Home Gaming Wildstar goes free to play

Wildstar goes free to play

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Nexus

It’s tough for any MMO to succeed as a paid-subscription game these days, even when they’re actually good. The reason for that is it’s hard for any MMO to compete with World of Warcraft – and the list of games that have transitioned from being full, paid up subscription-based MMO’s to free-to-play ones is staggering, including the likes of The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online and DC Universe Online. You can now add Wildstar to the list.

I’d actually forgotten Wildstar existed, but it’s not a game you can all enjoy gratis.

“This fall will be an exciting time for WildStar as we transition to Free-to-Play,” developer Carbine says on its site. “Since launch we’ve listened to all of your feedback and worked hard to improve your game experience. Part of that goal has always been to bring more players in to experience WildStar, and that’s what Free-to-Play is all about.”

So yes, the game will soon become free to play, supported, of course, by Microtransactions.

“Free-to-play… it’s the better business model,” says Carbine Studios Mike Donatelli. “Fact. There are no barriers to entry. Pick a forum, any forum, go there and there’ll be people saying ‘ I like the game, I’m just not paying you any money for it.’ And that’s every post… we absolutely acknowledge that the MMO community has evolved past the (subscription) business model.”

We actually rather liked Wildstar – it was a fun, Sci-fi romp with a great sense of humour – but even our reviewer said that as much fun as it was, he didn’t want to have to pay for privilege. The few who do subscribe will, of course, be getting extra goodies to help them feel like they havent wasted their money. You can read all about those extras here.

Last Updated: May 29, 2015

70 Comments

  1. RinceTheElfRoot

    May 29, 2015 at 09:07

    What is a Wildstar? A young teen who’s made it big in Hollywood?

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      May 29, 2015 at 09:08

      I thought it’s Bravestar gone wild…

      Reply

    • Blood Emperor Trevor

      May 29, 2015 at 09:18

      Reply

      • RinceTheElfRoot

        May 29, 2015 at 09:22

        Hells bells 0_O

        Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        May 29, 2015 at 09:22

        That looks like Meryl Streep, but 50 years older

        Reply

      • Trevor Matrix

        May 29, 2015 at 09:41

        Too ugly for Trevor to date…

        Reply

  2. Trevor Matrix

    May 29, 2015 at 09:08

    I’n in luuuvvvv with that Bunny Girl! Reminds me of this cute girl working in our office… Too bad she friend zoned my ass the other day…

    Reply

    • RinceTheElfRoot

      May 29, 2015 at 09:23

      I thought you had a gf 0_O

      Reply

      • Trevor Matrix

        May 29, 2015 at 09:31

        Oh I do. Still flatters the ego if another gorgeous gal thinks you worthy though.

        Reply

        • Guest

          May 29, 2015 at 10:11

          You are an annoying asshole

          Reply

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 29, 2015 at 10:31

            Oh Cupcake! You are NOT the first person to tell me that…

          • RustedFaith

            May 29, 2015 at 11:13

            rolf have a upvote

        • Charl van der Merwe

          June 1, 2015 at 08:11

          Haha, shame, guess some people do need that kind of shameless attention 😉

          Reply

  3. Ottokie

    May 29, 2015 at 09:08

    So will you still need to buy the base game like in ESO or just download of there website?

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      May 29, 2015 at 09:12

      Can’t believe they want us to ay full price for ESO

      Reply

      • Pariah

        May 29, 2015 at 09:13

        ay i cannae belie’ i’ meself

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          May 29, 2015 at 09:13

          hahaha doh

          Reply

      • Ottokie

        May 29, 2015 at 09:13

        Yea, the game might have had a good overhaul but gameplay and latency issues still kill it for me.

        Reply

    • James Anderton

      May 29, 2015 at 09:14

      It will be free and available on Steam. No buy-the-box and play.

      This will be the best free MMO on the market. Easily.

      Reply

      • Pariah

        May 29, 2015 at 09:15

        Really? That changes things.

        Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        May 29, 2015 at 09:15

        Might check it out then.

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief's Adventure

          May 29, 2015 at 09:23

          Traitor

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            May 29, 2015 at 09:24

            What?

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 09:24

            TRAAAAITOR!!!

            There is only one F2P!

            😛

          • Hammersteyn

            May 29, 2015 at 09:25

            Rofl

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 09:46

            Which one?
            Unturned?
            Team Fortress 2?
            Warframe?
            Neverwinter?

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 09:51

            Planetside 2

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 09:56

            Oh… that one.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 09:57

            You gonna join up?

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 10:00

            Unfortunately my PC is out of commission at the moment as my TV died and I don’t have another screen… otherwise I would have.

            Current laptops can’t handle the game… probably… and I’m not sitting through that install process again… that took FOREVER!

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 10:00

            Yeah, the initial one takes its time

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 11:26

            Takes its’ time? I have many hours of “play” on PS2… but I think I only put like an hour into it.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 12:04

            I’m on 630 hours now, out of that, I guess 50 is updates

          • BacchusZA

            May 29, 2015 at 11:21

            You forgot SWTOR 😉

            Good game, though you get “nickle & dimened” for a lot of stuff that should be free….

      • Ottokie

        May 29, 2015 at 09:15

        That is pretty good news if it follows that path.

        Reply

  4. Pariah

    May 29, 2015 at 09:11

    This is cool, it was a fun game (I only paid for one month to try it), but not worth a sub. It’s worth a shot if you like MMO’s. 🙂

    Not for the casuals though. And I don’t mean console players.

