[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[Tryuk]

I enjoyed the non-raid content at launch including housing. How does it look now along with F2P?

2 more dungeons, a shiphand or two (called expeditions now), Arcterra (along with other daily zones), story quests past level 50, a couple solo story dungeons, seasonal/weekend events (most noticable thing since F2P along with Arcterra), and another adventure are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Pretty much all content released since launch has been non-raid focused with the exception of Augmentors, a single boss-in-a-box raid (like Magtheridon or Onyxia in WoW).

[Deleted]

OMG

[Jinxz]

which healer is more fun/efficient to play? SS or Esper? (In dungeons)

[Tryuk]

which healer is more fun/efficient to play? SS or Esper? (In dungeons)

SS is the most focus dependent healer (mana equivalent) while Espers have a lack of movement abilities and single target heals. Personally I prefer SS because I play one -- although I mostly play dps -- but as always it depends on the person. If you don't want to deal with focus as much, Esper or Medic would do; if you squishy tanks are getting the best of you, Medic (primarily) or SS would be better; if you don't want to get cleaved by the boss because you have to sit on peoples faces to heal them then SS or Esper would be best.

There are more differences, but really it comes down to single target heals vs. how focus starved you are.

[Slaughty8]

Yesterday's data: http://steamspy.com/app/376570
Owners: 233,228 ± 11,860
Players in the last 2 weeks: 135,826 ± 9,052 (58.24%)
Playtime in the last 2 weeks: 03:10 (average) 01:02 (median)
Playtime total: 08:53 (average) 04:35 (median)
Hmm, rather short average playtime 1 to 3hours/day and 4 to 9h total. Seems like people are trying it and throwing away.

it's nicely growing, although still there are only 3 to 5k concurrent users. I wonder at what number it will stop, but if the game keeps it's pace it should survive for very long.

[Syri79]

There's probably some people just logging in for the daily goodies and logging back out, which will bring the average login times down a bit

[Deleted]

Yesterday's data: http://steamspy.com/app/376570
Owners: 233,228 ± 11,860
Players in the last 2 weeks: 135,826 ± 9,052 (58.24%)
Playtime in the last 2 weeks: 03:10 (average) 01:02 (median)
Playtime total: 08:53 (average) 04:35 (median)
Hmm, rather short average playtime 1 to 3hours/day and 4 to 9h total. Seems like people are trying it and throwing away.

it's nicely growing, although still there are only 3 to 5k concurrent users. I wonder at what number it will stop, but if the game keeps it's pace it should survive for very long.

The owner and concurrent user numbers have to be exceeding all realistic expectations, especially given the lack of marketing, but we won't know till the next quarter numbers how that translates into revenue.

[Edge-]

The owner and concurrent user numbers have to be exceeding all realistic expectations, especially given the lack of marketing, but we won't know till the next quarter numbers how that translates into revenue.

Owner numbers are not meaningful for a F2P game like that on Steam, it just tags everyone that at any point hit "play", regardless of if they even downloaded the game or not. If it's flagged on your account, you're considered an owner. It's about as meaningful as the, "X NUMBER OF ACCOUNTS CREATED!" number, which isn't super significant either.

CCU's aren't great, either. So far they peaked at 5k the weekend after launch and have dipped down to peaks of around 3k, not great considering it's likely continue to drop if it follows usual player trends for Steam games. Especially if you consider that hundreds upon hundreds of those players are existing players that re-downloaded the game on Steam to leave reviews (the community putting more effort into the Steam launch than Carbine is) and are still playing it there.

I hope I'm wrong and the game has somehow blown up, but all the data we have from Steam doesn't show that. Couple that with the Daewoo prediction of <1B KWN (under $1M USD) in revenue for the next quarter, and it's not looking fantastic.

Micah/Bashiok's snarky, "Steam does all the marketing for you!" comments on Reddit a few weeks back are looking dumber and dumber : /

[Deleted]

Owner numbers are not meaningful for a F2P game like that on Steam, it just tags everyone that at any point hit "play", regardless of if they even downloaded the game or not. If it's flagged on your account, you're considered an owner. It's about as meaningful as the, "X NUMBER OF ACCOUNTS CREATED!" number, which isn't super significant either.

I didn't know that.

Still have to disagree on concurrent users. A game with very low 5-digit subscriber numbers having three till fivethousand concurrent users is definetely seeing some sort of renaissance. Are there some general guesstimates in the industry for F2P MMOs as what the ratio between subscribers and non-subscribers is? Or does it depend very much on the individual game?

[Black Phillip]

Micah/Bashiok's snarky, "Steam does all the marketing for you!" comments on Reddit a few weeks back are looking dumber and dumber : /

Bashiok as in the guy from WOW?

[Edge-]

Did this actually happen? Holy shit O_O

I just spotted WS on Steam and thought I'd nip back into this thread to see how the game had changed/was doing. I'm going to install it either way, 'cos I had fun and I need a fun F2P MMO to jump into for a few hours a day right now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/co...june_9/d402jpz

There's a hint of truth to his comment (better that folks play through the native launcher as Valve takes a 30% cut of all sales through the Steam launcher), but honestly they need the Steam launch to blow up. He latter comments that Steam promotion works through a lot of algorithmic magic behind the scenes at Valve and he's right. But if they wanted to get WildStar in the best shape for a Steam launch to get the algorithm to pick WildStar for more front page featuring (most games get a certain amount of it by default at launch), they'd need to drive as much traffic and attention to it as possible. That means getting some ad buys going to try to drive folks there, doing a PR/marketing push to get some media attention (lol launching days before E3) to both get picked up by Valve (their algorithm apparently factors in press coverage) and to drive more eyeballs/clicks/downloads to the page to try to maximize the number of active and paying players.

