Topic: Idea for Improving population

Expand 2 week free trial into the recruit system implemented in planetside 1. Basically, it was free to download and play but limited to battle rank 6. This rank allowed players to experience multiple weapon configurations and vehicles but was not as efficient as a battle rank 24 account. There was a mass influx of players.

We could implement something similar. Either limit to max level 5 per extension for unlimited free trial, OR limit to only light bots. Having massive light bot battles is same level of fun as massive mech battles IMHO. If new players want to start driving assaults+ OR higher extension levels, they subscribe.

Discuss.

Re: Idea for Improving population

To expand idea further, implementing above idea will require a marketing story to go with it.
Idea is as follows:

We have recieved intelligence reports on a massive invasion by npcs who will arrive on alpha shorelines on xxx day. To counter this threat, we need you the player to join us Blah blah blah. Allow 1-3 weeks for new players to grow accustomed before setting up first invasion event. Hundreds or thousands of t1 fit npcs will arrive on alpha islands and start to converge on the main terminal from all directions. New players and vets will have to work together to stop invasion. If event is successful (assuming devs fix the lag issues) word will get out and more players will join. Set 2nd invasion a month after; same concept as first but more difficulty

Re: Idea for Improving population

and how do you avoid the already happening exploit of trial agents for mining, gate scouting or metagaming?

if you could continue playing your trail acccounts after 2 weeks, you wouldn't even need to go through the process of creating new email accounts...

*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

Re: Idea for Improving population

I really dont think this is the sollution.
The subs are very affordable. 2 weeks are enough to give a good idea about the game, and there's an option to buy just a month more for a cheap price.
The main problem I think is the world size and lack of pve content, give that and get a bigger population wich results in more pvp. smile

Re: Idea for Improving population

Make the game FTP with the following conditions:

unsubbed accounts:

Can only pilot upto mech
Do not gain ep
Can only go to alpha and beta, not gamma
Can only do missions upto level 4
Can not prototype nor manufacture anything
Cannot use remote nor gang modules
Have a visual indicator to show they are unsubbed

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Idea for Improving population

Jita wrote:

Make the game FTP with the following conditions:

unsubbed accounts:

Can only pilot upto mech
Do not gain ep
Can only go to alpha and beta, not gamma
Can only do missions upto level 4
Can not prototype nor manufacture anything
Cannot use remote nor gang modules
Have a visual indicator to show they are unsubbed


change it so they do make EP but do not get the 20K start bonus till they sub only make EP for the first 2 weeks then nothing. 

Maybe give them 5K or so starting bonus.

Re: Idea for Improving population

lack of solo content, lack of low-level crafting, lack of imersion, lack of arcade elements...

things that keep non pvp AND pvp player entertained after the tutorial. Actually i wouldnt mind a free2play mechanic that allows you to continue playing after your sub ran out, without EP gain -> but then i would want typical f2p restrictions implemented with it (IP-check for non-paid accounts, no multiboxing with it)....

*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

Re: Idea for Improving population

Annihilator wrote:

lack of solo content, lack of low-level crafting, lack of imersion, lack of arcade elements...

things that keep non pvp AND pvp player entertained after the tutorial. Actually i wouldnt mind a free2play mechanic that allows you to continue playing after your sub ran out, without EP gain -> but then i would want typical f2p restrictions implemented with it (IP-check for non-paid accounts, no multiboxing with it)....

Was thinking the same but limiting people to mechs and termis would make multiboxing pretty useless anyways. Most miners have a couple of rivs anyways.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Idea for Improving population

LOL People who don't play the game, want the game to be FTP...

Great Idea lol

Just Sayin
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smileneutralsadbig_smileyikeswinkhmmtonguelolmadrollcoolyarr

10 (edited by Inspiration 2012-03-22 23:52:23)

Re: Idea for Improving population

Mixed feelings:

* Yes more players would be good and this is one method in a world of free to play games;
* No, because of the obvious meta gaming issues;

In the end you need to have a game with content people are willing to pay for, or else it will never be sustainable. A large non paying population does not just add "cannon fodder" content so to speak. It also brings with it costs, both in and out of game, such as:

* Increased server load;
* More operational costs, think not of bandwidth per see, but also GM support hours!
* Competition to resources, like: dozens of non-paying miners scraping every last bit of ore from the most convenient mining spots, leaving paying dedicated miners leave in disgust. Or NPC spawns where they only game in town is to lock faster then anything else (we all hated that, right?).

