Wildstar

That's a question various company have been trying to figure out the answer to for years. Some have tried and failed, others are still working on their projects hoping that their enormous budgets will produce a quality game millions of people will want to play. Bioware and EA are pumping in so much money into their Star Wars: The Old Republic that it will make your head spin, ArenaNet are trying to reinvent large parts of the MMO-genre in their Guild Wars 2. The next big MMO is a possibility, now it's just up to the developers to figure out how to make it work.

Carbine Studios seem convinced that they have figured out what it takes. In a conference room at their offices in Orange County, California, producer Jeremy Gaffney has gathered a couple of European journalists to explain how his company's project, Wildstar, is going to give it a go. Jeremy should know how to make a MMO successful, he's been in the industry since its infant days; working on such titles as Acheron's Call and (the cancelled) Ultima Online 2. He's no rookie.

To make Wildstar work, and become successful, Carbine zoned in on three aspects. The first one, which is also the most obvious, is the game's art. The studio has worked hard to create a unique artstyle; just take a look at the pictures and artwork surrounding this article. That's how Wildstar's world, the mysterious planet Nexus, looks. It's a fascinating mix of the Wild West, steampunk and fantasy - Joss Whedon's cult TV-series Firefly mixed with World of Warcraft. There are practical reasons for choosing the cartoony and stylized graphics besides them look good, they simply age better than photo-realism.

The second aspect is the setting. Nexus is a planet filled with mystery. It used to be the home of the powerful beings known as the Eldan, who suddenly disappeared leaving a world of technology and magic behind them. Whatever caused that cataclysmic event is still there, waiting, and it's up to the players to find out what it was. I might just be a sucker for the way the game looks, the way the races are depicted and the way it all comes together. But when we sit down to play Wildstar I want to explore, to see the wonders of Nexus in person. Carbine have tried to make the zones themselves as varied as possible, to make sure that we don't grow tired of looking at the same kind of environment for hours. If you've ever quested through Stranglethorn Vale in World of Warcraft, you know exactly what is meant by "zone fatigue."

The third aspect is innovation. Now it starts to get tricky. In many ways, Wildstar is a familiar game. If you've played a MMO, or a RPG, in the past it won't take many minutes before you're firing off spells or special attacks like a pro. Combat is fast paced, the animations flow into each other and the feel is spot on. Red circles on the ground warns you of your enemy's impending attacks, allowing you to dodge - similar to how you can dodge out of a grenade's blast radius in Star Trek Online or put yourself out of harm's way in Age of Conan. Fighting is a lot of fun, but innovation would hardly be the word I'd choose. But then, that's not what Jeremy is talking about either.

As gamers themselves, the developers know that different players prefer to play in different ways. Some like to fight, some like to craft, some like hang out with their buddies and roleplay all day long. This is something that they've taken to heart. Besides choosing your race and class, as you would in any MMO, you also choose a "path" for your character. What brought you to Nexus? That choice, in turn, opens up various forms of gameplay on the planet itself.

There's the soldier, who prefers to blow things up. He can start up public quests, where hordes of monsters swarm a given point on the map. There's the explorer, who gets rewards from finding hidden places and treasure; she will see vistas no one else will see, find routes that no one else will be able to take. There's the scientist, who gathers information about Nexus and becomes more powerful the more he knows about the world and its lore. And there's the settler, who focuses more on the social aspects and help rebuild settlements, giving bonuses to himself and other players.

The path you choose will shape your experience on Nexus. As an explorer, the game made me aware of various points on the map where I could climb high above the ground to place a radio dish. As the soldier, I activated machines that attracted waves of enemies - only coming to a halt after I had killed an ice giant. Later I had to protect innocent civilians from being killed by monsters, a public quest the other paths wouldn't be able to activate. The plan is to add as much replayability as possible, while not taking over your game session - all of this is easily skippable if you simply want to focus on the story and the regular questing.

"Random" is a word that keeps coming up during our session at Carbine. The developers try to layer as much as possible on top of each other, without confusing the player. You might be out questing as usual, when a sudden challenge pops up. "It's like the game says ‘good work killing those jungle cats for the quest giver, how about you kill 10 of them within five minutes?'," Jeremy says. "Finish the challenge and you'll get an extra reward." Then you notice that a dynamic event is happening nearby, a gang of poachers are setting up camp. Can you take them out while also hunting down the 10 jungle cats? Or do you simply not care about either? Jeremy scribbles down layer upon layer on a white board, always with the message that it only gets as complicated or deep as you want it to become. Skip the challenge, leave the poachers alone, focus on the questing instead. Or chain it all together for extra rewards.

Combat shares some of these features, where you can chose the simple route of simply standing in place for the standard reward or mix it up for bonus experience points. The formula of "recognize, react, reward" is something the developers constantly keep in mind, even for simple fights against simple enemies. Sure, stand still, don't react to the big red circle on the ground beneath you. You can still win. Or you recognize the threat, react by dodging out of the way and get some bonus experience points for your efforts. Pull an extra enemy to get an even bigger reward. Add one of the challenges mentioned above and you can see how the layers are added on top of each other. It might sound like a lot in theory, but in practice it all comes together and you hardly think about it. It simply works, which is not something I'm used to saying about a MMO this early in development.

Is Wildstar the next big MMO? Better men have made fools out of themselves by proclaiming that, so I won't comment on that. But the fact of the matter is that Wildstar has a couple of great ideas that might add up to a really fun MMO. I fell in love with the Spellslinger, a kind of battle mage that uses dual revolvers, and I really want to play around more with him. The different paths you choose from might end up being gimmicks, or they will help individual players tailor their own game experiences in the way Carbine hope they will. The art and the world are incredibly charming, and there are details in the background that I anxiously await more information about. There's an incredible amount of potential here.

At the same time, Wildstar looks and feels very much like a traditional MMO. The game is still very much in development, there's a lot left to add in, to tweak and to change here. Yet I wonder if the game, no matter how polished the end-result will (or won't) be, really has enough on the surface to grab the imagination of a large player base. Depth is good, but you can't really see the layers until you actually get a chance to peel them off. "The next big MMO either means selling a whole bunch of boxes or attract users over time. If we had to pick one of having a ginormous launch or gaining players over time because your game is fun... Well, we'd say both," Jeremy tells me later that day with a laugh.

I know that I want to swing my twin revolvers on Nexus, exploring the world as I do so. Will the rest of the world? As it's always been in the MMO-genre, nothing is certain until launch. And for Wildstar that point in time is still far, far away.