Haven't seen it around. I assume we do, but just wanted to come with prepared knowledge. Will F2P's be allowed to play on the new TLP or will it be like the current ones and require a subscription? (If the current ones still do I mean, lol. Been a while.)
they have not been open to ftp players the last two times but who knows what they have planned this time.
FTP went live a year after Fippy/Vulak started, so it's hard to know what they will do with FTP and TLP on new servers.
From a business perspective... I doubt TLP will be available for FTP, but I don't doubt that there will be "special" trial periods where FTP may have access. They do need to make TLP servers highly visible, unlike the past and mark them as All Access. They can also mark the(se) sever(s) as Trial Time Available if and when they allow trial periods for FTP access. It's a weak version of embedded advertisement, but it's better than what they are doing now.
The new progression servers, will only be available to All-Access members; the word will get out easily. Between players telling their friends who used to play, interviews in magazines, and the like it will happen. There will be no shortage of people who will come and play on the servers for the first year or two. I highly doubt there will be any kind of trial or temporary access to the server(s). That is simply too big of a can of worms; Joe tries out EQ and chooses one of those new servers at the top, then 2-4 weeks later suddenly cannot access it. That's more likely to drive someone away than it is to attract them to the game. As far as the advertising of EQ; eh they haven't really done that in more than 10 years. EQ has probably been mentioned more in magazines and the media over the last 4 months than it had in the previous 4 years.
I hope you mean digital "magazines," because print is on life-support. The reason DBG is even getting mentioned is due to press releases from company PR, not due to non-EQ enthusiasts directly seeking them out and interviewing them. Trial game play has been a staple for video games and MMOs for a decade and no one has ever said, "I love this game, but I will never buy or subscribe to it, because my trial ended." DBG has done trial access to the TLPs before, as Vaclav said and it was successful, which is why I do not doubt they will do it again. When there are disclaimers there are no cans of worms.
There has only been 1 'batch' of TLP servers; the original servers were simply Progression servers and they were created several years before F2P was even a consideration for EQII. The Combine & Sleeper never were free to play; and neither were Fippy & Vulak, the TLP servers. Now there were, 1-2 week drives to get players who had left to come back with 10-15 days of subscriptions which coincided with the Progression and TLP server's launches; but these offers were neither sent out to all inactive players nor were they available to new players. I mean all kinds of magazines; but really, newspapers dying doesn't mean all print is dying. The articles I have read about them, have not been regurgitated press releases or PR; they have been about the changes going on in the transition from SOE to DGC. Trial game play only has every played a place in gaming in attempting to draw new players to the game; in EQ this is what the F2P is there for. There are people coming on here all the time saying that say that they won't subscribe to EQ or buy expansions after they reach the current F2P caps; and the sole reason why they are come here at all is to complain and say they won't subscribe or buy ever. As for Vaclav's claim, he was mistaken (see above), there were never free trials during either the Progression or TLP server launches; only limited offers for existing inactive accounts to come back and play on them. There are always cans of worms, because 'no one' actually reads disclaimers.
