Wildstar First Impressions

I decided that being I had an extra day off this weekend and a new computer I decided now is as good a time as any to check out the new game on the market that has been all the rage for a while now, wildstar.  As I have always been a sci/fi fan it was not a far stretch to think it might be something I could get into but add to that the fact that it was very warcraft like it already had a foot in the door for me.

Oddly enough, even with its roots in warcraft and a genre I like this game was most definitely not on my todo list.  I'd read a little about it here and there but not a great deal.  Even as I was purchasing it I was thinking of it more as an "I hope I get some solid play time out of it" more than hoping I would like it.  In the end I consider it was, after the short time I have played it, a worthy investment.  Even if I only ever play it part time I can already say with absolute certainly that it was not money wasted.  So if you want to skip the review you can stop right here and listen to the end result.  It is well worth the cost to purchase it.

It would be hard not to compare the game to warcraft especially when many of the designers themselves came from warcraft and they openly say that they are trying to recreate warcraft so I will compare away.

Questing:

A lot of what I have recently read was that wildstard has a very vanilla feeling to it, that things are harder, more time consuming, and that is a throw back to a time when you needed to earn everything ever step of the way.

Hate to put a pin in a bubble for people, but I do not see it the way they do.  I do not believe the leveling of wildstar to be any different than that of current warcraft, at least in terms of time it takes to do so.  I played a hell of a lot this weekend, I would say in the range of 20 hours, maybe even as much 22 hours over the three days and I manged to make it to level 19.

Some might say, and rightfully so, that I can make it to outlands on most classes in 22 hours and on a hunter which I am really practiced with I might even in in northrend in 22 hours, so that is the basis for them saying that leveling takes so much longer.

They seem to be missing something.  I can get to northrend on a hunter in 22 hours because I have leveled so many characters I know where everything is, objectives, zones, linked quests to do together in the same area and things like that.  Add to the fact I know how to play the game already and if I am a hunter I am quite good at leveling on one.  So I am speeding along because it is all old hat.

Now, take even me, a person who is known to speed level, and remove the knowledge of the class I am playing, the areas I am going to, the quests and their objectives, the paths to get to and from, make me a complete and total rookie.  Guess what level I might make it too in that 22 hours as a completely new player to this game reading everything, taking forever to find my way around, playing around to figure which abilities work best, getting lost trying to find my way somewhere, playing around with features outside of just questing?  I am guessing I would b roughly level 19 in warcraft, the same exact level I am in wildstar.

So do not believe the hype train here.  Leveling in wildstar is not a return to vanilla.  About the only thing that is a return to vanilla in terms of the time it takes to level is getting completely freaking lost and spending forever trying to get somewhere because you do not know how to get around.  If I had to bet what ate up most of my leveling time it would be traveling and getting lost, followed by reading nearly everything, exploring, and learning my abilities by reading them all to see how they interact with each other.

Thing is that leveling is taking longer because people are new to it.  Not because it is a return to vanilla.  However there are some return to vanilla things in the game such as group mobs you need groups for.  Plus standard shield breaker (as I have come to call elites) mobs that will kick the crap out of you even if they are 2 level under you sometimes.  I have died so many times I think I got my first garrosh kill with few deaths than I got to level 19 in wildstar.  If felt good to die while leveling, but I really do hate the run back, oh do I hate that.

But, on a side note.  As you get more practiced at playing those elite group mobs and the shield breaks become a little less of a problem.  I was trying to find a group for stickypaw but after about 15 minutes of waiting an no takers I did this 3 person mob solo.  I spent some time playing with my skills, cleared the area because I knew I would need to use it all, and then threw caution to the wind and went for it.  I managed to kill it without dying, which was a nice fist pumping moment for me.

So they do require groups, but with some thought, time, and practice, you can manage it.  I would say however that there is a fair deal of skill involved in doing so, and that is what is missing from the warcraft leveling in my opinion.  Death and challenge, but remember, that death and challenge is only there because it is all new to me.  Just as with the time factor, once there is an experience factor added to it, the leveling will not feel as dangerous and or challenging.

