I know everyone is all hyped up about this game, as am I, but a lot of things have come to my attention that I believe need to be addressed.

First off: Many people that are currently in Beta or that will buy the game at launch, are 'fans' that have been following it, etc. While we are an audience, we are not or at least SHOULD not be the target audience. What this game needs to be able to do is pull interest. I want to be able to have my friend that's never heard of it try it for 20 minutes and go "ok this is awesome, I want to play."

And then after the initial interest, the point is to be able to keep people playing. I am currently not getting the feeling that I would want to keep playing very long.

Here are some issues:

COMBAT

-Some of the changes/spammers from last beta have been changed, and while I understand that it may be 'just trying something new', I feel a lot of them are a massive step back. Specifically the Warrior and Esper come to mind. The Esper spammer is horrible for a first skill. You have to wear light armor, and your first skill is a ranged attack that you need to STAND STILL to use? Also it needs to casted before it hits, as opposed to something like the Spellslinger, that does damage while casting. The warriors energy system is a massive step back, I didn't see much wrong with the way it was before, but this is terrible. Basically just spamming one, and it depletes before you can use anything. Again, I know this is being 'looked at', but I wonder how one person didn't play it for 4 minutes internally and think there was something wrong before putting it into the build.

-I've noticed a lot of pulling numerous mobs with telegraphing while questing. I am unsure if this is intentional, which it may be, but it's somewhat annoying. I am sure many of you will go "that's why you need skill, etc,etc". But when I am just doing a quest or trying to kill one thing, and I either hit something beyond me, or dodge and pull something? That will get annoying quickly. This could possibly be solved if there was more incentive to group, which at the moment, there is not.

QUESTING

I'm just going to quote a post I made about 5 min ago in another thread.

"

Lack of presentation honestly.

-EXTREME lack of V/O. Actually have noticed voice-overs/cutscenes gone from last beta

-Too many pop-ups/unclear which quests are "important." The "main quest-line", if there even is one, needs to be highlighted or colored differently.

-They said they had a % bar for completion, however it's still just "kill 5/5 of these", just different looking.

-TOO MANY QUESTS ARE NON-CONTINUING/HAVE NO STORY. What I mean by this is that there are too many quests that are like "help this npc do this" and then you never see them again. I would be much more invested if these multiple quests were condensed to be part of a quest line. They could even just have the NPC send us to the next one, but make us feel like we are making PROGRESS rather than just doing a task for no reward other than 200 exp.

-On that note, quest exp is extremely low. Currently, it seems more worth it to just kill mobs for exp as opposed to running across a map to get to a quest point.

I know everyone is all hype and anything other than "this game will be amazing" is frowned upon, however if you WANT this game to be amazing, then the flaws need to NOT be looked past.

This is my second time in Beta, and at the moment it's having trouble holding my attention past level 10.

Having played numerous characters up to 15 or so in my beta time, I still have yet to have any idea of what is going on in the story, or if there even is a story. With other games like SWTOR, hell even GW2 has a clear story, etc... I feel Wildstar needs to REALLY concentrate on the leveling aspect of their game. I know that the main focus is endgame/raiding/etc... Yes, but no one will even get to that if the game is boring/bland by the time they are halfway to 50.

Sorry to be blunt, but at the moment that is how it is. Am very much looking forward to the game, HOPING it does well, and love the team...but there are still many things that need to be improved if it actually wants to compete."

-We also NEED characters to care about. In any game, regardless of what genre, most of the reason I would continue playing is because the story had characters that you cared about. At the moment, there are none in this game. Once again, this could be a presentation issue.

PVP

-Map/Player ratios are terrible in my opinion. Feels very zergy at the moment, no strategy, no communication during pvp. I think the maps need to be a lot bigger, or the player count has to be less for those small maps. Look at games like SWTOR and WoW, their PvP zones are balanced enough in terms of map/player-amount that people communicate and have strategies. The maps in Wildstar are small enough at the moment that you don't need to communicate, at all. It's basically just "who can have a bigger zerg to the moodie mask and bring it back". Capture the flag is a great game type, but I think the map is way too small.

