Currently only 300 friends and family beta testers have seen

the inner workings of WildStar,

a number that's about to increase dramatically. Before that happens,

Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney let us in on some of the secrets of

this path-based sci-fi adventure MMORPG with a lighter side at

gamescom 2012

Wildstar's Story and Combat Philosophy

Last year I compared WildStar's story to Firefly's and got an

ear full from our community. The humorous twists and explorer hooks hold true, but those

who think WildStar is perhaps too cartoony and lightweight for their

tastes might be driven to reconsider. Jeremy describes WildStar's story

as "mid apocalyptic." The most powerful race on the planet - high

magic, high technology - has disappeared. Everything's going wrong -

giant robots gone haywire, destroyed machinery everywhere. One faction

- the Exiles has been revealed, another will be revealed in October.

Wildstar seems built around and for environmental variables.

One example were blue crystals that appear in certain places, and have

an important gameplay tie-in: characters that approach them become

lighter than air. Using these, players can super jump into content that

they wouldn't be able to travel to otherwise.

Variety such as this is definitely the spice of Wildstar.

Jeremy explained: "It has to be fun from the moment you get in the game

up through level cap. We have to keep players engaged the whole time.

It can't be like, oh man, it's level 30 , it's a grind, meh. We've all

played a trillion MMOs, so we're going for super high variety."

Surprises kept popping up. Jeremy pointed out a mining node

that looked much like any common mining node. He explained an important

difference - some of these nodes are the backs of monsters, and killing

these monsters provides more minerals. Also, players have about a 1%

chance per mining attempt to spawn a world boss that spews out

resources if defeated. Not only that, but players can journey into the

defeated monsters lolling mouth to discover the mineral monsters

treasure room. In addition to providing fun and variety, Jeremy

explained that these little friends of mining nodes also help limit bot

farming.

We even happened across some treasures of a more tactical

sort: a minefield that enemies are vulnerable to as well; a giant robot

half trapped in its hangar telegraphing its attacks; ships flying

overhead targeting their spotlights - and each could be effectively

used on enemies. I asked if players would be punished with less

experience and loot for their cleverness. Jeremy explained that this

was so, but bonuses for speedy kills, heals, evasion, and much more

would more than make up for the rewards lost by not killing monsters

the old fashioned way.

Telegraphs are an important aspect of combat. "We make sure

monsters have a series of attacks they can do, so you never fall into a

rut of hitting the same keys over and over." To help players avoid

these attacks, WildStar makes avid use of the ground targeted

"circles" or telegraphs warning players of an impending attack. But

circles on steroids would be a more accurate description, since circles

appear as lines, crosses, multiple circles and many more shapes so that

players like me who constantly dodge backwards can't get used to

dodging in just one direction.

WildStar's Paths

Jeremy described the game's four "paths" for players, which is

how the game actively tailors progression to your playstyle. Paths have

been followed in detail throughout WildStar's development, but Jeremy

shared a few updates on each path as follows;

Soldiers - The soldier path will

come naturally to most WildStar players, but the game offers a lot more

than rote combat. Jeremy explains: "About 20-25% of your missions

switch over to be solely about combat. Monsters attacking, giant bosses

coming up out of the ground, that kind of thing. Even if you aren't a

soldier, your friends can help you with those."

Settlers - "If you're a settler,

it's all about socializing and building. The same stuff you do with

housing, these guys can do in the quest hubs - open shops, add to the

taxi network, field hospitals, all sorts of cool stuff." Jeremy

explained that the game provides basic services such as a network of

transport between major points of interest, but players can extend

these networks and get a nice bonus to XP for doing so. Since I ran my

own druid taxi service in the original EverQuest, I was pretty excited

to hear about this.

Explorers - Explorers are

experts at finding bonus content, perhaps through treasure maps,

minigame puzzles, jump puzzles, time challenges, and the like. One

explorer area holds a corporate spaceship crashed into a mountain lake.

By rescuing the crew, explorers can briefly open up a new vendor hub

for all players nearby.

