A possible way to revitalize Planetside's player base?

[i_Go_SpLaT]

Well, I've always mulled this around in my head (after switching from Planetside to WoW because of Planetside's rather dead player base) and finally decided to post it here, because I still consider Planetside to be by far a better game than WoW (interactive player versus player games are so much better than grinding three characters to 70 >_> )

Think about games like Silk road online. Those games are free. LOTS of people play games simply because they're free! I think if sony could cut it's losses for about six months and make planetside free, that the player base for the game would BOOM. I mean, once silk road got around by word of mouth, the game's servers were completely packed within only a few weeks! There is talk about Silk road going pay to play, and once they get so many players hooked on the game, they'll be able to draw them into paying for it.

Also, if the decision to go free for a period is not appealing, why not cut the price per month in half? If you get people willing to pay about 6 bucks a month (which is peanuts compared to 12-15 when people look at it) and you get twice your player base, You're making no loss. And when that happens, those people should spread the game by word of mouth even further!

Planetside is an amazing game. Just amazing. It's replability is endless, and I never grew tired of it. I just wish more people would come back to it. These methods would CERTAINLY bring the players back, I'm just not sure if Sony is willing to take the financial blow it would cost to keep supporting a game with no income (outside of advertising) for a few months.

Just my .02.

:groovy:

[Sami]

*coughreserveaccountscough*

[Mag-Mower]

What you are saying is sort of done with reserves. Reserves is the free 1 year program out. The only problem with reserves are the level limitaions. Like BR6 and CR2, no merits, and no Core. Im not sure if that would work. It would give players more to interesting things to play with, but the thing is, would they keep playing after the free period is up?

[DarthWraak]

What you are saying is sort of done with reserves. Reserves is the free 1 year program out. The only problem with reserves are the level limitaions. Like BR6 and CR2, no merits, and no Core. Im not sure if that would work. It would give players more to interesting things to play with, but the thing is, would they keep playing after the free period is up?

You are able to get merits and Core Combat on reserves.

I'm not worried about if some of them will pay for it when fodderside ends, I'm worried about the low pops that will plauge the servers. Its time to merge imo, that might get some subscribers back. Double pop locks would be a treat to see.

[i_Go_SpLaT]

I'm certain when you get players hooked, then they'll keep playing.

A free "trial" is never as attractive as a completely free game. especially to some of us that have some BR20CR3's that we don't play anymore because of the cost and lack of players, and the 1 year free with br6cr2 is just as unattractive because we couldn't play out higher ups.

[Sami]

Not really =/ I refuse to pay for games even if i think they're fun, i'll find a free way to get them.

[i_Go_SpLaT]

Not really =/ I refuse to pay for games even if i think they're fun, i'll find a free way to get them.

But you don't represent the majority.

[Sami]

Not true =/ As soon as i find a free way to get a game, all of the people i play with usually move the free way and ditch the paying way.



If people can save money on frivilous things, they will.

[i_Go_SpLaT]

Not true =/ As soon as i find a free way to get a game, all of the people i play with usually move the free way and ditch the paying way.



If people can save money on frivilous things, they will.


:rolleyes: Tell that to the millions of subscribers to WoW

[Hamma]

Yea the subscription model is going to be around for many moons to come.

[Sami]

I agree that people will play, but its human nature that if you can get the same thing for nothing, you will go for the better deal.

[Hamma]

Well of course, but in most cases right now you can't :D

[i_Go_SpLaT]

Well of course, but in most cases right now you can't :D


So what's the PSU admin think? would a completely free game for a period be a good thing? I am one to believe that making a free game pay to play will still retain a good portion of it's players (a lot of people would have paid to play diablo II if it went pay to play, as well as silk road online. Lots of people throw real money at entropia, and the list just goes on and on)

The "free trial" just won't get players, I'm certain of that.

[Ait'al]

Nvm. Comment removed. Not sure what to say afterall. It may not be bad though if they show they can put the time to put true development into it again whle they do it.

[planetsidepwns]

To play or not to play... I've played Planetside before, a few years ago, and I wanted to take it up again because its a great game. as wondering if someone could give me a rough idea of how many people still played, like number of hotspots and if it is still play with that nf people. Thanks.

