The NDA for WildStar (developed by Carbine and published by NCSOFT) was recently lifted.
I know that there was previously a lot of debate on the subject on whether new releases ESO and WildStar would affect Final Fantasy XIV's popularity/subscriptions and I figured we could discuss the latter upcoming title.
WildStar is being priced similarly to Final Fantasy XIV (buy the box and then pay for the subscription as well, Collector's Edition for an exclusive in-game item, etc.)
I have played WildStar and I personally think it's going to be the biggest flop in the history of MMORPGs. I would even bet money on that.
I have previously criticized Final Fantasy XIV for reusing a lot of ideas from other MMORPGs, but let's just say that that complaint applies to WildStar one millionfold.
There are six classes in the game (which is fine, in my opinion), but they are extremely race restricted. So, your race of preference only has 2-3 classes to choose from. If you wanted to play as an Aurin (basically a cartoony Viera), you wouldn't be allowed to be a Warrior or a healer. There are no lore-related reasons for the restrictions like in World of Warcraft. Just, for some reason, you can't wield a sword as the midget race, but you can fire a huge grenade launcher which is three times your size, etc.
The art direction is really bad and it feels like they commissioned a teenage girl from DeviantArt to design a lot of the characters.
And don't even get me started on the grass. If you thought FFXIV had ugly foliage, you're going to need a barf bucket for WildStar. It looks like something you would see on the SNES, and a lot of the ground is basically textureless and ugly as well. If you've ever played the (now closed) MMO-social game called "Free Realms", it's about on par with that, graphically. And despite this 2014 PC-exclusive AAA game being a visual abomination, it's not even well optimized.
WildStar is literally a "WoW clone", and I know that people throw that term around a lot, but in this case it's really, really, really bad. WildStar is like one of those Chinese iPhone knockoffs compared to WoW, but that would be insulting Chinese iPhone knockoffs.
WildStar releases on June 3 for $59.99 (standard edition) or $74.99 (deluxe edition). The subscription fee is $14.99 per month. I'm curious about what you people think of it, if you disagree with my assessment, and whether you think it will draw any MMORPG subscribers away from Final Fantasy XIV.
Edited, Mar 15th 2014 12:51pm by LucasNox
Edited, Mar 15th 2014 12:52pm by LucasNox