So, What's all this about then?
New MMO being developed by NCSoft affiliate Carbine studios that takes the best of fantasy and Sci-fi, tosses them into a room before telling them to "Make it work" and create a child. Want action? Want adventure? Want a western flavored space extravaganza? Well hold on, Cupcake! You're gonna get it!
http://www.wildstar-online.com/
WINTER BETA IS COMING
This is the brand spanking new (to us) build of the game. All races and supposedly all classes will be playable this December
Register an NC Soft Account
There's no getting around this, they're migrating every previous account over, beta and otherwise
Group Website:
In the section that asks if you belong to a gaming community, use this link:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/184551/wildstar-new-winter-beta-thread-in-time-for-the-holidays#latest
Meet The Dominion
The Cassian - The top dogs of the group, tasked with the heavy burden of bringing civilization and prestige to the unwashed masses. They're better than you. They know it and they have no problems constantly reminding everyone else about it through arrogance or just good old fashioned brute force.
The Draken - The meanest sumbitches in the galaxy. Dragon folk. Warriors, hunters and fighters. Not hard to find at all. Just gotta follow the trail of decapitated corpses
The Mechari - Ruthless killing machines created by the Eldan to sniff out traitors and spies. Humor deficient
The Chua - The real brains behind The Dominion's tech. Pint sized rodents worked into a near psychotic froth at the mere sight of technology
Meet The Exiles
Humans - Humans this go aren't the big boys on the block. Wanderers, nomads and explorers using good old fashioned Grit and Determination™ to find a new world to call home. The Dominion though? Fuuuuuck those guys.
The Granok - Stone skinned ass kickers and name takers. If they aren't busting heads, they're probably somewhere pounding back cold ones. For the sake of simplification let's call them 8 foot tall space dwarves.
The Aurin - Requisite hippies only with more fur, tail, tooth and claw. Scrappy lil cusses not afraid to throw down if they have to though. They exist a bit more on the spiritual side of the spectrum for the Exiles, shamanism and mysticism with a whole lot of "one with nature"-ness
The Mordesh - Exile black ops. Technically kinda dead! and using a combination of science and cybernetics to keep themselves from rotting away. These guys get down to the dirty stuff the rest of the Exile faction find a little "unsavory" whether its genetic mutation experiments or unleashing a madness plague on Dominion civilians
Classes
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/classes/warrior.php
The Warrior's Gear
Power Sword
For ages, warriors throughout the galaxy would slice and dice their enemies with swords, only inevitably to find themselves confronted with something uncuttable. But then someone came up with the crazy idea of hooking a blade up to a fusion accelerator. The result? A marriage made in slaughterhouse heaven. Today's power swords come equipped with ten megatons of liquid awesome hurtage. In. Your. Fist.
Arm Cannon
Think last year's Thermo-Nuclear Battle Gauntlet was the last word in extremity extreme? Well, stop thinking and listen, because this year we're talking the XL45 Hell Mitten: a supercharged deathgrip that'll have your enemies singing soprano for the rest of their three-second lives. This bad boy comes stocked with something for everyone to die from: a high-velocity ripsaw, 40M retractable battle harpoon, instant-activation riot shield, personal defense plasma barrier, and high-explosive destructo-missiles. Oh...and GPS. This ain't your gam-gam's battle gauntlet!
Brute Force
Enough with the techno-yadda-yadda, egghead...Tactics are for wimps. In the end war's all about two good old-fashioned pastimes: ass-kickin' and face-stompin'. Which one you do with the back of your hand and which comes courtesy of your size 30 boot is up to you, ace.
Warriors: the most ancient fraternity in the universe. Paragons of foolhardiness. Defenders of the swordless. Though the names of a very few are immortalized, the deeds and even existence of most will never be known. And while none would dare impugn their courage, their intelligence is another matter entirely.
For millennia, those who followed the way of the blade saw no need for weaponry of greater complexity than swords. While reforms spearheaded by Bellitorus the Organ Grinder such as a Warriors School had fizzled out because the invitees were "sorta busy fighting," his innovation of a sword powered by nuclear energy was eventually accepted by many as a satisfyingly gory improvement.
Despite this, his second proposal, an arm-cannon, would only catch on after die-hard sword purists repeatedly found themselves mown down by the millions from laser artillery. Yet so great was the warriors' attachment to their archaic weapon that when Bellitorus' illegitimate descendant Vagnathrox the Spleen Gargler suggested other, more powerful, longer-range projectile devices, his disgusted peers beheaded him on the spot.
