Originally posted by Ludwik Wildstar is a game I should have liked. Always been a fan of WoW style questing and actually enjoyed that part of WS.
But I just couldn't get behind putting time in to a character when I knew there would be nothing of interest in the game once I reached max level.
This is an odd thing to say, considering Wildstar has one of the most robust endgames on release of any mmo. I mean, sure if you don't like actually challenging veteran adventures and dungeons, maxing out reps, 20 and 40 man raiding, pvp bg's, eternal customization of your house, the 40v40 warplots, or even the two new max level zones being patched in very soon, then sure, there is nothing of interest at max level.
I suspect if you don't like those things though, then you don't like themeparks which is totally legit too.
Color me surprised by the low score. The game is very polished, though I completely agree with the "over the top" comments. Always felt they just tried too hard and after a couple weeks of it in beta, it was irritating, not funny.
I hope they do well though, for the sake of the industry and genre.
Yeah, Gamespot gave SWtOR an 8/10. I guess NCSoft doesn't fork out the big bucks to reviewers like EA does. They also gave Rome 2 an 8/10 and that game is a huge turd in the Total War punch bowl.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop. Subscription = Actual content updates!
Originally posted by Dreamo84 Little harsh just because you don't like the style isn't it? Reviewers have to try and be at least some what objective. That's why you usually won't hear a serious reviewer say "well the game is really well done and there's tons of content but I don't really like this type of game so I gave it a 5".
No i think he's right. And what you said is why i don't like these so called pro.reviews. I would rather get my reviews from people that buy and play games. Its already been proven that the review sites can and have been bought and paid for in the past. How anyone still trust these sites amazes me. But then if your a fan of the game and it gets a good review thats different i guess.
Originally posted by VassagoMael Yeah, Gamespot gave SWtOR an 8/10. I guess NCSoft doesn't fork out the big bucks to reviewers like EA does. They also gave Rome 2 an 8/10 and that game is a huge turd in the Total War punch bowl.
I'm not into the whole gamespot paid reviews conspiracy thing that goes around, and I actually enjoyed SWTOR (for the stories), but I wouldn't call it great, or better than Wildstar or Mists of Pandaria (which got a 7.5).
Originally posted by VassagoMael Yeah, Gamespot gave SWtOR an 8/10. I guess NCSoft doesn't fork out the big bucks to reviewers like EA does. They also gave Rome 2 an 8/10 and that game is a huge turd in the Total War punch bowl.
What you say is 100% true.
But I think that Kevin VanOrd, the reviewer, is a case apart. Although there're things and reviews and tastes that I don't share with him - which is perfectly natural - a look at his track record and the time he takes to play games before writing, as well as the effort he puts in analyzing the critical aspects of games, speak of integrity. I mean, you may not share his opinions but saying that he's full of BS would be unfair:
PD: Love your avatar. "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Originally posted by VassagoMael Yeah, Gamespot gave SWtOR an 8/10. I guess NCSoft doesn't fork out the big bucks to reviewers like EA does. They also gave Rome 2 an 8/10 and that game is a huge turd in the Total War punch bowl.
I'm not into the whole gamespot paid reviews conspiracy thing that goes around, and I actually enjoyed SWTOR (for the stories), but I wouldn't call it great, or better than Wildstar or Mists of Pandaria (which got a 7.5).
Yeah, I just use that line to add flavor to the absurdity of the rating. I enjoyed the story of my Gunslinger in SWtOR immensely along with owning and living in my very own spaceship (that could have been way more fleshed out though.) Other than that though the game felt really bland and don't even get me started on the endgame fiasco. The best part of SWtOR was the individual story lines, but everything else was done so poorly that user base plummeted and they will never be able to invest the money into furthering the individual voiced stories.
Anyways, my point was that if Rome 2 and SWtOR (as an MMO not single player rpg) are 8s, then Wildstar should be at least an 11 on that scale.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop. Subscription = Actual content updates!
