126076-wildstar-is-going-to-a-hybrid-free-to-play-model-in-august-what-are-your-thoughts-page-5

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That's not the TERA package. This is the TERA package.
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Oh thank you. I wasn't sure which stub was the right one.
 
Free on Demand (12)
Same as wildstar
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I suppose if it has to happen then so be it. I just hope they avoid boosters or anything that grants an advantage. Within this category I qualify boosts as games will often become geared to require those or invest massive wholly unreasonable amounts of time.
 
I hope things remain "even". Cosmetic only items, inventory, etc. Only categories that do NOT impact gameplay. Path of Exile is an absolutely stunning example. It is highly successful and has built itself on offering ZERO gameplay altering cash shop items. Despite this it does very well and has had numerous content updates including an upcoming full on expansion. Ontop of this they attempt to simply provide new types of content instead of forcing current character to become irrelevant.
 
It is beyond impressive. I know it isn't the same type of game, but still. If they are really trying it out then they should seriously examine this "ethical F2P model" as the Path of Exile developers call it.
 
Edit: aka sticking with the current types of offerings available via the retail box.	
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They are all writing about the same rumor, what the heck is wrong with all of you? It is no more credible today than it was when it started.
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I can see why. Just returned after almost a year and hoo boy is this game ever dead.
Geez, now what am I going to do? Play friggin SWTOR? <_<
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I can see why. Just returned after almost a year and hoo boy is this game ever dead on a pre-50 and on life support on one..
Geez, now what am I going to do? Play friggin SWTOR? <_<	
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			I'm on the PvE server.	
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I'm on the PvE server.
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I heard joke once: Man plays WildStar. Says he's depressed. Game seems empty, and dead. Says he feels all alone on megaserver. Vince says: "Treatment is simple. The PVE megaserver. Go there. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. "But Vince..." he says "I am on the PVE megaserver." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
 
Sorry - it just reminded me of Rorschach's quote and I had to post it. :D
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offtopic but Rorschach made that movie.I wouldn't have kept watching it if not for his character."You all dont seem to understand, I'm not locked in here with you, YOU'RE LOCKING IN HERE WITH ME!"But yeah if you're on the PVP server and you're not finding people, then you might be doing something wrong, because there's so many people now on that server that we're gonna need channels soon.I mean seriously.
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He is on the PvE server not PvP and he is pre level 50 and you are showing him a level 50 world event/contract.
 
For fun queue for skullcano normal and see how long it takes before you get a pop.
 
I'm in grimvault with mine alt and it's simply empty there, same with most of the other maps the only time i saw decent amount of players was in the first 3 maps while i was leveling.
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I'm reading the whole conversation not just your post.
You are saying that if he can't find any people (on the pvp server???) then he is doing something wrong.
 
So if you are not adressing to him then who is the "he" you are talking to?
 
 
As for channels you can simply add chat channels yourself so have fun.
If you mean instances then those won't come since these are just events 4 or 5 times a day and people will get bored with them next month, they are not making anything for just that. Besides the servers where more full at launch and they didn't had/need instances there.	
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I can see why. Just returned after almost a year and hoo boy is this game ever dead on a pre-50 and on life support on one..
Geez, now what am I going to do? Play friggin SWTOR? <_<
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But, help me out, what content could you specifically not do? It's all solo. Since you're not level capped... ya know... keep playing.
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Wasn't it you that keeps talking about how these days MMO population is inclined to not help/play together anymore?
And it's not all solo content while leveling, there are quests to do the normal dungeons and adventures, bounty missions that involve 2+ and 5+ mobs which are also part for some path mission and in Grimvault there are several 5+ quests
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We know there is more than just one person playing the game, so if you can't handle a 2+ solo and can't find anyone right now, come back to it in 10 minutes when you see someone.
 
Also ask in chat. Instead of looking for help only for that quest, and then disbanding, why not start off by offering "Hey, I am looking for a questing partner for 60 minutes, lets travel together and knock some stuff out!" You'd be surprised how much of a difference that makes.
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Instead of suggesting those things please go into wilderun, malgrave or grimvault and try to do group content there by asking in chat, let me know how it goes.
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The game needs an influx of new players and it needs it badly i don't see how anyone would argue against this. 
 
Raiding guilds accepting people that aren't even level 50 is a great indicator of how there is a problem with the population. 	
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Like i said instead of suggesting it try to do that in game and let us know how it goes. If you want i can try it and record it, but don't come to me that i do things wrong then.
Besides I'm not sure where you want to find people that are on content level to do the content with in other places... sure you can ask a level 50 in thayd but that is no fun :/
 
And in all honesty when you play an MMO you assume to play with other people so saying that someone needs to expect to level 99% of thew time is ridiculous.
To be honest when I look at other MMO's I almost never leveled alone and saw more then enough players do content around me but in WS it's so empty when you hit Whiteville, and whiteville is the place where exiles and dominion come together so you would expect to see double the players there in some zones.	
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Like i said instead of suggesting it try to do that in game.
 
