instead of two weeks free

[lunatic1]

Step one, make it easier for the new players to come in. Give them unlimited free play in a number of planes and GVs WITH the paying customers in the MA.
 why do you keep insisting on a limited number of planes for the new players to fly?
they already suffer that idea in wot wowplanes, war thunder, woshps and armoured warfare.

[The Fugitive]

You're just putting up another barrier for the new player by forcing them to fly lower tier planes that will automatically put them at a disadvantage.  In the MA environment, flying low tier planes is a lot harder than flying then flying the higher tier planes.

You can read the reviews on Steam and the forums posts there and you'll see what the comment complaints were from the players that didn't matriculate to a paid subscription.  I also took the time to ask some of the new players I saw online that liked the game but weren't going to convert.  They echoed the same things the players were saying on the Steam reviews and forums posts.

New player's aren't going to subscribe if they feel they can't get past the things that are giving them troubles getting into the game.

It's the same barrier that they are going to start with anyway. They will be fodder for the first 6 months no matter what they fly.

I have spent almost as much time on the Steam boards as I do here. I have answered questions and tried to help players see the game as something other than what the "haters" posted over there.

Get the players in, and add more help to get them going in the game to help retain them.

why do you keep insisting on a limited number of planes for the new players to fly?
they already suffer that idea in wot wowplanes, war thunder, woshps and armoured warfare.

And it funny how those games seem to a track so many more players.

Free planes in the MA will add to the numbers and give these new players a taste of the action that is going on. The more they play and learn, the more they will WANT to stay, subscribe, and build the community.

[lunatic1]

Most of the planes are already free why limit what rhey can fly--'oh crap, dejavu-seems like i had this same conversation before' woth some guy who wanted to change the game.

And how is htc suppose to monitor these players?
Theres another word for limited plane set, but i can't think of what it is, but hitech said no to it. So i think you'alls idea is dead anyway. Bubye

[The Fugitive]

Most of the planes are already free why limit what rhey can fly--'oh crap, dejavu-seems like i had this same conversation before' woth some guy who wanted to change the game.

And how is htc suppose to monitor these players?
Theres another word for limited plane set, but i can't think of what it is, but hitech said no to it. So i think you'alls idea is dead anyway. Bubye

HTC writes the coad for NON-subscribers, Planes 1-6 are available, 6 - 109 are NOT available. The same goes for the vehicles. Seems pretty simple.

The point is that as it stands now the "free players" get two weeks in the MA. Due to the huge learning curve, the mouse setup, and to some extent the VR and stick setups new players are frustrated and look at two weeks as "Ya right! like this is going to work!" Log off never to be seen again.

With a number of unlimited planes and vehicles available maybe, just maybe these players stick it out to REALLY see what Aces High is all about. Sure they get there butts handed to them over and over, but that is going to happen no matter what they could fly. Knowing there is no limit they may try to work it out longer, maybe seek help, maybe they just stick around as running troops and dive bombing medium bombers is fun for them. The plus side is we, the population get more players playing the game. A few guys get taken under the wing in a squad or two and before you know it they get a subscription.

This game needs two things. More players, and a way to make the learning curve to be much smaller. A free set of planes in the MA.... where EVERYBODY else is, will bring in more players. Fixing the mouse and stick setup with defaults that make jumping into the game "intuitive" and easy will help with the learning curve.

Neither of these things will cost HTC much of anything, and COULD reap a ton of benefits. Hitech was blown away with the numbers from Steam, they just didnt stay. He needs to make a few tweaks to keep up with the times and this game will be running like gang busters again.

[Traveler]

We've hashed this subject out many times on the BBS.
If HTC wants to only give two weeks, then make it actual in-game time.
14 days x 24 hours per day = 336 in-game hours. 

