Now that the NDA has been lifted, what are your thoughts?

[Nyogtha]

"NDA LIFT
As of today, the NDA for WildStar has officially lifted! Anyone in the beta is free to talk about their experiences, share screenshots, video, livestream, blog, tweet, vine, haiku, and more!"

What do you think of the game? Anything you'd like to share for those that didn't get in the beta? I'll get into it, but for now I'll just say that I'll be pre-ordering for sure.

[AAugust]

I have mixed emotions about the game... I was absolutely in love with it at first. The combat system felt smooth and intuitive, and the progression moved along at a decent pace... That is until I hit lvl 10 and I was flooded with all the profession quests. My level progression came to a screeching halt and I felt overwhelmed with quests/tasks. I tried to push through, but I ended up taking some time off to try to get excited about it again.

I was in game last night, and noticed that all my telegraphs no longer show up while I hold down the button for the ability.. This is really discouraging to me, as I loved taking the time to line up my telegraph for maximum effect, and now I am forced to use my best guess as to where the ability will land. I looked for some interface that made the change, but I was unable to find anything that controlled the effect.

I still enjoyed my time, but it seems like I can only chip away at the leveling in small doses, which is not conducive to me paying a monthly sub.

[bbates024]

I can tell you I got to play for 3 weekends I got a Medic to 21 a Stalker to 13 and a bunch of things to level 6. I had a blast the combat is fun and fast paced. I'm looking forward to checking out after this last AMP/Ability refresh to see how it feels.

I can say once I hit about 15 there were so many quests and things pulling me in so many directions I did feel a little lost. Hopefully that will smooth out a little bit but I really don't think so.

I have to say I loved the adventures at 15+ they were a blast and provided some pretty good exp.

I healed Stormtalon all the way through four times. I can say if your group isn't very competent it will take you a long time to do it. If your group is good and your in vent your probably going to rock it. I think in beta the hardest part was not being able to chat about when to rock stuns and stuff just going in and hoping people don't stink isn't really a great game plan. The dps didn't seem as important (not sure if there is enrage) as making sure you knew how to dodge but 2-3 of the major telegraphs and you were dead. So moving is key. I have to say it was awesome the mechanics while a little scripted seemed awesome and different each time I did it. You can't predict who the circles will land on and where the orbs are going. It makes each run feel unique. That's awesome I can't wait to run it with guildies.

PvP is a blast I think maybe there needs to be a little more direction for people to really know whats going on the second pvp zone I never really figured out cause people on my teams were just running around trying to kill people instead of trying to cap points like I think you were supposed to be doing. But it was still really fun, and will only get better after I understand it more. The armor you can get from pvping was pretty cool.

Healing on the Medic was really fun and will only get better once Emission doesn't have a cost. You do have to kind of get everyone in a little closer together. The only times I had issues is when one person Esper/Spellslinger would stand at there max range. While awesome for them it felt like wasting a heal to run over and get one person in my telegraph instead of the entire group. All of that will be fixed with using teamspeak. Medic will rock with any kind of tank but they work best in groups of medium or short ranged players. I had one group that was 3 stalkers, and a spellsinger and it was awesome to have all the melee stacked and I could just dump heals in one area.

The medic dps seems to be a little slow sometimes, but was great for multiple mobs. It was really dependent on using the debuff then dropping the mobs with major hits up front. All of that could change at higher levels though.

I'm torn between Stalker and Medic so I am probably going to be leveling both and keeping the medic ahead a bit. I can say I will be preordering the game. It did have a few bugs but I have faith in 3 months they will be hammer alot of those out. Most of them were small I didn't find anything game breaking accept the fact group finder seemed iffy at best. Hopefully that is fixed for launch.

[Vors]

I was in game last night, and noticed that all my telegraphs no longer show up while I hold down the button for the ability.. This is really discouraging to me, as I loved taking the time to line up my telegraph for maximum effect, and now I am forced to use my best guess as to where the ability will land. I looked for some interface that made the change, but I was unable to find anything that controlled the effect.

