Tag: membership

Vanguard Opens Up More Features For Free


vanguard

What are you thinking about, Vanguard? Why so distant all the time? Reaction to Vanguard’s free to play transition last summer has been rather positive, but at the same time pretty lukewarm, with players noting the very restrictive free to play model that SOE had implemented as the primary reason behind the negativity. Before Vanguard even went free to play, Sony Online Entertainment was already doing patchwork on opening the game up more to free players, and since then the team has been working on fixing bugs, working on content changes, and planning for future updates.

In a post today, Producer Henry Burgess has revealed that both free players and members will receive a boost in Vanguard:

We have decided to expand and improve on the free- to-play offering for Vanguard. That means everyone can play any race, any class, to any level for free. You can also own a house, create guilds, and do a bunch of other things.

Free players will have full access to all of the game’s races and classes, as well as enjoying an unlimited gold purse and the game’s 50 active-quest limit. Free players will be able to have four bag slots, normal broker fees, 75 bank slots (compared to 25), as well as full access to caravans, brotherhoods, the ability to create a guild, and the ability to own a house. Members will enjoy a boost of 50% bonus experience, 12 character slots, double faction gains, a 10% discount at the marketplace, 20% discounted broker fees, two houses (20% discount on upkeep), 20% discounted mail fees, and a 20% discount on most other fees in-game. All of this with the other features members are already accustomed to (500 Station cash, customer support, etc).

(Source: Vanguard)

RuneScape Free Trial Returns?


Last month I posted an article about a 14-day membership for new accounts. The trial was unannounced and held rather ambiguous requirements as to who could participate (at the time it appeared to be UK-only), and remained unmentioned by Jagex until later in the month when Mod Hippo posted to announce that the trial had ended.

With today’s update to RuneScape, it appears that the trial is back. Upon character creation, users are reporting seeing this:

I am checking up on the RuneScape forums to see if I can find any comment by Jagex staff and will update with any more information.

Limited 14 Day RuneScape Members Trial


[UPDATE: THE TRIAL APPEARS TO BE UP AND RUNNING AGAIN, CLICK HERE]

Earlier this month, I talked about how now that Jagex has rid the game of the more troublesome bots, a limited members trial sounds far more feasible. After all, while the free version of RuneScape offers an overwhelming amount of content, the two games are segregated at a level where a subscription should be experienced rather than teased. Granted, I didn’t think Jagex would already have had something in the works.

While there hasn’t been an official announcement, players are reporting that newly created free accounts are being offered 14 days free membership with certain limitations. The details right now are foggy, given most of my information is coming from questionable sources, but the trial appears to be limited to new accounts only, and the trial may be region-restricted. My sources in the UK were the only ones to receive the below message upon creating a new account, while those in US, Canada, and Germany were unable to.

Today is Sunday, so it is possible that Jagex will have some sort of formal announcement this week. For now, however, the trial doesn’t seem to be fully rolled out.

RuneScape: Members Trial Much More Likely


If you had asked me one year ago if RuneScape should have a members trial, I might have said no. Not that such a program wouldn’t be beneficial, but that the rampant amount of cheaters that plagued the game at the time would use the opportunity for free membership, no matter how short, to bot more valuable members items and upend the economy even more. Now that the bots are no longer an issue, there isn’t much of a reason not to allow free players to experience membership.

Not to say that RuneScape’s free version is low quality, but the skills accessible to free players are (for the most part) a far cry from the variety offered in membership. Of the twenty five skills, free players can access sixteen. Seven of those skills are combat related (Attack, strength, defense, constitution, magic, ranged, and prayer). Of the remaining nine, three (woodcutting, fishing, mining) are basic harvesting skills, five (runecrafting, crafting, firemaking, smithing, cooking) are processing skills that revolve around taking raw materials to a place and using them on a thing to create finished stuff, with Dungeoneering bringing up the rear as a combination of all of the above in a secluded area.

Members, on the other hand, is quite a different game to its free to play brother. Weapons and equipment sets with special effects add a whole new level of strategy to combat, as do potions, poisons, curses, new magic books. Skills like summoning can dramatically alter a person’s experience from combat to simple resource gathering. Farming requires time management and mobility while slayer introduces the player to combat that requires more strategy than fight, fight, eat food, kill.

In 2010, Jagex did attempt a membership trial for a week in July, but the program was bogged down by a few unfriendly details. Players were required to submit credit card details, which was charged for $5.95 and set the player up with an automatically recurring subscription. Only if the player unsubscribed during those seven days would the deposit be refunded.

To Jagex’s defense, and as I’ve already said, an unrestricted membership trial at the time would have upended the RuneScape economy table, riddling the members worlds with even more bots than were already present. With the bots absent, there isn’t much reason for Jagex to not offer a taste of membership to free players.

Other than that I have no opinion.

Runescape Free* Membership Trial Coming


Not Free.

In regards to freemium titles, MMOs that offer a small portion of the game for free with the rest at a subscription rate, that the existing free portion of the game technically serves as a trial. It may not be limited by time, but it is limited in content available. With Runescape, Jagex would prefer that the free portion was not referred to as a limited trial, as their goal is to create a fully realized game that free players can indulge themselves in without paying a dime, ever. Other than that, there is no way for players to gain access to the members worlds without actually paying a membership fee.

With the above image leaked from the player moderator forums on Runescape, June 23rd will bring us the first ever limited time trial in Runescape, for Runescape memberships. And that is where the niceties end. Oddly enough, in order to partake in the 7 day trial, you have to provide a credit card that can only be used on one account, and there is a several dollar fee that is taken out as a deposit and returned at the end of the process. In addition to all of that, the player must manually disable their subscription before the seven days are up, otherwise they will be automatically put into the billing system for the full game.

The credit card reason is obvious: To stop real money traders from ravaging members with countless throwaway accounts. The fee, on the other hand, makes little sense. The cost is small enough as it is, but if you have a credit card and those few dollars, why not spend the tiny amount more and experience members for the full 30 days rather than just a week? You don’t get the money back, but if you have the credit card and the few dollars to plop down as a deposit, would you really miss it?

In order to combat abuse, you will only be allowed one account to a credit card, not that the real money traders have ever had much of an issue stealing credit cards before (Hint: The 2007 Runescape anti-rwt updates were in response to rampant credit card theft being used to pay for membership on bot accounts).

More on Runescape as it appears.