Facing the Future Together (with your friends!)

News:

Expect a big explosion of excitement when WildStar reveals the two <REDACTED> races this Friday!

And the next part of Meet the Crew: Matt Kause, UI Master of Darkness

This WildStar Wednesday gave us a little peek into what we can expect coming up this Friday at the San Diego Comic Con including some exciting Nexian cocktails from our very own Chemical Cutthroat from WSRP. I know I have featured these before in previous blogs and it is always very exciting to see how connected Carbine is with the WildStar community and how much they value us!

I personally recommend the Scowling Cassian drink ;) Just saying...

Also in preparation for the event right here on Earth, both @GamblersRuin_AS and @DestinyArkship have returned within reach of our sensors. Be sure to tune in on Twitter and see what the Exiles and the Dominion are up to!

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My absolutely favorite part of playing MMORPGs are the people I play with. I have played alongside close friends from outside the game and made many amazing new friends within the game as well. No MMO is complete without the myriads of people that fill their worlds.

Sometimes I enjoy adventuring on my own. It can be relaxing to go at my own pace, explore in peace and quiet or mindlessly farm some materials while I relax from a busy day at work. But the best and most memorable times have come from spending time with my friends.

Only with friends is trouble this much fun!

It all began for me in college, when I found out that one of my closest friends also played World of Warcraft. I had just recently picked up the game and started a Tauren hunter. My friend happened to have a Tauren druid near my level and I asked if she would like to play together. Thus began the daring duo of Goldhawk and Valixry. And Goldhawk's trusty black lion sidekick Humar. We had no idea of the advanced concepts of MMO gameplay, but we still had so much fun just wandering and exploring and questing together. Heh, I smile even now thinking about it.

One of the times that I recall fondly also exhibits the sort of MMO gaming “innocence” or “newness” I mentioned in one of my first blog articles: Wonder Lost: Why WildStar may be a much needed breath of fresh air. Goldhawk and Valixry were wandering around, exploring the Barrens when they happened upon a brand new zone: Dustwallow Marsh. Nervously poking around the swampy land, they happened upon a cave with Dragonkin just south of the path into the zone. Now let me point out (especially for those of you who have played WoW) that I was a Beast Mastery hunter and Valixry was a Resto druid long before anyone thought they were cool. Valixry was also a few levels lower than myself and we had both entered a zone just a tiny bit higher leveled than myself. Even so, we grinned at each other and threw ourselves into that camp like fools. Every single Dragonkin was an epic battle and we had to be very careful to not get mauled every second we were there. Through our teamwork and stubborness we managed to thin their numbers a fair bit. From there, Valixry skinned a few and procured an item we had never seen before: Dragon Scales. Suddenly the place was even more exciting! And so, without quests or any other incentive, we dove headfirst into the Dragonkin cave and spent the next few hours alternating between epic fights and being horribly slaughtered time and time again while we filled our bags full of Dragon Scales. It's funny really. Today I look back and I know there were better ways to make gold, and better ways to level, but it was just the excitement of discovery and adventure with my friend that made such activities fun!

These antics continued on for a few months until we discovered that we had more friends who were big into World of Warcraft. These friends had been playing together as well and we all decided to roll brand new characters together and try a full party of RL friends! Thus began the Shapers of Destiny, a guild of my closest friends who would spend the next year or so playing together. We leveled together, learned together, dungeoned together and raided together. We helped craft things for the guild and networked ourselves all over our server, making a name for ourselves and many friends along the way.

The Heroes of The Shapers of Destiny (and all our alts) art by Valixry!

Those days were some of my most fond memories with my friends. Though we don't all keep in touch that well anymore, I will never forget all the crazy late nights theorycrafting and planning our gear progression so we could begin raiding. I'll never forget laughing about our silly adventures while we cooked breakfast together, getting ready for a day of gaming or finally getting used to responding to my character's name. My close friend (also the person who played Valixry!) would draw pictures of all our Draenei together, including little comics of our antics as even though we weren't all roleplayers, our characters all ended up with personalities the longer we played together. These were so special to me. They were ways to capture all these wonderful times together. I still have a large collection I have saved throughout the years that I take the time to look at now and again.

From there I eventually made new friends on the server, including my partner Londrieved (who guested for my gender blog) and started all sorts of new adventures while I learned how to roleplay. I had a good couple more years to put under my belt before some of us moved on to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here I made a brand new set of friends and a brand new set of stories including a lot of development for how Agent Hawkens is today!

With friends, anywhere can spawn the next part in your story...

And that's just how it goes really. You can bring some friends from outside the game, or make some within, but each time, they help you create new stories and adventures. You don't have to be a roleplayer to enjoy these either! These are stories built of camaraderie and the love of fun and friendship!

To me, WildStar is shaping to be an excellent place to bring and meet friends as you experience a brand new adventure on Nexus. From everything we've seen thus far, the entire team heavily encourages these interactions within the community. Take for instance, the Path system! Not only are these nice little additions for the style of play you like, they are also ways to add to the fun of the whole group! Scientists can share lore they discover in game to their party, while Explorers can find shortcuts in the world. Settlers can build useful additions to the land, like campfires or bikes to return to town and Soldiers can add some epic challenge fights for the group to face as a whole. The fact that you can share these together, even if some of your paths overlap, is so amazing! This encourages people to band together, help each other out and experience new things! And just judging from what we've seen thus far, including the Dev's heavy support of their community, you can bet their gameplay will also encourage players working together for adventure!

I know I have already made some absolutely fantastic friends and I simply cannot wait for that day when we can all take our first step onto Nexus and our brand new story. Together.

Couldn't have said it better myself...