Want to Play WildStar? Sign Up for a "First Come, First Serve" Code

[Zac Jovanovic]

Gah I was too late. Wildstar really does look excellent, such a shame that last I heard its using the old bullshit subscription payment model.

I'll never understand people like you. You have to realize an MMO is not a product, it's a service. Even though initial sales often make it a commercial success it's continued development that makes it or breaks it for players in the long term.

while I'm the loudest advocate that the "standard" sub fee is too high and no game has justified is as of yet, the fact stands that we will never ever have a fully featured AAA MMO with LONGEVITY without a sub fee unless there is an item store that ruins the game.

What may work for some shooters and MOBAs that take 1% of continued development of a proper MMO does not work for this. An MMO needs to spit out new content matching the one it launched with every few months in order to stay relevant.

 

[InfinityX]

Aww man, I was able to sign up, but don't think I'll be getting a key

Gah I was too late. Wildstar really does look excellent, such a shame that last I heard its using the old bullshit subscription payment model.

Actually, Im looking forward to it. Compared to F2P/B2P + Microtransactions (eg. GW2), those games focuses on Cash shop and sometimes p2w features to support the game. Where sometimes you would actually spend more then you would on a P2P game (for example, a skin in GW2 range from $5 to $10 a set, plus $10 for a infinite gathering tool, plus $1 - $5 for buying keys to unlock a RNG chest (basically gambling) for unique skin, easily spending near 2 months of game time in a week or so).

with P2P you dont worry about these things. Sure time-gated events are used more often like lock-outs and exp grinds, however, the Wildstar devs seem to know what their doing. I personally don't expect the time-gating to be bad.

 

[wulfy42]

I will never have a problem spending $15 a month for an MMO that I play at least 4 hours a week....and have fun doing it.

If you are paying less then $2 an hour for entertainment...then I think it's a good deal.

And I would rather games charge that....and have good new content constantly, then be free to pay where a majority of the players don't spend anything, and a few of us end up having to shell out more money. I am all for FTP mind you, like Path of exile...or Marvel Heroes....but only if it's done in a way that is REALLY free to play...and not free to milk a small percentage of players to pay for everyone.

Paying for game content is good....because it means more content will usually be added. There are more then enough gamers out there who think $15 a month is nothing for a game they can play for 20+ hours a week easily and never run out of something to do that is fun.

I payed for DDO (dungeons and dragons online) for years (from launch all the way till about a year ago) even after it switched to FtP model and I had already bought all the content etc. I did so because the game was worth it. You got some small perks for being VIP, and you got currency for the VIP subscription anyway (not as much as just buying it...but still some). I probably spent well over $1000 on that game, but i played in for well over 2000 hours.....over a freaking decade...so I think it was money well spent.

I'm hoping Wildstar is going to be my next DDO.

 

[edgecult]

Hmm managed to swipe mine. Though immediately locked myself out of their log in service trying to use the wrong account to sign in. (apparently my old GW1 and GW2 account is in fact not a NCsoft account -shrug-) Now I wait for them to stop locking me out to get in and pop my code in and such...

 

[major_chaos]

I'll never understand people like you.

Its called an opinion, you think the fees are worth it, I don't. Only MMOs I ever enjoyed are DFO, Warframe, Guild Wars 2 (sorta), The Secret World*, and TERA Online*, while I found more conventional sub fee MMOs like WoW and EvE to be slightly less fun than a excel spreadsheet, so your statement trying to tie quality to price are also subjective.

(* yes I'm aware that both of those last two started as P2P, but I didn't play either of them till they went B2P)

Snip

If that makes any difference or not depends entirely on how much the game time costs in game money. I'm not going to devote a stupid number of hours to mindless gold farming just to stave off sub fees.

snip

1. A good F2P/B2P game you are never obligated to buy anything. I have enjoyed all those games I listed at the beginning of this post without spending a cent other than the initial purchase price.
2. A year of WoW costs $150~ last time I checked, do you know how many games I could buy on steam/GoG/at Gamestop for that much?

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

(* yes I'm aware that both of those last two started as P2P, but I didn't play either of them till they went B2P)

Exactly, they were developed with a budget of a sub fee game. If they weren't they would be only a pale shadow of what they are.

I liked Warframe too, and I dumped quite a lot of money in it for skins and colors purely to support them because they didn't force me to buy anything at all. But Warframe isn't an MMO by any stretch, and it's ridiculous to compare a game that has couple dozens of map tiles, a handful or character and NPC models that is developed by a small team to an MMO that cost hundreds of millions and took half a decade to develop.

