WildStar Goes Free-to-Play September 29

[kitsunefather]

Also... STO's ground combat sucks.
It might have both space and ground, but when one of the two is kinda terrible, it becomes something of a moot point. XD
Also it absolutely butchers the setting.
Basically, it is bound to piss off any die-hard star trek fan because it force-fed bog-standard MMORPG mechanics and economics into a setting where the economics in particular are quite at odds with the setting.
Not to mention giving literally everyone a starship made no sense either.
(it's understandable why they did that, but I think I would have preferred it if they had had the courage to stick with the vision the original company that began the project had; People were ensigns and lieutenants and the like and actually had roles that fit with that. Commanding a starship would've taken a lot of work to get up to, not be something the game just hands everyone)

Shit yes. I actually like STO a lot, but the ground game is stock and repetitive. They've got like 3 landscapes, for fuck's sake.

It's kind of why I've been looking for at the Wildstar ftp launch, but it always felt a little too much like Borderlands for me. From the beta, I always felt the aesthetic of the UI would have been better suited if the story were about a game show or competition.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Spoiler: previously...

Interesting, but I'm not sure if this will save it. I think one of Wildstar's big problems was that it was just too silly and cartoony and thus didn't hit the spot they wanted from players who wanted a more serious sci-fi RPG. I tend to be pretty tolerant of such things but wound up walking away from this one, and from talking to other users and former players I hardly seem to be alone. I don't think it can ever be more than a niche product, and truthfully I'm sort of surprised it lasted this long without going FTP.... that said other than being too silly and cartoony the gameplay is pretty solid, and it has some interesting ideas.

Surely that can't strictly speaking be a pure negative though?
Lots of people like silly.
I mean, when wildstar first started, the race introduction video was brilliant, even if I never did play the game. (my badges might imply otherwise, but no, never played it)

To be honest though, I'm not much for MMO's in general.

Now, sure, if you think you can get an audience that is into 'serious' to play a really quirky, cartoony game, that's probably not going to happen.
But then if you're trying to do that, you are clearly trying very hard to lure in completely the wrong kind of audience.

But it seems a little defeatist to say any such concept is doomed to failure just for existing...

Also... STO's ground combat sucks.
It might have both space and ground, but when one of the two is kinda terrible, it becomes something of a moot point. XD
Also it absolutely butchers the setting.
Basically, it is bound to piss off any die-hard star trek fan because it force-fed bog-standard MMORPG mechanics and economics into a setting where the economics in particular are quite at odds with the setting.
Not to mention giving literally everyone a starship made no sense either.
(it's understandable why they did that, but I think I would have preferred it if they had had the courage to stick with the vision the original company that began the project had; People were ensigns and lieutenants and the like and actually had roles that fit with that. Commanding a starship would've taken a lot of work to get up to, not be something the game just hands everyone)

Well, when making an MMO you want people to play for the long term you need to think in term of mass appeal to people who will keep re-upping subscriptions. Silly is fine with a lot of people, but drives enough off where it can make maintaining a subscription model difficult as we've seen. I'm sure this wasn't the only factor to what happened with Wildstar but I feel it contributed. Also it should be noted that some silly is fine, but there is such a thing as too much and I think "too much" was Wildstar's problem rather than it not being deadpan serious.

As far as STO's issues, it's one of the more successful FTP games right now it seems, but yes it DOES have it's issues. If anything it suffered from being too ambitious and not enough dev time. If someone could take those ideas and say work on a better ground/team management game they could have a winner. Someone who say managed to combine say Anarchy Online for a ground game and EVE or the old "Earth and Beyond" (much simpler) for a space game, would likely have a serious winner. One of the problems with STO, and to an extent KoTRO is that I think licensed settings holds MMOS back, I don't keep coming back to STO because it's trek, but because it's an ambitious and functional sci-fi game that has done things nobody else has even attempted, there is literally nothing else like it. Had someone taken the basic game concepts, a unique universe, and more initial polish, I think it could have been the WoW-competitive juggernaut a lot of people wanted, but instead it was rushed, limited by it's license which came with certain expectations, and is still riddled with problems that have existed from it's inception as a result, it's actually on a lot of levels amazing to see it's lasted as long, and been as successful, as it has.

Yeah, I'll admit it still seems to be going strong, so on some level it's doing something right.

