128538-road-to-free-to-play-part-ii-livestream

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We would like to invite you to our "Road To Free-To-Play Part II" Livestream, Wednesday 7/1. Join Community Manager, Deirdre ‘DD’ Hollis and Brand Manager, Kari Hale as they chat with Product Director, Mike Donatelli and  Class Lead, Steve Engle about the move to Free-to-Play and the Class Stat changes coming to WildStar! Of course we love to keep things unpredictable around here, so it’s only appropriate that DD may be called in for a super top-secret mission for the government that week, and I will have to dust off my old hosting hat and fill in. Don’t tell anyone, but I kinda hope she gets called in. X-D
 
As usual we’ll be gathering questions about our business model transition directly from Twitch chat, social media, and here on the forums. So start submitting your questions below and we'll do our best to answer as many as we can!
 
Our Q&A doesn’t end there. Directly following our Livestream we will be hosting a AMA with Steve Engle and his team from 11:30am – 1:00pm PDT on Reddit.
 
Thanks everyone. We look forward to seeing you, and stay frosty!
 
Wednesday 7/1/15   |  10am PDT / 5pm UTC   |   http://www.twitch.tv/WildStar	
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DD's super top-secret mission...
 	
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DD's super top-secret mission...
 
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Nice, nice.My little Aussie toon will be interested to know more.
 
While I didn't jump back on the bag wagon the first day f2p was officially announced, I came a few days later as the idea of certain future adds a lot of weight to my decision. I left in November, before drop 3 but have kept an active eye on the forums and news sites since. I may have even sent a few rants to the redphone, but what I have seen is a constant shift toward righting the "wrongs" and bring in more "rights". There are still some problems to be sorted but being able to have an adult conversation about said changes along with a balanced mix of feedback will help address theses.
 
I don't have any real questions as there is not a lot to go on, stat changes sound positive and Im not too worried about it being a mess, different no doubt. Sprint change, 'meh' positive until tested.
 
Oh a question.
1)How will you accommodate the larger player base not being able to get together on a voice comm channel to tackle communication heavy content.
2)Adventure time, any plans of making more of these casual pug friendly packets of fun. Maybe tweaking the gold metal a tad on MT to not 30carvan peeps not dying. (Bay Of B, plans, feedback and future direction if any)
3)Guilds and the motivation to start a new guild v joining old guild. The issues of perks and taxes.	
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Hi
 
Long time pvper and enthusiastic player!
 
Q1: When will  the pvp community receive a new battleground?
 
Q2: With the introduction of F2P will we see services such as faction changes, race changes as well as other potential cosmetic changes alongside everything you have planned so far?
 
Q3: From a technical standpoint, do you feel that your servers are capable of handling the potentially massive load of new players. Additionally, will you be opening new megaservers?
 
Q4: Will you be implementing current addons such as the group finder addon, rune master etc with the introduction of F2P as well as the Junk button? I Would very much like to see this!
 
Those are pretty much the most important questions i personally have right now, thanks for reading them.	
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1) are we soon seeing any kind  of object with collision for housing, because much projects like arenas, or laser tag plots are hindered because all telegraphs tresspass object and make it kinda pointless
 
                a suggestion from me in the housing forums
 
 
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add 3 items with colision on telegraphs, a floor/wall, a column and a circular thing, players will place them inside other objects for colision purposes and we will have our arenas, tracks, laser tag plots
 
and everybody is happy
 
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Thanks for all the effort you guys have been putting in to keep this game alive - it's a great game that deserves it.
 
My question is: Will you be introducing a Race Change option anytime soon? I know I want this and I will be willing to drop some $ to make it happen. I recently had a change of heart about which race I want my Lv. 50 Spellslinger to be and instead of leveling a new one from scratch I'd rather spend that time leveling another class on my list instead.
			
