Topic: Improving the trial experience

First of all I have never played on a trial myself, nonetheless I believe some of the restrictions currently in place on trial accounts give out a bad impression of the game, without really fulfilling a good purpose.

"Cannot trade with other players"
- Trial players should at least be able to receive items, although they should not be allowed to give them away.

"Cannot use the private chat feature with other players. They can open them with you, but you cannot type back"
- How about if I open a PM and start chatting with them, why can't the restriction then be lifted?

"Can only purchase items on the market produced by NPC's"
- The worst one in my opinion. I clearly see the reasoning for not allowing them to sell, but restricting the purchasing options just makes them feel that they cant get what they want, and that the economy is completely dead.

"Cannot join a corporation"
- In my opinion being part of a group of people is an essential part of this game, and it's one of the things that makes many people actually stay on! Without being able to join a corporation, many trial players feel they don't really belong anywhere and that they game is empty without a meaning. Allowing them to join a corporation early on will give them a much better idea of the game.

TL;DR version: Trial accounts currently have several unnecessary restrictions which only serve to deter new players, get rid of them!

Re: Improving the trial experience

I agree.

Devs seem more concerned with RMT and an open trial will give an advantage, but with an average of just 200-300 players online at the most, RMT shouldn't be top on their list of priorities.

Get the new player, including trial motivated and subbed should be the most important. What is the point in trying to prevent RMT if game play is lost somewhere along the way? Who is really losing out on the RMT battle? Where is the RMT issue now?

Tackle the issue when it becomes a problem, we need to retain new players at all costs or this game will die.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Improving the trial experience

first one is not true - you can send them money, you can give them equip via field container.
direct trade is a subscription feature.

second one, you can form a temporary squad with them and use the squad channel then.

third one - if they can purchase from player, it would enable them to introduce NIC into the economy and make the first restriction useless

fourth one - only valid point, but then, they would need to have the full corp-trial phase restriction which denys access to any corp storage or getting any officer rank.

*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: Improving the trial experience

Get off all restrictions from trial players and limit some EP skill sets as required.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Improving the trial experience

Joining a corporation isn't necessary imho - if they need any help, they can ask and join any existing corporation in voisecomms and get all the answers there. About trading - i'd better recommend to create kinda special trial market where they (and only they) will be able to buy all the stuff they need, says, limited by t1 level and robots not higher than a mech or assault. Those robots can be a "syndicate" - worser than a usual ones in bonuses, to prevent any influence on market.

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

Re: Improving the trial experience

Line wrote:

Joining a corporation isn't necessary imho - if they need any help, they can ask and join any existing corporation in voisecomms and get all the answers there. About trading - i'd better recommend to create kinda special trial market where they (and only they) will be able to buy all the stuff they need, says, limited by t1 level and robots not higher than a mech or assault. Those robots can be a "syndicate" - worser than a usual ones in bonuses, to prevent any influence on market.


Though close this is not the same as joining a corporation. Players like to contribute for others and make a difference in corp, in return they can get cheap bots and items/ammo in return. Limiting of bots types as I mentioned can be capped with EP skill sets to a certain lvl.

Other ways would be to make a more solo friendly gameplay at least the first month of game.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Improving the trial experience

Annihilator wrote:

first one is not true - you can send them money, you can give them equip via field container.
direct trade is a subscription feature.

second one, you can form a temporary squad with them and use the squad channel then.

third one - if they can purchase from player, it would enable them to introduce NIC into the economy and make the first restriction useless

fourth one - only valid point, but then, they would need to have the full corp-trial phase restriction which denys access to any corp storage or getting any officer rank.

1. Why give out the impression that trade is a massive hassle when it's not? It will just give them a much worse impression of them game, and many of them might not even know about the workarounds.

2. Indeed, yet another workaround, but what if I'm in a corp squad doing something?

3. I honestly think this will have a very small impact, if this is a real worry a cap could easily be introduced so that they can only purchase for a certain overall value.

4. Indeed, so add those restriction then, fine with me.

Really, the workaround solutions do not cut it as a main argument for keeping these restrictions. In my opinion, it is far more important to welcome and take care of new players to sustain the population rather than protect against minor RMT (which could be monitored, and if ever becoming a problem, restrictions could be put in place again). At this stage, the survival of the game is a much more real threat than RMT.

Re: Improving the trial experience

Line wrote:

Joining a corporation isn't necessary imho - if they need any help, they can ask and join any existing corporation in voisecomms and get all the answers there. About trading - i'd better recommend to create kinda special trial market where they (and only they) will be able to buy all the stuff they need, says, limited by t1 level and robots not higher than a mech or assault. Those robots can be a "syndicate" - worser than a usual ones in bonuses, to prevent any influence on market.

Imho, there's definitely a big difference between feeling a part of a corp and hanging around in someone's channel to ask questions.

Re: Improving the trial experience

Yes, but take a look on it from corporation side - some ppl joining for 15 days and then vanishing. It's a little...frustrating and you should clean your corpmembers list from time to time.

Another solution can be - to make some kind of newbie island(s), with theyr own safe/pvp zones and npcs and markets etc. on those islands newbies can do anything they want except leaving. and non-trial players should be unable to get there.

