Massively^™

Flying Lab Software is hoping to breathe new life into Pirates of the Burning Sea with the upcoming Build 1.5. We've already seen that many towns will be getting a face-lift, but now CEO Russell Williams has outlined some of the strategies which he hopes will have new ships sailing into their waters. A couple of the next initiatives for PotBS from FLS will be to start up a fresh marketing campaign, and to begin offering 14-day free trials.

Williams mentions that the marketing around the game's launch was good, but short-lived, and that the new campaign will be aiming for longevity. The ads will talk about specific features of the game, mentioning the free trials that will be on offer. We are told that special care has been taken to stop trial accounts from being used as mules or tools for spamming, and that newbies can choose to convert to a paid subscription and continue to play their characters at the end of the 14 days. The trials should kick in around mid to late July, and the marketing will presumably follow.

It's not often that we talk about computer hardware here at Massively, but this story has a bit of an MMO twist, we promise. Kingston Technology Company, best known for their lines of RAM and other memory hardware, has recently announced an expansion of its USB Flash drive line with the introduction of the DataTraveler HyperX model in the Middle East.

The thing that grabbed our attention the most though, is the fact that with the purchase of this USB Flash drive, customers will receive an additional free 10-day trial to World of Warcraft. This leads to the inevitable worry that WoW trials will eventually become as widespread and annoying as those AOL free-trial disks that you're probably using as drink coasters right now. Sure you can get these free trials on the WoW website at any time, but is this hardware/software trial bundle going too far?

A new MMO comes out. You've read the reviews, Watched the promo videos. Changed your desktop to show the buxom model on their cover art. Subscribed to the newsletter. Read all the developer interviews. Attended the chats! Participated in the lively banter between the lead designer and the people of a well known community forum! You've made your own guild before you even got to play the game! You pre-ordered the special collector's edition, and the game's theme music is on continual repeat on your iPod!

The fateful day comes, you install the game and ... well, it's a decent enough game, but it just isn't what you expected. You play it for a few days, and then start wishing you hadn't given away all your gold and sharded your epics in your old game. And maybe you suddenly regret telling the raid leader just exactly, precisely what you thought of him. So do you stick with the new game? Or return to the old? How long do you give a new game to grab you before you erase it from your hard drive, put the disks on the shelf, and call it a decent effort but just not the game you wanted to play? Just the free month? Until you reach the max level? Or just fifteen minutes perhaps?

I always think it's interesting when I hear developers talk about how World of Warcraft opened up the MMOG market for new entrants. We have all these new and exciting games coming out: Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, The Chronicles of Spellborn, and plenty more. However, the overwhelming response that I get from WoW players when I talk about these games is a blank stare and something along the lines of, "Okay, that sounds all right... but why would I ever want to leave WoW?" I think that developers tend to underestimate how attached people get to their MMOG of choice. There are now over 10 million World of Warcraft players. The question is, do they even want something different?

I've read a number of bloggers in the past few months and talked to a number of players who claim that they're only playing WoW right now because "it's the best thing out there." They're yearning for something else. Not something totally different, mind you, since they obviously have a blast in Azeroth. But something fresh enough to be new and exciting without bastardizing the game style they know and love. However, I've noticed something interesting. This breed of player tends to overwhelmingly be comprised of people for whom World of Warcraft was not their first MMOG. Otherwise, people just want WoW to put more content in and are willing to make do with what they have until then. I think there's an intriguing bit of psychology there that's worth examining.

Some games offer two tiers of membership, free and premium. Some are free-to-play with microtransactions. Some are subscription-based, but have free-trial periods. Customer service and technical support costs the same whether someone's paying or not, though.

Should the free-trials and free users get the same amount of customer care and technical support as the paying players? Should it not matter? If free/free-trial users get less or no support does that encourage them or discourage them from upgrading to paying for the game? Shower us with your collective wisdom!

The Pirates of the Burning Sea Buddy Key program we looked at the other day is now in place, and the official site has got the details on how to give your friends their free 14-day trial. Anyone with a paid SOE subscription for PotBS will be able to claim three keys to give away, with no expiration. You don't need to go and claim them now either, as they will be available indefinitely.

To get your keys, you'll need to log in to the official site, and then visit the Buddy Keys page to retrieve the codes. After that, you can give the keys to friends, and then point them to the game client installer page where they can download their copy of the game. To help with any questions that might come up during this process, a thread has been made on the forums to discuss the program.

Enjoying Pirates of the Burning Sea, but can't convince your stingy friends to give it a try? Come Monday, a new Buddy Key program will launch that provides active account holders with three 14-day trials of the game to give to friends, so there'll be no excuses for them shunning your Caribbean exploits anymore.

There won't be an expiry date on these keys, so if you don't have three people that you want to hook at the moment, hang on to them for later. Instructions on claiming the keys will be provided on Monday, and we'll bring you the news when it breaks.