There is indeed options for this under the combat section, by default the game is set to click twice to use an ability.
There is 2 tick boxes to change this setting, first is hold and release option which means the ability won't go off till you let got (this is what you want) and the second is continual cast option that means it goes off right away and will continue to cast as soon as possible until you take your finger off the key.

[AAugust]

cool thanks, now my feelings wont be quite so hurt.. I will check it out.

[Raille]

The learning curve in this game goes a long way. I see a lot of people just not sticking with it because it is challenging in general. I need to rerun the dungeons in the current patch, but in the last one people could struggle getting through mid-level dungeons. One thing I noticed though is that if you level up once then the game is infinitely easier once you go through "simple" telegraphs again.

AAugust - the most overwhelming points in the game come early, 10 when crafting comes along and 15 when city options open up. After you get through those points it becomes more linear with only a few quests coming off as confusing. There's still plenty of exploration that results in hidden world bosses, public quests, or just plain quests if you look around of course

My only real complaint about the game is that you can't queue for adventures and dungeons at the same time. More often than not I just want to do content and I'm not too picky on which, but I'm limited on what I can sign up for.

I'm curious how the final balancing will pan out, currently my stalker is insanely powerful at tanking, but I think this game will have a lot to do coming out the gate. The end game is looking robust as far as what you have available for options. I'll go into all the details in another post, but I have a lot of fun playing (I've got a 50 and a 49 that's about to hit 50 so ya I play a lot) and hope to get some more dungeon testing in now that I figured out what main I want.

[Zippity]

Based on the 2 Beta Weekends that I was able to participate in here some of my thoughts thus far:

With regards to Paths, of the 4, the one that seems to be most complicated is Exploration. Once past the Tutorial Ship and Beginning Zone, Exploration Quests pop very often and require, in many cases, more time invested then the Normal Quest Chains for the zone... For some peeps this will be a dream come true, for others this will be annoying... Understandably you do not need to complete them all before moving on to the next quest zone, but if you are a completionist, be prepared to spend a lot of time and some frustration completing all the Exploration quests... Some of them almost feel like they are mini-puzzle games... Outside of the time involved, some of the hidden items you reveal with this path are cool and fun...

Science, although not as time consuming and complicated as some of the Exploration quests, do require some time investment and some zone exploration as well... In each zone, one of the Science Quests will be to find all the hidden datacubes... Beyond that one, the rest can usually be fulfilled as you flow through the zone completing normal quests... On occasion you may need to backtrack a small bit, or compete with other Scientists for the resources you need to scan... But it is no where near as time consuming as Exploration... Be prepared to have a Scan Bot follow you around a lot, and although it can take damage from combat, it will not actually attack or do anything else other then scan things as you command it to... If it dies, another one can be summoned, so no worries...

Settler mostly requires that you collect resources and then apply them to either building buffing stations of various types or add to the time that existing buffing stations continue to exist, as well as other things... Most of the quests revolve around those two things... I was not able to get into higher levels with this Path beyond the first few zones, so I'm unsure if this pattern ever changes... But what I did experience lead me to believe this path was not as complicated as Science or Exploration...

Soldier, seemed to be fairly cut and dry, although I did not get into later zones to see if it became more involved or not... It seemed to mostly be made up of Hold and Defend type Quests, where you had to defend a spot against waves of baddies... The more players that actually help out, the more baddies come in each wave... And each wave gets harder and harder as they come... Be prepared for a lot of AOE and sometimes only a little break between waves... They can be very challenging... Especially if players happen by, increasing the wave size, but don't stick around to help defeat them... Other quests involved killing a particular baddie or baddies...

