BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

How 'WildStar' Transformed From A Subscription MMO To Free-To-Play

Following
This article is more than 8 years old.

When sci-fi MMO Wildstar launched as a hardcore, subscription-based massively-multiplayer-online roleplaying game in June of 2014, it had gamers and critics alike scratching their collective heads in confusion.

Here was an MMO launching in 2014 (2014!) that not only hoped to reel in a sustainable subscriber base in an age of free-to-play online games, but was going to do so by emulating the complex, time-consuming MMOs of bygone years. Casual was in and hardcore was out, and WildStar---which certainly looked fun and had a great art style---was already antiquated at launch.

"Five years ago the landscape looked different," WildStar Product Director Mike Donatelli tells me. That's when Carbine began working on the current iteration of WildStar---the game had been in development in one form or another for much longer---and back then, at least from the developer's perspective, the subscription model wasn't in such dire straits.

The development team decided to build the game with a subscription model in mind, which makes sense given Carbine was founded by ex-Blizzard developers in 2005 (and acquired by publisher NCSoft two years later.)

The End of an Era

"So fast forward five years and we're getting ready to launch the game," Donatelli says, "and then you look at the landscape and I think we were one of just two MMOs that year that launched with a subscription and everybody else was launching free-to-play."

By then, Donatelli says, it was too late.

"Honestly, it's kind of in for a penny, in for a pound," Donatelli says. "We built the entire game to support a subscription model so by the time we were ready to launch and the landscape had changed dramatically, we kind of were in for it. We knew that maybe there should have been a change but it was too late and we were committed to launching the game."

It was only a matter of months before Carbine realized their mistake. And while neither Carbine nor NCSoft will discuss subscription numbers, they couldn't have been pretty.

So the team discussed options. They needed more players and "livelier servers" for the players already on board. The first line of offense was simply more content drops but with subscription numbers still struggling, Carbine and publisher NCSoft settled on what's largely become conventional wisdom in the MMO space: The best way to reel in new players is to get rid of subscription fees and let players play for free.

The transition hasn't been easy. Donatelli says that over 100 people have been working for over eight months to make the changes necessary to transform the subscription-based game into a free-to-play game.

"If you're not building your game with a free-to-play model in place, you could turn around and just kind of slap a bunch of kind of hap-dash systems on there," Donatelli says, "but we wanted to make sure we were doing it right so it's taken us quite quite a while to actually transition."

A Vanity Project

Part of that time was spent figuring out a new revenue model. How do you get people to buy things without making the game unfair or pay-to-win? Fortunately, Carbine opted for an in-game shop that relies heavily on vanity items.

"Mounts and pets and costumes and dyes," Creative Director Chad Moore tells me. More customization than ever before, though Carbine is quick to note that players won't lose the customization they've already made for their characters.

Beyond more customization options, Carbine is including convenience items like instant teleportation, instant resurrection, and XP potions all of which can be purchased using real money, and none of which existed in the subscription model.

And finally, you can grind for currency to make all these purchases as well, meaning you're never entirely locked out of getting all these convenience and vanity items even if you don't spend a penny (though it could take a good long while.) Carbine has added what Donatelli refers to as a "sweat currency" which they're calling Omnibits.

Just by playing the game players earn Omnibits. It just takes longer than buying stuff with real money. "The only thing we're not going to do is sell power," Donatelli says.

Subscribers can continue to shell out a monthly fee, of course. These "Signature" accounts will have some perks---like earning XP faster and having priority in queues---but both Signature and Free will have access to all the game's content.

Courting the Casuals

Other changes have come to WildStar beyond a new business model. The graphics have seen a major overhaul, for one thing. The art style remains intact, but new lighting and detail makes the game more eye-popping than ever. The game looked good already. It looks much better now.

Meanwhile, the stats system has been refined and simplified to appeal to more casual players. The "hardcore" nature of the original release is being pared back.

"Looking at the metrics post-launch you can easily see that players in our game were gravitating toward content that was we refer to as short-session gaming," says Donatelli. That's content that players login and play for an hour or so, have a good time, feel rewarded, and then logoff. That's not like back in the old days, when players would login for hours on end.

"MMO players have evolved," Donatelli says. "They want more of a Netflix experience." Which means logging in whenever you want for however long you want rather than spending eight hours a day grinding.

There's a market for hardcore players, Donatelli believes (Dark Souls is mentioned at this point, ah my beating heart!) but that market and WildStar aren't necessarily a great match.

So Carbine developed more and more short-session content, and Donatelli hopes that the combination of this content, simplified stats, and lower barriers-to-entry will bring in new players and appeal to a wider player base.

A Fair and Compelling MMO

Simplified stats, more accessible content, a brand new free-to-play model, and lots of other things including daily login rewards, tons of new items a new tutorial, all of which has taken months and months to put together, and finally today WildStar relaunches to the public, fully reloaded.

The whole thing was beta-tested for weeks prior to launch, and Moore says they've received overwhelmingly positive feedback from players.

"In almost every case, the feedback on both the improvements we've made to the game and to the free-to-play systems themselves have been positively accepted by our players," he tells me. "Most people just say that the free-to-play business model that we are presenting is one of the fairest and most compelling both for our paying players and free-to-play players."

For me personally, WildStar was a pretty fun MMO with a lot of character---but like so many gamers out there, I couldn't justify the subscription cost and the time commitment that entailed. I haven't dipped back into the free-to-play version just yet, but I plan to start now and will report back as I play.

The gamers I've spoken with who tried the beta have all echoed Moore's claims, saying it's one of the best, most fair free-to-play systems they've played. Hopefully for Carbine and the game's fans that translates into a more robust player base and a successful sci-fi MMO.

"It's been a hard year," Donatelli tells me. "We've worked our asses off to get this thing done but I think it's been worth it."

If you're interested in checking out the game, you can download it free here. You can also check out the detailed FAQ for the game here.

 

Follow me on TwitterCheck out my website