maswov said:... Enlighten me as to what else abusers of trial accounts could do ...
Well as it turns out, this is a solved problem, with many historical lessons learned. SWTOR already has gone through all the pain of trial accounts.
But in short, trial accounts used the following features to grief other players: Group invites. Guild invites. /tell. /say. Custom chat channels. Public chat channels. All chat features of every/any kind. Player to player trades. In Game mail. Duel challenges. Friend invites. Killing all the mobs in the newbie area. Blocking access to NPCs, especially quest/plot NPCs. Spam joining/parting PvP queues. Spam joining/parting PvE queues. Spamming the auction house with massive searches and sales. Lagging all interactive NPCs so that players couldn't use them. Training mobs away from players in the starting areas. Training mobs to players in the starting area. Leashing mobs. Repeatedly harvesting all static in-world crafting nodes 24x7.
And that's just what I saw with my own eyes. :) I'm sure there is more. As a result, pretty much everything in the game is throttled, server side and client side. As it should be, if you're not a paying customer. SWTOR isn't a charity, and neither is Pantheon.
As others have already said, f2p/trial accounts needs to be handled very carefully. Players that already have a guild to go to? They're subbed. They will never have to put up with any of this. But truly new players, you have to protect them.
IMHO, region specific servers for trials, (no manual server select) with a max of 3 concurrent game connections per source IP for trial accounts, makes the most sense.
It cuts down many of the low hanging cheap VPN/proxies used to bypass region restrictions, and would prevent egregious abuse seen in many other games. Doesn't affect 99% of couples or families just wanting to trial it, either.
Once a person chose to sub, of course, they could pick any server they wanted to play on, even if it meant 1700ms of latency in order to play with their friends. :P
It's not VR's "first rodeo" as they keep saying. They have decades of experience between them. Sure, if they can't avoid the normal pitfalls of trial account abuse then have a separate server, but I can totally understand the argument that you really don't get a feel for a game where #CommunityMatters by having segregated trial accounts.
I will not subscribe, if I have to play with trial accounts. It goes against everything the game was going for at the start. Trial accounts serve no useful purpose with youtube and twitch around. They only serve for ways to get around the rules (extra inventory slots, name reservations, ect), spamming, and griefing. So VR if this is your decision, go ahead and subtract one, to your target subsciptions. I will still be following the game, as you never know what the final outcomes will be, but this topic is depressing.
Arcion said:I will not subscribe, if I have to play with trial accounts. It goes against everything the game was going for at the start. Trial accounts serve no useful purpose with youtube and twitch around. They only serve for ways to get around the rules (extra inventory slots, name reservations, ect), spamming, and griefing. So VR if this is your decision, go ahead and subtract one, to your target subsciptions. I will still be following the game, as you never know what the final outcomes will be, but this topic is depressing.
I honestly think they won't force it on everyone. That is, I would suspect that there will be some servers that have trial accounts and some that do not. This way, those who want to keep it open to allow for friends and family to test the game without obligation will likely play on the servers that have trial accounts and those who want to avoid that interaction completely can play on a server that does not.
That in my opinion seems like the most logical and balanced approach to this issue as everyone can be happy then.
Granted, it depends on how they do this through technology, but if I had a choice I would prefer to be on a server that not only does it not have trial accounts, but disallows any transfers to it regardless. This would protect from possible abuses that can come in many forms, and many places.
My concern, or more specifically "interest" is how VR is going to deal with the costs incurred by the trial accounts. I remember Brad saying technologically, they can easily accomodate a variable increase in players, but what about the costs? That is, what if due to hype/popularity/nefarious action, etc... 2-3 million people decide to just "try" the game? That is a rather large cost to eat in terms of bandwidth, storage, and processing. I wonder how they are preparing for that.
I remember debates here about trial accounts and the plusses and minuses of keeping them on separate servers. Both sides had excellent points.
If there are, for example, five "normal ruleset" servers and one of them is where all the trial accounts go this too has plusses and minuses. If enough people avoid that server to avoid the trial accounts it winds up much like putting trial accounts on a separate server. Though there will still be more mixing of populations than with a separate server. I have no opinion on the best way to resolve this but I hope VR is smarter than I am.