Zip

[Lexander]

I have to agree that confusion set in once I left the starting area. I had chosen explorer and the absolute explosion of normal quests plus the explorer quests was amazing. I think people will either need to take time to just run around to do the explorer quests or to ignore them and do the normal ones to stay sane! The amount of things beeping and flashing for your attention was too much at times. I did get used to it but for new players I think this will cause problems at first.

[Zippity]

I have to agree that confusion set in once I left the starting area. I had chosen explorer and the absolute explosion of normal quests plus the explorer quests was amazing. I think people will either need to take time to just run around to do the explorer quests or to ignore them and do the normal ones to stay sane! The amount of things beeping and flashing for your attention was too much at times. I did get used to it but for new players I think this will cause problems at first.

That is one thing this game is Not lacking in, things to do... With the mixture of normal quests and path quests, as well as the Dungeons and Adventure system, as well as Crafting Quests, and so forth... There is a lot to keep you busy... And You don't need to do it all, so although it seems a bit overwhelming sometimes, don't feel obligated to do it all... Look at it as "You have options"... For completionists, I feel sorry for you... With so much to do, if you devote the time to do it All, you may end up burning yourself out... Take things in moderation and have fun...

I almost look at it as an Altaholics dream game... With so much to do, you can have a somewhat different leveling experience each time you bring up a toon...

Zip

[Nyogtha]

Combat:
Love, love, love the combat in this game! One thing I really enjoyed in GW2 was the combat. That you were able to dodge and you had to be more aware of your surroundings, which also gave you better control of the fight. I was getting tired of the standard MMO combat. Well WildStar does it much better than GW2. That's not a slight on GW2, it's just true, at least in my experience. No auto attacking whatsoever or tab-targeting. You need to aim, and dodge, and break out of stuns and jump out of the way while still aiming your attacks...love it! With that said, it's not for everyone! A friend of mine who also got into beta tried to get his wife to play, and she couldn't do it. She is used to WOW and doesn't use mouse look, but uses the arrow keys to move. So she just couldn't grasp the quick movement necessary for WildStar.

Leveling/Abilities/Amps:
I also enjoy how this is done. In the standard MMO, you're used to having access to all of your abilities all at once. When people heard that WildStar was limited to 8 at a time, when you have many available, it just didn't sound like a great idea. In my opinion it works wonderfully. It helps you really focus on creating your build. On top of that, you can be the exact same class as someone else, but have a totally different play style. This helps to remove the definite cycle of abilities that you have to do in a certain sequence to play a specific class. In addition, if you find your build isn't working well, just change what abilities you're using! In addition to that, now at level 15, you can have two sets saved and ready to go. What that means (the way I used two sets) is that you can have a solo build, then switch to a group build. For example, for my Mordesh medic Ny0gtha (had to have a zero because someone actually took my name, do you believe it?) I had a solo all-DPS build. When I would group up, I'd use my set 2 which was all heals. The AMPs also switch between the sets. Set one was Assault to crank up the DPS and set two was Support to enhance my heals. I really enjoy how it works.

Traveling:
Again, I think they did a pretty good job with this. Normally you have your constant run speed and then a mount (unless of course you have run speed boosts). In WildStar you also have sprinting. Sprinting really does help to make it seem like you're not being completely tormented by running everywhere. What's cool is sprinting still works while on a mount, so you go even faster. There are also speed boosts pretty much all over the place to help with running around. Mix that with the taxi system you're familiar with and the fact that you can recall to a destination you pick as well as your house, well you have a lot of options.

Path system:
Again, I really like this. Yet another way to set your character apart from others. Not to mention adding a whole other way to play the game. I enjoyed aspects of every path but my personal favorites where the Explorer and the Settler.

