Wildstar – Page 2 – MMO Fallout

Only A Couple of Months Left Before Wildstar Sunsets, According To Insider

The wounds haven’t even begun healing from the announcement earlier today that Carbine Studios would be cutting as much as 40% of its work force, and according to insider reports the layoffs are not complete. In fact, if this source is to be believed, NCSoft has already made the decision to pull the plug. According to an article on Polygon, employees were notified following today’s layoffs that more are to be expected in the run up to the game’s closure later this year.

NCSoft later responded to the article, confirming not only the layoffs but that the plans to launch Wildstar in China have been scrapped. Despite this, the publisher is still standing by its claim that it remains committed to continued operations in North America and Europe.

Earlier this morning, Carbine Studios completed a reorganization of its operating structure. Moving forward, the studio will focus on operating and updatingWildStar as a live game in the US and Europe. As part of this change, the studio has canceled its plans to bring WildStar to China.

It’s interesting to note that it was just a few days ago in 2008 that producer Starr Long posted a statement to assure players that NCSoft was still committed to Tabula Rasa before announcing it shuttering later that year. See if you can find the similarities between Long’s statements regarding layoffs in 2008:

“Once all is said and done, we will still have a substantial live team for industry standards… NCsoft has committed a lot of money and resources into continuing post-launch development of Tabula Rasa.”

And NCSoft’s statement to Polygon today.

“As for WildStar, we remain committed to the game. Over the next few weeks and months we will deliver a significant update to the game, kick off a variety of community events, and continue our work on new content that we will talk more about in the near future.”

In my previous coverage of Wildstar, I noted that the game’s future rests heavily on a successful Chinese launch. With those dreams shattered, perhaps the Wildstar community should begin shopping around for a new home.

At this point in the timeline, it looks like the upcoming China launch may be Wildstars best, and only, bet at salvation. Assuming NCSoft is willing to shoulder the title to that milestone, we’ll likely be hearing in 2017 about whether or not this title goes on the chopping block.

(Source: Polygon)

Grab MMO Goodies In New Humble Bundle

The latest Humble Bundle has arrived, this time themed around popular wiki site Gamepedia. Gamers willing to throw in some money will be come out with items for numerous titles including Neverwinter, Dirty Bomb, Heroes & Generals, and more. If you’re not looking to spend a whole lot of money, you’re in luck: The most you’ll need to pay out is $12 for absolutely everything, plus you don’t have to worry about other customers driving the average price up.

For MMO gamers, there are numerous skins and boost packages up for grabs. For everyone else, there is always the free games.

Pay $1 and get the following:

Awesomenauts.
Heroes & Generals Weekend Warrior Pack including 3-day veteran, boosters, and 500 gold.
Dirty Bomb Starter Pack with 5 mercs, 50,000 credits, and two elite cases.
30 day subscription to Curse.
Wildstar Jump Pack with a 16-slot bag, house decor, 5 gold, housing teleport, and a mount.

For $5, tack on the following:

Vertiginous Golf 4-Pack.
SMITE Freya + Pixel Buster Skin.
Neverwinter Humble Pirate Pack with pirate costume and dancing blade companion.
War of the Vikings.
Robocraft (Early access).

And finally, at $12 you get:

Dirty Bomb Humble Loadout with 7 merc cards and case.
Path of Exile Arctic Crown and Cobra Pet.
Life is Feudal.

NCSoft Posts Q4 Report: Wildstar Revenues Climb

NCSoft has posted their fourth quarter reports for 2015, and the results are a general mixture of the good and the bad. As you can see from the chart above, while figures were pretty solid across the board over the third quarter, revenue and profit dropped notably over the same period last year. NCSoft pits the majority of the loss on overseas royalties, but that overall the company is growing in profit thanks to a balanced growth from overall IPs.

