Free weekend at Alpha 2
Sarkgp
Member
Greetings! I guess this topic has been discussed sometime. But I can't find any similar thread.
I don't know if Intrepid Studios plans to open Alpha 2 to more players so they can try it independently of the packs sold just like Star Citizen does with free flights.
I think when Alpha 2 is stable and in a healthy state (During phase 3) Creating new free access servers for a weekend could clean up the image of the game a lot and even hook potential players to end up supporting it by buying a pack.
Does this sound like a bad idea?
I don't know if Intrepid Studios plans to open Alpha 2 to more players so they can try it independently of the packs sold just like Star Citizen does with free flights.
I think when Alpha 2 is stable and in a healthy state (During phase 3) Creating new free access servers for a weekend could clean up the image of the game a lot and even hook potential players to end up supporting it by buying a pack.
Does this sound like a bad idea?
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I fully expect this to happen on the last weekend of beta 2.
All the people eyeing the game will get a taste and it'll be in the smoothest possible state before launch so as to not leave anyone with a sour taste in their mouth for taking a bite.
Feels a good idea, because players who want to avoid paying, could try the game out before the full release and avoid paying 1 month subscription and overload the servers at launch.
But before transition to a free to play weekend, maybe a cheap (limited?) time alpha key could be sold.
Those could be servers which wipe every month and direct players to test specific new features, which the other players would test too but maybe not so easy if the world state is not appropriate.
As soon as you open the system to free accounts, you get gold selling, trolling, ganking, etc. due to people not caring about a free account.
Even for a weekend, people can do a lot when the character is online 24/7.
Or i can wait till the game won't reset chars anymore and just pay the monthly sub fee to play instead of "testing". Is it testing or selling what is happening here? To me those are not compatible
Alpha 2: The Drinking Game. Can you last the weekend?
Server queues, drink.
Find a bug, report it then drink.
Rubberbanding, report then drink.
Falling through the world, drink.
Stuck and can’t move, drink.
Half of your raid gets suddenly dropped, drink.
Probably about as productive as the suggestion. No offense intended. Entertaining for a livestream, if that’s the goal, possibly.
That sounds like the way to royally piss off everybody that has bought an Alpha-2 Key.
Just wait for Live Launch. There's no box cost, just pay $15 and try it out. If you haven't got $15 to spare for a month of gametime, then I'd suggest you should be using your time more wisely, anyway.
Lol
However, since the game is so cheap to try (one month sub, no up front fee) I'd say that a pre-order beta might be as far as they need to go, and not even do a completely open beta.
And how is that an issue?
Big deal, it's in alpha/beta anyways, it's just 2-3 days.
It's really not an issue if that happens, if anything, it can be helpful to see how Intrepid deal with those things, how community deals with it, and overall it could point out some flaws in the game's design.
Ah yes, the good old "if you haven't got x amount of money to spare, then you shouldn't be playing games" type argument. Can't believe I'm still seeing it pop up from time to time.
Not everyone is living in a first world country, where you earn that much money in just an hour or two of working.
Not everyone wants to spend that money, when it can be better spent elsewhere.
Not everyone wants to spend $15 on something they might not like, because it will feel like a waste of money.
$15 is maybe not a lot of money for most of us, but then again, its value is different to each individual. You could maybe throw away $15 and not care too much about it, to others, it's more valuable and they would never throw that money away.
I mean, WoW has free trial, as do other sub games. Having a free weekend at some point, either during alpha or beta, really doesn't impact those who bought alpha keys, as they had access to the game earlier, and they will keep it for longer, while the free weekend is only 2-3 days long.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
There's a reason we have a paywall, to elicit some sort of commitment.
There were many chances to get free alpha 2 keys as well if you followed Intrepid streams.