And in all honesty when you play an MMO you assume to play with other people so saying that someone needs to expect to level 99% of thew time is ridiculous.
To be honest when I look at other MMO's I almost never leveled alone and saw more then enough players do content around me but in WS it's so empty when you hit Whiteville, and whiteville is the place where exiles and dominion come together so you would expect to see double the players there in some zones.
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			Okay I will record my efforts then prime time EU over a few hours, going to try to get a group to do the gryo ship with in grimvault since that's the quest i'm on.	
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I'm reading the whole conversation not just your post.
You are saying that if he can't find any people (on the pvp server???) then he is doing something wrong.
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It was a typo. I was going to respond to your post earlier suggesting that it might have been a mistake (since the guilds represented in the picture are on Entity), but by that point she had already gone back and corrected it from PVP to PVE. :)
 
Oh, the number of times I've miss-typed "P2W" instead of "P2P" (like typing "Wildstar is P2W" when someone was asking about the payment model). :D
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I thought so, so didn't make a big deal about it.
But I don't understand that she is addressing to someone in that comment, clearly stating "he" and then a comment after that says she was not addressing someone and that I'm missing the context, that it was about channels/instances.
 
The discussing was how Vulture051 was having problems finding players to play with while leveling (pre level 50), how channels/instances come into play with that is something I'm completely missing.
Also her image of scorchwing is level 50 content so not pre level 50 so not valid for the discussing that she was replying to.
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To be fair, she didn't say "he" at all, she said "you" as in the general sense, and it wasn't a direct response to his post, it was a response to mine, so she wasn't referring to Vulture051 in particular at all.
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But you were discussing Vulture post and the things he brought up was the discussing material so it's only logical to assume the he (the only person that was talking about low population) was the one that was reference to with you.
 
I think with channel she means instances channel but this has nothing to do really with the discussing.
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			I just hope that the servers hold up when all the millions of players come back/join up :)	
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I just hope that the servers hold up when all the millions of players come back/join up :)
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He is on the PvE server not PvP and he is pre level 50 and you are showing him a level 50 world event/contract.
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I've been wondering about this. They don't do phasing instances in zones and there are only two servers... F2P might really test this "mega server" business... 
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Mega server was just a fancier way of saying "We're merging servers."
 
Call it like it is, no need to sugar coat, "megaservers" we all knew what it really was.	
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Mega server was just a fancier way of saying "We're merging servers."
 
Call it like it is, no need to sugar coat, "megaservers" we all knew what it really was.
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			I hope they get some things cross server so that it's not negative to try to start something on the pvp server again.	
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Mega server was just a fancier way of saying "We're merging servers."
 
Call it like it is, no need to sugar coat, "megaservers" we all knew what it really was.
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https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/111866-megaservers-coming-to-wildstar/
 
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we wanted to be certain that our new tech was in a solid enough state where we could speak confidently about some exciting new developments we want to share with all of you.
 
Going the Megaserver route means that we vastly increase server capacity allowing for greater critical mass of our player base
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This link is from september 2014, not sure if it's still the plan. Is it ?
 
Also, i didn't read the 35 pages, but i didn't read official information about another model (like F2P, B2P...).	
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			There is no official information right now. There's only conjecture, rumors and someone claiming to be a CRB dev.	
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https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/111866-megaservers-coming-to-wildstar/
 
 
Sounds like a bit more then just a merge.
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Yeah, but that's just pure bullshit and pr-speak. If they'd really planned those "megaservers" from the start they wouldn't have made specific RP-servers just to destroy them after a few months and give a big fat middle-finger to roleplayers. They'd also have made a completely different name mechanic if they knew that megaservers were going to come someday, and not gone with names that were only exclusive to a server and therefore making last names mandatory when those servers merged and we got duplicate names.
 
So let's just be honest and admit megaservers is just a fancy word for merging servers. A thing that wasn't planned beforehand.
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There is no official information right now. There's only conjecture, rumors and someone claiming to be a CRB dev.
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https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/111866-megaservers-coming-to-wildstar/
 
 
Sounds like a bit more then just a merge.
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I'm pretty sure there was mention of mega servers being a thing that was talked about during beta. I have no sources so maybe I'm just remembering wrong, but I wanna say the timeline conversations went along the lines of 
planned megaservers for launch
things happen and the game isn't actually ready for launch but Carbine has no choice but to launch it
*cupcake*it, launch with regular servers
move to megaservers later on
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Mega server was just a fancier way of saying "We're merging servers."
 
Call it like it is, no need to sugar coat, "megaservers" we all knew what it really was.
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In fairness, there's also a revenue stream that's so small that the game stands little to no chance of recouping the development costs if the status quo is maintained.
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You're missing the point of my remark - we're saying it like there is no doubt it will happen, as though they've announced it officially.
 