Incorrect. When they made FTP a thing in EQ1, there was at time trial period (maybe 2) where FTP had access to both Vulak/Fippy. I know, because I took advantage of it to experience my first time ever 6 boxing. Nixing an entire marketing strategy on a few people (hardly a "can of worms") complaining is not how the advertising industry works. For every person who complains on the forums, there are 10+ people who don't complain and subscribe. These same people will say the free kool-aid isn't exactly what they wanted and won't buy it, but they will still drink it if it's free. The market data will still show that the 10+ other people who drank the free kool-aid thought it was incredible and want to buy more of it, but wouldn't if they didn't get a chance to try it first. The fact is that those people may not subscribe, but they are still playing FTP and others will subscribe simply due to a lead thrown in their direction. No one stops playing the game, but subscriptions are still gained. The question I need answered is why do you feel the FTP complaints are even a feather weight against time trials? There aren't enough FTP games w/ subscription services to use as a model of study, because MMOs with this business model are owned by DBG and EA. SWTOR (EA) has done this a few times for current FTP players and I doubt they would continue doing it if it didn't work. Similar methods of marketing or "Time Trial" periods used for non-gaming products are phenomenally productive, but the major variable is that the person is already paying for one their products. Where as in FTP+Subscription based MMOs, the customer isn't paying anything. Person X is a Pepsi fan boy, but Pepsi Co. just bought out a smoothie company. Person X only drinks soda and doesn't know if they would like the smoothie, but Pepsi offers him free samples. He loves it and decides to keep buying smoothies in addition to his soda. Now in EQ terms... Person X is a FTP customer and enjoys the game, but EQ releases an All Access only server with a special rule set. Person X tries out the new server and decides they like it, so they subscribe to keep playing on it; if he didn't like it, he wouldn't subscribe and keeps doing what he did before. The real can of worms is if Person X paid $15 to try it and hated it in less than a week. He complains about receiving shoddy service for what he paid for and disputes the charges for a refund. Person X will win the dispute, because his credit card service protects him. Yet they still hit accept and legally bind themselves to it. The can of worms is thrown out of court. They aren't regurgitated, because news doesn't work like that. Press releases state the facts in a way that makes the company look good and they are sent to various journalists, news organizations and wire services. Journalists take the release and then write a story about the hard facts they have received, but do so in their own voice. If they regurgitate stories they loose readers and fans, but they still have to cover the key facts. Find me 5 different news releases about DBG's recently changed logo that - after you take out the opinions - don't state the exact same points. Make it 3, because I doubt you can find 5 that even cover the story.
I am betting the open beta will be open to free to play people to try and get some of them hooked and sign up so they can play on the "real" server.
We had a bunch of accounts that had free Gold status and we played on Vulak. But those are the temporary account upgrades to Gold which apply to all servers (not just TLP), and shortly after Fippy/Vulak went live SOE had the security breach for which they were down for about a month. They gave several months of free play time to accounts. But that doesn't mean they would time it the same way this time (although it would be a good promo )
The progression server has to be subscription based or the BOT armies will destroy it. PLEASE make it subscription based, NO FREE TO PLAY. Just say no to free to play, its a BAD idea.
TLP was actually coined for the first batch as well - the term first got coined to my knowledge when a forum section was dedicated to them, and was called TLP on these very boards - well after 1.0's launch, but well before 2.0's as well. But that predated 2.0 as stated by at least a year if not multiple years.
I hope TLP free trials happen when the population takes a hit and not when it's super convoluted to drive people away.
@OP -- Yes, let's hope so. Will cut the overall server issues in half. I still can't believe that $15 a month is considered "too expensive" by so many people :/ I can't leave my house without spending $15.
I hear that, 15 dollars is basically what it costs to go out to a movie now, and thats without snacks or anything. That being said, I can see it being a lot for some, just due to how many people 6+ box nowdays, and arent used to either playing on 1/2 characters at a time and just rolling with an entire box crew, which is going to up it to 90/month which is a signifigant ammount more. The funny part about all the people talking about 6boxing though is probally most of them havent played on a progression server before, as for the most part everything is already going to be locked down, leveling all 6 chars, muchless getting them the gear/camps needed to become par with a single character didnt really happen until post-luclin. Its not like on live where you get choice of every camp due to low population numbers, but instead you getting 4-5 mobs most of the time as there are 2-3 groups of people for every "1 group camp" on live.
I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that they will require subscriptions. Fippy/Vulak required a subscription (still do in fact, something I hope they revisit before the new TLP comes out). While they will have a cash shop, we know it will be very limited for quite a while. The development team is spending a fair amount of time and effort setting this up. Not requiring a subscription wouldn't allow them to recoup their investment on these servers, let alone make a profit they could pour back into EQ (or pass up to their new evil overlords).
Just for you. No date, no popcorn or soda. Just the price of admission and it's over in 2 hours, give or take. For $15 bucks, I get many times more enjoyment out of EQ.
They also will not be selling any adventure packs or expansions to anyone on the TLP servers anytime soon. Daybreak has to get revenue off the servers somehow.