				
	Edited June 27, 2015 by Tigerfish	
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You wish to incentive people to play different setups with their classes. Why do you replace one arbitrary stat system with another then instead of making all abilities viable? 	
Is multi-hit in WildStar going to be the same as in World of Warcraft?	Why this Vigor system? How is it fair to make your peak performance be dependent on healers and "smart heals" that they cannot control in the first place?	What about the rune system and countless amounts of platinum invested by people? What makes you think they will do this again?	When are we getting the class unlocks for our races? Chua Warriors and Stalkers need to happen.	Why do Chua still have these stupid underpants on them?	Related to #1: Why am I as spellslinger forced to spam Vitality Burst in order to keep up with others? Why can't I play my Void Spring Sustain build as I want to?	What about hitting mechanics for classes? Healing Lattice in Datascape as a slinger is still a pain as only a select few spells work on the walls there	What is being done about the class performance and high latency? (see lag on jabbit topic in bugs)	Any plans on incentives for running low level dungeons, like Final Fantasy does?	What about a gear system like Final Fantasy?	What's the word on new classes?	Can we get abilities that swap our AP/SP ? This would make it way more easier for Healers to off DPS or the other way around when "shit hits the fan"
That's all for now.	
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1- Any chances at increasing the holowardrobe limit, either for free, through loyalty or actual cash shop upgrades?
2- I heard the Chinese version is going to get their own facial customization options. Are we getting any of that? 
3- My warrior gets Assault Power from Brutality, for example. But my Spellslinger gets critical hit damage and strikethrough. Will the stats be converted on a per class basis, or will each current stat transform to a specific combination of the new primary/secondary stats?
 
That's all I can think of and none of them are properly about the business model. But details, I guess.	
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Oh a question.
1)How will you accommodate the larger player base not being able to get together on a voice comm channel to tackle communication heavy content.
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Hi Carbinerinos i have some questions too
 
1) Will housing decos receive a more detailed categorization. For example dominion, exile, strain, eldan, pirate, etc. Reason for this is in first place finding those items in you deco-box the other issue is browsing through the Auctioneer which doesnt simply accept for eg. "eldan" because system answers me with something like " you need to be more specific".
 
2) Since Wildstar was always a lot less "forgiving" in pve in comparison to other MMO's it made it super attractive to capable and caring Players. You stated that F2P will make Wildstar a lot more accessible for new people, so a question rises will there be still the nieche for those Players who care a lot and enjoyed your amazing difficult content.
 
3) Will class mechanic/rotations/priolists be reworked ? The thing is that for me I saw almost everything in WS PvE as an Esper from the easiest adventure to Avatus and what i can tell is that this class is absolutely not ready right now for the F2P release. Since you have politics and can't/don't want tell us details at least an "yes we are workin on thoses issues" or "no" would sufficient.
 
4) Regarding Multistrike stat and dots. For example if i hit with Telekinetic Storm does it doubles the the whole Storm or are being the dot procs looked separately OR (PLS SAY YES TO THIS) both storm and dots ticks.	
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Q: For items/services that will be sold on the cash shop, will there be a gifting option (i.e. I buy a vanity pet from the shop, but it gets sent to my husband's account via an option selected during purchase)?
 
Q: Doesn't pertain to the business model, but with the teaser bit of info about the neighborhood system for housing, can you share a few extra tidbits? Like will the connected homes (and communal space) be visible from each individual plot that is in the neighborhood or is it just an expanded teleport system? If visible, will it still require a teleport to get to and fro or something more solid and visual, like bridges? Can one player connect the homes of their alts with their main, or must it be up to five individual accounts/players? If, say, only three persons decide to create a neighborhood, are the two unclaimed spots taken by the usual fake fill-in homes or you just see (presumably) the three house plots that are in the group?
			
				
	Edited June 27, 2015 by Kaeret	
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Why is this eben an issue? MMO's tried several years ago to add their own voie comm to competete agains TS2. I don't know where tose are now, but I know fo sure, that if someone wants to use this feature one of the first choices are always TS.
 
I personally have no idea why developers one again try to add those unsuccessfull ino a game. Beside that all my MMO expeience long I gave the integrated comms a chance, and all were totally bull in different ways.
 
So the main question is, why should the devs here work on this feature for the F2P launch and literally throw money and time away?
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
 
1: Adventures. Any ideas of how to make these viable for lvl 50 DS/GA raiders again?
 
After having 7 core members leave we're gotten over 10 new recruits, many fresh lvl 50's some returnees. Most need adventures. I have done so many malgraves i feel like stapping my balls with a dull pair of scissors. I mean we join the 4 adventures as fresh 50's, get silver, never return. The same thing does not happen in dungeons as theres glory(for buying that x-89 or SD kill gear) and runic modules.
 
