I honestly think I may have switched games to main Wildstar if I wasn’t still actively raiding in WoW when Wildstar came out. That’s literally the reason I stopped playing. I was about to hit max level and wasn’t willing to invest that kind of time into 2 different Raid-Centric MMORPG Endgames.
The combat was one of the better versions of Action Combat IMO. Lots of proper “skillshot” abilities more akin to a MOBA as opposed to “all of your attacks cleave directly in front of you” which you see in a LOT of action combat games.
It wasn’t pure numbers in dungeon/world content either. If you set up your build right, you could evade and interrupt enough to take down (some) enemies tougher than you. I remember soloing a couple dungeon bosses because the group died early. Not always the BEST course of action because the game rewarded faster completion, but I liked that it wasn’t always just raw numbers determining the win (but I’m sure that changes in raid / higher end content, because performance HAS to matter at some point, even against bosses that are melee-based).
Double Jump was baseline. Not important but always fun, and allows for more in-depth jumping puzzles. Which you could use your Housing Plot to make if you wanted. I used an alt specifically to do that.
Then Housing itself, of course, was literally the best I’ve seen in an MMO. Personal plot, but you could sets it to public and it could be found on a list, and ofc visiting friends was not difficult. Anyway, totally freeform. Giant plot. Could use a preset structure and just decorate inside/outside, or forgo that entirely and make your own structure[s] using objects. You could move objects on the X/Y/Z axis, rotate, clip, resize (basically as much as you want), and it all had a very low barrier to entry, unlike FFXIV. There were nodes you could put in certain slots on your plot too. Didn’t have to, but things like a gathering spot (with resource sharing that you set the % of - strangers could contribute), minigames, a mini dungeon thing, etc. All around, fantastic. There’s a reason there’s a private server with basically only housing working acceptably. People liked it.
Graphics kind of bugged me at first, but it only took a day or so of playing before it grew on me. It was cartoony, but not really any more than WoW is. It was just in a slightly different way.
Leveling story/zones weren’t AMAZING. It was a bit like WoW in that regard. They got the job done, but weren’t particularly interesting to me at first. That said, I do think some of the later zones were more fun and interesting to play through (whereas I don’t think WoW has decent leveling story until like MoP). And starting in like the mid 30s or something you’d get a solo story scenario every couple levels, and those were very interesting.
