Monday 31 August 2015

New game, new name.

I recently scored a key to participate in Wildstar's Closed Beta Testing program (or, as they call it CBT; which I really wish they wouldn't, as that initialism has other, much less family-friendly, connotations to me).

For those who don't know; Wildstar is adopting a free-to-play model. This move seems to have garnered Carbine some serious goodwill in their community (which kinda runs contrary to what I remember of SW:ToR's transition). When the F2P model is launched, the game is undergoing some fairly large changes to complement it. Hence the beta testing.

This isn't my first experience with Wildstar. I bought the game at release, and duly paid my sub for a few months. I let it lapse, however, as I couldn't afford to pay two subscriptions (I was saving for a house) and I was still very much in lurve with SW:ToR. At the time, Wildstar being free-to-play would have been the perfect solution.

All things change, however, and since then, my passion for SW:ToR has waned slightly (although I am still very keen to see how the 4.0 expansion literally changes the game) and F2P Wildstar is now a thing (or soon will be).

And so I now find myself thoroughly enjoying Wildstar again, logging in every day (and not just for the new daily login rewards) in lieu of SW:ToR.

Which brings me to the title, and point, of this post; since I'm going to be keeping an active account with Wildstar (even if it is only a freemium one), the focus of this blog needs to expand to accommodate it. Goodbye 'Respec'd Legacy', hello 'MMO MO'.

Postscript: I'm also finding myself, at the insistence of a trusted friend, seriously considering trying out a WoW Starter Edition account. But I don't know if my gaming schedule can support three games unless I'm super casual with all of them. Which I'm fine with but it may preclude WoW from being a staple as there's no ongoing free accounts (Starter Edition accounts are capped at level 20). So I'd need to sub if I wanted to continue beyond that. Which I'd be hesitant to do if I was spending my time jumping between three different MMOs.