On the games front, every single title in NCSoft’s library saw growth in the last quarter, including Wildstar. Lineage and Lineage 2, as well as Blade & Soul, grew thanks to content updates and strong in-game item promotions. Guild Wars 2 drove in plenty of new revenue thanks to the sale of Heart of Thorns.

Thank you to NCSoft for plotting out each game on an individual basis, it saves me a lot of time. As you can see from the chart above, while Wildstar’s income grew in the first quarter of free to play, it didn’t grow all that much. Revenue is still far down from where it was when the game launched, and it brought in only $2.23 million USD in its initial free to play rush.

At this point in the timeline, it looks like the upcoming China launch may be Wildstars best, and only, bet at salvation. Assuming NCSoft is willing to shoulder the title to that milestone, we’ll likely be hearing in 2017 about whether or not this title goes on the chopping block. As for Guild Wars, it looks like the Heart of Thorns quarter brought in a bump of $14 million. According to the earnings call itself, while sales were good for Heart of Thorns, they did fall below expectations. This lines up with earlier predictions of Daewoo Securities that Heart of Thorns would sell less than expected.

The first quarter earnings for NCSoft won’t be out for another few months, but they will have some very important information going forward: How has Blade & Soul fared with its western launch? How will Wildstar hold up after its free to play transition?

Chad “Pappy” Moore Takes Lead Of Wildstar

Carbine Studios’ own Chad “Pappy” Moore has announced that he is taking the reigns as the new game director, filling in the spot previously held by Mike Donatelli. Moore has been with Carbine Studios for quite a while, previously holding the position of lore expert. In the most recent blog post, Moore gives a summary of the past year of updates to Wildstar, including its transition to free to play, and gives an idea on what’s on the road ahead.

The next update, Destination Arcterra, introduces a new zone, new game mechanics, and a bunch of new quests and rewards. But that’s not all Wildstar has to offer this year:

Later this year players will find themselves in the Halon Ring, an asteroid belt around planet Nexus that is home to outlaws, marauders, and other unsavory individuals. Anything can happen in the Halon Ring, and it probably will. And speaking of marauders, we just announced that the next major raid in WildStar will be the Redmoon Terror. This is an incredible new raid, and although it won’t be going live with Destination Arcterra, we want to get some early testing of it done during the Arcterra PTR so we can get lots of feedback from our dedicated raiding community before its release.

Carbine Studios continues to work with Giant Interactive on the Chinese launch of Wildstar, which may be just the market that the game needs in order to truly thrive. MMO Fallout is expecting that the latest quarterly report, covering both Wildstar’s business transition and Heart of Thorns, to drop within the next few days.

(Source: Wildstar)

Wildstar Teases New Content

Wildstar’s next content release has been confirmed as Destination Arcterra. In this release, players will be tasked with heading off to one of planet Nexus’ more mysterious locations. The zone offers dynamic content, such as powerful bosses that only appear once their lesser counterparts are defeated. Both factions will also fight it out for exclusive access to a secret dungeon. For the story mode adventurers, Vault of the Archon continues the Nexus Saga, playable solo or as a group.

Keep your eyes open for further updates on even more exciting things happening during Destination Arcterra and beyond—including information about everyone’s favorite Lopp fortune teller, tidbits about undead zombie pirates, and protips about how to make your most awesome gear even awesomer. Stay tuned!

You can check out the full release announcement, as well as check out more screenshots, at the link below.

(Source: Wildstar)

Daewoo Securities Predicts Doom For Wildstar

Wildstar’s transition to free to play came on the heels of the game dipping down into virtually negligible revenues, $1.5 million as of the third quarter, and everyone wants to know how well free to play has treated the title. We won’t know the real figures until next month, but Daewoo Securities has issued a new forecast predicting that even a shift to free to play won’t be enough to save the sinking ship.

Daewoo predicts zero turnaround for Wildstar, with Q4 revenues remaining flat and continuing to decline over the following months. For the fourth quarter of 2016, the company either predicts a statistically negligible amount or that the game will no longer be in operation. In addition, they predict that Heart of Thorns, the Guild Wars 2 expansion, has sold less than expected.

