How to Make Xsyon a Success

[rkahles]

I came to your website to check out the details on Xsyon. I saw there were no sub fees any longer and created an account to download and check out the game, only to see that you must purchase the game before being able to try it.

If there was a one week free trial or even a three day free trial, I would have gladly downloaded the game to see what it is like and if I liked it, would have purchased it. The problem is, I am done getting burnt by "Early Release" and just crap games in general which are the norm lately it seems. That is not to say anything about this game, just my experience the past couple years with PC games in general.

If you do indeed want the masses to buy your game, you will need to offer some kind of free trial for at least a few days as I am pretty sure I am not the only gamer who is unwilling to throw his cash, especially $30, at a game I can't even try before I buy.

This post is in no way intended to bash Xsyon in any way. I only took my time to write this post to hopefully give you a very plausible way to turn the game into a bigger success.

If your game is indeed a good game, money will be rolling in in no time.

Thank you.

[loudermp]

I agree the game needs a trial, I will not invest any money until I can try it.

Thanks

[sMartins]

The problem is that if people can join the server for free they could mess up with the enviroment, so to make what you want it needs another server where trial people can join to try the game. I think it's not worth to spend money and developing resources to make this right now, i' m pretty sure that the Xsyon community prefer that dev spend his time,money and resources to improve the game, not to make a trial version...I could be agree with you guys if the game would still needed the subscription...but it was removed, so the trial is not really necessary in my mind. Not many B2P games have trial version, and for 20$ it is worth for sure, not a big investiment...so i suggest to take a look at some youtube videos, and if you like the game you should buy it. Cheers

[Bejaymac]

We used to have a free trial, you weren't a Citizen so you couldn't make your own tribe, and you didn't count towards the tribe size for any you joined, and your skills were capped at 30.

The problem was that most treated it like F2P rather than a trial, so most never bought the game, in the end it was costing Xsyon more in money, time and resources than it was making, so it was removed shortly before we launched on Steam.

[MrDDT]

The problem with doing a free to play, in my opinion is that you would have to do it like they did it before. Else people will mess up the world to much. Which means you can't terraform or build your own place. Which is 90% of this game.

So people would "trial" the game but they wouldn't get the main part of the fun and think the game was dumb or boring. I suggest investing in a game you think you might want to play. Look at videos and read reviews, if you think you might like it pay the 30$ and you have it for life. If you don't like it yes you lost 30$ but you also have it for life and it if does get better you can try it out again.
Reviews and videos can pretty much tell you if the game is something you are going to like or not.

[Darkwalker9]

With the game being B2P a free trial that lasted 7 days and capped your skills at 10 and prevented you from joining a tribe would be more then fair you could get into the game see the world figure out what is going on and if its something you want to play. Then you drop down the 29.99 or less if you find it on sale and can play the game unlimited for ever its a very fair system.

[MrDDT]

Did you read my post above yours?

Doing that pretty much ensures that no one will buy the game because most of the fun of the game is building, and being in a tribe. Having capped skills at 10 means you can't do anything. Not being in a tribe means you can't build either. Pretty much you are forces people that are free to play to log in, and log off.

[Darkwalker9]

Did you read my post above yours?

Doing that pretty much ensures that no one will buy the game because most of the fun of the game is building, and being in a tribe. Having capped skills at 10 means you can't do anything. Not being in a tribe means you can't build either. Pretty much you are forces people that are free to play to log in, and log off.


Well as a matter of fact I did read your post, and frankly I 100% disagree with you. A free to play trial to wet your desire to play the game is what is needed not a full on free to play mode. From a business standpoint it does not pay to give the player any of the "fun" aspects of the game for free. You want to show them everything that can be built (world Access). A chance to try the different skills so they can see if the crafting system is something they would enjoy. The ability to do fishing scraping forging and the likes. The game cost 30 bucks if they enjoy any of those things or are able to see the things people created for free if the game is something they want to play they will buy it and play if not they log off and move on.

IF the game was not B2P and still had a sub after you bought the game then i would say we need something like the old system or something that allows you to raise your skills to 30 and partake in tribes. Thankfully this is not the case and we do not need people to make free to play toons just to grind items for them.

I have plenty of people who are interested in the game and would have a much easier time deciding to buy it if i they could log in and run around the world check out a few of the tribes and maybe come over and see my place. They wouldn't hesitate to spend 29.99 to join my tribe and play.

No matter how much we debate the topic no system will be perfect for everyone but i think the game needs a trial and i so no reason it cant be limited.

