Soooo.... Did Wildstar have a sub just to grab money? Or did they naively believe they could survive with a sub and just realized F2P was a better model?
Not accusing, just wondering...
Prior to launch they created a financial model - an equation. They fed in assumptions and it gave them the answer: subs will give you the most money.
The assumptions proved invalid.
The move to F2P is the cash grab.
Having launched they can't go back and start over so. Maybe F2P might have been better from day 1 but we will never know. They have created a new model and "persuaded themselves" that they will make more money than it will cost to keep the game open.
If they didn't move to f2p, then become a dead game the way it was going down, moving to a F2P is not a cash grab, is having the game a future, Sub model not working as they use too there are people out there looks at wow, says if your not in this level of a mmo should be then the game failed, when wow haves 12 years of dev time in it.
Pretty much the bar is to high for a sub mmo to make it and stay that way for not to long.
Well this wasn't a surprise. Once again another MMO making promises about an exciting new MMO with all great features and yet fails to deliver.
Even with the setup where you can either buy the game and be a monthly sub or just buy the game and and buy free time that's sold by monthly sub's weren't enough. I was never sure how the non sub module was gonna work if the monthly people didn't put the stuff on the market was gonna work out.
I'm sure some people loved the game but there's always gonna be a few amount of people that will just fall in love with it over other games that have lasted over the years like WoW or EVE or even EQ even though after many many years they finally went f2p. Problem was and is what's always been going on is too many promises and not enough put into the game.
When I played I didn't like the fact that even though I had all these skillz unlocked I was still limited to the amount of hotkeys I could use. I always hated then when I played WildStar.Also at the very start it was hard to find what was my Primary gun's attacks. Also coming into a area that had an event pop up and not knowing what you're suppose to be doing for that event and then having the pop up asking if you want to give it a try but if you fail thinking of if I can try this again once I figure out what I'm suppose to be doing.
Also I've never been a person that goes out and buys these MMO's when they come out without 1st trying it out, either thru a friend, beta, or trial. It's just too much of a waste of $$$. Even though like say WoW has lost a lot of it's sub base it's still does so much better then these other crappy MMO's that can't even stay alive for a year or so. It just goes to show you how crappy your game is. Even the F2P MMO's that are built as a F2P are ok but yet still can't topple the kings.
I might give it another go. I quit last time because the game lagged so bad and it didn't matter how many players where in the zone at the time.
Also the questing was a bit confusing at times. I don't need a road map, but not giving clear instructions on what you are suppose to be doing made the whole experience meh.
Originally posted by st3v3b0 What about the people that purchased the box and subbed briefly? Do we get anything or just a "thank you chump"?
"You will still receive the DJ Caretaker housing décor item, the Disco Snoglug companion pet, the new housing music track, four months of Signature service, and the "Nexus Loyalist" title."
I got that from their site.
Yes, but you need to keep reading:
If you purchased WildStar but let your account lapse, we want you to come back and get these grandfathered box-purchaser benefits! Players who subscribe by June 15, 2015 and maintain a subscription through transition to Free-to-Play, you will still receive the DJ Caretaker housing décor item, the Disco Snoglug companion pet, the new housing music track, four months of Signature service, and the "Nexus Loyalist" title.
So, you need to resub and stay subbed until F2P to receive those items.
Now all they have to do is figure out how to make the game run on a 6 core NVidia GeForce 650 and I'll finally play the M(*&^%F(*%^&% game (well at least at better than 6fps)
I'm convinced the reason this game isn't as popular as it should be is because everyone that bought a 700$ pc 2 years ago cant play the damn game... if they don't fix this its gonna frikkin fail as f2p too...
Now all they have to do is figure out how to make the game run on a 6 core NVidia GeForce 650 and I'll finally play the M(*&^%F(*%^&% game (well at least at better than 6fps)
I'm convinced the reason this game isn't as popular as it should be is because everyone that bought a 700$ pc 2 years ago cant play the damn game... if they don't fix this its gonna frikkin fail as f2p too...
