Pros:
- Excellent Support - Devs are on the ball at all times with bug fixes and listening to the community.
- Great Community - everyone is kind and always willing to provide assistance. Reminds me so much of WoW back in the day, when everyone was an MMO virgin and needed guidance.
- Rewarding Difficulty - HARDCORE. They mention this word a lot in respects to this game. Dungeons are HARD! When I mean hard, it's not "standing tank and spank, with a few fancy mechanics added in between hard". I mean, constantly being aware of your surroundings, knowing when to dodge, what to hit, where to run. You'll find yourself saying at times, "OH SHIT I FAILED TO DODGE THE RED, I GOT ONE SHOTTED BBQPWNEDWTF?". Even the trash mobs require certain strategy, and everyone is required to do their specific jobs. - "This is coming from the first ever dungeon you'll step into at lvl 20!" Can you imagine what raids are going to be like?
- Look & Lore - Great lore, detailed world and most importantly, fancy graphics! Everything just looks so darn good. The devs have worked hard in terms of their attention to detail. I really feel like I'm playing a disney cartoon character at times. Yes it's cartoony!! Yes I love it!! And they've chosen to go with a more cartoony touch as opposed to having a dark, fancy vibe, eg. ESO because it AGES well, and that's the most important aspect I feel, being an MMO. It has to age through time. (About the lore, I didn't really think I would get into the whole, 'space' feel. Was never a big fan of star trek, and spacey fantasy-esque themes, since I'm more of a medieval, mythology kinda guy. But trust me, when I started this game, it really got me indulged into it's lore, and I'm really beginning to dig it though I didn't think I would. The over the top humor is just so enjoyable, that you know this game doesn't take itself too seriously.
- Customization - HOUSING! Don't even get me started on the amount of customisation options there are for building your house. It may not be "The Sims, level your land, build 20,000 rooms" kinda detailed, but it is detailed enough for an MMO. See for yourself: http://youtu.be/pk8Gkq4enjY (this guy, spent days, built his own forest) Did I mention, you can customise your own mounts too?
- Combat & Builds - Gone are the times of the old Tab-Targetting system. With games like Tera, combat has become so immersive, and MMOs these days can be labelled as action-rpgs too. I love the combat system in Wildstar! It's sort of like playing an action game like Kingdom Hearts or DMC, but with a WoW like interface and moveset. You are limited to 8 moves on your bar, specific to your role. Most classes can have two main roles eg. DPS/Healer or DPS/Tank and this solves the problem of "hey, you're a priest, heal. shadow? GTFO" All DPSers are comparative in end-game (from what I've heard) and all of them are viable, though in a game with crazy ass dodge mechanics, you'd want to play a range to stay on top of the boss as compared to a melee. I have always loved playing the rogue and warrior melee classes in MMOs. Loving to tank and to spank, and the rogue class (Stalker) in this game can do both! Which makes me so fulfilled!!!
- UI & Feel - The first thing worth mentioning, is that they have included the support of a Mods system like what WoW has, and it's going to be amazing! There are already many helpful and great mods developed from beta, things like Quest Trackers, Inventory Managers, Custom Target Frames, etc. The UI provided is quite simple, and already very workable. I only use a handful of mods, but if you like customising your entire look & feel to your liking, GO NUTS!
- PVP - I have not explored much in terms of this aspect yet, but I am hearing lots of good things about it. Did I mention you can level through PvP as well starting from level 6? I have just touched up on world PvP and it's so much fun! You know the feeling of getting ganked, feeling frustrated and wanting to gather people to take revenge? Yeah, you get that a lot. To me, it feels so familiar to the WoW experience before flying mounts were introduced. Remember Arathi Highlands? (there are lots of areas where both factions oppose each other starting from level 22)
Cons:
- Draggy Start - The first 15 levels are draggy. You might not get much into the lore, and there are a ton of 'Kill X amount, Fetch' quests. There are some complaints due to this, but personally I quite enjoyed it, since I wasn't from beta and I was just getting introduced to the game. I feel though that it could've been done a lot better. Endure the first 15 levels, enter your first dungeon, and trust me. It just gets better from that point on!
- Bugs - What are MMO launches without them? There may be certain annoying bugs, but honestly, nothing you can't live with. The game is so good it makes you overlook them. Being a P2P MMO, the devs are constantly working on them and their responses are quick too.
- Optimization - Currently, there isn't a gap between higher end systems and mid-tier systems. The optimization varies from PC to PC, but I think what works best is having an Nvidia GPU and an Intel CPU. I've heard of people with an R9 290x getting about 40 FPS, whereas I'm on a 560ti getting 60 FPS. But the devs have mentioned they are putting a lot of focus into improving in this department. Day 2 of release and already they released an optimization hot fix! Just a matter of time before everyone gets constant FPS.
I think I've mentioned it all. As you can see, the cons are only things that can be fixed through time, but the pros are plentiful and makes the game so worth playing! With the current F2P systems in place on MMOs, I didn't think I would've ever spent money on a subscription based game again, but with Wild*, I think I'm committed to this, and I guarantee it's for the long run! Never been happier! P.s. I don't work for them and I am not hard-selling this game. Came across it from a local forum of mine, and I just picked it up during the head-start, and have become a huge admirer of Carbine's fine work. I repeat *I am not a Carbine employee.
About my gaming experience: I've been a big fan and played, almost every big MMO to date, in search of the similar experience I gained from Vanilla WoW. I've played WoW from vanilla up till Cata, Tera, FF ARR, ESO beta, GW 1 & 2, bit of SWTOR, Rift. I enjoy end-game PvE & PvP content a lot so I tend to max level my chars only to find, most of the time that the end-game content is lacking. I always end up saying to myself "that's it? that's all there is to do?" I felt burnt out from trying MMOs for a while, but that craving always returns. I feel it's like a void that needs to be filled within me, for that WoW experience from the past. I'm glad to say in Wild* so far, it's lived up to my expectations so far. To hear that they have about 7 months of content stocked up for releases in future patches and expansions gets me WET! I just can't wait till I get to 50! (currently lvl 27 Stalker)