This has been suggested before, and I understand there are risks, and a lot of complex development that would have to be done to make it work. The idea is to allow new or old players to play for free with limitations on what they can buy and use.

1) They should only be able to use the base versions of ships and weapons.
2) They should not be able to equip or buy fast charge, ultra charge or hive fast charge cells.

A vult 3 with neut 2 is deadly in skilled hands. They would still be able to get the full combat experience.

3) Possibly restrict the ability to home to certain areas or stations.
4) Possibly put a cap on credits- say 200,000cr max or less
5) Possibly put a cap on standing- though I wouldn't suggest it have anything to do with the current system which will hopefully be redone.
6) Restrict them from using achieved items such as the megaposi.
7) Keep a log (bank) of any credits earned over the limit, so that if they choose to sub, they have access to them.
8) An account that unsubscribes should be unable to use restricted equipment even if they purchased it while subbed and only have an initial 200,000 cr available and not be able to access the remainder of their credits until they resub.

This would give players an unlimited amount of time to try the game without having to deal with promotions. It would hopefully also increase the active player base and lead to higher subscriptions since they would be obliged to pay if they want access to the better equipment. The strategy seems to be successful for other mmorg games that I've observed using it. I'm indifferent on the alternative currency route that many of those games use as well to milk subscribers and non subscribers alike.

simply +1. Will be something good for VO population!

hrm.. then it will be another type of mmorpg. ;) What you suggest means game has premium content (e.g. no limits) for those who pay money. Atm you have balance: everyone pay and everyone possibilities are equal. And imo this will have negative effect o total money income.

simply +1. Will be something good for VO population!

1. How do you know more people will come? Will they just appear from nowhere? Without ads there'll be minimum new players. So you suggest devs to spend money on ads AND do free subscription? How they will maintain server then? (I even don't speak about profit)
2. Ok, if you think more ppl will join, then how many?
3. Do you compare VO with some other mmo projects? if yes, then what projects?
4. Why do you think you show people free sub with vult + neut and they will start to play?
5. Are you sure paid subscribers won't leave the game when encounter 100000+ 15 yr old persons who can't earn money, can't ask their friends or mom to buy subscription. I don't think they will do more positive, than negative for VO.

Yarr!!

I can suggest another crazy idea too:

Give every month free 1 year subscription through contest (after 2 months of free-sub).
Rules:
1. Fulfill various information about main character you want to play. E.g. age, height, weight, sex, etc.
2. Write an RP essay about you main character, like 3000 words.
3. Provide full information about RL profile, including pics of yourself.
4. Your vision on backstory
5. MUST BE REAL PERSON that is not registered. (don't know how to check it, maybe ask credit card info?)
6. +questions on psychological backround, time spent in another mmorpg, etc.
7. Some security issues: If person doesn't login for more than 2 weeks - delete account, etc.
8. Interview with one of devs before receiving free 1 year sub.

Maybe this will bring new face /rat/anti-rat/trader/miner, etc, every month who earn it through competition and really want contribute the gameplay. :}

Well, that's just a suggestion.

Create classes of people: Citizens and Untermenschen, also nicknamed Aliens. Citizens pays taxes in RL, Aliens does not.

Therefore, Aliens have series of restrictions:
-Can't choose name, must select from list, or have some marker.
-Can't home inside nations, only in gray space.
-Can't use WHs with turrets as pilot, only as gunners (nation borders, etc.)
-Limited to only free and hive cells.
-Station charges credits fee to permit using picked up items.
-Some other restrictions added, to be defined.
-Does not have kill/death stats displayed.

I think these free players would certainly be mostly the rats, unrats or dangers missing in gray space.

BUT, as alread said, that would result in major reduction in subscriber base... or increase a lot... serious bet...

I agree with the OP. I don't see any valid points in Pirren's arguement (his first post, as his second post was a thread-hijack), and I do not believe new players should become "Aliens" limited to greyspace. How would they get to know VO?

My only suggestion for the OP is limit free time to a week/two weeks in-game.

I see a problem with this, I could easily use my freind keys to level up a character, then transfer a big stack of cash to it from one of my richer alts.

Before the 2 weeks runs up, use a script to buy up a few metric shit tons of ships and ecquipment, with the ships already loaded out.

Alternately, I could just run above mentioned script (or even do it manually with presets) on my leveled characters on my currently paid accounts, then let the sub lapse untill I need to get more ships or whatever. Then re-sub for one month, etc etc. giving me the utility of 3 paid accounts for the cost of one.