Originally posted by Englefield Keep fighting a good fight bully. I don't think I've ever seen someone want a game to fail as much as you do with Wildstar.
I think he's fighting an uphill battle. TESO is leaking subs to WS. WS has a lot better reception than TESO. It had smoother launch and its overall more fun with more features. I can't imagine a world where a game like TESO is doing better than WildStar. The games are just in different leagues. It's like comparing lemons to oranges.
They're both leaking subs to WoW. People are starting to return to get ready for WoD. I play both WoW and ESO right now, but more and more of my friends are coming back to WoW.
Edit: Since WoW just started Beta of WoD, last night we had 6 people who left WoW come back and raid with my guild.
They're both leaking subs to WoW. People are starting to return to get ready for WoD. I play both WoW and ESO right now, but more and more of my friends are coming back to WoW.
Edit: Since WoW just started Beta of WoD, last night we had 6 people who left WoW come back and raid with my guild.
Just because 6 people returned to WoW doesn't mean any game is "leaking" subs to it. WoWs player base is lower than it has ever been and history has shown that WoW always picks up about a million or so subs upon x-pack release. I played WoW for 8 + years and I will not be returning for WoD and neither will any of the 10 friends that I have raided with since TBC that I am now playing wildstar with.
Truth be told, WoW was a great game, it's still a solid game but it's old and stale for a lot of long time players. Also a lot of the more hardcore WoW players aren't happy with the constant over simplification of the game. Which is why those people tend to really enjoy a game like wildstar.
WoW is far from dead but I don't think people who are playing Wildstar would leave to play WoW. Wildstar basically does everything WoW does but better and it's new and fresh. The people that will return to WoW are the people that don't like actually working for their loot and IMO Wildstar is better off without them.
I disagree with more reviews than I agree with. Particularly with mmo's I think that many reviews are just churned out too quickly when the reviewer has experienced too little of the game. What is fun for a few days can turn tedious quickly and vice versa, and what is polished at low level can be an unfinished mess at higher level.
I still find it astonishing that the highest rated mmo out there (metacritic) is GW2. If that is the ideal we are all aiming for then I may as well leave the genre now.
I'd give Wildstar a 7.5 actually, even though I'll never play the game myself.
I spent some time in the game during the beta testing phase, and saw enough to know that the style doesn't appeal to me. However, it launched in a very playable state, it's solid and there's apparently tons of stuff to do, so it deserves a good score. I'm sure there's many people that are going to love the game.
Review scores are far too generous for all games.There is no way WS could warrant a 7 that would be a near perfect top end game.Of course this is one person's opinion and we have to accept others opinions as we expect ours to be respected.That is the funny/odd/lame thing about opinions,they can NEVER be wrong.
If you want to rate a game it has to be done in a few areas,technical,effort and depth,NOT opinion.BTW Fun is again just an opinion,there is no way on earth a developer could design a game for FUN not knowing what any one person's idea of fun actually is.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Review scores are far too generous for all games.There is no way WS could warrant a 7 that would be a near perfect top end game.Of course this is one person's opinion and we have to accept others opinions as we expect ours to be respected.That is the funny/odd/lame thing about opinions,they can NEVER be wrong.
If you want to rate a game it has to be done in a few areas,technical,effort and depth,NOT opinion.BTW Fun is again just an opinion,there is no way on earth a developer could design a game for FUN not knowing what any one person's idea of fun actually is.
But most review sites use this idiot 'school-grading' system when reviewing, rather than the far simpler and more intuitive 0= bloody awful 5= average 10= near perfection. Why people have to make simple things unnecessarily complex I will never know.
Since we're giving our own reviews here, I agree with 7:
Pros:
+ Combat feels great, and is active. Has one of the best combat systems in MMOs to date
+ Good variety in classes
+ Housing
+ Challenging content
+ 20/40 Man Raids
+ Interesting dungeon and adventure mechanics
Cons:
- One of the worst questing systems in modern MMOs. Leveling up process is completely boring and the tedium is only broken from the rare challenges you get that are something other than kill challenges.