Nevertheless, in 1414, Vagnathrox belatedly received recognition for good intentions in the form of a statue of his decapitated body, which to this day enjoys the occasional visitor behind the restrooms of the Neglected Military Near-Heroes Museum on the nameless 18th moon of Perambuthorus VII-b.
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/classes/spellslinger.php
The Spellslinger's Gear
MAG PISTOLS
For centuries, the number of bullets Spellslingers could shoot per second was an infuriating bottleneck. Then, belatedly recalling that they were ambidextrous, they added a second pistol to their arsenal. The rest is exit wound history.
MAGIC SIGILS
If there's one thing Spellslingers hate, it's a fair fight. That's why they supplement their deadeye marksmanship by juicing up their weapons and ammo with sorcerous sigils. Who says gunfighting and the occult don't mix? The Spellslingers' victims, and they aren't talking.
ACROBATICS
If there's another thing they hate, it's losing. For generations, Spellslingers fought duels by standing stationary at opposite ends of deserted streets, only to find themselves defeated by the agile. Humiliated by their own immobility, they delved into the arcane arts of somersaulting. Needless to say, their win percentages improved by leaps and bounds.
Spellslingers: Since time immemorial, there have been Spellslingers. Lean, craggy types with dead eyes, their only weapons pistols, their only mailing addresses the grim and dusty wastes, their only social contact in saloons so violent that most patrons brought along their own body-bags.
In the early days, 'slingers were so trigger-happy that running out of ammo was a constant concern. Then one with a head for sorcery began cadging magic bullets from another dimension he called "the Void". Them bullets never ran out, and they packed six hells 'a wallop per cubic molecule. And then one clever sumbitch figured out you could actually go into the Void. That's when things started to get ugly.
Having licked their ammo problem by transcending time and space, Spellslingers once again roamed the wild reaches beyond the Fringe, killing all who looked at them funny and most who didn't. Of course, now they face a different problem. There may be fewer villains holding up banks and killing the parents of future vengeance-seekers, but now cemeteries across the galaxy have reached full capacity.
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/classes/stalker.php
The Stalker's Gear
CLAWS
Guns may have better range and cause less muss, but where's the fun in that? Claws of every conceivable length, shape, sharpness, balance, and reflectivity give the discriminating Stalker no end of options when it comes to slicing open every artery at once. Just because you're invisible doesn't mean your opponents' innards have to be.
DEVICES
Who says business and pleasure can't awkwardly mix? Claws may be fine for everyday massacres, but for special occasions, Stalkers enjoy an assortment of swanky accessories such as amplification spikes, tether-mines and nano-darts. Put the sass back in your assassination or your blood-money back!
NANO SKIN
f there's one thing all Stalkers agree on, it's that pockets are so yesteryear. That's why this year's homicide hobbyist dresses to kill in a nanite-charged skin of smartfabric featuring a wetwired cerebral interface, and a veritable arterial spray of lethal accessories. It's not fashion-forward, it's fashion-fatal.
Since the dawn of creation, sentient beings have sought one thing above all others: beer-flavored bubblegum. But invisibility was a close second, not only for its simplification of wardrobe selection, but also for the ways it would improve the galaxy's favorite pastime: evisceration of the unsuspecting.
Unfortunately, for every bold innovation like hiding behind trees or the discovery of shadows, the prey community craftily countered with claw-proof contact lenses, time travel, and the police. For a while it seemed that invisibility would remain shamefully confined to the pages of paranormal romance.
But then came the Cassian acquisition of 'omni-plasm', a mysterious Eldan goo containing millions of nanites - the building blocks of what would become the Stalker's arsenal: stealth, enhanced defenses, and optical holoprojection capable of transforming mere humanoids into invisible mere humanoids.
Today's Stalkers enjoy the distinction of being the least visible assassins in interstellar warfare. Or, as Shrik "the Strangulator" Biddlesworth put it in his autobiography Stalking for Success: A Personal Journey, "If your liver's still operational by the time I've moved on to your family members, then I'm not doing my job."
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/classes/esper.php
The Esper's Gear
PSY-BLADE
While others waste time swinging clunky metal swords at you, you'll be ventilating them with an indestructible wit-sharpened stiletto forged from 100% superego! Unlike their flimsy milquetoast steel counterparts, your psy-blade projections be flung with deadly abandon among your cerebrally disadvantaged victims! Brain power never felt so good!
PANACEA ILLUSIONS
They say time heals all wounds, but why wait? Humiliate generations of traditional physicians by restoring life and buffing armor using only the power of your mind! And if you ever dreamed of transforming into a health-restoring, rainbow-pooping spirit animal? BOOM.
