Opinions on WildStar are largely divided. On the one hand, we have players – fans as they like to refer to themselves as, claiming the game was the best thing since chocolate. Then we have the other players, who were just too casual to never really give it a chance.
And you know what both types of players have in common? Neither category of player played the actual game, contributing to the closure of the title.
Yup, today, we’re delving into WildStar in the very first episode of “the Evolution of an MMO!” If you enjoy the content, consider subscribing! That way you can stay up to date with all of this, help the channel grow, and never miss a video! Plus you get a cookie. And everyone loves cookies.

WildStar had the potential to be an incredible MMO. It had an engaging story, a beautifully crafted world, an amusing sense of humor that really didn’t take itself very seriously, fun PvP, intuitive dungeons and raids, fantastic combat and didn’t cater to the casual gamer at the time.
By any logical train of thought, this should’ve been a huge success, right?
The history of WildStar is a little foggy. On record, WildStar began development all the way back in 2005, after 17 developers decided they’d garnered enough experience working at Blizzard Entertainment, and now wanted to channel their creative juices into something that they had more control over, resulting in the founding of Carbine Studios.
They went on to state – and I quote here – they desired to “do anything but WoW.” They general consensus was that the team was happy to no longer be working on the MMO, instead, being able to start over from scratch. This time, not falling victim to the mistakes they made when they were actively developing WoW.
While evidently they made countless mistakes with WildStar, it is never a bad idea to attempt to branch out and reinvent yourself or your creative ideas.
Now it’s worth noting that several “developers” that worked on the game have come forward and made public statements concerning when the game had began the development process, leading us to believe that it had a much longer cycle than we would have otherwise thought.
But you have to take claims like that with a grain of salt, really, as there’s no evidence corroborating their statements.

After forming Carbine Studios, they ran into the first small hiccup: Game engine. While they had a vision for their game, a clear direction they wanted to take it, bringing that vision to life would be troublesome without the correct game engine.
There were multiple options available to develop their game on, but Carbine revealed none of them really provided them not only the freedom they required, but also the option of scaling in the future if and where necessary.
After contemplating the options at their disposal, it was concluded that nothing on the market would allow them to create what they envisioned. It was with this in mind that they opted to create their very own engine from the ground up, providing them all the freedom they needed in the long-term.

Development continued to move forward between 2005 and 2007, with 2 years passing since Carbine’s developers had left Blizzard, when it was revealed by NCSoft in 2007 that not only had the South Korean company acquired the new studio, but they were also in the process of developing a new, at the time unannounced MMO project.
Time continued to pass on by, with the game undergoing various overhauls until NCSoft decided to officially reveal a version of the game they had come up with at Gamescom 2011.
They confirmed that the new MMO would be utilizing a subscription-based business model much like World of Warcraft, requiring players not only purchase the base game, but pay a monthly fee to continue playing.
And while players could pay for their subscription via normal means, there was an alternate method in place that some of you might find familiar. If you’re an active WoW player, or have played WoW at all in the last several years then you’ll recognize the WoW Token.
This is an item you can purchase from the cash shop that provides you 30 days in-game play time. These are sellable in-game, allowing for players to purchase a subscription with in-game gold. This has kept many players playing WoW for years without paying a cent.
WildStar did something similar in the form of C.R.E.D.D, providing players the option of purchasing the item and selling it in-game, which consequently left the economy and its future in the hands of the community.
This was at a time when the free to play MMO market was still quite strong, and had millions of players actively split between various different titles. At that point in the genres history, a subscription model all but assured a high quality, successful game. Boy were they in for a surprise.

Two weeks after their reveal at Gamescom 2011, NCSoft previewed the game with an extensive selection of footage at PAX Prime 2011. Hype for the game was continuing to build up after every reveal, with videos for the game averaging in the millions of views.
According to, once again, “developers” that worked on the game, the entire development process up until this point was quite troublesome. A lot of conflicting opinions, views and an uncertain direction for the game were at the top of the list of complaints received.
Yet even with all of these glaringly obvious issues, NCSoft continued to push Carbine to continue developing the game – which by that point wasn’t even the same game they had conceived at the inception of the company.
This sounds eerily similar to how NCSoft treats ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 in all honesty, which may be a hint at the games future. Maybe that’s just me, though.

