The Lite tier looks pretty fair to everyone. I'm not keen on limiting chat and guild membership though. I think you want to encourage people to hang out and it would be strange to have to leave a guild if you went from subbed -> Lite but not subbed -> unsubbed.

Tiers leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I think Arf makes a good point. Just restrict yourself to only the two tiers. Anything more granular would be crossing the line. And stay away from micro-transactions. In-game stuff should always be obtained via in-game methods. Anything else is cheating.

+1 to a Lite model.

I'd say allow purchasing the access of some items that are not accessable through Lite and only through full subscription. For example, if someone would like to purchase access to a Neut 1, they could, but would still need the license and credits required.

I'm not sure about what the level caps should be, but as for unlocking ships and weapons, prohibit purchase of the FC cell, and all but the MkI and possibly MkII variants of ships and weapons under that level cap.

I also think there should be a credit cap.

I think a lot of parents would buy their kids $12 a year subscriptions if it's limited to 2 hours during the week (Mon-Thur) and 6 hours during the weekend (Fri-Sun). The next time they land at a station they wouldn't be able to Launch and the session would end.

A family pack would also probably do well for your regular crowd. Many of us have families now.

I welcome feedback on possible level caps and restrictions.

As a response to the suggestion that we just introduce longer trials for mobile.. that's not enough. We have a lot of bad Play Store reviews just from people who read that we're a $10/month subscription game. We need a lower tier of access, just from an informational standpoint, or people won't even consider the game.

Hey Inc does lite work on the PC at all? or is it only for android. Are you saying that you will start on android and move to PC with the concept or only have it on android?

I'm saying we would start offering it only as an in-game-purchase option on mobile platforms, beginning with Android. I'm not against the possibility of offering it on the PC at some point, but I wouldn't start with that. The PC thing also has other ramifications.. we might want to only offer Lite "blocks" of time at like a $5 level or something (5 months), because dealing with $0.99 transactions has other issues for those of us who process credit cards.

Lite subscribers would be able to play on the PC. They would just have to sign up via a mobile platform for the moment.

Additionally, why are you considering a restriction based light subscription when you could just implement a micotransaction based f2p model straight up, the revenues are probably higher and it solves the player increase problem nicely too. You're going to get just as much of a community downvote with either one, you might as well go the more effective one.

Now there's some debate as to whether that "tier" should be straight F2P or something like the "Lite" concept I've proposed. And there's a tradeoff: straight F2P with microtransactions will take significantly longer to engineer, and will probably be a lot more time consuming to balance. This "Lite" tier is relatively fast to implement.

Plus, although it hasn't really been raised on our forums, there is a strong correlation between F2P user access and a general decline in community quality. We all want more players, preferably lots more players. But do we want hordes of complaining free users who have a big administrative impact on us, leaving me and Ray and Michael answering tickets all the time and dealing with drama for an un-monetized userbase? What about a smaller number of people who we are at least open to spending a little money and want to try the game for a longer period? Again, it's easier for me to get into the shallow end of the pool on this. P2P to F2P is a big transition, and while it's been somewhat oversimplified in posts directed at me lately.. ask people who played LOTR Online or D&D Online before it was F2P and who went through the transition. I've been looking at this transition concept for a few years now, and have spoken to a lot of people. There's no question that D&DU makes more money than D&DO, but previous users often contend that game quality has gone way downhill.

I've also talked to a lot of devs about the complaint-level of free-playing users. Granted, devs get a little jaded, and I try to apply those grains of salt to the respective conversations, but that's also influenced me towards this "Lite" concept as a starter.

I'm not against approaching F2P as well (especially if "Lite" should prove a poor idea), but "Lite" is an easier steppingstone for now. One that is faster to implement, makes us more approachable on mobile, and could hopefully generate an increase in player counts and revenue, but without requiring a lot of immediate time put into a vast array of microtransactional options.

And furthermore, if we do expand the Lite concept to include "horizontal" microtransactions (people of given level who have to spend money for access to items that would normally otherwise be available to their character-level in a full subscriber account), and that system works but doesn't bring in the desired player counts.. we can always yank the whole "Lite" subscription and convert the lower tier to F2P. It's an easier "gradient" to build up to over time, from our end, and an easier introduction to expanding our userbase in my opinion.

Some alternatives already discussed before:

F2P/Lite accounts offer limited roles, as:

1. Grayspace Citizenship: Player is native from grayspace Factions, does not have "real" nationality (S/I/U), so no universal banking, and no standing with existing Nations (so no Valk/Prom/Maud/etc). Options of Corvus only, or all gray factions.

2. WH Control: Add some traffic control over nation's borders, and only paying subscribers are allowed to cross in own ship. Lite accounts must either cross as gunner or docked to a capital ship.

3. Guild membership should be limited to non-Lite accounts.

4. Microtransactions ok, up to un-insured capships, as long as there are no sell-only items, and subbed players also can purchase same items. So, leveled field. No XP purchase, tho.

5. Lite accounts caps:
5.1. XP (any): 4. XP cannot be purchased.
5.2. Bank: Unlimited in grayspace, unreachable from nation space; i.e., Lite players must carry their credits in a "wallet" device inside the ship... that can become a drop in case of boom.
5.3. Standing: Normal among grayspace factions, limited to "neutral" with nations
5.4. Not possible to "insure" a capship, but can be built.

From simple to complicated in 10 minutes!

Lets all give a big hand to Alloh!