Coogan

You need to be realistic, People work, subtract 8 from the 24, they commute, subtract another 2, They sleep, subtract another 6.  They have to deal with every day life, subtract another 2 hours per day.   So in the real world that 24 becomes 6 hours a day.  I'll grant you it's a lot, however, history of players leaving and my 19 years experience with this game have shown me that the new pilot is still left with a huge learning curve, and that even 6 hours a day for 14 days, isn't enough time and only demonstrates to the new player that it's a very difficult game to learn and learning it OJT, isn't a lot of fun.  So they pull the plug and leave but only after they go on all the social media and tell all their gaming friends, that Aces High sucks.

[bustr]

Wonder if that is the genius of WT with their mouse system, aimbot and active enemy locator pointing to the cons? They have eye bleeding good graphics and terrains while keeping to a game style format familiar to the broadest cross section of their customers.

Is that today's average potential customer for AH3 versus what we attracted 10 years ago?

How many of WT's customers like playing in the WT top end realism arena? The MA is that off the mark first day even if Hitech makes their trial 6 months.

Are the mini joystick inputs on a game pad default scaled the same as a full sized joystick? The game pad mini joystick proportionally will do a full deflection input by default many times faster than a full sized joystick. Has that been accounted for or, do those people flip their thumb once and decide the game is not worth it? I would think using a game pad would be a bit like flying a radio controlled plane. And then a mouse by default, how close to WT does using our mouse as a controller come close to? Is it two different experiences and our mouse just turns them off trying to get used to the differences?

[atlau]

Bustr that may have something to do with it. However i still think the steep learning curve is the biggest barrier to retaining new players and a 30 day free trial wouldnt hurt.

[bustr]

If the controller does not work as they have become accustomed to over all their years of game pad and mouse games, that is one more thing keeping them from firing up the game and liking it. They are used to an almost seamless transition between the types of games they are used to, just like the last 20 years for us when all games we played were a joystick game and they all worked by the same rational. We could fire up the game, if it saw our Wallmart $19.99 joystick, we were good to go.

They complain about the hardware which means they have a bigger problem than the learning curve many don't want to bother over coming. Stepping outside of their comfort zone when there are so many other titles out there that they don't need to re-learn how to use their hardware. 30 days free will not get them to stay past 30 minutes if the hardware transition makes them uncomfortable. Ten years ago when a cheap joystick was still used in many games, new players didn't have a hardware transition issue and they were willing to put up with getting towered all the time. They at least could get off the ground and moving the plane around made sense becasue they used a joystick for other games.

When we were testing the green ring commander mouse mode for Hitech during the alpha\beta, it took me 15 minutes of flying around to finally get a drone kill. And consider how many years I had been in the game at that time. Maneuvering with the commander mode was counter intuitive to flying the plane, so I when I finally killed a drone mostly by accident, I called it a day and wrote my report. Then I setup native mouse mode and knowing how to tweak the axis to control the inputs, I could kill drones at least in the circle offline, flying badly. That was the second time in 17 years I ever setup the mouse to chase drones offline, so I was more newbie than the Steam players would be. I still wouldn't want to play this game mouse mode only, but I made it work and didn't like using it.

That is why I keep asking about the game pad because it has micro joysticks that remind me of fly RC planes. You gents keep hoping for the best if you can just get Hitech to give you 30 days free for the new player. At Steam they are complaining about the hardware not about the steep learning curve. We don't even know if the steep learning curve will even be a problem for them since they don't last longer than getting offended about the hardware. Get them past the hardware and allow their years of gaming experience to work for them.

[Vraciu]

The problem is that your idea doesn't remove one of the barriers that have been instrumental in keeping new players away.  By switching the 2 week free trial with a 30 day free trial, you remove one of those barriers.  One of the largest complaints from new players is that the learning curve is too steep and the 2 week trial is insufficient to over come the steep curve.  Your idea doesn't address that at all.

And 90% don’t stay longer than twenty minutes so a one year free trial won’t make a difference.   

[popeye]

And 90% don’t stay longer than twenty minutes so a one year free trial won’t make a difference.

Yep.

