The two things I learned about Wildstar that seem very exciting from a co-op or social perspective were housing and paths. Player housing is often a prevalent theme in MMOs. Whether it’s guild houses or individual houses, MMO players often love having the option of purchasing a personal space of their favorite virtual world. I have to say, Wildstar looks to be undergoing the most ambitious player housing I’ve ever seen in an MMO. Gaffney told me that the number of fixtures players can put in, on, or around their houses numbers at least in the hundreds, if not thousands. Some are mostly cosmetic, but many have functions. For example, players will be able to purchase a Raid Portal to put outside their house, which gives a buff. Player housing will have an invite list, so you’ll be able to make it as exclusive or as open as you like. I’m sure that these houses will provide great hubs for socialization between friends. Players will be able to buy their plots for their houses at level 5 or so, which means that housing is not only for the rich - which is excellent news. You can check out most of the details of housing in the following “dev speak” video:
The second unique co-op/social aspect of Wildstar I wanted to touch on is “paths.” Separate from character class, all players will pick a “path” on character creation. These paths consist of Explorer, Scientist, Soldier, and Settler, and picking one will enhance a particular part of the game (you’ll get missions for your path). As Gaffney told me, players already know what they like about MMOs. These paths give them the chance to get more of the content they like. Explorers are people who love to explore the world and uncover all its little secrets, Scientists are lore nuts, Soldiers love fighting and combat, and Settlers love socializing and helping others (hands up for those of us who are Settlers here). Wildstar will of course offer all these aspects to all players, but picking a path will give players extra content in that specific area. The really cool thing is that Wildstar will 100% support cooperation between paths. Since paths share XP, helping people with their paths gives you XP as well. The dev team is also planning some areas where two (or more) characters of different paths are needed to discover a secret of some sort.
Wildstar has no release date yet, but I’m interested by what I see. There are definitely some awesome ideas here. What do you guys think?