All options $1.50 each. U = Unlimited.
2/2/2/2/2 Basic Package
4/4/4/-/- Combat Upgrade : Requires Basic Package
7/7/7/-/- Advanced Combat : Requires Combat Upgrade
U/U/U/-/- Full Combat : Requires Advanced Combat
-/-/-/4/- Trade Upgrade : Requires Basic Package
-/-/-/8/4 Advanced Trade : Requires Trade Upgrade
-/-/-/U/U Full Trade : Requires Advanced Trade

I think DE might be on to something. GS can work out the details as they see fit. But the Lite account would start at around $1/mo and have options.

I think the limited account should have only one character slot. Additional slots could be an additional $1 per month. This extra slot purchase should also be available as an up-sell to full subscribers.

I think the Lite account holder should be allowed to join guilds, I am not sure that guild position restrictions are necessary.

Another up-sell for full subscribers could be a $1/per month additional simultaneous log-in on the account. This would be handy for families & friends, promoting the quality users that we want. Maybe this becomes available after the account has been subscribed for 6 or 12 months.

Let me approach from another side to the cut level:

Instead of discussing numbers now, what is desirable? Consider an ACE VET using a Lite account, what can he do?
1. Fight as equal with other Ace Vets, restricted from premium items but still "combat-able using regular, in-game items
2. Fight as equal with other Ace Vets, but only if purchasing items using dollars
3. Unable to win against other Ace Vets due items restrictions

I am considering an isolated person in above scenario, but we cannot forget in-game P2P trade! This Lite Model can foster a lot the P2P trade, as Lite users cannot purchase top-tier stuff, and subbed players can sell UCs, G3, N3, etc. that Lite players must go to grayspace to equip.

So, for me, the ideal point is near 2 above, where a "Lite Vet" can become almost as equal as a subbed player, either using real dollars to purchase from stations, or ingame credits to purchase from other players...

AND I am OK with microtransactions as shortcuts to special items that can be obtained in-game using credits for subbed players. Then we can have special items for everyone, as un-insured capships, that can only be purchased, as the "manufactured" version is much better, since comes insured!

And microtransactions for cosmetic changes, as Decals, Custom Textures, or even new "skins/3D models" with same existing stats, would be great! Like, a Guild can manufacture a regular capship, in-game, then purchase a special texture for it with Guild's logo and name! Good for community relations, and extra cash flow, now easy to implement since billing control is already in-place using mobile plataforms! (Not so micro, as a decal can be $50, a texture some $150...)

"Another up-sell for full subscribers could be a $1/per month additional simultaneous log-in on the account. This would be handy for families & friends, promoting the quality users that we want. Maybe this becomes available after the account has been subscribed for 6 or 12 months."

We don't want this, and we definitely don't want to promote people sharing their account with friends rather than encouraging their friends to get their own accounts.

To reiterate my suggestion from earlier, full subscribers should be able to purchase additional characters for their existing account, and perhaps buy a second account at a discount, but that needs to be well-regulated so the above mentioned scenario doesn't happen.

Also to reiterate from earlier, I still don't think monthly payment lite accounts are what we need. The goal here isn't to generate a tiny trickle of more revenue while flooding the game with players that have tons of restrictions on their accounts. That's just bad for everyone. What we want is to make it easier for new players to get in the door and become full subscribers, and to get a return on 'trial' players to help pay for the servers.

Part of the barrier to getting new players in the door is the monthly recurring payment subscription model itself. I for one have numerous friends I've tried to pull into the game, but they get cold feet when they learn it's a pay-by-month, and won't join. There's also lot of casual gamers that might only play a few weeks a year, and a monthly subscription to maintain their account isn't something they'd consider. What we need for these people is something that's a small fee up front, but gets them in the door for as long as it takes to get them hooked. Then, when time comes around that they have a week off to play, or decide to get into the game for a while, they can upgrade to become a full subscriber for a period of time.

A lot of these suggestions of $1 to play, $1 to unlock a few licenses, $1 to unlock a few more licenses, $1 to unlock ships, etc... is bad. It establishes a precedent that the user is expecting to get nickled and dimed to death in a F2P model. People in the game can tell them they won't, but it's all about first impressions. What we want is to have two very distinct tiers of access: full subscriber, and not. This way players know exactly what to expect from a full subscription just by getting one taste of it, and then they'll want more whenever they want to get serious about the game, and know exactly what it takes to get more.