So do not take all that talk of vanilla leveling to heart.  It is nothing like that.  I would put wildstar leveling at around wrath speed.  Fast enough so you always felt like you were moving forward with the occasional hard boss or group boss but slow enough that you can learn a little while leveling.

Artwork:

This is a huge part of any game for me but not for like it is for most.  I need to like what I see and feel comfortable with it.  While warcraft generally gets knocked for its cartoonish look I have always loved it and believe it to be one of the biggest strengths.  I liked rift but I could not get into its more realistic look.  The color scheme, the sharp look, the clean environment, all seems to not fit what I look for in a game.  Cartoonish works.

When it comes to wildstar they ace that part of the game.  The customization of their character creation is excellent and it keeps the cartoon feel the entire way which makes for a perfect look in my mind.

The world is full and finished and beautiful.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that you can not have beautiful and cartoonish together, warcraft has been doing it for years and wildstart has taken it to a whole new level.

When it comes to selling point for me the feel of the artwork means a lot and no matter what my final opinion of the game might be a few weeks or months down the line the artwork is a winner and it is a reason alone to give the game a shot.  They reached a little further than warcraft to realistic while keeping the cartoon feeling and they hit a bulls eye.

Sound:

I must say when thinking about the background music I really can't remember it, but in the same I do know I liked it, and for that we have to say they did a wonderful job here.  The background sound is supposed to be there for ambiance and it should not be overbearing.  If you hear it and it blends in so nicely that it is not completely memorable that is a good thing.

When standing still it is a nice little sound track and while moving and doing things it does not get in the way.  The background music knows it place and stays in the background.  So much better than some games I have played with the background music was such a distraction I needed to stop it and that takes away from the feeling of the game.

There is that then there are the environment sounds.  From the effects sounds of the weapons, to the clank of hitting a metal object, to the umph of getting one to the gut, every little sound that we take for granted sounds good.

Good choice of music, good choice of sound effects, good choices over and and that brings me to the voice acting, another part of the sound section.

You can chalk it up to the writing being good but no matter how good the writing is without the right person doing the voice the right way it can come off poorly and they made some great choices with the voice actors.  There is even a very cartoonish feeling in the voice acting that fits perfectly with the characters and the style of the game.

Classes:

I rolled an engineer because it was about as close to being a hunter as I could get but I do intend to try the other classes.  I do like the design that every class has a second role it can fill and the engineer can be a tank.

So far while leveling I can not see how I could be a tank because I am squishy, very squishy.  One shield breaker mobs and there I am kiting my little heart out hoping I do not get hit because in 2 or 3 hits I am a dead man.

I also decided to invest in the tank robot which is called a bruiser and it is okay at grabbing threat... some times.  But even those rare times it does grab threat is can not hold it and it will go down really fast because it can not take too many hits.

So from what I have become used to, a pet tank and being able to kit and make sure nothing ever catches me having a weak pet and no real way to get away I am having to learn to play the class from the beginning instead of feeling as if I had a leg up.  It has been a fun adventure thus far.

I can manage to get a fair deal down and unless I am over whelmed I usually can win most battles.  I am enjoying my choice of classes so far and think an engineer is a far bit of fun.  One thing I would like to see happen is for my robots to not disappear when I mount up and cause me to have to resummon them when I dismount.  But I have already gotten used to that and compensated for how that works.

Paths:

Paths could be called professions of a sort.  You choose one when making your character and you can not change it.  All it really does is add a little flavor to your character and as I see it all it is for you is another quest line designed specifically for your path.

I decided on being an explorer because I felt it fit me and each zone I go into there are zone wide quests, like exploring the entire zone and planing flags to claim parts in each area that are often in hard to find places.  It is kind of fun jumping all over the place to figure how to get to these areas and sometimes they are rather hard to find.

Sometimes you will have additional quests pop up to explore a zone for lost artifacts or the plant a relay somewhere really really high in the zone.  Lots of little sub quests like that.   In effect they seem to be just another quest delivery tool.  One where you decide which quest line you want to do.