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That's just a brief summary of some of the things I have problems with.

Please feel free to add anything on or to talk about issues you have with the game. I am hopeful that the game will improve enough to be competitive with MMO's both current and upcoming.

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I think all are pretty valid points - coming from one of those fans that will be buying at launch :]

Even though I know I'm 100% on board with Wildstar, the presentation up to this point is definitely setting some high standards. Wildstar is getting there as far as betas go, but there's a tonne of stuff to change and I agree with the fact that if someone is looking at Wildstar based solely on the presentation from DevSpeaks and the website (which is REALLY nice, btw), I can sense a potential disappointment when those people see Wildstar (as is). Though thankfully they're changing and adding a BUNCH of stuff going forward, so only beta testers will see WS "as is" and hopefully the end result of the final polish will be closer to the standards they set in the presentations (I have faith - huzzah!)

What I'm really impressed with is the devs are so responsive with pretty much every issue. Most of the points the OP stated (which I agree with for the most part), have been touched on by devs in one thread or another (or more than one because they're boss). That's one thing I'm really excited about is the obvious acknowledgement they want to keep making the game better. They seem to rely on us deeply for that feedback, and regardless of how happy I am with the game now, I think the beta testers have been doing a stand-up job giving it to them straight (like OP for instance).

TL;DR - Agreeing with OP and indicating that I'm thrilled the Carbine Team are staying in touch with us to let us know they acknowledge all our feedback <3

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I think you've written up an important piece of feedback, albeit it is a little disorganized. Still. I agree with a lot of this.

I especially agree with your analysis of questing storytelling and knowing what's going on. At this point I feel that quest presentation needs a MAJOR overhaul so that I understand the purpose behind what I'm doing and feel as if I'm progressing towards a specific outcome line in a proper story. So far, questing seems to be doing mostly miscellaneous tasks that have no cohesiveness to the other quests in the same zone. It's a mishmash of content that has no uniting theme outside of existing in the same area. I'm not asking for linear questing, but what I'd like to see is zones following some sort of a story as you quest throughout the zone. I've yet to see much of this.

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Again, I have to fully agree on the PVP perspective.

I'm under the impression of fighting in a restroom, compared to other areas.

The BGs feel more like arenas , rather than real Battle grounds.

What does that mean?

Everthing is too crowded and leads to massive spamfests. It's no fun at all. It's not what i have expected for sure.

If there was one thing i could throw into the basket - it would have been these two maps.

I love your other maps, honestly but these two are a shot in the dark.

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Having just made it to level 15 and almost level 16 as an Esper, I'm having a hard time pulling more then 2 mobs as it as and I WANT to pull more! So I can't see where this accidental pulling comes from in my case.

As for the Espers first skill yes, standing still and using it was very, very bad at the INSTANT I got Spectral Frenzy I noticed a HUGE difference and I've also always enjoyed Mid-range attacks as is, they did say that it was suppose to hit harder because you had to stand still but.. sorry to say but Spectral frenzy does way more damage then Telekentic Strike does, ever. by far! Prooobbabbllyyy just cause of the mobility granted but its just so much better, to the point of Why does Telekenetic Strike even exist?

I could care less about the V/O tbh, sure it would be nice but its a huge development sink and I believe that Wildstar just needs to improve how Chat Bubbles look/appear or even better, use the existing Communicator UI and show THAT when people are talking, use multiple on screen if you must but make it clear as to who's talking, don't make me read my chat box after the NPC is walking around or ends his chat bubble too early, I found myself annoyed by reading quest stories at time cause of this.

