WildStar Goes Free-to-play

[Steven Bogos]

WildStar Goes Free-to-play

WildStar publisher NCsoft has today confirmed rumors that WildStar will go free-to-play this fall.

NCsoft's ambitious sci-fi MMO "this fall" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/wildstar].

In a rather lengthy blog post [http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2015-05-28-wildstar-is-going-free-to-play-heres-all-you-need-to-know/], developer Carbine Studios explains exactly what the free-to-play transition means for both new and exisiting players. First up, it stresses that free players will have access to all of the same content as paying players. "Every zone, every dungeon, every raid, every battleground... they're all available. All players will be able to create characters of every race, class, and path while choosing any tradeskills they like. Characters can achieve level 50 and path level 30, just as they can under the current system."

What paying players, who Carbine is referring to as "Signature Players", will get over their free-to-play brethren is simply "more" stuff, such as bonuses to in-game currency, XP and resource gain, and additional auction house and bank slots.

Players who currently have an active payment plan or paid game-time will simply transition to a Signature account until they either cancel their payment plan or their paid game-time runs out.

Furthermore, existing WildStar players who have sunk some cash into the game will be rewarded with "Loyalty Points" depending on how long they have been playing the game for. Carbine didn't go into too much detail on Loyalty Points, simply explaining that they will unlock some unique in-game perks and items.

It certainly looks like NCsoft is going about free-to-play the right way. Rather than punishing free players by locking them out of content, they are instead rewarding paying players by giving them perks and bonuses. I hope it works out for them, and they can avoid the dreaded MMO life-cycle of release -> free-to-play -> server mergers -> death.

Source: NCsoft [http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2015-05-28-wildstar-is-going-free-to-play-heres-all-you-need-to-know/]

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[Uratoh]

I'm reposting a link to a thread I made on this subject here just because I don't want to copy/paste the entire thing here...I *MIGHT* be wrong since I haven't played in a while, but there's one tiny niggling thing...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.876039-Wildstar-going-Free-to-Play-Pay-to-Win

 

[Bat Vader]

That's unfortunate but I can see why it happened. I bought WildStar when it first launched and I liked it for the first couple of months but after that it got boring. Only MMO I really like and continually is Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have tried to get into others but I can't. I have played FF XIV, World of Warcraft, LOTRO, WildStar, and ESO but they can only hold my interest for a month or two.

 

[RJ 17]

And another one gone, and another one gone...another one bights the dust!
- Queen

Rather amazing how many MMO's get made and release with a subscription payment plan only to go F2P a few months to a year down the line.

From what I've heard, this game is particularly "meh".

 

[Lunar Templar]

so

whos gonna go in on a betting pool that Wildstar will be shut down for a bullshit reason by the end of next year?

this is NCsoft after all, they do that.

 

[Bat Vader]

so

whos gonna go in on a betting pool that Wildstar will be shut down for a bullshit reason by the end of next year?

this is NCsoft after all, they do that.

I think it would be cool if instead of shutting down MMOs is developers instead scaled down the bosses and raids to be done by one person, made it offline, and gave out a list of cheats/console commands for the players to use.

 

[Jake Martinez]

And.... this reminds me that I need to cancel my subscription. I forgot I paid 6 months ahead of time for this game, then let it renew after I stopped playing... and then forgot again. At least this article reminded me!!

 

[scotth266]

I picked up Wildstar, got to max level, ran into the attunement process and quit shortly thereafter. Not because it was difficult, but because it was simply too easy for other players to sink your attunement runs. Getting a gold medal on that one desert caravan mission was flat-out impossible in pubs, especially since it was long as shit and hilariously buggy. It didn't help that you practically NEEDED a third-party addon in order to track down missing caravan members and other random bullshit. Maybe people blessed with large, active guilds were capable of getting it completed, but for the rest of us it was hell. Other parts of the game were also really lackluster, and it wasn't optimized for AMD cards at all.

I might have a max-level Warrior in Wildstar, but my time belongs to FF14 now. I'm not switching back.

 

[Lunar Templar]

so

whos gonna go in on a betting pool that Wildstar will be shut down for a bullshit reason by the end of next year?

this is NCsoft after all, they do that.

I think it would be cool if instead of shutting down MMOs is developers instead scaled down the bosses and raids to be done by one person, made it offline, and gave out a list of cheats/console commands for the players to use.

while it would be cool, never happen, and I'm not totally sure it'd be a good idea anyway, since the other players are what give MMOs 99.99% of their 'life'

So while it'd be great to run around Paragon City, Preatoria, or the Rogue Islands again, I donno if I'd wanna do it for very long with out other people around.

 

[Bat Vader]

so

whos gonna go in on a betting pool that Wildstar will be shut down for a bullshit reason by the end of next year?

this is NCsoft after all, they do that.

I think it would be cool if instead of shutting down MMOs is developers instead scaled down the bosses and raids to be done by one person, made it offline, and gave out a list of cheats/console commands for the players to use.

while it would be cool, never happen, and I'm not totally sure it'd be a good idea anyway, since the other players are what give MMOs 99.99% of their 'life'

So while it'd be great to run around Paragon City, Preatoria, or the Rogue Islands again, I donno if I'd wanna do it for very long with out other people around.

That's true. I think it would be neat to see an MMO developer try it as an experiment.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

So... was this the game they killed off City of Heroes for?

 

[Kiardras]

Been waiting for this so I can give it a go

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Played for a while when it first launched, just couldn't get into it. I'm really tired of companies thinking they've reinvented the MMO genre by adding in fast-paced, chaotic combat. All it does is take out the social aspect of the MMO, because it's really hard to socialize when you're constantly moving and have to concentrate on seventy things going on around you.

