Free Trial Island

tombear81 · July 2007

So the trial has been announced. I wonder why SOE choose to do a free trial island as opposed to just simply letting peole have X amount of free playtime in the big world itself. Did any other MMO trials keep player in one area. Eve is certainly ungimped, COH is main game world, EQ2 is ? ( I know it had a trial island to begin with but weas it leaveable)

Actually anyone know the exact trial details can one leave the island ? Any history on MMO trials ?

If people cannot leave island on a trial : If I'm very cynical I'd say it a ploy to get people to do the island and then assuming its better than release get a quick $$$ from them until they enter the very emptry world of Telon ? Is it ? Maybe this is a good thing with server population as it is. Cram everyone into a smalelr area.

Or maybe its a mini client to save of GB's download (which is not a good thing in itself). Just seems odd we get a tiny slice for a trial and no an open ability to reassess the game ( especially as content is immediatly citied after performance).

I'm suspicous a tad. What do people think ? Is this normal for SOE? I dont like it but I guess its what I'm gonna get to reasses the game.

wizyy · July 2007

This is not unheard of. Everqust 2 had (maybe still has) Trial of the Isle. Mind you, it did nothing to me to incite me to try full version.
Saga of Ryzom has a free Island for new players to try the game, its very well done, lots of quests, it hooked me up to the full game, and then I was horribly dissapointed to see that main continent has almost no quests at all. Needless to say I canceled after first month.

Orphes · July 2007

In SWG and EQ2 you could leave the starter area and automagically be level 5 or something. The station and the Isle is the starter area, besides FAE?. I don't thinks it's posible to do in VG due to the multiple starter areas there. But it would be intersting to see how they solve it in the end.

But atleast it has been done before not exactly the same though.

hristod · July 2007

I've played teh EQ2: Trial of the Island recently. It is a lvl 1-8 zone with basic quests. What I didn't like was that it was the same for the light and dark factions. Different monsters and quest text but the same challanges. It left me with the bad immpression that the game isn't focused arround diversity.

Would gladdly try the Vangard tial to get feel of teh game. Hopefully it will surprise me in a good manner.

wizyy · July 2007

Yes, SWG now has something of a "Island" trial, but when I and lots of my friends tried free trial, back in 2004, it wasn't limited that way, it was something like this: you could have max 20000 credits, "only" one house and 14 days to play. It was awesome, we were hooked and played until the disasters that were Combat Upgrade and of course NGE. If not for that SOE blunder, I would be still playing it and probably never write a word on MMORPG.com

Orphes · July 2007

Originally posted by wizyy

Yes, SWG now has something of a "Island" trial, but when I and lots of my friends tried free trial, back in 2004, it wasn't limited that way, it was something like this: you could have max 20000 credits, "only" one house and 14 days to play. It was awesome, we were hooked and played until the disasters that were Combat Upgrade and of course NGE. If not for that SOE blunder, I would be still playing it and probably never write a word on MMORPG.com

The confiment to the station was in for a brief time this last months or so.

Before that (this last months) I don't think there was any restictions, and now you can again leave the station on the trial.

Orphes · July 2007

Originally posted by hristod

I've played teh EQ2: Trial of the Island recently. It is a lvl 1-8 zone with basic quests. What I didn't like was that it was the same for the light and dark factions. Different monsters and quest text but the same challanges. It left me with the bad immpression that the game isn't focused arround diversity.
Would gladdly try the Vangard tial to get feel of teh game. Hopefully it will surprise me in a good manner.

You meant that they reused the quest for the opposite faction. Just some rewriting done but in depth the same. Well uhm EQ2 is not the only one there either.

paganstar · July 2007

Having a free demo that is separate fromt he rest of the world will hopefully cut down on the Gold Sellers using it as an inroad to the players. That is the major problem with the buddy keys right now is it gives full access to the entire player base of the server.

Originally EQ1 also had an offline demo of a halfling village to give an example of what the questing and game would be like.