- Grouping (beyond duo) is penalized leveling up, yet is completely required for content at 50.
- Classes are completely imbalanced.
- Overly difficult attunement requirements to keep people from finishing raid content too quickly.
- Difficulty pacing issues (huge jumps going from solo questing to adventures to dungeons).
- Rune system makes gearing up a major grind. You need to rune all your gear to prepare for raiding, but the rate you get rune drops is so low that you'll never have nearly enough with constantly farming or playing the auction house.
- Dungeon boss scripts rarely work properly and bug out. Script transitions are broken (Stormtalon going from Static Charge's lightning strike to Cyclone phase for example instant wiping your group) on almost all boss fights.
- Race locked classes. Sorry, lore isn't a good reason for me to not be able to play a Chua Warrior or Aurin Engineer.
Hmm, I would have scored it about an 8.2, but, to be fair, it hits all my buttons.
I love the "commentator" breaking the 4th wall, in fact, I actively pursue large multi-unit kills because I wanna hear him say "Super Kill"!
All these variances in scoring just go to show how diverse the market for MMOs has grown, and how unwilling to accept anything less than "what we want" we have become. We just can't agree on exactly what it is we DO want.
Since we're giving our own reviews here, I agree with 7:
Pros:
+ Combat feels great, and is active. Has one of the best combat systems in MMOs to date
+ Good variety in classes
+ Housing
+ Challenging content
+ 20/40 Man Raids
+ Interesting dungeon and adventure mechanics
Cons:
- One of the worst questing systems in modern MMOs. Leveling up process is completely boring and the tedium is only broken from the rare challenges you get that are something other than kill challenges.
- Grouping (beyond duo) is penalized leveling up, yet is completely required for content at 50.
- Classes are completely imbalanced.
- Overly difficult attunement requirements to keep people from finishing raid content too quickly.
- Difficulty pacing issues (huge jumps going from solo questing to adventures to dungeons).
- Rune system makes gearing up a major grind. You need to rune all your gear to prepare for raiding, but the rate you get rune drops is so low that you'll never have nearly enough with constantly farming or playing the auction house.
- Dungeon boss scripts rarely work properly and bug out. Script transitions are broken (Stormtalon going from Static Charge's lightning strike to Cyclone phase for example instant wiping your group) on almost all boss fights.
- Race locked classes. Sorry, lore isn't a good reason for me to not be able to play a Chua Warrior or Aurin Engineer.
I agree with most of this apart from the first two pros. In my opinion: -
Combat is a very simplistic rotation that gets old fast. Dodging out of different shapes does not add any discernible variety or interest to different mobs.
The classes really have three moves, damage, heal and interrupt. All classes have access to at least two of these and they all play much the same.
But most review sites use this idiot 'school-grading' system when reviewing, rather than the far simpler and more intuitive 0= bloody awful 5= average 10= near perfection. Why people have to make simple things unnecessarily complex I will never know.
I agree the school grading system makes no sense for game reviews (or any entertainment/product reviews). The reason the school grading system works for schools is you are expected to know much more than half of the material you learn, so knowing 70% of the material would be "average" while 80-90% would be "good". I never understood why most game review sites use the 0-10 or 0-100 system on the school grading scale where 7 or 7.5 is average rather than like you said a 5 = average.
I agree with most of this apart from the first two pros. In my opinion: -
Combat is a very simplistic rotation that gets old fast. Dodging out of different shapes does not add any discernible variety or interest to different mobs.
The classes really have three moves, damage, heal and interrupt. All classes have access to at least two of these and they all play much the same.
But hey, its all about personal preference.
Simply hitting your rotation over and over won't work on veteran dungeons and raids. There is so much going on from a mechanical perspective, and a lot of it is more than just "dodging out of different shapes". While rotations and skillsets may be simplistic, the combat is FAR more active than any other MMO to date. Have you completed the veteran dungeons yet?