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

Re: Improving the trial experience

Line wrote:

Yes, but take a look on it from corporation side - some ppl joining for 15 days and then vanishing. It's a little...frustrating and you should clean your corpmembers list from time to time.

Yes, but I think the corporation should be able to see it's a trial account when someone applies, so then it's really up the each corporation if they want to be trial friendly or not.

Re: Improving the trial experience

I think the only restrictions should be that they can not use Mechs, or Sequer.

Without Mech/Sequer it will be very inefficient to use trial to generate NIC for RMT.

12 (edited by Alexander 2011-06-03 15:34:37)

Re: Improving the trial experience

Remove all trial limitations but put a cap on how much NIC they can transfer.
This will limit the NIC selling aspect of the account. You could still use them to transfer modules but that's not a real issue as module trades are untraceable when using out of game currency.

As a suggestion I'd say that a limit of around 10,000,000 million NIC in and out of the account (Not character) would be more than enough. If someone transfers a trial account 10,000,000 NIC that's a very good incentive to purchase the game if and when they suddenly can't purchase player items from the market. Then set up an algorithm that flags up accounts that use even 50% of that allowance as that will be rare enough.

The mute feature is there for a reason so add in a report agent button that captures the current private chat window with that agent and reports it to the devs. Limit reports per account per day so you don't get spammed with them. Simple.

13 (edited by Guns nButter 2011-06-03 16:12:53)

Re: Improving the trial experience

Alexander wrote:

Remove all trial limitations but put a cap on how much NIC they can transfer.
This will limit the NIC selling aspect of the account. You could still use them to transfer modules but that's not a real issue as module trades are untraceable when using out of game currency.

As a suggestion I'd say that a limit of around 10,000,000 million NIC in and out of the account (Not character) would be more than enough. If someone transfers a trial account 10,000,000 NIC that's a very good incentive to purchase the game if and when they suddenly can't purchase player items from the market. Then set up an algorithm that flags up accounts that use even 50% of that allowance as that will be rare enough.

The mute feature is there for a reason so add in a report agent button that captures the current private chat window with that agent and reports it to the devs. Limit reports per account per day so you don't get spammed with them. Simple.

1) Create trial account
2) Farm 10 million nic
3a) Trade to master farmer
3b) Spam every chat channel with gold farmer tidbits
4) Delete trial account
5) Repeat.




In other words... Stupidity.

14 (edited by Alexander 2011-06-03 16:26:11)

Re: Improving the trial experience

Guns nButter wrote:
Alexander wrote:

Remove all trial limitations but put a cap on how much NIC they can transfer.
This will limit the NIC selling aspect of the account. You could still use them to transfer modules but that's not a real issue as module trades are untraceable when using out of game currency.

As a suggestion I'd say that a limit of around 10,000,000 million NIC in and out of the account (Not character) would be more than enough. If someone transfers a trial account 10,000,000 NIC that's a very good incentive to purchase the game if and when they suddenly can't purchase player items from the market. Then set up an algorithm that flags up accounts that use even 50% of that allowance as that will be rare enough.

The mute feature is there for a reason so add in a report agent button that captures the current private chat window with that agent and reports it to the devs. Limit reports per account per day so you don't get spammed with them. Simple.

1) Create trial account
2) Farm 10 million nic
3a) Trade to master farmer
3b) Spam every chat channel with gold farmer tidbits
4) Delete trial account
5) Repeat.




In other words... Stupidity.

If you're farming 10 million NIC with a trial account you're doing it very wrong. I am not even sure an trial account could MAKE 10 million NIC in 15 days. It's nice to see you have no idea how the currency selling game works. wink

15 (edited by Guns nButter 2011-06-03 16:35:23)

Re: Improving the trial experience

It took me 4 hours to get into my first sequer. I could then make 1 mil an hour afterwards.
That means a single 14 hour day nets 10 million NIC to a dedicated gold farmer. Per account. You do the math.


Try again sir.

16 (edited by Lucius Marcellus 2011-06-03 17:50:21)

Re: Improving the trial experience

Guns nButter wrote:

It took me 4 hours to get into my first sequer. I could then make 1 mil an hour afterwards.
That means a single 14 hour day nets 10 million NIC to a dedicated gold farmer. Per account. You do the math.


Try again sir.

So do not allow sequer, problem solved. Once again though, currently population concerns are much greater than RMT ones, imo. And if it becomes a serious issue (which I doubt), imposing it again should not be that hard.

Also, on the spamming, there's nothing preventing spam in general chat and such, is there? And I for one have never seen a single spam there...

Re: Improving the trial experience

Just from a marketing perspective, not game mechanics, its good marketing to have limitations on trial accounts to encourage them to upgrade to a full account.

I think corp access is a very good limitation and incentive to moved to a paid account.

The others are there mostly to limit abuse, as I've made clear, the ability to exploit unlimited free accounts is endless. But, if not being able to trade really is a road-block for legitimate trial accounts, then alternates should be explored even if it increases the fraud exposure.

The real problem is that free trial accounts are available in an unlimited quantity. Ave. joe off the street is probably going to be OK with the limitations, as they are not uncommon in games. Adding back in the player trial codes, with no limits but a fixed quantity, can handle those cases where you have a friend you want to join.