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WildStar: UPDATED: Steam Info Points to Free to Play Upcoming
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
UPDATE: It seems that a Reddit Mod-verified Carbine Employee has taken to the Subreddit for WildStar to back up the SteamDB info we found earlier. Calling himself "God_of_EDM", he posted the following in a thread on the subreddit:
NOTE: I have submitted proof to the mod that I am not a troll.
Hello everyone! As has oft been discussed around here, Wildstar is going to be changing its business model in August(tentatively of course, patch stuff etc) to a Hybridized Free to Play model. Now thankfully it is not going Pay to Win, I suppose you could call it "Freemium" in a way as a lot of the stuff that the paid accounts will get is buffs to experience/rep/renown etc gain and character slots and the like, no direct power buffs or anything like that.
MTX (Microtransactions) will be included moving forward as well and you will hear more about that very soon. What are your thoughts on the model? I personally like it and am excited as I can't see how this wouldn't bring players back and new players in.
Feel free to ask me anything about the game, company, folly of man, etc.
Later on in the thread, the employee notes that the mood in Carbine is grim, but hopeful because of F2P:
It's not great. From top to bottom we have handfuls of people leaving every week, there was a stretch where we averaged at least 5 people leaving a week for 5 weeks. As you all probably know we've had 2 Art Directors leave within 8 months, a handful of Producers have left, we still have no Studio Head to replace Gaffney, hell even our Wildstar specific QA is down to about 7 people and a few of them are leaving in the next couple weeks as well. We've had 4 designers from different Feature Teams leave in the past 7 work days as well. There is no transparency and everyone is always fearful of what will even be here 2 months from now. The place is ran very poorly by people who have the biggest egos that fight over everything.
And this much about the way content updates and Steam integration will work:
Hey there! Steam integration has been coming for a while, Valve was in our office here in Orange County back in January. We are trying to get Wildstar to be THE MMO for Steamboxes, IE, Wildstar will be preinstalled with every system. It should be happening before the China launch that's for sure.
Ok, Content Cycles may be hard to explain/understand but I will try. The PLAN is for content to stay at the quarterly cycles that they are now. We have soft and hard locks for everything. That SHOULD not change however we are losing employees left and right, for example our dungeon and raid team is 4 people, we have 5 class designers, hell even our QA team is about 7 people for Wildstar and a few of those people are leaving as well in a few weeks. We have lost 2 Art Directors in less than 8 months along with several Producers. That being said, we have A LOT of features pitched and planned. It was something like 100+ pitched for 1.4.0. Obviously nowhere near all of them will get in but that is just to show you that there is a lot of content being created, whether it gets proper testing, integration, design, etc is another story.
Feel free to ask me anything else.
God_of_EDM goes on with more insight at the link. Let's hope he keeps his job, because this kind of transparency is welcome.
ORIGINAL NEWS:
Thanks to a tip from reader Zoltariel, it seems that Steam's Database has been updated with a WildStar entry, signifying a possible move to a Free to Play (not Buy to Play) revenue model.
There are other games in the DB, like ArcheAge, that also have "Free on Demand" as their billing type. This is a pretty strong indication that wheels are moving behind the scenes to make Nexus free for all, and soon.
See for yourself below. Searching by name on SteamDB doesn't bring back WildStar, but this Steam Sub still exists. What do you think?
Original Steam Sub on SteamDB.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
There doesn't seem to be any other viable alternative.
I honestly think WildStar is a very good game and it will probably be the best f2p on the market IF they do their cash shop well. It seems like all the pets and cosmetic changes from this last drop will be important in that direction.
With a lot of people playing, this game will be really fun. This game needs instances and pvp to pop.
About time they open the parachute.
Hmm I was ready to buy the game on Amazon but now I will wait a bit longer.
It would suck to put that much time and effort into a game and have to concede to giving it away.
Buy a boxed copy and you'll at least get some in game rewards you can either use or sell.
The store for buying wildstar is down.... could this be further evidence?!?
*dons tinfoil hat*
Not surprising that it's going F2P.
Interested to see how the monetize the game.
Surprising, however, that an NCSoft game is on Steam.
Maybe it's just the free 10-day trial?
Plenty of free to play games on Steam.
Best f2p?I won't even play the game if it goes f2p that is how little i think of the game.I consider EQ2 to easily be the best f2p game and i don't like SOE at all anymore.
I like many others have zero interest in a rpg pvp game and instances,that is the worst idea in gaming,it is the anti mmo idea.MMO's are meant to have open world interaction, player interaction,not hole yourself up in an instance by yourself or with a couple other people away from the player base.
I am sure the game will get some new peekaboo players since being free is an easy pill to swallow but i doubt it will save the game but i don't blame them for trying rather than give up the way SOE does on their games.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
No, there are other free to play MMOs in the database that have that license type.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Billing Type: Free on Demand
License Type: Single Purchase
So more than likely, you have to go through the purchasing stage, but it costs $0.
Ya you would think so considering how long it has been around, but I personally wouldn't put it in the top 10 even, and many gaming websites don't either.
EQ2 has many instances also. Were you trying to say Wildstar is bad for having instances and then claiming EQ2 was easily the best for having them?
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
We can't forget, if wildstar drop to free to play is not going be same level as gw2 cash shop, may be in line what rift doing with there cash shop to keep the game running and fully updated, is not bad thing as long there way to get stuff with just gold then cash.
Befor people jump in trion this and that, arche age and rift cash shop pretty much night and day.
I bought and played Wildstar at release, but had to drop my sub as the lag I get from playing in Australia was just too frustrating for me to deal with while paying a monthly subscription. I enjoyed the game for the most part and found the combat engaging and interesting, but it just got too much dying from attacks that I knew I should have dodged, but didn't due to latency.
I had too many nights where I logged out in frustration and it just wasn't what I wanted to be paying a monthly fee for. I have wanted to come back and see if things had improved but hadn't seen any welcome back weekends or similar to try to suck me back in. If it goes FTP (or BTP) I'll give it another go.
Might want to get your facts straight.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/81e99df3b03759905102901057e4f354761a51eb
They do these banning every week or every other week. It's not the developer's fault that the game is popular enough to have a demand for gil buyers.
The spamming stopped in Wildstar because a lot of people stopped playing the game.
Then you'll be pleased to know SoE have nothing to do with EQ2 (or Everquest at all) any longer.
Game was a dumb idea to begin with. Lets make vanilla hardcore wow but make the game revolve around telegraphs.
Don't see why this game was hyped to begin with.
Believe it or not the telegraphs add a huge dimension to the game. Standing flat footed in games like WoW or Rift and fighting mobs toe to toe gets boring after a while. The telegraphs make you use your grey matter, hand eye coordination, and makes for more exciting overall combat. Face it, most of these games is about fighting and you might as well have fun doing it. Besides, if you don't like telegraphs you can simply turn them off.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Wildstar would be good as F2P is NCWest was not the one publishing it. F2P will certanly make Wildstar a 100% bot and goldselling fest under NCWest, because banning bots in general is NO PRIORITY for NCWest. As long as Wildstar is run by NCWest, B2P would be the best option to keep the number of bots and goldsellers at bay...
It's kinda sad honestly, they tried something different and they got railed pretty hard for it.
I played it during a free access beta and although I kinda liked it, the art style was a huge turn-off to me. Loony toons art styling + pandering to feminist activists = no thanks.