1. A good F2P/B2P game you are never obligated to buy anything. I have enjoyed all those games I listed at the beginning of this post without spending a cent other than the initial purchase price.
2. A year of WoW costs $150~ last time I checked, do you know how many games I could buy on steam/GoG/at Gamestop for that much?

1. Absolutely agreed! And it can definitely work for some games. Look at LoL, thriving. But that games' updates are mostly heroes that a small talented team can create in a week. But no one in their right mind would spend a 100 million dollars developing a game and try to make a profit in a non offensive microtransaction store. Hell, they'd probably struggle to cover the maintenance costs, people who buy stuff without being forced are so rare. Not to mention customer support and other silly stuff most F2P companies don't deem particularly important.
2: 2 or 3 new AAA games depending where you live. Even if it's 12 good games, how many of them can you play for a month?

By the way, what is DFO? And why are you not still playing Tera and Secret World?

 

[InfinityX]

1. A good F2P/B2P game you are never obligated to buy anything. I have enjoyed all those games I listed at the beginning of this post without spending a cent other than the initial purchase price.
2. A year of WoW costs $150~ last time I checked, do you know how many games I could buy on steam/GoG/at Gamestop for that much?

1) True, and there are good MMOs that do that (path of exile too). there are also MMOs that are bad at cash shops. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that developers would spend X amount of time creating things for the cash shop, when that time could be placed into the game or to work on Y expansion/patch/free update.

Not saying F2P mmos are bad, just that I would like to play a good MMO where all items are earned in-game, not though a shop.

2)Yes, you can buy other games for that price, but I would bet very little games offers the same massive world, social environment, or the possibility of a changing game that a MMO can. Though, I will say that most sub-based MMOs have been lacking in any or all of those departments, which is why sub-based payments are not popular anymore. Hopefully Wildstar will change that, and the amount of content you get is well worth $15 a month (which I might add, as long as it keeps me entertained for 15 hours a month, I'm happy).

Also, you can always take a break, no one is forcing you to pay every month once you get the game. play for X amount of months, take Y break and not pay, then come back when a major patch/expansion comes out.

Still, you may perfer a game where you don't pay a dime and get everything, but have some "Content" (Content is subjective and in this case Im saying vanity items) locked behind a paywall. (Yes, I would agrue that while vanity items are not needed, I'd still rather have them as a unlock from a challenge or reward then from paying $10)

I'd like to pay a steady fee and have access to everything, and not be bothered by a cash shop, with developer focus on in-game content to keep players instead.

both systems have their pro's and con's. but Im just tired of the F2P market, and would like to see a meaty, well-done MMO.

 

[major_chaos]

2: 2 or 3 new AAA games depending where you live. Even if it's 12 good games, how many of them can you play for a month?

STALKER call of pripyat: 63 hours. paid $10 IIRC.
Borderlands 2: 158 hours. Paid $60 but could have paid way less if I waited.
Dark souls: 68 hours on PC and like 20 something on PS3: $20 on PS3 and $15 on PC.
Terraria: 140 hours. $10.
Minecraft: god only knows hours. however much that game cost wayyyy back in alpha.
I could go on, but I have found plenty of games that last me a loooong ass time for cheap.

By the way, what is DFO?

Stands for dungeon fighter online. It was this awsome beat-em-up RPG thing. Sadly it was localized by Nexon who continuously pissed off the fans with slow updates, terrible communication, and a general lack of support, and once they had driven away most of the player base they called the game a failure and shut it down presumably to funnel more money into the awful pay2win hackfest known as combat arms. The original Korean version called Dungeon and Fighter has the massively better support of the actual devs and is still successful and updating, but I don't speak Korean.

And why are you not still playing Tera and Secret World?

I quit playing TERA because the quest design is no frills "bring me ten bear asses" fare and I got bored. I haven't quit playing TSW, I just don't play it constantly. Which reminds me to point out that's a big part of why I hate sub fees, I tend to have a rotation of games I'm playing at a given time (right now its LoL, Dungeon Keeper 2, and Dark Souls) and a sub fee makes me feel obligated to devote all my limited free time to a single game to get my money's worth.

 

[LordLundar]

Just to put this out there, check your email if you got entered into the draw. Somehow my original email got lost so I was sent another email for it. Looks like I'm in.