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Discussion: should UO future be free?!?!?!!?

  • Thread starter Tane Darkbane
  • Start date
  • Watchers 0

Should UO offer free accounts

  • Hell yes gimme those newbies!

    Votes: 7 24.1%
  • Could work if its all thought through properly

    Votes: 15 51.7%
  • Not completly sure on that one

    Votes: 8 27.6%
  • I hate meeting new people!

    Votes: 3 10.3%

  • Total voters
    29
T

Tane Darkbane

Guest
Should UO offer free accounts providing those accounts where restircted to :

No houses
25% bank box
No artifact use (customers for those crafted items)
max equipment properties 3 per item
no vet awards
no soul stones

could be great for getting people hooked and could provide ingame trade

what do you guys think?
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Sounds like a good idea to me. Give them free access to a limited version of UO, then once they're hooked let them upgrade to the full game for a monthly fee.
 
C

Ceridwen

Guest
Cool, free extra bank storage on all shards! Including Siege! :D

Apart from that, great idea, we also need another one of those comeback thingys. Host em like once per year, for a week, just so people could check back in and see how things have changed.
 

Nystul

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Who would get hooked with those limitations...

Basically they would be limited to a fraction of them game, what fun is that? (Not to mention no chance to pvp, which is what a lot of gamers enjoy). A lot of F2P games have minor limitations but nothing in that scale. Usually paying customers get special benefits beyond the normal without restricting the free players from experiencing the game in a 'normal state'. Obvious things for paying customers would be like increased skill gain (lvling in most F2P), unique pets, unique armor/weapons/sets etc.

The parts I do like:
No Houses (Would have to be a must)
25% Bank Box
No Vet Rewards (Not like they would get em anyways :p)
No Soulstones




But it would never work. If it was ever made that way of course UO would be ruined to the casual gamer. If you think macroing/scripting/cheating whatever you wana call it now is a problem... Well I suppose you get the point :x. They would have to take out recall/gate travel to ditch the majority of the scripting that could go on. From there EA's GMs would have to actually do things to stop whatever other crazy things are going on. It still wouldn't address things like the BOD system being exploited w/ massive free accounts etc.

It would be a lot more trouble and cost more than it would probably be worth or help for that matter.
 

cdavbar

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I see many people using "free" accounts for extra storage and things of the sort. It will be more of a headache than it would a positive to the comunity.
 
G

Goodoljoe

Guest
Anarchy Online had a great success with a similar feature that instead of a lame trial they allow people to make free accounts with similar restrictions,but with enough content to keep them going for a long time.This may be a good idea for SA release..maybe have a free trial that comes with all expansions except Mondains and and only allows a small portion of SA along with many other restrictions,and provide atractive upgrade account kits.
 
T

Tane Darkbane

Guest
The thought came from an article i read yesterday - that a lot of companies are actually doing quite well by not charging the majority of users - google for one.
You could even consider a heavily added free version and an un-advertised subscriber service. I'm sure EA has loads of games they'd like to plug.
 
K

kennykilleduo

Guest
Should UO offer free accounts providing those accounts where restircted to :



could be great for getting people hooked and could provide ingame trade

what do you guys think?
I would change to:


No houses
25% bank box
No artifact use (customers for those crafted items)
max 2 characters
Tram / Fel only
No power scrolls
Limited shards
Discounted upgrade to a full version
 
J

jelinidas

Guest
I like the idea but feel it would be a scripters dream come true. They need to stop the cheats. That right there would bring tons of people back to UO.
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
A couple of sayings come to mind when reading this:

"Nothing in life is free." "You get what you pay for."

I can't help but think doing something like this would mean the end of new content and bug fixes for UO. Someone has to pay to keep the game running and if it's the few paying subscribers that are left, I doubt they would get their money's worth out of the game after a while of giving a free ride to everyone else.
 

Dol'Gorath

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Free accounts with limitations sound fine to me. Also wanna add, free accounts can not use Powerscrolls.
If you want over GM, you pay for the benefits of a payed account.
 

Borric

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Why not have a "Freeshard" avail to anyone.

No houses and the like.

With a moongate to transfer to prod shard (after account upgrade).

Oh, no items/bankbox transfer.
 
G

Goodoljoe

Guest
A free shard wont work EA is a gaming company,not UNICEF.Everyone would end going there and use the limitations as some sort of pre-AOS official imitation,would spread population even more,and none would pay to play anymore..
 
M

Millie

Guest
Why not have a "Freeshard" avail to anyone.

No houses and the like.

With a moongate to transfer to prod shard (after account upgrade).

