WildStar may have launched with a feature set decidedly geared towards hardcore players, but lately the team at Carbine Studios has been committed to delivering content for players no matter how they like to play the game. WildStar’s latest game update, INVASION: Nexus should continue that trend and have something for everyone. We recently had a chance to take a look at some of the goodies coming in today’s game update, so let’s go over a couple of the highlights.
Holo-Wardrobe
Driven primarily by player feedback, the new Holo-Wardrobe feature is a home for your costume pieces and can be accessed anywhere in the world so you don’t have to return to the stylist to change your costume or dye something. The Holo-Wardrobe will store costume pieces for all your characters (350 slots total). Each piece can be added to your Holo-Wardrobe for a small fee, but once it’s been added you can feel free to sell the item, salvage it, etc.
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Contracts
Further emphasizing Carbine’s plans to let you play how you want to play, Contracts are a feature that let you make progress towards earning great loot through bite-sized tasks. Level capped players can access Contracts by visiting the local contract board (available in each capital city) and selecting up to three contracts at a time (one set for PvE and PvP). These tasks can be something as simple as getting X amount of multi-kills or completing Battleground specific objectives. Many of these contracts can be completed in a wide variety of content types and it’s up to you what level difficulty contracts you want to accept. The lowest difficulty contracts can be repeated as many times as you like, but more difficult contracts can only be completed once daily. Completing contracts earns you gold, a loot bag, and points towards milestone rewards. Do enough contracts, fill a bar, select your reward, and repeat!
Pets
Almost a requirement for MMOs these days, Carbine is joining the party this update by introducing pets to WildStar with 54 cosmetic pets. You’ll be able to acquire these pets through just about anything you do in the game, including world drops, dungeons, PvP loot bags, contracts, and so on. There’s not a whole lot more to say here. Players wanted pets and now they’ve got ‘em.
Bay of Betrayal Adventure
Bay of Betrayal is a new adventure for level capped characters that throws players into the Ascendancy cult with the task of assassinating its leader. Throughout the adventure, players will have access to special powers, including Eldan nanotechnology. The adventure features a new mechanic that allows players to draw energy from Eldan pylons and use that energy to affect the environment. In one example shown, players came across an environmental hazard that they were able to stop by channeling their stored Eldan energy into an object. The catch is that channeling requires players remain stationary, so teamwork will be needed in order to successfully navigate the area. The Eldan energy mechanic will also be used in a variety of other ways, such as charming enemies to your side, and more. Gaining access to the Bay of Betrayal adventure requires players earn any medal in any dungeon or a silver medal in every veteran adventure.
Star-Comm Basin
Star-Comm Basin is a new “PCP” or post-cap playspace, which are areas that players experience during their normal leveling path that are then returned to post-cap to continue the story there. Notable examples already in the game include the Northern Wastes and Crimson Badlands. Players who venture into the Star-Comm Basin PCP will learn that the Strain, Ikthian, and Marauder enemy groups have descended on the area in an attempt to take control over an Eldan facility. Players will be tasked with defending the facility from these three enemy groups.
A different enemy group will control the center of the facility each day and the content available in terms of dailies and public events will be tied to the specific enemy group that is control for that day. This should help spice things up and offer variety for players who are completing their dailies and such in the zone.
There's also a brand new single boss raid in the form of Initialization Core Y-83, which won't require attunement and works in a way to help guilds gear up for the game's tougher raids as well.
All this, plus a host of UI improvements (thank Jebus for the new Quest Tracker and Challenge UI), performance improvements (Thayd should no longer kill your FPS we're told), and loads more mean that WildStar is better than ever with INVASION: Nexus. Will you be giving it a try?
