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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Legedric Warstrike wrote:

If there are any possibilities for a single trial account to get 50 million NIC (with you not knowing where it came from) there is something wrong with your source code that may not be fixed by a set of limitations grown off some paraonia...

That is the "safe" part. Of course we can trace everything back when and if we find it, but it may already be too late - see insurance frauds. This is a sandbox where we actually expect the players to use the given tools in new and surprising ways that we never thought of. But a fragile economy is one of the things where we don't like surprises.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Ral wrote:

Well wait, why do we care if trial accounts receive lots of NIC?  They still have no way of transferring that NIC to someone else?  I thought we were worried about the trial accounts farming gold, not existing players doing it and transferring it to a trial?

In my example the trial player buys the titan ore, which means the trial player gets the titan and the NIC goes from the trial player to the non-trial player, not the other way around.

28 Reply by Ral

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

DEV Zoom wrote:
Ral wrote:

Well wait, why do we care if trial accounts receive lots of NIC?  They still have no way of transferring that NIC to someone else?  I thought we were worried about the trial accounts farming gold, not existing players doing it and transferring it to a trial?

In my example the trial player buys the titan ore, which means the trial player gets the titan and the NIC goes from the trial player to the non-trial player, not the other way around.

Ah ok, that makes sense.  I was looking at it from the other angle where the trial can sell items but not buy, so they could accrue NIC but not transfer it.  But there would be little point of that if they can't use the NIC for anything anyway, unless they knew they were going to subscribe.

In which case they could just subscribe.

Ral's Mining Guide http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/25891
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Re: The trial account restrictions.

I am able to understand the motivation behind this limitations Zoom, but honestly... the current Tutorial and with all the trial limitations the frist hours/days of gameplay will be utterly boring and mind numbing for perhaps > 80% of all the new players... are you sure that this is your way of how to get players to pay for your game (and at some time for your salary)?

Don't get me wrong, the game IS fun... but to get up to this fun a player has to either be willing to pay for a real trial or very "simple" in his/her expectations for an MMO (sandbox or not is not relevant at that point imo).

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
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Re: The trial account restrictions.

If trial players would get everything they want it wouldn't be much of a trial now, would it? smile

But joke aside, first user experience needs to be improved, we know that, but that has to happen regardless of trial or not anyway. Players are pretty much abandoned after the 10-part tutorial assignment line, which can be done in a few hours.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

I am not saying that you should remove all the limitations from the trial. At least the 15 day limit should be kept tongue

I am glad that you are aware of the lack of "fun" within the frist hours of gameplay, so I will just stop this discussion now and wait for some improvements on that part in the next weeks/months. smile

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
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Re: The trial account restrictions.

DEV Zoom wrote:

Players are pretty much abandoned after the 10-part tutorial assignment line, which can be done in a few hours.

This.

Even before the trial accounts, there were lots of complaints about the starting experience, and the new assignements only just scratched the surface on those issues; but they are making progress.

Its easy to get sidetracked on the 'mischief' uses for trial accounts and lose sight of the fact that really the complaints are about running out of things to do so quickly.

Rift is giving out trial accounts good for 2 days. Maybe 15 days is too long, and sets an expectation that there is enough to keep a trial account busy for that long.

Was there a reason for making it 15 days? Maybe the access should be 5 days, but you get 10 'bonus' days when you activate your first code.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

why do we have two of this topcis now?
i suggest closing one.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear
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Re: The trial account restrictions.

or just merge them

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Arga wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Players are pretty much abandoned after the 10-part tutorial assignment line, which can be done in a few hours.

This.

Even before the trial accounts, there were lots of complaints about the starting experience, and the new assignements only just scratched the surface on those issues; but they are making progress.

Its easy to get sidetracked on the 'mischief' uses for trial accounts and lose sight of the fact that really the complaints are about running out of things to do so quickly.

Rift is giving out trial accounts good for 2 days. Maybe 15 days is too long, and sets an expectation that there is enough to keep a trial account busy for that long.

Was there a reason for making it 15 days? Maybe the access should be 5 days, but you get 10 'bonus' days when you activate your first code.

the reason for the 15 days is if you gave the code to someone else from a registered account; when they register you get +15 days to your account.. between the two of the it's a free month.  I think they probably used the same codes as the ones you get when you register for 'buddies'

Population graphs

<GM Synapse> please don't abuse our fresh players before blowing them up. And for god sakes, don't do that after it!
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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Cerp, do you think 15 days is too long for a trial or not?

As for the topic merge, I just noticed this one is not in the trial forums, so if it was merged, it would need to be with the other thread or trial players couldn't read it.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

I agree Arga saying that the trial peroid may be too long. At least most MMOs I know of have a trial which is limited to ~7 days. RIFT may not be compared because the current "Recruit a friend"-Trial is only temporary and it is not even 2 days of playtime considering that it is capped at level 15... which results in about 3-4 hours of total playtime.

But back to topic:
Reduce the time frame for trials and get some motivating missions/tasks into the first hours of gameplay and no one will care about the other trial limitations.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

also somehow get a system that prevents resubbing a new trial for at least a month from the same PC.

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Annihilator wrote:

also somehow get a system that prevents resubbing a new trial for at least a month from the same PC.

This is impossible for technical reasons... the owner of the specific PC will always have more possibilities to sneak around such a border than AC has to prevent this.

In addition: What about multiple accounts then? As every new account is a trial account at the beginning...

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Re: The trial account restrictions.

Regarding the time of the trial, instead of making it 15 days you could make it based on hours logged in. So it runs for 12 hours or something, but that's based on actually being logged in.

"...playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
Bernard Suits, 1978