On the cost of many many people trying Pantheon, this would be a wonderful opportunity since even a small percentage staying would produce significant revenues for years to come. I hope they will have a back-up plan. The obvious one is sharding although I know they do not want to use it. If they plan for 50,000 people the first week and they get 2 million they may not have any other choice since letting the servers collapse is the worst possible result and hastily opening up 30 new servers that will be underpopulated in a month is not much better.
If I were VR I would make sure to plan for success - planning for failure is nice but it leaves you with a well organized failure. Planning for success is far more critical.
This is a very explosive topic, and imho I think you have to put a lot of this into some actual context of timing.
First, most of the sales of games in this day and age are PS4 and Xbox (console gaming). Lets face it, its very common for these games to sell millions of copies right off the bat. I dont know if they even have trials on console gaming. But it doesnt seem plausible millions of people playing a trial BEFORE they bought the game. Today, games are about instant gratification for many many people. For some its a race. These type of games spawn knock-offs - same game type different location, multiple (annual) retools/reboots, and now world gaming championships. Its a HUGE business.
Second, tablet and phone (app) gaming, has exploded. Also not aware of trials being used (granted most are free to download if your willing to watch ads) But ALL of them have some kind of cash (purchasing system) in place. Due to the progress of emulators, almost all these type of games can actually be played on a PC now. (I'll get back to this more in a minute)
The PC gaming market has shrank considerably, to put it nicely. You had to have an expensive computer with a video card, and pay a monthly fee for home internet service. Componets are not cheap, home internet for a mid speed service averages 50.00 a month. I know i have pretty fast service, but i also pay 100.00 a month for it (but mainly for netflix, pandora, amazonprime streaming as well). I know i could buy 2-3 PS4 or Xbox consoles fully loaded for what i paid just for just my video card.
Times have changed, and they will continue to change quickly!!! We have so many examples of game failures, with very very few successes (although success and/or failure is in the eye of the beholder). I've read in several spots about possible subscription numbers, some hopes and dreams, some maybe even on the very conservitive side. We all hope and dream this game will be our new home, but the reality is, there's still a chance that it will join the long list of failures.
Not to pin trials solely on gold sellers/abusuers. But can anyone honestly tell me a game that this wasnt an issue of some kind? Imho they go hand in hand. Using a credit card to secure a trial, guess what, gold sellers dont use their own credit cards, they use STOLEN credit cards. They get 30 free days before the actual credit card is charged, so the gold farmer gets 30 free days to build up and spam. The person who's credit card is being used doesnt even know to report it stolen till the 30 day trial is over, then billled, then you get mailed a statement, that could be up to 60 days after the fact. The game company is wasting valuable resources, and developing tools to stop it, resources that could be going elseware. With punishements typically to give first time offenders a "warning", gold sellers get two chances (if they even get caught once). Remember in vanguard, you couldnt even /report NAME before the toon had spammed and was deleted.
I know my son took my credit card once (while i was sleeping) when we're all playing vanguard as a family (those were the days!!) to buy gold, let me tell you from first hand expierence, 45 days later my statement had over 1800.00 in fraudulent charges. It took a couple of months to fully grasp what had happened, not to mention the lost time and frustration that goes with trying to get on top of it all. A poster above stated it perfectly - gold sellers are not the problem, gold buyers ARE. But the reality is you cant have one without the other.
Google - Gold Farming - Its scary. China and Korea, as governments actually allow this as a business as long as thier paying their taxes. How to you beat a system when a government is actually helping it strive. China has over 100,000 confirmed gold farming workers, plus if you watch the videos, prisoners serving time working as gold sellers working for the government to help fund the prison admin. If you throw in some of the sub numbers being bantered about, in some cases thats 1/1 for every legitimate player. Gold farming in China is more pervasive than in any other country, as 80% of all gold farmers are in mainland China,[30] with a total of 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country as of 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming
I promise you, they are ALREADY in pre-alpha, checking things out, figuring out strats to power level. Even at 1000.00, its chump change to get a head start on a new game. Theyre already talking about it on the battlenet forums. The word is OUT!!! It will take these people an hour to level up enough, to crossover to a main server to be able to spam. Even if they get the acct banned, they've got plenty more stolen credit cards from the pleathra of games they're selling gold/gems/whatever from, possibly just waiting to use them for this games startup. VR will not even know theres a problem until after the first 30 day trial is over and the card is charged, and reported stolen.