They could just shut Wildstar down.
 
Maybe they'll leave it alone in the hopes there's some time to make it recover.
 
I'm not saying a model change is impossible or unlikely, it's just silly to say it is absolutely 100% happening. You don't know, and neither do I.	
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I would cry. :<
 
If the SteamDB post means anything, then I think we have a pseudo confirmation.
Carbine is so tight lipped about anything right now, and with the community and news media reactions, I don't blame them.
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I still won't call that confirmation - it could be subject to change, as is everything before it actually happens with companies.
 
Like I said, it's not like I'm saying it's impossible, I'm not saying it's unlikely, it's just being touted as fact when it isn't, we haven't heard it from NCSoft or Carbine. And it's confusing new players and old alike.	
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They could just shut Wildstar down.
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That's why I think over the next few weeks the PTR will put a end to any rumours and force Carbine to make the announcement! Changing the business model can't happen with the flick of a switch, it will need lots of testing to provide a smooth transition.
The PTR will also be a gauge to the future or end of Wildstar for many players, if drop 6 is all model change and little else ? Then maybe it would be safe to assume that most content drops will be aimed at a cash shop ?
I really don't want any change but I'm also realistic, Wildstar needs to start making money! A hybrid model that lets players sub without anything effecting them or their game is fine by me, let the F2P crowd pay the subs in other ways.
My biggest fear is the upper management at Carbine will continue to run round like headless chickens and alienate those of us already here.
 
https://www.wildstar-online.com/en/freetrial/   	
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https://www.wildstar-online.com/en/freetrial/   
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This needs to happen. Game is barely a year old and too good to have such a low player base.
There are people against F2P/B2P but for every one quitting because of F2P, 3 new player will join.	
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This needs to happen. Game is barely a year old and too good to have such a low player base.
There are people against F2P/B2P but for every one quitting because of F2P, 3 new player will join.
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and leave again in 2-3 months.
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			In my opinion this game should never go F2P business model cause it just brings a lot of trolls with it & you end up playing with many bots & mis-behaved/non-serious players.......and just a Question..if the F2P model is a good idea then WHY there is no game from the F2P mmos out there is successful enough !!! ?	
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In my opinion this game should never go F2P business model cause it just brings a lot of trolls with it & you end up playing with many bots & mis-behaved/non-serious players.......and just a Question..if the F2P model is a good idea then WHY there is no game from the F2P mmos out there is successful enough !!! ?
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			Successful for W* should be stabilising/growing its population somewhat and carrying on.	
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[...]
 
There are people against F2P/B2P but for every one quitting because of F2P, 3 new player will join.
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			If one sub leaves, and three more arrive, it fails how?	
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If one sub leaves, and three more arrive, it fails how?
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Because the 3 more who arrive are freeloaders and represent $0 ?
 
Do you prefer 1x$15 or 3x$0 ?
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In my opinion this game should never go F2P business model cause it just brings a lot of trolls with it & you end up playing with many bots & mis-behaved/non-serious players.......and just a Question..if the F2P model is a good idea then WHY there is no game from the F2P mmos out there is successful enough !!! ?
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If that happens then WS has more to worry then just their subscription model
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See now THIS is conjecture haha. [...]
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See now THIS is conjecture haha. I know exactly where you're coming from with this, players in F2P games are mostly supported by a few whales paying to keep the lights on. What's conjecture is that we have no idea how many people will leave when the game changes business models. Just anecdotally I'd say that the influx will greatly outweigh the outflow.
 
And yes, I said WHEN the game changes business models. Yeah yeah, no official confirmation so we can allow ourselves that pretty fantasy until they do confirm. But at this point it takes more mental gymnastics to think of ways the game can stay P2P than it does to read the writing on the wall. Occam's Razor and all that.
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Context FTW... What I said stems from here.
 
Are you going to tell me that 3x times new players to replace lost subs when game goes F2P will make up for money losses ?
Are you ??? :lol:
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The subscription model isn't the problem... millions of players are willing to pay monthly for a game they like.
 
The game isn't the problem... look how much praise the game gets from being great and improved.
 
So what does that leave? I'm not going to say it.
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Because the 3 more who arrive are freeloaders and represent $0 ?
 
Do you prefer 1x$15 or 3x$0 ?
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How can you call conjecture when that's precisely what you're doing?
 
Anyway, most sane people will cancel their subscription if the game goes free to play, and then evaluate from there.
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[...]  
 
3x people will come in, WOAHHH 3X ISN'T ENOUGH F2P REFUTED FOREVER).
 
[...]
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The subscription model isn't the problem... millions of players are willing to pay monthly for a game they like.
 
The game isn't the problem... look how much praise the game gets from being great and improved.
 
So what does that leave? I'm not going to say it.
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Shoogli, this isn't me attacking you and I'm sorry if it comes across that way.
 