In the end it is a cost/benefit analysis and for now I don't think it will fix anything, but does bring some unwanted pains and overhead.

Re: Idea for Improving population

The Pve events are designed to bring the illusion of more Pve content, which allows devs more time to build the content. Higher population also means its easier to for player built content.

Re: Idea for Improving population

its absolutely true that without 30 min and 1 - 2 hour meaningful content theres no point going ftp. You STILL wouldn't get players.

WOT is a great example of ftp done right. 20 million concurrent players and its making over ten million dollars a month. What they did right is making their first priority casual play being fun. Clan wars was added afterward. Their territory control system isn't even complicated, The system we had was fine it is the lack of players and other stuff to do that made it not fun.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Idea for Improving population

FTP and time based skill system don't mix well for obvious reasons, so no.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Idea for Improving population

ACTUALLY i hope they do like a 5 days account re-activation when the big PBS patch comes out. Might help some of the old players come back for a look. And who knows they might just stay for some fun big_smile

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: Idea for Improving population

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

ACTUALLY i hope they do like a 5 days account re-activation when the big PBS patch comes out. Might help some of the old players come back for a look. And who knows they might just stay for some fun big_smile

good idea -
but i hope they will announce it then with the release, and do the reactivation ~1 week after the patch.

i dont want to see a swarm of reactivated agents quitting again because they couldn't really see this feature due to obligatory hotfixes and well... non existant demo settlements wink

*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

16 (edited by KKing 2012-04-03 23:41:18)

Re: Idea for Improving population

making this ftp i dont think is the answer . subs are very cost effective .
i think only a few games have done it right . fallen earth is one example
pbs is only going to cater to a small number of people left unfortunately i think , not bring back people in waves . cause really in the end its the same  , you cant do any of if solo . thats where the lack of immersive pve content needs to come in and there really isnt any of that . just go to point A do this go back to point B do this and rinse repeat till your rep goes up . so something needs to change there . even roaming observers left alpha without some sort of excitement . i understand its sandbox and you need to set your own goals though so thats why these games never come  through w pve content that satisfy every body
pvp is spot on mechanics are there and really this one of the best pvp games out there . so it shouldnt be hard to keep people just need the right incentive

http://www.emptywords.org/
Just another Fail F...

Re: Idea for Improving population

like Celebro wrote in his topic:

new player leave after about 3-4 weeks.
Thats approximately the time when they realise that they cannot continue doing anything meaningfull solo without a hauler on a second account.
Due to the low population atm, telling them to find a friend that hauls for them, or "stop playing with hands growing from ***", is not really helping to increase the population.

After PBS patch, the DEVs have to balance Solo PvE vs. Team PvE vs. PvP as fast as possible.

They cannot do that if they keep PvE centered around static NPC spawns from noob to vet player. Even the highest rank NPC spawns on Alpha2 are nothing but skeet shooting once you got a team of ~3 MK2 heavy mechs there (2 combat, RSA+ET support) = endless Plasma income.

*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

Re: Idea for Improving population

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but if the real issue is players leaving 3-4 weeks in without able to progress without a second hauler account, why not add purchasable hauler side-kicks for high amounts of NIC or make them buildable, basically a storage unit on wheels. Of course there's balance and the use of the actual hauler to be considered, but if its THAT much of an issue, it seems like a good stop-gap until the population is better.

Re: Idea for Improving population

Baal wrote:

I really dont think this is the sollution.
The subs are very affordable. 2 weeks are enough to give a good idea about the game, and there's an option to buy just a month more for a cheap price.
The main problem I think is the world size and lack of pve content, give that and get a bigger population wich results in more pvp. smile

This

Re: Idea for Improving population

Sorakin wrote:

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but if the real issue is players leaving 3-4 weeks in without able to progress without a second hauler account, why not add purchasable hauler side-kicks for high amounts of NIC or make them buildable, basically a storage unit on wheels. Of course there's balance and the use of the actual hauler to be considered, but if its THAT much of an issue, it seems like a good stop-gap until the population is better.

