After getting his hands on Carbine Studios' short WildStar demo at PAX, Director of Content Cody Bye thinks the game could do big things in the MMO world. Read on to find out why!

Let's start this hands-on article the right way. Even in the very, very small demo that we saw of WildStar at PAX Prime, the game brings a breath of fresh air to the massively multiplayer online gaming scene. Between the humor-laced dialogue, over-the-top graphics, the new mechanics to cater to different sorts of gamers, and open world style of play (or at least the illusion of it), there was a lot to like from Carbine Studios' new MMO contender.

Best of all... there was very little brown to be seen anywhere.

All kidding aside, let's get to the nitty gritty. The demo itself was set up on about a dozen stations throughout the booth that made up WildStar's presence at PAX. Every station was on a timer; players had about 45 minutes to complete as much of the demo as they could, or they could attempt to “beat the clock” and have the chance to win a T-shirt or hat from the development team for their efforts. It wasn't difficult to do; some folks did it with nearly 15 minutes to spare if that was your goal. Even I finished under time (and made about level 5), but less experienced MMOers weren't quite having the same sort of luck.

Even with the quickness of how the demo was finished, it didn't feel like anything was terribly rushed. There was a lot of polish already existing in the demo, with some very solid voice overs where appropriate and lots of little things to do and look at throughout the initial tutorial area. Just like the trailer, there's a good amount of humor infused into most of the dialogue, and a lot of the items that you encounter in the game can make you chuckle when you think about them.

For example, toward the end of the demo, players have the option of journeying through a hostile enemy camp (which happen to be these cute little blue critters that think they're all tough), diving into a cave near their village, and destroying their “spider queen” (that title is probably inaccurate, but it was an insectoid creature). Once she was defeated, all the enemies in the camp would turn neutral to the player. Ironically, once they turned neutral, they didn't really care whether you lit their homes on fire, which happened to be one of the quests that I had yet to complete in the area.

When I asked one of the Carbine developers about it, he said, “Well, you just killed their uber-leader and they'd already killed one of your crew mates. Not only do they not want to mess with you, they probably just think it's fair play.”

While the explanation may be simpler in the mechanics of the game, that little piece of information shared by the Carbine community manager made me laugh on multiple levels. Not only is the game chock-full of humor, but the developers are actively thinking about ways to make the light of the activities in their game, even if they are – to the characters themselves – deadly serious.

Even with all the laughter, don't expect the combat in the game to be anything less than serious, and it brings with it some fantastic mechanics that really emphasize quality combat play for those that are really interested. Among these is the momentum counter and the tactic mechanic. Basically, both of these give you XP bonuses; the momentum counter rewards players for plowing through mobs quickly and the tactic mechanic gives you rewards for utilizing vulnerabilities and dodge chances provided by the enemy.

Continued on Page 2.