Regardless, Carbine continued to develop the game according to the direction they were given, with the game releasing officially within North America on June 3rd, 2014.
Reception for the game was… mixed. On the one hand, review websites like IGN were claiming the game was almost worthy of a 9/10, with other websites following along more or less, and while the initial reception was definitely fairly positive, players quickly learned that the game had more issues than what was present from a surface-level impression.
The game was very poorly optimized. This should have been evident to anyone playing the game for any period of time. But that was just the beginning. Every MMO launches with some bugs. That’s to be expected.
It doesn’t matter if you had 10 beta tests leading up to the release of the game, it’s impossible to replicate the data you’ll be able to collect when a game goes live without allowing for that same number of players to be present during a beta.
So we have an atrocious number of bugs hindering player progress, we have some very poor optimization. But that wasn’t it. Not only were those issues frustrating for players, it took much longer to remedy than players were willing to accept.
Coupled with what many players thought was a very sub-par leveling experience, players felt bored, frustrated, and quit.
In an attempt to alleviate some of the stress on their servers, Carbine opened up a surplus of new servers, which fragmented the community, doing more harm than good, as servers emptied rather quickly, leaving the remnants of the game a desolate space.

By the time the servers stabilized, much of the community had left. This was due to the issues that ran rampant over the course of the games launch – some of which were never addressed. This was due to an uninspired leveling experience.
And most importantly, this was due to the game catering to “hardcore gamers,” as opposed to the “casual community.”
WildStar didn’t provide players much in the way of content. Yes, there were traditional PvP modes present just like in the majority of MMOs with PvP functionality, but for PvE players.. You could raid. That was it. You’d log in each week to.. raid.
And the raids required a certain level of skill to participate in. This game was not tuned for casual players, instead, you needed a deep understanding of the mechanical nature of each and every boss, every mechanic. Your class. How it related to the boss and your group.
They catered to a hardcore audience in a world that had become much more casual. Even World of Warcraft had become much more casual-friendly by that point. For context, the base-level of WildStar raids’ difficulty was the equivalent of Savage Raids in Final Fantasy XIV or Heroic Raids in World of Warcraft.
The endgame was a massive time sink that players just did not want to devote time to. And by that logic, if you weren’t interested in hardcore raiding… aside from player housing, there really wasn’t a place for you within the game.

A mere year later, on May 28th, 2015, NCSOft announced that the game was going to be going completely free-to-play. This was entirely due to the fact that the games population had ceased all together.
There was nobody left playing the game at this point, and NCSoft, in an attempt to save the game, opted to overhaul aspects of it and transition to a free business model.
This provided a much needed boost to player activity, with hundreds of thousands of players that had never played the game finally being able to sign up, download and log in.
For the first month, the game was booming. There were players everywhere, but that was short lived, as many of the issues that plagued the game back during its initial launch were still present.
Shortly after going free-to-play in February 2016, NCSoft had announced their intentions to close down all of their PvP servers due to them being under-populated, merging them into the remaining two PvE servers. This consolidated the remaining players together until the game was no longer profitable and was subsequently shut down.

After a mere 4 years online, NCSoft announced during a staff meeting on September 6th, 2018, that not only would they be shutting down the entire WildStar project, but also Carbine Studios, who, at the time, had propositioned NCSoft with 2 other projects, both of which were rejected.
At this point, NCSoft saw no logical reason to A.) keep WildStar going as they were losing money keeping the 2 servers online, even though the game was in maintenance mode, and B.) keep Carbine Studios as a subsidiary, as they had had no success in the 11 years they had been actively working for NCSoft.
WildStar officially went offline on November 28th, 2018 and the remnants of the playerbase were distraught, with thousands of players reminiscing over how great the game was. To date, players continue to discuss how much of a masterpiece WildStar was.
You can find evidence of this by merely Googling around online. The reality of it, however, is that Carbine had very grandiose ambitions for the game. NCSoft, after acquiring Carbine, had their own vision for the game.
The conflicting opinions caused quite a few issues over the games development cycle, leading to no clear direction for the game overall.
This, coupled with the combination of poop – yes, I said poop – optimization, the issues plaguing the game, the catering to a hardcore audience by having too large a skill ceiling and a leveling experience that took too long, and was generally uninspired lead to the downfall of not only Carbine Studios as a company, but the stifling of the game and its potential.

WildStar had a fantastic setting. It is honestly a shame to see where it ultimately ended up, but at the end of the day, when you have too many chefs in the kitchen, and none of them can fix the dishes before them laying there as nothing more than a burned mass of.. ideas and promises, this is what you get.
This could have been an amazing MMORPG. But instead, it launched as a premium title, transitioned over to a free title a year later, and shut down 2 years after that.