I plan to make all paths just like I plan to try all classes at one point or another but being they are basically just masked quests people that do not like questing most likely will not like paths.  Good thing that it does not seem to be a huge issue if you do not level them but I will say one thing about explorer.  When I reached level 10 (I believe) I got the ability to plant something on the ground and then when I hit the ability again it would return me to the spot I marked.

When it comes to questing this is freaking awesome and I do not know what the other paths have to offer but after I try them all if none have anything that can compare all my characters will be explorers.  There is nothing better than planting my marker, going back to home to do my banking, selling, what have you, and then hitting it to return to the quest zone instantly.  How freaking awesome is that?

No matter what you might think of paths being masked quest lines this is one quest line worth doing for that ability if you were to ask me, and if you have read this far I am guessing you did ask me.

Mounts:

Not much for me to say here being I only have one mount but I felt I should make note of my experiences getting it.  One was finding the mount seller was really hard until I broke down and asked a guard.  Sometimes the simplest things right?

I had purchased the collectors edition so I could have the free mount but it seems that the mount that comes with the collectors edition can not be used until you are level 25 and riding can be learned at level 15.  So I needed to buy a mount and at 11 gold that was quite a task.

When I reached level 15 I only had 7 gold and was level 18 before I could even buy a mount.  Once I did I was not really all that impressed with it.  It does not move all that fast at all and in truth I do not even think it moves much faster than walking.  Add to that it dismisses my pets when I mount and it really does not seem all that great.

However, and I could be completely wrong here, it seems that you pull fewer mobs when mounted.  When riding back after a death I ran directly through packs of mobs and they either never aggroed on me or if they did they leashed quickly, which many mobs seem to do.  I did no get dismounted or stunned even when I ran directly through mobs which could just be a case of luck, maybe someone else with more experience can tell if that is even possible.  However, for now, from what I have seen, a mount is an excellent way to avoid unwanted battles.  So even if it does not move much faster than walking, at least I am not fighting my way all the way back after I died and that is worth the 11 gold all by itself.

If you do not have the gold by level 15 do not worry, as you get higher it comes faster.  At 18 I bought the mount, by the time I logged out at 19 later I was up to 7 gold already.  So it seems the gold starts to come faster.  Even if you need to continue around without it, it is no big deal.

Movement:

I am almost ashamed to admit that I am having a lot of issue with the movement in the game.  It is not really all that dissimilar from warcraft but enough so that I need to get used to it.  I normally use a track ball mouse but I can see that is going to take some getting use to with the game.

Like any game there is a learning factor to moving and while their moving is rather basic and the norm for this type of game the battle targeting system does not jive well with what I am used to with concerns to movement being positioning matters so much more.  I have been finding myself back peddling more often that I would like to, so spinning in a full three sixty accidentally from time to time.  The fun of using a trackball.

As far as movement goes other wise it is leaps and bounds better than the last game I played that I liked, which was rift.  Not sure if anyone here remembers my reviews of rift but basically when it came to movement it came down to this.  Strafe on any character and you will quit the game instantly.  It looks horrible and feels so unnatural.  Not so with wildstar.  The movement is fluid and it looks nice.  Chalk that one up to good design, good art, and excellent work on making movement look natural.  Lets face it, we all know that the stuff we do in game would be impossible in real life, but at least it looks like it could be possible and that is a huge boost to how movement works.  How it looks.

For some fun movement things there is the double jump.  You can jump while you are in the air to get to some higher places.  I have used the double jump so much when exploring and you can tell it was with things like that in mind they added it.  But I have found some awesome uses for double jump such as double jumping over a group of enemies to get a charged blast off into the back of their heads.  Hitting them in front of in back means nothing, but it sure is cool looking to do that with the double jump.

Then there is the double tap to move out of things quickly.  I love doing the double tap backwards, left, right or even forwards to get out of some huge ground effect.  But I have also done that into some ground effects before.  It moves you quick, but you need to make sure you move quickly to a safe place.  Still, it is nice to have that roll ability to get out of there fast even if it is on a charge count and you can only use it 2 times before you wait for it to recharge.  Makes smart usage  a part of the movement game play.

