If this has been suggested before I apologize. Believe me, I visit the VO forums at least once a week just looking for something to bring me back in the game. I can surely afford it, but the content is progressing too slow and, much more importantly, the number of players is way too small. This is why I am coming up with this idea.

As i said, a lot of folks (myself included) are waiting for a surge in player population before they come back as subscription players. And I think it's obvious by now that unless Guild does something radical about this, the surge will never happen on its own.

Here's what I am suggesting: open up the game for 24 hours (in the middle of the weekend) and let all registered players play for free during that time. That should include all expired trial accounts as well as accounts that were once payed but are now on-hold and waiting for something to happen (like mine). Notify everyone (and i mean EVERYONE) by email with at least 2 weeks in advance and remind everyone about it every 3 days or so. Get them to register for the event and promise those who "confirm" 240k credits for the event. Get other websites to "broadcast" the event, at least by sending out the news to all gaming and other related websites. Get your voice-chat partner involved in the campaign. Get your publisher involved in the campaign.

How would this help? Let's see the (potential) benefits:
- players that are waiting will get a chance to see what's new from their own vessels, instead of test accounts now and then (that's what i am doing)
- players will get a glimpse at what Vendetta will look if it would truly be a Massive game. or at least semi-massive.
- devs will get a chance to see how the infrastructure will hold the load
- hard-core subscribing players will get their adrenaline rush for a quick interval and revive their motivation
- a lot of players will resubscribe if the experiment is a success because this would be what they were waiting for.
- getting the "players online" figure up will encourage future test-players to subscribe, maybe creating an exponential effect on the long run.
- people will focus less on the (potentially missing) content because player interaction will be huge (at least by current standards)

On the downside, these potential threats must also be considered:
- infrastructure may not be ready for a significant load, and slowdowns may drive people away
- (believe me, i tried to list more downsides but i cannot see them, I am sure others will help me out)

Optionally, Guild might want to also consider:
- having a promotional re-subscription day (same day as the event) when players can re-subscribe at a significantly discounted rate (30%-50%) for let's say at least 3 or 6 months.
- alternatively, sell the accounts for the same price, but offer a t-shirt, poster, pizza or something, to all those that subscribe during the promotion.
- offer a short time complimentary subscriptions (24 extra hours before the start of the main event) to all those that blog about the event upfront.
- repeat the event every month, 3-months
- extend the event for 48 hours so people can find a time to join and have more time to resubscribe.

I dare you: prove me wrong!
Radu.

many of the ideas you have the devs cannot afford atm.

making the game free for a weekend every 3 months or so is an awesome idea, the devs have a newsletter thing for all registered members I think it would be a great idea to do this and announce it through the Email system.

That's actualt great way to get more ppl into game (prooven by ie. guild wars where you get that event from time to time and its a hit).
But i would extend that time to whole weekend, because in 24hours you won't get used to game (ppl like to get laid from time to time) and then it would work for sure.

By the way, I haven't received any email regarding in-game events, hasn't that feature been activated yet?

I think this is a good idea that the devs can afford. I'd actually make it for an entire weekend.

It doesn't really cost them any money, and it would be a great promotional tactic. (Maybe even have it once a month or something, with an interesting event)

There's still the problem of 'content' and actually letting people know about it, but once you got that covered :P

Hi, I just skimmed this as I have to get to the office right away. But.. I think we're already planning on the major points here.

I'm working towards our first big "mailing list" posting (which I have delayed a little to have enough game-changes to hopefully bring in older people, but should still be ready in Nov). Once that occurs, we'll be using it regularly to organize people into major Events, which we'll coincide with other promos (we're doing a big trial-key promo, various other things, etc). And yes, we'll be doing some kind of "free week for previous subscribers!" thing along with the mailing list. And yes, this sort of thing will become a periodic event.. that's why we spent all the time developing the mailing list system, and testing it on the PCC over the summer.

The issue is timing, I want the Faction/FF thing to be in place, so it isn't just "hey look, it's VO again. Nothing new." Enough people have been embittered over lack of perceptual change at earlier periods.. I'd like to do this "push" with something major to talk about.

Note: I do appreciate the suggestion. Marketing ideas are always welcome (ideas are in general, but we tend to get more "gameplay" than "marketing").