Story
Celestion
-The Lopp are scary. They're so happy and adorable, and yet they mounted the head of the giant monster I killed and placed as a greeting in their village.
Frigging bloodthirsty bunnies, man.
-The next area is Sylvan Glade. This seems to be the major hub of Celestion.
-hahahah - took a taxi for the first time.
The holo-driver (who seems to be the taxi's CPU) tells bad jokes, makes small talk, and elevator music plays the entire ride. XD XD XD THIS IS BRILLIANT. The flavor in Wildstar is off the charts.
-There are three main levels of questing: World, Region, and tasks. World quests are quests following what I assume will be the overarching planetary story. Region quests are the zone story, and tasks are little side things.
-The regional quest now focuses on Queen Myala Everstar (the Aurin queen) preparing Yaenna to be the "matria" of Sylvan Glade. She passes three tests with my aid: test of Spirit, Courage, and Heart. Capped the questline off with watching her get crowned.
My favorite was the Test of Spirit. She transforms me into a cute little vind animal to help sniff out a spirit totem.
Vind!Forlla.
-The world quest right now focuses on the Exile Academy of Sciences (XAS) and the Explorer's League teaming up to investigate an Eldan facility.
-Found a side area, a spider den. The queen spider at the end of the area is "challenger" rank. Not sure what that means. Let's find out.
That. Was. AWESOME!! Tough fight, but soloable. She had spiderlings she kept buffing, but I got what I think might be her corpse to decorate my house whenever I get that.
-Strange thing just now. There was a node on the ground. I clicked it, and it took me to a hidden area with a random Soldier quest to kill a bunch of battle maidens within a certain time limit.
A side challenge I guess which rewarded me with some nice crafting mats.
---
Mechanics
-Hit a new Soldier path level. This grants me a new title ("Trainee," a promotion from "Volunteer") as well as this awesome new hat:
-New ability tier point as usual, but I'll bank it for now. The second rank for all the abilities I've been ranking up opens at 15, so maybe if I bank a bunch, I can rank a bunch up to the second tier at once rather than spreading myself too thin.
---
Tradeskills
-Picked up my first tradeskill, the cooking hobby.
...holy mother of God.
LOOK AT THAT COOKING TREE! I thought it'd be like WoW with a recipe that you push and finish, but this is so much...broader!
Sure, I can cook meat, but I can make it sweet, or spicy, or add sugar, and... just look at it!
Not only that. There's an enormous cooking talent tree. A literal cooking talent tree.
I'm fucking blown away right now.
-I'd be lying though if I said I understood it. I experimented a bit with it, adding some sweet and savor elements and continually getting the same result. I'm clearly supposed to be aiming for something and not sure what.
Nice to have a crafting system that isn't mindless.
-Cooking was a hobby, but I get two major tradeskills aside from it. I'll go with Survivalist and Outfitter.
-There's even a work order board at the crafting center that gives quests guiding me to craft different items. (Can I just say this is WAY better than just hitting a "cook" button to make 10 Bacon Pies or whatever before moving to the next item on the list?) Don't have the mats to really dive into this now, but I will return later. Bet on it.
-Cooking is "Coordinate Crafting," while tailoring is "Circuit Crafting."
You can mix different elements, and supercharge the crafting attempt while giving it an increased chance to fail. Interesting. Risk/reward in crafting.