Battle:

The battle system will take a lot of getting used to and even more so for people like me that played hunters and could also shoot on the move, but the way we were facing, as long as it was in a 180 degree in front of us, did not matter.  And poor casters who have instants that could be cast even with your back facing a mob are in for a rude awakening.

Every spell is a ground effect, but not really.  The image of where the spell will hit when fully charged shows you what it will hit.  So no facing sideways and firing, no having your back to a mob and letting off an instant.  You need to always be facing the mob you want to hit. 

Some abilities also work better at different positions or distances which makes for some fun like double tapping back and then firing off a big blast that has a massive hit but only if you get people in the circle at a distance.

The need for positioning makes this for an instantly more difficult battle system than most players are used to.  Not only do you need to have people in your cross hairs perfectly so to speak but you need to make sure you are no in theirs.  It means constant movement.  Something as a hunter I am completely used to thanks to the chances in warcraft, so I just needed to get used to positioning facing the right way and not attacking while moving.  For some people I can see this being a huge learning curve thing as they get used to it.

Positioning and lack of movement abilities, at least at the moment, make for a hard time kiting.  More so than I am used to but nothing that a little compensation can't make up for.  Where I would do the jump and turn and back in warcraft and just fire off a shot when I turn and then back you can not do that here because of the positional requirements.  However, with a little practice and timing you can start your shot before you jump and turn so it goes off at the right time after you turn.  I am still working on that timing, but it sure is a new and interesting battle mechanic.

Crowd control is another interesting things in the game.  You never actually lose control of your character, you just need to react.  If you get blinded you can still fight but you are actually blinded.  Your screen turns black and you are fighting without seeing what is going on.  This makes blind a very powerful CC in my opinion because the person will not know if they are standing in your ability or not and you will not know if you are hitting them or not.  You see nothing but still hear the sounds.

If you get rooted a pop up will appear saying to press S a few times to get out.  If you get knocked down and have a double tab charged you can double tap to get right back up.  If you get disarmed your weapon is knocked from your hands and you just have to pick it up again.  So you are not out of the game if you get CCed, you just need to learn to react to it.  Sure the enemy might get a free shot in on you or maybe two if you are slow to react but it is a lot better than CC in warcraft.  But then again that is not saying much because nothing is worse than CC in warcraft.  Can anyone say 19 second fears?  No thank you.

Zones:

The zones are full and seem huge when hoofing it around them.  You can tell a fair amount of time has been put into the development of them because they are so complete and there are little extras in there for every one.  Paths will make some areas available only to explorers or scientists but there are many little tid bits in them that can be used to your advantage if you notice them.

I found, so far at least, more than a few places where I can make a quick run from one area to another by using an underground passage.  Nothing special I know, but there is something to be said about underground zones covering an area just like above ground zones do.  When finishing one quest I noticed that the "out" hole of a underground zone I had visited before was there so when I was done with the quest instead of fighting my way back through the mobs I went in.  Sure there were mobs there but there were fewer of them and I knew there would be three mining nodes in there because who goes into caves to go mining?  So I got the quick route back, some extra ore, and easy to kill mobs by traveling underground instead of above ground.

It might not seem like a lot to most people, most might not even know it, but as an old D & D player with my hex paper and graph paper making maps in pencil I dig that type of stuff from a design standpoint.  I love that underground areas cover the same amount of land the above ground does.  Speaking of the hex paper, the zones look as if they were design on them, at least from the images on the maps.  Gives off that old school pen and paper vibe for people like myself too see the map being drawn like that.

Professions:

I was really at a loss on what to make my engineer being it was my first character.  Every game I play I like to make a network so I have all professions, even did that on rift when I started.  It is just who I am and how I play.  But every game has to have he first person, the one leading the way and my engineer was going to be an armorer and a miner.

I made that decision because I wear heavy armor and the armor makes heavy armor.  Seemed simple enough to me.  I have not managed to make anything I can use yet but I got a late start at it because I could not find where the hell to learn professions.  Not a lot of hand holding in this game, that is for sure.

I still have not really gotten the gist of how leveling a profession works.  Mining is simple enough, I mine stuff and I get experience from doing so and it levels.  So I guess other professions work the same.  I just have not gotten that far to actually level them any it seems.

