This was a mix of suggestions by different people on channel 100:

1) One trial account per IP (Maybe two).

2) Trial accounts restricted to channel 1.

3) Restrict trial accounts to the test server (I'd say beyond the first trial would be good to do).

This is in relation to those who play the trials as if VO were free. One can transfer money and after some experience, one can get very good levels within 2 hours.

Yaaaaawnn.

Interesting idea, I like the restriction to channel 1. It'd really cut down on the trolls and such. It'd probably be good if they could still hear the other channels though - so they could see what goes on.

*stamp of approval*

Every player in VO started out as a noob!!!

I dont understand why there would be a need to restrict them any more than what the game offers at the moment. I loved the fact that I could play for 8 hrs for free when I started and it was the main reason why I had no hesitation in paying for a subscription.

In fact, it was also why I didn't try out EVE ... even though I downloaded the client for it.

I think new blood is essential to VO and we should do everything possible to help noobs integrate into VO faster. Besides, the faster they level up, the faster they lose noob status and the less annoying they shall become.

[BIG STAMP OF DISAPPROVAL]

What about the people who use trial accounts for RP purposes? I think these suggested restrictions are too harsh to combat a problem that doesn't exist.

Trials can't vote mute, good. Trials can't join or form guilds, great. Restricted to test server and channel 1? No way. For one thing, 99% of trial accounts are legitimate new players, and so wouldn't get nearly the help they do now (as I remember, the default channel for trial accounts was switched to 100 for just this reason). Secondly, newbies on the test server will NEVER get any help from players, because so few will be there. Third, the second 2 restrictions virtually eliminate any possibility of RP use of trial accounts.

Terrible idea.

*REJECTED*

I was only agreeing with the restriction to channel 1 idea, not the other two (just to be clear). I didn't think about using trial accounts for RP purposes though. Still, can't you use alternates on the main account for RP purposes? I mean is that single usage really worth all the spam noise we get from trolls?

[Edit]And if the troll spam is bad now, what do you think it'll be like once the game gains more popularity through advertising - channel 100 could easily become unusable.[/Edit]

Still approves of channel 1 restriction.

Just to be clear, those are OR cases. Not 1, 2 AND 3. Just 1, 2 OR 3.

The trick is, there's enough chatter from trial accounties to make things annoying. If they were limited to speaking only on channel 1, they'd essentially have the same game as the rest of the VO universe. It's just a method for subscribers to automatically /ignore all nonsuscribees. An option that just toggled hearing chat from them would work just as well.

One trial account per IP sounds like a good plan.
If you're using Trial for RP, you'd have one "real" account, and one trial, and that's it. How many RP characters do you need, anyway?

[Edit]
I thought of a problem with this? What if Trial Person 1 and Trial Person 2 are siblings, behind the same router, and thus with the same IP...? One needs to subscribe before the other can try the game....

Better, perhaps, to throttle trial chat, or something? 60 lines per minute?

How many RP characters do you need, anyway

sometimes, a lot :-)

muterman said 99% of trial accounts are legitimate new players
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa... Phew.. Haha.. good one...
(It's probably more like 30% of new alts are real n00bs)

I like the 1 trial account per IP. Good. Prevents freeloading. Buy the game or go away. Guild SW should not waste its resources on retaining non-paying playerbase. This won't PREVENT IP spoofing or masking, but it will certainly make the freeloaders work harder.

I like that trial accounts would be restricted to channel 1. Good. Maybe also add Channel 11. What about sector chat and/or bar chat?

But trial accounts on the test server? No way. Ug. We'd throw them into the most broken area first? With all the stupid broken missions?

Regarding Demonen's sibling dilemma: If the sibling tries the game and doesn't like it, it's unlikely the other sibling will try it, and if he/she does, it will probably be on the same account anyway. This would seem to be a common dilemma, perhaps this could be dealt with by an email? The devs seem to be reasonable, common-sense people.

So, I like 1 AND 2 combined, but not 3.

(1) VERY bad idea! Not everyone has real IP, thousands of users of my own ISP have the same IP. And I am not talking about families...

(2) Not a bad idea, everybody is tuned to 1 anyway. Of course, noobs should be restricted from global chats channels only. But do we just want trolls to move from 100 to 1 and make 1 unusable for noobs? (spuck is already at 1 anyway :D)

(3) Pfffft

8 hours isn't a whole lot of time to get a feel for VO, especially considering the learning curve involved.

Mynt, SURE it is. It's PLENTY of time. You're not supposed to play a character through all phases of the game, just to take a trial char, do some trading, do some mining, do some bot-fighting, and then maybe some PvP if you can.

That can easily be done in 8 hours, and then the user can make a judgement call as to whether they like the game enough to shell out a measly $9 a month for it.

You're not supposed to do EVERYTHING in 8 hours. It's a free sample. Like a wine tasting. you don't get to drink the whole bottle unless you pay for it.

Everyone has a unique IP, Aleksey. For those of us on DHCP connections (most home users), it may change once in a while, but that's OK I think. It would still cut down on freeloaders.

Leber, some of the lesser ISPs out there, especially those in eastern europe, actually don't issue one IP per customer. Sure, you get your own 192.168.0.0/24, but that doesn't help.

So, waitaminute, lemme get this straight, in eastern Europe you and your neighbor can SHARE an IP address? With how many people?

And, how common is this? And, how would it affect Vendetta-Online? And, perhaps we could have a pass for IP addresses in eastern europe where they get like 3 trials.

If this gets complicated it quickly becomes too costly to implement and does not do its job, which is: saving Guild SW money.

Hi. There are a lot of locations that use address translation on a large scale. For instance, colleges with thousands of student dorms behind one IP. Apartment complexes that offer broadband internet, and provide it to everyone in the complex from a single IP. We've had customers from both of these situations already, and it's only going to become more common until IPV6 slowly rolls out. You don't have to go to eastern europe to find this case.

There is merit to requiring a real email address for each new trial account, and we already plan to do that. Of course, people can just keep making free email accounts on yahoo or gmail or some such, but at least it requires a bit more effort.

Limiting trial accounts to channel 1 will basically make the real newbies think that no one plays the game. We had it like that before, if you recall, newbies weren't joined to 100 by default. The problem was, they often would be asking "hey, is anyone there?" on channel 1, and no one would respond. And they would end up leaving, thinking that no one else played the game. Being on 100 at least demonstrates that, yes, there are other people here. Naturally, it will not scale to large numbers of players or newbies, which people periodically point out, and that's not news to us.. we'll change things as they grow. For the moment, though, I don't think it's catastrophically bad. You can always ignore newbies (or pretend-newbies) you don't want to hear from.

Perhaps it might be better, somewhere down the line, to let them "listen" to 100, but not be able to chat until they complete the tutorial. But even that seems a little overboard, a lot of people just have simple questions, or want to know what other people think of the game.

What about extending the time trial accounts can play the game for? I think another 2 hours would be good.