And that’s WildStar. This admittedly did not have nearly as long of a history as I had originally anticipated, but that wraps up Episode 1 of “the Evolution of an MMO.”

A moment of silence…

I know what you’re thinking. “Stix, WildStar shut down back in 2018.. why’re you forcing me on this rollercoaster of emotions all over again?”
And the answer is simple: I was thinking about really good MMORPGs – games that were really unique, that were different, but that never took off. WildStar crossed my mind – not because it never took off, but instead because it was taken from us too soon.
Whenever I read about WildStar, whenever I asked people about WildStar, they never have anything other than positive things to say about the game. Why is that? If you ask people about Bless – you get nothing but hate, loathing and utter disgust.
But WildStar? People loved WildStar. So why did WildStar shut down, and is there any chance of it ever relaunching? That’s kinda what I wanna talk about today.

If you’re new to the genre, or just never played WildStar, then allow me to give you a little backstory. WildStar was an MMORPG developed by Carbine Studios and published by NCSoft.
It was NCSoft’s answer to the titan that is World of Warcraft. It released back in June 2014 as a pay-to-play title, and changed to a free-to-play model a year later in September 2015.
You might be wondering how a game that had the funding that WildStar had, the backing of a studio like Carbine and NCSoft could fall to such a point that it could warrant the complete shut down of the game, right? Well.. there were several reasons for the that.
The game’s launch was a critical failure. Sure, plenty of MMOs mess up their launches, that isn’t too uncommon. But when you’re charging people for either a physical or digital copy of the game, and then requiring they also pay money to log in and the game is in a heavily incomplete state, it leaves a bad first impression.
The game was designed for raiders. You might contest this opinion, but be real for a moment: While the game was pretty casual for the most part, upon reaching endgame, you were forced to either raid, or… that was it. You would raid.
If you look at games like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV – which both have very active raiding scenes, raiding is only done by a minority percentage of players. There are several times more non-raiders than those that actively raid.
The game had multiple re-launches. This not only showed the lack of faith that Carbine and NCSoft had in their title, but also showed the community that they had no idea what they were doing.

Honestly I could go on. There were multiple instances of poor management of the game, but I don’t really want to linger on this any longer.

WildStar started off as a pretty limiting game. However, over time it grew into something much better – something much more unique.
The WildStar community can attest to this. I played it back in 2017 through 2018 for the channel, and enjoyed my time in it over the course of my time playing.
Yes, the game was a little confusing at times, but the humor, the action combat, the setting, the characters.. if this was the game we received when it first launched, I feel as though it would’ve seen much greater success.
Maybe it would’ve even survived a business model change to a buy-to-play game or something instead of failing as a free-to-play MMO.

I miss exploring the world, I miss the PvP that I got to participate in, I miss the PvE content.. but most of all I miss the combat.
I remember when I did my first video on WildStar, I was just so surprised by how good it looked and played. I wanted to play as the Spellslinger but ended up going Warrior because I wanted to tank through dungeons.
The world was so large, it was incredibly detailed, there were constantly things to do while leveling – and there were several methods you could actually employ to level, the quests – the story, was completely voice acted.
The game had an actual story, an actual narrative, a focus behind merely leveling for the sake of leveling.

WildStar had such potential to be an incredible MMORPG. It really did. If only they’d taken the time to really perfect it instead of rushing the release, they would’ve had something that likely would’ve stood the test of time.
Alas, what we got was a broken mess for the entire first year, and an even larger mess when they tried changing business model to a free-to-play title.
The WildStar subreddit community is still active, and people still chat there from time to time, hoping that private servers for the game open up and allow for players to relive what was – at the end of its life, a very good game.

I’ve seen people ask the question: Should they relaunch WildStar? The answer is no. It’s clear they don’t know what worked for the game, and what ruined it. Even if I’d love to see it come back, it’d fail under the pressure, just as it did the first time. And the second. And.. yeah.
But when don’t NCSoft screw up their games?

If you hadn’t heard, WildStar, one of the MMORPGs with the most potential I’ve seen in years is shutting down.
It’s always a sad day when an MMO closes its doors – when the character you’ve logged in to play every day, every month, every year since launch finally gets to lay down their weapon and rest.
I’ve often felt that way with World of Warcraft. Every time I quit an expansion for a time, I log out each of my characters in the same area, and like to think that they’re all having a blast relaxing while I’m gone.
And one day, when WoW inevitably shuts down.. I plan on retiring each and every character on every server I have to the Tavern in the Mists where they will live out the rest of their lives in peace, helping out all the adorable Pandaren.
Okay, maybe I’m oversharing here a little bit.. and maybe I’m getting a little teary-eyed.

