Understood, Carla. But the limited features, no matter how small or few, remains an irritant when trying out a game. It also prevents the person from getting completely hooked on it because they cannot truly enjoy the full game, not even for an hour.
Moreover, I think limiting features in the VV series of games would prove very frustrating for newly registered users because the tribe they had with the limitations will be the same tribe they'll have after being registered. If any of the limited features affects the behavior, skills, activities, collections, breeding, anything, the tribe would begin in a crippled fashion as compared to someone who starts a tribe after registering it (such as when people create a 2nd or 3rd or more tribe).
So if you were to use feature limitations, it would need to be such that it cannot hamper or cripple the tribe from the very start. And that is pretty much all of the game!
There is one way in which I could see a feature restricted trial. It is to actually have TWO versions of the game. One is a 1 hour, full featured game for those who feel they will likely register it if they like it. And a second, "Lite" version that is free with permanent missing features. This would be good for the kids that just cannot pay for a registration. However, because it is named a "Lite" version, it is clearly understood from the very start that (1) you can UPGRADE to the full version (aka register) and (2) you'll either need to start a whole new tribe or carry over your original tribe from the Lite version, knowing fully that the tribe began in a limited/crippled manner.
By crippled I mean that, depending on the missing features, goals such as having a tribe with 100% village elders from their first 50 villagers (a goal I'm currently working on). If the number of villagers were limited, I might not have enough to spread the work around to gain tech points AND fish and build. If I cannot do ANY of the full version activities, the tribe will suffer no matter how you look at it.
Even with the consideration of perhaps only allowing them level 1 of the skills won't work because I, personally, do not always get level 1 for all of the skills before I get a level 2 for one of the skills. So I could have a level 0 and level 2 simultaneously. Restricting me to only level 1 would hamper this which would have (to me) a negative affect on my tribe. So my tribe would be crippled from the very start.
If the game didn't have the bonding between the player and villagers AND if the game didn't have the villagers develop, both physically, skill level and breeding abilities, then the limitations wouldn't matter. However, isn't this the main backboard of the game? How can you not cripple that if you restrict any features?
If you were to make very small restrictions to avoid this problem, you might as well give the game away for free. It wouldn't be enough to make people want to register.
So that's my thoughts on the idea. If you could be more specific of which features could be considered for restrictions, that may help me see a different viewpoint. But from where I'm looking right now, feature restrictions will only anger players once they realize that their very first village was crippled from the very start.
Or so I think, anyway.
Previous Topic
Index