The Map/Minimap/Quest Tracker all need a massive overhaul, When you click on a quest to see where it is and it shows you an arrow it should also make the Hexagon that's on the map glow bright friggin yellow so I don't need to search and find which Hexagon exactly it is on my map, Deradune was terrible for this once I started picking up tons of quests. The minimap is more or less useless in its current state, the click quest for a guide arrow is way more useful, the Quest Tracker doesn't care what zone you're in and continues to track quests outside of the zone, it should either prioritize itself with whatever quests are closer to you (Just like the Explorer Missions do).

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I'm sold on buying the game when it's released, but I agree too. The story especially, it feels nonexistent in the dominion starter, the exile one is slightly better. The lack of real dialogue boxes hurts. After playing FFXIV:ARR and SWTOR (FF's story was deep and engaging - too bad they failed on too many other things and endgame especially - but very little voice acting, SWTORs was pretty and fun and fully voiced, suffered from being too easy and endgame issues again), both the presentation of it and the "what am I doing again exactly other than doing the next objective" factors need some serious work.

The re-hauling of the quest system to be a % doesn't feel that different when there aren't a good number of big % enemies around to kill, so you still end up with kill 10 wolves. Etc.,

I feel OP covers it well without being too negative.

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I just don't see how things could have gone this wrong, Its like a japanese grinding mmo gone american.

This a post I made that I'm going to repost it here, Because I think it would succeed in todays mmo market, I would appreciate your intake and criticism

For us people who like story and the evolving theme of choice in MMOs to add personailty, moral alignment and a reason of our own for what we do and why. There could more in depth conversation you could engage in if you click the option after asking why, If the sitiuation is signifcant enough you could give your own take on it or even refuse to do so and so or just flat out mock them for there arrogant nature(Cassians) And even alter the quest abit and the outcome for the people who appreciate story. The people who don't care about the story can just get a generic ending and be on there way, They did their duty.

Also I think acknowledgement of at least race on occasion is very important, Like in the tutorial for the dominion when being told about the races, and there is no dialogue acknowledging you for what you are, They just tell you like you don't even know your race, They could make it so they explain it in a different way since you are that race and then give a history lesson on what you should live up to ect.

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As says above ::: "There could more in depth conversation you could engage in if you click the option after asking why, If the sitiuation is signifcant enough you could give your own take on it or even refuse to do so and so ... And even alter the quest abit and the outcome for the people who appreciate story. The people who don't care about the story can just get a generic ending and be on there way, They did their duty."

I'd really love to see this.

We already seem railroaded into doing every quest and while I can perhaps see how that should be the case on Dominion-Side, which has I feel a far more rigid militaristic discipline, it seems to me the whole Exile ethos is about independance and a less ruthless approach to conquering the world around us.

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I'm struggling too and I don't quite know why. I love questing (I come from an EQ2 background and well the name means something). I'm just not getting caught up in the story or even little side stories for the most part. They feel disjointed and mostly unconnected. I haven't run into any NPCs that I can actually care about (maybe that's a dominion problem). Yep there are things that delight me (like the time I got caught up in a Ravenock (? - big bird critters) race and found myself back at the outpost city). But by and large, it's just not gripping me.

Also, I keep running across side quests with just weird mechanics where I have to use my buttons in different ways. (Use T to do something or other, carry spider eggs and lean left or right (arrows blocked by my engineer pet interface, etc) - why so many different mechanics? It's like I have to relearn the interface with every quest. A certain amount of this can keep it fresh but too much can just make it confusing and frustrating. Don't fall in love with variety just for the sake of variety - it has to make sense and mean something.

I want to love this game, I really do, but it's just not happening right now and I'm sad.

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I absolutely agree that your feel lost when it comes to questing. It's tiny blurbs of texts and things that just suddenly pop up in the middle of your screen as you're fighting something and gets in your way. And the fact that the VO doesn't correspond to the small blurbs of text makes it even more confusing. If the text was WoW length I genuinely believe the VO wouldn't confuse people. But when there's so little text and the NPC starts talking, you kind of expect them to explain what's going on!

