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Topic: Trial Account Market Limitation

Hi there, first of all I have to say that the game look promising, certainly it is a good option for all EVE players, but it could be a good option for people who never played EVE either.
In short Perpetuum looks like it has a good potential to be a good Sandbox MMORPG.
I say it looks like, because I cannot be sure, and that's because the trial doesn't allow full use of the major Sandbox tool which is the Market Place.
I understand that there are major worries about the exploitation of the Trial, but certainly there must be a better solution than completely disable player created orders.
I wouldn't be surprised if people won't stick with the game in its current state (The Trial Version)
For Example there is a nice Yagel on sale in my Station at 160K NIC, but I am only allowed to buy the one from the NPC vendor at 400K
It will take me 1 week of Mission rewards to get that kind of money and trying to kill stuff with an Arkhe is incredibly tedious, I can tell you that.

I have a couple of suggestions to address this issue:
1) Keep disabled all Money Transfer and direct player trade
It is not necessary to enjoy the game as a Rookie, but it will avoid money transactions between a Mule and the Main Account.

2) Create a Piggy Bank with an accessible limit of 500K NIC, a limit which allows the player to buy the low level equipment, but not enough to inflate the market economy (I noticed it is fairly easy to get to 500K).
All the NIC which exceed the 500K will be stored in a special Piggy Bank and unlocked once the player subscribes

3) Allow player to buy and place an order on the Market except for Raw Materials which are the only items a rookie can exploit in its Trial period.
Even better allow a maximun amount of Raw Materials that can be sold in a day, possibly quantified in units not in NIC to avoid Main Accounts buying huge quantities of materials from the Mule for a pathetic low price
Example: Titan Ore 250K per day at 0.56 NIC (average price) will get to the player 120K NIC a day equal to 1800K NIK in his 15 day trial
Of course as for point 2 only 500K of those will be spendable the rest will be stored in the Piggy Bank

Point 1 is already implemented, Point 2 it's fairly easy to implement, Point 3 is the most challenging to implement on a programming point of view, it will require few hours of hard work, but I believe it will be worth it.
I can tell you that if you leave it like this Trial players won't stick with this game.

My suggestion will be a good compromise, because it will give Trial Players the chance of fully experience the game and it will avoid possible exploitations from current players or Gold Sellers.

Having said that, I will buy the game because I generally buy any MMORPG which looks decent and Perpetuum looks decent enough for me.
But do not expect people breaking their bank to pay for this game if the state of the Trial remains as it is.
Overall a good job Avatar Creations

  • CIR
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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

stock -

Basically the issue now is that the game economy can't deal with even a 'small' exploitation, and the Dev's are busy improving the game, so any time they have to take running-down exploiters is time away from development.

Because it is a free trial, it allows for the possiblity of repetitive exploits.

Assuming that "our little perp" is too small to be exploited is a terrible way to manage risk; not to mention false because it was already the target of NIC farmers.

As the game stabilizes and the player base grows, it will more easily be able to deal with the occasional exploitation issues.

If the NIC transaction limitations are the only thing keeping someone from subscribing, then they're going to be disappointed when they do. There's not enough volume currently to be a 'pure' market master.

Time and population will fix both issues; It will make the market stronger, and it will allow more freedom in the trial.

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Arga wrote:

As the game stabilizes and the player base grows, it will more easily be able to deal with the occasional exploitation issues.

I understand the issues of possible exploitation, I ve been playing MMOs since UO in 2000
Problem is this restriction will prevent people to actually have a real taste of the game.
The impression Perpetuum will leave to Trial players is of a grindy game where it takes forever to achieve anything.

My suggestion will put only an extra 500K on the market per Trial Account, it doesn't seems too much to affect the Economy neither enough for people to bother with a possible exploitation of the System

OK I am off to buy my first Argano for 120K NIC.....instead of 367K NIC of the Trial price big_smile

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Stock, as someone already noticed in another post about the same issue -
1) They will allow the trails to see the market
2) If there is a good way to farm NIC with trail, the farmer is going to have 100's accounts (that's 500k x 100 = 500mil) and that will hit the economy.

