This is Part Two of our WildStar Review in progress. For Part One, click HERE. This part will cover levels 20 through 40.
An MMORPG is ever-changing. There's constant updates, improvements, tweaking and more. That's obvious from a game like World of Warcraft, which has seen numerous changed since its launch over 10 years ago. What Carbine Studios has done since they started working on WildStar is set out to make an MMORPG with fun combat, a cool story, with PvE, PvP, massive hardcore raids, housing, and most importantly, fun to play.
One other thing they've promised is free, monthly content drops. And so far, they've delivered. But just how well is WildStar aging?
After a couple of months of playing, the combat has stayed fun. Once you're able to get most of your abilities and Amps, and dump points into them, the combat really takes off and you get to see what your class is made of. Combat hasn't dulled at all, and being so active in combat has actually made the leveling experience more pleasurable and engaging. From level 30 to 40, I did hit a bit of a slow leveling patch, as is the case with most MMOs. Grinding quests can get a little monotonous, so it's nice to be able to take breaks every once in a while to just mess with housing, or to level via PvP matches. With crafting, I've taken slowed down and barely do it now. It's not that it's not fun, but you have to devote a lot of money and time to it, and I'd rather be leveling.
As far as the content is concerned, Carbine Studios has released two big content drops — The Strain and Sabotage. As if there isn't enough content in the game already, The Strain brought a new zone, quests, items, enemies and more to players that have reached level 50 end-game content. Sabotage, on the other hand, focused on PvP with changes to how PvP stats work and a new PvP mode. Sabotage is a 15v15 mode where you utilize bombs to blow up your enemy's base and them. These two content updates were both huge, and it's good to see Carbine Studios is keeping their word and giving tons to the players, justifying a $15/month subscription (if you're not using CREDD).
The game has seen a lot of improvement in terms of optimization, as well. I think that was the biggest problem when the game first launched. Not only is there never a queue time anymore, but framerate issues and memory leaks have been resolved. I've had no issues for the past month or so. The UI can still use some tweaking, as I'm still not entirely happy with the nameplates, but then again, that's why the game supports mods.
Though WildStar slowed down a bit in these levels, it's never lost my interest. There's so much to do that you can switch things up and play at your own pace. Even if I only have 20 minutes to play, I can still feel like I've progressed or done something worthwhile with my time.
Look out for the final part of the Review in Progress.
You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. Or you can email him at LLiebl@GameZone.com.