WildStar may not have been the best MMORPG on the market. WildStar may not have had the best combat, the best graphics, the best leveling experience, the best PvP.. but the game still had a place.
I know the game had a lot of issues surrounding its launch – as the game initially came out as a pay to play MMORPG like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.
A lot of those issues were remedied with continued content patches and updates rolled out over the years, but MMO players are an unforgiving lot.
I mean we’re glutton’s for punishment.. being repeatedly burned with every new release, but we don’t give games a second chance!
Carbine Studios, the team behind WildStar attempted to repair the reputation they had gotten with WildStar. They fixed problems players had, they pushed out content they believed players wanted, but nothing they did ever received any traction.
Nothing they released ever caused the game to spike in numbers. The game was in a perpetual state of decline over the years – and I’m not saying they couldn’t have changed that.
Maybe better advertising campaigns. Maybe reaching out to content creators and sponsoring updated playthroughs of the game. Maybe doing giveaways in their other games like Blade and Soul or Aion would’ve helped.
Who knows. The fact of the matter is, they did nothing to try and circumvent their own inevitable death. And they knew it was coming – as did every other player.
Nobody knew exactly when it was coming – I personally thought the game still had a fair amount of time left before it finally went under, but then I don’t know the exact population numbers.
I can’t imagine they were very high if shutting down the game instead of leaving a single server live was the solution they came up with.

I’m just.. a little disappointed that this was the route the game took.
I never had the opportunity to play all that much of the game, granted, as I believe the furthest I got was into my 20s, but from my personal experience, it was one of the highest quality feeling free to play MMORPGs I’ve played in recent memory.
Yes, it didn’t feel as good as WoW. Yes, it didn’t seem like it was packed with story like Final Fantasy XIV. Yes, the combat wasn’t as good as Black Desert.
But WildStar offered a unique feel that no other game did.
It had an action combat system that felt like a mix between Black Desert and Guild Wars 2.
The graphical style was cute and comical, just like World of Warcraft.
The worlds were large and expansive, the questing experience was very traditional – which may or may not have been a pro, admittedly.
The skill tree and ability to customize your character was probably the best I’d seen in a free to play title. Granted Guild Wars 2 does it incredibly well – but to access everything, you do need to purchase the expansions.
So I don’t classify Guild Wars 2 as a “fully free to play MMORPG”.
I never had the chance to experience PvP unfortunately, as when I played the game the population had already declined to such a degree that the battlegrounds and arenas were pretty much barren.
The player housing in WildStar was actually quite an experience. I’ve dabbled in it a little just like I have in ArcheAge, Final Fantasy XIV and Rift, and I gotta say.. you don’t really know you need something until you have them.

Now I know there’s nothing we can do about the game closing down. And I’m not going to go dwell on the subject, complain any further, or really go into what could have been done to fix the game.
Carbine released WildStar, it didn’t really stand out at first, and people gave up on it. That’s the gist of it and that’s what people will ultimately remember.
With its closure, though, players are going to be left wondering where exactly they should go now. What MMORPGs are similar to WildStar? Are there any good alternatives?
Suffice it to say.. there is no MMORPG like WildStar out there. At least, nothing that offers exactly what WildStar did. There are games that are, I guess, comparable in various ways to WildStar and I’m going to go ahead and list them below.
So if you’re looking for a new home.. maybe this’ll help you find it.

One of the three most populated MMORPGs left standing, but also requiring you purchase the game and then pay a monthly subscription to continue to play it.
It lacks the action combat system WildStar has, but offers some of the most expansive player-housing and guild-housing options in an MMO.
It has a much richer story, a significant amount more content, a very fantasy-themed graphical style, a very traditional questing and progression system, and is overall a very high quality game.
Its population numbers are as high as they are for a reason.

One of the five most populated MMORPGs that has a base game that is free to play, but requires you purchase various expansions if you want to partake of the content associated with them.
It has a similar action combat system to WildStar and a detailed class and skill system.
It has quite an emphasis on story and player choice, overall has more content, a more fantasy-scifi themed graphic style, one of the most unique questing systems in an MMO and is a great quality alternative.