Mining is interesting enough as I needed a pick ax to do so but I do not use it to mine.  I equip it in a special slot and then I attack, yes attack, the mining node to get ore out of it.  I can just see someone saying "I kicked that mining nodes butt".  The thing is, sometimes you will need to kick some mining node butts because not all mining nodes are indeed mining nodes.  I have yet to run into anything dangerous, but have had a few mining nodes get up and run away after I started attacking.  Those slippery mining nodes be damned.

The crafting system seems... interesting.  I have not made enough to have a full hold on what can be done with it but it seems as if anything you craft can be boosted to be better than its basic self.   This means you can make much better items than the basic stuff if you are looking for something to use or just make the basic stuff as you are trying to level.  Up to you.

You have the ability to salvage, I think at level 10, and you do not need to know a profession to do so.   You can pick apart whatever it is you have for something that fits what it was originally made from.  Light armor will result in some cloth, medium armor some leather and heavy armor some ore.  It is not a bad system to let you salvage whatever you can from the stuff you gather and it makes a fair deal of sense that anyone can do it.  Each game generation seems to move further into making enchanting more universal it seems.  Warcraft has a profession just for it whereas rift had one where depending on what you were you could salvage that type to this one where anyone can salvage anything regardless of professions.  It is an interesting way of doing it I must admit and one I kind of like.  It is almost a quality of life thing for anyone to be able to salvage.

Cooking is the same as armorer and it seems all professions (but I am not sure yet) will be the same.  You can add additional things to your cooking recipes to try to get a boost in what you make.  Sweet, sour, spicy, make it to the taste you like.

What we know as jewel crafting is runecrafting here and instead of red and blue and so forth there are elements.  You could have an earth socket, you could have a wind socket, you can have a water socket, and so on.  You will gather materials easy enough from killing stuff it seems and it goes right into your crafting bags. 

Over all I am liking the crafting system if only because there seems to be a little meta game involved in it.  It is not so straight forward which can be good or can be bad, depending on the type of player you are.  I do not mind the added levels to it where you can add stuff and trying to figure out what to add.  Sure, at some point I might look up a guide to see what is best but for now I am having some fun with it learning as I go all on my own.

Bags:

Bag space is always a huge thing for me in any game of this sort that I play and this game is no different.  One of the first things I looked at was my bag space and the lack therefore of.  You get four bags it seems, do not know if you increase later but it does not seem as if there is room for it.

At level 19 I am running around with a 7 slot, two 6 slots and a 5 slot bag.  Doesn't seem like a lot by warcraft standard and it is not a lot.  However the system here was created with that in mind.  Taking a page out of recent games of this type quest items do not appear in your bags cluttering up space which is a nice plus but they move one step further with creating bag space.

There is a trade skill bag and anything that can be used for trade skills is placed directly into it even if you do not have that profession.  Cloth, ore, leather, runes, elements, raw food, you name it, it all goes in there and needs no monitoring at all.  It sorts it, stacks it, and just keeps it there in an out of sight out of mind sort of way.  I must say I love it.

I am not sure if there is a limit on the amount of bag space that trade skill bag can hold because I am still a low level and if there is one I am probably no where near where I would exceed it, but as it seems to be coded I would not really be surprised if it were unlimited or damn near close to it.  I have not seen one trade skill item land in my normal bags, which means there is still enough space in there to keep picking up that ore, at least from the nodes that do not get up and run away.

When it comes to other storage there is a bank and the bank has a few extra slots for bags.  I have not opened any of those slots yet and do not know what is needed to open them.  I'll guess level.  But with trade skill stuff going in its own place and taking care of itself about the only thing that was cluttering up my bank was decor items and some other stuff.

Once I was able to build my housing the clutter from decor items was no longer an issue because all you need to do is right click on any piece of decor and it is put in your crate.  Your crate is where all your decor items are kept and it can hold up to 800 of them.  Not sure how many there are but 800 seems to be quite reasonable.