[Tigersmith]

i really thing the game is about maxed its life

[planetsidepwns]

Okay... back to my question. Do you know how many people still play and is it fun to play with that amount of people?

[efex]

why not do what the lineage 2 community did , and make free servers to play on, they usually get over 1000 players on just donations to keep the servers running =]

[shanzhu]

:cool: no kidding, like i heard about this game cause i just rewatched the original Stargate movie, and upon looking up the upcoming Stargate MMO i saw a related game called "Planetside". the name interested me and i checked it out and i thought "hmm, worth a shot!" so im obviously an exception to what your saying, but nonetheless i agree that if they cut profit, they will get more players, and in the end more profit. :cool:

[ThirdCross]

I quit planetside about half a year ago do to the shrinking player base. Merging the american servers would bring me back if it can get 2 continent locks averagely. The problem is planetside's fun factor, for most who play the game, is its epic battles. Sadly I don't believe that planetside can be saved, the only whey I see it coming back would be to make a planetside 2. This would bring the attention and new material that the game needs to revive itself.

[craby987]

How about expand its advertising to TV and pay webmasters to advertise Planetside and add ALOT more content.

[galbaldy]

I've played about several months of this game through free trials (never payed a dime!) and even when you do have the epic battles going on, there still aren't reasons for one to stay and pay. Once you hit level 20 after a week of playing, what "meat" is there for you to justify paying more than 10 dollars a month? I, and many others don't think there's enough. If they'd reduce the price I'd think about it.

Don't get me wrong, the game can be fun, but I just don't think the price justifies it.

[TheRipper12]

well...cutting the price i think is amazingly great idea. i had a few friends over the other day and i showed em planetside. they were all amazed by how great it was and they took turns playing my guy on one of the servers... when they popped the question, is there a monthly fee i said yes and they all kind of sighed and said that they would rather stick with a free game but it was still fun... all of them... it may just be 4 people but...thats 4 out of 4...

i love this game. ive had it for 4 or so years and when i first started it was ....god it seems like it was at least 2 and a half times bigger population. the sancs arent empty... and the battles are more than 20 on 20 with 19 of those 20 in a tank or bfr. it was more fun when it was in but yah know... it could draw players back with no monthly fee. Guild wars is a great example... i played it... i hated it, but i continued to play for one reason... Free mmo! your making 50 bucks per copie. your going to get others to buy that game because its free. your going to get people to buy the expansions because they are addicted.... isnt 100+ bucks a person enough when you get in those high numbers? sure you can get rich with fees. but fees get old... free games dont...


My 2 cents

my 3rd cent says make planet side 2... better engine...better graphics...more ranks. more options.... xbox version maybe? because lets face it...sony's online games arent the flavor of the year for more than ...well a year! we get games like SWG...it was great for like what....1.5 years? then what... well.. its emptied and they dump out another game. PS is the best imo they made, but they can do better.....

[OneManArmy]

well if it matters me and about 6 of my old New Dawn buddies just resubed. so I'm sure the sony guys fell out of their chairs when they saw the PS pop increase by 300%. :rofl:


and I totally agree about PS2. PS was amazing, and if they could bring about a second one making it even stronger from what they learned. would be the best game ever.

[EnorganiK]

This game will never be as good as the days of its youth. I remember having bases fought over by hundreds of people on each team. This game didn't offer an evolutionary experience therefore it died.

[Lonehunter]

This game didn't offer an evolutionary experience therefore it died.
It was and still is the only game of it's kind. Back then PS wasn't Sony's main game. Many mistake swhere made b/c PS was just another game, EQ and SWG brought in more profit. With WoW here Planetside is all Sony has left. We've gotten a lot more attention over the passed few years. The one good decision they made was tending to the will of the veteran player. The dedicated fans of PS, they added things that have been mentioned for years. Now they have us, and now they know we want more people. They need to figure that part out now. We all ready know they are working on another program like the reserves. We all want more noobs to pwn, just wait.

[Lorsen]

Bah is this game dead already? :( I was about to start >.<

[Kintera]

Hi,

just regsitered although I was playing one year during the reserve program. Unfortunately it doesn�t exist anymore. I�ve read an old dev article that they probably want to introduce something new like that program, but since then I�ve never read anything about it.

