Carbine's very own Kristen "Caydiem" DeMeza takes us on a tour of Shiphand Missions in Wildstar.

This week's WildStar Wednesday is up. Join in as Kristen "Caydiem" DeMeza, Content Designer and a Zone Lead in the game, walks us through WildStar's "Shiphand Missions".

A few weeks ago Kristen briefly talked about Shiphands over on the Wildstar-Central forums. While we didn't have much to go on then, she's here with us again to give us a better understanding at what shiphand missions are all about.

"Throughout the sci-fi genre, one thing is plain: terrible things happen aboard spaceships. Alien invasions, rogue technologies, strange illnesses, rowsdowers stuck in the exhaust – whatever the crisis, flying through space is bound to get you in trouble. Now, we here at Carbine are huge sci-fi nerds ourselves, and since we’re putting together a sci-fi game, we wanted to bring those crazy ship experiences into play."

Did all of your Sci-fi nerd senses start tingling all at once? Or was that just me? As an avid watcher of Sci-fi shows/movies such as Serenity, Firefly and Star Trek (just to name a few) I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see some of this content come to WildStar. It sounds like the team really wants these missions to have that "episodic" Sci-Fi feel as well.

"When it’s time to make a shiphand, we get together to talk about major themes and particular moments that stood out in the sci-fi we know and love. Movies, TV shows, books, games, comics… we look at all sorts of things to find common threads among them all to draw upon. From there, we design out the mission, do a little story wranglin’, and end up with something uniquely WildStar."

Now how do you find these Shiphand Missions and what can you expect when you enter? Well first, Shiphand Missions will be scattered across the world and they usually start with a troubled pilot looking for a few "volunteers" to help him or her with an issue. From there you'll be taken off-world to help solve the troubles that lie in wait on the ship. Anything from a hallucinating crew, to a freak laboratory accident, or becoming an unwilling participant on an infamous blood-sport reality show is fair game.

Don't feel like you have to go into the deep fringes of space alone though. While shiphands can be solo'd, they do scale anywhere from 1-5 players. With shiphands only lasting somewhere between 15 and 45 minutes; it's great content to tackle in order to break up some of the standard questing.

"It’s the goal of a shiphand mission to put you right in the thick of a classic sci-fi dilemma. If WildStar were a TV show, these shiphands would fit right in as episodes… but this time, you’re the star!"

In a Sci-fi MMORPG, Shiphands seem to fit in quite nicely. WildStar beta should be starting up again soon, so if you're interested in trying these out first-hand, then don't forget to sign up on the official website. For more WildStar news updates keep it locked to ZAM.

See you on Nexus!

Corey "Crimzen" Jenkins

Follow Corey on Twitter @coreycrimzen