WildStar beta weekend starts today, but here are some patch notes first

In just a few minutes, Carbine Studios will open up one of the last remaining beta weekends for WildStar. The beta is set to begin today at 10:00am ET (7:00pm PT) and run until Sunday, April 20, 11:59pm PT. 

"We're trying to get as much people into the beta as we can," Carbine Studios President Jeremy Gaffney told us. "We're doing a lot of stuff in the game and we need players in there to tell us what the heck to do."

So while we're waiting these 30 minutes or so for the game to go live, check out the latest round of patch notes from build 6637. Who knows, the game will probably be live once you get through this lengthy list.

General

  • In the Combat Log, fall damage should now properly differentiate between group members and the player.
  • When being disconnected for inactivity, players will be returned to the login screen.
  • Account-wide friends should once again show up properly.
  • Fixed an issue where instances were sometimes erroneously reporting themselves as full, preventing players from entering.
  • Fixed an issue where disconnecting immediately after changing zones cause strange behavior when a player next logged in.
  • Fixed a problem which prevented players from creating account-level friendships during their very first play session.

Guilds

  • Withdrawing a stack of items from a guild bank now counts as a single withdrawal towards the guild member’s daily limit.
  • Fixed a bug that caused an error in the Guild icon design window if a Player attempted to change the icon more than once without closing the window.
  • Fixed an issue with the Guild UI not resetting correctly after a guild is disbanded.

Creatures

  • Wastebeak Lurker was flying straight into the side of a mountain. Gave Wastebeak Lurker a different flight path.
  • Adjusted path for Sourgut the Necrotic so that he didn't step on weird things.

Characters

General

  • Aurin females now hold their weapons correctly.
  • The Mechari female no longer slides around while walking with a gun.

Items

  • Item dyes learned quickly in succession will no longer be forgotten.
  • Wrathwraps can now be equipped by the appropriate classes.
  • Steel Retainers are now Medium Feet instead of Heavy Feet.
  • Item Special – Siphon Essence – Reduced the Focus heals from this special by 50%.
  • Item Special – Reduced Burden – Reduced the chance for this to trigger to 10%, down from 20%. Reduced the Focus heals from this special by 80%.
  • Item Special – Focused Will – Reduced the Focus heals from this special by 90%.
  • The boots of the Netslasher's Cybernetic and Netslasher's Biomimetic sets are now properly named as boots instead of chest armor.
  • Players can no longer swap inventory items while one of those items is a pending attachment to a mail.
  • Deleting a bag that is currently in use is no longer allowed. The bag will need to be first dragged to an open inventory slot.

Classes

General

  • Verdant Defense can now be equipped by the correct classes.

AMPs

  • The reset AMP button is now disabled when you are already at max points.

Engineer

Abilities

  • Artillery Bot

    • Barrage is once again working and will cast.

Medic

Abilities

  • Annihilation

    • Fixed a bug where the field visuals were being recreated every tick rather than once per cast. Additionally fixed an issue where Tiers 4-8 were using the old animation.
  • Emission

    • Fixed a bug where Tier 3 would cast Restrictor.

AMPs

  • Stay With Me

    • Fixed a bug where the AMP would constantly reapply when taking damage while below 30% health. Additionally fixed an issue where the buff would sometimes not remove when the Medic's health rose above 30%.

Spellslinger

Abilities

  • Vitality Burst

    • Will now properly play its charging sound before the spell is fired.
  • Voidspring

    • Now has proper audio when cast.

Warrior

Abilities

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing Efficiency from triggering with Relentless Strikes and Menacing Strike.

AMPs

  • Fortify

    • Fixed a bug that was preventing this AMP from applying correctly when above 50% Shields.

PvP

General

  • PvP vendors no longer sell items for Gold instead of Prestige.
  • Fixed a bug which prevented rated PvP from matching teams for play.

Arenas

  • Fixed an issue where the change in an arena team's rating was not being shown at the end of a match.