Now myself, I wouldn't do that, I maintain 4 paid accounts, two I use alot, the other two are mostly to help support the game.

Pirren,

1) I don't. This is merely a suggestion for GS to consider. And yes, I am suggesting that they do a free account and continue with the same level of advertising that they manage now or better if they can afford it. I certainly wouldn't suggest they blow their budget on advertising. If being able to play for free works and you get a significant increase in active players, a certain portion of those players can be expected to subscribe because they will want to fly the Valk or use AAP's Or be able to fly ships with infinite boost. If the current server capacity is not up to the job, then this is a bad idea and should at most put on the shelf until that changes.

2) I don't know. The primary beneficiaries would be the people that care about the game, who are subscribers in that the games active population may become significantly greater than it is now.

3) I find VO is unique in its genre, so I think comparing it even to Eve is unfair. I do however play other games, most recently the kiddie game Wizard 101 which operates on this scheme and does very well. You have LOTR http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html as well as D&D as examples of other games that have experimented with this model. Even WoW has it as a backup plan in case they ever get competition http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/30/blizzard-discuss-making-world-of-warcraft-free/

4) That was meant to illustrate that players can effectively manage in VO without the premium ships and equipment, not as an advertisement. I'd pay the $10 a month just for the fast charge, and I think other players that find the game enjoyable would want similar enhancements to their game experience.

5) 100,000+ 15 year old's that can't buy the good stuff to shoot? I'd quit my job and never log off ;)

I like the suggestion in your second post. I think it could build some excitement and interest.

Look,
If the dev's were to implement this idea I don't think they'd need to keep the friend key strategy. Also, my 8th limitation would reduce the likely-hood of this type of abuse.

And I hear you. I normally maintain two accounts myself, except when I'm taking a needed break like I'm on now to keep myself from logging in.

How many times does Inc. have to respond to this exact thread with "gee, maybe a good idea, but we don't have sufficient margin of error to try it" before it finally dies?

Until the faction redux has been implemented. :p

Considering how few topics he actually participates in, I'd say he's not obliged to respond at all.

However, when you consider how few of the ideas posted are actually 'new', but rather just another rehashing of a discussion that went on 2 or 3 years ago, is it necessarily an inconvenience to revisit one that appears to not only be the way the market is trending, but could also benefit the existing player base as well as GS? Besides, its been a while since the last consideration. Some ideas may have developed during the interim in Incarnates head that this might push to the surface. We are all just tilling the soil here after all. XD

I guess I would rather have well-meaning repetition of ideas, than people giving up and not discussing stuff anymore.

I agree, this is a totally good idea. My position hasn't changed on that, and I'm viscerally aware of the trending of the industry, not to mention the fact that it would vastly help us on the upcoming mobile front.

But I'm still not in a position to experiment with the business model right now. Maybe Soon. Hopefully sans (TM).

I can say that this concept has never been far from my thoughts, all year.

I agree. I was simply abusing trials for a couple of year until I could pay for subs, but most noobs will not be that persistent and will just go play some other mmorpg/game. If you get 'em hooked onto the trial, then later on when they *can* subscribe, they just might. Also, about half the noobs give up upon hearing that you have to pay, because they cannot, and having 1000 ppl in VO would be *much* better game play then 100... imagine people in every sector. Better gameplay = more subscribers, hence the profit ;)

Actually, it isn't that simple at all. Going from P2P to F2P or Hybrid without going out of business requires quite a bit of tuning. Turbine gave a pretty extensive talk at GDC about the process they used for Dungeons & Dragons Unlimited.

Most of the F2P games that are not ad-revenue based are using micro-transactions and dual currencies, which then requires significant and careful balancing of the relative values of different transactional items and the like. Not to mention the drastic changes in playstyle that have to be run past the userbase, in terms of things like.. people being able to "buy" advancement in certain ways. Anyone interested in hybrid models should read up on DDU, but don't expect me to jump into that on the drop of a hat.

For what its worth, I'd pay $5 or $10 to start a new character at 5/5/5/5/5 or 10/10/10/10/10. However, I would only recommend it for subscribed players that have at least one character having earned those levels as a minimum. Grinding a new char up has become tedious to me and I generally can't be bothered these days.

I'd suggest if you do decide to play with the model, that you start with small stuff like that, that don't really affect game play but provides a benefit to active players.