So while those small bags I mentioned do not seem like a lot only once did I suffer from the "your bags are full" problem.  As long as you sell whenever you pass a place to sell, and there are a lot of them, salvage any gear you do not need, unload things you might be saving into your bank and put your decor in your crate, once you can build your house, at least at this low level you will not really run into bag issues which is really a huge thing for people like me that just love to have as much space as possible.

Housing:

I have not babbled in this area so much yet but enough to know I am going to really like this.  Not so much for the vanity portion of it and the customizable options but because I can gather there.  One of the things I loved about glitch, a now dead (sadly) browser based game was that I was able to put some mines in my back yard along with gardens and pets and other things.  You can do that here as well.  I can put mines in my house so I can mine them and get ore without competition.  Not the greatest ore at the moment, but that is still kind of cool.

I have added my house, one piece of decor, and a trade skill stand so far.  Will add mines at some point and take a look at some other options which it seems are mostly blacked out at the moment.  I am guessing I will open more as I level up.  Over all it is kind of costly for when your first get it, even more when you consider you need to throw out that 11 gold for a mount and in my opinion that is more important that my housing.

It looks like, for many, the housing feature is going to be a great selling point for the game and does push the social nature of the game.  You can have friends over and I am guessing they can mine your mines as you could theirs but that is all guess work now but that is how it worked in glitch.  I can see some land plots from where my home in the sky is located and even if far away I tried to get some idea of their layout to get an idea for how I would do mine.

For now I have the standard human house because I am a human and it made sense.  It is small, boring and I can not see me getting into too much of the sub game of designing a beautiful home but I sure as hell can see me taking advantage of the little things I can add to it, like the trade skill stand.

Factions:

The game has two faction like all games of this type seem to have and I would compare these two classes a lot closer to star wars than I would warcraft even if warcraft is the direct grandfather to the game.

The factions do not have that horde vs alliance feeling but they sure as hell do have a rebellion vs empire feeling to them and I am not just saying that because it is a sci fi based game instead of a medieval fantasy sort of one.

The exiles seem like the rebellion just looking for a place to live in peace and this is the promised land, so to speak and the dominion seem like the empire taking everything for their own and expecting all to look up to them as their all mighty ruler.

While some can argue which side is the bad guy in warcraft the lines are clear here.  Dominion are the bad guys, at least if you believe that anyone that tries to crush anyone that does not bow down to them as the bad guys.

I will eventually roll a character on the other end of the fence to see what the story is like from their standpoint but at the moment I like being an exile and like the story from their standpoint.

Lore:

I've been reading everything I can in the game and there is a lot of it.  Many lore objects to be found on the ground as you quest each with a story attached to it and then there are the data cubes that you can listen to a story.  As I said in sound before, the voice acting is good here and I like to listen to all the data cubes when I get them.

The lore seems pretty solid and it makes sense because it is all new and all one story tied together at the start.  The real test of lore is how it expands and only time will tell if their writers can keep it so tight.  At the moment I do not see any problems with it except for the standard cliche stuff you would fine in any story of the sort.

The quest writing is basically the same as every other game you have ever done.  These beasts are eating my crops, please kill them.

Living World:

One of the things I have found that I am really getting a kick out of is that the zones change with you.  On quest that has you rescue people from cages does it the right way.  Even if you do not need to open all the cages to complete your quest once you complete your quest all the cages are opened.  Call me weird, but I always hated when I got those "save 10 villagers" quests and when I save them the rest are left trapped there.  Now when you are done they are all released and because this is a dynamic world when I passed the area an hour later guess what?  The cages were still empty.  How awesome is that?  Something I did actually effected the game world and I like that.

That is a good little bit of design there if you ask me having the world adjust based on the things you do.  I have not experienced a lot of it but I do hope that the entire world is like that and not just a few places.  It is a great design and really would help with immersion for those that are so into that.

Issues:

Now for the few issues I have with it.  I am sure the answers are simple for most and I just need to look them up but I could not find a simple answer in the game.

Whispering, I still have not figured out how to do it.  I got a whisper from someone asking if I wanted to join for those of those big 3 player kills and I spent the better part of 5 minutes trying to figure out how to respond to him with no luck what so ever.  He probably thought I was ignoring him but I wasn't.