Caldrin · July 2007

i would say the main reason is that getting people to download a 20gb game to just test it out is silly.. so they had to do somthing smaller...

methodos · July 2007

Yes, EQ2 has two trial pre games. Trial of the isle and trial of the fae or something lika that. SWG also has something like that and so do a couple of other games. I have played a couple of trials and they seem to only tease you and make you want to play the game a bit more. My experiences with trials have been good and bad. I played the trial of SWG and liked what I saw and subscribed to it and was totally dissapointed when I found out just how empty the world was. I had high hopes of playing the game, but the lack of community was the down fall for me in that game. I then tried EQ2. I downloaded thier trial game and I was again interested in playing it further than lvl 7 (that is the highest you can go on trial period) and I dove into the world that is Norrath. I must say I have been playing that game for about 1yr and a couple of months now; the longest MMO I have played to date! I have tried other MMO's as well and while they all had something that I did enjoy something about them was just lacking.

Back to answering some of your questions. No, you cannot leave the "island" in your trial period. The lvls are limited to something that just teases you making you want to buy the game. If you enjoy the game and decide to buy it just give all servers a shot because one just might be populated enough to the point of enjoyment.

What I also think they should do with the Vanguard trail is limit it to one continent and let you explore that one continent instead of keeping you in a secluded island. Obviously it should have a lvl cap so that you dont get to enjoy all of the content in one continent, but at least something where you have enough cool skills to show you that it just gets even better as you progress.

random11 · July 2007

While it seems hasty on the behalf of SOE to push out a trial, they at least decided to do it the right way. I said we won't see a trial for at least 6 months, and SOE made me eat my words, that much is true, because I thought they would first complete the game, give it more polish and atmosphere, and then after the revision do a trial. They chose to do a trial island, which is by far the best choice they could have made, if they intend to release a trial now, I shall elaborate.

With the very low population scattered in the huge world, one place of focus is really important, this is the biggest pro in an island. People can head out from there, at the same time, an perhaps stick together for lasting periods of time.

The island can be content dense, the kind of denseness that is not a characteristic of the game in general, this will give the players a boost, however if they don't bring the game back up to the same level, all they have achieved is sell a few more 5$ boxes, which is stupid at best.

And more linear progression within the island (so much for it being the ultimate sandbox, eh?), which is a mainstream way of doing things, that is proven to work.

All in all, the idea of trial island is the best way to go, if they want to release a trial this fast, however, long term I don't think it's all that good doing all this now, this fast.

If they fail to improve the game overall, then they will achieve nothing with this trial. If they don't attend the numerous issues we have pointed out, then they will have gained no players, because they will eventually see the game for what it is, and blame SOE in the end for pulling a $OE on them

sepher · July 2007

I agree that they're shooting for a more content dense experience for new players. Content aside, there's also the fact that there's too many starting areas in the bigger world which led to population shortages amongst new players.

Obviously, Sigil/SOE observed how many of the paid box trial registrations remained active, and figured there was no point in allowing free trials if the retention rate would be just as pathetic. If you look at the average levels on all the servers, they're the same or even less than launch time; the single digit averages insinuate a vast majority of registrations hold characters that were started and abandoned in starting areas. So it makes sense that SOE wanted to create a refined starting experience rather than waste new first impressions on the same fallacies that put the game in the state it's in now.

Also, it has jack to do with deterring gold sellers. Cap gold, limit trading, restrict auctioning, restrict chat functionality; if SOE does none of those for the Trial Island, you actually have REASON to worry about gold sellers. There's already a common remedy in the industry of dealing with gold sellers and free trials, and designing a little paradise for them isn't it.

Coolguy20 · July 2007

Ya trial isle is perfect because you wont have any gold spammers or sellers all getting free accounts to spam in game.

Elikal · July 2007

1. Has it gone life already, or when will it go life?

2. Can regular players somehow visit it? (how?)

Not belonging to this thread, but any news of the merge??

Kenze · July 2007

Originally posted by sepher

.....<snip>

So it makes sense that SOE wanted to create a refined starting experience rather than waste new first impressions on the same fallacies that put the game in the state it's in now.

I wonder how many Pissed off posts from people who find that the level of performance and content provided on this " trial Island" isnt present in the rest of the Telon. Thats the problem i see with the Trial Island added as an after thought.