2: Do you feel confident in making these big changes right before you open the doors to what should be your salvation?
 
3: Any guild expasions in sight?
 
One certain guild on jabbit is known for it's sheer size. The guild leader has stated the only real limit is 500 members. The max guild limit. Might we see an increase in this like with housing or do you believe it to be fine as is?
 
4: More ranks in guild!
 
5: Race/Class combos, we saw the chua warrior in the trailer... gief?
 
6: You told us that we would not be able to buy power... define power plz.
 
F2P, B2P, P2W... it comes in many forms, shapes and sizes. Especially games like hearthstone i don't like saying isn't P2W. In order to truely play it you need cards, unless you're a professional. 60 years down the line you might end up owning all cards, but you could also spend 300 euro's and skip the line.
 
Another thing i find difficult to measure is power leveling. Going 1-50 with $$$ would not technically be P2W, as this offers the player no real advantage over a F2P player. The community however clearly spoke against it, with some minor support.
 
7: Your original design said that no path, race, server and faction change would be implemented.
 
Yet servers are open(don't get me wrong we did need that), and while it was with our blessing you did so, would we might see path/faction/race changes in the future?
 
With the (presumed!) new class/race combo old players won't be able to acces those without deleting an old charactor that with the current system is irreplaceable with mounts, dye, acheivements and so on.
 
We all know how people say dominion and exiles are far apart in numbers, so might we see a faction change someday?
 
Nobody likes the explorer spells, can i be a scientist stalker instead please?
 
8: It's been mentioned before dominion and exiles might not be far apart in numbers, if this does happen can dominion get sexy luminai girls plz?
 
9: Is dominion and exiles on the jabbit server balanced after eugenic(fied) split up?
 
These questions are followed by the greatest applause for the handeling of this transition. A beta to ensure the F2P people won't experience a second launch, meercat, TT, sunshine, caydiem, gordish and so on actively being on the forums and answering our concerns even if they can only say "we have something planned i can't talk about" or simply "i can't talk about that". You devs have been growing and have in the end won us over, and seemingly many more with F2P announcement. Now go teach your PR department how to handle the F2P transition and we'll be set.
 
Edit: 10: MORE COSTUME SLOTS... UNLIMITED COSTUME SLOTS!
			
				
	Edited June 28, 2015 by Grota	
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Q1: In another thread I asked if you would make more "epic" solo bosses in the future. The answer was bascially a yes. Do you plan to "improve" any of the old solo quest bosses with F2P on the radar to be more unique/stronger than normal mobs?
 
Q2: What exactly are your plans on tweaking the difficulty of the game? We know you want to reduce it for the normal dungeons, but what about telegraph/mob damage during leveling (which currently becomes much harder around level 20) and specificlly for all endgame content (normal mobs, primes, rares, veteran shiphands/adventures/dungeons and raids)? 
 
Q3: Depending on the influx of players that may or may not come, will we again get language specific servers (German/English/French)?
 
Q4: For the incoming F2P Beta, will older players be able to transfer their characters in order to test high level changes or is every tester required to start a new character and level that one?
			
				
	Edited June 28, 2015 by Marston	
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Chua Warriooooor? Giev first or else!!!!! :P
Luminai I read, eh, why not, giev as well!!!! ...maybe I like.
Infine custom slots. Don't even ask, just giev, or else!!!!!!!1212121212334
 
Yu sell shinys. If good shinys, me buy. Yu put bad crapcakes in shop, me no buy, me meh!
 
Enough goofing around, now straight talk:
Carbine, you should compare the polls of "want to" from players on WildStar and the items, some of your successfull competitors offer. There is an open secret, most of us westerners don't get along well with P2W. Same thing goes with stuff, we can't allign with the game (Tera Shop stuff anyone). Another thing, that isn't working well is stuff for the price of actuall, real stuff (EVE Online clothing...WTH!!)
 
