To the surprise of no one Wildstar finally goes free-to-play - Polidicks

I was really expecting the game to become B2P instead of F2P, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people would have bought the game/came back to play it as long as you weren't forced to pay a subscription fee. But IMO they're scared as shit about their subscriptions declining so they're using the F2P model to try to interest people into subscribing to circumvent their tedious shoehorned limitations.

[QUOTE=darth-veger;47824499]-big long images- Difference between Free players and Signature (paid) players.[/QUOTE] You know I heard about the elitism inside Wildstar, but I figured that it was just community and not really the devs. Here I can definantly see that they WANT to foster that Elitism in Wildstar. "Oh you don't HAVE to pay to play. ...But we'd rather you did. :v:" What a bunch of horse turds.

[QUOTE=Fish_poke;47830121]Yes, these totally standard rates on things are as bad as F2P SWTOR, a game that literally won't let you run without paying.[/QUOTE] Yeah that shit was ridiculous but they've fixed a lot of that and it's a lot more reasonable now.

[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;47830283]"Oh you don't HAVE to pay to play. ...But we'd rather you did. :v:"[/QUOTE] That's not really valid though, they're a business and every business needs money to survive. The problem is that instead of letting players give them money because they're enjoying the game, they're aggressively trying to influence their F2P player base by being unreasonable and imposing limitations which shouldn't be there in the first place.

[QUOTE=Maud;47829602]The humor's what caught my attention with this game. Something about it reminded me of Ratchet & Clank, I just wish the Dominion played more on anti-Exile propoganda like the tutorial level. Quests where you had to do stuff like placing eviction notices on simulated Exile shacks as a training exercise were fucking hilarious, but they didn't really show up as much as I wanted. Especially when things take a turn for the serious at around level 40 onward. Also, more MMOs need costume/transmog rules as free as this one. Being able to use whatever you find regardless of armor type or level, etc. It's a shame the dye system in this game is such lazy garbage.[/QUOTE] What makes you say the dye system sucked? I thought it was pretty good. The only other dye systems I've seen just drops the whole piece of armor in a bucket of paint and I liked that Wildstar didn't do that.

[QUOTE=Hanso;47831640]What makes you say the dye system sucked? I thought it was pretty good. The only other dye systems I've seen just drops the whole piece of armor in a bucket of paint and I liked that Wildstar didn't do that.[/QUOTE] Sorry, I should have specified. I like that there's a lot of areas on each piece that you can dye, but in the beta I remember the costume tab not requiring an NPC to access. The biggest thing though is how sloppy and pixelated dying made most armor look. If you dyed something starkly different from its original color, the lines separating the different dyed areas were splotched or jagged. I don't know anything about how it works, or if it's been fixed, but it made the textures look low res and awful to look at. Example thread: [url]https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/90821-does-this-bother-anyone-else-as-much-as-me-dyed-armour-textures/#entry922391[/url]

dev's still havent learned yet have they putting f2p players at the level of sewage won't boost your games popularity as much they should have followed the route that Guild Wars took by making it a 1-time purchase (with the exception of expansions), and give the people who paid subscription neat stuff for their loyalty and their moneys worth, then give people the option to spend their money on cosmetics, upgrades, enhancers, and such.

[QUOTE=SonicHitman;47832284]dev's still havent learned yet have they putting f2p players at the level of sewage won't boost your games popularity as much they should have followed the route that Guild Wars took by making it a 1-time purchase (with the exception of expansions), [b]and give the people who paid subscription neat stuff for their loyalty and their moneys worth[/b], then give people the option to spend their money on cosmetics, upgrades, enhancers, and such.[/QUOTE] They're doing that though. They haven't revealed all the details on it, but they definitely say they're going to do it in the FAQ. And even then, it's not like the devs don't listen. If enough people let them know what's wrong, they'll pretty much always listen. It's one of their taglines for a reason. That said, the F2P in this is more like RIFT or TERA, which have really good free to play mechanics. They're doing a livestream to show the free to play stuff here in about half an hour.

