Wildstar MMOG Launches Open Beta
Here's a chance to sample Wildstar.
Look out Blizzard. NCSoft and Carbine Studios are looking to rain on your World of Warcraft parade with the open beta launch of Wildstar, an upcoming action-adventure sci-fi MMOG. The game doesn't officially open its doors for business until June 3, giving potential customers ten days to get acquainted with the new landscape and lore.
"Set on the legendary planet Nexus, WildStar is a sci-fi MMO that has gained popularity for its wildly entertaining personality," reads the game's description. "The game gives players the freedom to play the way they want to play via the game's unique Path system, while mixing humor and whimsy with a novel approach to combat."
Senior sales manager Simon Cowley recently told MCV that based on the feedback from the pre-orders and closed beta, the game should sell extremely well. He even went so far as to say Wildstar will be one of the biggest games of 2014 -- one of the pillar PC releases this year.
"It's a key release for the summer period. Guild Wars 2 showed there is great passion for high quality MMOs from UK consumers, both online and in stores and we expect WildStar to continue that trend," Cowley said.
Over on GameSpot, Wildstar producer Stephan Frost called the game "one of the most feature-complete MMOs" in the last decade, and defended the need to have a monthly subscription. He says that Wildstar is a triple-A game, and even compares the MMOG with HBO, which is a premium channel that costs cable subscribers a little extra each month.
"HBO, for example, is premium content. It has great shows like Game of Thrones and True Detective. They don't charge extra for those things; they're just charging that sub fee and people gladly pay it because it's good. If it wasn't good, they wouldn't pay for it," Frost said.
According to the press release, the level cap has been raised from 25 to 30. There are also exclusive goodies that are only claimed in the open beta such as an exclusive costume and "free boxes full of awesome" when logging in each day. Potential customers who pre-purchase the game will also receive a special Rocket House, an exclusive in-game title and an exclusive housing trophy.
Wildstar can be purchased here at $59.99 for the Standard Edition, $74.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition, and $15.00 for the Deluxe Upgrade. To get into the open beta, head here.

The "new" MMO would need to have one hell of a pull for that to happen, and to be honest, Wildstar is not publicised enough nor innovative enough that I am aware of, which amounts to not existing in hardened MMO minds.
whats worst, is that they want $15 a month on top of the insane initial purchase price, all for what is essentially poorly thought out quests, and lots of grinding.
Graphics are nothing great but the zones are well designed.
ps:when some game publisher/developer will think that they will have a way to get blizzard customers , blizzard will throw out on the table Titan.
So dont worry, Blizzard knows how to keep their pockets full...
Yes, all us MMO players fear the day when combat becomes more intuitive and fun................. If you like this game, thats great, but I feel like your setting your standards a bit low without even knowing it, which is sad...double sad. Personally im turned off by the sort of random cartoony art direction alone, but the game play looks horrid and about as interactive as guild wars 2. I would play ESO before this and that sez A LOT lol.
yes im glad star citizen tries hard to not fit the standard mold of most MMO games, but u will notice it is still a massively multiplayer online game.
Everyone says the combat is new and different while it's not, its basically an aoe attack for everything. Its another grindy, theme park mmo.
yes im glad star citizen tries hard to not fit the standard mold of most MMO games, but u will notice it is still a massively multiplayer online game.
a) it has single player. b) it has private multiplayer. c) it has instanced systems in the persistent universe, so you can't fleet battle like in EVE making it far less than "massive" for its spaceflight sub genre.
All three of these things work against calling Star Citizen an MMO. It's a multiplayer game, and you interact with people, and the universe doesn't reset when you log out.
It has MMO elements to it, sure, but so do games like Dark Souls and Diablo III, neither of which is an MMO.
Not every game with multplayer is an MMO. MMOs are online-only games where truly massive numbers of players (not 64 or 128 or whatever, but multiple hundreds and on into into thousands) can interact with each other in a persistent environment.
It doesn't have to be an RPG to be an MMO, but PlanetSide had hundreds of players shooting. EvE has fleet battles of hundreds to thousands.
Star Citizen should be a good game. (I pledged during the original Kickstarter. I follow dev mails. I have my alpha hanger software installed.) But the fact that it will be a good game and that part of it is persistent with limited players doesn't make it an MMO.
haha wtf. your thinking way to deep into this buddy. It is an MMO in the sense that hundreds of thousands of players will exist in the same persistent universe ppperriood. Massively multiplayer online is all that means. Players can shape the universe via exploration, trade etc. Just because you can only fit 100 people in an instance of a star system doesn't mean the game is incapable of being an MMO. Also, there are plenty of standard MMO's that include instancing. Star Trek Online?
Your obviously a proud citizen, so you probably know they have not decided exactly how instancing will work or how many players can be present. I get that your a huge SC fan and probably don't want it depicted as an MMO, but it is what it is my friend. The PU, by definition IS an MMO, but it strives to be better than the standard mold of an MMO which you have hard coded into your brain, which is EVE etc. thousands of players being able to meet face to face to face rape each other in slow motion...yes this is eve null sec lol. I guess it all depends on your definition of massive. The SC PU feels pretty massive, interactive and dynamic to me, without being sh!tty like eve or STO.