Um, yeah, I'd rather keep Lite users aligned with nations and stuff. Keep in mind that we're building this so Lite users can be elevated to Standard subscriptions, and then revert back to Lite without any issues.

It's also possible that Lite users could be prevented from creating guilds, but could still join them.

But, anyway, ongoing feedback on level caps and restrictions are welcome.

How about for guild limitation, just make it so they can't create guilds or hold any positions of power like Council/Lieutenant/Commander?

Guild membership is more a means of player communication and coordination than anything else. The 'verse can seem very empty and alone without that.

You guys are making this way too complicated. Make it 2 tiers the lower tier can only play on mobile, and the upper tier can play on any platform. Both tiers have the exact same features available to them

Part of the value of mobile is a way of attracting users to the PC game through the cross-usage of accounts. We can bring in mobile players and then say "try it on your PC!". I don't know that I'd really want to lose that..

Plus, if we limited "Lite" accounts just to mobile platforms, that means we can't ever expand it to the PC as well. Not to mention the whole issue of what the hell a "mobile" platform even is anymore, or will be in another year. We have laptops at the office that run Android, and Ultrabooks that are sometimes tablets and whatnot. The convergence between "PC" and "mobile" is happening pretty fast to hinge a whole game tier on it..

I don't like the idea of limiting licenses as some players enjoy them as a sort of score card. I've never liked that they limit player access to items, which I believe should be based on a players ability to afford and their standing.

I would suggest would be to make items that Lite members are restricted from using 'invisible' to them. I still get annoyed when I see n3's listed at non Itani / Serco stations.

They should be able to access equipment good enough to comfortably play most missions.

I think you guys are heading in the right direction. $10/month for a pc game is reasonable. $1/month for an android game is reasonable.

Perhaps 3 tiers:

1. Small devices aka phones $1/month
2. Medium devices aka tablets $5/month
3. All devices $10/month

As devices change, you can revise the plans accordingly, but I would discourage removing features and game play elements for lower tiers.

+1 to Savet

Well I would jump on the bandwagon and argue against a level cap too but I'm 90% certain that incarnate has decided he wants to restrict based on tier instead of just available platform so he can move it to PC eventually as well and also that the simplest way to developmentally do that is by restricting levels.

8/8/8/8/8 Strikes me as the right place to stop. You should also make a few modifications to existing high level items to push them over the boundary and I think you should release UC bats with at least 1 level 10 requirement and abolish the mentor system or reinvent it.

Other restrictions might be to restrict standing to greyspace/UIT space subfactions where a lot of the goodies are available to purchase. Maybe have lite subscribers only available to achieve respect there.

I accept your reasoning regarding the F2P model and 'Lite' as a way of testing the water. I do however think that any significant increase in player number will see a qualitative decline in community; that just comes with the territory. If you did implement a F2P I would expect that you modify the type of support your are willing to give via tickets.

Is there any merit to using microtransactions to temporarily (for 1hr? 4hr? 24hr?) drop any restrictions on what equipment can be purchased / equipped / launched with instead of making a direct equivalence between real money and virtual stuff?

In my mind 4/4/4/4/- is the point at which a character becomes functional and not annoying to use. If you implemented a level cap would be better to put it at wherever that transition is for most people or just before? I don't know if there is any harm to letting people accumulate XP if the equipment available to them is already restricted.

I would feel really sad if GS ever went to a F2P model.

Whoa, 8/8/8/8/8 is way too high of a level for the cutoff. That gives access to most of the equipment, especially when you consider the lower requirements in grey. Plus that wouldn't give much incentive to pay the $10/month when you can get so much out of the lite.

I'm thinking 3/4/4/4/4 would be more appropriate. That gives access to the more basic ships: revenant, cent, non-hound hogs, and low level vults & centaur. Also gives access to lower level weapons and even mid level weapons in grey.

I also like the idea of restricting total game time per week with the lite sub (EDIT: would help prevent an influx of bot accounts everywhere).

8/8/8/8/8 doesn't give you access to most things that people use on a daily basis, like sunflares and a bunch of other items and ships.

I mean it's one thing to restrict access to levels, it's another thing to categorically say that if you have a lite subscription it will take you like 1 day (or 1 hour if you know what youre doing) to get to the top levels. You're not giving enough of a chance for conversion. You need to give the player a world to explore, then when they decide they want to really excel in that world they go for the full subscription.

Anyway it'd help to consider a list of things that are unavailable to the lite subscribers at a certain level but I can't put one together atm. Anything that you don't want lite subscribers to access can just be brought up in level requirements, it's not going to have a serious impact on the game to do so.

I'm not sure I see the merit to limiting in game time for the Lite version. How many people are really going to spend the kind of time in game on a phone or pad that they would on a standard PC? F2P version, yes.

Also, I agree with Pointsman that 4/4/4/4 is where the game starts to open up. I would hardly agree that if a limiting system is put in place, that this would be the best place to put it. As TRS suggested, 8/8/8/8/8 is a decent midpoint and many of the choice items wouldn't be hurt by raising them above this threshold.

If anything at all is restricted, I believe it should start with power cells. Certainly no one on f2p should have infinite boost. However, for a discounted account for people who play exclusively on their phone or pad should not be hindered.

Having finally tried VO on my phone the other day and absolutely hating it because I couldn't control my ship or figure out how to get out of 3rd person, I can see some of the additional challenges that these players face. I lean towards Savet's tiered system based on device type.

8/8/8/8/8 allows for sunflares, most valks, and most proms. All but the XC, heavy miner 2, and valent maud + high end proms/valks would be available as far as ships go. Definitely not.