Choose My Adventure: The overwhelming opening of WildStar

Playing WildStar for this week’s session was the first time I really felt old.

I had failed to account for two things when I got started last week. The first was that I had played this particular opening experience a few times before, so I was fairly familiar with the progression. (I forget, honestly, if the other starting area drops you off in a different region.) The second, however, was how the opening experience past the first zone doesn’t leave you many opportunities to… well, breathe.

Lightreach Mission in Ellevar nicely avoids the usual problem of starting towns in MMOs feeling very much like they’re just there to provide you with an immediate and largely disposable quest hub, so I appreciate that. The problem was, well… the sheer density of the place. You land, you pick up the first few quests, you start doing things and bam, welcome to in-your-face everything-is-happening land! It’s enough to make a guy feel old (even if I’m not).

The problem, at the risk of sounding pedantic, is that there is way too much going on right away and too little pacing for all of it. As soon as you land you’ve got a huge pile of path missions to take on, especially as an explorer. The first major quest sees you heading out into an area replete with quest objectives, challenges, enemies, and so many things going on at once that you’re kind of left to stare in disbelief as things start exploding all around you. I’m honestly not kidding.

Yes, I’ve done this before. I’m familiar with it. But it also lacks much in the way of effective pacing. It wastes no time in letting you get to the meat of the game, but it also sort of… throws that meat at you. It covers you in meat.

I’m doing my absolute best to not make that sound dirty, but I doubt it’s working. If anyone from the game’s marketing staff is reading this, you can feel free to use “WildStar drowns you in meat” as a pull quote.

Joking aside, though, it means that the game feels something less than relaxing, which is one of its big drawbacks. Most MMOs have a variety of different intensities, which I think is one of their appeals. I can log in to most games and decide if I want to queue up for something that’s going to require me to play at my best or if I want to just sort of do my own thing and be a bit lazy. WildStar, by contrast, has exactly one speed, and it involves rocket propulsion and an electric guitar solo.

Bad? No, not exactly, but exhausting. That’s the feeling I kept coming back to, like I was just tired. It even hit me as I decided to take a trip to Illium, the Dominion capital. I remember liking the fact that the taxi driver would quip to you as you flew, but this time I just kept thinking that I remembered a lot of these lines, and it didn’t make the actual process any more engaging. It just made it more noisy.

Considering how much I liked the game when it launched, I’m torn about what’s changed enough to make me this cranky. Is it falling into a rut? Being a couple of years older? Having a different schedule? Or just not being excited enough about the game to overlook all of these various elements like I could before?

If that weren’t complex enough, there’s also the fact that once you start running at its speed, the game is really well-designed. The combat is smooth and responsive, and the limited availability of actions makes each one feel impactful in its own way. There’s some creative telegraphs going on pretty much right from the start, but unlike the critiques I had regarding The Elder Scrolls Online’s combat, there are no challenges here where you must deal with ability X in Y fashion. You just make your own plan, and it either works or it doesn’t. There are a wide enough spread of tools that you can come up with something.

But even there, it feels like the game tosses you into the deep end a bit early. There’s suddenly a huge pile of different abilities you can customize into your limited action set all at once (or at least, there were as a Stalker, perhaps it’s different for the other classes) without much preamble. There’s no pacing. There’s no subtlety. It’s just a whole lot of stuff immediately in your face, deal with it.

And yes, that does make me feel a bit overwhelmed. Maybe it really just is about getting older. I don’t know.

Of course, I can notice how the game has improved since its earliest days; it’s quite clear immediately which gear is meant for which spec, which is satisfyingly straightforward. And it’s not that any individual part of the mix isn’t fun; it’s just a collection of everything collapsing into the same space at the exact same moment that can become pretty overwhelming. The tutorial and opening zone, by contrast, gently ease you into things, which makes everything feel more manageable even if it’s kind of not.

I’m also finding that I sometimes forget whether I have everything locked to mouse movement or if I’m still in free camera mode, which is my own fault. I’m very appreciative of the fact that there is the option to just turn with my mouse automatically, though.

Story-wise, I do recall most of this, although I still really like how the Dominion is portrayed. They’re not the scowling villains of the setting, but they’re also more than willing to be cold and even severe at times. There’s a nice inversion of any expectations that you’re the hero; instead, you’re just the person who’s there at the time when something needs doing. The Dominion expects a high attrition rate, but it has enough people that it’s sustainable over the longer term. If you die, that’s a shame, but it’s all for the greater glory of the Emperor.

And that aesthetic. Yeah, I still really like the Dominion.

Moving on, last week I actually did leave off an option for choosing what I’m doing next that I didn’t even think about until after the fact, but I’ve also climbed slightly in the levels. That means I have an option both about where to go and what to do, which is nice.

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All right, technically I’m a tiny bit underleveled for these, but the nice things about low-level advancement is that it’s on the quick side; I’m almost surprised the game doesn’t just throw you right in to the deeper end, with that in mind. And yes, you have the option of picking two different things for what I’m doing, as I imagine a mixture is going to be helpful if not outright necessary moving forward.

Polls, as always, close at noon on Friday, so make sure to vote early and… well, not often. I don’t think you can vote often, we seem to have decent IP locks for that. Regardless, you can leave some feedback down in the comments, or you can mail it along to eliot@massivelyop.com, same as every week. I’ll see you next time around! There may be more explosions.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Eliot each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures — and you get to decide his fate. For the edifications of those who do not know, Eliot is 34, which means that anyone from age 37 and above is allowed to roll their eyes at the idea of him being “old” at this point.