Free Trial?

Is there any news about possible free trial opportunities once the game has been released? I've already preordered the game (and already paid for it), but I have some friends who would like to give it a whirl before possibly switching from WoW.

I dont know that much about the game because I havent played the beta's, but a simple solution to that would be...just letting them play yours for a couple of minutes

Well, its technically a free trial after you purchase the game since there is no monthly fee

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but that is AFTER you purchase the game....

yea the best solution would probably be to let them play yours, unless of course you dont want to share

If they preorder they'll still get to play April 27th and 28th with the preorder key. However, they'll need to pay the rest of the cost of the game to play April 29th-onwards. I don't know of any sites giving out trial passes.

I think the idea of a free trial might be a good idea... In PC Gamer there was a 10 day free trial of SW - Galaxies. It was not a bad idea and I'm sure that they got more than a few people to buy the game after they tried it. If GW produced a similar idea like they had for the BWE's where you can try the game before you buy... just a thought

but, in 10 days you could get to lvl 20.. might want something a bit shorter like 5 or 6...

Even 3 days would be sufficient, I think. That's how long the April BWE was, and it was more than enough to ensnare me.

I heard of one store (it was an EBgames somewhere) selling the pre-orders for $0.01. Amazon.com has the pre-order kits for $1. And I know that my local EB games was selling pre-orders for only $5. So my advice would be to tell them to pick up a pre-order kit and just play for the 27th and 28th. If they like it, they get the price of the pre-order off of the retail. And heck, for $5 you can barely rent a movie for each of those nights.

Matt

Target stores had the pre-orders for 99 cents. I picked up a few myself to give to friends.

could be a good idea. Ultima online gives 30 free day trials that simply get deactivated by the servers, so guild wars could easily do this. Make it 3 days (like the BWE) and then 3 days after a downloaded client is activated, simply stop it working. since you pay no monthly fees they certainly wouldn't be losing out by doing this; if anything it would be good for them by increasing people who want to play the game. run it exactly the way the beta worked.

an mmorpg with a free online trial? I think a dmeo that is offline might be useful, but an online trial would be a bad marketing choice for GW

I'm interested in this as well. I'm thinking about switching to this from WoW, but after getting burned on WoW i would like to try it first.

There is NO offline mode in "MMORPG's" not in Guild Wars. they are meant to be played ONLINE.

one problem with that: a really good programmer can make the client start up again. therefore getting infinite time for free

well yes, this is of coursse true, but that same programmer can make a crack for the cd version and distribute it its about the only way a demo could be done though i guess; making an offline demo (which wouldn't include half the great stuff in gw because of its guild side etc) would surely require way too much work that would be better spent in the streaming.

Perhaps a way to combat (slightly) people abusing the free trial would be to totally delete the account after it expires? Or the trial had no character creation window, just a pre-made level 20 rpg character? *shrugs*

You guys have no idea how no idea how game security is done.....


To the OP get a 99 cent pre order and give it to your friends so they can try for 2 days that is your free trial chance.

Setup an isolated demo server for security purposes. Make an arena type area of 2v2 combat (Academy map) and one mission like the starter mission of old. Start everyone out at level 3 and cap the levels at 5. Only 3 classes, each with a fixed amount of skills and no dual classing. Warrior, Ranger and Elementalist.

Yes, you will get people that only play the demo their whole lives but that number will be small in comparison to those that buy. Some sort of splash screen explaining dual classing, number of missions, guilds and the 700+ skills will have people running to the stores.

This sort of thing doesn't need to be done now or even a month from now as release day news and the huge buzz around this game already is plenty "word of mouth" advertising. Two or three months later, this would be a good idea. I don't know why I even post this though as ANet and NCSoft are nothing if not marketing geniuses. That they could get their entire community to pay a deposit to beta test the game is a testament to their savvy marketing.

If you want to give your friends a chance to play, tell them to run down to EB Games (or the closest store that stocks the preorder) and pick up the preorder. It's only 5 bucks and if they buy the game, that 5 bucks is deducted from the total price of the actual game. With the pre-order key, you will be able to play for 2 days for free: the 27th and the 28th. On the 29th you'll be shut out and must buy the actual thing.