Elite Dangerous Trial / Demo?

[Toumal]

Wouldn't mind a demo being available for free. Provided that it doesn't take too much dev resources away from the development of the game.
The more people we can get to play and enjoy the game, the better for us all.

 

[Razar]

Reading this thread makes me wonder if FD chose the right business model. Maybe they'd've made more money giving a Sidewinder-only game away for free and instead selling access to each ship to the player as and when they want to upgrade. It would certainly seem like better value for money than the £2 pallette swaps. An idea for the future, perhaps.

I have seen a lot of games that went F2P, but had game store purchases. The one that had the best foundation was STO. They have Dilithium Ore in the game that you can grind, and refine into Dilithium. But, you are limited to refining it 8,000 per day.

This Refined Dilithium can be put on the Dilithium to exchange it for Zen (the game store's currency you can purchase). The game also has huge Dilithium sinks for fleets (same as clans), and upgrade systems that are major sinks, as well as a crafting system.

The basics of this system is really amazing, and had a lot of potential. Where they made their mistake with it is the Lifetime membership. If you pay for a monthly membership, you pay about $15 per month, and get $5 back each month in Zen. This essentially means that you are paying $10 per month after that $5 stipend.

If you are a monthly subscriber for set amounts of time, you will get Veteran reward up to 1,000 days membership. And this was a great idea.

However, with Lifetime memberships, they give the $5 stipend to them as well. They only need to buy once, and just wait till the stipend comes in to put it on the exchange for Dilithium.


If ED were going to go with a F2P method, I would like to see something like this done. Only without the same mistakes that Cryptic has done over the years.

And ED wouldn't need to sell power creep like Cryptic does in STO. They can lock F2P players to a limited area of space. As you start playing, you are given a small test area. This is limited to certain systems.

When you get to the point where you want to advance, then you will buy something that will unlock the rest of the map to you. If you want to do it F2P, then you can. They can have a very rare in-game currency that you will need to grind.

This in-game currency can be something that is used in-game for special upgrades, or to get newer ships that they will come out with. Or, for clans to use to upgrade. It would be a good chance for them to also offer storage systems for clans, and you will be able to access them from any station once the clan is upgraded.

This would mean that not only F2P players would want this resource, but those that don't have time, but do have money can trade the game store currency with in-game currency.

This is just an idea I had on it. If they did try this type of F2P, I would love to see how they would do it. They seem to have much better developers here than what Cryptic has. But, if done right, it could open up a larger potential for customers, and money.

Just my thoughts.

Have fun, and happy gaming.

Razar.