Now, all that said we still need to conquer the barrier of people who don't like the monthly payment model. A limited access client can be a very effective tool toward that end, and here's how I would suggest doing it:

Flat fee up front to "buy" the limited access client. Price point somewhere around what we expect 'lite' players to be willing to pay and with considerations for how much value we expect them to get out of it (aka, if they play for so long on a limited client over the lifetime of their use of the game, how much would they pay? -- I suspect on average it wouldn't be more than a few months per person unless they become a full subscriber.)

So basically, you have this:

$4.99 to get the following perks for life:
one character;
production server access of up to x hours a month (with level caps, faction caps, no guilds, badges or plugins);
no time limit on mobile client;
free upgrade during previous-subscriber promotions.

To help people get a taste for the full subscription game and encourage them to subscribe, you could let them buy special promotional instant time blocks of the fully unlocked client, such as $1.99 to upgrade for the rest of the day. or $5 for a week of premium. We want the price point to be manageable for beginning players, but high enough that it's not feasible for them to just keep buying short upgrades every time they want to play instead of subscribing. We want them to see and recognize the value of the low monthly subscription rate and sign up, because that's where the dependable revenue will be for Guild Software.

Anyone who has been subscribed for 6 consecutive months previously could get the lifetime limited client for free, to encourage them to stop in on the game now and then and see what's new, to get them to resubscribe.

EDIT: Inc.:

Yes, I agree that novelty stuff is OK to sell to full subscribers, like special paint schemes, junk items, etc... as long as none of it affects combat, travel or trade in the game at all. I think we're on the same page as far as micro-transactions are concerned for full subscribers.

EDIT 2: For people talking about perks to vets playing on the limited client, we really don't want that. We want it to be limited enough that vets will be encouraged to remain as full subscribers and support the game. We really don't want a 'lite' subscription to be an easy out for players who want to enjoy the full game, but don't want to pay for it. If that happens, we could see a drop in full subscriptions as some players migrate to lite. I have a feeling that a substantial amount of the game's revenue comes from players like me who are paying for a full subscription but almost never actually play in game.

csgno1: "Another up-sell for full subscribers could be a $1/per month additional simultaneous log-in on the account."

Yes. I like it. To restrict sharing accounts, allow only one client to log in, but allow that client to instance multiple characters simultaneously. Add a character tab, with ctrl tab hotkey.

What do we tell newbies about license levels? "The game opens up at combat 3-4"

VO-Lite should be just that. Lite. It should still be enjoyable gameplay. How many times have we told newbies "the game opens up at combat 3/4". Lite play should allow about this level of gameplay.

CD's "$1 to play today" is a great idea IMO, with the following restrictions:

* No custom paint. National colours only.
* License caps either 3/3/3/3/3 or 4/4/4/4/4 (as this allows a decent level of content, but not the top tier stuff).
* No guild access. You want to be part of a community? Go full sub.
* 1 or 2 character slots only.

Other thoughts...
The "$1 to play" could buy a 12hr block of in-game time, rather than "today".
I'm not sure about plugins. Targetless is pretty much essential IMO (as DroidButtons probably is for Android users), but the rest should not be accessible. Better to integrate Targetless/DroidButtons into the game itself, and allow no plugins for Lite users, but easier to just allow plugins.

I can't see a good reason for further restricting Lite users. The license caps limit the overall scope, but allow a decent level of content. A Lite "sub" could even be attractive to current vets (one sometimes needs a second active account to load their TTM or haul jettisoned ore for example. Sure, this "hauler/loader" won't be as efficient as a Moth, but it shouldn't be. Its "Lite").

The Lite character should remain separate from a full sub, with the exception of an option to permanently transfer to the full sub (ie, no going back).

Dent.

I think the '$1 to play today' idea is a great one but is not part of the 'Lite' account discussion, it should just extend the subscription of a regular account for a day. It might get some vets to come back on weekends.

[quote]... is not part of the "Lite" account discussion...[/quote]

Exactly how is it not part of the discussion? It's merely an alternative to "$1/month" idea Incarnate first suggested. The goal of the Lite account seemed to me to be a lower cost barrier for casual players who are more familiar with F2P or very low cost to play, while still generating some revenue from these players. Enticing vets back for the occasional weekend is gravy, as are the potential uses for current active players, but that's not the stated goal of the Lite account.

