Trial Account and Game Promotion

[Sunleader]

Its clear that this Game need smore Population
And I think best way to Archieve this would be to let People Know

Most of my Friends I recommended the Game to are mainly bothered by the Idea of Buying it and then not liking it.



So heres some Suggestions


1. Suggestion
Trial Account for Limited time
Two Week Trial Account
Can be Downloaded Freely from the Homepage
Will be like normal Account in exception that
you cant Train Units Level in City (or if Implemented by Training Pit)
you cant Recruit Mercenarys
you only get 2 Army Slots
you dont get Any Quest Line Except for one of Sir Lenloth against Menthorn Uprising of which you dont get the Repeatable Quests tough

Pro:
Will Limit the Actions of Trials so they want to Buy the Game
Will be hard to abuse since you cant use Fast Army Building and those wont be able to keep up just by repeating the Trial Accounts

Contra:
Might be seen as being Food for those who Pay and this might damage Reputation among some new Players
Might actually be misunderstood and take out alot of Fun of the Game since you are bound to be weaker in PvP



2. Suggestion
Unlimited Trial Account
You give out the Client for Free which means that the Person can play all Singleplayer Content but cant use Online Kingdoms since they dont have an Key to Register

Pro:
Proven to be an Effective Way of Recruiting people very fast and very steady since most people like to play Multiplayer sooner or later
Will Promote the Game to a very big Audience in a very short time

Contra:
Offers the whole Client and thus is an very Big Step as it means Declaring large part of the Work as Freeware
Many People might be Content with Offline Playing



3. Suggestion
Buddy Access
Any Player who has the Game gets one or two Trial Keys
those Keys offer Full Access to the Game and all features
with the Exception that they will only work for 1 Week

Pro:
No Risk of People abusing it since the Number of Keys is Limited by actual Buyers
Offers Good View of the Game and might Attract Customers

Contra:
Very Slow in Promoting Game since the Trial Number is Limited and those wont Increase Fast





Well
Just so i said my Part
Think best of those three would be second Option
I know from myself that in Many Games I played Single Player and then the More I played slowly build up the Wish to go Online and Fight others.
But I wont disregard third Option as well
Especially since I could Immediatly get at least 2 or 3 guys into the game which only declined due to the fact they need to pay before they play


Greetz

[selridion]

maybe once the game is bug free and the AI has some more spiff to it you could make a singleplayer demo for the game

i don't think a trail on a "buy to play title" works very well but that's just my opinion
if a person likes the gameplay from playing singleplayer they will probably be wanting to buy it for the multiplayer because well multiplayer is awesome

but of course you wanna make the demo quite limiting but it needs to get a player to crave for more on both singleplayer and multiplayer

i also think that making any sort of trial or demo would first require the game to function properly on all aspects
you don't wanna give a player any wrong experience or impression of the game
cuz any flaw could be a reason for a potential customer to decide to spend his money on something else instead


i think the main problem with the game atm = that its not known... as i mentioned in another threat i only found out about this game cuz i read massively.com
if i would not have... i would never have known about it
youtube = barely a thing
there is a few "lets play" sort of videos of guys who are trying to figure the game out, which ain't really showing any fun aspects of the game
the dev diarly's are the only video's i could find which showed me stuff that made me wanna see more


now putting it on steam for example with a really appealing trailer video that will lure customers (or any other digital games seller)
there is plenty of other gaming websites you could spread the word at

[Konstantin Fomenko]

maybe once the game is bug free...

Sun - these are great ideas, and actually exactly one of the things we have planned (although with less specific restrictions). However - as I explained in the other similar post and as selridion said - all of this would make much more sense after we get to "finish" the basics of the game around April.