Danger of the 2-hour Steam return window?

[Darthus]

In this reddit thread, you can see multiple people using the Steam 2 hour window as sort of a "free trial" for the game, including one who refunded it within the 2 hours and then re-bought it and is loving it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MortalOnline/comments/r8z539
Any thoughts on this or what SV should do about it? The game does not really give any sense of what the meat of it is in 2 hours, especially now given the long in depth tutorials. I can completely see someone like playing with combat, thinking it feels slow compared to Mordhau, making a sword and being like... uh... no thanks and never even entering Nave. They then refund the game and leave a negative review, entirely because at the 2 hour mark Steam was like, "Make a decision, keep or return? Is this worth $40 and a sub after 2 hours? DECIDE NOW!"

Aside from SV creating a free trial version of the game (which I know they've talked about, but even then the idea is to only let people play Haven, doesn't really help), I'm trying to think of ways to mitigate this. The only thing I can think of is to get players interacting with other players and hearing more about the game/get shown around prior to their 2 hours being up.

What about a "mentor"/newbie helper role you can volunteer to be, newbies can review your help, and if you get X number of positive reviews, you get a free month? I know I'd do it and I have no issue with the sub.

Open to other ideas, this just seems like a rather big issue for SV to overcome to convince people on the fence due to Steam's structure.

 

[bbihah]

Mentor/newbie helper program would be a pretty good and low effort required initiative from SV and should definitely be something they should consider.

Haven needs to change so that new players can REALLY experience all(or most) that mo2 has to offer within 2 hours, at the most bare minimum show a glimpse of it. And more effectively, right now its 100% up to new players other than the pretty lack luster tutorial to find out what the game actually has to offer and while a lot of the mo2 gameplay is trial+error and self discovery there is still a lot of value of giving new players a firm kick in the butt to get started with the right expectations while also keeping them enough encouraged to keep going.

 

[Najwalaylah]

Any thoughts on ...what SV should do about it?

I'm thinking it's too late to not offer the game through Steam, so "nothing" is what SV can do about it being available.

SV creating a free trial version of the game (which I know they've talked about, but even then the idea is to only let people play Haven, doesn't really help) …

Right.

The only thing I can think of is to get players interacting with other players and hearing more about the game/get shown around prior to their 2 hours being up.

At this exact time, some few are announcing their plans to absolutely murder every noob they see at the gy or near town (though they allege that they did not do this before) (1), so at least a few players who are already past the refund window interacting with the new players and teaching them about the game and showing them around, as you say, might mitigate the risk of them quitting.

IF they haven't made up their minds to only tour the game even before they tried it. Those people aren't really on the fence.

What about a "mentor"/newbie helper role you can volunteer to be, newbies can review your help, and if you get X number of positive reviews, you get a free month? I know I'd do it and I have no issue with the sub.

How would you volunteer for this, aside from just jumping in and doing it, and where would the reviews of your help be available to read? On Steam?

Sounds good.

- - - -
(1) https://archive.ph/9uDHW#selection-6759.67-6759.254

 

[Backyard Employee]

Well.

MO1 tried to run the buy-to-play / premium model, then went 'unlimited free trial' mode. Where you had skill caps.

But Henrik has stated numerous times he doesn't want to do this because of people cheating, hacking, exploiting, etc. and being able to return quickly via new accounts.

Honestly. The game needs a demo. Because, you're right. The worst part is. A player can play the game for a week - still not be sure about how they feel.. or like it / hate it, then a month later they are the opposite.

MO isn't a game you find out you like in the first few weeks of playing it. That's just called a honeymoon phase, especially with how dry the game market is right now. Any game that has some players running around, boasts a bunch of ""new"" ideas (not new, just now exposed to a broader public) will gain traction.

My solution is have a demo readily available. Just don't let them leave Haven. Simple.

 

[Najwalaylah]

Haven needs to change so that new players can REALLY experience all(or most) that mo2 has to offer within 2 hours

True, but also something Star Vault doesn't have time to do properly before release. Right?

 

[bbihah]

Definitely not. I mean, depends. Once they finish the roadmap its about 1 month of polishing. If they have a bunch of their devs just sitting on their hands, have them work on haven could be a good idea. Doesn't necessarily have to be things done by programmers, but just changing the layout of haven could make a big difference.

 

[Farligbonde]

They only thing that will help is making haven free 2 play, which they will do when they have time. Its easy to see that it is something that shouldnt have any prio atm.

 

[bbihah]

They only thing that will help is making haven free 2 play, which they will do when they have time. Its easy to see that it is something that shouldnt have any prio atm.

Well that and making sure haven has the ability to do more content, but also less ability to bring your haven progress with you to Myrland.

Making sure there is a reward for finishing the dungeon in Haven should be a thing, but it shouldn't be the only "end haven" content that should feel rewarding for the player, but its a good start. I don't think there is a single new player that went to haven that didn't check the map and then immediately got interested in the dungeon. The dungeon is very easy to 2 man right now and I think the difficulty is about where it should be but there is no "end" there is no end boss AFAIK and they could expand on the dungeon as much as they'd want to so that it contains all the things they expect myrland dungeons to contain and feel like. Levers(it has one that does nothing atm) that opens a door, to let you proceed. Maybe have to kill a certain npc in there to get a key to get further etc etc. Make it extremely interesting, the main reward is that you actually feel like you are progressing. Could be something rewarded for handing in the boss's head or he drops something. Doesn't have to be worth anything to farm him, but even just a novelty item that you'd want to keep in your bank(until we can mount them in our house) goes a whole lot of further than what we got now. Heck could even just be that you have to have participated in killing him and you can get a reward from town.