Where is the consese at the most parts?
Slots, slots of any kind, like character slots, costume slots, backpack slots, color slots, auctionhouse slots, you name it, we want it. 
XP Bootst - Don't get me wrong, I hate those, but many people love them, especially people who just want to play the endgame are going to use them a lot.
Dyeing - Do the SWTOR thingy. Make the dye option a buyable token. Because, why not?
Housing -  Eh, almost anything that is connencted to this feature can be put in the shop.
Connecting neighbours - actually this might be a new feature. At the moment, we can add neighbours and add circles for ressources. But what if we could connect their turf right next to ours? I'd buy that feature. And it woud be also interesting for guilds.
Costumes! - (See SWTOR. They do this seasonal costume buyout. Kinda that idea I'd like to see here as well. Well actually, I want those sells to remain in the shop, and new or several beloved ones to be prominent for some time)
Mounts - those guys and prominent mounting stuff. Yeah, why not, because Stone cold saz so, and people buy this bull anyway. People do like it = good money for Carbine.	
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			This may seem counterintuitive, but the more stuff you make account bound, the more of it you will sell. As in, if I see a shiny new mount on there for $15 I'm going to be much more likely to buy it if it's usable on all of my characters. If it's character bound I'll be less likely to buy it because "what if I want to play another character?"	
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My main concern with the move to F2P is the ability for hackers and gold-sellers / farmers to get back in.
Therefore my question is.
 
Q: How are you going to deal with the hackers and gold-sellers?
 
I know you're restricting access to guild creation etc and you did a very good job of getting rid of them in the beginning but now their barriers to entry have all but disappeared. Also people no longer have to spend money on a subscription. Which means they will most likely spend it on in-game gold (platinum) instead. This can ultimately lead to the downfall of the economy (if it's not properly maintained). I have witnessed this happen in Maplestory, something that was worth very little initially quickly rose by > 1,000%, and I don't want to see it happen to Wildstar.
 
Still I am looking forward to being able to get all my friends playing Wildstar !!	
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My main concern with the move to F2P is the ability for hackers and gold-sellers / farmers to get back in.
Therefore my question is.
 
Q: How are you going to deal with the hackers and gold-sellers?
 
I know you're restricting access to guild creation etc and you did a very good job of getting rid of them in the beginning but now their barriers to entry have all but disappeared. Also people no longer have to spend money on a subscription. Which means they will most likely spend it on in-game gold (platinum) instead. This can ultimately lead to the downfall of the economy (if it's not properly maintained). I have witnessed this happen in Maplestory, something that was worth very little initially quickly rose by > 1,000%, and I don't want to see it happen to Wildstar.
 
Still I am looking forward to being able to get all my friends playing Wildstar !!
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1: We know there are plans to make dyes account bound, can you tell us everything else that you may be planning to make account wide too? I know I will never ever grind reputations on multiple character, because it's not fun, and makes no sense once you have done it once. Also would love to see mounts/pets and ACHIEVEMENTS (!) account wide too.
 
2: Dailies, are you going to continue adding daily quests grind X mobs, etc, because daily quests like that are NOT fun and outdated as hell.	
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			If we promise not to hold you to it, just to get our feedback, can you give us a sense of the range of prices that you're thinking about, for the cash shop? $x to $y per costume, $x to $y per decor item or housing plug, $x to $y per pet, $x to $y per mount?	
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What do the gear changes mean for the leveling process?  Obviously there's a big impact to endgame, but how does this change the leveling experience for everyone?
 
 
Will we see the new face types from the Chinese launch of Wildstar added to the US and EU versions of the game?  And will we see more face types or body types added in the future?	
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Q: Have you put any thought into redesigning the settler path ? Your ZOOM ZOOM mount speed will destroy a fundamental part and take away the fun! Or are we just going to fly round the screen like idiots ?	
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			Have you considered adding boom boxes to the cash shop? While I do understand they are supposed to be a exclusive bonus to beta and loyal players they are RNG based items, and even those players might not be able to obtain everything they could from the boom boxes without spending an enormous amount of plat to get them, perhaps you could add some cash shop items to the boom boxes themselves and sell it kind of like the League of Legends style mystery gift system(also only allowing players to buy a certain amount per day).	
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			Q: why do u host these kinda things and ask for questions, when u refuse to give out any new info?
			
				
	Edited July 1, 2015 by negoleg	
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Q: why do u host these kinda things and ask for questions, when u refuse to give out any new info?
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			So, post DS raid and new casual raid both confirmed. That sounds pretty great, imo.
			
				
	Edited July 1, 2015 by SlyJeff	
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I read this on Reddit
 
"No "Always On" sprint in PvP instances!"
Well that's good.
 
