[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[skyburn1]

Well, as long as we still get Wildstar Wednesdays along the way it's all good.

[Delanath]

Not to mention it seems like they have press releases weekly as well. They should be able to keep our collective appetite's whetted until we hear something more definitive regarding beta.

[ShimmerSwirl]

Damn, that makes me a sad panda. I just figured with their now 'announced' goal of this thing hitting in 2013, it means Wildstar is launching for the holidays. Probably mid Nov, early Dec if I had to guess. It seems to do it properly they would really need a beta like...now.

I think they could do it. To compare with another recent MMO, GW2 released 9 months after the start of beta, and Wildstar seems more polished already than GW2 at that stage imo. And that first December GW2 beta was a closed, invitation only event; probably more analogous to the current friends and family alpha that Wildstar has already been doing for some time. Actual open registration and larger scale beta testing didn't start in GW2 until late March, about 5 months before release.

I think they will slowly reveal the unknown classes and races between now and PAX to keep people interested, and then springboard from the PAX hype into beta.

[Delanath]

I think they will slowly reveal the unknown classes and races between now and PAX to keep people interested, and then springboard from the PAX hype into beta.

Sounds reasonable to me new class every two weeks with some other filler in between.

[ZeroWashu]

PvP? Is there PvP, is it consensual or all the time?

[Kelimbror]

PvP? Is there PvP, is it consensual or all the time?

I believe they have stated there will be PvE and PvP servers, so I'm inferring that there will be both. Unless a rush of people come over from WoW though, I don't really expect there to be a lot of life in PvP servers in any MMO going forward. I could be incredibly wrong, but unfortunately a large percentage of the PvP server experience has resulted in griefing and nothing that even remotely resembles PvP.

Especially with this growing trend of games that have free and paid options, people feel the need to assert their monetary status like they are the Great Gatsby or something...Knowingly harming their game and playerbase just for the sake of beings dicks. It's quite sad.

Considering that a lot of effort is being put into the BG type PvP, with all the talk of the feature to design your own map for others to play, I think that will be a larger focus in this game. All guessing and speculation on my part though.

[SirRobin]

Damn, that makes me a sad panda. I just figured with their now 'announced' goal of this thing hitting in 2013, it means Wildstar is launching for the holidays. Probably mid Nov, early Dec if I had to guess. It seems to do it properly they would really need a beta like...now.

More like last year.

I've always felt that the longer the Beta, the better. They've brought up how they like to iterate before. Kind of hard to do that properly with a Closed Beta that is only a few months long. They'll probably still have Open Beta at some point too. So, yeah, to make a 2013 release with plenty of time to bug, balance, and test, all content prior to launch? Well, they're already late.

[Kelimbror]

Well, they're already late.

It's odd how we are all starting to realize the amount of time necessary to make sure a game is that good for launch, but the games keep getting pushed out the door faster. It's a strange disconnect in the industry to be sure. I like the approach some games are taking where you get a live beta, unofficial launch kinda deal, without character wipes unless it is necessary. It probably yields much more useful results from pure data and also from user feedback.

People seem more inclined to hone a game to perfection when they know everything they've accomplished so far won't be for nothing.

That being said, it does seem like the game is far more polished than other games at this stage. Also, Gaffney has mentioned several times his knowledge of the pitfalls of games at launch and also things you can't rush into a game. Given the way he presents it, his knowledge of many examples, and just the general way he speaks I am more inclined to believe he at least knows what he's doing.

It doesn't mean mistakes won't happen, but conceptually they seem to have their heads in the right place. Sometimes that makes a much larger difference than we can know.

[SirRobin]

Well I was in WAR's Closed Beta for two years and it didn't end up doing that game much good in the end. So I shouldn't say a Closed Beta's length is that critical. However, all kinds of odd things can start happening when dev's let us get our grubby fingers on their new shiny new toy. Its takes time to fix what we find and the shorter the Closed Beta? The less time they have to fix possibly game breaking bugs. Hopefully they really do know what they are getting into and have prepared accordingly.

[Delanath]

Well, it's wednesday ... wonder if anything fun is in store for us today?

[Xavas]

Well, it's wednesday ... wonder if anything fun is in store for us today?

Arkship recap probably. I don't expect anything big myself; however, wouldn't mind some 4th race reveals.

[Deleted]

i have no idea why people are worried with lack of official beta.. id much prefer if most of it was done in house. What really needs to be tested by masses? performance issues and bugs.

[Kelimbror]

i have no idea why people are worried with lack of official beta...

Uhh...because we want to play it right meow

[SirRobin]

Arkship recap probably. I don't expect anything big myself; however, wouldn't mind some 4th race reveals.

Yeah, we got a flood of new info over the last two wednesdays. I doubt they'll keep that pace up.

i have no idea why people are worried with lack of official beta.. id much prefer if most of it was done in house. What really needs to be tested by masses? performance issues and bugs.

The fewer the testers? The greater the chance a particular bug or exploit could be missed. The shorter the Closed Beta? The less time they have to fix bugs or exploits. The more exploits and bugs players have to deal with at launch? The more it could negatively impact their experience. I recall a number of games (like AoC) that suffered because, "you only get one chance to make a good first impression."

Of course this doesn't get into all the tweaking and balancing that could be required. We masses can do things in ways that they never expected us to do. While I'm pretty much burned out on Closed Beta's myself. There is a whole new crop of gamers out there that Carbine could tap into to help give WildStar the smoothest launch possible.

Of course Closed Beta's can be double edged swords, so to speak, but they still can be vital to developers.

---------- Post added 2013-02-20 at 10:30 AM ----------

Should probably add to the double-edged sword bit even though most probably know what I mean already. Gamers can be quite passionate about their game of choice. This can be doubly true when its a product they are volunteering their time to test and have limited access to an incomplete product. This passion can become a problem when developers and testers disagree over a part of the design. Despite a possible motto being "just test and suggest," testers can justifiably feel that their suggestions should carry additional weight. Since they are volunteering their time and are potential customers.

In turn, developers can justifiably feel that testers can't see the "entire" design so their suggestions don't take the "big picture" in to account. Just as testers cannot know exactly how much time, talent, and treasure, it may cost to change, or add to, the current design. Their comes a point where devs start replying to just about any bug with "working as intended." Or where a shake up, up top, basically puts the product in feature lock. Similar to what happened with TOR when Gordon Walton "decided" to leave. The developers may even risk some bad press if a tester gets fed up enough to leak, or go public like what happened with Testpig v. Warhammer.

So Closed Beta's can definitely cut both ways but considering how much is often at stake with AAA MMORPG launches? Hundreds of jobs and dozens if not hundreds of millions of dollars spent making them? Well, it makes smooth and clean launches all the more critical.

[skyburn1]

This banner shows seven races.

Source
I wonder who's getting that one.

[Uko]

Wow I didn't even notice that. Call it a hunch but I think the third from the right might be one of the unannounced races.

[Kelimbror]

I meant to say something about that last week, but I assumed everyone noticed that. They look like feral children to me, which would be odd but certainly a departure from the norm. Maybe like lost boys/girls or something.

[SirRobin]

Its Granuk, Aurin, Human/Cassian, Mechari, another Aurin, Draken, and Human/Cassian. They mentioned that they showed Aurin twice in their twitter feed if I recall correctly. The two unannounced races are some sort of zombie race for the Exiles and some sort of short furry gremlin style race for the Dominion.

Here is a purported pic showing the fourth Dominion race.

[Eldryth]

The unknown one is a male Aurin.

[SirRobin]

Still no Wildstar Wednesday update.

I may be going into withdrawals here!