As for the class variety, yes, you broke down how the trinity works. The point is the variety in that trinity. Espers for example focus being less mobile and play more like standard MMO classes, while Spellslingers are the complete opposites. Warrior/Stalker/Engineer tanks all play completely differently. Healers all have different types of heal and the group has to understand and work with those. The interrupts classes bring to the table all work different mechanically for example a Warrior's Grapple is nothing like the Spellslinger's Gate. I can't think of another MMO with more class variety except maybe Guild Wars 2.
- One of the worst questing systems in modern MMOs. Leveling up process is completely boring and the tedium is only broken from the rare challenges you get that are something other than kill challenges.
I have to admit I don't understand this common complaint about the questing in Wildstar.
I'm lvl 28 and last night my quests in Whitevale included riding a Protostar blimp around and tossing Protostar brand plushies at the enemies to advertise Protostar services, figuring out how to jump to the top of a mountain range for my explorer path mission, firing Protostar employees before getting fired myself, killing a 5 man group boss on top of a mountain that I had to ride a tornado to get to, using a flame thrower to fend of waves of attacking squirgs at the quest camp, using a jet pack to fly to the top of the eldan drill machine to shut it down, and I finished the evening off with a Shiphand mission where I rode a rocket bike on an asteroid to stop a computer virus. This doesn't even mention the variety of challenges which often come with interesting rewards like unique housing items.
Sure there was some kill and collection tasks in between, like collect medical supplies, kill squirgs, collect pieces to repair the ultrabot... etc... this is a traditional questing system after all, but the variety of stuff I've been doing is far more interesting than in other mmo's I've played. I will admit that the early levels of Wildstar were boring, but after the newbie area it has gotten far more varied and interesting to me.
I agree with most of this apart from the first two pros. In my opinion: -
Combat is a very simplistic rotation that gets old fast. Dodging out of different shapes does not add any discernible variety or interest to different mobs.
The classes really have three moves, damage, heal and interrupt. All classes have access to at least two of these and they all play much the same.
But hey, its all about personal preference.
Simply hitting your rotation over and over won't work on veteran dungeons and raids. There is so much going on from a mechanical perspective, and a lot of it is more than just "dodging out of different shapes". While rotations and skillsets may be simplistic, the combat is FAR more active than any other MMO to date. Have you completed the veteran dungeons yet?
As for the class variety, yes, you broke down how the trinity works. The point is the variety in that trinity. Espers for example focus being less mobile and play more like standard MMO classes, while Spellslingers are the complete opposites. Warrior/Stalker/Engineer tanks all play completely differently. Healers all have different types of heal and the group has to understand and work with those. The interrupts classes bring to the table all work different mechanically for example a Warrior's Grapple is nothing like the Spellslinger's Gate. I can't think of another MMO with more class variety except maybe Guild Wars 2.
Your last line is funny, because one of my main issues with GW2 is that all the classes felt the same to play.
I have to admit I don't understand this common complaint about the questing in Wildstar.
Seriously, the questing in wildstar is no different than the questing in ESO, Vanilla WoW, FFXIV, etc. I think there may be two main issues. First I am betting that most people that complain about questing in WS selected soldier as their path and feel the need to complete every exclamation point that they come across. The second issue I think is that certain people may be burned out on the genre in general and they are tired of collect x of y and kill a of b type quests.
I have to admit I don't understand this common complaint about the questing in Wildstar.
I'm lvl 28 and last night my quests in Whitevale included riding a Protostar blimp around and tossing Protostar brand plushies at the enemies to advertise Protostar services, figuring out how to jump to the top of a mountain range for my explorer path mission, firing Protostar employees before getting fired myself, killing a 5 man group boss on top of a mountain that I had to ride a tornado to get to, using a flame thrower to fend of waves of attacking squirgs at the quest camp, using a jet pack to fly to the top of the eldan drill machine to shut it down, and I finished the evening off with a Shiphand mission where I rode a rocket bike on an asteroid to stop a computer virus. This doesn't even mention the variety of challenges which often come with interesting rewards like unique housing items.