They fix a lot the problem with cpu, I'm on AMD 6300, befor was pretty laggy at some places, was not like can't play it, just when there to many things going on it droped fps, right now it's less a problem so they fixed it a few months ago thats last I played and having fps problem was not the problem with that game.
But It was hyped more then it was, people bars what a mmo should be was very high, but people forget when new mmo comes it's takes months to fix a lot the problem people didn't like.
This why, don't jump in a hype game, so don't trust alot the big streamer they hype the game even more make people buy the game, then people get upset didn't come out it was going to be.
I just made another free trial account to see if it had been fixed and I was still at 6-8 fps and I play ESO on max gfx except shadows, swtor max gfx across the board, tera max gfx 28fps even in cities and I can go on and on, this game is clearly for those who have superior systems and I believe this is the reason Wildstar hasn't "made it" I think there is a veritable ton of gamers out there (the silent majority) that go back every few months to try it again, see no improvement and cant justify buying a 2k dollar pc to play one game when everything else runs perfectly. I want to play this game in fact i have a lvl 20 char so I know I love the game its just garbage that its only for superior systems... end rant
Now all they have to do is figure out how to make the game run on a 6 core NVidia GeForce 650 and I'll finally play the M(*&^%F(*%^&% game (well at least at better than 6fps)
I'm convinced the reason this game isn't as popular as it should be is because everyone that bought a 700$ pc 2 years ago cant play the damn game... if they don't fix this its gonna frikkin fail as f2p too...
Originally posted by nimander99 I just made another free trial account to see if it had been fixed and I was still at 6-8 fps and I play ESO on max gfx except shadows, swtor max gfx across the board, tera max gfx 28fps even in cities and I can go on and on, this game is clearly for those who have superior systems and I believe this is the reason Wildstar hasn't "made it" I think there is a veritable ton of gamers out there (the silent majority) that go back every few months to try it again, see no improvement and cant justify buying a 2k dollar pc to play one game when everything else runs perfectly. I want to play this game in fact i have a lvl 20 char so I know I love the game its just garbage that its only for superior systems... end rant
Amen! This is why I left the game as well!
I am a 'filthy casual' that plays several different MMOs frequently and WildStar is the one MMO that gave my comp fits. I can play every other MMO on Max settings with zero hiccups -- WildStar was the only issue.
I have since built myself a new PC with the latest and greatest hardware and gave that one to my father; but don't get me wrong, that PC I gave to my father is running the hexa-core AMD FX proc, 16GB or memory, SSD drive for the OS and Nvidia GTX 970 and yet it still had trouble with WildStar.
My new comp is even bigger and better, but I'm far too busy now having fun in ESO, Marvel Heroes, SWTOR and WoW to really be bothered about going back to see if the issues have been resolved.
Judging from your post, Nim, it sounds like they still have their work cut out for them...that's a shame.
Soooo.... Did Wildstar have a sub just to grab money? Or did they naively believe they could survive with a sub and just realized F2P was a better model?
Not accusing, just wondering...
Prior to launch they created a financial model - an equation. They fed in assumptions and it gave them the answer: subs will give you the most money.
The assumptions proved invalid.
The move to F2P is the cash grab.
Having launched they can't go back and start over so. Maybe F2P might have been better from day 1 but we will never know. They have created a new model and "persuaded themselves" that they will make more money than it will cost to keep the game open.
If they didn't move to f2p, then become a dead game the way it was going down, moving to a F2P is not a cash grab, is having the game a future, Sub model not working as they use too there are people out there looks at wow, says if your not in this level of a mmo should be then the game failed, when wow haves 12 years of dev time in it.
Pretty much the bar is to high for a sub mmo to make it and stay that way for not to long.
Absolutely agree about it becoming a dead game - being closed - if they don't try f2p.
