The art of storytelling goes back as far as spoken language. How stories are told and passed on has taken many forms over the centuries, and within games, it is no different. Some games may not even appear to tell a story while others it is the entire focus. Let's take a look at the many ways you can choose to get the Lore, History and Humor in the Wildstar Universe. Let's break down the many ways WildStar tells story, teaches lore and how each impacts you, the player.
Wildstar takes storytelling to new levels and gives you many avenues to get the information. But the kicker is that most of the time, it is not required reading or even listening. If you wish to just mash buttons past quest text and Lore Items, you will still progress and advance. However, if you do want the stories, want to understand and know what is going on around you or has happened in the area you are in the past, or even strengths and weakness of the animals and plants around you, it is all there and available to you.
The "Lore" tab is where you'll find your digital library that collects information you find it and is always available for you to read and listen to when you want a bit of down time from the hustle and bustle of Nexus. Too busy to read that book you just discovered? No problem, you can always read it later when you have more time. All of this collected information is collected into two tabs: Zone Lore and Galactic Archive.
Zone Lore
The Zone Lore area of your Lore Tab lets you know just how much there is to learn in your current Zone. Each zone has unique amounts of information to find, broken down into three categories: Datacubes, Journals and Tales from Beyond the Fringe.
As you can see here, Deradune has 32 story items for you to find. Under each category it tells you how many you have found of each category. You have to travel through the zone and be on the look out for these different types of items to get all of the story out of the zone. Some can be very hard to find unless you are looking, which makes them all the more interesting.
Datacubes
I like to think of Datacubes as the Eldan's forgotten audio diaries. Datacubes always tell you what the Eldan were doing in that particular area, most of the time some kind of experiment or observation. Once you click on the Datacube you will hear the Diary and also get a text entry as seen here. If you wish to hear the audio again later, simple hit the square button to play it at any time, you do not have to be near the Datacube.
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Journals
Journals are written Diaries of significant individuals that have been in the area. Finding the Journals will give insight into the trials and tribulations that have occurred. Tell you the history of interesting landmarks, such as this entry about the Monument. Each Journal Entry is a complete story upon itself, though some will have related pieces.
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Tales From Beyond the Fringe
TFBTF are a unique story that is more like a comic book. The difference is the story is spread out across the land and you can't read any of it until you collect all the pages and have a complete book. Once you have them all, then you will be able to see the cover and read the story within.
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Now that we've taken a look at how each zone tells its story, let's break down the Galactic Archive.
Galactic Archive
The archives is your personal encyclopedia, documenting your many experiences in the world. The more you interact with the things around you, the more you learn about them. These entries can tell you many things about the world of Nexus if you but take the time to look.
Every time you learn something new, you will get notified on the Menu Bar. Clicking it will open you Galactic Archive which will have all the new entries (Articles) highlighted for your enjoyment. This area will also show you how many articles are still available for the topic as seen in the picture, I currently have discovered 3 of the 9 articles about the Aurin.
Articles come in 10 categories to make them easier to browse: The Nexus Project, Creatures, Notable Individuals, Minerals, Locations, Factions, Sentient Species, Plants, Tech, Lore, Enemies, Allies.
Click on the article you wish to get more information about, such as Cinderbloom shown here.
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As you can see there is a lot of information available to you if you want to stop and smell the Cinderbloom, though I would be careful to not burn yourself in the process!
Beyond the main information you can get above, there is even more story all around you. Every quest and NPC dialog has its own unique flavor that can be extremely funny, informative or even make you do a double take wondering did they really just say that?
Chad Moore (@Pappylicious) aka the Pink Granok and Cory Herndon (@HernCo) aka Mr. Protostar and their team have developed a deep and rich storyline that encompasses the Wildstar galaxy. For those that want to sink their teeth into the Lore, not just the game mechanics and leveling to the Elder games, we have been given the tools to learn it all!
Now, if you've read this far, you're probably the kind of player that wants to learn as much as you can about the game world, characters, creatures and so forth and from what we've shown in this guide, WildStar is the perfect game for inquiring minds like yours!
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Chief Sarcan is a Retired Navy Chief who plays and discusses MMOs regularly on his YouTube and Twitch Channels. He also frequently streams for MMORPG.com and is an active and positive supporter of the WildStar community. You can find Chief Sarcan on Twitter @Chief_Sarcan.
