Carbine Studios has big plans for its sci-fi fantasy MMO Wildstar moving into 2015, and it’s keen to share them with fans. Hence this new blog post from the team, detailing exactly what they’re working on.
As well as new bits and pieces of content, and some general ‘quality of life’ improvements, the main thrust of the update plans seem to be focused on making general play more accessible to players of all levels and play-styles.
“Over the past few months we’ve received a lot of feedback about WildStar,” writes Carbine. “Much of it has focused on the fact that although many of our systems are unique, engaging and fun, many of them are inaccessible to certain groups of players. At Carbine, our philosophy has always been “play the way you want to play,” and therefore we have been working very hard to make sure players can experience and enjoy WildStar’s content - regardless of their level or playstyle preference.”
To whit; players will soon have access to a low-level training dungeon called the Protogames Academy, which will teach them the basic game mechanics they’ll need to master in order to not get shouted at by their teammates. Carbine is also making “significant adjustments” to the quest experience in the starting zones, and they’re working on improving the ‘Looking for Group’ tool.
That’s all nice. I think a lot of MMORPG developers assume their player-base is all completely au fait with the intricacies of the genre, but that’s not sways the case. Nice to see a bit of consideration for the newbies. Not that the update plans are all focused on lower levels; there’s also a new max-level dungeon called the Ultimate ‘Protogames’, and a new currency type called Glory which is earned by completing dungeons and raids. Glory can be exchanged for high-quality gear in each faction’s capital city.
A lot of this content is currently playable in the WildStar test server, but players in the regular servers should be able to get their grubby mitts on it sometime early next year.