    Reply

  5. HairyEwok

    May 29, 2015 at 09:11

    Would be curious to know what happens to those people that bought the game. Will they get some extra perks now or will it still be Buy to play.

    Reply

  6. ReaperOfSquirrels

    May 29, 2015 at 09:15

    This is one of those MMO’s I’ve wanted to get into… and now I probably can.

    Reply

  7. Hammersteyn

    May 29, 2015 at 09:16

    *Looks at FF14….. still waiting.

    Reply

  8. Admiral Chief's Adventure

    May 29, 2015 at 09:24

    Only one F2P that gets my attention, and that is PS2.

    PS2 and Witcher 3 is ALL that concerns me now

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      May 29, 2015 at 09:25

      Aye, I’m hooked on PS2 again.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief's Adventure

        May 29, 2015 at 09:26

        Before I go explore the wonderful land of the Witcher, I first play PS2 for my daily 5 rewards and my pewpew fix.

        So, we gonna game this weekend?

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          May 29, 2015 at 09:27

          Need to buy a microphone first

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 09:32

            Dude, I’ll even buy you one, they are dirt cheeeeeeap.

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 29, 2015 at 09:38

            Like Hammer’s sister???

          • Pariah

            May 29, 2015 at 09:41

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 29, 2015 at 09:44

            That was my Mama 98% of the time…

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 09:46

            OH SNAP!

          • Trevor Matrix

            May 29, 2015 at 09:50

            I was really horrible with this comment. I have to apologize. Though I think I am setting the world record for posts NOT upvoted by Hammer.

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 09:54

            Hahaha, I’m sure he just skips your comments now.

        • Blood Emperor Trevor

          May 29, 2015 at 09:28

          I do exactly the same during the week, just with Warframe instead of PS2. Then I play W3 until I die… so some nights I only play for a minute or two. :/

          Reply

  9. hubble19

    May 29, 2015 at 09:27

    And I still can’t play it because they require a static IP. Dammit….

    Reply

    • Pariah

      May 29, 2015 at 09:29

      They don’t. I’ve never had one, and I played just fine.

      Reply

      • hubble19

        May 29, 2015 at 09:34

        How? Ok disclaimer first. I am not tech savvy in the least. So whatever I say might sound like rubbish and it probably is, but I don’t have a phone line. So as I understand I’m on wireless internet right? ( Be kind, I really am stupid with these things) And I’ve checked, my I.P. address is constantly changing. I’ve tried to play Wildstar more than once now, during the beta and free trials, and it keeps saying “invalid login token”. I went on forums, loads of people are complaining about it and it seems it is the changing IP thing, they think you’re a hacker and won’t allow you access…any help/ideas?

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief's Adventure

          May 29, 2015 at 09:37

          Well, unless you have a business line, or game from a business, your IP will mostly change each time.

          You pay a lot for static IPs, since businesses will have to ensure that people from the outside will always have the same IP to connect to.

          (very basicly explained)

          Reply

          • hubble19

            May 29, 2015 at 10:59

            You’re right it is a lot too pay, way too much just for a single game. @ToshZA:disqus how did you do it then?

          • Pariah

            May 29, 2015 at 12:20

            I logged in and played. Literally, that’s it.

          • Gareth Smith

            May 31, 2015 at 15:15

            Your issue is most likely that your IP address is changing much more frequently. An ADSL connection uses one IP for that session, ranging from minutes to days. SO although it is not a “static IP”, it keeps the IP for a long duration. Wildstars servers probably check your account trying to login from multiple IPs in a minute or two or whatever.

            I use dynamic hostnames for clients who don’t have a static IP and I’ve had multiple hostnames get “disabled” because the provider picks up that the IP hasn’t changed in 30 days, even though they on good ol’ ADSL with a capped account. Just some info =)

        • ReaperOfSquirrels

          May 29, 2015 at 09:51

          All home connections, including and not limited to DSL, 3G, iBurst, Neotel, etc, have dynamic IP’s unless if you pay the premium to get a static IP (as @Admiral_Chief:disqus said), this is also true in “1st world” countries. So making it so you have to have a static IP is bad business practice.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 09:56

            Well it is good business practice, if you have a business, but bad business practice if you limit your customers to it!

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 29, 2015 at 09:57

            I… errr… FUCK!

            Well played sir… I don’t have anything to say back to that.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            May 29, 2015 at 10:04

            ONE BAJILLION INTERNET POINTS TO ME!!!

            Now if only I can convert that into real money :/

  10. The Sten

    May 29, 2015 at 09:36

    Reading through that list of what you get if you pay and not, it looks like its a little bit P2W actually.

    Reply

  11. Nikola

    May 29, 2015 at 10:00

    Ok a I played the demo off it on PC of all platforms;) and actually really liked it not a bad game at all, I just feel it is a BIG WOW clone but still lots of fun however I was not willing to pay sub for it but now I might just pick this up as my online game…since Destiny was so amazing and is going to keep me busy NOT for 10 years;)

    Reply

  12. PestControl

    May 29, 2015 at 10:07

    I honestly think it’s a good move. I played Wildstar back when it was still in beta and honestly enjoyed it quite a bit. It felt “new”. The problem I have is the amount of time I have to spend on MMO’s… and paying a sub for a game I occasionally spend an hour or two on is out of the question and that’s precisely why I stopped playing WoW. As you guys mentioned PS2 is probably one of the best free MMO’s and I feel Wildstar will offer similar value. Since TESO has gone F2P however I haven’t played it again (mainly due to the time constraint). Another free MMO I would recommend is Mechwarrior Online.

    Reply

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