I had the privilege to be in, what I would argue, was the best team at Carbine. We were tasked with creating a new type of scaling hybrid experience. It was a step between a single-player experience and dungeon's multiplayer team-challenge called Expeditions (previously called Shiphands). The Expeditions we made were honestly some of the best content in all of WildStar based on peer feedback, analytics, and player forums.

I was tasked with the beginning of the Gauntlet Expedition. Starting with getting tricked by the ship captain, knocked out, then waking up on a ship deck as the newest contestants of a deadly reality broadcast. The room lit up brightly and electrical hazards began to appear all over the floor, creating jumping puzzles the players needed to solve to escape. I also setup golden skull bonuses players jumped through to collect, and harassing cameras that approached, said a phrase, and flashed rapidly when the player got near them. These were used throughout the whole instance.

Once the hazard room was solved, the Swarm Pit came next. I setup twelve different randomized mob swarms, scripting it so there were no repeats in a single run. I also had the amounts that spawned change depending on how many players were in the instance with each spawning. New players that started the Expedition late were transported into the pit with their friends so no catch-up or lockouts took place. To prevent players 'zerging' the encounter, I scripted the respawn point inside a cage. It would eject the players based on a timer or all players in the cage, whichever came first. To help with difficulty, enemies had a percent chance to drop health packs based on the player's health. If the party was at full health, they would drop very rarely. If the party was low on health, or there were several dead, they would drop more often. As you can see, even though it was a simple event, a lot of thought and effort went into it to make feel as good as possible.  

The Space Madness Expedition was one that the whole team had a lot of fun making. Players worked their way through a lab ship with a dangerous chemical leak. The longer the players went without clean air to breathe, the more they hallucinated. There were five levels of sanity, ranging from completely lucid to entirely deranged, with visual experiences and combat encounters for each level.

While I helped with VFX throughout the entire instance, my main responsibility was the end of the Expedition, particularly the livestock room, and the boss holdout. The livestock took place after you successfully acquired an airtight hazard suit, and gameplay was simple. You collected air canisters, used them to restore hallucinating ship-workers, all while fighting off rabid animals. Once everyone was saved, it was off to the final room.

The boss holdouts were particularly cool. Since Expeditions are meant to be played repeatedly, I wanted to give the players a unique experience with each run, so I actually made three final encounters instead of just one; fire, shadow, and electric. (I was actually working on a forth psychedelic one, but we were moved onto a new project before I could complete it.) The premise for all of these was the same. As you fought the waves of mobs, your air suit became more damaged, slowly bringing back the hallucinations. What started out as simple rabid men and animals soon became smoke monsters, or flaming birds, or walking lightning. And as you became more deranged, the room itself began to change, from blooming sparks along the walls, to the room becoming darker and darker, to the floor becoming lava.

The Evil from the Ether Expedition was one we wanted to do for a long time. The story about the Mordesh and the serum that keeps the Contagion from ravaging their bodies and minds was never really told, and we wanted to tell it. There was a little bit of struggle on exactly how to tell it though. Originally we wanted to do more of an X-files detective type of experience, but others decided zombies mixed with inter-dimensional beings would be the way to go.

Once again I was tasked with the end of the Expedition, helping with VFX and polish throughout the instance. I created the etheric beings, scripted the vignette that introduced them, and setup the encounters. I also made the etheric hazards that appear beneath the player's feet.

For the final fight, I created portals that the beings start pouring out of. As each enemy is killed, the portal begins shrinking until it collapses once all the enemies linked to it are dead. As players progress, the VFX scale up until the Mordesh Captain appears for the boss fight. Halfway through the battle, she finally runs out of serum, the Contagion overtakes her, and she transforms, becoming even more vicious. I wanted to show what it looked like when a Mordesh finally turned, and I felt that would make a great phase change for the boss fight.

Since Expeditions were so successful, and our team was very good at creating them so quickly at such high quality, it was decided to make versions for Holiday content as well. For the Shade's Eve Expedition, we broke it up into three sections, the forest, the town, and the labs. I was responsible for the content in the labs.

I had the wisp of the Angel guide you through the labs as you destroyed equipment, defeated minibosses, and unlocked the door to the final boss. I setup the flavor vignettes throughout, including a cult ceremony, Jack's birth, and the Angel coming to your defense.

For some reason, Jack wasn't rendering properly for his birthing vignette, so, I made a static NPC of him, curled up into a ball, shrunk him tiny, and hid him amongst the rubble directly in the view of the player's camera as they walked in. This forced the system to render him entirely in the background, allowing his birthing event to go smoothly.

And lastly, I setup the hazards as you escape the labs. Getting the darkness to follow the player was the trickiest part. Sky change effects take over the whole screen, so I had to make it creep forward doorway-by-doorway. This allowed me to frame blackness in the door and made the transition and damage work the best. Most players will probably never turn back, but the few that do will get a treat. 

We decided to do the Winterfest Expedition a little differently. Fighting monsters wasn't exactly in the spirit of the holidays, so we thought of the most aggressive thing about that special time of year; holiday shopping. This was to be non-linear with randomized objectives. Each person on the team made several small shopping themed events and a finale. I made five events.

'Shop Til You Drop' was one of those rare instances where everything I made worked perfectly the first time. The planets and stars aligned for a single moment of pure productive force. Players had to run around a store and collect and deposit gifts for points within a time limit, but with a twist. The more you carried, the slower you went, the heavier the objects, the more they were worth. I took a basic collect quest and added new variables to it, and it turned out to be really fun.

When Protostar has a 'Doorbuster' event, they take it literally. Players had to bust down the doors of four stores then break open the presents inside with their attacks. This was a great way to add combat while still keeping to the theme of holiday shopping.

I wanted to incorporate toys somehow into our events. So for 'Batteries Not Included' I took all the robot NPCs I could find, shrunk them down, and made them into toys. Players gathered batteries, and then blasted the toys to recharge them just-in-time for a major sale.

Every year we see commercials of people getting cars as presents. And since mounts are a big part of any MMO, 'Automania' was my answer to that. The salesbots were getting overly aggressive trying to meet their holiday quotas. Players ran around the store, avoiding the bots, and ogling the vehicles.

'Mall Slanks' was our way of utilizing the telegraph system in a different way. I took basic slanks (rats) and put randomized VFX of bows and glowing on them. Then had them run around outside, where players would catch them with nets. I even added a larger, faster, more festive slank that players could get a bonus for if they caught.