This could be addressed with Indy 2.0.

Issue: Mining/harvesting isn't self-contained, it requires multiple accounts.

Solution: Make mining/harvesting self-contained.

To acheive this, you could make cargo holds larger or special in some way, but it creates issues with hauler bots. It's simpler to change the volume of gathered material; in conjunction with smaller ore fields (plants are already spaced to the point where can harvesting is ineffcient anyway) that roam.

AFK mining would be an issue of course, if the ore didn't roam, if mining bots could hold 10M ores. But since it will roam, simply setting up a miner and walking away will result in your miner sitting on barren ground as the ore moves away. Mining will be more like harvesting, where you have to actively pursue the tiles.

Another issue this solves, is the escalating problem of moving large amounts of material to/from the refineries.

So, for starting miners in an argano, it should be scaled so they can mine for roughly 60 minutes before filling up; this is based on having a starter % mined and miner cycle times. This should scale too, so that when you get to Riveler MK II, you can still mine for roughly 60 minutes before your cargo is full.

The 60 minutes (just throwing that number out, maybe longer/shorter whatever) doesn't include moving time. So, while it may take 60 minutes to fill the cargo, it's probably going to take 2 or 3 hours of actual game time to do it. However, by changing the volume, that 60 minutes of mining should roughly equal the same a static miner could get in 3 hours of mining.

Or, reduce the amount of materials needed for manufactoring, and make the fields much smaller, so that 10U of ore is equivalent to 100U now; but this is more involved.

21 (edited by Sorakin 2012-04-04 18:50:24)

Re: Idea for Improving population

Arga wrote:

Issue: Mining/harvesting isn't self-contained, it requires multiple accounts.

Solution: Make mining/harvesting self-contained.

I would still want organized groups of miners/haulers/refiners/manufacturers to have advantages over a single person who wants to do everything themselves. I just worry making mining/harvesting self-contained removes the need for haulers in that equation all-together essentially removing content from the game instead of adding.

Although it does bring up the additional problem of what I can see of no real way to "specialize" in hauling. You can specialize in mining, in harvesting, in refining, in manufacturing, but there's no real "specializing" in hauling?

**edit**
I think I understand more of what you are saying. Someone who wants to mine cannot simply JUST mine, they also have to deal with the logistics of moving their ore as well. I guess that is reasonable to be self-contained.

22 (edited by Sundial 2012-04-04 18:48:13)

Re: Idea for Improving population

Some good points and ideas Arga.

AFK mining would only be a problem on the liquid ore types.

I think the mining/harvesting bots should have some kind of "material compression" built into them. There could also be an extension you need to level up as you increase your mining output to still be able to mine the same amount of time without hauling. But by default a newb in an argano with no modifications could mine 1H.  Dedicated haulers would still be needed and used by people maximizing their profits. Right now people can't just logout from the game as they would lose their can if they only had a single account. Mining really does need to be made more friendly for people who may only have 30 minutes - 1 hour to play the game before having to leave.

As for NPC farming I think newbs can just pickup plasma / stuff they want out of the cans and leave the rest, essentially funcitoning without a hauler. They can also do combat missions as well (though in my opinion the travel time on this is still too great).

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Idea for Improving population

Arga - whenever you write "roaming ore" i see myself equipping my riveler with dual demobber...

*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

Re: Idea for Improving population

Annihilator wrote:

Arga - whenever you write "roaming ore" i see myself equipping my riveler with dual demobber...


lol

Does not make much of a difference "roaming ores" are double plated tongue

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Idea for Improving population

Celebro wrote:
Annihilator wrote:

Arga - whenever you write "roaming ore" i see myself equipping my riveler with dual demobber...

lol

Does not make much of a difference "roaming ores" are double plated tongue

Don't forget your ECCM, the ores don't like to be locked.