WildStar: mm, Bluth-y

[cmdr_zoom]

This upcoming MMO looks like it could be pretty cool.

Trailer (which is funny and awesome and has good voice talent) at the above link, or on YouTube here; gameplay footage here.

Per the subject line, it seems to have a lot of the style of Don Bluth's old work, the laserdisc games and also the movies, especially Titan A.E. - one of the few bits of info on the Humans says that they're "exiles in search of a new home" - translated to CGI, of course. It's got a little of that Borderlands flavor, too. And it claims to explicitly support playstyles like Explorer and Settler as well as Combat. I dig it. Also, it's being published by NCSoft, who've done well by City of Heroes so far.

Yeah, it's got bunnygirl espers. But what MMO doesn't have its share of fanservice?

Comments

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

And yet, it is yet another run around and kill stuff game. I'm tired of that.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Understood. What kind of game are you looking for/have you found?

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

A more fundamental problem with MMOs is that they are massively multi-player. On the one hand, a PC or small group are one or a few among many thousands or millions of others. On the other hand, the lone PC is constrained by what the developers have provided for the masses. By way of example, when I used to play the old West End Games Star Wars game, my GM made the players feel like they were heroes in the Star Wars universe, on par with the characters from the movies. In Star Wars Galaxies, you don't play a hero in that universe; you play a more or less "average" someone among thousands of other more or less "average" someones.

So, what I want from a game probably can't be delivered by an MMO. What I've heard about Guild Wars 2 may change that opinion, but that remains to be seen.

also: They can't take the sky from me!

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've signed up for the beta.

Here's hoping.

Re: also: They can't take the sky from me!

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

a little of that too, yeah. Though as seen from space and in the gameplay footage, it's clear that Nexus isn't all planet Houston.

I was going to sign up, but decided to wait until I've finished my move and have a fixed postal address.

Re: also: They can't take the sky from me!

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, how goes the move?

Re: also: They can't take the sky from me!

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

This is the Week(end) of Packing, to be followed by more packing, and if all goes well, next shall be the Weekend of Moving.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

All MMOs have the same problem: Other people are allowed to play them. :)

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I believe you have fairly captured it, sir.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Also, in re your musing as to the stalwartness of NCsoft, permit me to say that I suspect the players, insofar as there were any, of Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, Lineage I, Dungeon Runners, and Exteel might beg to differ with you. And possibly, in the unimaginably distant year of 2012, those of City of Heroes before it became City of Heroes: Freedom. But perhaps it's 2 AM on shot day and I am feeling grumpy. :)

That said, it does look pretty nifty. Not my cup of tea, but then MMOs in general aren't, and as such have to work extra-hard to get me on board. Hell, I'm not even sure I'm that interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The original Star Wars MMO didn't suck or anything. :)

But pretty nifty, in an abstract sort of way, all the same.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Of those, I can speak only to Auto Assault, which I beta'd and then was invited back to try free for another week. In both cases, my impressions were the same: a fun car combat game with a lot of potential (as far as I could see from my lowly beta/trial-account status), but trying way too hard to be World of Autocraft. And, well, there's already someone camped out on that spot, and they're not moving.

As for CoH Freedum, I'm trying my best to stay optimistic... mostly by persuading myself that I don't have to spend too much time interacting with the sucky bits, er, "less-than-entirely-satisfactory aspects of the new New Player Experience" (as currently being tested in Open Beta). The new lowbie arcs are neat, but I question their decision to ease load on the instancing server by making the first 10 levels play so fundamentally different from the rest of the game. (I also wonder if their datamining is skewed by all those level 1 and 2 name-holder alts.)

Now if they just listen to the (1) obvious and (2) nearly uniform feedback on things like the costume creator, and fix those before this goes live...

The worst case scenario is, of course, right there in the name: every server becomes like unto Freedom. :(

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Addendum: my main reason for not playing SWTOR (and SWG before it) is exactly as described in your first comment. It's far too easy for me to imagine my fun immersive experience in a galaxy far far away shattered into a million pieces on my first contact with some trash-talking twentysomething* who's just there for the pew pew and the epic lewtz. But then, I am a perfectionist and an elitist snob.

*(this is where you make a joke about prequel-era Anakin Skywalker.)

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

But then, I am a perfectionist and an elitist snob.

The first step toward recovering is acknowledging that you have a problem. :)

But actually I quite agree; I remember wryly predicting when SWG was first announced that people would join up expecting to be transported to their favorite fictional universe and Live the Dream, only to find when they got there that it was full of... well, people who play MMOs. Mind you, in the event, the design of the game helped with that not one single bit, which was a contributing factor to be sure, but...

Also: Is that their excuse for making the new Atlas Park door content non-instanced? HA BLOODY HA.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

and all the "Defeat 10 wolves Hellions" street hunts, yes. Though some of that's always been true, since both CoH and the market leader inherited the same assumptions of MMO design, circa 2004. You'd think a 7-years-later update would actually try to move away from that, but no. (That said, I do enjoy the writing in the new lowbie arcs - just not their structure.)

Come to think of it, I wonder what AE farms do to the instance server(s). :p