It is a "cash grab" however from a business point of view.
WS cost a lot to make; add in marketing, box production, the aim of making a gross profit of maybe 70% ... whatever the target it will have been a big number. And based on the quarterly reports it didn't deliver. For example two-thirds of their first quarter revenue went in marketing. And it has been downhill since.
So internally NCSoft will have "written off" the development costs. And their aim will simply be to cover the running costs and get as much extra money as they can. And if they get lucky maybe it becomes the next LoL. And its in that sense that it is a cash grab. Especially when you factor in that f2p games - usually - don't last as long; e.g. SWTOR revenue dropped significantly in the last quarter of last year (according to EA) so within 2 years maybe.
But - as you say - this is about giving WS another chance. And it may get lucky.
Originally posted by shawnpat Alot of people who have posted above clearly havent played the game lately, its got a good number of active players and improving more and more. I'm sure its the 3 million players WoW lost, lol.
From NCSoft's last financial report WS subs Jan-Mar this year averaged c. 54k without CREDD, less with CREDD. The previous quarter (Oct-Dec) the number was c. 110k - suggesting that subs will have been higher in Jan, lower in March. And the trend since launch has been downward - suggesting that April and May will have been lower still.
Originally posted by jesteralways As if we did not see it coming. Even if they go f2p they won't be able to keep players playing endgame for long unless they change raiding to 10 and 20 men format.
They Did, the 40 man got converter to a 20, they also released a new raid with an easy mode and a hard mode. I dont think they are going to do 10 mans (yet) but they learned their lesson with the 40 mans
I read the list of differences between free and signature players. One big ones that stood out was free players can't create or join a guild.
It said you Cannot invite into or create Circles and you Cannot invite into or create a Warparty if you are free 2 play. What are circles and what is a warparty?
Circles are groups outside of the main guild that you can communicate with think the diffrence between a Free Company and a link shell in FF14.
Warparties are massive PVP teams for the domination maps. 40 man raid groups to do 40v40 in a large scale battle.
This game is FAR from dead I mean since this new drop 5 INVASION I have seen 200-300 people just at the Scorch Wing world boss all at once to get the contract done. The game is growing so fast and now with this new announcement it is going to grow even faster.
There are a few hundred guilds raiding GA and less then a hundred in Datascape and that is because of the lack of raiding community but this game is growing very fast and since they added contracts there is always a TON of people in the main towns of Thayd and Illum.
The game is far from dead and the rut it was in a few months ago was what I would call a dead game but it has come back from that rut and battlegrounds pop all day every day (level 50 PVP) and people are starting to do rated BGs instead of practice for better rewards. The new F2P module will bring back servers or more instanced areas like GW2 because of the player load which will be a nice change so we don't have server lag when 300 people are doing the same world boss.
Excited about the changes and the game is nowhere near dead. The people who say this game are dead were the ones who quit a few months ago. Come check it out and don't listen to people saying "dead game"...
Originally posted by kiive This game is FAR from dead I mean since this new drop 5 INVASION I have seen 200-300 people just at the Scorch Wing world boss all at once to get the contract done. The game is growing so fast and now with this new announcement it is going to grow even faster.
There are a few hundred guilds raiding GA and less then a hundred in Datascape and that is because of the lack of raiding community but this game is growing very fast and since they added contracts there is always a TON of people in the main towns of Thayd and Illum.
The game is far from dead and the rut it was in a few months ago was what I would call a dead game but it has come back from that rut and battlegrounds pop all day every day (level 50 PVP) and people are starting to do rated BGs instead of practice for better rewards. The new F2P module will bring back servers or more instanced areas like GW2 because of the player load which will be a nice change so we don't have server lag when 300 people are doing the same world boss.
Excited about the changes and the game is nowhere near dead. The people who say this game are dead were the ones who quit a few months ago. Come check it out and don't listen to people saying "dead game"...