Also, the game differentiates between tasks and quests. Quests being main storylines in an area, tasks being accompanying kill X of X type stuff to follow the main quests. So they do make a difference and if you pay attention you notice the difference between the two. That said, it's not very clear, though it is actually pointed out if you look at your quest log. And since no one knows what the quests are about as a result of text+VO, it all seems pretty confusing.

I think the questing itself is fine, and when the game releases there won't be much focus on it for long. That said, it's the first thing you come in contact with and it's likely going to be what hooks you to experience the rest of the game. Therefore it needs to be solid, it needs to be clear and it would be extremely helpful if you at least had the option of immersing yourself in the quests. Right now I don't think that's something you can do, even if you read the texts.

ETA: The problem with the % bar is that most people haven't experienced the tougher mobs that counts for more. I've encountered a few and I genuinely feel it was a really solid change. But if you can't find/see them, then what's the point? All I know is that one such creature counted for like 50% of my completion of a quest or something like that. Essentially a huge leap away from kill 10 of X. It became, find the champion a couple of times and do your best to survive (I almost died twice fighting the same guy, good challenge).

And in regards to quest XP, I think quest XP for same level quests are fine. But the moment you outlevel a quest by 1 there's a pretty huge drop.

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(This is from the Dominion perspective. I have not played Exile)

I find the quest flow to be pretty bad. Everything seems off and quest hubs aren't very well defined nor do they push/pull you to areas in a very natural manner. The UI/Map are pretty terrible and could use work to better help guide people to the quest areas.

Some minor improvements I would suggest for UI/Map:

The ability to highlight a quest and keep the arrow guiding you to your objective up at all times instead of having to always click it.

Better highlighting on the map on where your quest objectives are.

Color coded quests in order of difficulty.

Showing quests your closest too by default instead of everything.

A lot of the flow issues could be fixed with UI/Map improvements. As it is now? I don't enjoy the questing and am finding it difficult to continue playing passed level 14. It's not that I find the quests boring it's that I often can't find them or figure out an efficient order to complete them in. It seems like I back track a lot and that just ends up in me getting annoyed.

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Zone quest flow is still problematic in a lot of cases. Funny enough the early zones like Crimson Isle have this down quite well because they are small contained storylines. You arrive in the zone, are given a quest and that quest leads you to a final objective at the end of the zone. These early zones didn't have nearly as much content as a larger zone like Deradune but it was far better laid out to the player. My suggestion would be to make the central path through these zones more obvious, questline A leads to questline B leads to end questline which then leads to next zone. Deradune is padded with lots of side quests and content but it's presented in a really disjointed and at times overwhelming way. I don't want to be pulled in 3 directions at once, I want a main quest, and an optional side quest to be working on. As it is right now I get taken all over the zone in a cat's cradle path that has me crisscrossing old content, stumbling over new content and just being frustrated and over-tasked.

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I'd hate to say it but I feel the exact same way about the leveling/questing. To be blunt, I got bored at level 7. I kept going until 15 and it didn't get better. I feel no connection to my character or faction. I can't even tell if there's a main story quest or not. There seems to be no natural flow or quests or quest hubs.

The graphics are beautiful but I fail to see a living world that I actually want to grow stronger in and spend time in.

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I do agree with the quests. There are too many kill/dothis/dothat quests and too little actual story quests.

What I really hate at the moment though is that moodie mask battleground. I haven't been able to test the second battleground but the moodie mask battleground really is just one big zergfest. No tactics, no nothing needed. It's just pure chaos.

I am not a hardcore PvP-er by any means but I love my Warsong Gulch or Alterac Valley but this game doesn't have a interesting battleground just yet.

I mean moodie is a capture the flag type battleground but I think new players don't even know the objective of the game. most people just play it as team deathmatch.

