Free trial

Is there gonna be any free trial system? Like in wow where you can play until a certain level and limited to do stuff?

I feel that a real good way to bring in new players to the game but that's only my opinion.

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Noaani

I would expect to see something along these lines a few years after the game launches.

George_Black

I would say no.
People just want to play for free.

tautau

Many 'free' accounts would be bots.

Heartbeat

while it's a little different, runescape bots take advantage of free membership through twitch prime claims to mass create what's called suicide bots. In Ashes the same concept would apply where bots would exist only to play the free trial, or claim some sort of time-limited free trial to create bots. The sub-fee will exist and for good reasons, deterring mass botting will be another huge bonus of the sub.

While a free trial would be great to let new players try out the game for a month or so at no cost, I think the downsides would massively outweigh the upsides.

Noaani

Heartbeat wrote: »

While a free trial would be great to let new players try out the game for a month or so at no cost, I think the downsides would massively outweigh the upsides.

This would be the case if any free trial were on the same server as the general population.

If free trials are run on their own server, I dont see this being an issue.

I don't see the need for people trialing out the game to need to be on regular servers. If they have friends already in the game that they want to play with, they shouldn't need a trial.

A trial of an MMO is a great tool to bring in new players, which is why I think it is worth having -eventually.

CROW3

I like the ‘only on a trial period server’ then prospective players have to choose a real server when they sub.

Introducing trial accounts on real servers will have too many negative & unintended impacts.

Edit: oh, and I’d want the player’s inventory deleted. Then upon x-Fer to a new server your gifted a starting set of average gear. No bots mining mats then bringing them to a different server.

Halae

I'd rather there wasn't a free trial. Part of the point of the lack of box price and $15 sub is so that there's a minimal barrier to entry while keeping a barrier to entry in place. Even games that have large pay-to-play systems can have serious botting problems, though many MMOs like WoW or FFXIV are insulated against by nature of their gear grind against the level of damage large numbers of these low-level bots can do. Mass influxes of low-level materials don't damage their economies because they don't feed into higher level loot systems, as they depend on high-level instances for their gear systems.

That's not the case with Ashes - we already know that low level materials are supposed to stay relevant to higher level crafters to keep the low level economy healthy and profitable for all comers, that the highest level gear is made by crafters, and that nodes need resources from all skill levels of gatherers. That means that an army of low-level bots absolutely destroying the available resources in a region is a threat to the economic stability of an entire server, making Ashes uniquely vulnerable to the problem more so than the vast majority of games. That means checks and barriers NEED to be in place to prevent that kind of thing from being present.

We know that Intrepid is planning on spending a lot of money on an active GMing team to handle reports rather than entrusting it to an automated system, but some level of barrier to keep bot accounts from running rampant is required, and the easiest and most direct way to do that is quite simple - make them pay. It's much harder to make seven thousand accounts if you need to shell out $15 every time you do so than if you can do all that for free with a script.

Scarbeus

Maybe each paying account will have a trial code they can give to a friend they can use to get 24hrs of free time. That way as it's one per account it wouldn't be worth it to make them into bots and it means you can play for a day with a friend and they can get a good few hours to try out the game and see of they like it.

Kornpatch

Oh.... its a monthly sub, well there goes all my excitement for AoC.
Just want to buy a game and play it whenever, I dont want more monthly bills.

Talents

Kornpatch wrote: »

Oh.... its a monthly sub, well there goes all my excitement for AoC.
Just want to buy a game and play it whenever, I dont want more monthly bills.

Monthly sub is the best way to monetize an MMO. Honestly if Ashes wasn't a monthly sub game I probably wouldn't be paying attention to it.

Strevi

Subscriptions will begin at launch or, subject to change, a user may be able to choose to activate their subscription to start at a particular point in time.[11]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Payment_model

So it may happen that without subscription, the player will have limited abilities or a level cap or a logarithmic level gain rate.

unknownsystemerror

Strevi wrote: »

So it may happen that without subscription, the player will have limited abilities or a level cap or a logarithmic level gain rate.

So it will happen, the player with a subscription will be playing. Those without, won't. Free trials are bot, RMT, goldseller candy. Intrepid has spent tons of time developing security and reporting systems to stop or minimize as best they can such behavior. Steven has spoken to his attitude on this before with comments like "If you don't want to get a package to test, that is fine, wait for launch, or watch someone stream to find out if Ashes will be for you. Our barrier to entry is low with our sub model." <paraphrasing> so it won't be happening.

