WildStar Online

[FatherXmas]

The subscription is a put off but giving the history of recent subscription MMOs, I expect F2P/Hybrid model is in it's future.

[JaguarX]

The game sounds interesting.

[Aggelakis]

All in all, I'm actually pretty intrigued by  this game...which I will never play. Because NCSoft.

Keep in mind: similar to ArenaNet & Guild Wars, Wildstar, through Carbine, has a buyout clause that allows Carbine to buy the game from NCsoft if NCsoft pisses them off enough. So long as the game doesn't bomb, Carbine can circumvent closure by buying themselves out of their contract.

[Drauger9]

Keep in mind: similar to ArenaNet & Guild Wars, Wildstar, through Carbine, has a buyout clause that allows Carbine to buy the game from NCsoft if NCsoft pisses them off enough. So long as the game doesn't bomb, Carbine can circumvent closure by buying themselves out of their contract.

Nice I wish Paragon would of done that and I hope more studios in the future do this. If they ever do move away from NCSoft. I might give it a shot but I seriously don't think I'd stick with the game.

[Aggelakis]

Nice I wish Paragon would of done that and I hope more studios in the future do this. If they ever do move away from NCSoft. I might give it a shot but I seriously don't think I'd stick with the game.

Paragon couldn't have done this, unfortunately. Paragon never existed outside of NCsoft; NCsoft created it. Carbine existed as a development studio first, and then partnered/subsidiaried with NCsoft. Same as ArenaNet.

[Drauger9]

Paragon couldn't have done this, unfortunately. Paragon never existed outside of NCsoft; NCsoft created it. Carbine existed as a development studio first, and then partnered/subsidiaried with NCsoft. Same as ArenaNet

True I didn't think about that until after I posted it. It's still good though that ArenaNet and Carbine are doing this. Even though GW2 wasn't for me and I don't plan to play Wildstar as long as it has anything to do with NCSoft. I'd still hate to see the community of those games. Have to lose the game they love because NCSoft doesn't feel it's profitable.

[Atlantea]

Y'know, people keep saying that Anet and Carbine have these "opt out" clauses in their contracts. But has anyone seen any direct evidence of them? Some interview somewhere where the Devs of Anet/Carbine mention it? Some page hidden away deep on their respective websites that contains the contract so it can be viewed by people who are interested?

I've never seen or read any part of these contracts, I just hear people say that they exist. Well - where are they?

[JaguarX]

Y'know, people keep saying that Anet and Carbine have these "opt out" clauses in their contracts. But has anyone seen any direct evidence of them? Some interview somewhere where the Devs of Anet/Carbine mention it? Some page hidden away deep on their respective websites that contains the contract so it can be viewed by people who are interested?

I've never seen or read any part of these contracts, I just hear people say that they exist. Well - where are they?

good question but then again lot of stuff have been said to exist and taken as fact.

[General Idiot]

The pessimistic part of me can't help but wonder if all these opt out clauses were just made up by people who play or want to play those games, in the faint hope that they might actually exist and thus save their game from the same fate as so many others.

[FatherXmas]

Both were companies that were bought by NCSOFT. 

Now in ArenaNet's case they did this very early on in NCSOFT's history in North America and while the company was still just Lineage.  It was somewhat of a big deal for NCSOFT because the founders of ArenaNet were ex-Blizzard who worked on such things as Battle.net, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft (the game that South Korea went nuts over).  I can't imagine the ArenaNet founders signing over their IP to a relatively unknown South Korea company without some separation clause about who keeps what.  I vaguely remember a quote from an ANet higher up when asked about the death of CoH said something along the line that it can't happen with the Guild Wars franchise.

As for Carbine, it's the first time I've heard they got the same deal but again, it's ex-Blizzard WoW employees that founded the company.  With the collapse of Destination Games, egg on their face from the "oh he resigned" fiasco and their stellar rep of closing MMOs and locking up the IP (Auto Assault), Carbine may have insisted and NCSOFT may have been desperate enough 2nd western studio developing a new MMO to say yes.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I personally would rather just see a normal sub.  Free to plays don't seem to work out very well and everyone just assumes they are play to win.  The game seems to have some dedicated devs thinking outside the box and I would like it if they could keep enough money coming in to keep it that way.

