In case you hadn’t heard the news, WildStar (possibly my favourite MMO at the moment) is going Free-to-Play. A date has been set for this cosmotronic change, with servers being switched over later this month on September 29. If you’ve not tried the sci-fi world since launch, my latest column gives a run-down of the changes. In a nutshell though, this is the best version of WildStar I’ve encountered, with the game benefiting hugely from the additional year since its original launch.
But a changed game means a changed approach, for both returning players and complete newcomers. It means new guides, new tips, and new suggestions on how to get the most out of WildStar. And that’s where you come in, with a touch of WildStar swag to sweeten the deal, courtesy of some awesome friends.
Give me your best WildStar tip, advice, or suggestion, for both newcomers and former players.
Great ideas will be rewarded with lucrative prizes. Bad ones will be used by Avatus for target practice. On the unfortunate side, because of shipping costs and because the codes are restricted to EU, I’m having to limit this to EU residents only. On the plus side, here’s what you can win:
- First Prize:
- 1 Granok Tee (Large)
- 1 Blue WildStar Tee (Large)
- 1 WildStar Baseball Cap
- 1 Spiral-bound notebook (Blank)
- 1 Postcard book
- 1 Rowsdower Plushie
- 1 Fancy Pants Top-Hat code
- 1 Fancy Pants Jacket code
- Second Prize:
- 1 Granok Tee (Extra Large)
- 1 Spiral-bound notebook (Blank)
- 1 Postcard book
- 1 Fancy Pants Top-Hat code
- 1 Fancy Pants Jacket code
- Third Prize:
- 1 Granok Tee (Extra Large)
- 1 Spiral-bound notebook (Blank)
- 1 Postcard book
- 1 Fancy Pants Jacket code
- Fourth Prize:
- 1 Postcard book
- 1 Fancy Pants Jacket code
You have until 23:59 GMT on Saturday, September 26 to get your entries in, which gives you a little over two weeks! Your entry can be text, video, a picture, a song – whatever you fancy. Creativity is more likely to help you win! To submit, either post your entry as a comment on this article, or email me [at] gazimoff.com to avoid it being eaten by the chompacabra spam filter. Or both!
And, as always, THE RULES.
- The decision of Inventor Gazz in all disputes is final. Don’t like who Gazz picks as winners? Guess what, Gazz doesn’t care. Besides, Gazz always looking for new test subjects, and complainers provide good data!
- Gazz reserves the right to republish and share your entries, while giving you full credit, either here or elsewhere. If you compose a ballad of helpful advice, Gazz may train chorus of bloodthirsty Ravenok to screech it at Exiles, before eating them.
- Begrudgingly, data indicates Exiles have (SOME) good ideas too. So Gazz welcomes input from both factions.
- Only one entry per entity. Got several ideas? Find several inferior friends, get them to enter too!
One of the most useful tips I learned while leveling, and still use constantly – is the “movementskill to neglect falling damage”.
I actually figured this out WAY too late, I had to do the attunementstep with pyrolos getting knocked off constantly.. dying and having to run back.
After learning that using a movementskill just before you land no matter how far you’ve fallen neglects all damage, I felt pretty stupid.
If you’re a new player: have a pvp battle with someone who have played longer than you, they’ll (probably) be able to tell you what you did wrong or what you should improve, it will make you better at combat.
My best tip for fast leveling in wildstar is to download an auto quest addon. This will make questing much much faster to get to level 50. I would also suggest skipping ship hand missions. These things tale over 30 minutes to complete and the rewards aren’t that great. I would suggest you wait and do the ship hand missions on veteran when you reach level 50 for your daily. There is no ‘best class’ to level in wildstar, pick what you want to play and enjoy yourself. Wildstar rewards you for doing quests with other players so help people! And also, if you get gear you can’t use from a boss, be a nice chap and give it to another player!
This is my ultimate tip for every player of Wildstar: Socialize :D. Yes, simple as that. It may sound a bit dumb but that’s how you will get hooked on Wildstar. Many mmos have great combat, challenging encounters, awesome graphics and many players to play with.. but only Wildstar has such a kind and gracious community. Whatever problems you might have, Nexus citizens will always be there to help. They will guide you, they will help you become stronger, they will give you tips for surviving on this dangerous planet and best of all.. you will have fun playing with them. So as soon as you step your foot on Nexus, don’t hesitate to talk to others or ask for advice. (As for me I made some awesome friends on Nexus.. and thanks to them I am enjoying this great game more than ever). So that’s my tip. Go out there and communicate with others! Nexus is a dangerous place for solitary adventurers after all 😉
My top tip for new players is – Take Your Time! There is so much awesome stuff to see, activities to do, lore to listen to and read, places to go and explore, baddies to kill and cool people to socialize with. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, there’s no need to rush to level cap so just enjoy the experience of playing, in my opinion, one of the best MMO’s ever made! See you on Nexus!