[sMartins]

I think the trial is not really needed, I prefer dev spend his time and resources to improve the game...once a game is good players will come....this game is already good but unfortunatly is not finished yet, this is the major issue in my mind.
However, if the trial doens't take too much work to be done you could be right....maybe it could draw some more players.

[MrDDT]

Well as a matter of fact I did read your post, and frankly I 100% disagree with you. A free to play trial to wet your desire to play the game is what is needed not a full on free to play mode. From a business standpoint it does not pay to give the player any of the "fun" aspects of the game for free. You want to show them everything that can be built (world Access). A chance to try the different skills so they can see if the crafting system is something they would enjoy. The ability to do fishing scraping forging and the likes. The game cost 30 bucks if they enjoy any of those things or are able to see the things people created for free if the game is something they want to play they will buy it and play if not they log off and move on.

IF the game was not B2P and still had a sub after you bought the game then i would say we need something like the old system or something that allows you to raise your skills to 30 and partake in tribes. Thankfully this is not the case and we do not need people to make free to play toons just to grind items for them.

I have plenty of people who are interested in the game and would have a much easier time deciding to buy it if i they could log in and run around the world check out a few of the tribes and maybe come over and see my place. They wouldn't hesitate to spend 29.99 to join my tribe and play.

No matter how much we debate the topic no system will be perfect for everyone but i think the game needs a trial and i so no reason it cant be limited.


I think the trial is not really needed, I prefer dev spend his time and resources to improve the game...once a game is good players will come....this game is already good but unfortunatly is not finished yet, this is the major issue in my mind.
However, if the trial doens't take too much work to be done you could be right....maybe it could draw some more players.

You know a trial system was done before right? Only people were limited to 30 skill instead of 10, and they could join tribes.

You want to limit them even more, and not allow them to join a tribe and think it's going to be better?

Well I guess we can agree to disagree, to me it's common sense.

[thurgond]

I think Xsyon needs a free trial, but as has been pointed out letting trial players play with everyone else doesn't work.

What could be done is carve out two islands in the mist separated from the main area. Trial players could play in one of these islands with the previous restrictions (lvl 30 for skills, able to place one character totem, etc.) These islands would be on the live servers so player could chat with citizens, either through global or a special trial channel.

At the end of each real world month or perhaps each game year, the active island would swap. Existing trial players would respawn on the newly active island. Any tribes, buildings, terraforming, bins, trees, etc. on the inactive island would be reset. This would keep trial players from playing long term as only skills and the contents of their pack/pouches would carry over to the new island. The island wipes would mean that trial characters would have a relatively fresh zone to experience.

[sMartins]

Too much work not needed in my mind...Darkwalker idea is better, give to custumers the possibility to walk around the map to see the world with very low skills and no tribe possibilities, then if they like what they see they should buy the game or if not they leave. Easy to do and could give a better feeling for undecided custumers. I do not put more effort than that to a trial. Cheers

[Taraniel]

A free trial was done once, it didn't work and resulted in trial players messing up the world for everyone else. Instead of a free trial, make a nice trailer showcasing the world and everything a player can do. If that is done, any serious player who is looking for a great sandbox would be interested because lets face it, there is no sandbox out there as good as xsyon. That would be my suggestion.

[DarkEvil]

The free trial should be for 1-3 days with no restrictions. This way people get the full taste for the game with no limits and once the trial is up, buy the game or move on.

The one issue that scares me about a free trial though would be gold sellers or bots, but I seriously doubt this game is any any danger at this point for this. They target the big games they can make real world cash off of and just not enough players for that right now.

Just have the unrestricted trial until a target goal of players are logging in each day, then if bots or gold sellers start becoming an issue, change the free trial as needed to deter them.

[xyberviri]

You give me the ability to generate 1-3 day accounts with no restrictions, ill give you more than enough reasons to go back to not wanting any free trials.

Other games like WoW dont make the player part of their world, nor does the player have the ability to screw up the world on the scale that you can on Xsyon.

I dont remember StarWarsGalaxies have a free trial for a LONG time after it was released.

To be honest, im surprised the pvp die hard players that hate pve dont go to the pve server and intentionally screw it up.

remember all the bald spots on the scrap today are the some of the same ones from 2011.

The only way you can have a trial is if the trail players have stuff to do on tribe grounds. You need a way for some one to come "work" for you for a day.

They dont need to be part of my tribe for me to want them to do work for me.