Sure there was some kill and collection tasks in between, like collect medical supplies, kill squirgs, collect pieces to repair the ultrabot... etc... this is a traditional questing system after all, but the variety of stuff I've been doing is far more interesting than in other mmo's I've played. I will admit that the early levels of Wildstar were boring, but after the newbie area it has gotten far more varied and interesting to me.
I share your sentiment. Thing is some of the more traditional quests of "killing x mobs", "fetch me y thingies" take too long to complete, it's a real grind, or at least that's how some people perceive them. And unfortunately because of this the whole questing experience is marred - which is a pity as I can think of few themepark MMORPGs with quests more varied than WS: there are puzzles, investigation, minigames, you have to drive bikes and machinery, use different set of skillbars, dynamic quests, minidungeons, hidden quests that you find exploring, path missions, shiphands, etc.
Add some of the good points form the investigation missions from TSW and more hidden stuff and it would be perfecto!
EDIT: Ouch, forgot to mention. I'm convinced that some people - especially the sort attention span, ADHD kind - what really want are voiceovers, that in my opinion are an obscenity in MMORPGs. Nowadays, with the production costs they suppose, are too much of a trade-off in terms of developing and updating more "solid" and "playable" content.
PD: By the way, the other day I was exploring the limits of the map in the Wintervale area. We happened to find a secret camp in an out-of-the-map-area to the NE. The pplace looked intriguing but was such a disappointment to not find any secret quest or stash
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Comments
This is an odd thing to say, considering Wildstar has one of the most robust endgames on release of any mmo. I mean, sure if you don't like actually challenging veteran adventures and dungeons, maxing out reps, 20 and 40 man raiding, pvp bg's, eternal customization of your house, the 40v40 warplots, or even the two new max level zones being patched in very soon, then sure, there is nothing of interest at max level.
I suspect if you don't like those things though, then you don't like themeparks which is totally legit too.
Color me surprised by the low score. The game is very polished, though I completely agree with the "over the top" comments. Always felt they just tried too hard and after a couple weeks of it in beta, it was irritating, not funny.
I hope they do well though, for the sake of the industry and genre.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
No i think he's right. And what you said is why i don't like these so called pro.reviews. I would rather get my reviews from people that buy and play games. Its already been proven that the review sites can and have been bought and paid for in the past. How anyone still trust these sites amazes me. But then if your a fan of the game and it gets a good review thats different i guess.
I'm not into the whole gamespot paid reviews conspiracy thing that goes around, and I actually enjoyed SWTOR (for the stories), but I wouldn't call it great, or better than Wildstar or Mists of Pandaria (which got a 7.5).
What you say is 100% true.
But I think that Kevin VanOrd, the reviewer, is a case apart. Although there're things and reviews and tastes that I don't share with him - which is perfectly natural - a look at his track record and the time he takes to play games before writing, as well as the effort he puts in analyzing the critical aspects of games, speak of integrity. I mean, you may not share his opinions but saying that he's full of BS would be unfair:
http://www.reviewtrax.com/author/kevinvanord
PD: Love your avatar. "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Yeah, I just use that line to add flavor to the absurdity of the rating. I enjoyed the story of my Gunslinger in SWtOR immensely along with owning and living in my very own spaceship (that could have been way more fleshed out though.) Other than that though the game felt really bland and don't even get me started on the endgame fiasco. The best part of SWtOR was the individual story lines, but everything else was done so poorly that user base plummeted and they will never be able to invest the money into furthering the individual voiced stories.
Anyways, my point was that if Rome 2 and SWtOR (as an MMO not single player rpg) are 8s, then Wildstar should be at least an 11 on that scale.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
They're both leaking subs to WoW. People are starting to return to get ready for WoD. I play both WoW and ESO right now, but more and more of my friends are coming back to WoW.
Edit: Since WoW just started Beta of WoD, last night we had 6 people who left WoW come back and raid with my guild.