Here in the US playing the newly-launched age of sail title Pirates of the Burning Sea will set you back $49.99, plus the $14.95 monthly fee. If you're living in the land downunder, though, you'll be able to hit the seas for nothing more than a smile. Flying Lab is making the game available as a free download to every Australian gamer that wants it, via one of the largest local ISPs (BigPond).

You'll still have to pay the monthly fee, of course, but the download comes with a seven day trial to start you off. Interested fans can pre-register now for a copy of the game, which launches in Australia on February 27th. If you act now you'll not only get downloading rights, but will secure one of 100,000 DVD copies of the game for yourself. It's a mighty generous offer, and one I hope we see repeated state-side soon.

[Via Kotaku]

More often than not, we tend to get stuck in a rut in our gaming careers. I've been quite guilty of it in the past – all of my characters in World of Warcraft have levelled their way up solo. I've decided to take steps to rectify this, by rolling up a new character, a Warrior this time, and I plan on making a concerted effort to get her into as many instances as I can. Even if it means jumping into the PUG from Hell, I'm going to force myself to step out of the rut I've gotten into in my games.

My big lottery win hasn't came round yet, so I'm not yet able to play WoW all day long in my boxer shorts. Since I have to work for a living, my time online is pretty restricted, so I like to know that I'm spending it wisely, which means that I tend to end up falling into the same routine – maybe a couple of daily quests, a quick check of the Auction House, maybe clear the odd solo quest out of my log. It doesn't sound very exciting, and sometimes it occurs to me that it isn't.

For anyone looking to maybe try out a new MMO or just wanting to kill some time, DDO has a brand spanking new 10 day trial page up and running with some nice screenshots for those of us who enjoy looking at shiny things. Of course, the trial itself is a "limited time" offer according to the website. It's been a couple of years since the game launched, so now may be the perfect time for some people to check back in and see what's happening. In fact, with the upcoming sixth module and live events happening here and there it seems like a great time to investigate the game.

It's really always nice to see a game doing well with the community it has. Hopefully this trial will give players who have been giving thought to buying the game a chance to try it out first. Don't forget that the two-year anniversary is coming up in February and it's likely that players can expect some fun and surprising events.

For those who still find themselves without a three day trial code after the 'Recruit a Rookie' promotion, we've got some good news for you. Courtesy of MMORPG.com, all registered members can get a Tabula Rasa trial code to use for fun and profit. All you have to do is give them the vitals, click through a confirmation email, and you can be well on your way to experiencing the best sci-fi MMO to hit the market for a long time.

Though this method is considerably easier, and quicker, than the Recruit a Rookie method, we still advise lobbying friends, families, and co-workers who play the game for a trial code first, because that will net them a full free month of playtime -- a veritable Christmas miracle if you ask me. Of course, if you can't find anybody to snag a code from, the freebie is the most sensible option. So go ahead and trial it up - we look forward to seeing many new faces in-game!

Just yesterday we discussed Arena.net's decision to lower the entry barrier to the Eye of the North expansion. They're now capitalizing on that by offering everyone that owns a Guild Wars campaign the chance to check out the new content.

For a limited time you can use a public code over at the Guild Wars site to gain access to a five-hour trial of GWEN. The code will only work from within the client, and can be used for up to 14 days before the trial expires. To give you even more bang for your buck, from this weekend out until next Sunday (the 16th), playing through Eye of the North content will net you plenty of extras:

• Triple experience from all primary storyline quests in Eye of the North.
• Double the chance to receive rare items from chests, and triple the drop rate of Lockpicks in Eye of the North.
• Double gold and experience rewards for vanquishing Eye of the North explorable areas while playing in Hard Mode.

Kieron Gillen of Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great retrospective up about Tabula Rasa, its launch, and where Destination Games should go from here.

Kieron talks about how he actually likes TR, but how the game has been damaged -- maybe ruined -- by an ill-advised Beta test. Which is spot on, really. Loads of serious MMO fans played the Beta at one time or another, and it was missing so many features that made it into the final game it's not even funny -- in fact, it's still missing some even now, hence the rush for patches and new content. The solution? Kieron recommends TR gets a free trial. Not the refer a friend scheme going around at present -- a real free trial so Beta testers can reevaluate the game as it stands.

The quality of a Beta influences how successfully a game sells much more than publishers seem to believe, and similarly, free trials. It's always struck me as foolish that every MMOG doesn't have a free trial to begin with. Whilst retail sales is something publishers will always hate to lose, surely if subscriptions are increased in the long-term it's a wise investment?

For those simply too curious to stay away - Auran has announced a new ten day free trial for their recently-released PvP-centric MMO, Fury. All you have to do is follow the link, enter your email address in the given prompt, and you'll be well on your way to "unleashing your fury."

Normally we would balk at leading you down so dark a road, but we're confident that you won't even have to play the demo for terribly long before you figure out what a buggy black hole of fun it is. You don't have to take our word for it, all you have to do is take a look around the community and you'll find that this game was almost universally panned.

If anything, we're doing you a service by helping you jump on the demo -- this way you won't ever be tempted to make an impulse purchase when you see it on store shelves!