The idea of a separate server where people can "try it out to X level, or play for X hours for free" isn't happening either. The main selling/development point of Ashes is the node system, which requires a minimum level of population to activate and maintain nodes. A niche free trial server would fill none of the requirements of the game to show what actual gameplay is beyond once again giving those bot, RMT, and gold sellers a place to probe for security system weakness.

TheDarkSorcerer

I don't think Ashes needs a FREE trial upon release of game, other than maybe doing a free weekend trial during yearly anniversary. A few years in, there are plenty of marketing ideas they could do.

EX:
Try Ashes of Creation 7 Days Free (You will be billed $X.XX after the 7 day period has ended).
Try your first month of Ashes of Creation for just $9.99 (You will be billed $X.XX after the 30 day period has ended).

Working in B2C, those are just example sub models that are normal to get new customers from a paid side.

SongRune

Strevi wrote: »

Subscriptions will begin at launch or, subject to change, a user may be able to choose to activate their subscription to start at a particular point in time.[11]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Payment_model

So it may happen that without subscription, the player will have limited abilities or a level cap or a logarithmic level gain rate.

This is almost certainly about people who pre-ordered and got subscription time as part of that package: not something to indicate you can play without an active subscription, but to indicate that your pre-ordered subscription doesn't have to be spent immediately at launch if you'd rather join later.

Cat Quiver

Kornpatch wrote: »

Oh.... its a monthly sub, well there goes all my excitement for AoC.
Just want to buy a game and play it whenever, I dont want more monthly bills.

A monthly sub(which has been known about for a long time now) is what's going to kill your excitement, weird.

Anyway there should be no free trial. Pay for 1 month, if you like it keep the sub, if you don't then don't keep the sub.

Strevi

SongRune wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

Subscriptions will begin at launch or, subject to change, a user may be able to choose to activate their subscription to start at a particular point in time.[11]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Payment_model

So it may happen that without subscription, the player will have limited abilities or a level cap or a logarithmic level gain rate.

This is almost certainly about people who pre-ordered and got subscription time as part of that package: not something to indicate you can play without an active subscription, but to indicate that your pre-ordered subscription doesn't have to be spent immediately at launch if you'd rather join later.

I see. That is even better.
Thanks for clarifying this to me

Hasil

Can't they just make free trial accounts unable to trade. That way free bot accounts couldn't sell or trade their goods and materials anyway.

Also, even subscription based MMOs have Bots, because the money that the Bots make on selling things is greater than the subscription cost.

Halae

Hasil wrote: »

Can't they just make free trial accounts unable to trade. That way free bot accounts couldn't sell or trade their goods and materials anyway.

Also, even subscription based MMOs have Bots, because the money that the Bots make on selling things is greater than the subscription cost.

Then you just have the bots line up to be killed by one bot who's willing to be corrupted, he collects the dropped gatherables from the killed bots, and an active account kills the corrupted bot to get what that bot has aggregated from the other bots. You've created extra steps, not prevented anything.

Taleof2Cities

Hasil wrote: »

Can't they just make free trial accounts unable to trade. That way free bot accounts couldn't sell or trade their goods and materials anyway.

Also, even subscription based MMOs have Bots, because the money that the Bots make on selling things is greater than the subscription cost.

That takes away a sizable amount of gameplay, @Hasil … not being able to buy stuff through hard-earned rewards.

Not to mention the developer time needed to program it.

As other replies have said, I’m sure Ashes will do some free trials … but well after launch.

Kornpatch

Cat Quiver wrote: »

A monthly sub(which has been known about for a long time now) is what's going to kill your excitement, weird.

Anyway there should be no free trial. Pay for 1 month, if you like it keep the sub, if you don't then don't keep the sub.

As a matter of fact. No I didn’t know it was a monthly subscription I’ve been watching development here and there over the past couple years but never really saw anything about how they intend to sell the game. I want to play the game because it looks really cool.

But when a game costs more than any other game over the course of 5 months I have an issue, especially with an MMO that demands time, it’s borderline predatory.

Your solution to my issue with monthly subscriptions in games is to subscribe for a month to see if I like it… I don’t want a free game. I want to pay for it once and then maybe put more down for a DLC or expansion.

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