Just because 6 people returned to WoW doesn't mean any game is "leaking" subs to it. WoWs player base is lower than it has ever been and history has shown that WoW always picks up about a million or so subs upon x-pack release. I played WoW for 8 + years and I will not be returning for WoD and neither will any of the 10 friends that I have raided with since TBC that I am now playing wildstar with.
Truth be told, WoW was a great game, it's still a solid game but it's old and stale for a lot of long time players. Also a lot of the more hardcore WoW players aren't happy with the constant over simplification of the game. Which is why those people tend to really enjoy a game like wildstar.
WoW is far from dead but I don't think people who are playing Wildstar would leave to play WoW. Wildstar basically does everything WoW does but better and it's new and fresh. The people that will return to WoW are the people that don't like actually working for their loot and IMO Wildstar is better off without them.
W* is a good MMO. Id give it a 7.
people here seems shocked that someone's review doesn't reflect their own opinions of the game.
i personally would'nt give it that high of a rating and it's not a stab at everyone who likes the game.. it's just my opinion.
I had fun once, it was terrible.
I disagree with more reviews than I agree with. Particularly with mmo's I think that many reviews are just churned out too quickly when the reviewer has experienced too little of the game. What is fun for a few days can turn tedious quickly and vice versa, and what is polished at low level can be an unfinished mess at higher level.
I still find it astonishing that the highest rated mmo out there (metacritic) is GW2. If that is the ideal we are all aiming for then I may as well leave the genre now.
However, I think a 7 for Wildstar is about right.
I'd give Wildstar a 7.5 actually, even though I'll never play the game myself.
I spent some time in the game during the beta testing phase, and saw enough to know that the style doesn't appeal to me. However, it launched in a very playable state, it's solid and there's apparently tons of stuff to do, so it deserves a good score. I'm sure there's many people that are going to love the game.
Review scores are far too generous for all games.There is no way WS could warrant a 7 that would be a near perfect top end game.Of course this is one person's opinion and we have to accept others opinions as we expect ours to be respected.That is the funny/odd/lame thing about opinions,they can NEVER be wrong.
If you want to rate a game it has to be done in a few areas,technical,effort and depth,NOT opinion.BTW Fun is again just an opinion,there is no way on earth a developer could design a game for FUN not knowing what any one person's idea of fun actually is.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
But most review sites use this idiot 'school-grading' system when reviewing, rather than the far simpler and more intuitive 0= bloody awful 5= average 10= near perfection. Why people have to make simple things unnecessarily complex I will never know.
Since we're giving our own reviews here, I agree with 7:
Pros:
+ Combat feels great, and is active. Has one of the best combat systems in MMOs to date
+ Good variety in classes
+ Housing
+ Challenging content
+ 20/40 Man Raids
+ Interesting dungeon and adventure mechanics
Cons:
- One of the worst questing systems in modern MMOs. Leveling up process is completely boring and the tedium is only broken from the rare challenges you get that are something other than kill challenges.
- Grouping (beyond duo) is penalized leveling up, yet is completely required for content at 50.
- Classes are completely imbalanced.
- Overly difficult attunement requirements to keep people from finishing raid content too quickly.
- Difficulty pacing issues (huge jumps going from solo questing to adventures to dungeons).
- Rune system makes gearing up a major grind. You need to rune all your gear to prepare for raiding, but the rate you get rune drops is so low that you'll never have nearly enough with constantly farming or playing the auction house.
- Dungeon boss scripts rarely work properly and bug out. Script transitions are broken (Stormtalon going from Static Charge's lightning strike to Cyclone phase for example instant wiping your group) on almost all boss fights.
- Race locked classes. Sorry, lore isn't a good reason for me to not be able to play a Chua Warrior or Aurin Engineer.
Hmm, I would have scored it about an 8.2, but, to be fair, it hits all my buttons.
I love the "commentator" breaking the 4th wall, in fact, I actively pursue large multi-unit kills because I wanna hear him say "Super Kill"!
