Trial Accounts and You by Draconi_EA

[Millie]

Hello everyone!

The design team has recently been provided with better tools to identify paying accounts versus free trial accounts once a player has logged in. Up until now content and systems within UO have not been designed in a way that discourages exploitative behavior, treating both types equally.

As you can imagine, this has led some very negative consequences. Resource farming, scripting, house placement exploits – these are all things taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals abusing trial accounts. In turn, we’ve had to put hard caps on usage of various game features; for instance, having to wait an artificial thirty days after making a character before you can do certain things.

We now have the tools in place to accomplish two major things: restrict usage of some features to paying subscribers, and release the “character age” restrictions in others.

Some examples would include:

• Only letting paying subscribers create/trade houses
• Make BODs only available to paying subscribers
• Remove character age requirements for placing houses

Those aren’t the only things we’re looking at, but before we get too ahead of ourselves, I’d like to solicit your feedback.

I strongly believe this new ability will make the game healthier, and reward loyal players while removing the ease with which our systems are exploited. I should reiterate that this is only an effort to fix a gaping hole in the way we design our systems. This isn’t a change to the way UO’s subscription model works in any way.

Our definition of trial accounts does *not* include the free game time associated with buying an actual release of the game. That first month of paid subscription entitles you to *all* the benefits of a regular subscriber. These restrictions will only be applied to the free trial accounts.

We’re currently targeting these changes for Publish 58.

I’m opening this thread to discuss:

• Discussion on the impact of being able to restrict trial users from some systems
• What systems you feel are meant for paying subscribers
• What current “age related” restrictions you’d like to see removed

Thank you,

Tim "Draconi" Cotten
__________________

Tim "Draconi" Cotten - Lead Designer - Ultima Online - EA Mythic​

This is too cool, its posted on U hall, If you have the time I suggest you read it and give you 2cents worth.

 

[Lord Nabin]

I love it !!!! Let's all Jump on the Band Wagon on this one. A big showing from Napa is in order!

 

[Snakeman]

One Big Step Forward here.
http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=124415

 

[Nibblets]

I posted my thoughts for it, but I don't think it was $.02 worth....more like a $1.00 or more.

Unfortunately I like to explain why I think we should or should not do something and I tend to get long-winded....