Just got told about this game by a friend of mine.

[RexX]

All I can say is wow, this has to be the perfect game for me right now the only thing what I'm not to keen on is the price for the game + subscription. I guess I'll have to save my moola if I wanna get this beasty game.

Any chance of a trial maybe? like other P2P games I think that would make my day but also have a lot more people purchasing the game.

Thanks Xsyon Citizens

[Willowhawk]

All I can say is wow, this has to be the perfect game for me right now the only thing what I'm not to keen on is the price for the game + subscription. I guess I'll have to save my moola if I wanna get this beasty game.

Any chance of a trial maybe? like other P2P games I think that would make my day but also have a lot more people purchasing the game.

Thanks Xsyon Citizens

Unfortunately Rexx this is a difficult proposition with Xsyon and has been discussed a lot. Unlike typical cooky cutter games Xsyons world environment is directly effected by things we do. People come in and terraform a bunch of land, pave roads all over the forest, pull scraps and burn out scrap piles, then quit and leave an ugly mess, and there is no undoing those changes. So unless Xsyon wants to pay for another dedicated server for trials it's not really a good idea.

As for the cost, if you buy now at $40.00 that buys the game and gives you a month of play. Plus as an active subscriber (might want to confirm this as we all got emails, you might have missed it) you may get two weeks of free play added to your subscription with the current promo coming up. So buying now would be a good deal.

[Michael_M]

Yeah... I am pretty sure that is not a valid reason for not adding a trial period.
Do you have any idea how easy it is to disable(or limit) any skill by adding a new variable that indicates trial status?

Something along the lines of...
If Trial = True
Teraform = Disabled
Building = Disabled

Even high budget games use simple code to limit access to things based on account level.

[MrDDT]

Yeah... I am pretty sure that is not a valid reason for not adding a trial period.
Do you have any idea how easy it is to disable(or limit) any skill by adding a new variable that indicates trial status?

Something along the lines of...
If Trial = True
Teraform = Disabled
Building = Disabled

Even high budget games use simple code to limit access to things based on account level.

Removing these options then giving a trial account would be like trying to play Call of duty with no ammo. People would just quit.

[tomduril]

Turning of the "key features" of the game would be like if you have a trail version of Wow but you can not cast a spell or move beyond the first zone ... I dont think that would work as it would not work in Xsyon because the element of a Sandbox game is that *you* change the environment:
-) you fell a tree -> it will be felled for ever - no respawing of that same tree, no creating new trees around it in summer, no picking up sap,twigs etc...
-) if you kill an animal - its dead - for *all* players in the world and it wont create children ... so even killing a small animal will change the world
So only allowing trail players to pick up stones and fish ??? They should not even be able to pick up grass, trash, branches etc. because those things would be missing for paying players eventually

Trail would mean: Lots of people try the game (sounds great ?!?) meaning ...

- Xsyon would need more download server hardware (and internet traffic cost) to support them - although they dont pay anything
- Xsyon would need more server hardware (game, database ...) to support the trail players
- more people like community manager, more guides etc ...

And guess what ... all that stuff has to be paid! Who is paying that - the paying player base of Xsyon, so alot of money is spend for "potentential" customers (lets call it marketing) and not for the better of your actual customers. I have got the feeling (and probably Xsyon shares that too) that "free trail games " need a lot more resources for the "trial" players than for the real customers. And Xsyon is not created for the big masses of players, but for a rather distinct player base that is interested in sandbox games... however its not so easy to "make the sand even" again - it would be like there was never a tide on the ocean and each and everyones "sandcastle" would persist forever ... best to limit the access to the beach - and if it is only be charging 40$ to get there for a month

I like that fact that dedicated people buy this game for playing 1 month - means less "Ill tried 5 games today and this one sucks!" in globalchat, less children (they dont spend 40$ of their allowance (AE)/ pocket money (BE)) and less people who are not commited to giving the game a chance (meaning they really try before quitting)

[sparklingshores]

Turning of the "key features" of the game would be like if you have a trail version of Wow but you can not cast a spell or move beyond the first zone ... I dont think that would work as it would not work in Xsyon because the element of a Sandbox game is that *you* change the environment:
-) you fell a tree -> it will be felled for ever - no respawing of that same tree, no creating new trees around it in summer, no picking up sap,twigs etc...
-) if you kill an animal - its dead - for *all* players in the world and it wont create children ... so even killing a small animal will change the world
So only allowing trail players to pick up stones and fish ??? They should not even be able to pick up grass, trash, branches etc. because those things would be missing for paying players eventually

Trail would mean: Lots of people try the game (sounds great ?!?) meaning ...

- Xsyon would need more download server hardware (and internet traffic cost) to support them - although they dont pay anything
- Xsyon would need more server hardware (game, database ...) to support the trail players
- more people like community manager, more guides etc ...

And guess what ... all that stuff has to be paid! Who is paying that - the paying player base of Xsyon, so alot of money is spend for "potentential" customers (lets call it marketing) and not for the better of your actual customers. I have got the feeling (and probably Xsyon shares that too) that "free trail games " need a lot more resources for the "trial" players than for the real customers. And Xsyon is not created for the big masses of players, but for a rather distinct player base that is interested in sandbox games... however its not so easy to "make the sand even" again - it would be like there was never a tide on the ocean and each and everyones "sandcastle" would persist forever ... best to limit the access to the beach - and if it is only be charging 40$ to get there for a month

I like that fact that dedicated people buy this game for playing 1 month - means less "Ill tried 5 games today and this one sucks!" in globalchat, less children (they dont spend 40$ of their allowance (AE)/ pocket money (BE)) and less people who are not commited to giving the game a chance (meaning they really try before quitting)

I have ot mostly agree with your. Your statements almost put a tear to my eye and i'm too young to have much wisdom. But look at Dawntide. It wasn't charging people to play it. It told everyone it was beta so they didn't have to pay to play. But you know... people still played it because there was something there. It had value. Anyway, they lost their funding and now the game is dead. I think that for Xyson to survive, asking for money like this might be the only way for it to keep going because NOBODY in the mainstream is going to invest in something like this. The mainstream runs away from sandbox games like they're the plague. Myabe its time niche players put their money where their mouth is and are willing to invest. Otherwise, these kinds of games can only come from open source communities. That means: slowly. Open source can do a lot of things, but it cannot do everything.

There's just not enough popularity out there for sandbox mmorpgs.

So it's time we do something about it. Talk is cheap and fake. Money is real.