Carbine Studios was never shy about its target demographic. For one, it hoped to engage those of you reading this, the Lore Hounds. Creative director Chad Moore has made this a consistent effort. Expanding the lore in interesting ways, holding back aspects and always, always engaging the community to attempt to understand what sticks, what we’re interested in and to leverage some of our ideas. Another of the four pillars was raiding and that was strictly hardcore. Interview after interview reiterated that dungeons and adventures were introductory, tutorials if you will, to the “true” challenge of old-school raiding.
During my road trip I came across a reminder that Carbine Studios made the hard decision to cut raiding from the incredibly complex and dedicated 40-man affair to a more consumable 20-man outing. At the time it was upcoming with an unplanned release date. Now the 20-man Datascape is live, albeit in the testing phase. When Drop 4 comes next year it’ll mark what could be a dramatic shift for WildStar. And I’m torn.
What attracted me to WildStar was its ideals. Its aspiration to return us to the hardcore. To be World of Warcraft in its The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King mix with ten years of new technology, game design innovation and storytelling bolted on. And there’s no doubt that now it’s being watered down. Those achievements and server firsts of old will mean more but few will realize or care. And clearly this has been necessitated by business needs. Fortunately, in a way, this means I can join the raiding legions of the Nexus. Hence the splicing.
Where do you stand?