Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

[Murphie]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

As I said above, the only reason that SE isn't doing a Free Trial is because they don't want to. Not for any of the random reasons that other people come up with for why it's not possible, or not a good idea, or whatever.

And I disagree completely that having paid actual money for something will increase the chances that you'll stick with a game you don't like. If you don't like it, you are incredibly unlikely to throw good money after bad.

[Mhurron]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

I guess I didn't make my point well enough...
If you get something (item, game, etc) for free in an impersonal manner (e.g. not a gift from someone you care about): You try it, found it to be confusing/difficult to use, you toss it. No sense of attachment; "I got it for free, so no big deal."
However, if the same confusing/difficult item/game is given as a gift from someone you care about (i.e Icemage's extended buddy pass idea), OR, if you have invested substantial effort in getting the item (e.g. paid nontrivial amount of money for it, enter an essay context to win it, whatever), you will feel more attached. Therefore, you would be more inclined to figure out how to make it work.

This depends on the person, and the game is not all that hard to figure out when you first log in with no help from someone else.

Everyone here figured it out, why is it so hard to believe that someone else might be able to figure it out when they start.

[Icemage]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

I think the point of comparison is that FFXI does a lot less hand-holding for you than the gold standard, which is World of Warcraft. Heck, even the horrible Star Wars Galaxies does more basic instruction than FFXI supplies in-game.

At the very least, I think it would be beneficial to give players some "basic training" tutorials on things like Skillchains, Magic Bursts, Levelling Up, etc. All these things are mentioned in a somewhat roundabout way in the manual, but most people won't read the manual... and trial users won't have a manual to look at.


Icemage

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

most people won't read the manual... and trial users won't have a manual to look at.

Oh, I don't know... I'm too lazy to look at the content, but maybe:

http://dl.playonline.com/ff11us/FFXI_MANUAL.zip

[Mhurron]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

Oh, I don't know... I'm too lazy to look at the content, but maybe:
http://dl.playonline.com/ff11us/FFXI_MANUAL.zip

Unless you wire someone's eyes open, staple them to their chair and hold a gun to their head, most people won't read a manual ever.

[favian]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

As I said above, the only reason that SE isn't doing a Free Trial is because they don't want to. Not for any of the random reasons that other people come up with for why it's not possible, or not a good idea, or whatever.

And I disagree completely that having paid actual money for something will increase the chances that you'll stick with a game you don't like. If you don't like it, you are incredibly unlikely to throw good money after bad.

I co-sign on this rational post as well. You know, lets say a new user hypothetically told themselves that they'd stick with the game 3 months past the trial and by the end of the last month they still dont like it. they'd have voluntarily thrown away about $66 of money to square for an experience they hated. Thats a worst case scenario, most people would have the sense to bail out during the trial or the first month after the trial if they didnt enjoy it. If square needs to reform the newbie experience, then maybe they should be a little more proactive about it.


update: Anyway i'm done downloading this 4gb game, now all i need is a buddypass, if i dont get one, downloading this file would have been in vain. anyone have one? nobody has bothered replying (or even bumping) the buddypass request forum. i will leave the game seeding as a favor to square. (ha!)

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

And I disagree completely that having paid actual money for something will increase the chances that you'll stick with a game you don't like. If you don't like it, you are incredibly unlikely to throw good money after bad.

You can disagree if you want.

BTW, not that this is a proof, but why do Mothers take care of kids more often than Fathers?

Not just humans, but most animal with sexual reproduction are like that. The standard answer to that is: Because Mothers have invested more resources in children than Fathers. (You don't remember this, but your Mom carried you for about nine month, 24/7, sacrificing every second the very nutrients of her own body to sustain your growth--while your Dad just fetched pickles and ice cream for her from time to time.)

We are programmed by evolution to want to protect those people/things we have vested interest in; the more we've invested, the stronger the desire. It doesn't dictate what each of us decide in every setting, but it's one of the better rule of thumb for predicting human behavior in general.

Everyone here figured it out, why is it so hard to believe that someone else might be able to figure it out when they start.

Vast majority people who post on these forums are those who have (or have gotten help to) figured it out; ask grad school Mathematics Ph.D candidates why kids in elementary hate math, and you'll get many befuddled looks as well.

[favian]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

it says i need a registration code found on my package to proceed with playonline, which i do not have.

lame.

is this going to be another obstacle for myself?

can anyone loan me their cd key for this one time dealy? i will purge it as soon as i am done.

[favian]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

You can disagree if you want.
BTW, not that this is a proof, but why do Mothers take care of kids more often than Fathers?
Not just humans, but most animal with sexual reproduction are like that. The standard answer to that is: Because Mothers have invested more resources in children than Fathers. (You don't remember this, but your Mom carried you for about nine month, 24/7, sacrificing every second the very nutrients of her own body to sustain your growth--while your Dad just fetched pickles and ice cream for her from time to time.)
We are programmed by evolution to want to protect those people/things we have vested interest in; the more we've invested, the stronger the desire. It doesn't dictate what each of us decide in every setting, but it's one of the better rule of thumb for predicting human behavior in general.
Vast majority people who post on these forums are those who have (or have gotten help to) figured it out; ask grad school Mathematics Ph.D candidates why kids in elementary hate math, and you'll get many befuddled looks as well.

