WildStar, the Sci-Fi fantasy MMO by Carbine Studios, will relaunch as a free-to-play version starting today. To kickoff WildStar: Reloaded's launch, a new trailer released on the official Youtube account.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-ln5SVy9Q With the major revamp of WildStar: Reloaded, Carbine Studios added a plethora of changes, additions, and improvements to the game for free. The Cosmic Rewards gives players points for spending money on the game, unlocking bonuses, benefits and cosmetic items. Players will be rewarded for logging in every day with XP-boosting potions, pets, and mounts. In-game events will be coming out till the end of the year, and more are planned after that. The stat system and rune system have been redone to be less complex and easier to understand. The character creation, tutorial, and intro-leveling experience have all been completely redone as well to ideally make the early game play better. A detailed list of changes can be found here.
The trailer centers around 3 of the game's playable races: Human, Aurin (the bunny eared girl) and Mordesh (the taller purple elf-looking man) , but all 8 playable races are shown in the trailer.
The WildStar team first announced their plans to go free-to-play back in May. The announcement also came with it's own trailer (seen below). Carbine Studios spoke on why they chose to move to this model, stating part of the reason for the switch to a free-to-play model came from the team's goal to bring more players in to experience Wildstar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwHbH812WxE When Carbine Studios announced it's plans for a free-to-play launch, they clarified what free-to-play means to them:
Players can acquire the game, create an account, login and play through everything the game has to offer without spending any money, so yes, we do mean free.
That said, we will also offer completely optional in-game purchases that cover a wide range of player services, convenience options, and cosmetic offerings.
We place no restrictions on any of the game’s content. Every zone, every dungeon, every raid, every battleground… they’re all available. All players will be able to create characters of every race, class, and path while choosing any tradeskills they like. Characters can achieve level 50 and path level 30, just as they can under the current system. There are some restrictions on services and social functions, however.
Players who have subscription time left, or will continue their recurring payment option, will earn that much time in the games’ “Signature” status. Signature status means that all Free service content will be available to them, along with unique bonuses and benefits. These benefits include things like 30 active buy bids at the auction house (compared to the free versions 3 active buy bid limit), joining 5 circles (social groups for chatting with friends) instead of just 1, earning 25% extra currency, and being able to invite into and create guilds.
A detailed list of differences between a free account and a Signature status can be found here.
Will you be giving WildStar: Reloaded a chance now that it can be tried for free? Let us know in the comments below!