"$1 to play today" (or for a 12hr time block) with the limitations I suggested allows casual players an "easy-in", and adequate gameplay (IMO of course, others may disagree), while remaining well short of the benefits of a full sub in both cost and content. That seemed to me to be the goal of the Lite account.

The idea of allowing micro-transactions to access more content doesn't appeal to me, but mainly due to the added complexity it would require, and confusion it could cause (I'm a great believer in the KISS principle of design). I can easily imagine a new player getting an upgrade without really knowing what it was ('cos we all know newbies read all the info text carefully, and never ask things that are fully explained in the tutorials). Lets say it was a boost to license caps for a while. Said newbie/casual player then wonders why, (and complains that,) this month he can't equip those cool weapons he bought last month.

I love the idea of real-money purchases for vanity items such as skins, ship decals or custom blaster-fire colours (...hint hint). I think many of us existing players would happily pay real money for a "Hello Kitty-esque" prom/vult/valk etc. OK, maybe not so much "Hello Kitty" but I bet a "Jolly Roger" decal would be bought by many, as would the classic "shark-mouth" or "flame job"...

Dent.

Lots of good thinking in this thread.

I think a lite version should limit in the following ways:

• Player permanently homed in your national capitol.
• Limited number of sector and WH jumps. (Say 200)
• Extend the jump distance by 1000m.
• Limited number of lives. (Say 50)
• May play only one character (Choose when you subscribe).
• XP may be earned up to level limitations as worked out above. Further XP may be earned with a premium subscription. If the player later subbed to a lite subscription, then earned levels above the lite limit still work, but cannot be increased in the lite subscription.

Jumps and lives expire after a month. The lite subscription may be resubbed if jumps or lives are used up. A player can seamlessly move between premium and lite subs with these limitations applied or removed.

I do not detect that premium subs will mind all that much if a bunch of $1 subs are wandering the galaxy. They will mind if they feel like the $1 subs are getting the same benefits. Now not all $10 subs are getting all their benefits, but they have the potential to, and that is what counts. So let us talk about some high end benefits. Cap ships. These should probably be locked out from all but the $10 sub. But even most $10 subs have no real aspirations to obtain a cap ship. I have never had even a mineral moth. I have had a moth XC, and in fact, I considered a moth xc to be standard for a fully developed character. So if you consider a moth XC as one of the prominent signs of a fully developed character, you should probably restrict it to a full sub, or a tier at least very near a full sub. We could work our way from the top to the bottom, setting restrictions by tiers. what ever the bottom is, is ok, as long as there is good incentive for the next tier. If you are $1.50 away from a moth xc, a moth xc is good incentive to upgrade. Not every one will upgrade, but that is ok. They will pay what they pay, and GS will be happy to collect it. If we consider the min transaction to be $1.50, then we need about 7 tiers to reach $10. So go ahead. Invent 7 tiers, where each tier is promising enough to new player to temp them to upgrade, one tier at a time.

what if for the price of £1 you get one character as mentioned by many people but leave the levelling and ship purchases as are so all mobile players can advance as far as everyone else but perhaps mobile players could be given specific missions to level up that improve the gaming experience for PC players?

Perhaps PC/pro players could place adverts on stations asking for gunners and would be guaranteed a response as mobile players would require the job to up a level... Random contracts could be generated on pro/PC players meaning that mobile players will attempt to hunt them down with a tracker or something?

it just means that the mobile players get a playable light version but will contribute loads to the full paid players gaming experience, i haven't been playing long but perhaps some other would have better ideas?

[quote]
"$1 to play today" (or for a 12hr time block) with the limitations I suggested allows casual players an "easy-in", and adequate gameplay (IMO of course, others may disagree), while remaining well short of the benefits of a full sub in both cost and content. That seemed to me to be the goal of the Lite account.
[/quote]

If one is paying $1 for one single day, the limitation is the fact that it's only for a day, no other restrictions are needed. If they paid a dollar every day it would be more expensive than a full subscription. Price for play time is the incentive to get a full subscription.

I submit yet another tier pricing plan for consideration:

$1.99 4/4/1/1/1 Basic Combat Package
$1.99 1/1/1/8/2 Basic Trade Package
$1.99 1/1/U/3/U Heavy Equipment Package
$1.99 U/U/1/1/1 Advanced Combat Package : Requires Basic Combat Package
$1.99 4/1/3/U/2 Advanced Trade Package: Requires Basic Trade Package

Levels listed are caps. If you have more than one package the cap is the highest level available between all purchased packages. U means unlimited.