My point is that some people don't know the actual statistics for who pays in an F2P, and I think that you and I both know what that is. I think if you'd posted your last response to me as the response to someone who said "3 will come for every 1 that leaves" then it would have basically answered the question and educated people at the same time.	
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My conjecture is based on evidence and logic, whereas conjecture about who is and isn't going to leave the game is based around no evidence, and the argument that games will experience a net negative flow of players is actually contradicted by what happens in the real world when games go f2p/B2P from a sub.
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[...] whereas conjecture about who is and isn't going to leave the game is based around no evidence [...]
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Ok, so maybe this is just me, but I assumed that he meant that people (whether it goes F2P or B2P) would cancel a sub option that they had and then evaluate if they like the game. If they like the way the game goes, they might resub. Or if there is no sub option at all, then it is kind of a moot point, you "unsub" no matter what.
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The evidence is here, it's the % of who pays vs who doesn't, it's a known %.
 
 
 
 
 
There was no argument for negative flow, just a post to remind people that it was certainly not in the ballpark of x3 that populations needed to grow to, but in much higher order of magnitude, that's all...
 
And it reminds me what you said earlier "what internet does best" and so far it's only *you* putting words in the mouth of people who didn't say them at all in the first place...
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The end of Wildstar is the end of MMOs for me.
 
Also, I really would not want to be Carbine PR right now.  They're playing a game akin to tapdancing in a live minefield; if they do it right, they'll look amazing.  One misstep, though, and they go up in smoke.
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Sadly would be the same for me. I just cant see AAA western MMOs being made if the announced ones go down the drain. I hate these asian MMO grind feast (because super boob physics makes a game better), and sandbox MMOs. 
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The evidence is here, it's the % of who pays vs who doesn't, it's a known %.
 
 
 
There was no argument for negative flow, just a post to remind people that it was certainly not in the ballpark of x3 that populations needed to grow to, but in much higher order of magnitude, that's all...
 
And it reminds me what you said earlier "what internet does best" and so far it's only *you* putting words in the mouth of people who didn't say them at all in the first place...
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The market always wins, Tex!
 
As an unapologetic capitalist and advocate for acknowledging reality as it is rather than as we wish it was, I have no issue with that.	
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The axiom in gaming is "Make a good game, they'll come". If every other "3 months and done" crappy MMO out there is bad, what does that make Wildstar?
 
Misunderstood by the masses?
 
Makes a person seem a lot like that delusional parent that thinks their terror of a child is actually an angel.
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The subscription model isn't the problem... millions of players are willing to pay monthly for a game they like.The game isn't the problem... look how much praise the game gets from being great and improved.So what does that leave? I'm not going to say it.
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The market always wins, Tex!
 
As an unapologetic capitalist and advocate for acknowledging reality as it is rather than as we wish it was, I have no issue with that.
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If it's not the payment model (it isn't) and it's not the game (it isn't) then...
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I'm not taking it personally. I'm telling you, straight up, that when you devolve the conversation into insults and thinly-veiled aspersions that it's a poor debating tactic and I plan on calling you on it when I see it.
 
It's not personal. You are wrong by insulting those who disagree with you. I disagree with pretty much every word you have to say here, therefore you are insulting me. Personal or not, I'm going to keep returning the favor.  ;)
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Oh sure, I wasn't saying it was right or wrong, just putting some rationale out there for how/why the market is where it is.
 
People (some people, not all obviously) given the choice between "free" and "paid" are going to ALWAYS take the path of least resistance (expense). I get it. I pop into DC Universe every so often, just to say hi to everyone I know, but I won't PLAY while I'm there, because I think playing half a game (or less) is bullcrap. If I want to play, I pay my subscription.
 
Of course, I have a great, professional job that I've been at for over 20 years. My wife has a great, professional job that she's been at for 20 years. We have the money to pay for the things we enjoy and don't mind doing so.
 
But we aren't the MMO-mainstream player-base and we all know it. The target audience doesn't always have (or can't justify spending) $15 a month - or even if they CAN afford it, they'd rather not spend it if they can get close to the same experience for free.
 
MMO's have just plain ol' reached a saturation point of no return. Unless game companies actually stop making them, the trend will continue.
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I'm not taking it personally. I'm telling you, straight up, that when you devolve the conversation into insults and thinly-veiled aspersions that it's a poor debating tactic and I plan on calling you on it when I see it.
 
It's not personal. You are wrong by insulting those who disagree with you. I disagree with pretty much every word you have to say here, therefore you are insulting me. Personal or not, I'm going to keep returning the favor.  ;)
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You are right, people like you (and me) are not the average gamer. But we do like having people to play with and we are pretty willing to be whales for games we like. I feel comfortable making that assertion about you because you've said in the past that you'd love to have a cash shop.
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I blame rampant capitalism, personally.
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			Well said, Tex. I will say that while I'll keep paying the sub (if they provide that option), spending in the cash shop is conditional on the stuff actually being cool. Account bound would be good too, because I don't want to spend a bunch of money just to unlock the same armor set or mount across several characters.	
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I blame game publishers with dollar signs in their eyes. Or ones that are chained to stockholders who couldn't give a flying fig about how games work as long as the profits are rolling in. Most new businesses take a few years before they start to show a profit. If MMO's aren't profitable within the first couple months it's "off with their heads".
 