Walatiki Temple

  • Increased size of the buffs in Walatiki Temple.

Warplots

  • The Furnace, Gas Processing, and Nuclear Plant hazards will now extend through the generator area of the warplot.
  • Increased the damage frequency of the Furnace and Nuclear Plant hazards.
  • Fixed an issue where Warplot hazards effects could still be applied after player death and respawn.
  • There are now team force fields prohibiting enemy troop movement into the center of the warplot. If a generator is destroyed, the nearest center force field will be deactivated, allowing enemy access to the Super Weapon, Travel, and Boss plugs on the Warplot. Guards and Warplot bosses will be unimpeded by this team force field.
  • Fixed an error that appeared when placing a Warplot plug while the Warparty bank is open.      

Content

General

  • Player’s teleporting into the Crimson Badlands' Exo-Lab 22 will no longer be teleported to Deradune incorrectly upon entering.
  • Fixed some NPCs that were casting some spells with telegraphs that they weren't casting.

Achievements

  • Several achievements which were set to award 0 points will now award 10 points.
  • The Arkship Achievements 'Domination for the Dominion' and 'Welcome to the Planet' are now hidden until completed and worth 0 Achievement Points.
  • The Great Hunt episode in Deradune will no longer unlock multiple achievements on completion.
  • Fixed an issue where subcategories in the Achievements window could not be deselected

Challenges

  • Fixed a display issue that could display your current progress on a Challenge as a negative number under certain circumstances.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented challenge cooldowns from starting if the challenge ended due to time running out and at least one tier was achieved.
  • The challenge announcer will now indicate when gold level is achieved.

Celestion

  • The visual effects for the quest ‘Watcher’s Warning’ will now display properly.
  • Sound effects have been added to the Caretaker Showdown.
  • Fixed an issue with the ‘Tales From Beyond The Fringe’ spawns that made it impossible to complete.

Crimson Badlands

  • Dominion players who complete the quest ‘Guarding the Front’ will now receive the correct reputation reward.

Deradune

  • Fixed an issue where the bones from Chompy's meals would never despawn.

Everstar Grove

  • Addressed a map hex east of The Arboretum that was making it impossible to achieve 100% exploration of Everstar Grove.
  • Dominion Tank's Bombardment telegraph should now properly deal damage.

Farside

  • Added dismount button to Timber Raven Mount.
  • Changed the location of two ‘Tales From Beyond the Fringe’ keys that were not previously accessible to both factions.

Grimvault

  • Certain jump pads in the Widowmaker and in the Fist of Azrion are no longer stuck in the floor!
  • Active location for Peep Chase has been updated to properly reflect the challenge area.
  • Reduced challenge requirement amount from 15 to 10 for Disarming Fingers in the Sprawling Breach.
  • The Phage Cannons are no longer selectable.
  • Adjusted the timing of the exploding Corrupted Cankertails to help visuals.

Whitevale

  • Assigned the correct sound event to datacube ‘Protocol Deterioration’.
  • Resolved an issue where Whitevale Trees were increasing in tier rank as players harvested them.

Wilderrun

  • Corrupted Bloom's will now display the awareness icon when becoming aware of a player.

Adventures

General

  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused players to be teleported beneath the world, or up in the air when leaving the boundaries of an Adventure.
  • Players will now be teleported to their last valid location when they leave the adventure bounds.
  • Falling off the bridge at Skywatch in a Galeras adventure would sometimes cause the player to die a second time after resurrecting.
  • Removed the close button on the voting UI in Adventures.
  • Fixed a boss encounter in a Galeras Adventure where players would no longer be able to summon troops if they died.

Riot in the Void

  • Agent Triphon no longer shows an empty health bar.

Shiphands

  • The Positron subzone map in Rage Logic has been adjusted to account for cargo hold areas.

Dungeons

General

  • Reduced XP for completing objectives in Veteran dungeons.
  • Fixed an issue where the stats at the end of a dungeon were reporting incorrectly.

