I enjoyed playing my Dominion Esper quite a bit, but once I reached 50 I decided it was time to make an alt and see how the Exiles play. It didn’t take long to fall in love with them. I’ve been leveling up a human medic this time around, and I’m just about level 50 on her too. It’s easy to see why some people may prefer Exiles to Dominion, but I think in the end I like both factions. I know there’s always a lot of discussion surrounding Exiles being more popular due to the Aurin race, but so far I haven’t made one. Maybe a future alt.
The medic class is a lot of fun. I’ve kept to a pretty simple DPS spec and I’ll branch into a healing spec when I’m level 50. I’ve been questing my way through Malgrave, which is a neat zone but unfortunately the regional story bugged for me so I can’t complete it. On Monday morning I didn’t have any of the lag issues that had plagued the release, and I managed to get a few more levels. The guild experience buff isn’t showing up on my buff icon for some reason, and I miss being able to get the buff from my housing plot. I also need to figure out how to revamp my housing plot now that they’re larger. Everything is pretty bunched up in the center and I’ll need to fix that. I do like the larger plots, but wish the fabkits you place were a bit more spread throughout.
One change that came with the F2P launch that I’m simply not a fan of is the change to Challenges. These used to be little mini events that you would do and then get a chance at a random item. The basic idea of the challenge is still there, the mini events, but now when you complete them you earn an amount of points that move up a line and unlock a specific goodie bag of your choice. Once you’ve unlocked three of the smaller goodie bags via points, you get to unlock a larger one. Gone are the awesome random prizes that we used to get a chance at winning, and instead there are three very drab choices. Aside from experience and achievements, I don’t see that big of a reason to complete these challenges any more. There’s no ‘good’ prizes, and I can certainly find better elsewhere.
Not all games get a second launch, and I think it’s a mistake to see WildStar as “just releasing”. Yes, everyone is working incredibly hard to get the issues taken care of, but treating it as a “new game launch” is ignoring the fact that the game has already been released, charging people to play, in the state it was in. I don’t expect people to be quite as patient with the issues that are occurring now and I think it’s understandable that folks would be frustrated. Of course how you demonstrate that frustration is another story. It’s not a reason to go out and treat people poorly, especially when they’re working incredibly hard. Just something to keep in mind.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I could be wrong but I thought I saw a few of the previous challenge rewards on the vendor in the housing area. Right when you zone in. Been so long since I played, I don’t remember him selling things before, Lol. I also miss challenges giving rewards too :( feels weird the way it’s changed.
It shows as being active in the guild UI window – but on my character, it mentions all the exp I’m earning and mentions signature bonus xp + rested bonus xp + flask bonus xp + authenticator bonus xp – but does not mention the guild one anywhere so that’s why I’m wondering if it actually works.
The buffs are definitely active (they show as active on the UI screen) so maybe I’ll keep pestering with a bug report until they show up. :)
And I’m none-too-thrilled with the challenge changes, either. But I’ll keep doing them until I get all my pets and dyes, haha.