The market is there but publishers and developers are only interested in swinging for the fences instead of getting a solid rotation of singles and doubles. Carbine's been making a TON of progress. Imagine where they'd be in a year if given the chance.
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But Brother John, dollars signs is the ONLY motivation for making a game. There is NO other motivation except those dollars signs you seem so down on.
 
If they didn't want to make money, they wouldn't be in a profession that requires money to be successful - and they SURELY wouldn't be in the MMO industry.
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But Brother John, dollars signs is the ONLY motivation for making a game. There is NO other motivation except those dollars signs you seem so down on.
 
If they didn't want to make money, they wouldn't be in a profession that requires money to be successful - and they SURELY wouldn't be in the MMO industry.
 
As for the progress, yeah, they're doing a lot better than before, and no doubt, with time the entire game could be more amazing than it is now. Sadly (for both us and Carbine) it takes dollars to keep the lights on.
 
Honestly, I don't know why folks have such a tough time with that. Sure, you're a valuable customer, but the important part of that phrase is "valuable" ... meaning, you have value to them because you're willing to spend money with them on their product.
 
It's not a scam. It's not a plot or a ploy. It's just the way the world works.
 
(and all this is coming from a life-long and avowed socialist) ;)
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Please link me to those numbers  :)
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This is sadly true.
The Gaming industry has DEvolved into nothing more then an institute where things are created to make quick money.
Best sector at this right now is the entire web and mobile gaming branch with leeches such as Zynga and the likes.
It's no longer about making quality games, it has becomes about monetization and milking your customers as hard and as fast as possible.
Just look at the articles being written in magazines and professional fora. It's all about making as much as possible and monetization strategies.
 
Back in the day, e.g the 80-90 period, making video games was a passion.
The things being released for the various consoles and PC back then were gems, a work of art and something that was polished, and working.
DLC's simply did not exist, and sequels were made when games were successful.
 
Then it all changed when the EA-nation attacked.
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 ;) What I'm down on is the focus on short-term profits and zero effort put into long-term sustainability.  From a player perspective TOR is an utter train-wreck and I'm not hearing anything good about LOTRO (the f2p success poster child) these days.
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So... Games have always been mass produced and 90% crap, including during the 80s and 90s. The market was incredibly saturated with crappy arcade rip offs and then as arcades waned it was crappy console rip offs. Computer games were basically knock offs of a few tropes with some unique and occasionally hilarious outliers (Redneck Rampage anyone??).
 
There never was a golden age of gaming, it was always about who could get the most quarters.
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			From that standpoint I agree. DLC is a newer thing, and due to the physical reality of shipping games on physical cartridges, once it was out there it was done. Part of the fun was discovering where the bugs were and exploiting them haha. I enjoyed grabbing that stupid rabbit in Mario 64 and using it to backwards jump through impassable walls. Good times.	
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The Console Wars of the 80's ended because of cheap games polluting the gene-pool and people COULDN'T tell the difference. We were new to gaming and if we saw two games that we'd never heard of (which was most of them back them since franchises hadn't happened yet) and one was $5 and the other was $25, most of us would go for the cheaper one.
 
Same thing is happening in the MMO Market of today, it's just happening at a slower pace.	
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The question to me is what kind of integrity and commitment Carbine shows to the dungeon and raiding, and combat that has this game 100% locked in as the best MMO combat right now. Do they go the EA/Zynga route and actually try to milk every micro transaction and forget everything else because that's how they will make the most money? Or do they continue making a solid game?
 
A few artists and modelers shift their workload to making mounts, pets, costumes and other cash shop fluff? Alright, sure.
 
Does actual content creation slow down? Are there no new dungeons or raids for an extended period of time? Does the quality of new content suffer due to those teams involvement in other aspects of the game?
 
Those are the questions important to the dedicated raiding playerbase, however small it may be. The game is actually more to some people than just dress up, mount and pet collection, and housing. This coming from a raider who does enjoy all of those things as well.
 
Only time will tell I suppose.	
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			I thought the fun of cartridges was how everyone had their own weird formula on how to get the darn things working again. Crazy stuff ranging from simply using a qtip to putting the cartridge in the freezer for a few minutes lol...	
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Google it... Use appropriate search words...
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{| class="blockquote"
I thought the fun of cartridges was how everyone had their own weird formula on how to get the darn things working again. Crazy stuff ranging from simply using a qtip to putting the cartridge in the freezer for a few minutes lol...
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Okay, this what i could find quickly...
 