This plan is a mild mix of interwoven and specialized. It does not preclude specializing in combat or trade, but by the time you are driving an XC or Valk, you have paid for more than half the game, and you are only driving one or the other, not both.

It also addresses some concerns I would have about lite packages being too "lite". In this plan, a basic package is playable as is. At level 4/4/-/-/- I can be flying good ships with good weapons. A serious pvp player can live on the basic combat package. A serious trader can live on the basic trader package, all by itself. Entry level packages are worth it, as is, and expansions are worth it to the people that are interested in that part of the game.

I challenge any of you to do better.

as I understand Inc with this tread, its for a lite sub NOT F2P with microtransactions, so I still don't know why DE-* or anyone else is talking about the Lite subbers paying to get other stuff

"If one is paying $1 for one single day, the limitation is the fact that it's only for a day, no other restrictions are needed. If they paid a dollar every day it would be more expensive than a full subscription. Price for play time is the incentive to get a full subscription."

This occurred to me last night while discussing the Lite Sub with a friend.
Big +1 to "$1 to play today, unrestricted".

Dent.

My concern is that telling them it's $1 per day might be a little too jarring. Where $1 for the next month, with some limitations, might not be quite so intense. That's my "feeling" anyway. But there's nothing to say we couldn't have both.

@Castle_: As I understand it, Inc is talking about a lite sub, AND micro transactions. No where in this thread have I suggested anything about F2P. All of my suggestions have included at least a base entry price (as inc suggested). However, Inc was not very specific about base entry or micro transaction details. He may in fact have avoided being specific in order to not taint the suggestions. So, what are your suggestions?

Edit: As far as $1 per day, I think that might be a little extreme, if you play every day. On the other hand, if you only play once or twice a week, that could be a great bargain for some people.

Edit: Although at this point, i am getting curious on inc's thoughts.

novelty stuff is OK to sell to full subscribers, like special paint schemes, junk items, etc... as long as none of it affects combat, travel or trade in the game at all.

And herein lies the fundamental problem of VO trying to survive on a microtransaction system: people don't pay for that kind of shit, they pay to short-cut to substantive content. Look at the Kickstarter FFS - how many people are seriously interested in the collectable artwork and "unique" ships, versus paying for stuff they can use (75% discounted gametime that never expires, or maybe someone goes to $1k for the lifetime sub).

The unique ships and naming rights occupy a grey area (pun intended)... would I have gone to $100 for an Anniversary Version of the Hound? Hell no. But one that is properly black, better to blend in AND look more pirate-y? Yes, sure, have an extra $50. Did I go to $250 because I care about the poster? Ha! But I do like the idea of a *Dr. Lecter popping up in a Hound to pirate people every once in a while, since I almost never waste my free time playing VO anymore. Extra $150 for a sort of virtual immortality in a tiny MMORPG? Meh, it's worth it to me.

tl;dr: So long as VO wants to maintain that 'no pay to win' purity, microtxn cannot work except as a one-off revenue booster.

Heh, your example of KS is a bit funny, because if you look beyond our own Kickstarter, it's quite common for people to get really excited about physical knick-knack items and posters and things.

Anyway, most of the microtransactional focus in this discussion is on Lite players, not full subscribers. The little bit you quoted was a discussion of microtxn for full subscribers, which is kind of a long-term goal to monetize "whales" who really want the shiniest-looking ship, but not to yield the common revenue stream.

It's been widely proven that you can have a subscribership who retains the "gold standard" of gameplay, along with a F2P base who has to slog or pay their way through a lot of microtransactions, only allowing them to really "catch up" to the subscribers and never able to surpass them. This is exactly how D&DU and LOTRO were both re-structured by Turbine. I sat through an hour-long talk by their design director at GDC, and they were very successful with the two-tier approach, gaining a 5x increase in overall revenue.

What we're looking at here is not so different, just starting with "Lite" subscribers as the micro-transactional tier. The two-tier approach itself is well established in the market. No one really cares if the Lite people can "Pay to Win" if it's only against other Lite people.

But, we've pretty well covered all of that in prior posts on this thread.

Do you mind if I hijack this thread for a f2p/microtransaction discussion not involving the "Lite" subscription inc? or would you rather I create a new thread :p