Oh, no items/bankbox transfer.
I could see something like this working. But letting free accounts on reg shards would be a mess. I could see the sweat shops opening 3000 million free accounts just to farm gold in the Fel / Tram dungeons. Even if it was limited to 1 free account per ip I can see it getting abused to the point that no one could play because of the Lag and Congestion.
 
T

Teeshy

Guest
I had been thinking about this too. I can see positives and negatives for it.

Gold farmers heaven is first thing that comes to mind ;)

But what if there was some limitation that free accounts couldn't trade with paying accounts, and also that free accounts couldn't have more than, say 1 million gold in the bank? No dropping of items unless they went straight into a rubbish bin (instant deletion)?

Not sure if that would work - I think the free accounts idea to give people a TRY at the game is a good idea, just the limitations need to be there in the right manner. I'm just not sure of the best way to do that that can't be exploited.

I know that in other games where people can play for free (Dofus and Runescape being the only two I know) that once people have played the game for a month or two, a LOT of them become paying members for the added content.
 
O

Old Man of UO

Guest
I hate polls when they don't put an option in to disagree with the poster's idea.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
You'd also need another limiter or two:

game play restricted to 3 hours a day, or 15 hours for any 7 day period, after the first week (timer would not start until the first week is over).

limit 1 free account per IP address. If an account has a dynamic IP, or the person wishes to use the account elsewhere, the account can be tied to a specific machine's MAC address, which must be changed via account management page, to be used on a different machine. Such changes would only be allowed twice a week (to allow a person to change back, once home).
 

Setnaffa

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I didn't read through all the posts and I'm sure someone else already mentioned this, but UO already has free accounts. They are 30-day trial accounts. If someone isn't hooked in 30 days, then they will never be hooked.

I also didn't answer the poll because the choices were biased toward's the OP's objective.
 

Demonous

Rares Fest Host | Ches Jul 2010
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Who would get hooked with those limitations...

Basically they would be limited to a fraction of them game, what fun is that? (Not to mention no chance to pvp, which is what a lot of gamers enjoy). A lot of F2P games have minor limitations but nothing in that scale. Usually paying customers get special benefits beyond the normal without restricting the free players from experiencing the game in a 'normal state'. Obvious things for paying customers would be like increased skill gain (lvling in most F2P), unique pets, unique armor/weapons/sets etc.

The parts I do like:
No Houses (Would have to be a must)
25% Bank Box
No Vet Rewards (Not like they would get em anyways :p)
No Soulstones

But it would never work. If it was ever made that way of course UO would be ruined to the casual gamer. If you think macroing/scripting/cheating whatever you wana call it now is a problem... Well I suppose you get the point :x. They would have to take out recall/gate travel to ditch the majority of the scripting that could go on. From there EA's GMs would have to actually do things to stop whatever other crazy things are going on. It still wouldn't address things like the BOD system being exploited w/ massive free accounts etc.

It would be a lot more trouble and cost more than it would probably be worth or help for that matter.
its very possible to get hooked with those limitations, this is how ea gets new players to begin with. People will be attracted first of all with no charge to worry about, then they'll get into the game more and more until eventually they decide they need the full package because its not too much of a fee when they think about it and there ya go ! this is probably the best way to get more players
 

Demonous

Rares Fest Host | Ches Jul 2010
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You'd also need another limiter or two:

game play restricted to 3 hours a day, or 15 hours for any 7 day period, after the first week (timer would not start until the first week is over).

limit 1 free account per IP address. If an account has a dynamic IP, or the person wishes to use the account elsewhere, the account can be tied to a specific machine's MAC address, which must be changed via account management page, to be used on a different machine. Such changes would only be allowed twice a week (to allow a person to change back, once home).
i think limiting the hours of someone who would have a free account is a very bad idea, let them experience the game with those first few suggested limitations and eventually they will want the whole package and be willing to pay to play the game
 

kaio

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Well giving away something for free, aient bad. But EA needs to backup the idea. Or else their investment would be lost.
I would suggest, giving away 1 week on a new shard (created) with 1 out of 4 templates to play. The new player can only have one char. During that week, EM/GM or whatever they are called, should make events to show simple things, every day of the week 24/7, to get the new players hooked.
After that week, there should be given away some free game time code, for the most promesing player. say 1 months or something, and a charger of the fallen. The newly created shard should be destroyed after that week also.
When the new players starts their "real" account, they should have status of a 4 year vet (another reward for the crash cource-event-kind of thing)

Why 4 years ? well for the 720 skill thing, and the ability to ride ethys. So instead of beeing 11 years behind, they are only 7 year behind.

The community from the prod shards, should also be represented with trusted ppl, from guilds that normally help newcommers, so when they actually starts to play for real, they have an idea of who to speak with to get help etc etc.
...
...
could go on for hours...lol so i stop now..
 
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