would do the average, expected DPS, healing or tanking. However, all those abilities that just sit on your bar were valuable tools for other players; some people would take all those abilities and find a way to weave them all together, greatly improving the class's power in the selected role. If you played WoW at all, you know what a Fistweaver was -- that's a perfect example! If not, Monks had two ways of healing: First, they could stand and spam heals, like most healers did in WoW, or they could weave together a melee DPS rotation and a healing rotation, increasing their healing output by 2 or 3 times, improving utility, and adding enough damage to qualify as a low-geared DPS. The stand and spam playstyle was ~5-8 buttons, while Fistweaving used ~20. That applies to every class, too! My Shaman used ~13-15 abilities (Enhancement), my Druid used ~11, my Paladin used ~10-15 depending on what was going on, and so on. The classes were easy if you wanted them to be, but if you put in that extra effort, the class paid off far more than the "efficient" rotations did -- and we don't have that in Wildstar, unfortunately. Everyone is on a flat line, and gear + up time determines how well you do.
 
"Wildstar combat is the best thing it has!"
 
Well, I wouldn't agree with you. Sure, the combat is very good for the  genre, and it is fun, but it loses its appeal rather quickly -- in a game that's meant to be played for long periods of time, that's not such a good thing. The combat is flashy, fast-paced, and intuitive, but it's also very simplistic, spammy and easy - to the point that I sometimes nod off during fights (even in raids). Instead of being forced to deal with all of the mechanics, you can interrupt most things in dungeons, thereby effectively skipping a mechanic. The majority of abilities do NOT require you to interrupt them in order to beat the encounter, however a few do. I know most people don't agree with me, but occasionally dodging red does NOT merit such a simplified combat style.
 
"The LAS is SUPPOSED to limit what you can do!"
 
Yeah, I understand the concept of the LAS. Normally, it would limit you so that you can't have the perfect build for every situation in the game, but that's just not how it works out. What was promised to be freedom is instead a shackle and a chain, forcing you to run certain abilities and use certain builds, or you don't perform at all. Because of the way interrupts in the game are handled, you can't run a build without interrupts, or you could potentially wipe the group, or at the very least make some enemies. Then, we have raid buffs that most groups almost require you to run, and when you tell them that you don't, you don't get invited to the next raid. I get the concept of the LAS, but the system we have is just far more limiting than what I think is reasonable.
 
"Such Tahlie, much troll" (Did I do that right? xD)
 
Look, I know people don't like me, especially when I have negative opinions about things - but they're just that, opinions. I'm a very blunt person, and I don't try to sugarcoat things for people. That may come off as me being a troll, but I promise I'm not. If you don't like my opinions / ideas, cool, just ignore them. No one is forcing you to read anything I type... or shouldn't be, anyway.
 
"The lore is great! What are you talking about?"
 
Okay, so let's look at WoW again. In WoW, the quests had more text than 140 characters, which enabled the devs to tell a story through them. Each zone was like a chapter in a book, or a smaller book inside of a larger book (the world story), and was coherent and easy to follow. You felt like you were a character in a story, the way they handled quests. I do love the Wildstar lore, but the majority of the lore we're given isn't active lore. Active lore is when you are a part of a story as it unfolds, and you learn something about characters, places, enemies, and so on. Because Carbine decided to go with the whole "movie" idea for questing, a lot of it is muddled and foggy. You don't learn much about the game while questing, but rather you're given little books and notes and whatnot that give some insight -- but that insight is not current or active, it's just something you do on the side. The lore would be far better if it was a part of the game itself, rather than a sideline show.
 
"Slutty characters? What?"
 
Yeah, they really are slutty, if you look at them. First, the female models all have very, very disproportionate bodies, with exaggerated chests and waistlines (huge hips though). That would be fine on its own, honestly, since most games / animes / cartoons are designed like that. What really throws it into the "bad" area is how the females move. If you watch any female character (minus Aurin) move, they wave their butts around like they think they're in a porn shoot or something. I know it doesn't bother most people, but I can hardly stand playing a race other than Aurin. Yes, I know the males are a bit exaggerated as well, but they're not manwhores.
 
"The game is just as big as Vanilla WoW!"
 
No, it's really not. After 8 years of development, we have one questing path, and a handful of daily zones. I'm sorry, but that's just not a large amount of content, and for the length of time they worked on this game, it's actually kind of abysmal.
 