I like the good old fashion click on the person name but you can not click on a persons name here.  I did find where you can change the drop down menu to whisper but have not figure out how to quick fill the name and sorry but I am not going to type the name completely every time I whisper someone.  If people had easy names like bob I might but when there are some people with names I could not spell, pronounce or remember I really do not want to have to keep looking back to see what there name is and how to spell it.  There has to be a better way, I just have not figured it out on my own yet.

A log out button.  No really.  I have not figured out how to log out and go back to the character selection screen.  If I want to do that I would need to close the game completely and then log in again.  Again, another case of I am sure there is a way, I can't see why there would not be, but I just can not find it.  I have clicked on everything that is clickable on and nothing.  It is there, I just have not found it.  And if it is not there, they need to add it, like yesterday.

There are still a fair deal of bugged quests in the game that I have run across so far.  Hard to believe that after a month they still have not been fixed.  I would guess that they are working on the important fixes first and fixing a level 15 quest really is not on the top of their list but it is a turn off, even more so when you can not figure out it is bugged and you think it is something you are doing wrong.  I spent what seemed like forever trying to figure out what I was doing wrong for a quest titled helping hands but someone in general mentioned it was bugged and has been since release.

Good thing as a new game the community is a lot better as it has not had time to deteriorate yet.  There were a few vet players that made alts just to help people with the quest as a work around for the bug.  Once you complete the quest you can no longer do it so you can no longer help people do it.  I found it amazing that there were multiple people "working" the area to help others and they were taking turns.  It is how I managed to get it done, would have never otherwise.  Good people... in a game like this.  I'll enjoy it while it lasts.  I am sure it will wear off soon, let just hope they fix the bugs by the time it does.

I do not have an issue with targeting and me needing to face a target, but I am really disliking that I need to face the target so my robots, who are facing it themselves, will attack it and use their special abilities.  I think this is a bug and the reason for that is because when I use a special ability when I am faced away from my target there is no cooldown that kicks in because the special never fires.  When I do something even if I fire it into thin air it counts as doing it.  So apparently these robots are not doing it at all and that is why there is no cooldown.  They should do their abilities even if I am not facing the target as long as they are facing the target.  I do not see why I need to be looking at something my robot is fighting for my robot to use its abilities.  Maybe it just doesn't like doing it unless I can see them because they are show offs?  Either way, I am guessing this is a big with engineers just by the way the spells work, or don't work, as the case may be.

My next issue is travel.  One of the beauties with warcraft is that the game has become so bite sized.  I can pop on for 30 minutes and get something done.  At least where I am now in the leveling process that is just not possible in wildstar.  I will be caught out in the middle of nowhere after 30 minutes with a long run back in my future.  This is a game where when you want to play it you will need to invest some serious time on it.  At least in chunks of 2 hours I would guess.  I have no intention of even logging in unless I know I can dedicate 2 hours to it.  Which means this will be a weekend only game for me for now.  Not saying it is bad, just saying it can be a turn off to the more casual of casual players.

Multi Player Content:

I really can not comment on this as I have not participated in any of it yet but I did participate in a couple of public events.  No dungeons or raids or adventures for me yet.

As far as the public events go they are like the rifts in rift.  An event happened, everyone there participates, when it is over a scoreboard pops up like at the end of a battle ground and that is that.  I do not know if you get anything for participating, did not notice if I did, but I did manage to be number one in damage done in the one full one I was in that lasted 10 minutes.  Woot, epeen extension was my reward I guess.

I am the type of person that needs to be secure in what I am doing with I subject others to me and I am just not ready for that, however I did accidentally go to enter an instance solo and was interested with what I saw.  A pop up that asked me if I wanted to scale to the level intended for the instance.  So I guess when I hit level 50 I can still run a level 15 instance at level 15.  That sounds pretty cool if you ask me.

