In all the gajillions of Wildstar videos released so far, one thing has remained a mystery: how will players be funding their journey through the colourful MMO? Will it require a monthly subscription, or will it be free-to-play, or pay-to-play, or pay-to-win, or cash-for-gold? Or, will there be some new, hideous and barely descriptive phrase to explain how you'll buy a computer game? Spoiler: I'm looking at the announcement, and it contains the words, "play-to-pay".
What does that mean? Well, buying a boxed or digital copy will secure 30 days of "free" game time. After that, you could pay a monthly subscription, or you could use in-game gold to purchase C.R.E.D.D.
What does that mean? Basically: EVE's PLEX. You can buy these "Certificates of Research, Exploration, Destruction and Development" from other players, then redeem them for in-game time. Buy enough CREDD, and you should be able to skip the subscription entirely.
So while it seems the primary method of payment will be a user subscription, there is a workaround for those spending enough time with the game.
Wildstar is planned for release Spring, 2014.
WoW's Warband system is getting a facelift soon, with new campsite backgrounds and the ability to sort your alts into cute little themed groups
Fallout's Tim Cain spent 6 years working on defunct MMO WildStar, twice as long as any other game, and thinks that might have something to do with why it failed
