The Indie Game Magazine October 2015 | Issue 54 | Page 7

GAME WATCH

Let Free-dom Ring

H

appy October, fellow Nexians.
Kicked any Demonclaw butt lately?
I bet you have. And while you were
doing that, Carbine Studios was kicking
butt over in the updates department. But
first, maybe I should mention the big news:
WildStar’s free-to-play model will have officially launched by the time this issue goes
on sale, and with it big changes have arrived on planet Nexus.

With that news still ringing in your ears,
let’s get comfy and discuss the big changes
impacting the game’s rewards system:
When previously completing quests, it often
seemed that players were rewarded with
items that, although shiny and new, weren’t
all that relevant to their chosen class. Apparently this won’t be the case anymore,

by Ryan Noble
as quest rewards have been reworked, and the new
stats.”
aim to be more class-specific.
In addition, vendor items are going to be more
rewarding, too. Instead of the current vendor
offerings, which Carbine admit sometimes
provide an “unstructured” and “repetitive”
selection, an update will reduce the items
on sale in favor of more useful purchases
that won’t undermine loot collected during quests. Furthermore, there will be less
consumables sold by these vendors, as they
sometimes overshadowed the efforts of those
playing as Technologists and Cooks, who
take their time creating items, only to have
the limelight stolen by a vendor. With less
focus on these vendors, Carbine is looking to
bring more attention to the Corporate and
Reputation vendors, which will play a bigger
role going forward.
There’s more, but I’ll let WildStar’s Senior
Game Designer Evan Graziano take the floor on
this one. “Probably the single biggest change
is that we’re going to be removing a large
amount of superfluous gear from the game,
loot which we’ve deemed no longer necessary
due to redundancies caused by stat changes
or because they’re no longer a reasonable
reward for the content that drops it. But don’t
worry; they’ll be automatically replaced with
an equivalent item, and all remaining gear
will be updated to the new stat system – you
won’t be required to obtain new items to get

www.indiegamemag.com

For extra information on all the changes being made to WildStar’s reward system, check
in with Graziano’s latest blog post, where he
goes into further detail in a way that only a
senior game designer could. It’s the month of
Halloween, but don’t be afraid; we’ll be here
for you through all the humongous changes
coming to WildStar as it transitions into a
free-to-play MMO, and beyond.

Developer: Carbine Studios
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Website: www.wildstar-online.com
Twitter: @WildStar

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