My idea would be that there are limited account like the reserve program but for a much cheaper price. Perhaps you could also have several account types.

<=BR6 => 2$/month
<=BR8 => 4$/month
<=BR10 => 6$/month
<=BR12 => 7$/month
<=BR14 => 8$/month

[RhemaWarrior]

How many people are playing average at night? Just wondering if its worth it to start paying :)

[Eldrac]

I've come back after a year and I still love it, the player-base may not be as large as it was a year or two but it still makes for great battles, I think it is worth it, it's the only game to actually keep me hooked as much as Anarchy Online.

[Scow2]

The problem I see isn't really with a low turnout of rookies, its with the vets.
Shrinking player bases = Fewer people playing = people quitting, compounding the problem. If everyone could get at least 1 other person to join... Population explosion.

[mohaa1039]

wow after reading this thread kinda makes me worry about purchasing again, is player database that bad?

[Scow2]

No. Its still okay.

The problem with these topics seems to be that they are counter-productive: By constantly talking about the low player size, it discourages new players from joining, and occassionally pushes vets undecided on whether to stay or quit over to the quitters.

[cowcow2831]

I agree if they chopped the price in half I wold pay free would be better

[Ait'al]

I had an idea about sub fees. You could keep track of how much time you have. Since you don't use the whole time they could calculate required expenses based on how much per day for the month you would use. Keep the average and have it go up and down actively in the game.

If you only use 2 or 3 hours you could get the up to 3 hours a day for say 3.99 a month. then it would auto keep track of the literal ammount of time and tell you if you get near. If you do it could warn you or let you play so it doesn't disrupte the game and let it could against the time in a next sub. Or you could get an option to pay a bit for that day if you konw you will be playing for many many hours over the norm for taht time period. Based on what it would cosst based on the fee cost of course. So it would only be like 5-10 cents or however much to load you with an extra "literal" time amount over the normal time that you expect to use. Then people wouldn't pay as much for wasted time and other could pay alot to play more and maybe get more people in because of the lower price you could pick.

The reason for the load ability is because since I would think it would be weird for alot to be literally restriced per day. (except in china from what I hear.) You could litereally end up using a days worth up from over playing one day.

Also, you could do hte opposite and let them have their pay lowered if they use less. (Either by the next pay ammount or to realistically have them make more money by 2 or more to determine it was a drastic drop.) This could give them free time in future months that could then be calculated as to when it is actually used to they can actually use it and get a benefit. then you won't be penalized for less play and actually given it back a bit and be nice to the customer. Probly like a good cell phone plan.(I don't have a cell phone, and never have, so I don't know.)

Not sure how it would work realistically but I thought I'd mention it atleast to see how it sounded.

Edit: aditional info..

The time (in that scenario) would literally be 3 hours a day times the days in the month on some scale. I thought that might logically bring in more people and bridge the high and low pay options plus the free vs ptp ideas a little.

I would guess the downside is if they don't bring in more players they potentially lose the money from what they would have made. But, anyway, how would that sound if it were implemented?

And I think they could always stick hte dying games back to a fixed amount when they were in trouble (aside from where planetside is now) in oder to keep it steadier if they need I would think.

I think the concept would be more options of payment and lower pay etc. More realism in what you pay. But it would have to give the game makers a more realistic revinue also.

Anyway. there's my offbeat idea.

[SatoReborn]

I just came back to PS after about 3 years break.

Its not the massive battles I remember, but I still feel satisfied by the large battles in prime time. It seems like we still get to at least the 50 spots left mark, I think the lowest I have seen it since I have been back is at 19 spots left.

I must say alot has changed since I left, the new turrets and vehicles are nice, and the new sundy! That thing is a beast and finally actually useful!

I hear there are hacks now and that kind of bothers me but I have yet to have one used against me, or if it was I didnt notice and must not have felt it was unfair.

So far from my experience over the last few days I am happy with the resub and will continue to play. The one thing that makes me the saddest is that I had to use some random account I had made with a BR14 on it because my Br20 Cr5 is banned...Apparently going on a global rant about BFRs and then yelling at another CR5 over global all while using profanity freely isnt allowed, who knew huh?

[Ait'al]

Porn and Beer!!! :rolleyes:

[Crazyaj]

Necro-posting FTW?