....in the latest financials it showed that the game had at most 50k players (assuming no cred...with cred, the number is lower). I have no doubt there was a word boss with 200 ppl taking part.....those 200+ ppl were more than likely the totality of max lvl players on your server. When participants of 1 boss encounter consist of nearly 1% of the game's total player base, something is a miss
The limitations on 2 character slots is going to kill the f2p hype before it even begins. That's not enough to test out some classes and race combinations.
F2P players hate these types of restrictions, and it doesn't give them much incentive to buy more slots just to test out another class/race. They will not want to delete their characters for that.
If there's a way to buy character slots on an auction house, then it won't be so bad, but this current system will not work in the long term. I've seen it happen in too many f2p mmos that do this.
The limitations on 2 character slots is going to kill the f2p hype before it even begins. That's not enough to test out some classes and race combinations.
F2P players hate these types of restrictions, and it doesn't give them much incentive to buy more slots just to test out another class/race. They will not want to delete their characters for that.
If there's a way to buy character slots on an auction house, then it won't be so bad, but this current system will not work in the long term. I've seen it happen in too many f2p mmos that do this.
^This.
People crap on SWTOR's restrictions, but pretty much every single one of SWTOR's restrictions can be lifted via unlocks on the GTN (in game credits).
Wildstar is extremely cool but being locked in a sub model doesn't suit me, I want to play and pay when I want. Patching this up now, bring it on!! Really curious about what changed in the last months
After being loyal to carbine, and loving the the live game as it is now, the beta is so bad... They are changing so much of the game it's sad. I have no love for the beta version, and if that's how they are going to release the game for free to play, I see it doing worse than it did in the first place. After the last drop, the game has gotten so much better and everyone that has come back, has stayed and are loving the game. Now the FTP version has sucked the life from the game, and have made it worse than when it was released last year.. In fact the beginning has been been changed so much that it feels rushed and now you don't even learn anything about your path until you land on nexus.
All i I can say is I hope I'm wrong and it does well in FTP because I have always loved the game. However, the way the beta is now and the amount of people on the WS forum complaining about the changes that were not needed and messing up the whole game, I really think it will sink once again... Sad that they had a good story and battle system only to f¥€k it up....
I played WildStar, I loved it, but it did not like me... to be specific my hands/wrists almost revolted by playing this in Beta and early release. I had to quit the game because I literally could not physically keep up with playing this game... but I am old and broken and YMMV applies here for sure.
So, I extend to Carbine and the Players best wishes. I won't be there cause my hands/wrist don't care what a MMO costs.
oh Yeah... and a warm hello to members of Potential Intensity... I miss you guys and gals.
I played WildStar, I loved it, but it did not like me... to be specific my hands/wrists almost revolted by playing this in Beta and early release. I had to quit the game because I literally could not physically keep up with playing this game... but I am old and broken and YMMV applies here for sure.
So, I extend to Carbine and the Players best wishes. I won't be there cause my hands/wrist don't care what a MMO costs.
oh Yeah... and a warm hello to members of Potential Intensity... I miss you guys and gals.
If you are like me and it was the spamming of the base attack killing your hands, there is a mod that lets you assign them the mouse 1and 2 buttons to those actions and you can just hold down the mouse button. Did wonders for me. Plus as I understand, they are putting this functionality in game.
Comments
If they didn't move to f2p, then become a dead game the way it was going down, moving to a F2P is not a cash grab, is having the game a future, Sub model not working as they use too there are people out there looks at wow, says if your not in this level of a mmo should be then the game failed, when wow haves 12 years of dev time in it.
Pretty much the bar is to high for a sub mmo to make it and stay that way for not to long.
Well this wasn't a surprise. Once again another MMO making promises about an exciting new MMO with all great features and yet fails to deliver.
Even with the setup where you can either buy the game and be a monthly sub or just buy the game and and buy free time that's sold by monthly sub's weren't enough. I was never sure how the non sub module was gonna work if the monthly people didn't put the stuff on the market was gonna work out.
