One of the problems today with MMO games is that most all offer monthly subscriptions. Subscription type MMO's are quickly becoming "click-through" products. While micro-transaction type games are just starting to poke their head into the genre. Subscribers are getting harder to take hold of with other games offering free online play with pay item options and in-game advertisements for funding. Games like WoW or Eve don't have to worry because of the hype. But what about the games without hype?

For instance, WW2OL.

An outdated game with a 10 day trial, that requires a credit card and has auto-renew set.

That's really a shame. Auto renew sends the wrong message to new subscribers at times. WW2OL could really be something- especially for history/war buffs like myself.

10 days + credit card + automatic renew says "We'll make things short so that you're hanging at the end of your trial and want to subscribe... even if not, we already got your credit card information and auto-renew on so we might get you that way". Doesn't the process of applying for the trial and than un-subbing for a game you might not like, just seem like too much work?

They should probably take the approach that Planetside has taken with key handouts. 30 days w/o credit card req's. What harm could it do? The surge of new players will make the battles larger, the vets will probably enjoy that. Look at the 30 day trial thread here. It has over 16,000 views. The "Planetside Challenge" was a major success also. We've converted 30 clans from other games to Planetside. I mean, even if there is only a 5% turnout with this sort of thing it increased the scale of battles- making it more enjoyable for vets thinking of un-subbing, and gave Planetside more revenue.

All this and the game is 5 years old.

If WW2OL wants to survive, they need to make it easier and more enjoyable for potential subscribers to try the game out.

I myself have put my credit card number down way to many time for the "free trials" that are out on the web. I've been placed in situations where I couldn't un-sub and ended up paying fees for something I didn't play.

I love watching the videos and hearing about ww2ol, but if I can't try out a game that will potentially cut into my monthly bill- Than I will probably just "click-through" and move onto the next game.

I want to try it out in safe non-invasive manner.

Us players have often asked about more free trials, or free rifleman accounts. But they simply don't have the money to pay for the bandwidth it would need.

What they are doing though is focusing the next patch on making the game friendlier to new players. They are working on adding a Americas Army style basic training system, and a friendlier training area / server.

There are certainly several ways of going about or around the subscription model and in the many long years the devs at WWIIOL have been doing it we've tried a lot, going back to pay-by-hour on the old Genie network, back before the web.

I think our free trial is currently at 14 days and we have recently removed the need to put in a credit card, there are, however some valid reasons to do so. Especially in a PvP game with an on site community. We call them griefers. There are only about three ways to make sure that someone isn't rolling through your free trial if they are personna non-grata. Fist you can track email addresses, but c'mon, there are a million ways to get around that. Next you can look at IP address but again, theses are rarely static and easy to spoof. Finally is to use credit cards, which a player may have several of but probably not an inexhaustible supply.

In a free to play game, you often have more griefers but they are easier to deal with because you just ban on site because, hey, it's free! Players who have bought into your game generally don't want their characters (and the cash they spent on your item buy model) being lost so it is a completely different metric than dealing iwth a subscription game.

I think we'd be interested in a non subscription plan for our next project bt it probably isn't something that will work well for a non item based PvP game like WWIIOL.

I understand. What about ban of griefer based on some (eventually repeated in short period) petition of experienced players of his faction... it's only an idea. In Planetside there are griefers too, but they aren't major problem. Other players see them and kill them quickly. Nobody enjoys diying ten times in a row . Greater problem are IMO hackers .

Great news that you has removed necessity of CC number in trial anyway.

I have to get some time to try this Is there anywhere a good newbie guide? Could you give some advice which unit to join (both sides) ? (Mybee there is topic...)

Good news about that CC# being removed. I'll go ahead and stat playing.

I am however running into installation problems, registration has been disabled on the forums, and once my installation is complete it says It cannot find setting.exe

probably something simple I overlooked. I'll have to delve further.

You should be able to find the settings.exe in your installations folder. It would also have ran at the completion of your installation of the download.

The forums are generally locked to subscribers out side of the help forum, but there is also an in-game help channel that is very helpful most times. That's actually another good topic. Conventional wisdom on running forums has changed quite a bit over time.

In the old days game companies ran their own community, there wasn't much else out there. Then MMOs decided that running forums was expensive and generally a sinkhole of time, men and money, in essence a drain on the subscription and of less benefit than other community endeavors like running a news service and a community manager to work with external forums. No mods needed essentially. Now with the new focus on web communities (call it web 2.0 if you must) I wonder if we are not seeing that change.

I digress...

If you want to have fun right out of the gate try joining a squad when the recruitment dialog comes up. You can always leave it and get recruited into another. A great way to get quickly with a group of dedicated players.

QUOTE:
You should be able to find the settings.exe in your installations folder. It would also have ran at the completion of your installation of the download.

I've searched and couldn't seem to find it. I get the error after installation when it normally would launch automatically.

About the forums- apparantly its locked for registrations as well. I still haven't received a reply from the ticket I submitted.

I guess as an end-user, my experience thus far hasn't been all too inviting. I've got several other members here that are trying to join as well, I'll see what they tell me.

To get back to the "making it work" part of this thread.

It's too early for me to judge ww2ol and say that the structure caters to security so much that it actually screws up their cost/benefit ratio, but that statement might hold true if myself and others still experience the same issues a week from now.

Perhaps they should lax required credentials and have the download more easily accessible- as well as support, and forum access.

Duplicate trials and folks riding on free subs might be an issue. That's why some companies reserve their trials for measurable periods and campaign to get as many trials in as possible within this window.

If most of this was all also brought about by the so-called "griefers", than I would have to say that the "griefers" have accomplished their mission.

In-game penalization, in any form, is the answer to the griefers. That's assuming the griefer is doing a trackable action in-game such as team-killing. On the latter, if it happens to be just 1 dramatic individual with sore feelings that just wants to barge into old squads, or perhaps infiltrate an enemy squad to see their plans- whatever the intent, if it is an un-trackable action (database wise), than all I have to say is welcome to the virtual online world of gaming, where widespread anonymity brings out the best and worst in the masses.

Cutting into things that make something more user friendly due to someone else's actions is bad for business. The doors to subscription games should always be open with a decorated welcome mat. Everything else inside should be handled as such- internally.

This is all just my two cents. As you may have noticed, this does not necessarily apply directly to WW2OL, but to the application/subscription model of many games.

To add, I also noticed that there weren't any ad options with the download. As an example, in 2007 DivX was funded $17m from the yahoo toolbar download option with their setup.

Something to think about.

Taiko!, the forums are only assessable to active subscribers, with the exception of the help ones. Also, forum accounts are automatically tied to game accounts, there is no need to register.

And just FYI: Gophur is WWIIOLs Senior Producer.

I guess I should start talking in 2nd person now

Well, in any case, the game has a definite niche that can still itch an angle other games can't. Just throwing out some ideas.

okay guys... I'm off to the help forums.