One newbie said the he was "good at gaming" but "this game is real hard".  He stayed 20 minutes and 25 seconds -- 5 sorties, 3 deaths -- at a field that was being picked by sharks.  At least he got into the air.  Not sure what would have made him stay longer, but spawning at the "most active" field might not have been the best idea in that case.  Maybe icons that identify newbies would have persuaded the sharks to give him a break.

[Vraciu]

Yep.

One newbie said the he was "good at gaming" but "this game is real hard".  He stayed 20 minutes and 25 seconds -- 5 sorties, 3 deaths -- at a field that was being picked by sharks.  At least he got into the air.  Not sure what would have made him stay longer, but spawning at the "most active" field might not have been the best idea in that case.  Maybe icons that identify newbies would have persuaded the sharks to give him a break.

The Law of Unintended Consequences.   I’m not a fan of this feature.     

[TequilaChaser]

Regarding bustr's post about World of Planes later renamed WarThunder....

Bustr, from the start of closed Alpha testing WOP/WT was basically 99.9 % concentrated on the gaming console community and design more towards using gamepad controllers and mouse with about .1% of thought going towards joystick/HOTAS users....

It took some rather indepth posting from those of us who had come from AW, WB, AH, FA, Targetware, IL2 etc... To get the developers to  include the ability to use full HOTAS setups and then a multitude of posts on what was and wasn't working and a good bit of trial and error....

By the time we went through the Closed Alpha and Closed Beta testing, right up to when they launched the Open Beta, in my opinion they still were leaning more towards the gaming console gamepad users and they still had issues (or complaining) from the ones that were using joysticks/HOTAS setups.... I'm not saying that the diehard joystick/hotas using crowd weren't able to get their stuff to work...with a bit of patience most could get their setups working....

I left because the flight modeling reminded me of that Arcade JetFighter game they had back in the 80s that you got to sit in and it had  like a cockpit but you played in what AH calls F3 mode...

I do understand the free to play with ability to purchase "better rides" or "power ups", and ability to hop right in using gamepad controllers like Xbox/Playstation , like the majority of players are accustomed to using....

WOP/WT was originally based off of the Gaming Console version of "Cliffs of Dover" if I remember correctly.... Heck, I would have to login to the forums over there to search my messages and review the posts.... but I am pretty sure that the original WOP private message forums are gone..... It's been a good 6 to 7+ years ago....

[The Fugitive]

Bustr that may have something to do with it. However i still think the steep learning curve is the biggest barrier to retaining new players and a 30 day free trial wouldnt hurt.

Thats the thing tho, you can break down the "learning curve" into a few different things.

First there is learning how to setup your controllers. Videos are nice, but are not mandatory. Far too many "gamers" just jump into a game and wing it. If they cant figure out what they are doing they MAY look at videos, or they may just leave. If the mouse controls, game pad controls, VR controllers, and joystick controls were set to a default that mimics the games out there today, a new players could get rolling right away easing some of that learning curve. The ability of editing all of the keys at a later time would still be there, but if your logging in the first time your gamepad already has the aileron, elevators and rudder assigned with a popup the first time to calibrate them.

Second is learning how to fly.

Third is learning how to play.

The same set can be for each grouping, GVing, Ships, Bombing and so on. Then you add in how to FIGHT on top of all that.

If the controls were pre-set at least a new player could get off the ground or rolling at least.

[19zac]

most squads won't take on a new player-esp one that doesn't know anything.

I am trying as hard as I can to get new guys and train them to be a part of the squad and the great AH community. I for one just love being able to get a guy to feel like they are part of a squad mission and that they can learn to do something that actually contributes to us. That is what made me stick to the game years ago.

So.... if anyone has some newbies, send them all to me.

[Vraciu]

most squads won't take on a new player-esp one that doesn't know anything.
and another what if the plane they wan't to fly is in that list of limited plane they will say goodbye.

since the game went on steam 2 types of players have been coming on- the person who wants to fly ponies and the ones who want to fly bombers
maybe 1 out of 10 for gv's.

I'm the only veteran in my squadron right now.  I'll take all the noobs and they can move along when they're "growed up" if they want.