I'm sure some people loved the game but there's always gonna be a few amount of people that will just fall in love with it over other games that have lasted over the years like WoW or EVE or even EQ even though after many many years they finally went f2p. Problem was and is what's always been going on is too many promises and not enough put into the game.
When I played I didn't like the fact that even though I had all these skillz unlocked I was still limited to the amount of hotkeys I could use. I always hated then when I played WildStar.Also at the very start it was hard to find what was my Primary gun's attacks. Also coming into a area that had an event pop up and not knowing what you're suppose to be doing for that event and then having the pop up asking if you want to give it a try but if you fail thinking of if I can try this again once I figure out what I'm suppose to be doing.
Also I've never been a person that goes out and buys these MMO's when they come out without 1st trying it out, either thru a friend, beta, or trial. It's just too much of a waste of $$$. Even though like say WoW has lost a lot of it's sub base it's still does so much better then these other crappy MMO's that can't even stay alive for a year or so. It just goes to show you how crappy your game is. Even the F2P MMO's that are built as a F2P are ok but yet still can't topple the kings.
STOP Making MMO'S!!! You SUCK at it!!!
I might give it another go. I quit last time because the game lagged so bad and it didn't matter how many players where in the zone at the time.
Also the questing was a bit confusing at times. I don't need a road map, but not giving clear instructions on what you are suppose to be doing made the whole experience meh.
http://youtube.com/iamstilbon/
I would consider an offer of 20$/hour, no weekends. Waking up and playing WS 8 hours a day though..
Yes, but you need to keep reading:
If you purchased WildStar but let your account lapse, we want you to come back and get these grandfathered box-purchaser benefits! Players who subscribe by June 15, 2015 and maintain a subscription through transition to Free-to-Play, you will still receive the DJ Caretaker housing décor item, the Disco Snoglug companion pet, the new housing music track, four months of Signature service, and the "Nexus Loyalist" title.
So, you need to resub and stay subbed until F2P to receive those items.
Now all they have to do is figure out how to make the game run on a 6 core NVidia GeForce 650 and I'll finally play the M(*&^%F(*%^&% game (well at least at better than 6fps)
I'm convinced the reason this game isn't as popular as it should be is because everyone that bought a 700$ pc 2 years ago cant play the damn game... if they don't fix this its gonna frikkin fail as f2p too...
They fix a lot the problem with cpu, I'm on AMD 6300, befor was pretty laggy at some places, was not like can't play it, just when there to many things going on it droped fps, right now it's less a problem so they fixed it a few months ago thats last I played and having fps problem was not the problem with that game.
But It was hyped more then it was, people bars what a mmo should be was very high, but people forget when new mmo comes it's takes months to fix a lot the problem people didn't like.
This why, don't jump in a hype game, so don't trust alot the big streamer they hype the game even more make people buy the game, then people get upset didn't come out it was going to be.
Amen! This is why I left the game as well!
I am a 'filthy casual' that plays several different MMOs frequently and WildStar is the one MMO that gave my comp fits. I can play every other MMO on Max settings with zero hiccups -- WildStar was the only issue.
I have since built myself a new PC with the latest and greatest hardware and gave that one to my father; but don't get me wrong, that PC I gave to my father is running the hexa-core AMD FX proc, 16GB or memory, SSD drive for the OS and Nvidia GTX 970 and yet it still had trouble with WildStar.
My new comp is even bigger and better, but I'm far too busy now having fun in ESO, Marvel Heroes, SWTOR and WoW to really be bothered about going back to see if the issues have been resolved.
Judging from your post, Nim, it sounds like they still have their work cut out for them...that's a shame.
Absolutely agree about it becoming a dead game - being closed - if they don't try f2p.
It is a "cash grab" however from a business point of view.