I hope this map gets fixed and that we get a Alterac Valley style battleground or something like Arathi Basin because currently the battlegrounds are boring and its a shame because I like to do a battleground once in a while to take a break from questing.

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Yup, always felt this way since I first started in CBT3. I can't get pass level 15- without forcing myself. I feel that this a big problem (multiple threads all sharing the same opinion) that could have a big and negative impact, especially casuals and people that are hyped to play. I actually enjoyed only the first quest line in Celestion up to the magic shrooms and the waterfalls, perhaps it's that I actually felt oriented and knew the objective, after that I'm constantly stopping to read the chat, alt-tab to check some other things and then having to force myself to get back on the game.

This is definitely a big problem in the game, judging by how many feel the EXACT same way when in game questing. I hope Carbine realizes this and try to do something because every other aspect of the game is so damn promising of a successful mmorpg.

Another thing is incentive to group. There is currently 0 incentive to group in game, at early levels at least. I can solo every 2+ man quest. Having a good incentive to group for questing(like actually making the content that it's marked for 2+ people only doable for 2+ people) could improve the experience.

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You are not alone on this, when I first started I tried getting in the lore but it didn't make me feel connected and actually slow questing and made it more painful. I really tried but I just couldn't, which made me try just skipping all text and do everything on my list but it didn't help I just felt disoriented and frustrated that I wasn't making a steady progress while having fun. The only time I actually enjoy questing is when is some kind of jump or mini puzzle, other than that I find myself trying to get away from mobs and NPCs as I can almost predict what they will make me do and I rarely enjoy it

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A few things that are indeed worrying me. Other MMO's do the same is the insane amount of information that is presented at the beginning of a character, I have to say that myself and my friend (beta keys) were overwhelmed by the constant amount of info and buttons and pop up windows and math that we had to do.

Questing wise I was always looking for an arrow on the mini-map, the arrow system was incredible! but I did find that by mistake, as I was attempting to play rather than constantly reading these popups (which is great just to many to soon) so I just started closing them.

My idea would be to, gradually introduce no more than 3 4 popup windows per quest.

One thing that I loved, but I did understand my friends point of view is the crazy amount of things we can do right of the bat. We did feel lost, the beginning of the game is basically teaching how to play the game, so it should be more linear.

lastly from what I have noticed is the chat bubbles for the lore. I want to follow the lore, my goodness I am interested in it! but just like WoW (up until the last expansion, then they started doing some really good stuff to keep me interested) my lore reading in quests is right click accept, and go do it.

That is because the text is too small (27" monitor) and im this small dude and the quest bubble where the npc speaks is right uppp and I have to move the camera up.

the quest log is very confusing too as is a lot of the pop up windows, it will take a while for me to learn and get used to it, as it is not intuitive.

of course these are the negative parts, the game is still a lot of fun, but for a new mmo comer, it will be very overwhelming to start (please at cap level make it really hard :x but not at the beginning).

I do apologize for my English.

Joe

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Some great feedback here guys!

One thing I saw mentioned was the idea of having more "choice" in quests. Doing this, (Ala SWTOR) is a LOT of development time that would have needed to be taken from elsewhere. We made a decision to go with a more linear style of quest progression rather than the moral-choices/choose-your-path style of SWTOR/Bioware game because it gave us more time to work on other things.

I don't think that's something that can change now, but a lot of feedback about feeling involved with the story, making the "main" storylines more obvious and making the general quest "flow" feel better is all great and something I've passed on. :)

Cheers,

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Anlath, in one of your previous posts (I think) you mentioned the devs possibly fleshing out the optional dialogue choices to get a better sense of why we're doing what we're doing. Is that still a possibility?

Also--I completely agree with Xostro's point about NPCs acknowledging your character's race. Things felt really clunky when the bartender started describing the Mordesh to me: another Mordesh. It's not the biggest issue--just something for polish's sake. Not sure how easy implementing that would be though.