The most important tip, far above all listed here is just simply that this is not like other MMO’s. You need to take the time to learn what happened and adapt and learn from it. This goes into the end game content the most, and why so many left before. You need to understand your role, whats going on, and how to fix it, and unlike most games where you can simply read whats going to happen and do the fight, Wildstar requires you to learn on the fly sometimes, and understand that when things go south, you have skills to fix them.
It’s important to know that it’s fun, but challenging at the same time, enjoy it, the death and everything that comes with them, because you wont find this in any other MMO, Wildstar is truly ahead of the curve.
This is from an end game vet thats still raiding, when you hit DS, the game changes fully.
My tip is to find a guild as soon as possible as it’ll make the game that much more enjoyable! It’ll ease up finding groups for dungeons, adventures, pvp or whatever you’re looking for.
For newcomers, don’t stare blindly at “what’s the best class right now??” stuff, instead look at the classes and pick one that appeals to you, as all of the classes have strengths and weaknesses. Playing a class you WANT to play is the key to having fun!
My advice to everyone with or without experience is not to blindly follow a rotation/priority system because you saw it in a guide. Don’t get me wrong it’s good that you read up and search for others opinion, but test it always and be brave to experiment. I’ve been lucky enough to get on a guild with players with such mentality and over all my MMO experience this is by far the most fun I’ve been having, from discussing the build, to test and compare it on dozens of parses.
As simple as it sounds Cupcake, INTERRUPT! I see a ton of new players not properly utilizing the interrupt system, don’t randomly pop your interrupt spells on mobs when its not needed, wait until u see that lovely little red telegraph pop up and POP DAT INTERRUPT!
1. Find a guild that have perks unlocked, it shouldn’t be very hard just ask in world chat.
2. Level professions they are very useful for crafting your own stuff and making money.
3. If you want to level cooking, farm gold to buy mats from AH. Farming mats is not efficient enough unless there are no mats on AH.
4. Play with sound on while playing, beautiful sound music and announcer pack.
Savlage everything. Don’t sell any piece of gear you get just salvage. You will thank me when you start runing your gear.
Get distracted, there is a lot to do and see!
Just enjoy it. Don’t let anybody (including yourself) put more pressure on you than you can handle. There’s a wealth of stuff to enjoy and experience on Nexus, whichever side you fight for, and the most important part of any game is to have fun. So take it at your own pace and kick some ass! Or don’t. Your call.
If you enjoy collection dyes and decor for your houses / costumes, be sure to take part in every challenge as they can offer these as rewards.
A great example of one of these challenges would be the Thayd sprint, this is a simple race challenge down through Thayd which offers both a dye and a decor bag in its reward list.
Be sure to grab this whenever your sprinting past Spaceport Horizon towards the entrance of Whitevale or just for some fun.
Some little tips for new folks from a person who played a while:
1. Always salvage unused items/equipment/loot. You earn enough money via PvE and quests. In the big picture, the crafting materials you get are much much more valuable.
2. Most vendors are useless aside from the reputation based ones as they cover all the bases of neat ‘prizes’. This includes things such as armor, weapons, furniture, vanity pets etc. The PvP vendors are the only other ones I can imagine being useful.
3. Easiest Crafting Skill to master is Technologist provided you are also a Relic Hunter. It will make things easier for alternate characters down the line as being a Technologist allows you to craft healing items/boosts and the important crafting components for the other crafting skills, namely the Power Cores.
4. Always always farm the plants you see growing out in the world. They show up as icons on your map as well. (ore and Relics for example show up as well provider you are a miner or Relic hunter respectively)
5. If you can ALWAYS play in a party. The game only ‘comes together’ when you are fighting along side others. Plus if you are overleveled you can mentor lower level people and still earn about the same XP you would normally. Plus, while in party you earn Renown which is a currency used to buy cool stuff like costume items.
If I could give one tip to any kind of WildStar player…
Don’t be afraid to explore! Explore everything and anything! Explore the scenary, explore the different classes and paths. Explore the fun and unique features of WildStar provides such as player housing, costumes and lore. Don’t limit your self to getting to Level 50 as quickily as you can, take your time and enjoy the game for what it is.
You no longer should sit on your rune fragments until you hit 50 and ready to rune. Runing materials now are tiered by item level, and you will always be obtaining runes appropriate for your current level, to eventually be replaced by stronger ones as you progress. So no point being a hamster – put those low level runes in your low level gear to squeeze some use out of them before they become obsolete. (Alternatively, if feeling tight on cash, can sell them to a vendor for small change.)
Our entry for this competition ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsChyfObBt4
New players: Forget quests, dungeons, raids… Wildstar has a housing system that you can and should get lost in. Hit level 14 then start building, touring or RPing.
Former players: Check out the contract system and vet shiphands. Probably the two biggest changes in end game from launch which everyone can enjoy from level 50 onwards. Contracts make the world group content busy and fun. Shiphands are a blast solo or in a small group.
Everyone: Listen to a podcast now and again to stay in the loop. I recommend Geeks of Nexus (and receive no payment for doing so).