WildStar: Live Forum Q&A with WildStar's Jeremy Gaffney -- Begins NOW!

neoryudo

heya dude, i was just wondering what is the Triangle count of the models you are using in WildStar? (or Poly if you are using them instead) 

Jarcar711

There's rumors that classes can only wield one weapon type (As in warriors can only wield two-handed swords, spellslingers can only wield guns etc). Is this true?

Thanks

DaGaffer

Originally posted by vagabondNord

HEY! Super excited about Wildstar! 

• WILL I be able to pilot a space ship? (However big or small.) I've seen them docked in the yard, for instance, in the Housing Dev!
• What will your guild system be like? (I'm coming primarily from a WoW background, so I'll be comparing. ;D)
• Do you have any need for a personal assistant/human slave?

 

Space ships:  Actually we built the whole world intending for flight from day 1.  But there's a bit of a backlash in the community right now around flight trivializing content/making the world too small.  So we're listening to those debates right now, if I can be honest.  Back when I/we launched City of Heroes flight was  a big deal, so it's interesting to me now to hear the backlash.   Opinions welcome.

We do guilds, haven't announced a ton of the different stuff in 'em yet.  We also do circles which are guilds-lite, allowing you to more casually bond with numbers of different friends with different interests.

aikab

Will the stats in the gear be random or will they be fixed?

Wrekh

We didn't hear a lot about fishing in Wildstar, could you say few things about it ?

Drarorm

Will there be pet battles?

soodough

With gathering professions being all but confirmed in the patch notes, can you speak to Carbine's theory on how you guys view the importance of raw materials on the economy?  And more broadly: how much is the economy team thinking about making a system that encourages the use of the auction house and the trading of items? 

 

Basically: we know that you're trying to get the hardcore pve and pvp-ers, but what about the hardcore economic pvp-ers?  

Maisson

How will the pace of leveling and earning XP go? I find that the downfall of population after the first month of new MMO's is due to players being able to reach level cap and get bored quickly.

Will there be horizontal progression as well as vertical or horizontal once vertical has capped? What types of horizontal progression will be available if any?

 

Thanks!

blaizou

Hey there,

 

I'm waiting this game...so much...

I've heard that some of the employees of Wildstar team worked on World of Warcraft vanille, is that true ?

bye and good luck !

Pushkina

- How do the vanity pets system work?

- Are there mini games?

DaGaffer

Originally posted by Jarcar711

There's rumors that classes can only wield one weapon type (As in warriors can only wield two-handed swords, spellslingers can only wield guns etc). Is this true?

Thanks

 

In general you get a weapon type per class, with some exceptions - like Warhammer did back in the day.  Why?  Lets us do unique animations per class/attack and have more visual oomph in combat, and makes class silhouettes unique.  Tradeoffs are making sure there's enough variety in your weapons and making sure more than 1/7 of the weapon drops are useful to you (that's on us to make sure we do a good job around that)

Mohhe

Hey,

when mobs are attacking the player with a special attack it shows as a red indicator on the ground. What I am afraid of is that players only have to watch on the ground and only avoid those red zones and not react on the mob animations, which could cause every combat feel kind of same.

I am just hoping the red indicators wont get too dominant. Players should rather learn what the mob is doing via trial or error from the mobs animation.

Are you planning to reduce the warnings or keep them as they are?

 

SilasJasar

Originally posted by DaGaffer

Space ships:  Actually we built the whole world intending for flight from day 1.  But there's a bit of a backlash in the community right now around flight trivializing content/making the world too small.  So we're listening to those debates right now, if I can be honest.  Back when I/we launched City of Heroes flight was  a big deal, so it's interesting to me now to hear the backlash.   Opinions welcome.

We do guilds, haven't announced a ton of the different stuff in 'em yet.  We also do circles which are guilds-lite, allowing you to more casually bond with numbers of different friends with different interests.

PLEASE PLEASE keep them in. It doesnt trivialize content if you only receive it at max level. In fact it can open up new areas and so much more. The only way I see it as a bad thing is new content. If you can fly through (and over) that right off the bat, then yes its bad.

Jimma

Aside from the milestones, do attributes that are not primary/secondary for your class provide any other benefits? For example, do stalkers get assault power from brutality?

Splut

edited: original question answered

Bainik

Two questions.

First is about the change to charge up abilities. They mention that fully charged abilities will go off after a few seconds of being fully charged now, but in the last Q&A over on WSC it was suggested that the behavior at full charge would vary skill to skill so that skills like charged shot, where the intention was simply to give a partial cast if you were forced to move mid charge would fire instantly on reaching full charge (not intended to be a timing mini-game), and some spells like AoE heals would probably let you hold them at full charge for a while for people to jump in. Is this still the intention and the patch notes just over simplified or has this out look changed? I feel like timing mini-games on standard skills could get a bit chaotic with the amount of other stuff it sounds like is going to be going on.

Second isn't so much a question I guess, Just wanted to comment that I really like the decision to remove stat-allocation outside of gear, both because I think it seemed strange to have both gear and the character itself be player allocated to a large degree and because it should prevent someone making a totally gimped build quite so easily (you have at least a decent base line of health, for instance) which is important for games where you will frequently be grouped with other players.

Since that last one wasn't really a question I may as well ask another and keep the trope going: number of invites and applications for CBT2 (including roll overs from CBT1)?