All these variances in scoring just go to show how diverse the market for MMOs has grown, and how unwilling to accept anything less than "what we want" we have become. We just can't agree on exactly what it is we DO want.
T
I agree with most of this apart from the first two pros. In my opinion: -
I agree the school grading system makes no sense for game reviews (or any entertainment/product reviews). The reason the school grading system works for schools is you are expected to know much more than half of the material you learn, so knowing 70% of the material would be "average" while 80-90% would be "good". I never understood why most game review sites use the 0-10 or 0-100 system on the school grading scale where 7 or 7.5 is average rather than like you said a 5 = average.
Simply hitting your rotation over and over won't work on veteran dungeons and raids. There is so much going on from a mechanical perspective, and a lot of it is more than just "dodging out of different shapes". While rotations and skillsets may be simplistic, the combat is FAR more active than any other MMO to date. Have you completed the veteran dungeons yet?
As for the class variety, yes, you broke down how the trinity works. The point is the variety in that trinity. Espers for example focus being less mobile and play more like standard MMO classes, while Spellslingers are the complete opposites. Warrior/Stalker/Engineer tanks all play completely differently. Healers all have different types of heal and the group has to understand and work with those. The interrupts classes bring to the table all work different mechanically for example a Warrior's Grapple is nothing like the Spellslinger's Gate. I can't think of another MMO with more class variety except maybe Guild Wars 2.
I have to admit I don't understand this common complaint about the questing in Wildstar.
I'm lvl 28 and last night my quests in Whitevale included riding a Protostar blimp around and tossing Protostar brand plushies at the enemies to advertise Protostar services, figuring out how to jump to the top of a mountain range for my explorer path mission, firing Protostar employees before getting fired myself, killing a 5 man group boss on top of a mountain that I had to ride a tornado to get to, using a flame thrower to fend of waves of attacking squirgs at the quest camp, using a jet pack to fly to the top of the eldan drill machine to shut it down, and I finished the evening off with a Shiphand mission where I rode a rocket bike on an asteroid to stop a computer virus. This doesn't even mention the variety of challenges which often come with interesting rewards like unique housing items.
Sure there was some kill and collection tasks in between, like collect medical supplies, kill squirgs, collect pieces to repair the ultrabot... etc... this is a traditional questing system after all, but the variety of stuff I've been doing is far more interesting than in other mmo's I've played. I will admit that the early levels of Wildstar were boring, but after the newbie area it has gotten far more varied and interesting to me.
Your last line is funny, because one of my main issues with GW2 is that all the classes felt the same to play.
There was variety in GW1, however.
Seriously, the questing in wildstar is no different than the questing in ESO, Vanilla WoW, FFXIV, etc. I think there may be two main issues. First I am betting that most people that complain about questing in WS selected soldier as their path and feel the need to complete every exclamation point that they come across. The second issue I think is that certain people may be burned out on the genre in general and they are tired of collect x of y and kill a of b type quests.
I share your sentiment. Thing is some of the more traditional quests of "killing x mobs", "fetch me y thingies" take too long to complete, it's a real grind, or at least that's how some people perceive them. And unfortunately because of this the whole questing experience is marred - which is a pity as I can think of few themepark MMORPGs with quests more varied than WS: there are puzzles, investigation, minigames, you have to drive bikes and machinery, use different set of skillbars, dynamic quests, minidungeons, hidden quests that you find exploring, path missions, shiphands, etc.
Add some of the good points form the investigation missions from TSW and more hidden stuff and it would be perfecto!
EDIT: Ouch, forgot to mention. I'm convinced that some people - especially the sort attention span, ADHD kind - what really want are voiceovers, that in my opinion are an obscenity in MMORPGs. Nowadays, with the production costs they suppose, are too much of a trade-off in terms of developing and updating more "solid" and "playable" content.
PD: By the way, the other day I was exploring the limits of the map in the Wintervale area. We happened to find a secret camp in an out-of-the-map-area to the NE. The pplace looked intriguing but was such a disappointment to not find any secret quest or stash
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.