WS cost a lot to make; add in marketing, box production, the aim of making a gross profit of maybe 70% ... whatever the target it will have been a big number. And based on the quarterly reports it didn't deliver. For example two-thirds of their first quarter revenue went in marketing. And it has been downhill since.
So internally NCSoft will have "written off" the development costs. And their aim will simply be to cover the running costs and get as much extra money as they can. And if they get lucky maybe it becomes the next LoL. And its in that sense that it is a cash grab. Especially when you factor in that f2p games - usually - don't last as long; e.g. SWTOR revenue dropped significantly in the last quarter of last year (according to EA) so within 2 years maybe.
But - as you say - this is about giving WS another chance. And it may get lucky.
From NCSoft's last financial report WS subs Jan-Mar this year averaged c. 54k without CREDD, less with CREDD. The previous quarter (Oct-Dec) the number was c. 110k - suggesting that subs will have been higher in Jan, lower in March. And the trend since launch has been downward - suggesting that April and May will have been lower still.
They Did, the 40 man got converter to a 20, they also released a new raid with an easy mode and a hard mode. I dont think they are going to do 10 mans (yet) but they learned their lesson with the 40 mans
Circles are groups outside of the main guild that you can communicate with think the diffrence between a Free Company and a link shell in FF14.
Warparties are massive PVP teams for the domination maps. 40 man raid groups to do 40v40 in a large scale battle.
There are a few hundred guilds raiding GA and less then a hundred in Datascape and that is because of the lack of raiding community but this game is growing very fast and since they added contracts there is always a TON of people in the main towns of Thayd and Illum.
The game is far from dead and the rut it was in a few months ago was what I would call a dead game but it has come back from that rut and battlegrounds pop all day every day (level 50 PVP) and people are starting to do rated BGs instead of practice for better rewards. The new F2P module will bring back servers or more instanced areas like GW2 because of the player load which will be a nice change so we don't have server lag when 300 people are doing the same world boss.
Excited about the changes and the game is nowhere near dead. The people who say this game are dead were the ones who quit a few months ago. Come check it out and don't listen to people saying "dead game"...
THIS SCREENSHOT HERE is a 200+ man Scorch kill:
http://i.imgur.com/SMfGbKS.jpg
....in the latest financials it showed that the game had at most 50k players (assuming no cred...with cred, the number is lower). I have no doubt there was a word boss with 200 ppl taking part.....those 200+ ppl were more than likely the totality of max lvl players on your server. When participants of 1 boss encounter consist of nearly 1% of the game's total player base, something is a miss
I want some of what you are smoking.
BTW, grats on your first forum post.
The limitations on 2 character slots is going to kill the f2p hype before it even begins. That's not enough to test out some classes and race combinations.
F2P players hate these types of restrictions, and it doesn't give them much incentive to buy more slots just to test out another class/race. They will not want to delete their characters for that.
If there's a way to buy character slots on an auction house, then it won't be so bad, but this current system will not work in the long term. I've seen it happen in too many f2p mmos that do this.
^This.
People crap on SWTOR's restrictions, but pretty much every single one of SWTOR's restrictions can be lifted via unlocks on the GTN (in game credits).
It's official. Sub MMOs (except for WoW) are truly a thing of the past.
BEST news of the year.
Wildstar is extremely cool but being locked in a sub model doesn't suit me, I want to play and pay when I want. Patching this up now, bring it on!! Really curious about what changed in the last months
oh damn, haha
....
wait I can join the beta at least, I see a beta button
All i I can say is I hope I'm wrong and it does well in FTP because I have always loved the game. However, the way the beta is now and the amount of people on the WS forum complaining about the changes that were not needed and messing up the whole game, I really think it will sink once again... Sad that they had a good story and battle system only to f¥€k it up....
So, I extend to Carbine and the Players best wishes. I won't be there cause my hands/wrist don't care what a MMO costs.
oh Yeah... and a warm hello to members of Potential Intensity... I miss you guys and gals.
sincerly,
Your fellow broken down and old man.