WildStar beta fun: Part 2

NOTE: This is most certainly written from a noob's point of view. Try not to get too ragey about what you're reading.

Okay, so I've been playing some more WildStar! I did the first few intro quests, and I'm having lots of fun! It's just been tutorial stuff; combat etc. I helped some guy save his pregnant wife, and now people like me. I dunno. It's all very overwhelming

My character is on the "Scientist" path, which means it wants to learn and discover etc. One of the quests I did involved having a "scanbot" follow me around and scan relics...? You can also level up your path, which unlocks rewards. It was quite confusing, but I like how there's different quests depending on if you're an Exile or the Dominion, and what path you're on. I'm sure it will make more sense as I go on.

Aboard The Gambler's Ruin: The Exiles' arkship

I haven't seen much of my Esper class much yet, apart from in the first few combat situations (but the combat is so confusing that I don't know what's going on anyway.) I think it's something to do with telekinetic powers? A magical looking bird thing appeared during battle, so there's that. I've kinda just been pressing buttons.

The controls have been annoying the hell out of me. This is probably mostly due to the fact I'm playing on a 3 year old laptop, but still. I've fallen off of so many ledges.

(1 day later...)
After some fiddling, I started to get the hang of everything and had MUCH more fun. I completed some more quests, and made my way to Nexus!

Leaving for Nexus

Nexus is a lush green planet, but after landing, your character discovers that "the planet is angry", or something along those lines. Either way, there were plants trying to kill me. I got to fight some more powerful enemies, and I even died for the first time while playing! (I think I've got the hang of combat now, too.)

This is the part of the game where the story really opens up, and I can't wait to keep playing. For now, I'm trying to resist, as I'm in the middle of exam season...

Nexus

Long story short, WildStar is fantastic. I love games set in space, so combined with the RPG mechanics, I've been having so much fun. I will definitely play more of this game once it is fully released, and I'm looking forward to see how it performs once I build myself a badass gaming PC.

The beta for WildStar closes at 7pm GMT tonight and the full release is June 3rd, 2014.

Do you have suggestions for more games I should play? Or perhaps you'd like to see more alpha/beta game "reviews"? Let me know :)

Wildstar Beta fun: Part 1..?

I have always liked RPGs. I love everything about them. Most of all, I love how you mould a unique character. You get to live in a fantasy world. I'm a sucker for that kind of immersion.

Aside from briefly dabbling in Runescape in my youth, I have mostly avoided MMOs. There are a few reasons for this. Primarily, the cost. As a kid, I could never afford to pay a subscription, and my mum certainly wouldn't pay it for me. There was the lack of a decent PC. Slow computers are worse than no computers at all. Lastly, MMOs intimidate me slightly. I know that I would LOVE WoW, but the game is around 10 years old, and has millions of players who are much better than me. I feel like if I started playing at this point, I'd probably just die over and over again. (This probably is not true, but I'm still a WoW virgin nonetheless.)

Jessica Nigri's cosplay of a Wildstar Draken (Photo by Martin Wong)

I first heard about WildStar when I heard Jessica Nigri (above) would be cosplaying for them at PAX East. When I saw that VG247 were offering beta keys, I thought, why not? The full game comes out after I finish uni anyway.

I was also intrigued by Wildstar, because the guy (below) on a lot of promotional material reminds me of Ratchet from one of my favourite games, Ratchet and Clank. It made me quite nostalgic.

The Chua: one of the races available to play in Wildstar

So, when the beta realms opened, I immediately logged on (probably not the best idea, seeing as I'm in the middle of revising for my university exams....)

Today I have only gotten as far as character creation. I chose to be on the side of the Exiles. My race is Aurin, my class is Esper, and my path is Scientist (obviously). The game gives a brief description of what these mean, but right now I have no idea of the story or relevance of any of this. It sounds pretty sweet so far, though.

The character creation is very detailed for the face; you could probably make it look very similar to yourself if you tried! I kept it simple. Big eyes, big mouth, and I didn't mess around too much with the rest. I decided to have light blue skin, long pink hair, and purple eyes. I was disappointed that the customisation for the body wasn't as detailed. There were around 10 pre-sets to choose from, all of which had big, giant boobs.... sigh.

My Wildstar character. Obviously I went for cat ears.

I started on the first mission, spoke to the first guy who had an exclamation point above his head, and lost connection. This is probably a sign that I should carry on revising... or that I need to upgrade my PC (which I'm planning on doing later this year!)

I'll try to post more about the Wildstar beta over the course of the weekend. I'm excited to delve into quests, and actually learn what Wildstar is all about!