Guild Wars 2

So, I was reading discussion about the latest update on reddit and spotted a mention of free trial. This genuine? I see was mentioned in the update notes in these forums. Do they really start on the 25th like the signup page says?

Apparently yes, it is genuine.
There was even an update last night to block free-trial accounts into WvW (except EotM).

I wonder if it’ll be a permanently-available free trial this time, rather than the trial weekend they did before. If it starts on the 25th, and today is the 23rd, and they haven’t announced it officially yet, that’s not really enough time for people to plan anything with friends.

Hopefully it’ll be an on-going thing, then. Assuming all the expected limits are in place for trial accounts, that should be a good thing, if it encourages more people to try the game. (And saves us from the heavy load of a trial weekend, although I think things should be more stable by now than they were in November 2012.)

Looks like it’s a short trial again.

https://register.guildwars2.com/trial

Hrm. I’m glad to see the trial return, and I don’t mind it being a weekend trial, but not telling people about it on the home page, on facebook, etc. seems like a missed opportunity.

I’m telling my friends and such anyway.

I see that free trial as a good opportunity to get rank in PvP matches and advance in the reward tracks, haha

But yeah, not sure why ANet isn’t announcing that free trial out there.

I’m sure that they’ll announce it. They just put the page up. Give them a few hours. lol

I’d be really curious to see the actual numbers of retained players since the changes though I highly doubt that would ever happen. It would however be nice to know if all those changes were worth the aggravation they caused.

This is another clear indication that the Anet strategy to cope with waning playercount is to aim at collecting more new players.

Unfortunately, the reason we are losing people is that the veteran players have nothing to do (ie no new dungeons etc). This is made worse by the clear indication that they are not valued compared to newcomers, who are getting a lot of dev time.

Its not a good state of affairs.

… can you give 1 example of a game (specially a MMO) that doesn’t want new players all the time?

Belzebu.3912:

… can you give 1 example of a game (specially a MMO) that doesn’t want new players all the time?

I always had the feeling WoW wasn’t really interested in new players, since the never
made the latest expansion including all previous parts of the game, like EQ2 did, and
for me that already was a big no-go to every really try it.

Kinda … the thing with WoW in this case is that they are so big, that make those offers isn’t needed, many players will buy all the previous ones along with the new expansion just because it is WoW.
I remember offers like giving exp and items for players that was able to bring new players in a referral scheme, I think it is even a permanent feature of the game.

Anyway, I read on reddit and facebook many players asking if there is a trial for GW2 so they can test it before buying, this will help GW2 for sure.

WoW did completely redo the early zones to make them better for people, many years ago.

Sigh…I’m not looking forward to all the spam Free Trials inevitably generate. But, I hope it generates new players for the game.

Gold sellers whisper spam incoming !!

i hate Free Trials just for this reason

New restriction: Chat whisper function unlocked at Level 10.

Ha, Gaile did my joke one better, bravo

As you may have noticed, we are heading into another free trial period. In the past, you may have spotted a few problems related to free trials. For instance, gold seller spam was pretty noticeable. For this trial period, we have introduced a few restrictions that should address some of the concerns we’ve noted in the past. Here’s a list:

• Trial Accounts can send mail only to a player who has added the trial account holder to their friend list
• Trial Accounts can send whispers only to a player who has added the trial account holder to their friend list
• Trial Accounts cannot use map chat

Here are some other details about trial accounts, so that if your friends join us – and we hope they will! – they have an understanding of how trial accounts work:

• Those playing on a trial account cannot sell items the Trading Post
• Trial Accounts will be limited to 2 character slots
• Trial Accounts will not have access to the Gem Store
• Trial accounts will not have access to the Currency Exchange
• Trial accounts will have access to Edge of the Mists but will not have access to World-versus-World

Also, FYI: there will be no guild restrictions in place, so your friend playing on a free trial account is welcome to join your guild and will be able to chat and play with you and your guild members.