Ive come across a few different types of games that implement free trials in a MMORPG different ways. In my opinion, free trials arent really a must if the game has been lucky enough to get good reviews both through profesional reviews and word of mouth. But what about the games that have huge potentiol and just start off buggy or not as good as they should? Free trials are a great way to get users to try the game out for themselves and make a beleiver out of them. What my question boils down to is, how could a free trial account be implemented in a MMORPG? You could let the free trial become part of the world in his own character limiting his access to a few days play time. But would that really be fair to the paying players to have these free trials taking up names, roaming around perhaps causing havoc because theyre on a free trial and they dont care about the circumstances? The above happens in a online space-sim rpg I have played named Jumpgate. Free 10 day trials are allowed which are normally abused by players joining up just to power level then grief players for the remaining of theyre time in game. Another solution could be to restrict the trials to a different server or perhaps a special 'zone' in the game like a seperate island or territory they can not get off without a full account. If you restrict them to another server and the server is constantly on low numbers no one would be able to get a feel for the community aspect of the game. Anyone have any ideas and/or examples on how to implement a free trial into a MMORPG without causing an injustice to the paying subsricber nor the free trial?

Ragnarok Online
One of the few non comercial games that made it huge. About 3 or 4 years...maby I think and it's still going strong. People still pay the 10 a month and sit around the towns chatting with other players.
I played for 2 years and almost all people I befriended started because the used the free trial and loved it.
I myself thought the game would suk from the screenshots I seen untill I actually played it.
well... thats my only example.... Don't take me too seriously, I just like to reply.

Don't separate the player, because as you said it would reduce the number of people they could be in contact with and the community is a bit part of the whole MMO experience. It wouldn't truly represent what the game has to offer. I think that restricting the player would be an effective measure. Let them roam only so far, in a populated but not central hub so they can mingle with already paying players and see some of the content. If they can't go further it might make them more inclined to see what's out there, and if they're away from the central population hub then they wouldn't lag up the game or cause grief in problematic areas.

They still can grief though, anything 'free' is rife with players who can't resist their jerk sides. It's hard to manage ways to restrict griefing, but it's easier to manage the reaction of the griefed ones in some way. It would be fitting if the trial characters were instead labeled as the 'free' players that they are, so at least people could be wary or know that it's not a permanent loser playing. When they select a name then you would just need to verity it and add 'Test-' or 'Trial-' or something in front of it. This would also add the security of no names being taken for those paying... unless they WANTED to call themselves TestPerson... lol

<Wally steals your loot and trains mobs on you>
is worse than
<TrialWally steals your loot and trains mobs on you>
Because you see the Trial prefix and know that he's not really anything to worry about. They would be easy to identify and single out. Plus your GMs will go a long way to helping, because since they're not paying customers yet, they can be instantly booted for being 3:)... hehehe 3:) is a loving smiley we came up with on our WoW realm forums for 'asshats'.

You could always limit things like character levels for non paying customers. Let them get enough to get a good taste for the game but not enough to get full. If they like it, they will pay. If not, you didn't lose a customer, you lost dead weight.

Whether some people are jerks or not can't be helped if there is any kind of free-trial present. Runescape has a Free server and a Members server, members having more area's to explore, quests, skills, rare items, etc. People can play for as long as they like on the Free servers, but i think this is in itself a downside. People tend to just play the free servers and not bother with members, since the benefits don't outweight the costs.

A good way to give players a sampling of the world maybe to hinder them alot (IE: not passing past lvl 10 and staying a novice in Ragnarok for instance) but to let them play for as long as they want. This way, when they play they can interact with the community and make friends as much as they want, but to go around and have some real fun with the cool classes/abilities/gear they would have to pay. Free community, For-Pay character/class development.

There are three main categories of free trials for MMOS:
Limited Level
Limited Time
Limited Frequency

In the first, Limited Level, you restrict the power level that free players can obtain. In level-based games, this means they can't get to a very high level and only get the explore the beginning areas of a game. In point-based systems, you can't get very many character points, etc.

In Limited Time, you give the player a certain time period within which they can play your game with no restrictions, but after that period they have to pay to play. Usually the time period is a week or so.

In Limited Frequency, a type of trial I haven't seen before, you limit how often a player can play. For example, many paying MMO members play for several hours a day. If you limited frequency to 4 hours a week, for example, then free players could still get some exposute to all levels of play (especially if you allowed them to start at higher levels, which I would suggest) without having the kind of play they'd get for paying.

Personally, I wish all MMOs offered all three kinds of trials, because one mode can be misleading if the content is uniformly distributed (and it never is). Limited Frequency should probably take over after the Limited Time period runs out, so initially you can play a lot and then not so much (hook 'em early =-)

I'm planning a MMORPG for the future (and I think I have a decent amount of experience to back me ;) and I've never like the whole name thing. What I've always thought of as a good way to deal with names is that the character name should be apart from the username, and you can allow duplicate character names, cause I'm sure that there are many people that share your and my name in this world. (Not to hijack your post but some thoughts on names would me nice too =)

Quote:

Original post by Anonymous Poster ALl great suggestions but the main problem I would like how to avoid is the following; trial accounts signing up and taking names from paying users restricting the paying users to less names.

well, attach something naggy like "Willy[TRIAL ACCOUNT]"

Did you even read my reply? I suggested just that.

Matrix Online does it by implementing different types of keys. When you register your account, it is aware of what kind of key it is (beta, preorder, live, trial, etc). They limit you on time for the trial accounts (usually a week or two), but if you buy the game and input the key that comes with the commercial item, your account is just switch over to completely live, so nothing really changes for the ingame character, except that it isn't wiped out come the end of the trial.