Wildstar might turn out to be the only MMO worthy of the designation ‘WoW clone’ – a hoverboard-powered attempt to rejustify the subscription from a team of former Blizzard designers at Carbine. It’s out before the Summer, on June 3.
Pre-orders for Wildstar will begin next week, on Wednesday March 19. That’ll set you back about £34.99 for the box, which comes loaded with the customary 30 free days of rootin’, tootin’ and lootin’.
After that, you’re lumbered with a monthly $14.99 / £8.99 subscription – almost unheard of in a contemporary MMO. It’s worth noting, though, that Wildstar employs an Eve-like currency system that allows enterprising players to drift through the game free of charge.
Like Eve’s paid-for PLEX currency, Wildstar’s CREDD can be acquired from other players for in-game gold on Wildstar’s Commodities Exchange – and then converted into game time.
The exact exchange rate will be settled by the community, but Carbine expect dedicated players will have enough gold – and consequently CREDD – to put off paying next month’s sub forever.
“One of the things I like most about [CREDD] is that it gives you options,” Wildstar exec producer Jeremy Gaffney told PCGN last year. “One of the things that we think strongly is that people tend to hate business models more than they tend to like them.
“People have been either burned by a free-to-play game or they’ve been burned by a subscription game. You’ll see a lot more opinions on the internet saying ‘Oh my God this is a pain in my butt’ than you are saying ‘I love this’.”
CREDD or no, do you think you’ll buy into Carbine’s cartoon sci-fi world in June? Our Steve thought a lot of it in his Wildstar hands-on.