I've only played like 5 hours of it in a previous beta, and I really liked what I played. As far as fairly classic themepark MMOs go, it's gotten greatness written all over it. I think I'll give it a proper shot and put a decent junk of hours into it this week. While unlikely, I wouldn't mind going down the MMORPG rabbit hole for a spell. If only it hadn't opted for the subscription model, I'd had been a surefire purchase.

Give it your best shot!

I don't understand how companies can still launch paid MMOs in the age of the "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament will be free."

How difficult is it to get into this open beta? I registered ages ago for one of this game's testing phases, heard nothing, promptly lost interest.

Well - it's not a pure subscription model either. Apparently you'll be able to pay your subscription fee with in-game currency somehow. Frequent players might be able to get away with paying just the first month, and then switching to in-game currency to pay the fee.

I just think NCsoft's gotten greedy by how well Guild Wars 2 is doing with its economy, and wants to double down with this hybrid model. Personally, I think the subscription fee will hurt Wildstar. I certainly have very little interest in paying a subscription fee, and it will likely keep me from buying into the game - but what do I know?

@giantstalker: Anyone can get in right now, as far as I know. You just head to the site and request a key.

As much as I like the game, it's another game I probably wouldn't pay a monthly fee for. I also wouldn't be playing it religiously enough to be able to purchase enough credd without using actual money. Still, for free until may 19th isn't too bad...

You think they'll end up switching the business model to go f2p at some point?

Took like 4 minutes to get from http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/ to downloading the game.

You would understand if you understood what MMO's are. Clearly you don't if you're making that comparison.

Their business model kind of works like that. Players can sell game time for in game credits, so you can buy game time with in game credits. Kind of like Eve Online.

@bwast: Maybe I don't! The last subscription-based MMOs that I remember have lasted more than a couple years are WoW and EVE, both of which do something unmatched in the marketplace. I'd like to know if I'm wrong, though, so... Could you explain what you're saying?

It seems like a game that's just different enough to be interesting. The combat's pretty fun, and I'm really intrigued by my early forays into the tradeskill systems. I got to 14 or so during the previous beta weekends and had a decent bit of fun, but like others have already stated, the idea of paying monthly dampens my desire to go much further. If CREDD can be acquired easily enough - to the point where I'll still play the game a decent amount, but not devote all my free time to it - it might be worth the pick up.

@zelyre: Do you know if a casual player can afford enough to play for a month? In my first little paragraph I mentioned I wouldn't be dedicated enough to religiously play, so I didn't think I'd be able to afford enough credd without spending actual money? I mean if I could just play for an hour to four hours a week and fund it, then that's not too bad.

I don't know if I want to give it a try. On one hand I'd like to see what they've done, on the other, I feel like the overall cost of playing the game is much higher than I'm willing to go on a game right now. 60 + monthly fee is a lot to ask for a game for me right now. I also didn't give TESO a try for similar reasons. Its a shame because I think I'm ready for a new MMO, just maybe not this one right now.

So anyone have any feelings other than "I don't like monthly fees"?

I have been playing it for awhile and I really enjoy it for the most part. It can get a little bit hectic as you get higher level and I feel the start is a might bit slow but it is a very neat concept with a really cool execution. Also before the "look like wow" army shows up, yeah, it "looks" like wow due to the art style but everything else is pretty much different.

You know what, sure. I'm just going to go into this completely blind.

@karkarov: Its not necessarily monthly fees for me, I was paying a monthly fee up to a month ago for FFXI. I'll probably pay a monthly fee for WoW later this year as well. Its more the combined cost of full priced boxed game and monthly fee, not, "Fuck monthly fees, f2p forever!!"

The way I see it, as somebody who does have money to throw down on an MMO, they're competing for not just my time but also my money. While yeah, they probably need that 60 to make up for people who drop the game before the first month, as somebody who has spent a monthly fee on the majority of MMOs I try I wish they'd take a risk and cut back 15-30 dollars on the chance that more people would buy in and pay the monthly fee going forward instead of collecting as much money as fast as possible. Its just a cold reminder that an MMO is just a cash farm to a lot of these companies. FFXIV came out at 30-40, and was available at heavy discounts shortly after, and if other obligations didn't come up where I had to stop playing I probably would be playing that up to a month ago instead of dropping it during that period and moving on.

I'm sure the game is fine, and if I find time I'll give it a try, but for what I want out of an MMO I feel like to even see it I'll need to commit 60-75 dollars, which is more than I'm capable of gambling right now.

Because there's still an audience out there looking for that experience, and that's the playerbase they've been aiming for with most of their design too. They recognize the fact that monetization affects gameplay and they didn't want to take the game down the f2p road. If the game had shipped as f2p with it's current design it would probably be worse off.

As for the game itself, I like it. It's the first MMO I've played in a long time that understands it's a multiplayer game and focuses on the things that make multiplayer games fun.

Guess I'll stick with PSO2, can't justify paying a monthly subscription fee when that is there for free. But hey I'll give the beta a shot and report back in some time.

This is the fabled wow killer?

I've been interested in Wildstar for awhile - I'd say 4-5 years. However, I think they missed their mark.

Either way, still curious to see how it turns out post-release.

@bemusedchunk: People say that about literally every single new MMO. Every single one.

You mean that Unreal Tournament that just began coding yesterday and is a long way from whether we can even determine if it'll be a good Unreal Tournament or not?