I still really don't understand the motivation behind the sprint changes.
Apply it exclusively to mounts and everything is fine.
			
				
	Edited July 1, 2015 by FranBunnyFFXII	
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The stream gave me the impression that the devs are still adamant that the ikthian crawler requirements won't be changed... or maybe just adamant that it won't be available to new players through loyalty points etc. I hope it's the latter. It's old news now yet I saw it brought up on the stream a couple times.
 
I still think the player appreciation tiers as they are now are terrible. Perhaps this will be addressed when the deep dive on loyalty rewards comes out and it mentions the somewhat similar appreciation rewards, or when the crawler's model is revealed. Adding a "subbed before the F2P announcement" tier of some sort would be great.	
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So, post DS raid and new casual raid both confirmed. That sounds pretty great, imo.
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Im watching the stream recording and Donatelli said people asked for always on sprint.
 
Since when?
I've been playing since closed beta 3 and not once did I ever see anyone request or ask for it.
 
Then right after Donatelli himself responds "Going back to Live build, OH MY GOD WHY AM I NOT GOING FASTER"
 
This is the EXACT PROBLEM I was talking about. The slow down feel, the same issue as TERA's combat slow down, this problem experienced by the lead dev himself.
Do you really want that issue with your game, when it's not there now?
			
				
	Edited July 2, 2015 by FranBunnyFFXII	
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Im watching the stream recording and Donatelli said people asked for always on sprint.
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I definitely recall people asking for this (or for sprint to be removed, I don't recall which, but the idea was that holding down the shift key while out of combat was annoying) on the forums.
 
I don't think it was a HUGE number of people though.
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they definitely were talked about, but really it was topic that very very few people brought up
Beyond REALLY OLD threads like these I don't recall there being much of any discussion of it, or least anything major discussion on the matter...
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/60307-petition-remove-the-sprint-function/?hl=sprint%20speed
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/34429-please-remove-sprint-from-the-game/?hl=sprint+speed&do=findComment&comment=333344
			
				
	Edited July 2, 2015 by Typrop	
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I hate games where permanent sprint speeds became the norm and expected. I much prefer tactical abilities that make sense (no one runs everywhere at full tilt).
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I missed the live stream but watched the replay last night, glad I did as Im a biggie on the how it was said rather than the what.
 
Conversation about numbers of members was funny, just next time kick Mike D rather then saying what you did Brand Manager. Came off worse for you as for Mike was just the big kid pushing the limits of what he was allowed to say and what not. You could tell your new to streams, very tense and focused on the Mac laptops in front of you (ironically funny due to WS lack of Mac playability)
 
In terms of actual information, was very poor but I can see you are trying to keep people updated given the larger interest then you anticipated, meaning you mostly likely were caught a little off guard on terms of information available to provide to us. Selection of questions to answer shows a focus on "what can I buy" which since it is a major business model change is understandable, however as the Brand lady, (sorry I will get your name next time I watch the stream, I just checked out your job position ad, interesting again) did say, its more than just a business model change.
 
A key word which Mike used just a little too much, "accessibility". No doubt this has been drilled into every meeting you have had the past six months, your bitter laugh in using the word showed as much. Maybe just a tad too smug at this point given the transition to F2P and increased player retention and thus income increase, which needs to be a major focus to be a success and its NOT there yet ;)
			
				
	Edited July 3, 2015 by LordJJag	
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			Any chance we could get some sort of write-up, article, splash page or something with this information? I'd like to pass it onto my guild, which crosses over many games, to try and build some hype, but RL has made it hard for me to sit down and watch this and take my own notes.	
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Any chance we could get some sort of write-up, article, splash page or something with this information? I'd like to pass it onto my guild, which crosses over many games, to try and build some hype, but RL has made it hard for me to sit down and watch this and take my own notes.
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okay, I dont know why this bugs me so... but about the Sprint, I would rather have no Sprint bar and have it to where as long as i'm holding it down, I sprint outside of battle instead of this "off and on" button most MMOs have for run/walk. I mean while your in battle you would still have the limited sprint bursts but i still dont like the off and on button for outside of combat. Something about it really bugs me... Alot...
 
Other than that I'm fine with the changes as long as it doesnt take away from the game. They do have a saying, more isnt always better... So dont over do it with the way Stats are changed...	
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