I play two app games on my phone/tablet. One game im playing just came out in december, we just recently had an event where we competed against all other "guilds", when the final results were posted, 46/50 of the top 50 guilds were from china and/or korea. Two were russian, and two were english speaking. The game is so laggy on my tablet now, cause they're using a emulator/PC to bot progress. Out of the 50 people in my "guild" 45 have already quit the game. Thats 90% is 4 months!!!!! It happens much faster now (quitting), and cant be compared to what we were dealing with in games from 5-10 years ago.
https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/how-to-prevent-video-game-credit-card-fraud.php ; ..... notice the "EXTREMELY HIGH" use of credit card fraud for video gaming purchases.
I guess what im trying to say is, they're everywhere now. Its hard to stop when they basically out number the legitimate player base (if you count the 100k from just china alone being 80% - and that was as of 2006. With the slow down of PC gaming, and advancements of tablets/phones/consoles, they were smart enough to diversify. They stayed ahead of the game, dont think for a second there not looking at EVERY opportunity to progess/expand. Gaming is a 100 BILLION dollar business (very very little, if any, of that was due to a free trial).
People are either going to buy the game or they are not. Heck you've got people that have dropped a thousand dollars (look in any mirror) for a game that might not have even gone live. But to give 100,000 opportunites to let these people in, is at best a long nail driven into a deep coffin. There will be 100's if not 1000s of copies of the game sold via digital download bought with a stolen credit card for the sole purpose of abusing the acct for 30 days until the card is actually charged and reported stolen. If you ban the acct immediatly, guess what, they'll just use another stolen credit card to buy another digitial copy of the game to continue on. At least at that point VR can at least collect on an actual sale.
Im not pretending to know the answer, but not willing to at least look at how these people opperate, and what their willing to do to get thier foot in the door is a HUGE mistake. A mistake that has consitantly cost many games thier "loyal" player base. I know i will be buying and paying for 5 subs (myself, two of my kids, and two of my grandkids). For me, and you can hate all you want, first gold spammer I see,
Im done and im taking my money with me. Cause once they're in, they are already 3 steps ahead of you, and thier not losing money, the game company is.
Know what the definition of "insanity" is, yep making the same mistake over and over again, but expecting a different result. I hope, with all the knowledgable people VR has on its team, they are ahead of the game, cause i really want this to be a home for years to come.
I'm not a fan of trial accounts.
The prevailing argument for trial accounts seems to be that new potential customers need to experience what it's like to play a community driven game like Pantheon before deciding to sign up. But if a substantial part of the population they meet are either not very committed or outright destructive, that argument falls apart. On the contrary, such a player base is more likely to scare many people away without giving the game a real chance.
If you're at all cut out to becoming a serious Pantheon player paying 10-15 subscription dollars a month, there'll be enough information about Pantheon available out there at and after launch to persuade you to try it out without the need for a free trial. Giving you a chance to meet the idiots before you decice could potentially scare more long-term customers away than the opposite.
It's all very fine if paying customers can choose a server with no trial account players, but it doesn't solve the above issue. In fact, it makes it worse.
Fortunately, if trial accounts turn out to be a mistake, it's easily fixed.
(first gold spammer I see, Im done and im taking my money with me))
This comes close to saying upfront that you won't be playing Pantheon, since the most we can hope for is that VR will do a good job making it harder or more expensive for the swine, and have a good filter automatically blocking most of their advertisements. Stopping them completely just cannot be done. Well, if the game is a total failure and no one cares enough about it to buy gold that will work - but I don't think we want that kind of solution.
It isn't just a free trial issue. It may not even be mostly a free trial issue. Heck, it may not even be *partly* a free trial issue.
What your post tells me is that they can use the stolen cards to subscribe, with none of the free trial limits, and by the time the card is reported stolen and the account is cancelled have perhaps months to use that *subscriber* account.
Maybe our best hope isn't that Pantheon will fail, but that with all the MMOs out there in development it will stay under their radar until and unless it becomes a significant success. Maybe 6 months after release some of them will start paying attention.
