Wildstar developer Carbine has announced that the MMORPG will be going free to play on September 29th. In a stream today, they talked about the ongoing beta tests of the new version of the game, including streamlined starter areas and some quality of life improvements such as improved tutorials. Wildstar has been around for just about a year, and the subscriber base never quite took off the way Carbine might have liked. Now, with the switch to free to play, one of the things they have been talking most about is how to make sure that players who purchased the game originally are properly rewarded. While much of that remains to be ironed out in the second phase of testing that will occupy the rest of the month before the official launch, the developers have maintained that loyal players will find plenty of rewards waiting for them.

Of interesting note is the teams emphasis on testing their new real money currency, Ncoin. They have asked existing testers to spend real money to help them test the new currency, promising that the real money will be returned once the tests are concluded. I’ve put several hundred hours into Wildstar and I remain optimistic about the new free to play model.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!