[Aggelakis]

Mod Hat!

Reminder to keep NCsoft snubbery out of these threads, please. You've been very good about it for most of the year. Keep it up.

[zaprobo]

Thought I'd check in here, since there's been some interesting developments in the WildStar community. Carbine have started livestreaming the game on a weekly basis (they had a hiatus for the holidays but they'll be back at it this coming Saturday).

The most... interesting part though is that a select number of fansite/press-types have been given permission to livestream/create videos/take screenshots freely up to level 15 - with no NDA restriction up to that point.

You can check out the various streams @ http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/WildStar where you can hit up streamers and ask any questions you have.

Alternatively, since I am one of those up to L15 NDA-free streamers (granted due to my operation of the WildStar Central fansite) you can ask me anything you like, too!

[WWE-Tazz]

The live streams are funny as hell. Me and an old COH friend were chatting the other day about how epic the pvp fun was in COH,  I swear this game has that same edge.

[zaprobo]

The live streams are funny as hell. Me and an old COH friend were chatting the other day about how epic the pvp fun was in COH,  I swear this game has that same edge.

I feel that the PvP in WildStar is actually a degree better than City of Heroes. While I loved Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory (not so much Bloody Bay or Warburg - except for the temp powers).

I much prefer the instanced BG style of Walatiki Temple and Halls of the Bloodsworn. They're both very different to other BG's I've played in Warhammer Online (for example). Bloodsworn reminds me of Team Fortress 2's Attack/Defend maps for example and Walatiki is a great capture the flag mechanic (although the map itself is somewhat bland, the option to steal the enemies flags is GREAT!).

[ryuplaneswalker]

So I got a beta key (for some reason I never even heard of it before I got an email with the key) and decided to look up the game, and this is something that is going in with MMOs in general that is really starting to annoy me but why can nobody actually post full class explanations instead of "This is our Knight/Fighter/Warrior class, here are 2 abilities from each spec" and nothing else about the way they work...or any skill trees.

The best way to kill any interest I have in trying an MMO is for me to see your classes are "Tank, melee DPS, Ranged DPS, stealth DPS, support/healer" with no further explanation of their actual abilities.

[WWE-Tazz]

 You have an explanation of the ability if you mouse over it or just read the details. Seriously you are going to come up with a better reason than "I don't want to figure it out myself"

DPS role gets assault powers
Utility is a pool for powers usable in both roles.
Support role (Tank / Healer) uses support powers

You change your stance to make the most of the role you want to play, it's not difficult.



@zaprobo if they get PVP zones like sirens, RV, or Bloody Bay I will get a huge boner.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I would like to know the abilities and how the classes work beyond "Our space warrior dps spec has a single target attack, and an AOE attack", before I spend an hour downloading the game.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I would like to know the abilities and how the classes work beyond "Our space warrior dps spec has a single target attack, and an AOE attack", before I spend an hour downloading the game.

Why?

If that is a concern I will happily take that beta key off your hands.  They are trying to keep the things secret a little bit.  Plus a lot the developers said they don't just want people to know the whole game before playing it.  One of the comments while the game was in early development was they might not even have skill trees(they do though).  Every class has 2 roles they can play

Warrior - Tank DPS
Esper - Heal/DPS
Spellslinger - Heal/DPS
Stalker- Tank/DPS
Engineer -Tank/DPS/(tiny support I think too)

The first step is deciding what roll you want.  Then what class looks like coolest in filling that roll. The rest is for you to figure out.  Its a new game with new classes and they want them to be interesting to people.  If you read some of the developer notes though they don't want just a bunch of clones of the same class.  Example: 1000 warriors with the same armor and same skill sets and spec.  They want each persons character to be just different enough that it feels like your own personal creation.  They also are doing things like changing PvP and raid mechanics on a regular basis so people can't memorize strats.  They want us using our heads as much as possible which I think is awesome.  No more just everyone looking up "Warrior tank build"

[WWE-Tazz]

When I beta tested COH I didn't know crap about the builds or roles, I just got in there and had fun with it. COH was great because it was so different from any other MMO, Wildstar is cut from that same cloth.