Personally I have never considered the main risk of free trial accounts to be the gold spammers. With a good filter they can be marginalized. I consider the main risk to the quality of life of the regular players to be the trolls and 12 year olds that tend to jump into games when it doesn't cost them a penny and make the lives of the rest of us miserable.
talger said:Not to pin trials solely on gold sellers/abusuers. But can anyone honestly tell me a game that this wasnt an issue of some kind? Imho they go hand in hand. Using a credit card to secure a trial, guess what, gold sellers dont use their own credit cards, they use STOLEN credit cards. They get 30 free days before the actual credit card is charged, so the gold farmer gets 30 free days to build up and spam. The person who's credit card is being used doesnt even know to report it stolen till the 30 day trial is over, then billled, then you get mailed a statement, that could be up to 60 days after the fact. The game company is wasting valuable resources, and developing tools to stop it, resources that could be going elseware. With punishements typically to give first time offenders a "warning", gold sellers get two chances (if they even get caught once). Remember in vanguard, you couldnt even /report NAME before the toon had spammed and was deleted.
This is off topic, but I thought I would throw this out there in case you may have not known about this feature. A lot of CC companies now allow for you to have your transactions sent to your phone/email the moment they are made, so if you are diligent and report quickly, a theif will have very little time to use the card effectively. I have had mine stolen many times, and the turn around on the incident is quick. The moment the transaction goes in, it is usually around 10-20 mins and I have already contacted the fraud department, they have contacted the company that facilitated the transaction and stops, holds, etc... are put out. So, in this case, with Pantheon, that tactic can't work very well if people use this feature as the farmer would have little to no time to farm (or use it as a mule), and if VR puts in some transaction features with the CC companies, it may be possible to auto-suspend the VR account via a banks stop on the card. This would go a long way to shutting down this activity.
My unlearned and assuming opinion is the FTP trial for the first 10 levels was a throwback to the original team that was scrapped because they were going to do it the way the business said it shoud and therefore use FTP. They just didn't get it. So all those FTP guys, who also influenced the promising of things like jboots equivalent and "stuff" with alpha access, and who seeded people in forums to say - but there can be one rich person that pays 100k! that will make up the difference, so cash shops yes! - so then VR went on to do the real thing and because of some legal thing from the original plan with all the FTP guys, thay could not get out of the promise of "free trial for first 10 levels" so, it had to stay.
Jabir said:If you're at all cut out to becoming a serious Pantheon player paying 10-15 subscription dollars a month, there'll be enough information about Pantheon available out there at and after launch to persuade you to try it out without the need for a free trial. Giving you a chance to meet the idiots before you decice could potentially scare more long-term customers away than the opposite.
So you think people should part with their money and then get driven off by horrible experiences, rather than testing something out with a trial and learning if something is for them or not...? That's not a very convincing argument from the perspective of a consumer.
If the theoretical community is bad enough that it drives people away from the game, then IMO people have every right to learn about that before spending money on a game and sub.
Naunet said:Jabir said:If you're at all cut out to becoming a serious Pantheon player paying 10-15 subscription dollars a month, there'll be enough information about Pantheon available out there at and after launch to persuade you to try it out without the need for a free trial. Giving you a chance to meet the idiots before you decice could potentially scare more long-term customers away than the opposite.So you think people should part with their money and then get driven off by horrible experiences, rather than testing something out with a trial and learning if something is for them or not...? That's not a very convincing argument from the perspective of a consumer.
If the theoretical community is bad enough that it drives people away from the game, then IMO people have every right to learn about that before spending money on a game and sub.
As consumers we buy a lot of things that we cannot try out before we buy. In the case of Pantheon there will be lots of videos and reviews to study before you decide to try it out for a month or whatever.
And my argument was founded on the presumption that the community might come across as more "toxic", in a broad sense, if it was largely populated by players with no intentions of playing for a longer period, and only then.
I'd rather have a game with an influx of fresh players rather than having everyone at max level circlejerking over guild politics a year and a half after launch. Also, I want to show this game to my friends and convince them to play with me. They won't be attracted if they're put in a fake version of the game with none of the actual nuance of the real game.
If someone on a trial account is rude to you, just put them on ignore. No reason to freak out about that being a possibility.
Spluffen said:
I'd rather have a game with an influx of fresh players rather than having everyone at max level circlejerking over guild politics a year and a half after launch. Also, I want to show this game to my friends and convince them to play with me. They won't be attracted if they're put in a fake version of the game with none of the actual nuance of the real game.