I really enjoyed the combat system as it is extremely refreshing compared to current MMO's but the general world and story was very lackluster. That and the region restrictions that forced you to buy separate copies of the games to play with people from US/EU at the same time. Seeing shit like customer service priority to subscribers in a game is really pathetic though, if I've got a massive game breaking issue or I've been hacked I should not have to pay to get your attention quicker.

[QUOTE=Maud;47831945]Sorry, I should have specified. I like that there's a lot of areas on each piece that you can dye, but in the beta I remember the costume tab not requiring an NPC to access. The biggest thing though is how sloppy and pixelated dying made most armor look. If you dyed something starkly different from its original color, the lines separating the different dyed areas were splotched or jagged. I don't know anything about how it works, or if it's been fixed, but it made the textures look low res and awful to look at. Example thread: [url]https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/90821-does-this-bother-anyone-else-as-much-as-me-dyed-armour-textures/#entry922391[/url][/QUOTE] Oh shit, I never noticed that. It looks like trying to use the paint bucket tool in photoshop. I hope they have fixed/are going to fix that.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47824629]I think the combat is pretty interesting to note. Not a tab targeter at all really.[/QUOTE] I thought the combat was extremely boring which is what put me off of it. I have been playing MMOs for a long time and I enjoy the hotkey combat system when it's done right and absolutely hated the Wildstar approach.

[QUOTE=Dr.Fragg;47832455] Seeing shit like customer service priority to subscribers in a game is really pathetic though, if I've got a massive game breaking issue or I've been hacked I should not have to pay to get your attention quicker.[/QUOTE] At least there is customer service for free players at all.

while some of the heavy f2p user restrictions seem fair, I feel there's quite a handful that are straight up nasty. I'm particularly afraid the 'paid users make 50% more money' bit is going to get it labeled 'pay2win'

[QUOTE=dai;47832713]while some of the heavy f2p user restrictions seem fair, I feel there's quite a handful that are straight up nasty. I'm particularly afraid the 'paid users make 50% more money' bit is going to get it labeled 'pay2win'[/QUOTE] Of course it will, but will it give advantage in PvP for example? As far I know no but then again how does the PvP system work in this game I have no idea. [editline]29th May 2015[/editline] But then again there will be plenty F2P people farming and grinding like no tomorrow and being super traders and blatantly tricking peoples' who pay money out.

you could argue that it's X person basically buying a money multiplier to get the best gear with lower effort or something to that effect BUT, the way the game is, I think it's fair to consider that players who are way into the game and would utilize a lot of those services are probably getting a subscription's money's worth out of the game and they probably won't mind paying up (especially with some gametime cards being dirt cheap to acquire, as darth-veger mentioned in another thread on the topic)

[QUOTE=dai;47832966]you could argue that it's X person basically buying a money multiplier to get the best gear with lower effort or something to that effect[/QUOTE] True and "boosters" are probably considered as norm these days in F2P games.

[QUOTE=Combine 177;47832985]True and "boosters" are probably considered as norm these days in F2P games.[/QUOTE] Boosters are, in fact, the de facto way to do F2P nowadays. TERA's sub service is a huge booster, RIFT's is a booster, this is a booster. It's not a bad way of doing things, especially when the standard rates are fairly high to begin with.

At least they aren't charging you for extra quickbar slots like SWTOR

My question is what happens if you start a guild while subbed, then go f2p. Do you lose control of the guild?

Probably some awkward situation devoid of forethought that is along the lines of "guild leader can't invite, ask someone else from the guild who has signature to invite you".

The auction house limitations seems pretty weird for me - surely you want no limit on number of auctions to keep a healthy in game economy and currency flow.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;47829728]dev 1: "hey, how should we handle our game going F2P? should we look at games like TF2 and guild wars that rely on players buying cosmetic items? or league of legends?" dev2: "nah son, remember kotor online? do what they did and make everything piss and bad for free players so they'll be FORCED to spend money!!"[/QUOTE] wildstar will need to change some of those restrictions or do what some MMOs do, which is give some extra bonuses to f2p players that pay subscription for one month or spend on something. SWTOR can only get away with their ridiculous f2p model because they have an actual decent "single-player f2p" with the story mode and most importantly, because its star wars.