MALIGNANT ILLUSIONS
Tired of hearing that you cause "bad vibes" and fly off the handle over "nothing"? Put those judgmental haters on the short bus to payback school! Use your enemies' worst fears against them, attacking with nightmarish psycho-kinetic horrors guaranteed to stop even the hardiest of hearts.
Espers: uber-freaks of paranormal-nature or the next stage in evolution? Civilization's mental elite or pariahs doomed to lives of desperation? Masters of mind over matter, or mindless slaves to their own madness? Never, and always, have so many moving so much using so little endured such torment.
In the early stages of galactic civilization, individuals evincing psycho-kinetic abilities were hailed as frightening abominations to be persecuted, exorcized, and burned at the stake (or, among the Chua, blown up, then beaten, and then blown up again). But as cultural and scientific knowledge advanced, along with a growing recognition of their military applications, public opinion of the Esper's abilities took a dramatic (and significantly less flammable) turn.
Now, with the demand for unconventional combat techniques at a premium, Espers are considered valuable members of the community, enjoying unprecedented levels of esteem and respect. Mostly this takes the form of slightly fewer wedgies, and only the occasional stake-burning in the less enlightened parts of the galaxy.
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/classes/medic.php
The Medic's Gear
RESONATORS
Does shocking others "resonate" with you? If so, your aspiring inner intern will be Delighted Upon Arrival with the Awe-n-Shock Resonators Mark IX. Heal your enemies and boil your friends with last year's prize-winner for Most Excruciating Surgical Appliance! Smells like this wild-cardio just got wilder!
FIELDS
Did someone say sci-fi sawbones? Wielding a virtual pharmacopoeia of benign and malignant auras, you'll be savoring your enemies' squeals of relief and allies' howls of agony through the undebunkable magic of medical science!
PROBES
Nothing puts a smile on a medic's face like a bunch of shiny new probes! Sophisticated advances in biotechnology allow healing probes to work so fast, there's only time for emotional scars! And for Medics with an eye for offense, the Ultra-Probinatrix 9000-Z is guaranteed to cause death faster than you can say ah. With devices like these, killing patients is a virtue!
Medics: Back in the day, it was great being a doctor. Illness and death were omnipresent, and the medical profession was one of the very few able to charge improbable sums for advice, even when it proved irrelevant or fatal. With the exciting innovation of warfare, their clientele skyrocketed along with their rates. Times were grand!
But in a tragic twist for the profession, magnetic resonators capable of rapidly restoring health became scientifically possible. With people no longer sickening or dying in great numbers, some doctors were forced out of business altogether, or, even worse, into saving lives without compensation.
Thankfully, the most entrepreneurial sociopaths in the industry came through big-time. Aspiring quacks ingeniously repurposed their resonators to inflict pain rather than relieve it.
Once again, and with only minor revisions to their sacred oaths, they were making money hand over fist. Thanks to the enduring efforts of such pioneers, an industry formerly on life-support has metastasized virtually overnight into a cottage industry. Times are even grander!
FEATURES:
Player Housing
PATHS
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/the-game/paths/
Paths are additional character creation options used to tailor your gameplay experience towards your own playstyles. Maybe you're that guy that just wants to KILL! KILL! KILL! or that person that likes to go "goating" around the MMO landscape to look for places you shouldn't normally be able to reach. Paths are for those players.
-Soldier:This is the Path for the people that want to get down and dirty. Assassinations and weapon R&D your thing? This is the path for you my friend! You're going to be that guy that does everything from defending a spot from waves upon waves of enemies, to summoning world bosses for people to fight. Cigar and can of beer not included
-Explorer: Have you ever played an mmo and saw a building or mountain off somewhere and wondered to yourself "Can I get on top of that?" That's the explorer. Finding hidden pathways and beautiful vistas with your tracking sense and intuition. Open shortcuts through a zone, find hidden caves, ruins and treasure. You are Indiana Jones. In space. Roll with it
-Scientist: The lore junkie. The scholar. Yours is the path of finding out what the heck all this crap is for! If you were the type of person whose OCD didn't allow them to leave a jrpg or zelda game until every nook was checked and every pot smashed, scanned, searched or whathave you. This is the path for you. It's your job to catalogue all the plants and critters of the world!
-Settler: Are you a people person? I sure hope so. Settlers are all about helping out your fellow player (maybe with a little extra incentive thrown in for you) It's your duty to maintain towns and outposts, providing buffs, mounts, taxis and outpost defense to give your fellow players a safe haven in-between their many adventures!
DEVSPEAKS
These vids are a special series from Carbine breaking down the secret ingredients of Wildstar's gameplay
Paths
Housing
Aiming
Movement
Crowd Control
Ability Mechanics