Steakpuncher · July 2007

Well by having a trial island you acheive the following:

1. Blocking goldfarmers/sellers/etc like many have said

2. You can make a trial that is a small download, would you want 17gb or so of downloads only to dsicover it isn't for you?

3. SOE have stated they are going to use optimized graphics for the "trial island" and providing they are successful they will then implement the techniques and changes across the entire team, although they have already started on NPC optimisation.

You don't really need to see the entire world, or even be able to see it all to decide, most people can try a trial, and realise the game will be a larger world, and slightly more advanced and difficult. As long as they succesfully demonstrate the key features of the game then they are doing what they need to do.

Orphes · July 2007

Originally posted by Kenze

Originally posted by sepher

.....<snip>

So it makes sense that SOE wanted to create a refined starting experience rather than waste new first impressions on the same fallacies that put the game in the state it's in now.

I wonder how many Pissed off posts from people who find that the level of performance and content provided on this " trial Island" isnt present in the rest of the Telon. Thats the problem i see with the Trial Island added as an after thought.

Well one of the reason for the trial Island is.

The knowledge learned through this will then be applied to existing art assets in the game therefore increasing performance.

Which is done by this.

The island is being built using highly optimized existing assets in an effort to establish a new art content pipeline that is able to produce, in laymen’s terms – cool looking stuff that won’t make your computer explode – quicker than we’ve previously been able to do so. The overall benefit for the trial island is that we are working on heavily optimizing existing assets.

So there are big reasons to expect that the performance on the trial island will be as good or bad as in the other island.

Alot of people only read this, selectively.

In addition we will be using the completed island (which will feature a couple dungeons as well as diplomacy and crafting content) as a free downloadable “Vanguard demo”.

EDITS: This editor is very fun to use, made by Sigil?

Kenze · July 2007

Originally posted by Orphes

Originally posted by Kenze

Originally posted by sepher

.....<snip>

So it makes sense that SOE wanted to create a refined starting experience rather than waste new first impressions on the same fallacies that put the game in the state it's in now.

I wonder how many Pissed off posts from people who find that the level of performance and content provided on this " trial Island" isnt present in the rest of the Telon. Thats the problem i see with the Trial Island added as an after thought.

Well one of the reason for the trial Island is.

The knowledge learned through this will then be applied to existing art assets in the game therefore increasing performance.

Which is done by this.

The island is being built using highly optimized existing assets in an effort to establish a new art content pipeline that is able to produce, in laymen’s terms – cool looking stuff that won’t make your computer explode – quicker than we’ve previously been able to do so. The overall benefit for the trial island is that we are working on heavily optimizing existing assets.

So there are big reasons to expect that the performance on the trial island will be as good or bad as in the other island.

Alot of people only read this, selectively.

In addition we will be using the completed island (which will feature a couple dungeons as well as diplomacy and crafting content) as a free downloadable “Vanguard demo”.

EDITS: This editor is very fun to use, made by Sigil?

Thats all well and good Orphes and I look forward to this optimization. However has there been any timetable as to how long after they finish this Trial Island that the rest of telon will get the optimization benefits? I can see it taking months, at least. So, I still forsee many people upset when they are thrown from the trial island into the real present condition of Telon. I wonder if they(SOE) will add a disclaimer to this Demo Trial Island(***DISCLAIMER**performance/content experienced here is not currently present in the rest of the game. Soon™)

Orphes · July 2007

Originally posted by Kenze

Thats all well and good Orphes and I look forward to this optimization. However has there been any timetable as to how long after they finish this Trial Island that the rest of telon will get the optimization benefits? I can see it taking months, at least. So, I still forsee many people upset when they are thrown from the trial island into the real present condition of Telon. I wonder if they(SOE) will add a disclaimer to this Demo Trial Island(***DISCLAIMER**performance/content experienced here is not currently present in the rest of the game. Soon™)

1½ month if their timetable with game updates is correct. Start the clock when this upcoming game update 2 is coming. Milestones was not the same thing as game updates was but trial island is mentioned as the only different goal in milestone 2.

(I hope)

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