Personally I recommend that they use the same boss mechanics that they have currently with doors closing during boss fight and then when the boss is dead in addition they should leave X amount of time to get loot and clear out before the people in get flushed out of the dungeon out the mountainside. Since there is no PVP in haven it'll only serve as to make sure a group only gets one boss kill before being forced out letting another group have a go(in case of congestion). Heck the loot from people who dies in the fight or if you fail the fight could get flushed out there as well, so that your loot is not gone forever since it'll probably be hard to get in there to get it again. It is supposed to be slightly more forgiving on haven and I think its a good compromise.


But i'm not expecting much of any significant work on haven until after release, if release is not too bumpy.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

I think a one week free trial followed by $40 purchase (which comes with one month sub) to continue playing would be reasonable.

A new player won't experience much in 2 hours to get them excited enough to keep playing and not refund the game.

 

[Farligbonde]

Definitely not. I mean, depends. Once they finish the roadmap its about 1 month of polishing. If they have a bunch of their devs just sitting on their hands, have them work on haven could be a good idea. Doesn't necessarily have to be things done by programmers, but just changing the layout of haven could make a big difference.

This is very wrong. The devs will work on new content.

I think a one week free trial followed by $40 purchase (which comes with one month sub) to continue playing would be reasonable.

A new player won't experience much in 2 hours to get them excited enough to keep playing and not refund the game.

If 2 hours isnt exciting for players to want more. They need to adjust haven.

 

[bbihah]

This is very wrong. The devs will work on new content.

If 2 hours isnt exciting for players to want more. They need to adjust haven.

 

[Najwalaylah]

making haven free 2 play

Once. The missing magic word is "once."

Don't you think?

Also:

This does not mean "released in Poland". (Thanks, @bbihah .)

This is very wrong. The devs will work on new content.

If they put up shiny graphics saying they're going to polish it, then polishing and not new content should happen first, even to the exclusion of new content in that time.

 

[Raknor]

It is an MMO, what MMO can you play in 2 hours and have a feeling of what its endgame will be like?

If the guy gets the game with that mentality for me is just reasoning he is not going to pay it but just wants to try the "free demo" - thats fine but SV shouldn't be increasing the "free demo time" because of it

Increasing time in Haven doesn't solve the issue because it is such a tiny fraction of what the game actually is, you can be there for 100 hours and then you join the mainland and its a different game.

 

[Farligbonde]

View attachment 2892

Yeah they will have to do it after release. Personally i think this haven has a solid foundation and will most likely be expanded upon as time goes by.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Who cares? They tried the game for 2 hours for free. We need more people to try the game. I say good for them.

 

[Darthus]

They only thing that will help is making haven free 2 play, which they will do when they have time. Its easy to see that it is something that shouldnt have any prio atm.

As others have mentioned, the problem is that Haven doesn't really represent the full experience of the game.

Also a "demo" of the game makes no sense to me, you can't make a demo of an expansive multiplayer experience.

Having read others responses, I'd say the only "real" solution is to make Haven more like the real game, which means adding an area where you can kill/be killed, a small town with guards (maybe add a Haven-ish Kranesh, since Haven is designed after Fab), where there are slightly more lucrative resources (though nothing super valuable of course) etc, maybe even areas to control etc. Essentially turn Haven from simply a safe tutorial island to a very small preview of the real world. Main issue I can see is that you'll have a much higher percentage of griefers and idiots in that PvP area since it's a noob island and there are no consequences which would give people a bad first impression, but of course could just make the guard presence much sturdier in that small PvP-enabled town.

But even then, that's not going to solve the 2-hour issue, but it could make a free to play Haven work and actually give people more of an idea of if they actually would like to play. But that also sounds like a lot of work.

 

[Farligbonde]

Haven is more about giving people an easy start to a deep learning curve. Not providing the full MO experience instantly.
But yes, some kind of arena or something where they can try pvp etc would be cool.

 

[pooternackle]

Problem is that Haven is boring, and since there is no guidance on how to allocate attributes, a bunch of new players will login after creating a low dex character, move extremely slow, quit, refund, and leave a bad review. Many of these people would quit anyways, but refunding and the bad review hurts development.

Best solution is to abolish Haven and create an engaging, streamlined tutorial with pre-set attributes players can choose to adjust after the tutorial concludes; but it’s too late for this.

 

[Darthus]

Problem is that Haven is boring, and since there is no guidance on how to allocate attributes, a bunch of new players will login after creating a low dex character, move extremely slow, quit, refund, and leave a bad review. Many of these people would quit anyways, but refunding and the bad review hurts development.

Best solution is to abolish Haven and create an engaging, streamlined tutorial with pre-set attributes players can choose to adjust after the tutorial concludes; but it’s too late for this.

It's actually not. They could let you choose "pre-made" character setups in Haven and swap between them freely to see what you like, how stats affect things etc, then when you go into Myrland let you actually custom create your character. Would make a lot more sense than right now where you have to decide so much insane detail when you know nothing.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

Sorry but if you don't like the first two hours of the game you're not going to like the next 200 hours. Haven is about as good as it gets