WildStar Wednesday: Social Systems

The goals, challenges, and overall design aspirations she has for the social systems in WildStar are the central focus of this new weekly piece written by Carbine Studios' Victoria Dollbaum. Hopefully having a dedicated designer means that the sci-fi MMORPG will live up to our social expectations:
Social systems are entirely opt-in, that's important for you to know. My intent is to provide systems that you want to participate in, and that you're sufficiently rewarded for choosing to participate. There are those of you out there that are so fundamentally against systems such as housing. It's a common player worry that these systems can take away from the development time of other features such as combat or content. Let me ease your worries in that I am strictly a Social Designer, so all of my love and attention goes into providing you guilds and housing and other crucial social features without interrupting the development of all those other features that are essential to you.

There are those who feel they aren't social, and wouldn't use features such as housing. In some other games, housing is a standalone feature, an afterthought that was weakly tied into core game systems, if at all. We want all of our social systems, especially housing, to be useful to our players and tied into the rest of the game and, more importantly, to your interests. Do you like tradeskills? You'll be able to grow and harvest materials on your property, and then turn them into crafted items right there. Do you like to raid? You'll be able to store and receive buffs, show off raid kills in your trophy room, and even have quick access to a dungeon or a raid. Is there a holiday event going on? You can definitely participate in the event in the open world of Nexus, but you can also find special housing specific events and rewards right on your property. Or you can host your own events- it's your house, after all.