If someone on a trial account is rude to you, just put them on ignore. No reason to freak out about that being a possibility.
In a contested content game, the issue is not simply a chat issue (chat is the least of my concern).
Playing contested content with people who have zero invested interest in the game is an imblance in play positions, especially in a game where reputation matters. If your account is throw away, you have less responsibilty.
I think they should at least give people a choice to play on a server that has FTP accounts. Seems reasonable as that solution allows you to have what you want and me to have what I want. Pretty reasonable don't you think?
Tanix said:
Spluffen said:I'd rather have a game with an influx of fresh players rather than having everyone at max level circlejerking over guild politics a year and a half after launch. Also, I want to show this game to my friends and convince them to play with me. They won't be attracted if they're put in a fake version of the game with none of the actual nuance of the real game.
If someone on a trial account is rude to you, just put them on ignore. No reason to freak out about that being a possibility.
In a contested content game, the issue is not simply a chat issue (chat is the least of my concern).
Playing contested content with people who have zero invested interest in the game is an imblance in play positions, especially in a game where reputation matters. If your account is throw away, you have less responsibilty.
I think they should at least give people a choice to play on a server that has FTP accounts. Seems reasonable as that solution allows you to have what you want and me to have what I want. Pretty reasonable don't you think?
I think that's fine. I just don't think it is healthy to have a place only trial accounts are at. Usually it is the veterans that run by with shiny gear and talk to a beginner for a little bit that motivates them to play games like this.
Watemper said: ... I think that's fine. I just don't think it is healthy to have a place only trial accounts are at. Usually it is the veterans that run by with shiny gear and talk to a beginner for a little bit that motivates them to play games like this.
Could always solve it with technology.
What I mean by that is, all you have to do is allow players to flag to be a Helper, Greeter, Guide, Advisor, Counselor, or similar, and then those are the only non-trial players the trial players see or can interact with.
Similarly, once subscribed, a player could toggle the visiblity of trial players, either in certain zones, everywhere, in-combat, or out of combat. By default it would be off.
That way, they can start on servers that everyone else is on, and interact with players who have opted in to do so, yet, they cannot disrupt the normal social atmosphere of the server.
Finally, they should be restricted in all ways to the starting zones only, even if that means being restricted to level 5 or 10, max.
What I mean by visibility is, you don't see, hear, or in any way receive on your Pantheon client any information about those trial players, including but not limited to any actions they perform, movement, location updates, and more. Trials can't see subs. Subs can't see Trials. Subs that choose to see Trials can be seen by them. By default Subs don't see Trials. This way, too, guild recruiters know exactly what to do and where to go to find truly new players, and to interact and assist those new players exactly as much as they wish to.
vjek said:Watemper said: ... I think that's fine. I just don't think it is healthy to have a place only trial accounts are at. Usually it is the veterans that run by with shiny gear and talk to a beginner for a little bit that motivates them to play games like this.Could always solve it with technology.
What I mean by that is, all you have to do is allow players to flag to be a Helper, Greeter, Guide, Advisor, Counselor, or similar, and then those are the only non-trial players the trial players see or can interact with.
Similarly, once subscribed, a player could toggle the visiblity of trial players, either in certain zones, everywhere, in-combat, or out of combat. By default it would be off.
That way, they can start on servers that everyone else is on, and interact with players who have opted in to do so, yet, they cannot disrupt the normal social atmosphere of the server.
Finally, they should be restricted in all ways to the starting zones only, even if that means being restricted to level 5 or 10, max.What I mean by visibility is, you don't see, hear, or in any way receive on your Pantheon client any information about those trial players, including but not limited to any actions they perform, movement, location updates, and more. Trials can't see subs. Subs can't see Trials. Subs that choose to see Trials can be seen by them. By default Subs don't see Trials. This way, too, guild recruiters know exactly what to do and where to go to find truly new players, and to interact and assist those new players exactly as much as they wish to.
Designing a ground up player phasing solution for such a minor thing would be a ridiculous waste of time, especially considering all they are already up against.
Tanix said:I think they should at least give people a choice to play on a server that has FTP accounts. Seems reasonable as that solution allows you to have what you want and me to have what I want. Pretty reasonable don't you think?