One of the ten most populated MMORPGs and probably one of the three most populated completely free to play MMORPGs on the market. And while I say “free to play”, there is a slightly negative connotation associated with it.
The game itself has arguably the best combat in a free MMO, some of the best graphics, cutscenes, worlds, and is still actively updated every few months with new areas and classes.
But there are aspects of the game that are heavily pay to win and NCSoft, the people behind Blade and Soul, cater quite heavily to the whales in their games.
So if you’re looking for something completely free.. this is one of the two you’re going to want to look at.

One of the five most populated MMORPGs and one of the two that are actually buy to play. Meaning you purchase it one time and own it for life.
Also considered, at the very least, semi-pay to win, and I cannot confirm this myself as I can’t give my opinion of endgame, but, regardless there are aspects of the game that are quite similar to WildStar.
The action combat is the best in the genre. The player housing options give you quite a lot of customization over your humble little abode. And the character creator is just.. unparalleled.
Crafting, open-world exploration.. Black Desert has a lot going for it in terms of things to do, but if you’re looking for something with a story.. or even a questing system, you’ll want to give BDO a hard pass.

Although this little beauty has yet to launch, it will be in the very near future, having an expected release date of October.
While completely free to play, and possibly a little pay to win as it is a Nexon game, it offers very cute Anime-inspired graphics, an action combat system, and has a large emphasis on character customization and player housing.
From what I could tell from the 2 beta’s I participated in, there is also quite a fun, quirky storyline to follow with a lot of entertaining, highly engrossing mini-games as well, helping set itself apart from what we’re used to.

Elder Scrolls Online is one of the three most populated MMORPGs, and like BDO, is buy to play, meaning once you purchase it.. you own it and can play it forever.
Although there are subscription services that assist with the game, it is not in any way required to have one active to fully enjoy the game.
ESO has an action combat system with a very highly customizable class system – probably one of the most expansive I’ve seen in an MMO.
It has large, explorable areas, a plethora of story and side quests, phenomenal voice acting, the ability to own several different houses, and is actually one of the most non-MMO feeling MMOs I’ve played.

One of the ten most populated MMORPGs and easily one of the three most populated completely free to play MMORPGs at that.
But then again that isn’t saying much as there are maybe, at max, five MMORPGs that are completely free to play that have any semblance of a population worth classifying as “populated” anyway.
TERA is.. pretty much like Blade and Soul. A fairly large emphasis on story, fantastic combat, great graphics, large explorable worlds, updated fairly regularly with new classes and content.
However the game is also much less pay to win than Blade and Soul. So if you’re looking for a non-pay to win alternative.. there you have it.

You can’t have any “top list” or “list of good MMORPGs” without including WoW. It is, after all, what a lot of MMORPGs were modeled after, and WildStar was no exception.
You have the same faction vs faction, same graphical style, same comical characters, same.. well, if I had to explain what WildStar most reminded me of, I’d say it felt like a mix between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2. Which is a great combination, honestly.
I feel like at this point in time everyone has tried World of Warcraft out so there’s no real reason to go into detailing exactly what it is, but suffice it to say.. Battle for Azeroth has been their fastest selling expansion to date.
If that isn’t reason enough to jump back in.. then maybe the allure of classic servers will, with Blizzard’s recent announcement that they’ll be re-opening progression classic servers.

Regardless of which game you choose, nothing is going to bring back the memories and feelings you had when you played WildStar.
There is no game around currently that in any way resembles it. There are games that resemble parts of it, but none that capture what WildStar did.
The most you can do is find something that can fill a small part of the hole you’re going to feel after no longer having access to the game.
And while that is saddening to hear.. the truth is that it is the unfortunate eventuality for every MMORPG.

Now to end this, I just want to give WildStar a moment of silence as it goes under. A moment to remember the game. A moment to remember exactly what made you love it.
.. now with this moment, go down in the comment section and tell me.. what made YOU love WildStar? And what is your fondest memory of the game?

Title: WildStar
Status: Released
Graphics: 3D
Genre: MMORPG
Developer: Carbine Studios
Publisher: NCSoft
Playerbase: Medium
Official Review: Is WildStar Worth Playing?

WildStar is a quirky free to play Action MMORPG set in a strange scifi world.

In WildStar you are given a game with a large amount of voice acting, fun, engaging combat, a unique, interesting class system, player housing and more, offering one of the most unique experiences in a scifi MMORPG.

Operating System: XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz / AMD Phenom X3 2.3 GHz
Video Card: GeForce 8800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 3850
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 30 GB

Operating System: XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Core i5 Quad Core 2.66 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 3 GHz or better
Video Card: GeForce 4 / Radeon 9200 or better
RAM: 8 GB
Hard Disk Space: 30 GB