"You gave no input on how to fix things! Mods, ban this man!"
 
I've tried to give ideas and feedback before, and every time I did, people harassed me and flamed me so much that I had to ask the mods to remove my posts so that people would leave me alone. Everyone likes to pick on me and say I just torment people, but who's really doing the tormenting? All I did was give opinions, and the majority of the population freaked out and attacked me. So I'm not going to give Carbine ideas, rather I'm just going to point out what needs work and where, in my mind.
 
"The community here is great!"
 
It really isn't, honestly. The community in Wildstar is fine for most people, but if you're like me, then the community is more than venomous. Group content is also very exclusive, with the way the population perceives the dungeons / raids. If you don't run a build that people agree with, then you don't get to run content. With the way raid lockouts are set up (per group, instead of per boss like every other MMO is), you really can't raid without a dedicated guild spot. Most people have no issue at all finding a guild, but if you do something to tick off the raiding guilds, then you just don't get to raid and get anywhere. You have to play by their rules, and do what they say, or you don't raid. So, yeah, the community isn't the best, but it's mostly just a problem of such a small population more than anything.
 
"Almost a year? There are more than three months left!"
 
Yeah, well, I played my first beta in March, which is just a couple weeks away. So, for me, it's been almost a year. ^^
 
"Why are you still playing if you obviously hate it so much here?"
 
Well, that's a good question. I've done a lot of MMO hunting in the past few months, and while there are lots of games out there with their own appeals, none of them really appeal to me all that much. I'm not like most gamers these days, and I don't enjoy the same kinds of things. Really, I'd still be playing WoW if it wasn't for Activision totally gutting the game and ruining it for me. While I don't "love" Wildstar, I do enjoy playing it - but extended play times just really wear on me. So, why do I still play? Because it's fun to play in short bursts, and while I think it's easy, it's still the hardest game on the market that I'm aware of. That's why I roll so many alts, and I have other games I play every now and then too.
 
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Okay, so there are my responses to all the comments. Did I miss anything?
 
(Oh, and people are saying I must not have ever done the content, bla bla, yadda yadda... I've done all the dungeons (even Protogames) so many times I can do them with my eyes closed just about, and I've gotten 6/6 in GA several times over. The only place I haven't been is DS. So I do know what I'm talking about, whether you believe it or not.)	
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"The community here is great!"
 
It really isn't, honestly. The community in Wildstar is fine for most people, but if you're like me, then the community is more than venomous. Group content is also very exclusive, with the way the population perceives the dungeons / raids. If you don't run a build that people agree with, then you don't get to run content. With the way raid lockouts are set up (per group, instead of per boss like every other MMO is), you really can't raid without a dedicated guild spot. Most people have no issue at all finding a guild, but if you do something to tick off the raiding guilds, then you just don't get to raid and get anywhere. You have to play by their rules, and do what they say, or you don't raid. So, yeah, the community isn't the best, but it's mostly just a problem of such a small population more than anything.
 
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lol
 
He thinks Wildstar is "slutty" and "sexualised", okay then pal.
 
I wish ;_;7	
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"Slutty characters? What?"
 
Yeah, they really are slutty, if you look at them. First, the female models all have very, very disproportionate bodies, with exaggerated chests and waistlines (huge hips though). That would be fine on its own, honestly, since most games / animes / cartoons are designed like that. What really throws it into the "bad" area is how the females move. If you watch any female character (minus Aurin) move, they wave their butts around like they think they're in a porn shoot or something. I know it doesn't bother most people, but I can hardly stand playing a race other than Aurin. Yes, I know the males are a bit exaggerated as well, but they're not manwhores.
 
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Btw, my body type is very large hips, tiny waist and massive boobies, so that obviously means I'm a slut now :(
 
Having a game where I could actually be curvy is like.. awesome! :D
 
EDIT: Oh yeah those... bulges are really something >.>	
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Thanks for the feedback, at this time this thread has outlived its usefulness and I'm going to lock it. Please remember that constructive discussion is appreciated and encouraged, but there is also a right and wrong way to word it. Enticing others to a negative response is not the way to promote constructive discussions. These forums are also not the place to discuss whether a character is or is not some of the words mentioned in previous posts (not going to mention them again here). 
 
Thanks again for the feedback. 
 
- Team WildStar 	
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