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I have to agree with the OP on pretty much every point. I too am having a very hard time staying logged in past level 10. I am currently 14 and bored to tears. Maybe it's the constant DC that doesn't allow me to get into any kind of fun rhythm or flow. I appreciate there are speed-bumps and crashes to deal with in beta. Not complaining about beta irregularities. Maybe it's the fact I am shy and don't quickly make friends in a MMO. I have some great MMO friends but they don't have beta access. Would playing with a buddy make the difference?

It just seems I should be having more fun than I currently am.

I am confident in the Carbine team, though. We are quite a ways from release and if anyone can make it happen, it's these guys.

In the mean time, I will try to play more and see if things get better.

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This is an issue I believe I've mentioned as well. Namely, the lack of immersion in terms of story.

Since 2012, Carbine said that the STORY is one of Wildstar's endgames. The levelling game merely introduces the player to the world and sets up the story for the max-level World Story, which is where the story 'really begins'.

It's a fine idea in theory, but it means that levelling feels like a barely-connected hodgepodge of events with no overarching narrative thread to tie everything together.

I know that Guild Wars 2 gets a lot of flak; but for what it's worth, I quite enjoyed the personal story. Sure it started out with you running petty errands, but soon it got into the whole epic Elder Dragon plot that would see you all the way to lvl 80. You still did menial quests while levelling, but having this epic story being told alongside it really gave you a sense of building towards something.

Maybe Wildstar has this too, but if it does, it doesn't show nearly enough in the game.

There are some cool things in the 'episode'-style questlines, such as how a certain someone (spoilerssss) in Ellevar returns in Whitevale. That gives a sense of progression in terms of story, but overall, it's a very sporadic feeling. It's not the same as having that epic overarching story to tie it all together.

I mean, I guess that the mystery of the Eldan and Nexus could be, to an extent, considered the game's 'overarching story', but it's not nearly compelling enough in its current state :(.

I mentioned this a couple betas ago, but I'll say it again because it's something I believe in very strongly: we need more voiceovers :P. LOTS of voiceovers, if I had any power over this decision. X(

The fantasy, to me, which Wildstar promises its fans through the trailers and devspeaks is that playing Wildstar is like playing a cartoon. While WoW may be stylised and painterly, Wildstar is straight-up 'cartoony' (i.e. 'what if Pixar did 'Firefly'?). From the character designs to the animations, that's the vibe that Wildstar wants to evoke.

However, Wildstar in its current state doesn't *quite* deliver on this fantasy. What makes the trailers so much more characterful than the game itself? I can think of two things: the animation, and the voices. I'm not super-knowledgeable in this area, but I believe that it's FAR more difficult to animate characters for a cutscene than it is to record and edit voiceover dialogue. Remember that 'Arrival of the Luminai' in-game 'cutscene' which plays in Deradune? How awesome was that? We got SO much character, and it was largely through voiceover work alone! Everyone who has witnessed or heard it seems to have thoroughly enjoyed it. Clearly, I feel that if we are looking to convey as much of Wildstar's personality as possible in as economical a fashion, sound could be the key.

Guild Wars 2 spoiled me in several ways; being able to HEAR people randomly talking in cities (or even in a small hut out in the wild) makes me feel sooo much more immersed. There's just something about being able to hear a conversation from off-camera that makes the world feel so much more alive. There's a sense of surprise that you don't get with text alone. That they record dialogue for 'useless' characters who are in some random location in the wild only makes it more impressive, and makes the player feel good for 'discovering' it. I have this theory that on a subconscious level, people appreciate extra effort being put into these areas of the game. When people hear the characters in GW2 speak, they (*subconsciously*) think: "wow, these guys took the effort and spent the resources to add life to this world by recording voice acting for it instead of only relying on text typed up by content designers". And I don't want to take anything away from Carbine's content designers because they have done some DAMN fine work with the amount of stuff there is in the world; I just feel that the game desperately needs audio dialogue as well! :(