Though personally I would rather see the license system become just a score card.

== The math ==
It is always about the money.

=== Who pays ===
There is already a free to play option. It is called find someone else to pay your account for you option. Every other free to play model will fundamentally add up to the same thing. You an only afford free players if the paying players are willing to financially support them, directly (by paying for their accounts), or indirectly (through some ingame mechanic). But it still adds up to the same thing.

=== Scalability ===
Understand, that while the game currently has a relatively limited player base, that it is more than sufficient to keep the devs comfortable. They currently have no real need to scale up. Income is stable, expenses are stable. Life is good.

=== Saturation ===

==== Paying customers ====
Most of the people who are willing to pay to play, are already paying to play. The market is saturated. There is no simple enhancement that will change the size of the paying player base by an order of magnitude.

==== Profit per customer ====
Most paying customers are already paying at or near their intended limit. There are few motivations for a customer to pay addition fees, and little opportunity for cash rich customers to financially differentiate themselves from cash saturated customers.

== Options ==
Let us consider some options that the devs could implement, with minimal impact to their current business model.

=== Secondary logon password: ===
The primary password has control of an account and can set and change the secondary password. A secondary password can gain access to ingame characters. If I own an account, I can rent or lease the account to someone else. I can name what ever terms I want (guard latos/sedina wh from traders for at least two hours a day, etc).

=== Contribute to account(s) ===
If I see a players that I like their roles in game, and they sign up for financial assistance, I can spent some of my real life money to finance their game play.

=== Player to RL market ===
Players could place ingame items for sale for rl dollars. They would never see the rl dollars, as all profits are instantly diverted to play time credits.

== Summary ==
The market is saturated customer wise. The devs have limited incentive for any radical change in business model. The only real options is to provide existing customers with reason and opportunity to spend more money. Supporting the free to play option of other players might be one incentive.

Free thinking:

When you join military as enlisted in times of war, fleet rules require you stay allways inside your nation, and attend to battles. Cannot leave without a mission or leave, that is desertion!

One clear consequence of treason is that you lose civil rights. So you're no longer accepted into any nation, nor have any banking. You can only hunt and pay with goods in most gray stations.

Now back to topic:
What if Guild accept a LIMITED number of simultaneous free players, each able to play at most Xh/day. Free accounts must pay sub at least one month once. And new account must become Enlisted personnel.

Free accounts can be suspended or locked, if some conditions are met, like being captured inside a nation or becoming KoS where you are homed. RP-wise, pilot goes to jail, or his ressurection matrix is destroyed...

And a clear warning that Free accounts can be extinct at any time, and number of "free slots" in servers, even dinamically in response to increase in subbed players. Kicked.

just wondering... not a business plan... maybe an attempt into controlling risk...

I think you guys are going on the wrong track. The devs made this game so that you *can't* have an unfair advantage if u just pay more money then usual into the system. The pay to play is fine by itself; if they made it so that u could just buy credits, it would sorta destroy the game's fairness and people might leave.

As for the original post:

1) They should only be able to use the base versions of ships and weapons (basic variants or mk Is).
2) They should not be able to equip or buy heavy, fast charge, ultra charge or hive fast charge cells.
3) Restrict the ability to home to certain areas *within the nation of the person in question* (so if you die in B8 its a long way back).
4) Put a cap on credits- 200,000cr max or less
5) Put a cap on standing- +0, so no chaoses or sunnies.
6) Restrict them from using achieved items such as the megaposi.
7) Keep a log (bank) of any credits earned over the limit, so that if they choose to sub, they have access to them.
8) An account that unsubscribes should be unable to use restricted equipment even if they purchased it while subbed and only have an initial 200,000 cr available and not be able to access the remainder of their credits until they resub

I've made these a little harsh to encourage ppl to rejoin in p2p -- devs have to make a profit!

Someone will pay for all those free to pay players in the end. Either paying customers will pay for the free to play users, or the devs will pay.

Either way, they will be paid for. Just the way you people are suggesting it, the devs swallow all the risk.

Either you, the paying customer, step up and finance the risk of free to play customers with your own cash, or shut up about it. Stop advising other people how to handle their financial affairs.

Show me the money, or shut up.

P.S. Crusader: Shut up. doubled.

Roda just wants a sub.

Hehe, just because I had a couple of trial accounts doesn't mean that you should discount my ideas... if you read you would see that I was making the plan harsher ~_~