No trial for Warhammer Online?

[xannoside]

Okay, let me get this straight...

You are launching, for all intents and purposes, a game (while having source-material pre-dating WoW by considerable margin) whose sucess is still primarily reliant on bored WoW-players wanting to try something new, and you have NO TRIAL?!

Comments

[edgehopper]

They had a trial. It cost $5 to try out.

OK, technically that was the pre-order system and the beta. Ho hum. My impression from the beta was "nothing to significantly distinguish it from WoW," at least not in the early game. I got my preorder from Direct2Drive, so I can't return it--I've got a full month to keep trying once I feel like it. But I have a feeling I'll continue waiting for the big, non-fantasy MMOs coming out in 2009--The Agency (PS3), Champions Online (PC, consoles?), DC Universe Online (PC, consoles), and Star Trek Online (PC, consoles). Also, Tom Clancy's EndWar (XBox 360, PS3) which has elements of MMO to make it plausible to call it an MMORTS.

[xannoside]

Yeah, that's lame.

When every other MMO out there has a 10-14 day no committment free trial, that's just weak, especially for a game that inevitably would be considered a WoW-clone.

See, I would really like a Warhammer 40K MMO. I feel like that could be awesome-sauce.

Or a World of Darkness MMO. Which could also be the worst thing ever, so I see why no one would do it, but still.

I am cautiously optimistic about Champions (PC/360) and the Agency. I very much want to play EndWar.

[edgehopper]

EndWar is spectacular. I was in the private beta, and the extremely limited game we got (only multiplayer campaign mode, only 1v1 or 2v2, only 4 maps, compared to the retail version that'll have up to 8v8 matches, something like 29 maps, and a full single player campaign along with multiplayer skirmish mode) was still one of the best RTSs I've ever played. In a season that looks to top even 2007's holiday season of awesomeness (Gears 2 > Halo 3; Fallout 3 > Mass Effect; Dead Space > Bioshock; GH:WT + RB2 > GH3 + RB, Mirror's Edge has no comparison, but the closest (and Mirror's Edge is far better looking) was Assassin's Creed) I place EndWar as the most underestimated likely hit. If there's a midnight release for it, I will be there. If you want to join me, I'll be commanding a Spetznaz heavy artillery division.

It is fairly common that MMOs don't have free trials at release, though. They usually wait on the free trials until interest dies down a little bit, for some reason. LotRO and Age of Conan did the same thing.

[xannoside]

I know, and it's a strategy I don't agree with. There is really no better way to sell a continuity program like a free trial.

Game companies in general (I've noticed), tend not to be very good with their offer development, preferring to sell on brand, which doesn't do a thing to attract players who aren't intimately familiar with it.

Even more, in a day and age where you're specifically competing with WoW, and most likely for players who are already playing WoW, you're going to have a real tough time selling straight up retail.

[bigscary]

I agree, sort of. I would say that what WoW did at launch (offer 10-day trial slips bundled in with every game) was the perfect choice.

Just open 10-days leads to unplayable games (Hi there, Pirates of the Caribbean free trial!), and throttling the influx even a little seems to be worth it.

[xannoside]

They also did it as bonuses to major game publications and paid-membership download sites like Fileplanet.

And yes, they did it perfectly.

Unless the pre-order volume puts into question your ability to load-balance your game servers, you should be doing free trials, however delivered, at launch.

That goes triple if your target audience is already playing WoW.

[jlc]

Or a World of Darkness MMO. Which could also be the worst thing ever, so I see why no one would do it, but still.
It's in the works. Or, well, exploring it is in the works. WW was hiring senior game programmers when I was jobhunting earlier this year. Wanted a shitton more experience than I had, especially on shipped MMOs, but this leads me to believe in exactly one thing.

But given their success with electronic games so far, I think your prediction is not nearly dire enough.

[bigscary]

And card games! And television shows!

[jlc]

Hey now, Rage was an awesome game.

[xannoside]

television shows?

[chuckro]

Someone at White Wolf just doesn't understand their target audience. They should be hosting a fan fiction site and making their money from the advertising.

[xannoside]

They also need to severely re-design their website.

It's extremely hard to read and parse. They also should know that if you're going to limit your width to 600, you shouldn't have three content columns, because then it can get really hard to read if you have a screen larger than 800x600.

[xannoside]

"Worse than the worst thing ever"?
"Worst thing wherever?"
"Most heinous crime yet to be visited upon man by his own hand?"

My main concerns about a WoD MMO is primarily linked to two things.

1. 95% of the play-population would be vampire-playing emo douches. See the Matrix Online.

2. Level and eqipment aside, player classes need to be more or less balanced for a PvP MMO to work in the long-term. In WoD, the different classes/races are balanced more in a kind of rock-paper-scissors equilibrium than any actual mechanical parity.

[jlc]

Wait... WoD has balance? Since when?

[xannoside]

Not exactly, but if you're playing a full-universe campaign, Mages, Vampires, and Werewolves kind chase one another in a yin-yang circle of power (in that order, I think).

I don't know enough about the others, so I'm leaving them out of it.