Over the weekend I’ve found time to catch up on the MMO blogosphere’s unleashed Wildstar impressions and by the looks, nobody is unhappy to have played in the beta. While several have mentioned the art style not being very immersive at first, everybody seems to agree that Carbine is delivering a fairly polished game with lots of potential for group play. Generally, enthusiasm isn’t exactly overflowing but given how most of us are grumpy veterans, that’s just as well. Caution, thy name is 2014 MMO blogging!
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Since I didn’t really give a complete beta review in my last update but rather focused on the “Wildstar versus WoW”-debate, here’s a quick round-up of many interesting posts by fellow bloggers that when put together, paint a pretty comprehensive Wildstar picture:
- Clockwork thinks that Wildstar is a great game overall but needs serious work in the camera and UI department. As for telelgraphs, they sure take some getting used to! I happen to agree with all his points.
- Bel over at Tales of the Aggronaut is extremely torn: for him, Wildstar comes close to Las Vegas in terms of busyness, content density and sensory overload. Being fiercely in the ESO camp already, it’s hard for him to find good enough reasons to play (or pay).
- Braxwolf Stormchaser can say with certainty that Wildstar is an MMO. He likes the game’s overall flair and music and despite its cartoony graphics, found it to be grittier than GW2 or SWTOR. Still, he isn’t over the moon about Wildstar just yet.
- Stubborn goes on to explain that unlike me, he will name Wildstar’s core gameplay a direct successor of WoW and that’s not a bad thing. Wildstar is the more refined title and Carbine have done a fantastic marketing job – all that said, he has no plans to play at launch.
- Kadomi at the new blog To Boldly Nerd is exclusively interested to play Wildstar this year. Her review is one of the most complete I’ve found and covers a lot of aspects and great details about the game’s current state, so check it out!
- As for my Battle Bards co-host Syp, he has already shared his positive Wildstar review much earlier than us ordinary people. Now that the NDA has dropped for everybody, he is back to discuss different purchase and pricing options while being very disappointed in the lack of proper collector’s edition. The fact that releasing the OST doesn’t get mentioned anywhere by Carbine is a big let-down indeed.
If you’re still on the fence about Wildstar, these different reads will provide you with ample input although they might not convince you either way. That last leap of faith is still yours to make. As far as I’m concerned, that pre-order is a done deal.
In case I missed anyone’s review, let me know so I can add you to the list! Happy Sunday all!
Keen has a good overview post up. I would say that, looking at things from the outside, the single most obvious unifying factor between ESO and WS is that almost no-one is raving about either of them (Syp and yourself being the only exceptions I’ve seen although it’s fair to say I haven’t been going out of my way to read a wide range of opinons).
Come to think of it, has there ever been an MMO about to launch that a majority of MMO fans *did* rave about once the NDA came down? Most MMOs probably come in, at best, as 3-star entertainment, don’t they?
Yeah I think nobody is exactly gushing at this point although I’d say the general mood about WS is more positive. it’s hard to be objective of course, but the things WS gets criticized for are mostly up to preference, whereas ESO is still in the phase of bug hell and lack of polish. that’s the main reason why many won’t bother with it before it goes free-to-play.
As for pre-launch hype, GW2 did have quite a big one, no? I am not nearly as excited for any of the games this year as I was for that. my expectations for WS are actually quite moderate or ‘mildly positive’ – it’s not been the game I expected to like until more recently.
I’ve only recently started to get interested in Wildstar but was lucky enough to get into the beta and loved it.
I think it does enough different to other games on the market and I’m defo in for launch.