Oh Tanix, trust me, the fact that you want what you want hasn't eluded me or anyone else.
Keno Monster said: Designing a ground up player phasing solution for such a minor thing would be a ridiculous waste of time, especially considering all they are already up against.
How is it 'ground up'? It's already done. It's just toggling visiblity, which is/can be an existing flag available on any object in Unity. Been around for more than 7 years. Reading dynamic flags like this is part of any spawning system, at minimum, so 99% of the code is already in the client. But I like the phrase player phasing. Maybe Trial Phasing? I mean, sure, you don't have to do it, you can create trial servers, or force some servers to be trial servers, but that seems less elegant than Trial Phasing and allowing players to volunteer flag as Counselors to help out and interact with new players.
While it may be a minor thing to you, after seeing it drive people away from and absolutely destroy the new player experience in many many many MMO's, I can tell you for a certainty, it's not a minor thing for everyone.
Spluffen said:Tanix said:I think they should at least give people a choice to play on a server that has FTP accounts. Seems reasonable as that solution allows you to have what you want and me to have what I want. Pretty reasonable don't you think?
Oh Tanix, trust me, the fact that you want what you want hasn't eluded me or anyone else.
That was not the question. The question was if it is reasonable or not to allow players to choose if they want to play on a FTP access server or not. See, I don't see it as unreasonable and I don't see it as an issue with technology or practicality. Those who ask for it have legitimate requests, but those requests don't require my or others participation. Those who made the arguments that they want to be on such a server because they can have friends and family come and play who may be undecided is a valid argument. Those who claim that FTP players need to experience a living breathing server to interact with, also is a valid argument. Forcing everyone to play on such I don't think is.
That is, unless the fear is that given the choice, nobody will want to play on the FTP access servers and if that is true, aren't you essentiallly telling all the paying customers they should be forced to do something just because non-paying customers don't want commit? Maybe it is just me, but that is not what I would call putting my customers first. /shrug
Beefcake said:I understand your aversion to gold sellers, spammers, etc. However, we need to stop treating trial accounts as second class citizens. This is a community based game. Excluding the trial accounts from the community will only turn them off.
Trial accounts are potential subscribers. Treat them as such.
Stop acting like you are all elite and trial accounts are the untouchables.
Until they are paying the subsription like everyone else, well then, they are second class citizens. They would be here to see how the game plays to determine if they want to purchase, not a free ride, which is essentilly what free accounts are, in the games that don't time limit them. THIS IS NOT A FREE TO PLAY GAME. Sorry but if a person can't get the info they need from you-tube and twitch, and need more than a couple levels iscolated from paying customers, then they are just freeloaders.
Arcion said:Beefcake said:I understand your aversion to gold sellers, spammers, etc. However, we need to stop treating trial accounts as second class citizens. This is a community based game. Excluding the trial accounts from the community will only turn them off.
Trial accounts are potential subscribers. Treat them as such.
Stop acting like you are all elite and trial accounts are the untouchables.
Until they are paying the subsription like everyone else, well then, they are second class citizens. They would be here to see how the game plays to determine if they want to purchase, not a free ride, which is essentilly what free accounts are, in the games that don't time limit them. THIS IS NOT A FREE TO PLAY GAME. Sorry but if a person can't get the info they need from you-tube and twitch, and need more than a couple levels iscolated from paying customers, then they are just freeloaders.
Yeah I have to agree with this. If i am paying 15 or 20 bucks a month and you are not, then well...frankly I am elite in this context. This is not 1995. You really should have an idea if you want to play a game with all the immense amount of multimedia content out there now. Add to that some free time to take the thing for a spin and that should be enough. If you are like, well without full access to all the chat and ability to shout in zone, etc I refuse to sub...then, to quote Tombstone...Well...bye.
The other concern I have thought about is VR being able to handle capacity with FTP access. Maybe bandwidth, storage, etc... is dirt cheap these days, but what if a couple million decide to try Pantheon out? It is free, so why not right? What is the cost of providing access to 2 million+ subs who aren't paying, for an indefinite period of time?
