Cyglaive breaks down Adventures and recaps his journey through Hycrest Insurrection.

A little Rebellion Goes a Long Way

If you’ve seen any James Bond or other movies about espionage, then you probably have a good idea of what the first Exile Adventure, “Hycrest Insurrection”, might entail. I say Exile adventure because some of these are indeed faction specific. It wouldn’t make much sense if the Dominion were to aid a rebellion against themselves, right? While the first Exile Adventure is Hycrest Insurrection, if you’re a Dominion player you will be tasked with completing “Riot in the Void.” All adventures, regardless of faction do begin at the same the same levels which, in the case of the first one, is level 15.

Upon loading into Hycrest Insurrection, I noticed that we were surrounded on all sides by a metal interior and what sounded like the sound of a helicopter. As I examined my surroundings, it turned out that we were in fact in a helicopter--or the futuristic equivalent at least--preparing to drop right in the middle of Dominion territory. Our group was accompanied in the helicopter by a Mordesh who debriefed us on our mission, and not long after he finished, we were jet-packing down to the surface to rendezvous with our contact.

Once we reached our contact we were also greeted by one of the local farmers and his daughter. They filled us in on the situation and told us how the Dominion had begun oppressing the townsfolk, stealing crops and even handing out death penalties to those who would dare disobey. As a loyal Exile, I naturally felt the weight of our mission start to pour on. While helping ensure a successful rebellion was our primary task, there were multiple stages that we needed to complete in order to make this mission a success. It was then that we were given our first choice on how to begin this Adventure.

The choices ranged from attacking the Dominion head-on in order to send a message to taking a more subtle route by destroying some of their resources. Note that these were not the only two choices, but my group decided to go for a more strategic route. We chose to take out one of the Dominion's notorious lead scientists, “Twitch” Groo, who had been kidnapping farmers and performing deadly experiments on them.

Obviously he was a Chua.

As we made our way to Groo’s last known location, we took out snipers and other Dominion patrols along the way until nothing stood between us and this Chua War Criminal.

While this fight wasn’t as complex as what you might see in WildStar’s dungeons, it was definitely a step or two above the normal mobs you might see in this Adventure. A “mini-boss” of sorts. After dodging deadly plasma rays, taking out reinforcements and nearly losing our tank a few times, we finally took down this mad scientist and proceeded back to our contact to discuss our next move.

We continued our journey and were faced with many obstacles, including escaping from exploding underground bunkers, stealing data disks, jet-packing on and blowing up war balloons, all while trying to reach our ultimate goal of a successful Rebellion. Without spoiling the end of the Adventure, I’ll say that it played out in a similar fashion throughout its entirety. We chose which tactic we wanted to go through with and we carried it out, each one opening up additional options for us to discuss and complete. This meant that, while we went through this Adventure a certain way this time through, we could choose to tackle it completely different during another run and would be faced with different bosses, objectives and challenges to complete. It was also pointed out to me that our choices visually affected what went on around us. Things such as additional friendly NPC guards, bosses and enemy types were being changed based on our group decisions.

However, I will say that while there are incentives for going back and choosing different options, currently I don’t think there’s much stopping your average group from just going with the “easiest” choices once they’ve become familiar with the Adventure. Thankfully, it seems like the team is aware of this and is looking to make some adjustments in the beta. Matt did say that they were looking at changing up how rewards are currently distributed in the Adventures and to expect changes in the near future.

In my opinion, if they made it so certain loot drops depend on the path or options you chose, that would greatly increase the allure of approaching each Adventure differently each time through. Rewards you get from these Adventures are generally on par with Dungeon rewards and are either distributed upon completion of the Adventure or bought from the Adventure reputation vendors outside of the instance. As mentioned before, this is subject to change. However, with there being Veteran Dungeons and Adventures alike, you can definitely expect them to be part of your standard PvE progression.

All in all, I think the addition of “Adventures” makes for a refreshing experience from your typical 5-man content. Too long have we seen games stick with the standard Dungeon formula as your only challenging group leveling content. I’m glad that we are getting a fresh take this time around and I can’t wait to see what else WildStar’s Adventures have in store for me.

Before I depart, I’d like to know what you all think about Adventures, so let me know in the comments below! Don’t forget to check out the WildStar Reddit AMA this week that answers all of your Adventure-related questions. As always, keep it dialed into ZAM for all of your WildStar news needs.

See you on Nexus!

Corey "Cyglaive" Jenkins

Follow Corey on Twitter @Cyglaive