Stormtalon's Lair

  • Stormtalon's walk animation will now play over the spell animation when it starts to move.

Sanctuary of the Swordmaiden

  • Added sound events to all five datacubes in the Sanctuary of the Swordmaiden.

Raids

General

  • Fixed an issue where sometimes groups had trouble getting into raids.

Paths

General

  • Scientists in Deradune can now reach the datacube hidden in a cave in the Hillscourge without assistance from an Explorer.

Economy

Runecrafting

  • Rune Set: Serenity – Reduced the Focus heals from this set by 90%.
  • Rune Set: Team Player – Fixed a bug where certain tiers of Team Player were causing players to heal five times more health than intended.
  • The drop downs no longer block buttons on the side.
  • The list is now sorted alphabetically, which should help organize set runes better.
  • There were two Preservation Rune of Health (Life) items and recipes. One of those has been converted to Preservation Rune of Grit instead.

Tradeskills

General

  • Discovering recipes will now always tell the player rather they are hot, warm, or cold. The shaded area of the coordinate crafting used by Cooking, Architect, and Technologist is no longer the only place to receive this feedback.
  • Fixed the Crafting UI so it is no longer stuck after moving away from a crafting station.
  • Canceling crafting while the cast bar is visible will no longer lock up the crafting UI.
  • Interrupting a simple craft (Runecrafting, or other recipes that do not require player decisions) no longer maintains the crafting session of that simple craft.
  • Starting a new crafting session (such as crafting runes) no longer cancels the previous session. It will need to be specifically abandoned at a crafting station.

Technologist

  • Simple crafted items (ones which do not require player choice, such as the "Basic Medishot: Instant Healing”) can again be crafted.

User Interface

  • Nameplates now properly track units that should have nameplates but have no health.
  • Realm select is now fully sortable by column. Currently, this list will prioritize realms you have characters on before sorting the rest of the realms below it.
  • When a Player enters a vehicle, their unit frame will now display the vehicles vitals instead of their own. The Player gets added as a friendly cluster to the vehicle where they can still monitor their own health.
  • Made some target frame addon performance improvements.
  • Fixed a LUA error caused when trying to open the tradeskill trainer.
  • Fixed Quest Tracker refreshing. There should no longer be a split second where the tracker is resized improperly.
  • Changed the default look of in-world chat bubbles.
  • Improved bandwidth utilization.
  • Several loading screen pro-tips have been updated to properly reflect the latest state of various systems.
  • Some spells will no longer damage the wrong area or have their telegraphs in the wrong spot.
  • Fixed an error caused by clicking a completed objective in a Scientist Specimen Survey or Field Study mission.
  • Mail windows will now open properly on screen.
  • Raid frames are less likely to completely lock up the client.
  • Fixed an issue where an achievement subcategory would become unchecked when the items in it are selected.
  • Fixed issue where the group finder UI would no longer show a "Leave Instance" button after disconnecting.
  • Fixed bug where Achievements UI wouldn't update the screen immediately if tabbed between Guild and Player achievements, then immediately looked at the same category before tabbing away.
  • Players now receive a more appropriate error message when trying to join the group of an enemy faction.

Housing

  • Blasted Landscape has been converted from a Challenge to a Public Event, allowing it to be played by multiple players at the same time.
  • Housing Decor buffs will be applied regardless of the Player's location on their housing property.
  • Housing properties will no longer have the name "My Home" by default. When a Player gains access to their house for the first time, their residence name will be blank, prompting them to rename their property.
  • Canceling or closing the "House" UI while previewing a Sky will properly remove the Sky option.
  • Hobo Train – When getting vomited on by a hobo, the icon for the debuff will now properly display.
  • Fixed Capitalization inconsistencies in Housing Daily Buff Titles.
  • Several Housing FABKits have been moved from the PvP vendor to the PvP end-of-match Loot Bags.
  • Players can no longer exceed the Decor Owned limit.