Of the 400 million MMO players across the globe, 220 million didn't spend money on MMOs.
64 percent of the 11,800 online gamers surveyed by Curse play free-to-play games and 43 percent of those buy in-game items. 
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{| class="blockquote"
The question to me is what kind of integrity and commitment Carbine shows to the dungeon and raiding, and combat that has this game 100% locked in as the best MMO combat right now. Do they go the EA/Zynga route and actually try to milk every micro transaction and forget everything else because that's how they will make the most money? Or do they continue making a solid game?
 
A few artists and modelers shift their workload to making mounts, pets, costumes and other cash shop fluff? Alright, sure.
 
Does actual content creation slow down? Are there no new dungeons or raids for an extended period of time?
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You blow into it. Or hit the console a few times.
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That one accounts in the buyer % even on a single sale and nothing else later, it's different when comparing to regular per-month spending equivalent.
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One of the devs posted that the Raid Team was a whole four people right now. That's after the recent lay-offs and management shifts. Four people ... I dunno about y'all but knowing that doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for the future of Wildstar Raiding. Again, time will tell.
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Ah, I wasn't sure *where* I'd read that little factoid, I just remember it being recent. If it was the mouthy butthole who started all this crap, well ... I don't know what to think. I mean, I hate that he put Carbine in this situation, but so far he hasn't been wrong or I expect they'd've said something a week ago.
 
I'm not a game designer, but I am a designer, and yeah, I work much faster solo or in smaller groups than I do trying to "design by committee"  ;)	
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I think there are a lot of parallels to the music industry, which started dying a few years ahead of video games. Revenues there continue to decline, and they are exploring "free" business models.
 
Music can't offer micro-transactions in the same way as video games so it's a little different. But video games can't open other revenue doors like live performance, either. Both music and games are susceptible to piracy and lack of acceptable DRM (unless you're an online game...) And I don't think ad-supported businesses are sustainable when they are *everywhere*.
 
But even with all of that, I just don't think a free model is good for any business. It has unpredictable revenue and customers are not necessarily engaged because they're uninvested. I think the best thing for WildStar and other games to do is play to their strengths and spend effort attracting the right customers over time. Just throwing a net over "all" possible customers doesn't seem like a sound long-term strategy for developing a loyal and dedicated repeat customer base.
 
Like in the good old days of commerce, consumers should expect to pay for products they use. I really think that's where all of this experimentation is going to lead back to anyway.	
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Then come with evidence to support your claim, that's how it works you know.
 
Anyway pay to play is dying it seems, no report is showing an increase so I find it highly doubtful to see a bright future for wildstar if it stays p2p
http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/
Pay-to-play MMO games showed a decline, too, as the overall US subscriber base dropped 18% since its peak late last year
 
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Don't forget to turn the console off and on again, 3 times in a row and press reset afterwards.
Also making a silly dance helped now and then.
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			Since it may be said that free to play is a new model and I see the conversation heading that way: it isn't. It's about as old as capitalism itself. I've brought this up before but it is worth continuing to mention. We tend to think it's new because it's being applied to MMOs, which are a newer phenomenon.	
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Like in the good old days of commerce, consumers should expect to pay for products they use. I really think that's where all of this experimentation is going to lead back to anyway.
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We're gonna be doing a lot of danciing!
 
Cartridge stacking era was nuts...technology at it's finest. Everyone in my class broguht in their 32x, game genies, sonic and knuckle setc and we just tried to stack as high as we could then played limbo with it...until the kid with the headgear broke it trying to go under. Good times...
 
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{| class="blockquote"
Then come with evidence to support your claim, that's how it works you know.
 
[...]
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Not my fault you can't google it and instead find another number that has little to do with what we were talking about earlier.
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Like in the good old days of commerce, consumers should expect to pay for products they use. I really think that's where all of this experimentation is going to lead back to anyway.
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Everyone always worries if "quality will be maintained," if Wildstar goes f2p....
 
..and I'm just sitting here playing PvP that has received no new content for 9 months, balance patches that favor PvE instead of PvP, and trying to play with buggy matchmaking systems that used to work at launch, but don't anymore.
 
f2p or riot imo.  If Wildstar quality has been pulling <100k subscribers and pvp has had such a huge neglect, that's not a quality I wish to maintain.	
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You are simply unable to support your claims, you just lost all credibility with this just now.
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
How much asset recycling are you fine with while the art team(and other departments handling the asset integration) works on cash shop items?
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Everyone always worries if "quality will be maintained," if Wildstar goes f2p....
 
..and I'm just sitting here playing PvP that has received no new content for 9 months, balance patches that favor PvE instead of PvP, and trying to play with buggy matchmaking systems that used to work at launch, but don't anymore.
 
f2p or riot imo.  If Wildstar quality has been pulling <100k subscribers and pvp has had such a huge neglect, that's not a quality I wish to maintain.
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And as usual you try to highjack a discussion that has nothing to do with you.
 