Ok, back to sound and immersion! I'm gonna repeat (again :P) another thing I mentioned from earlier CBTs. Imagine I am an Exile, and I'm killing Dominion in Algoroc. There's so little audio feedback from Dominion soldiers, I don't even know how they sound like. Everyone who's heard a Chua talk has fallen in love with them, but as an Exile player, I wouldn't even hear them. There's only so much that the text conveys, but actually *hearing* them would give my enemies some actual personality (which is SUCH a big deal, since the Exile vs Dominion conflict is one of the big driving forces in the game). There doesn't need to be full VO for everything (though that would be nice and hopefully not un-achievable due to the twitter-length text); but at the very least, I hope for fully VO'ed 'attack' and 'death' lines, such as hearing Dominion badguys say: "Die, Exile scum!" or "For the Dominion!" when they attack you and "Aaargggh!" or "Emperor....I failed you..." when they die, or something like that :P.

Finally, this isn't sound related, but I just feel like the world needs some room to breathe :P. I hate to bring up GW2 again, but this is something that that game did quite well: there was a good amount of tracts of land where you could get panoramic views, and those weren't even in designated 'vista' areas! Wildstar feels almost claustrophobic by comparison. Not only do you not get those sweeping vistas very often, but what expanses of land there are tends to just be craammmmed with content :P. I think that so far, Deradune suffers the least from this issue, but even that zone feels comparatively crowded to GW2's zones :P.

I guess it's also partly the difference in game design that lets GW2 'get away' with the luxury of dedicating a large amount of space to only a single 'quest'. Due to the whole 'Dynamic Event' system, they can 'hide' additional content in a given area; but in Wildstar, you get twice that amount and it's all shoved in your face :P.

I just kind of wish that there were a lot more of those parts of the world where I can admire its beauty without seeing 'Terminite Area' right next to 'Eldan Area' or something like that :P. I WISH that this was just me being cynical, but I feel that GW2 proves that this is a problem that can be overcome by zone design. Unfortunately, Wildstar's zones have been so heavily-developed already that I don't see this changing for launch :S. If it were up to me (and yes, I know that this is really unrealistic given how far the game is in development), I might even suggest something as drastic as fully halving the amount of content in each zone, but adding more zones to compensate (so there's still the same overall amount of content).

This'd do a couple of key things: it'd allow zones some much-needed room to breathe so that everything in that zone doesn't feel like it exists solely as grindy levelling content; and it'd reduce zone fatigue (I think some other zones handle this better, but I really felt it in Ellevar). The former point - breathing room - is especially important; I feel that it is crucial to injecting a sense of wonder into the world.

I remember wondering how Wildstar could do all of PvP, PvE levelling content, PvE Endgame, and PvP Endgame. Normally, MMO game developers have to pick and choose their fights because even though it costs a lot of money to make an MMO, they still have limited resources; so MMOs typically fall short in a couple of these areas (I feel that GW2 failed in group PvE content, which is one thing I really wanted to enjoy). I believed Carbine's answer that the solution for an MMO to excel in all these areas was that the devs just put the time and effort into them; and Carbine seems to have done an outstanding job, but only on the purely mechanical aspects of the content design. The actual feel of the zones and the sense of immersion isn't quite there for me, either; which hurts a lot because I love this game and it feels bad to me if I don't believe that the game is as good as it could be.

neb raises a very good point: a lot of us (myself definitely included!) are already heavily emotionally-invested in this game. You all know I'm going to play to level cap to experience the world story and everything. But what of those who don't have the same level of attachment? If I am to be perfectly honest, I worry a lot about how people without as much vested interest will receive the first 20 levels or so of the game :S. Wildstar's made a ton of really great improvements since the last CBT, but I can't help but feel that there could be even more positive changes that could be made. :3

Anyway, sorry for ending up kinda ranting >_<.