Last week I had the pleasure of playing alongside Carbine and various media outlets in a 10 versus 10 match in the newly designed Walatiki Temple.

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To make things interesting Carbine added a little competition and we were divided between America and European websites. Naturally as an employee of a US Network (despite being British) I was assigned to team USA and it's a good job because we ended up winning 2-1. USA! USA! USA!

During the match I managed to record one video from my perspective (Level 30 Healing Medic) with two more from Carbine. You can find all 3 video's below.

Walatiki Temple Redesign

As far as Walatiki Temple is concerned, the improvements that Carbine have made, although simple, are fantastic. In its original form the map felt too simplistic and offered too little in terms of tactical approaches to stealing Moodie Masks, while the bridges overheard were seldom used compared to the bowl underneath. The fact there was only ever one way in and out of the opposing factions base made turtling far too easy for any teams defending and forced you to rely far too much on healers leading the charge as opposed to tactically teasing out defending players.

I always think back to Warsong Gulch when it comes to "Capture the Flag" type game modes and in doing so, it's unquestionable that the map was perfect in design. Two entrances into the flag room, with only a slight mix in the internal layout (roof entrance, underground entrance and middle gantry) made defending a worthwhile headache. There was real tension in what entrance someone would attempt to come in and what entrance they'd leave from.

Walatiki Temple now has that feeling as more and more players realise the value in defence and stealing of the Moodie Masks. The wider bridge makes it a platform for heavy skirmishing (without constantly having people throw themselves off) while the remodelled bowl has a wider feel due to the revised ramping. Most importantly of all, the wings surrounding the bowl now provide access to two cave systems that lead to each factions mask room. Teams that really want to be effective should use this cave as much as possible (both for entrances and exits) or at a very minimum use it to feign steals before attacking from the front entrance. The fact that the cave exit leads straight onto a speed boost makes the route well worth taking if you manage to sneak in and out.

Overall and despite the game mode still fundamentally playing the same, I'd now place it as one of the best PvP maps I've played in a long time so Carbine deserve a lot of credit for making the changes so close to release.