Then there is the issue of handling FTP access to a given realm itself. If I choose to play on Realm A as a paying customer, and I am starting the game, and the realm capacity to play with a consistent community without over crowding is lets say 1k (arbitrary number) and a bunch of FTP choose to try out the game choosing Realm A (because they were told by friends, family, forums, etc... that Realm A has an awesome community), what happens when the Realm hits max capacity?
I mean, I understand the concept of dynamically creating new realms, etc... to allow for increased capacity, but how do you do this and retain your static community base? Do the FTP players get kicked on to another realm? Do they get capped on how many can log in? Will FTP not make the realms"potentially" always at max capacity for players on a realm? How do you keep the FTP players together with the static players (ie family/friends/etc... trying the game out) and how do you provide means for new players to test out and play with friends on older realms that have reached expected capacity?
Maybe tech today has solutions for this, but I am not sure how this will work without creating problems for not only the paying customers, but the FTP ones as well. Maybe there is a solution, but having them all on a trial realm where they can dynamically spawn new realms seems the limited solution and counter to what some are expecting and arguing for.
This also doesn't even touch on the cost factors of no buy in, no upfront income and the potential for millions of players "trying" out the game. Those who think this isn't possible, might I point you to MMORPG.com where Pantheon is number 2, and from time to time number 1 on the most anticipated MMO. Having a million + people "try" the game for free is entirely reasonable.
The general idea behind offering something for free is knowing that you have a high-quality product and having faith that a certain percentage of trial accounts will convert into paid subscribers. This isn't a new or novel concept ... it's used in many different industries and there are professionals working behind the scenes that analyze the cost metrics against the potential rate of return that they are expecting. If a million people try out Pantheon for free, there is going to be an expectation that a decent amount of those players will end up subscribing. This should not only offset the costs of offering free trial accounts ... it should be a profitable business venture. As long as Pantheon is a high-quality product (this is why it's important to not dumb down the experience too much) everything will be fine. Imagine going to your local grocery store and being offered a free sample of cheese and cracker. But wait ... you have to hold the cracker in your hand for 15 minutes (without moving) before you can eat it, and rather than having a toothpick through the cheese, it's a sewing needle that has an anti-theft wire attached to it and running to the table. That would be a horrible experience. Just give people a quality sample with minimal strings attached and let them make a decision for themselves whether or not they enjoyed the product. The better the product and sampling experience, the more conversions you will get. This doesn't even touch on the "conversion analytics" that are going on behind the scenes.
oneADseven said:The general idea behind offering something for free is knowing that you have a high-quality product and having faith that a certain percentage of trial accounts will convert into paid subscribers. This isn't a new or novel concept ... it's used in many different industries and there are professionals working behind the scenes that analyze the cost metrics against the potential rate of return that they are expecting. If a million people try out Pantheon for free, there is going to be an expectation that a decent amount of those players will end up subscribing. This should not only offset the costs of offering free trial accounts ... it should be a profitable business venture. As long as Pantheon is a high-quality product (this is why it's important to not dumb down the experience too much) everything will be fine. Imagine going to your local grocery store and being offered a free sample of cheese and cracker. But wait ... you have to hold the cracker in your hand for 15 minutes (without moving) before you can eat it, and rather than having a toothpick through the cheese, it's a sewing needle that has an anti-theft wire attached to it and running to the table. That would be a horrible experience. Just give people a quality sample with minimal strings attached and let them make a decision for themselves whether or not they enjoyed the product. The better the product and sampling experience, the more conversions you will get. This doesn't even touch on the "conversion analytics" that are going on behind the scenes.
That is a massive gamble to take as a small company who has limited means to support a cost overflow. This makes sense with big companies who strategize and monitize for such as their audience focus, but a niche game trying to appeal to the masses of FTP? There are a large amount of FTP people out there who have no intention in buying or subscribing. With no buy in, even with lets say a 40% retention rate (I think this is way too optimistic), you still have 60% who are not going to play the game and you must cover the costs.
So, lets say you have 1 million FTP players try the game and 400k decide to continue on playing (possible, though I think unlikely), you still have 600K who you have to pay for. Granted it all depends on over all costs, but it is a dangerous game to play as a small niche game.
Also, as I said the idea of how this will have an effect on server populations is important. I am not seeing how they can keep a static based community and allow for the dynamic resource allocation that the FTP will require. I think they will have to have special FTP servers or it will have a major conflict with realm population caps.