 

[elvor0]

Played for a while when it first launched, just couldn't get into it. I'm really tired of companies thinking they've reinvented the MMO genre by adding in fast-paced, chaotic combat. All it does is take out the social aspect of the MMO, because it's really hard to socialize when you're constantly moving and have to concentrate on seventy things going on around you.

To be fair, It's not like you can take the time to socialize when doing meaningful content in any other MMO either if you're not using Voice chat. Even then, you should be concentrating on the encounter and not talking about random crap unless you have that fight on farm.

 

[Lunar Templar]

So... was this the game they killed off City of Heroes for?

Think so.

Which makes it all the more hilarious/sad when you think about it.

but that's NCsoft for you -.-

 

[Vanished]

I too got on board when it first took off, but dropped off after a couple months of playing. For me the story is what pulls me in, but the game felt really disjointed in that regard. You'd have voice bits coming up that were off from the text you were being shown and you had to keep up with both if you wanted in on what was happening. I had to get an addon just to get the quest log easier to read. I loved the Chua characters, however there's no real race lore to experience. While Chua were my favorite race, their faction's political church better-than-thou attitude/questlines were absolutely obnoxious and for the most part extremely dull. By the end of the first couple zones I wanted to join the opposing faction with my Chua. The corporate green alien npcs provided a constant annoyance as well. They're humerous in doses, but scattered all over it was just too much. I quit after the first month nearly at lvl 30. The only thing that dragged me back in a second month was finding out that the real storyline (which I really enjoyed and was the only thing that drove me to level up any further) started AT level 30.

The controls from the point of entry felt off too. Between feeling the need to have a 3rd hand to control things correctly, playing finger twister and the horrible throbbing burn after a play session, I was finding myself walking away quite often after a very short time in game. The telegraph system is gimmicky and gets stales pretty quickly. While you can turn it off to see all the pretty effects in their glory, I had to keep them on just to make sure I was hitting creatures. I started off all for their combat, but in the end I need something more like WoW/FF14 to keep my hands from contorting into mushy clumps of pain.

Crafting was a bit of a let down too. It's like a constant game of darts to not only discover new recipes, but then just to craft them. I had some recipes that appeared on the dart board OVER other recipes and the game would randomly choose which you crafted (if you hit the target, which often you would not).

What I felt the game did a spectacular job on was the player housing and from what I've seen, they have only added on to the unique environments players can create since I left. It was truly fun getting to use the items I crafted (again, often a pain to do) in unique ways. A giant bed jumping puzzle, couches on the wall for shelves, lamps every which way to make various patterns. Someone made a tribute to the rainbow road from mario kart I believe. There were some original and very amazing spaces created. Some people chose to build their own housing instead of utilizing the house/ship on the center of the plot. If there is one thing out of this game that other games could take away from it, it should be this.

 

[kitsunefather]

so

whos gonna go in on a betting pool that Wildstar will be shut down for a bullshit reason by the end of next year?

this is NCsoft after all, they do that.

Well, if we are to look at their history, it'll be at least a year of cash-shop class features being sold before they announce the shutdown with little fanfare, by telling the team working on it they're basically fired.

And for all the WildStar fans or curious who are out there and wonder why people see this as the death of the game; they shut down City of Heroes, their flagship product, because it only made as much with Free-to-Play as it did on a subscription model. Not less, just not more, so they shut it down completely.

 

[Scarim Coral]

It is somewhat tempting but chances are they probably have a Ftp and the VIP (those who invest some money toward it during launch) versions which VIP is better or they have some annoying purchased peak offer to FTP people.

Yes I know that how MMORPG games are doing it these days but it can be annoying if they made it necessary to buy something.

 

[Uratoh]

It is somewhat tempting but chances are they probably have a Ftp and the VIP (those who invest some money toward it during launch) versions which VIP is better.

went into it in more detail in my other post I made elsewhere (see my link at the top) but yep, exactly that. The most egregous is how VIP and paid players can make flat out stronger gear with the crafting system (and crafted gear is the GOOD stuff in this game)...and the bonuses stack, meaning a VIP player who keeps subscribed can make the best gear possible.

 

[Scarim Coral]

It is somewhat tempting but chances are they probably have a Ftp and the VIP (those who invest some money toward it during launch) versions which VIP is better.

went into it in more detail in my other post I made elsewhere (see my link at the top) but yep, exactly that. The most egregous is how VIP and paid players can make flat out stronger gear with the crafting system (and crafted gear is the GOOD stuff in this game)...and the bonuses stack, meaning a VIP player who keeps subscribed can make the best gear possible.

If you think that's bad, you should of seen this other free to play game called Spiral Knight.

In order to advance the story, you had to equip higher tier armors but it needed this crafting materials (alchemy orbs) to do so. Those orbs are pretty much super rare as I had to do several runs to get one!

Turn out there were tons of them in the aution house but it cost alot of rings (the currency) which I worked out that I had to do a week worth of dungeon run for ONE orbs. To add insult to injury they keep showing ads that it cost a few bucks to get a handful of the orbs!!!

Yeah that pretty much broke me. I install that game to played for free and stuck by it and there is no way in hell am I given them money for such a broken ingame purchase mechanic!

Heck my mate (huge fan of the game and played alot longer than I ever did) told me that those orbs weren't originally tradeable meaning you were force to buy them to move the story forward (in saying so the story missions were never origjnall part of the game when it was launched)!