Licensed properties are a bit of a double-edged sword.
On the one hand you have the people that like the setting, who probably have certain expectations because of that.
On the other, you have the ones that like the gameplay, (or some other element that has little to do with the license).

Problem of course is, unless the fans of the licence you are using are numerous enough and interested enough to sustain the game, you end up needing to compromise.
That compromise ultimately makes the game worse both for the fans of the licensed properties (starts diverging from the setting in ways that are annoying), and people that just want a game with roughly that concept and theme. (The license imposes limitations that interfere with making it a better game experience generally)

So, in some ways if you try and hit both targets with a licensed game, the end result is basically a loss for everyone involved.
(And I just realised who I'm talking to. Ahh. Memories. Almost makes it feel like 5 years ago. almost XD)

Spoiler: repetitive stuff

]Also... STO's ground combat sucks.
It might have both space and ground, but when one of the two is kinda terrible, it becomes something of a moot point. XD
Also it absolutely butchers the setting.
Basically, it is bound to piss off any die-hard star trek fan because it force-fed bog-standard MMORPG mechanics and economics into a setting where the economics in particular are quite at odds with the setting.
Not to mention giving literally everyone a starship made no sense either.
(it's understandable why they did that, but I think I would have preferred it if they had had the courage to stick with the vision the original company that began the project had; People were ensigns and lieutenants and the like and actually had roles that fit with that. Commanding a starship would've taken a lot of work to get up to, not be something the game just hands everyone)

Shit yes. I actually like STO a lot, but the ground game is stock and repetitive. They've got like 3 landscapes, for fuck's sake.

It's kind of why I've been looking for at the Wildstar ftp launch, but it always felt a little too much like Borderlands for me. From the beta, I always felt the aesthetic of the UI would have been better suited if the story were about a game show or competition.

No kidding. The ground combat is so unwieldy. Can't make up it's mind what it's trying to be, doesn't really fit the setting that well, and just generally doesn't work.
And yeah... Repetitive is right.
Most landscapes are so easy to get lost in.

I mean, some of them are stunning in places (dilithium mines, if you're in a fleet, the fleet mine in particular comes to mind), but they can be so maze-like. And whatever looks pretty gets repeated a million times until you don't know which way is up...

 

[Tuxedoman]

I for one am looking forward to this, though i'm cautiously optimistic about how well it will do after f2p drops. Honestly, I wasn't aware people had an issue with the cartoony art style. To me it adds its own charm to the game world, and makes everything feel more 'alive' due to the far greater range of motion that takes place. May just be me, but hey.

No, the problem that I -really- hope is properly fixed are the bugs. At launch, the game was a total mess. Even now I still have occasional official addon crashes and subpar performance at populated zones. I'm not talking about 30 or 20 fps either, i'm meaning less than 5fps with a GTX780. Granted this is only at populated world events, but when free to play drops there will be far more people in the world, and these kind of issues may become more apparent.

I love the game. It has neat lore, amazing housing and fun content. I'm not even a part of the 'hardcore' demographic that they went for early on, I'm a full blown filthy casual. But they have to ensure the game is up to par when relaunch ticks around, or they wont get another chance.

 

[Vanished]

I absolutely loved the art style of Wildstar and the personal housing was a blast. My problem with it was the physical pain playing caused my hands after questing for awhile because it requires constant motion/attention. I like my questing a little more relaxed while saving the intense eyes glued to screen for raiding and such. I'm also more drawn to the story and they seem to have plopped the start of it around level 30. By level 20 as a chua I had no idea about my race other than they were insane, I hated the corrupt political church I was fighting for and it was just dull. The green alien guys were humerous at first, but quickly wore out their welcome.

I finally just quit after the first month at about level 20 (It took me a week after I started just to get into it, there were some movement and overwhelming visual issues in the very start that I had to push through). When I found out about the story really starting at 30, I gave it another month. The story drove me to level through to the end and then I immediately quit and uninstalled the game. I miss the characters I made and my little plot of land in the sky, but the game play wasn't for me.

The crafting system was a bit of a love/hate relationship. I liked the idea behind it, but not the implementation. Having the recipe appear on a dart board and then having various parts used move you from the center closer to the target in various directions was a great idea. Having those same parts randomly decide to go too far/close/up/down when the exact same parts worked the last try for the same exact spot was frustrating.