WildStar allows buying subscription time with in-game gold

Carbine's WildStar is an interesting one, seeming not to particularly innovate but refining and bringing together lessons learned from the past decade of MMORPGs. Publisher NCsoft today revealed it'll charge monthly subscription fees, but with a twist picked up from EVE Online: players can buy time cards with in-game gold.

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Carbine's WildStar is an interesting one, seeming not to particularly innovate but refining and bringing together lessons learned from the past decade of MMORPGs. Publisher NCsoft today revealed it'll charge monthly subscription fees, but with a twist picked up from EVE Online: players can buy time cards with in-game gold.

As with all these subscription-y things, it'll come with 30 days of game time in the box. From there, you can get extra time by paying for a monthly subscription, or by buying a single 'C.R.E.D.D.' 30-day time card for real money from Wildstar's website. And it's these C.R.E.D.D.s that people can then sell in-game for virtual cash.

"So for those of you who don't want to pay a subscription fee: you can use your first month of gameplay to earn gold while playing WildStar. When the next month comes around, instead of paying the monthly subscription fee, you can use gold earned in-game to purchase C.R.E.D.D. from other players," executive producer Jeremy Gaffney said in the announcement.

This does rely on people buying cards with real cash to sell for make-believe money, but as the sellers get to name the price, the market should settle on an amount worthwhile for both sides.

Gaffney added, "We see this as a safe and secure way for players who want to buy gold to have a way of getting some in-game cash without funding gold farming outfits and all the hacking and scamming that can entail." Everybody wins!

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  • reply
    August 19, 2013 10:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Wildstar allows buying subscription time with in-game gold.

    Carbine's WildStar is an interesting one, seeming not to particularly innovate but refining and bringing together lessons learned from the past decade of MMORPGs. Publisher NCsoft today revealed it'll charge monthly subscription fees, but with a twist picked up from EVE Online: players can buy time cards with in-game gold.

    • reply
      August 19, 2013 10:50 AM

      A monthly sub MMO in 2014? I thought this crap was over.

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        August 19, 2013 11:14 AM

        Have you seen some of the new MMO's that have micro transactions?
        (Planetside 2 and Neverwinter come directly to mind)
        They are so annoying. I would gladly pay a smaller monthly fee than being bottlenecked and nagged every few minutes to buy something.

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          August 19, 2013 11:23 AM

          [deleted]

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          August 19, 2013 11:31 AM

          What rubbed you the wrong way about PS2?

          I'm not saying it's perfect, but outside of a few key weapons that should probably come as standard I think it does a great job with the F2P business model.

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          August 19, 2013 1:51 PM

          Guild Wars 2 is doing pretty good. They make money from cosmetics and update the game every 2 weeks.

          Valve is doing something similar with TF2 and DotA 2.

          Subs should be gone.

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            August 20, 2013 12:47 AM

            I'd rather have ALL the cosmetic things with a monthly fee than pay for them or not have them at all.

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          August 19, 2013 3:18 PM

          Add Dragons Prophet to the list of annoying F2P MMOs. I could put up with a lot of the stuff, but the charge to un-teach your dragon skills, which were learned randomly, was too much.

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        August 19, 2013 3:13 PM

        [deleted]

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        August 20, 2013 12:35 AM

        Monthly subs give the best possible experience and the best end game content.

        Free to play is not really free at all, i'd rather pay $12 monthly and have the full glorious game than have to pay even more money for a bunch of little things or not pay anything and have a lesser quality game.

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      August 19, 2013 11:20 AM

      Lessons learned from the past decade except for the one about monthly subs consistently failing unless you are Warcraft. EVE gets away with it because there is absolutely nothing else out there approaching it... Wildstar does not appear to be an EVE.

      I'm surprised... considering it's NCSoft, I was kinda expecting the GW model, since that seems to have worked out pretty well for them.

      At any rate, I'm going to go ahead and assume there is a team over there somewhere already working on the inevitable free-to-play transition. :P

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      August 19, 2013 2:08 PM

      I was excited for this game, but I guess I'll just wait the standard 6 months until it goes F2P. The only MMO customers in the world that are willing to pay $15/month for a game are already playing WoW, and it has been proven at this point that WoW gamers won't pay for any other games. I'm surprised that any company would intentionally stumble out of the gate like this.

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      August 19, 2013 2:49 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 19, 2013 2:53 PM

      I wonder if, like in EVE, they will allow the reverse as well; wherein you can sell game-time cards for in-game currency -- essentially legitimizing goldselling.

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        August 19, 2013 3:14 PM

        Evidently I am retarded and incapable of reading simple text: "And it's these C.R.E.D.D.s that people can then sell in-game for virtual cash."

        It's an interesting idea and it's seemed to work fairly well in EVE from what little experience I've had there.

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      August 19, 2013 2:54 PM

      [deleted]

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        August 19, 2013 3:06 PM

        i agree with you. i am pro MMO sub fee as well. keeps the riff raff out of my games!!

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        August 19, 2013 3:14 PM

        [deleted]

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        August 19, 2013 3:17 PM

        Me too. $15/month for the amount of enjoyment you get from a good MMO is a steal.

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        August 19, 2013 4:43 PM

        agreed completey and utterly.

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        August 19, 2013 8:29 PM

        Yup. I'm cool with subs if I feel the game is worth it.

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        August 19, 2013 9:04 PM

        I'm the exact opposite. I no longer have the free time to sink into MMO's that would justify the monthly sub, so their just a barrier of entry for me.

        I love being able to fire up GW2 and PS2 whenever I want and never have to worry about a monthly sub. If I spend money in their marketplace it's usually because I'm drunk for some dumb cosmetic item that I didn't need at all.

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      August 19, 2013 3:16 PM

      I'll check it out when they convert to F2P after a year.

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      August 20, 2013 12:46 AM

      Think I'm going to be too busy playing FFXIV: Realm Reborn. What a comeback that game made from what it used to be. After the beta, I went from not interested to it's all I can think about.

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