I saw some video on raids and I can say right now I have absolutely zero intention of raiding.  Oh hell no.  All those colors, all those ground effects, all those flashy lights.  Everything I hate about raiding in warcraft is all that raiding is here.  It looks amazingly awesome, do not get me wrong, but with a combination of me being color blind and all these different color shapes and not knowing which are friendly and which are enemy and maybe not being able to tell the difference through no fault of my own.  No thank you.  As much as I might love to experience it I will not put myself in a position that I will wipe my group because I could not tell the difference between the red ground effect from the boss and the brown color of the floor. 

Kind of sad I am leveling a character on a game I know I will never be able to play fully and it have nothing to do with skill.  Like the battle idea but at some point all those colors will mess me up.  Even more so when they start to over lap each other and I can not tell which is what because I am color blind.

Challenges:

This is another of the little things they added to spice up leveling content I would guess.  It is like a quest that gives you a reward if you meet the challenge requirements.   I've done fairly poorly at most of them so far only managing a gold in four but you can win the best prizes from getting a gold.  Even if you manage to bronze you still get something decent so they are worth trying.

At least somewhat.  A few of the challenges I never really even got a chance to try because the area was a little too full and as such there were not enough mobs to kill or items to collect to even manage a bronze.  I guess that is one pitfall of the challenges.  Another pitfall is you never know when you will get the challenge.  You can go to an area and get it today and not get it tomorrow or not get anything one day but get a challenge the next.  At least it seemed like that to me, but do not take my word as law here, I am just starting and that just seemed to be what I was seeing.

From my limited experience I have found myself ignoring most of the challenges.  When one pops up I take a quick look at the area and see if there are others there.  If it is a kill quest and there are even a few people there I just go about my day and completely ignore the challenge.  So I find myself ignoring most of them.

However, when you get one you can do, it is really fun to do it and see if you can make the timer.  One gold I managed to snag with only 2 seconds left and that was kind of fun.  A nice addition to break of the monotony of leveling.

It is an interesting way to say kill 20 bats when you say kill 10 bats for bronze, 15 for silver and 20 for gold in four minutes.  Still just a quest and the same one we have done a million times but when it is new it is a breath of fresh air.  And the rewards are kind of nice.

Customization:

One of the first videos I recall seeing about the game was about customization and how they said there would be a lot of it.  Upon playing it I can say that they were not kidding.  From the character creation screen where you can adjust so many little things, tiny details that can make your character different from the 100s if not 1000s of other people out there playing the same race and sex as you to what I am looking forward to most when I get it, mount customization.

I've never been much for customization.  I take what is given to me and if I enjoy it that is enough to keep me happy but I am not going to say that I dislike it either or don't appreciate it.  There are costume pieces, there are color schemes there are so many ways to make your armor look original and unique and fitting to you.  While I might not partake in that part of it I do like that if the time comes when I choose to I can and no only customize the colors but the gear itself to look any way I want.

For hosing you knew there would be lots of customization involved with how you decorate it but they went above and beyond to the point you can rotate and size as well and not just choose what you place and where you place it.  I have not played around a lot with housing yet but I do have this nice over sized humongous plant that I happened to loot off of some mob giving a little bit of life to my land.  At the moment the only life is really seems to have.  Oh, and a nice shiny pile of treasure too sitting in my house because it seemed like where I would keep my treasures.

I am looking forward to playing pimp my ride with my mount and I think that comes soon, might be level 20, but like everything else it will cost so I am not sure if I will play with it right away but it is nice that even if my motor bike is the same as the motor bike nearly everyone has I can still make it my own.

End Note:

I know I missed some stuff I wanted to touch on but this post is already like a novella so I will just end it here.  Over all my review goes as such.  It is a fun game and I like most everything I have run into with it so far.  Not sure what end game would be like but even if end game has nothing to offer you if you like this kind of game and buy it just to level up to max and experience it then it is well worth the price to buy it.  About the subscription, not sure how that will fly, that has to do more with end game than anything else, but from the basic unit cost and even an extra month to level up if it takes you that long, this game it well worth spending the money on.  Heck, I only played for around 20 or so hours over the three day weekend and I would already say that I got my moneys worth.

So while we are waiting on warlords (which as it turns out sounds a hell of a lot like wildstar in every way) if you need a break and want to try something new I suggest wildstar completely.