It's all in the Details: Environmental Ambiance

"Though I am certain it is hard for your small minds to grasp, you must understand the concept of details. When you are an agent of the Imperial Corps of Intelligence, which you clearly lack the capabilities of, but should we pretend you could ever be such, it would all fall down to the details. The smallest, seemingly innocuous detail could make all the difference between identifying your target as a loyal servant of the glorious Empire or a vicious traitor to be culled from our ranks."

As Agent Hawkens so eloquently states, details matter. And not just in such life and death situations, but even in tiny, seemingly unimportant situations. I am a large fan of such details. To me they richen the world around us in imaginary settings, furthering  my feeling of immersiveness in my online surroundings.

I'd like to point this out within Wildstar's setting with this video of Gamespots Now Playing featuring Wildstar on February 13th. The video showcases the Stalker class with an emphasis on one of the earlier zones known as Deradune. It's a great video if you haven't seen it yet, click here,

The part that I really want to show you though is at 27:24. Watch the corpse of the deer like creature on the ground here. Not long after the body hits the ground you can see a flock of carrion birds (Vulcarrion) land on it and begin to eat it. A few more seconds and the body is changed to the graphics of a pile of bones.

Image from http://www.muchmoregaming.com/2013/02/13/meet-the-dominion-in-wildstar-online/

There is is. The details. I flipped out when I saw this. Why did these birds arrive? Do they always come down? Does this only happen when some of the carrion birds are nearby? Are they part of a quest? Without being told or shown otherwise, I assume this display of consumption is an environmental ambiance. Something to set the mood of the stage.
In Deradune it is survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. Strange and vicious creatures are being flown in for the powerful Draken to test their might against. It makes sense, then that the local carrion eaters would take advantage of this. We now know that there /are/ carrion eaters, or at the very least one species and what they look like.

Part of my fascination may simply come from my experience as a biology major. Seeing a parody of life, more accurately reflect reality is pretty exciting. Perhaps I'm just strange.

"One could hardly blame you."

Ahem, ignoring him.  Either way, these sort of details, while entirely unnecessary are almost more exciting in their existence just for that very reason. Here is something that does not further the story, does not further the gameplay itself, but is there for an interesting addition to the world around you to help make it feel more alive. You can see it in World of Warcraft when predatory animals will randomly charge and attack prey critters or where waterfalls will actually pull your avatar over the edge. Not only did these carrion birds in the video react to a "prey" species (in terms of the corpse) they interacted with the fresh kill made by the player AND they also added yet another detail by showing a new image as the flesh was stripped from the bones by the hungry creatures.

Ultimately this proves a exemplary attention to detail on behalf of the development team as well as providing the gamers with a deeper insight to the world around them. Personally I hope to see more of this within Wildstar!