Have you played Wildstar Online yet?
If not, you really should give it a go. The MMO, created by Carbine - a studio made up of many ex-Blizzard developers - is one of the better MMORPGs released in the last few years, mixing tried-and-true genre tropes with plenty of fresh ideas, all wrapped up in a lovely sci-fi/western setting with more than its fair share of genuinely amusing humor. Itā€™s good enough that we awarded the game 9/10 in our Wildstar Online Review.
Unfortunately, the game has enjoyed a fairly bumpy ride since its launch back in June of last year. Not only was the developer hit by layoffs, but plans to release monthly content updates were scuppered as the developer focused instead of refining systems and fixing bugs (though three substantial updates have been released, adding new zones, dungeons and raids).
That said, Wildstar remains an excellent MMO thatā€™s well worth your time, if youā€™re feeling a bit burned out by World of Warcraft and fancy something a bit different, yet familiar. And Carbine is planning on plenty of new content and features to look forward to in 2015.
In a post on the gameā€™s official forums, designer Mike Donatelli has discussed the studioā€™s plans for the year ahead. First up is the gameā€™s next content patch, titled The Protogames Initiative. This will add a training dungeon to teach new players the vital tactics theyā€™ll need to tackle later dungeons and raids, a high-level dungeon, a level 6 shiphand designed to introduce players to group gameplay at a much earlier stage, upgrades to the LFG tool, and rebalancing the gameā€™s 40-man Datascape raid down to 20 players.
Beyond The Protogames Initiative, Carbine has said that it will be focusing more on content aimed at shorter playing sessions of between 30 to 45 minutes. The developer says that this is to allow players to still attain a feeling of accomplishment without having to put aside hours of their time. Some of the ways they intend to achieve this is through a new Contracts system, which will offer short missions with decent rewards, and revising the levelling curve - presumably to counter complaints from some players that it can take too long to reach the level cap. Thereā€™s also a new 20-man dungeon in the works.
Itā€™s clear that Carbine isnā€™t resting on its laurels, then, and the studio promises that they have plenty more content planned that they arenā€™t yet ready to discuss. Take a look at some screenshots from the next update below.
Dale Morgan
@spamdangled
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