Two ideas for the Devs

[TopherW]

Hi all,
Not sure how easy/hard this would be but thought I would throw it out there.

1) Creating two servers out there at the same time, one is the two to three days between matches which we currently have and a second server which is every week. That way for those of us who want to get around 200-300 people we could join the weekly server and those of us who want a quicker/smaller game could join the semi daily server.

2) This is probably much harder. Would it be possible to create a freemium server for those people out there who are complaining about having to pay $2 without getting a demo. Let that server be full of people buying to win but as they experience it they might realize they would have more fun if they weren't facing people buying to the top. The other advantage of that would be to give the devs a little more spending money for their servers and incredibly hard work on this.

My background is in teaching so I have no idea how easy/hard both of those suggestions would be but I do love this game and want it to succeed so figured I would throw those ideas out there...

Chris

[Royce]

I would be so disappointed if these guys let freemium, pay to win stuff taint their great game, even if just on some servers. I honestly just threw up a little bit in my mouth when I read that.

[zarkwizard]

1) Creating two servers out there at the same time, one is the two to three days between matches which we currently have and a second server which is every week. That way for those of us who want to get around 200-300 people we could join the weekly server and those of us who want a quicker/smaller game could join the semi daily server.

Excellent idea. I think I'll pass that one off as mine..

2) This is probably much harder. Would it be possible to create a freemium server for those people out there who are complaining about having to pay $2 without getting a demo. Let that server be full of people buying to win but as they experience it they might realize they would have more fun if they weren't facing people buying to the top. The other advantage of that would be to give the devs a little more spending money for their servers and incredibly hard work on this.

We have discussed this at length.. here our are current thoughts:

1 - Have a server similar to the tutorial server, but with restrictions in place like - Max Tier of say 3, and an object cap of maybe 200 ships. This server would only be available for free players.

2 - Have the signups for a game open to free players the last few hours before the game starts. Free players would be restricted to the following:
- No chat or renaming objects/planets.
- They would have an object limit imposed maybe 200 objects.
- They would only be able to train to Tier 3

3 - Have a server similar to the tutorial server once again for free players that resets every 3 days.

We'd be open to hearing input on those ideas and see how everyone feels. We have no desire to go freemium. We would really like to keep the game a fair playing field for everyone.

[VanderLegion]

1 would probably be pretty easy to set up, I can't imagine why they shouldn't be able to have 2 servers queued for logins at the same time. As for 2, I'm with Royce. I hate freemium with a fiery passion, it's the bane of iOS games (makes money for devs, but I refuse to buy crap in freemium games, I'd rather just buy a full game and enjoy it as I wish). If they wan't something for people that don't want to have to pay the 2 bucks to try it out, I'd rather see them implement a limited free trial that only has access to the tutorial server or something.

[Royce]

A simple free trial server would be a good idea I think, but why not just allow a free trial period with download of the app?

[Tsagoth]

A simple free trial server would be a good idea I think, but why not just allow a free trial period with download of the app?

People who play for free have no reason to behave and as we all know there are plenty of people who like to play the asshat in games. I won't permit an option that allows people to make paying player's lives miserable. That means whatever we decided to permit, they will be gagged, no question about it.

[JetJaguar2000]

People who play for free have no reason to behave and as we all know there are plenty of people who like to play the asshat in games. I won't permit an option that allows people to make paying player's lives miserable. That means whatever we decided to permit, they will be gagged, no question about it.

This is exactly the number one reason to keep the game premium. I can't speak to the economics of it from the perspective of the devs, but requiring payment goes a long way to weeding out the clowns who want to be annoying and not take the game seriously.

Also, I find it bizarre that anybody has an issue with paying 2 bucks to try a game for a month. It's 2 dollars. I don't know about anyone else, but I have spent more than that on games that I've played for 2 hours and never opened again, and I'm pretty stingy about what I buy on the app store. Even if I choose not to continue my subscription beyond the first month, I've already gotten more than 2 bucks worth of amusement out of this game, which is more than I can say for a lot of garbage you can spend 2 bucks on (such as this revolting McDonald's milkshake I just bought on a whim).

[Leedot]

Just to contribute to this a little bit one of my big objections to having f2p servers vs. subscription servers is that the design needs of the two games are fundamentally different so it would be easy for the games to quickly become very divergent experiences to the point that we're balancing two different games after a time.

Regardless of what we do the end goal is to keep the subscriber experience the same and work backwards from that.

[TopherW]

Hi all,
Sorry if my second bullet came across as advocating for freemium. I was just trying to think of a better way to please the people who are complaining they can't try before buying. Zarkwizard's comments sound like good thought has been put into this one so I will say that that was my idea if he wants to say my bullet one was his idea :-).

[Velucritus]

In all honesty when you buy any mmo they give you a month "free" but really your box sale is just part of your subscription for the first month. I had no problem dropping 2$ for my first month to see if i would like the game, as i considered that my standard purchase. It's really no different than any other 2$ game on the app store with no lite version. You buy it, you hate it, you're out some cash. I think people just see the word MMO and the standards for that is to give you a free month, instead of the game for free.