Ryld25

How are skill selections in this game? Will it be weapon-locked per class like Guild Wars 2 was? Or will it be more towards Guild Wars 1 where you could pick your skills and make a combination of 8 out of it.

reaper1183

Originally posted by SilasJasar

Originally posted by DaGaffer

Space ships:  Actually we built the whole world intending for flight from day 1.  But there's a bit of a backlash in the community right now around flight trivializing content/making the world too small.  So we're listening to those debates right now, if I can be honest.  Back when I/we launched City of Heroes flight was  a big deal, so it's interesting to me now to hear the backlash.   Opinions welcome.

We do guilds, haven't announced a ton of the different stuff in 'em yet.  We also do circles which are guilds-lite, allowing you to more casually bond with numbers of different friends with different interests.

PLEASE PLEASE keep them in. It doesnt trivialize content if you only receive it at max level. In fact it can open up new areas and so much more. The only way I see it as a bad thing is new content. If you can fly through (and over) that right off the bat, then yes its bad.

I wouldn't mind flying, but really only in certain zones. I don't want people just sitting on their flying mount covering up mailboxes or a vendor like in WoW.... that's just ridiculous.

Alaxor

Hey

Totally excited about the game - can't wait!

In regards to player housing, you guys seem to be focusing a lot on this which is really cool. Would you ever see a time where things like the gardens, mining nodes etc could be managed remotely/offline via a mobile app or something similar? 

Thanks

 

dizko

Part of the appeal (for me anyway) of MMOs like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft is the overall complexity combined with the awe and wonder of discovery in both the worlds and your character's progression.

With that said, is there a lot of hand-holding in Wildstar the way there is in a lot of modern MMOs? Or will players be left somewhat to their own devices to explore and discover their characters on their own? Will players be bombarded with tutorial messages like "hey do this, press that, look at that, go here"?

Thanks!

Drarorm

Oh no! Don't say that, yes people are worried, but if really you are doing it from day 1, then you must have done it right, people just don't believe flying mounts can work in a game, but maybe you can change that, please keep them ^^.

vagabondNord

Originally posted by DaGaffer

Originally posted by vagabondNord

HEY! Super excited about Wildstar! 

• WILL I be able to pilot a space ship? (However big or small.) I've seen them docked in the yard, for instance, in the Housing Dev!
• What will your guild system be like? (I'm coming primarily from a WoW background, so I'll be comparing. ;D)
• Do you have any need for a personal assistant/human slave?

 

Space ships:  Actually we built the whole world intending for flight from day 1.  But there's a bit of a backlash in the community right now around flight trivializing content/making the world too small.  So we're listening to those debates right now, if I can be honest.  Back when I/we launched City of Heroes flight was  a big deal, so it's interesting to me now to hear the backlash.   Opinions welcome.

We do guilds, haven't announced a ton of the different stuff in 'em yet.  We also do circles which are guilds-lite, allowing you to more casually bond with numbers of different friends with different interests.

 

In some other games, flight has been almost like an achievement for either capping levels or being rich. IMO, it gives the player something to strive for - needing to grind out their quests on foot while mumbling, 'one day I'll fly over this...'

Personally, I think it would be a detriment to the 'outer space exploration game' if one couldn't pilot a space ship, even to a much smaller scale. But, mainly, I just really want to pilot a ship. 

• IF there is a 'yes' in that checked box for flight, would they be on a personal 'mount' type design, or are we talking standing room for multiple parties, such as in housing?

And:

• I've got a 90WPM type speed and make a great latte!

 

Andross53

1) How are the elder games tiering systems going to be addressed? IE Clear raid A to stand a chance in B, or is it something more non--linear.

2) Anything regarding crafting set-up yet?

3) How do you feel the movement system (telegraphing, dodging, double jump) will impact the elder games raiding?

4) What's your all time favorite movie, or if too specific, top 3?

DaGaffer

Originally posted by Jimma
Aside from the milestones, do attributes that are not primary/secondary for your class provide any other benefits? For example, do stalkers get assault power from brutality?

 

Here's a quick version:  Each attribute for each class has milestones.  Some big, some small (interally we call 'em "lollipops" and "jawbreakers" but that's because we're borderline unfit for interaction with the real world.  We'll call em something else publicly)

As you raise each of your stats, every point gives you some secondary stat or two (so each point of Brutality is slightly useful). 

Lollipops are interim milestones giving you a noticeable chunk of a secondary stat (sometimes the same as the primary, sometimes not).

Jawbreakers give you big gamechangers of abilities (enough Brutality and slain enemies pop and leave health globes behind, or whatever -  check the patch notes for tons of em).

There's a whole design theory behind how that works, if you see me on a forum later remind me and I'll give a little soliloquy on the subject (unless it's obvious from the above).

TheHavok

Hello Mr. Gaffney,

My question is more on the business side of Wildstar's development and Carbine Studio's creation.  It has been repeated multiple times that many of the developers that worked on Wildstar were former Blizzard developers.  And there has been comparisons made between Wildstar and WoW.  As somebody who greatly enjoyed WoW for many years, I'm not disappointed what so ever by this.

I would like to know who came up with the idea to start Carbine Studios. Additionally,  who had the vision and led the charge of getting Wildstar developed?

Second question: So many games seem to release unfinished products, with the idea that they can patch them up in the months to come.  However, you guys have stated that you will release Wildstar when its done.  This is GREAT news for us gamers.  I would like to know what sets you guys apart to give you the freedom to release a product when you feel its done, as opposed to games like Warhammer Online and SWTOR which were launched with a myriad of issues.

It feels like, with other games, their management (or publisher) dictates when a game is to be launched while with you guys, it seems like the developers have the final say.

 

Thanks!