what vested interest does a person have in thirty day trial they only used on and off? you cant compare a mother's abandonment of a child with a ffxi user abandoning the game 2 weeks in. lol we're talking apples and oranges here (if i take your analogy correctly) you cannot equate a mother's 9 month attachment to a child and subsequent birth and hypothetical abandonment of all that invested time and emotion to a 16 year old cancelling FFxi two weeks in.


the simple matter is, people are typically frugal when it comes to their wallet. If they can return or reject something as early as possible in order to save as much money as possible, they will do it.

let me give you a real world example. i just dormed for a semester at this college i've been going to for a coulple of years now, i decided to dorm, and i hated the experience. it was an incommunal enviroment which was the opposite of what i wanted. So i bailed out of my contractual agreement to live on campus for the spring semester and ended up saving myself about $6000.

now, with your rationale i should stay an extra semester , to see if the experience and community at the dorms do a drastic 180, even though i have 5 months of experience living on campus that tells me that is very unlikely.


most people would opt out as early as possible to save the money that they could use on more useful things, whether its a video game, a car, a cell phone plan.. whatever. in fact, most cell phone companies have a grace period where you can cancel your contract and refund your money if you dont like the service within 30 days.

this is standard practice because human behavior is predictable. people who keep investing in something they dont like is extremely untypical (or at worst crazy).

[Mhurron]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

Vast majority people who post on these forums are those who have (or have gotten help to) figured it out

OOOO very good. Now, what's so special about you, or anyone else here, that they are so much better then any random new player now that you could figure it out, but a new player under the same circumstances can't? If you figured it out, any other random person can. FFXI isn't doctorate level Mathematics, it doesn't take someone with natural ability to understand it.

BTW, Getting a Ph.D in Math has little to do with liking or not liking Math in kindergarten. Most don't like elementary math because of the way it is taught, not because they can't do it. A lot of people that are good at Math hate the class, and some that hate the class became Doctors in Mathematics.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

OK, I give; I'll stop try to convince people my hairbrain theory of why free trial would have lower conversion rate than retail boxes.

(And, I don't get why my wording of "difficult" and "complicated" keep getting translated into "something they dont like" or similar when paraphrased by others. Maybe I should have phrased it as "You like what you've invested in--more you've invested, the more you like it" instead?)

If you really want to understand the concept I've outlined regarding why evolution may program us to protect vested interest instead of doing what's strictly rational for an individual, go read Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene--it's probably where I got my idea from. It's a good book which covers much, much more, even if you do find my babbling to be trifle and uninteresting.

I used to work at a software company which relied heavily on "subscription", and that experience contributed to my educated guesses for S-E's business and technical reasons for deciding against free downloadable trial version of FFXI. Of course, only S-E knows their own reasons--but assuming they don't provide a downloadable free trial because they are stupid or haven't thought of it already would be silly, in my opinion.

The bottom line is that S-E's own projections probably indicated it'd be bad business, whether they would agree with my assessment of human nature or not.

[favian]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

its not that your 'babbling' is uninteresting or trifle.

i just think its a real stretch to compare that to a 30 day trial for a video game. in this case i think a human's need for protecting their assets supercedes a human's need to cultivate their game experience hoping that it will get better.

in essence, you dig it or you dont. if you dont, you bail. its why people walk out of movies. they've seen enough to make a judgement call that the film isnt appealing to their tastes. they feel walking out and wasting $9 outweighs the torture of watching the remainder of the film. i've seen enough variations of this to know that it is common and should AT LEAST be anticipated. the last movie i personally walked out on was 'chronicles of riddick'

but we're beating a dead horse.

in any event it's made for some fun debating. if you want to pummel me in the game, you can do so (assuming i'm in vana'diel in 2 hours or less)

but i digress.

two obstacles left:

1) cdkey to make a playonline account
2) buddypass.

[Raydeus]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

I think you guys are overanalyzing this.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

OOOO very good. Now, what's so special about you, or anyone else here, that they are so much better then any random new player now that you could figure it out, but a new player under the same circumstances can't? If you figured it out, any other random person can.

Actually, I almost quit after the first night playing--the lack of directions and goals was frustrating, and I didn't touch the game again for two weeks. My sister, who managed to progressed much further, later showed me much of the beginner stuff. The biggest reason why I kept playing (and paying) at first was because I was too lazy to cancel my account, not because the game was easy to understand.

I'm closer to the dumb new random player than the brianiacs who populate these forums. =b

As I've said earlier, I've guided around a handful of players with "?" icon on them. Of those, none are still in the game, I think. Of other newbies I've met in Valkrum Dunes and helped out some, most have left as well.

Conversion rate to long term customers is probably low for FFXI. I've no idea how low, or how it compares other games, but my own person experience tells me most people do not keep playing after they've tried it for a while.

I love this game (now)--but, most others do not, after they've seen it up close, from what I can tell. (Only S-E can provide the real conversion rate data, of course.)

* * *

Why do people keep putting words in my mouth? I never said they "can't figure it out"--just that it's not easy for most. -_-; It's a bad new user experience, not an insurmountable one...

My argument was closer to "freely downloadable trial version would not be cost effective given the size of download vs. the likely conversion rate due in part to the poor new user experience", instead of anything like "no new player can learn how to play FFXI."

[favian]

Re: Any chance of distributing a trial for FFXI anytime soon?

can anyone tell me how i can circumvent this playonline registration asking me for a registration code (i'm assuming they mean the cdkey).

i obviously dont have one, how would a person with a buddy pass use one? is this where i enter the buddy pass or does a buddy pass get entered at a different point?

i dont have a cdkey, what should i do?