Well I played it for a little while. I absolutely hate the atmosphere and " style " of the game. Early areas are super bland and uninteresting. Game runs like total crap on my good (not really great anymore) machine, but I'll assume that's just 'cause it's a beta. I hope so anyway, 'cause it certainly doesn't look good. Combat's pretty fun as a warrior, I like MMO's that take a more actiony approach to the combat. Will probably play a little more.

I'm the same and its the biggest hurdle I have in trying games is the look. If the look of it turns me off then regardless of if its a good game or not I probably won't play it.

I don't know, to be honest. It's player based economy, so prices can fluctuate. If there's a Elder Scrolls/NeverWinter style dupe bug, the economy will get inflated and it'd be impossible for anyone but cheaters to do anything. That's the worst case scenario.

Best case scenario, as the game starts, money is worth more as there isn't that much out there. As players level up and rewards become greater, the cost of things goes up. Events and the time of the year will cause huge fluctuations as well. Look at Guild Wars 2, gem prices skyrocket when new items go up, because people are trading gold in for gems to get the items they want.

On top of that, you'll have people who play the auction house who keep prices at an artificial level. When Lord of the Rings went free to play, I controlled the bronze market on my server. I did it by buying out every copper, tin, and bronze ores I could buy at all hours of the day. I would then trickle the items back in slowly at prices 10x higher than what I paid.

@zelyre: I figured it'd depend on the economy. But I didn't realize how dedicated people could be with it! I'd be super interested to see how it goes at launch and a couple months after.

Don't be obtuse. MMOs can't have subscriptions anymore because UT is F2P. What? They're two completely different genres. UT isn't going to have 1/50th the content Wildstar will at launch. That's what MMOs do and that's how they work. They have massive, evolving worlds that players spend thousands of hours in. You pay a subscription to gain access to that massive world that they've spent countless hours creating and have the expectation of significant content updates in the future. If I have to explain this to you, you don't know what MMOs are.

The reason recent MMOs have failed isn't because they have subscriptions. Free to play MMOs come and go all the time so that proves that argument bunk right there. The reason they fail is because they don't have enough content, especially at max level. Wildstar has veteran dungeons (4 per faction), veteran adventures (5 per faction), 2 raids (20 man and a 40 man), single player story dungeons, battlegrounds, arenas, warplots (40v40 customisable fortress pvp), world bosses, daily quests, weekly quests, all for max level. When you add housing (the best housing in any MMO ever), crafting and paths (optional objectives that are tailored to how you want to play. If you like lore, be a scientist. If you like killing shit, be a soldier. You also get unique abilities for each like the settler can summon a vendor anywhere in the world and the scientist has a group summon.), you begin realize this game is fucking enormous. And Carbine (the developer) have said they have the next 18 months of content lined up to do significant updates on a monthly basis. This isn't another fly-by-night MMO trying to vulture subs off WoW for a month then go F2P, Carbine have been working on this thing for like 8 years and they've created the most complete at launch MMO since WoW first came out almost 10 years ago.

The one thing people have to do before they decide whether Wildstar is a game for them or not is get to level 20 and do a dungeon. The questing is super generic and boring in the early levels I know but power through, I beg you. This is why I love Wildstar. The PvE is hard as fuck. The first level 20 dungeons have mechanics that are comparable in difficulty to endgame raid mechanics from WoW. No hyperbole, try it yourself. Then you get to 50, do veteran dungeons which are the "heroics" of this game. You will not be able to PUG veteran dungeons. At least at launch. Then you get to raids. After you do an attunement quest, you have access to the 20 man which hasn't been cleared in the 6 months it's been in beta. The furthest any guild has gotten in is the 4th boss. There are 6 bosses, 10 mini-bosses and 5 events which are encounters that challenge you outside of combat, like a movement puzzle. Carbine even recently buffed the raid and many guilds have regressed in progression, meaning they're stuck on a lower tier boss than they were before. In order to even step foot in the 40 man you have clear the 20 man. You are not rewarded for merely participating in this game. If you want achievement, you have to fucking earn it. And if you think they're just going to nerf everything when people complain, Carbine have publicly said many times that they are not going to nerf content - difficulty and achievement is a core design philosophy. Not everyone is going to like the level of difficulty (not to say there isn't easier PvE content like adventures and shiphand missions to do) but I am super excited for difficulty in a MMO again.

My one issue with Wildstar is that there is WAY too much going on. Between quests that are scattered slipshod across the world and your path quests that can pop up at any time, it's all very overwhelming. You never know if you are missing quests, because they aren't consolidated very well and aren't highlighted until you come close. Combine that with a UI that is both extremely small by default and rather poorly designed and you have a game that can be a bit hard to follow at times. As a long-time veteran of MMOs, I've been able to manage so far, but I can't imagine anyone new to MMOs not getting entirely lost.

Also, I may be in the minority, but I don't prefer actiony combat in my MMOs. I think this game does it WAY better than Guild Wars 2 ever did, but it's not something I could see myself sticking with.

@bwast: Jeez. Sorry! I guess my point wasn't that because UT is free, Wildstar should be free - it's that I have a hard time wrapping my head around $15 a month (on top of the initial $60) for a single game when gaming in general seems to be trending cheaper and cheaper. F2P, Steam sales, PS+ Instant Game Collection... But I don't know! Wildstar could be huge!!! And that would be cool too!!!!!!

As someone who likes to play healers in MMOs, my experience with the past beta I was in was positive. It was some of the most fun I've had healing in an MMO format. So I'm eager to try more of the game out.