Content:
Holy crap there is a lot of content!!! If you do every quest available to you in a zone, you will definitely outlevel the zone before you leave that zone. This is awesome because you can actually skip quests if you want, and it's no big deal at all. There is SO much to do, you will definitely be overwhelmed when you first play the game. I'm not even talking about the addition of path quests. I mean just regular quests for the zone. Even take out the multiplayer quests (+2, +5, etc.) you will still have a crazy about to do! Oh yeah, then there are crafting quests as well! When I do every quest, plus the multiplayer, plus the path quests plus the crafting quests. Wow. I'm not only destroying things when I get to the next zone, but I'm ahead in crafting and at a higher path level. It's nuts!

Crafting:
I am not a crafter. I have never crafted in WOW. I gathered stuff and sold on the AH. GW2 I tried it a little, but felt like it was a job. Something about WildStar is different. Now the Architect and Technologist are VERY different from any other game. It's like a mini-puzzle to craft things, which makes it more fun. The armor and weapon crafting is similar to other games, but it's still less...I don't know...mundane? I don't know why, but it just doesn't feel like work or annoy me like it has in other games. You also seem to have much more control over what you're making, which is always a good thing.

Customization:
I think they could add more when creating your character, such as height and width which doesn't exist right now, but there are definitely a lot of options so that you can stand a fair chance of looking unique. What the do very well is what is offered after your character is made. You have costume slots! Yay! So keep the look you really like! On top of that, they have dyes! Yay! So no more looking like a color-blind rainbow (sorry Streeg). Oh, and your weapons are included in the costume! Yay! Does that new awesome sword have some plain art to it? Use your old awesome-looking sword in the costume slot! Oh, and you can add custom elements to your mount...that affect it's performance!

Housing:
Come on. Seriously? It's awesome. So you get a house at 14?...I think 14. I have a level 18 character. So only four levels after I got the house. Here's what I got at my house, which includes the property. The house itself. A "thicket" which gives me trees to cut down, leather to pull off the rack and some food. I have a vending machine which allows me to repair and sell things. I have a moonshine shack which is a timed challenge and I get some pretty good rewards for completing such as a purple bed for my house, crafting supplies, a neon beer sign, etc. I also have a crashed ship on my property that starts an even similar to a soldier's holdout! Not to mention inside my house I have quite a bit of furniture. That's just four levels after getting the house! I don't hit level cap for another 32 levels!

Non-crafting tradeskills:
So the way they do stuff like mining is awesome. First of all, I've never felt like I was racing against other people to get nodes. They seem fairly plentiful. You get special items to do your mining and relic hunting and tree-chopping-downing. They don't take up bag space. Also most of the things you collect won't either, there's a special crafting bag where all your ore and wood go. Mining will also sometimes turn into an event, like a nasty creature to kill, or open into an underground mine so that you can run around and collect as much as you can within a certain amount of time. Relic hunting is similar. Sometimes the node will hop up and run away from you, sometimes it will hover and bots will come to protect it. Just means you get more tradeskill xp and loot.

Quest acquiring/returns:
Yup, a lot of the time you will have to return to the quest giver. "But why with being sci-fi, why don't we have the tech to contact them?" Ah, but we do! Just as many quests that you have to physically return to, if not more, allow you to call the quest giver to complete the quest or to receive it. Sometimes you'll run into an area and you're called up and offered a quest. So it changes it up quite a bit.

That's my overall thoughts and my main reasons for really liking the game. Oh, I forgot a biggie! Maybe one of the most important things why I like this game over a lot of others! The humor and art style! It doesn't take itself seriously to the point of being dry. It's fun! It's mostly light and has a lot of humor in it. Even the art style is cartoony, which can be a turnoff for some, but it works here. Instead of the game relying on the story to be serious and have realism, it relies on the game mechanics to bring the seriousness! I mean they aren't screwing around here! You really need to get used to the mechanics. I've heard people thinking that telegraphs make the game easy. LOL. All I can say is that is not true at all. The telegraphs don't make it easy, they make it so you don't die instantly! Trust me, you have to really pay attention. So the serious combat of the game is balanced by the light and funny story, characters and art style. Works very well in my opinion.