Scientists - Scientists are the

collectors of WildStar. They get extra links in the galactic archive,

extra story stuff, and extra xp revolving around discovering lore.

Housing

Carbine has a slew of unannounced features they're slowly

bringing to video, and their most recent video features housing. It's

well worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of intentionally campy

advertising.

What's promised is one of the more ambitious housing systems

we've seen yet at launch. "We have the technology to change our terrain

at run time... people can change big chunks of land. It's not just about

the house itself, it's about the ability to modify terrain outside

too." I asked Jeremy if the featured defensive cannon is just for looks

or if competitive content might be built around the housing system.

"We've announced no such thing," he said with a laugh.

But he continued: "The first time we turned on housing for

our team of 120 or so, we did a power play day over lunch and people

placed over 64,000 objects when it was purely decorative. Since then,

we've taken the assets and tied them more to tradeskill systems, quest

systems, and the combat systems to keep introducing functionality. So,

will there be combat associated with housing? Yea, there sure will."

Jeremy promised "deep dives" on that in the future.

PvP and Dynamic Events

The pastoral scenery of the first few areas we explored gave

way to Thayd in the zone Galeras, an active siege and battlefield surrounding a level 20 town, complete with warships

flying overhead and crashing down, gunnery emplacements, and plenty of grit that seems more at home in Call of Duty than Wildstar. The Firefly analogy holds here; though the game is chock full of lighthearted, likeable characters and clever entanglements, things can get dark at times too.

Though PvP hasn't been discussed in detail, Jeremy mentioned that the nearby contested area of Whitevale is the first place where Exile characters will first experience open-world PvP. Just like loftite, battlefield imagery and contested PvP is all designed to keep players from feeling zone fatigue. But one variety of gameplay the game is not centered around is dynamic events - occasional public quests

made famous by games like Warhammer Online, Rift,

and most recently Guild Wars 2. That's not to say the Wildstar doesn't have it's share of roving events and limited-time-only quests. "We have dynamic

events but we don't harp on it, because you level up pretty quick.

You're in and out of an area in a half hour or hour so you kind of

don't know what's persistent and what's random."

Elder Game and Upcoming Reveals

This attention to detail will extend to level cap. "So now

you're at cap, now what? Elder games are what keeps people playing for

the long haul. There's no better way to set money on fire than to build

an MMO and not build an elder game. We're doing seperate elder games

for PvE, for PvP, for grouped PvP and PvE so that no matter what your

playstyle is, there's something fun for you to do."

As for accomplishing solo elder game content without just

turning to rep grinds, daily quests, and tradeskills, Jeremy explained

that there are 6 content teams producing 6 square kilometers every 8

weeks. We've tasked several of those teams with doing nothing but

producing endgame content. "We'll have new dungeons and new areas that

are advancing the world story, and solo players will get to dig into

what's going on," presumably while getting better gear in the process."

As for raids, Jeremy hinted at the return of 40 man content.

Development Status and Revenue Model

"So we're not ready to talk release date," Jeremy stated, "but

I will offer you a few bars more than 'it's ready when it's ready.' Our

commitment is to create a hundred hours of content to level cap. That

has to be fun, that has to be polished, balanced, and bug free. Beyond

that we have to create other full-fledged systems - level cap PvE,

group and raid content, and PvP- that are interesting, innovative, and

fun."

In a word: "We're actually pretty close to feature complete.

Other than that, it's all about content." As for specifics, Jeremy

quipped that Carbine will be opening up the friends and famiyl beta

when they run out of friends and out of family. "It won't be next week,

but its not far off either."

Jeremy also shared a few thoughts on business model: "We're

basically going to have a different business model in every territory.

Korea's all about PC bangs, that requires a different model than what's

going on in the US or Europe. A lot of markets are in transition too.

Because of that, we're launch supporting a bunch of business models."

Our thanks to the Carbine Studios team and Jeremy Gaffney for

offering us a peek behind the curtain at gamescom 2012.