Free accounts ?

[Awarkle]

Wondered if goa was going to start offering a free account system like mythic does for people to trial the game, i know they did that one on PC gamer or zone or some game magazine but they had it on a separate server and limited it to a week or three weeks.

Just wondering if it would have been better to allow people to create the account on an already active server such as prydwen or excal.

All that it would require is the ability for people to create a free account with say classic (with the si engine) then have the account remain active for a month after which point they have to start paying subs (= buy the boxed game) means goa are distributing the goods (at the end of the month) and bringing new people into the game.

And i dont think most games mags have really done a good job on dark age mostly just a few passages regarding add ons which are not the best they could do.

 

[Jeriraa]

The game comes with a free month but I see what you mean... like AO where you can DL the client, play 10 days trial, after that pay for the client and get another free month before you actually start paying subs.

Put the client and a half paged add into every gamers magazine over europe and maybe get some fresh blood?

 

[oblimov]

aye i joined with the pc gamer freebie if i remember

i think they might do something like that when NF comes out

 

[Zenn]

Aye, i think they should... i've been playing the usa free trial testing out the new lower level battle grounds and the new level bonus system. It's really nice :worthy:

 

[old.Whoodoo]

Im with the idea too, but Im sure the powers that be say "Gifv us ya £20 fyrst ya tight gits!" or similar.

 

[Arkian]

The problem with doing it is that if you don't put the free accounts onto a seperate server, you will typically get a load of grief players making free accounts and causing big trouble for the paying customers. I've seen it happen on several games that implemented this.

 

[[GOA]Erivoss]

Well at the Monde du Jeux there were bunch of free cd's lying around. Afaik it is just a classic version, you can play for a week and can create a character on any server you want. Once the week is over the account gets closed but if you wish you can continue playing it as normal.

Now we just need to stick that CD on every cover of every pc magazine from here to Norway

 

[Daedalus]

You could hire monkeys to do so!

 

[Tilda]

Well at the Monde du Jeux there were bunch of free cd's lying around. Afaik it is just a classic version, you can play for a week and can create a character on any server you want. Once the week is over the account gets closed but if you wish you can continue playing it as normal.

Now we just need to stick that CD on every cover of every pc magazine from here to Norway

YES !
Please do it, i'll offer myself as unpaid labour to do the whole CD sticking thing
Why not get PC world or somewhere to hand out the CDs with each purchase too?
It would need to be coordinated though so that each server got 1000 new players or so at the same time so they could group and level up together and thus get addicted.

Tilda

 

[Holt]

Well at the Monde du Jeux there were bunch of free cd's lying around. Afaik it is just a classic version, you can play for a week and can create a character on any server you want. Once the week is over the account gets closed but if you wish you can continue playing it as normal.

Now we just need to stick that CD on every cover of every pc magazine from here to Norway

Thought there were legal issues, and you could only hand out 50 or so free CD's at the conventions (or maybe that was leipzig) but to hand them out freely to every game magazine buyer in Europe would be a breach of teh contract you have with the distribution company you use. Unless I've made this up, but I'm sure I've read that somewhere

 

[[GOA]Erivoss]

Thought there were legal issues, and you could only hand out 50 or so free CD's at the conventions (or maybe that was leipzig) but to hand them out freely to every game magazine buyer in Europe would be a breach of teh contract you have with the distribution company you use. Unless I've made this up, but I'm sure I've read that somewhere

possibly... I have no idea. All I know is that there were lots of free CDs at the Monde du Jeux and that they gave you access to the regular servers .

 

[Fafnir]

I'm sure there is some comp. mag. in Sweden that would be happy to put a trial on their dvd's/cd's.

 

[Tilda]

All respect to the GOA legal people, but if you have a contract with some company to distribute CDs for you, if they are failing to distribute CD's they its them who are in breech of contract. So surley you can either take them to court, or reenter the contract and terminate it? Enabling you to a) put CDs on mag covers, and b) get a distributor who acctually sends CD's to the UK

Tilda

 

[Vireb]

they kinda do ,

http://daoc.goa.com/en/
click download on right hand side panal
scroll down to "complete game" can dl both toa and si clients (restricted to classic zones) then sign up for an account

 

[Vireb]

they kinda do ,

http://daoc.goa.com/en/
click download on right hand side panal
scroll down to "complete game" can dl both toa and si clients (restricted to classic zones) then sign up for an account

oops my bad ... not really the same thing

 

[Tilda]

However to sign up for the game you need a CD key, which you need off a box from a shop.