How does the quality of content for PVE negatively affect you? Currently some of the raid devs are actively trying to fix PVP. That is negatively affecting the rate of development of the next PVE tier, but we're not complaining, are we?
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But I will say this: I don't know what an optimal team size is for creating dungeons and raids, but it wouldn't surprise me if 4 is a good number. That is, I worked on a team once with 9 developers, and our outpust was about half what it was when paired down to 4 developers. Yep, that's right, we were 50% SLOWER with more than double the people on the team. With four people who knew each other well and worked together, we easily surpassed the 9 developer team (which we were all a part of) in terms of speed AND quality. So much time on that 9 person team was spent discussing appraoches, bringing people up to speed, coordinating, teaching, correcting, etc. That 4 person team just got stuff done.
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On this, we can both place our hopes.
 
Sadly, as Anvh pointed out, the downward trend of P2P gaming is pretty apparent and incontestable.
 
As much as we'd like to think that good, old-fashioned quality is the solution to this (as you say, that people will come if the quality warrants it), in the modern world, that just doesn't pan out. There is enough of a surplus of "decent" F2P/B2P games out there that people will play a lesser-quality game for little-to-no investment over dishing out money to get a better experience.
 
Wildstar *IS* a true Triple A MMO. No one can deny that it's gotten even better in the last year ... but this is the Age of Information now and the information about this games early failures is out there for the entire world to see. Now obviously, things can get turned around - but it's not going to happen in a quick enough time-frame that the current model will keep the light on until then.
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Those of us enjoying the quality PvE content are concerned about whether the quality will be maintained, yes. Of course we are.
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And as usual you try to highjack a discussion that has nothing to do with you.
 
How does the quality of content for PVE negatively affect you?  Currently some of the raid devs are actively trying to fix PVP.  That is negatively affecting the rate of development of the next PVE tier, but we're not complaining, are we?
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Sure, if you say so...
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
Problem is that the word quality is more an experience when it comes to art. There are enough singer song writers out there without the triple AAA studios backing them up. Also what some find good others find bad it's just hard to draw a line.
WS is a good game and many would qualify it as a triple A title but it does have had has fair amount of bugs and other problems which i don't find fitting for an AAA title, the EU server is still very bad at times so if you look at it from that side. BUt then again the animation is just solid and the art work is amazing.
So players want quality for their subscription but there are some high quality MMO's out there without a subscription. It's hard to argue that WS is better quality then TESO for example so it's hard to define where you find that quality from your subscription.
 
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Well, certainly if the type of content that you enjoy is expensive to generate and enjoyed by only a small subset of the playerbase, then any form of business model that allows players to purchase things in a more ala-carte style is cause for you to be concerned. After all, if players can opt out of paying for content that they'll never see or don't enjoy, they will--and then the people who want that type of content will have to pay for it themselves.
 
Oh, look. I think I found a reason why some of us might prefer a cash shop with DLCs to a subscription-based model.
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			There's an RP crowd?	
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Im curious as to why an in-game store has not been implemented. Allowing players to buy vanity items for real money seems like a decent potential source for revinue.  WoW has it as well.
 
Also why not decrease the cost of the monthly subscription fee?	
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How could you possibly think that a post involving a payment model change could have nothing to do with me?  It affects EVERYONE.
 
Further, I'm not sure where you're going with this?  It looks like you are complaining that raid devs are trying to fix PvP in that very post.  Further, a lot of developers seem to be working on a bunch of cross-projects.
 
Finally, back to the point of the post--- if this is what we've been given since launch, there's a reason no one wants to play all of this "hard and challenging content."  We need a fresh perspective on things to revitalize the game.  In a PvE conversation Avatus and Datascape were buggy for months, yet you still want to maintain that quality?
 
You can't just measure something based on the end result if it takes 9 months to get there. You can't just say, well no one played it because it wasn't working, so now it is, and we should be seeing millions of people coming back to play the best mmo on the market. 
 
IMO f2p is a good decision for Wildstar, and a great decision for PvP.
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You are simply unable to support your claims, you just lost all credibility with this just now.
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You specifically responded to the topic I brought up about quality of content in PVE, Eclipse, and whether that "quailty" is something that should be maintained or not.
 
PVE quality is amazing.  The team that works on dungeon and raid content actually has conversations with us doing the content at the forefront.  They fix the bugs we encountered, and relatively quickly.  We are also understanding people that realize that when a bug is going to take a week or a month to hit live, our constant complaining isn't going to make it happen any faster.
 
Here, you inferred the quality of PVE is trash, since the game has a low amount of subs.
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I am not sure what you're getting at here that I didn't just say. :lol:
 
Bugs happen in every game, and population of the EU servers isn't a marker of the actual games quality. When I talk about "quality" I am talking about the artwork, soundtrack, game mechanics and other back-end systems - which Wildstar has in spades.
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The axiom in gaming is "Make a good game, they'll come". If every other "3 months and done" crappy MMO out there is bad, what does that make Wildstar?
 