On small scale your ideas are good, on the Farmer scale not really...

<GargajCNS> we maim to please
  • BKK
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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Perpetuum trial gives you already more then most other games:

-access to the same world as all other player (no trial instance)
-access to the same chat channels as all other player
-access to all modules and equip (in theory)
-access to 14days worth persistant EP (~half of one month subscription for FREE)

other games limit your reachable character level - you can't do that here as there is nothing like that.

*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
  • CIR
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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Welcome to Perp Stock smile

  • PIE
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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Now all we need is a Stockade Market and Rotten Tomatoes to join the game so we can have some fun with our in-game criminals.

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Glad i'm not the only one trial who think Market Limitation is a pain

I understand you have to block trials trade system, to prevent NIC farmers (even if actually, NIC farmers might be beneficial, they will advertise on their websites massively visited by MMO players lol)

But after few hours of playing you are stuck due to this Limitation, especially about Ammunition, there is only one kind for sale by npc.
What about adding other non-rare ammunition sold by npc ? should not affect the game and will give some more game experience.
Or is there any other way to get some ?

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

I like the idea of option 2, maybe though implemented in the form of allowing a trial account to spend 500k per day, or every 2 days.

This amount would really make no difference to the game economy if it was exploited by a single account, anything worthwhile would require dozens of trials and that will be easily detectable.

Having the market totally locked is a real turn off for new players

  • CAKE!
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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

The restrictions have worked though. The buddies I've shown the game to have all thrown a months sub at it just to get full access as it was annoying being locked out of the market and its not like the sub is expensive.

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

Kroth wrote:

The restrictions have worked though. The buddies I've shown the game to have all thrown a months sub at it just to get full access as it was annoying being locked out of the market and its not like the sub is expensive.

I did the same, but if you ask me that shouldn't be the main reason for the lock. A trial is to test out the game and being locked out of a mechanic that is a major part isn't showing people really what the game is like.

But somehow I agree with the lock as I can imagine that the market is pretty fragile with the current number of players and making it available to trials would possible ruin it.

Now for if there are other and better systems? Probably some can be found, but the suggested in the OP is indeed not going to help much. A limit will only slow down the process a little as you will need only to make more trials to get the amount you want.

What however could work is setting up a sub-market for trials, what do I mean with this. It is the market but only accessible for trial accounts. Of course you won't find big stuff in there as a trial account is pretty limited in what he can make and produce. To solve this let non-trials also be able to make sell orders but not buying anything of it. There should be also a restriction of a maximum of NIC a non-trial account can put on there each month. Like a sell orders that max out to a maximum of 500k NIC each month, and the total NIC of sell orders on that market may not exceed that. So if a non-trial puts up sell orders for 500k NIC and those aren't sold in the month they won't be able to add more the next month, or until some of the older orders are sold.

Another limit to this sub-market would be the type of items that can be sold on there. Like for robots only the small ones. And for weapons only the light and perhaps some medium. And resources perhaps as well for the limit.

This way the trial members will have a market (though limited) to enjoy, and the amount of NIC to get out of the market is limited to 500k NIC/month for a paid account. This limit could be researched more to not screw the full market. But the limit shouldn't be put on a per trial account (as the OP suggestion) only as that will just favour the creation of more trials to exploit the market.

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Re: Trial Account Market Limitation

I like the idea of limited trials to a certain amount of NIC they can spend but I don't see how sub markets are any different than letting them use the current market with but buying and selling limits.

The issue with trials is that they can generate a small amount of NIC very quickly and for new players creating 10 trials could be considered an income. There is no clear way to solve this issue. Putting limits is required because the account is 'free'. I've no idea how to solve this without creating exploitable situations but the closest I can think is that they should be able to receive items NIC and items but not give them meaning all they can do is gain assets.

Not being able to join a corporation as a limitation only really effects those who already know each other but it does protect corporations from being robbed, their stuff deleted and then the trial disappears.

I'd suggest also removing their ability to private message people and add a new option "Receive private messages from trials accounts" as a setting. Please?