We expect NCSOFT to report slightly disappointing earnings for 4Q15, due to 1) weaker-than-projected sales of the Guild Wars 2 expansion pack, 2) a lower-thanexpected increase in revenue from Lineage I microtransaction events, and 3) higher expenses related to marketing (G-Star trade show) and the company’s pro baseball team. We forecast 4Q15 revenue of W236.1bn (+0.4% YoY) and operating profit of W70.8bn (-19% YoY).

We’ll know how accurate this prediction is once NCSoft files their full report next month. Daewoo Securities correctly predicted that a Guild Wars 2 expansion would be released in Q3 2015 for $50 when neither a price nor even the existence of an expansion had been announced by Arenanet. Considering the accuracy of their predictions, I lean toward believing their sources.

(Source: Daewoo Securities)

Wildstar Free To Play Won’t Be Reflected In Next Report

The latest news to come out of Carbine Studios is that Wildstar will officially launch as free to play on September 29th. With the third quarter financial reports expected to release at some point in mid-November, now is a good time to point out that Wildstar will very likely show a continued dip in sales. The reason for this is that, while quarterly finance reports aren’t released until November, the period that the third quarter covers falls between July and September.

What does this mean for you? Not a whole lot. For NCSoft and Wildstar, it means that any revenue increases that come after the free to play transition won’t be reflected until the fourth quarter finances are released in February 2016. A small but important distinction to make when NCSoft releases their report later this year.

More coverage to come as events transpire.

Wildstar Free To Play Transition Accompanied By New Content

Wildstar is heading free to play this year and eyeing a Chinese launch, but before that happens Carbine Studios wants to detail a few changes that are coming.

“WildStar going free-to-play is so much more than a new business model”, said Mike Donatelli, product director at Carbine Studios. “We’re also introducing a massive game update full of new features and quality of life improvements. It’s going to be a fun environment for new players to join and we’re also going to do right by the players who have been with us since the beginning”.

A new rewards system will allow players to obtain points for making NCoin purchases, buying subscriptions, and redeeming CREDD. The reward system is retroactive, providing points to anyone who had previously invested in Wildstar. New players will be greeted by a revamped tutorial and new game experience, with options based on the player’s prior knowledge of MMOs. The way equipment works will change, with certain stats (brutality, finesse) being removed and replaced by other new primary stats (assault, support, health, armor).

Also accompanying the updates are changes to dungeons, splitting them into separate level tiers, and new content areas for PvE and PvP.

Look for these updates, and more, later this year.

(Source: NCSoft press release)

Nab Wildstar For $1 On The Humble Bundle

Wildstar won’t be going free to play until later this year, but you have the opportunity to get your hands on a digital copy of the game for just $1. As part of the Humble Bundle, all you need to do is meet the $1 minimum to receive the Wildstar standard edition plus a ton of other games. Pay more than the minimum and get more.

If you need a reason to pick the game up now, consider this: Those who “own” the game before it goes free to play will have preferred status, giving a number of bonuses over other non-subscribed players.

(Source: Humble Bundle)

Wildstar Confirms Free To Play This Autumn

Carbine Studios has officially announced that Wildstar will be heading free to play this Autumn. Details are sparse at the moment, however players will be able to play through “everything the game has to offer without spending any money, so yes, we do mean free.”There are social and other limitations to free accounts however, mostly related to guilds, the auction house, etc. You can find the FAQ here, however Carbine promises that players will not be content locked behind a paywall.

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, as noted in the table below.

Wildstar transitioning to free to play has been a long time coming, with the game reporting a major loss in players and revenue over the past few quarters. With release in the fall, Carbine Studios will have to weather a few more quarters of poor performance before the game sees its influx of free players.

(Source: Massively)

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