Misunderstood by the masses?
 
Makes a person seem a lot like that delusional parent that thinks their terror of a child is actually an angel.
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What free to play MMOs continue developing worthwhile PVE content at a decent pace?
 
I've played a lot of MMOs and the only current games I consider to have a good endgame PVE environment are FFXIV, WoW and Wildstar.  All 3 of them sub-based.
 
I don't have any problem with a cash shop.  I would have a problem with the main draw to the game for myself and a lot of my friends becoming an afterthought to a cosmetic-driven game.  I spent a good part of the weekend gathering specific items to make costumes, so it's not like i don't like cosmetics, costumes, mounts and pets.  I don't have a problem with a F2P system with optional sub that gives an amount of cash shop currency per month.
 
I have a problem with the pendelum being swung too far in that direction, and ignoring or diminishing the actual content, or pay-walling it like some games do.	
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I use to be so against F2P MMO's, but that was when the only f2p mmo's were those crappy Asian ones. But lately I can't say that I do anymore.
 
I was playing Marvel Heroes 2015 which is a F2P and I have to say that I didn't see any 'lessen quality' game play because it was F2P. Best part is you can get all the heroes with in-game currency or use real money.  This is how it should be.
 
All I'm saying F2P MMO's have come a long way and if WS did go that way I would not be upset one bit.	
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			I have a hard time stomaching people who just want to play the game for free when, if they get their way, my experience ends up becoming multiple times more expensive.	
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On the quality argument of f2p:
 
I get ABC, CBS and NBC for free from my cable provider and used to get them free over the air before that, but those networks are garbage.  No top tier actors in their shows, no big production budgets, no top rated tv shows.
 
Thankfully, I can pay a subscription to get a cable package that includes my local community access channel (which I can't get for free over the air), but which I gladly pay for because the quality is so much better.
 
Man, I love internet logic; it's so much more fun that real logic.	
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{| class="blockquote"
What free to play MMOs continue developing worthwhile PVE content at a decent pace?
 
I've played a lot of MMOs and the only current games I consider to have a good endgame PVE environment are FFXIV, WoW and Wildstar.  All 3 of them sub-based.
 
I don't have any problem with a cash shop.  I would have a problem with the main draw to the game for myself and a lot of my friends becoming an afterthought to a cosmetic-driven game.  I spent a good part of the weekend gathering specific items to make costumes, so it's not like i don't like cosmetics, costumes, mounts and pets.  I don't have a problem with a F2P system with optional sub that gives an amount of cash shop currency per month.
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I have a hard time stomaching people who just want to play the game for free when, if they get their way, my experience ends up becoming multiple times more expensive.
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That's because your preferred experience is niche, or at a more specific point that the majority of other players.  In order to have nice things, a base needs to be created to fund the game.
 
I don't think you can sustain an MMO on costumes, collectibles, and housing.  I think you sustain it with PvE and PvP content.  Those things you like?  Those are perks of the game.  You don't get the perks without paying a little extra.
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 I don't have a problem with a F2P system with optional sub that gives an amount of cash shop currency per month.
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Then maybe you should wait and see whether this game does that or not before panicking. Many AAA MMORPGs have done exactly this and in my opinion it's the way through the whole business model mess.
 
F2P has a very large number of variants, some of which are extremely predatory and others of which are no more so than the CREDD system that already exists in this game.
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I remember last year they were posting the number of guilds who had actually done the raid content and based on that it was a few hundred people actually experiencing the content. The rest of the population was either not interested or stuck behind the attunement wall.
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{| class="blockquote"
 
I'm already paying. $15/month. And right now I get access to all of it - even those "perks" that are my primary motivation.
 
Nobody's going to want a game that's just dungeon encounters and PvP with no other rewards. You are completely off in suggesting that housing, collectibles, and costumes are somehow unnecessary. Housing alone in WildStar represents an entire endgame for a lot of people. So the PvPers can have their endgame for free but F the folk who have latched on to the other 1/3 of WildStar.
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Define "long time" because I played Rift, Tera and SWTOR after F2P conversions and they still to this day pump out new content and expansions at a regular interval.
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Putting in PvE or PvP items in a cash shop gives an immediate impression of "Pay to Win" which is the deathknell of any MMO. Even people who would be drawn to F2P games won't touch a presumed P2W game. So most games choose the obvious for their cash shops that will 1) make the most money and 2) not be deemed P2W. Sadly for you, all of those items are cosmetic so housing, costumes, mounts, pets, etc.
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Hey, so just for fun let's see who can guess the closest:
 
When do you think Carbine/NCSoft will actually respond to this issue and announce F2P is happening?
 
Secondarily, when do you think the game will actually go F2P?	
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