But they did none of that (and sent out a media alert that was 3 sentences long and didn't even feature links to any media assets), so the game hasn't really had the best chance possible at success. I know they can't blow up the internet with a gigantic ad buy and a massive marketing budget, but they absolutely could have done more than they have, so far.

I didn't know that.

Still have to disagree on concurrent users. A game with very low 5-digit subscriber numbers having three till fivethousand concurrent users is definetely seeing some sort of renaissance. Are there some general guesstimates in the industry for F2P MMOs as what the ratio between subscribers and non-subscribers is? Or does it depend very much on the individual game?

I'd honestly be surprised if WS had tens of thousands of subs period, between its awful revenue numbers and the fact that in-game census's pre-steam rarely put more than 1k concurrent players per faction, I'd be surprised if they had even 50k active players pre-Steam. As to subscriber/F2P account splits, it varies pretty wildly from game to game from what I know.

The boost in players for WildStar on Steam is big compared to what they had, I agree. But that's like saying that you increased the amount of money you have by 500%! But you only have a dollar. So that 500% increase isn't so hot when you place it in context. WildStar needed a much bigger bump, and unless Daewoo is wildly off (they've historically overestimated WildStar revenue, actually), it doesn't look like Steam is going to deliver that right now.

Bashiok as in the guy from WOW?

Yep, he went to NCsoft after leaving Blizzard and does CM-esque stuff over there.

[Deleted]

Bashiok as in the guy from WOW?

We now have 2 at NCSOFT....no idea if that's good or bad lol ...Zarhym is the other

[Black Phillip]

that guy seemed completely useless at Blizzard. im sure theyre better off without him

[Deleted]

that guy seemed completely useless at Blizzard. im sure theyre better off without him

We are game players....they are all great one day, and useless the next....that's life

[Edge-]

Yeah, saw that. Too bad it's a few weeks after launch and the day right before the Steam sale. Really, Carbine couldn't have picked a worse time to do the Steam launch.

Nice to see it's getting something, at least, even if IMO it is wasted money. Looks like it caused a slight CCU bump yesterday but that's about it. Hopefully it at least got some more folks registered/downloading the game.

Still have no clue how people can watch this stuff though, got a few minutes into it and then skipped around a bit and wanted to throw my speakers out the window.

[RadasNoir]

Hey, pardon the random pop-in, but...I remember seeing talk about new race/class combinations for Wildstar. A quick Google search only seemed to turn up the original announcements for that sort of talk. Is that something they are still working on, or did the new combinations come out and I simply missed where it said that they had?

[Edge-]

Hey, pardon the random pop-in, but...I remember seeing talk about new race/class combinations for Wildstar. A quick Google search only seemed to turn up the original announcements for that sort of talk. Is that something they are still working on, or did the new combinations come out and I simply missed where it said that they had?

Still being worked on (chua warrior and aurin engineer), like the new raid, allowing cross-faction grouping in instanced content, trading amp points/elder gems between characters on your account etc.

Unfortunately, I don't think we have any kind of actual time table for any of that stuff : /

[Kelimbror]

Yeah, communication has dried up a lot. Official forums are the only place for anything concrete and I use the term 'concrete' lightly. I noticed they have a $100 pack on the steam store with a bunch of stuff. It's uhh...I mean I guess the pricing is normal comparatively, but man they should have done a 50% sale during this Steam Sale. The piddly little one they have is not worth it.

[Edge-]

Yeah, communication has dried up a lot. Official forums are the only place for anything concrete and I use the term 'concrete' lightly. I noticed they have a $100 pack on the steam store with a bunch of stuff. It's uhh...I mean I guess the pricing is normal comparatively, but man they should have done a 50% sale during this Steam Sale. The piddly little one they have is not worth it.

They have another pack that is on sale (has fat cat and kitty hovorboard and a few other things), but nothing else. Seems like a waste to not take advantage of the summer sale at all.

But hey, they're still doing the "ask the dev" stuff, most recently one is soliciting QoL feedback from folks. I'd prefer they stick to that rather than posting random stuff in reddit etc.

[Deleted]

So Carbine is joining the list of game companies, by selling out their end game communities!

Coming to WildStar in the next update you’ll be able to rocket to max-level with a character boost! You’ll be able to boost a new character to level 50 with a purchase made directly from the character selection screen. Itching to try one of the upcoming new class/race combos? Boost a Chua Warrior to 50, and in no time you’ll be laughing manically as your space hamster cuts enemies down with a giant blade. Or maybe you’re looking to join your friends at max-level? Boost up a new character and get into high-end zones—like the frigid wastelands of Arcterra—and join them on one of the greatest challenges of all: getting that one person to actually show up for raid night. You know who you are.

Once at max-level you’ll be given a full character loadout of gear and consumables to help you set out on your grand adventure on Nexus. Along with a set of level 50 Assault and Support starting gear, a race-specific mount, and some Platinum spending money, you’ll also get your chosen Path rewards, some Elder Gems, immediate access to housing, and a lot more—everything you need to conquer the wilds of Nexus.

And it’s all just in time for our upcoming release of Redmoon Terror this August, as we challenge players to conquer the most expansive raiding experience ever created by humans, some of the most challenging boss encounters ever dreamt of by sadistic maniacs, and discover some of the most shocking revelations in the rich and ongoing WildStar story ever written by whoever those story-writing guys are.

You can get a first crack at testing the character boost functionality on the upcoming Heroes Evolved update PTR, so stay tuned for details on how you can help us get it ready for prime time.

http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/ne...ro-hyper-jump/