How are the numbers now?

[Vinkman]

Free plane of the week means people will just rotate and plane for free with the free plane.
1 month means the guys setting up new accounts to keep playing the two week trial will have to do it less often.

Try recruiting. If everyone signed up 1 new player, we'd double our numbers and be back to 400 people in the MA at peek hours. 

[Lusche]

Try recruiting. If everyone signed up 1 new player, we'd double our numbers and be back to 400 people in the MA at peek hours. 

That's just wishful thinking 

[Vraciu]

Free plane of the week means people will just rotate and plane for free with the free plane.
1 month means the guys setting up new accounts to keep playing the two week trial will have to do it less often.

Try recruiting. If everyone signed up 1 new player, we'd double our numbers and be back to 400 people in the MA at peek hours. 

The plane of the month is free for that month to non-paying players.  Next month it's a different plane.  No need or requirement to change subscriptions.   You show up and get a designated ride or rides for a month then they rotate to something else.   Eventually they'll upgrade.   If they don't, so what?  It's better for those who are paying *NOW*.

The point is to get get butts into the seats.   If people aren't going to pay any way I'd at least like them here to shoot down for the rest of us that *DO* pay.   Stick them in a P-40B/C or Spit V and let them dodge the rest of us.    Eventually they'll get tired of that and hopefully upgrade.   Either way they'll last longer than two weeks.   Paying customers want targets.   Nobody in a P-51 is going to begrudge some poor guy buzzing around haplessly in his free-for-a-month F4F-3.   

Filling the bucket with water is counterproductive if you don't plug the holes.

I've tried recruiting.   I got one guy to play for two weeks and he moved on.   It's not that easy.   Get the Steam Squeakers to stick around and it will be incentive for old sticks to return and current sticks to stay.

[DaddyAce]

I think your "plane of the week" idea is a good one Arlo, and had been thinking along the same lines, but "plane of the day".  I think "plane of the week", assuming it's practical for HTC to program in, is better.  Perhaps it could be limited to 6 months per player, assuming HTC decides it's a worthwhile venture.

[Lyme]

I like the plane of the week/month idea, but I think a functioning tutorial/flight school is equally as important for booking the noobs.

[Arlo]

Free plane of the week means people will just rotate and plane for free with the free plane.

Sure they could. But will they? Would you avoid an account because a B-17 fulfills your fighter itch? Or a Sherman tank? Or even a fighter but it's a Spit I? There's 93 Planes and vehicles if we exclude the C-47, Storch, and Jeep (letting them be free all the time) and 52 weeks in the year. Granted, we should also exclude the Me-262, the Me-163 and Ar-234. That's still a rotation of 90 if we allow for every variant within every model (but not in predictable order - let HTC randomize somewhat). That'll be a long wait for the hot rides if the rotation follows an E/M/L war plane/vehicle rotation (again with a degree of randomness). Even the 1944-45 equipment could still be excluded and there'd be a fair amount of free toys to rotate.

[nugetx]

+1 on the rotation plane, best idea to draw in players

[Arlo]

+1 on the rotation plane, best idea to draw in players

You aren't actually helping.

[nugetx]

 

[TDeacon]

As I suggested in another thread, people don't care if the plane is "free" if they die over and over.  Except for unemployed adolescents, $15. per month is pocket change, so saving someone that amount isn't likely to work if they don't enjoy the game, or have future prospects of doing so. 

As just one example person, my wife wouldn't want to play AH for just that reason. 

MH

[Vraciu]

As I suggested in another thread, people don't care if the plane is "free" if they die over and over.  Except for unemployed adolescents, $15. per month is pocket change, so saving someone that amount isn't likely to work if they don't enjoy the game, or have future prospects of doing so. 

As just one example person, my wife wouldn't want to play AH for just that reason. 

MH

They die over and over any way.  It's called a learning curve.    They're gonna' be more frustrated paying to die.    Who knows if anyone is even bothering to pay to die?   I don't have that data.   Maybe they are.   People can succeed just fine in a Spit V.  It's easy to fly and they can yank and bank like most noobs do any way.   

[Lyme]

As I suggested in another thread, people don't care if the plane is "free" if they die over and over.  Except for unemployed adolescents, $15. per month is pocket change, so saving someone that amount isn't likely to work if they don't enjoy the game, or have future prospects of doing so. 

As just one example person, my wife wouldn't want to play AH for just that reason. 

MH

$15/month is a fart in the wind, but for many it's the principal of it.  $180 per year, every year, for a game that has little to no change.  Or you can go out and buy GTA, Battlefield or COD and have every expansion pack, at least equal amount of fun and fun a lesser price.  Hard market right now.

[Lusche]

$15/month is a fart in the wind

I see rich people posting again 

[Slate]

  Um I joined this game because of an ad I saw on the History Channel. Steam players have essentially responded to advertising. Some will buy the product and most will not. We need more advertising and not just on steam.   

  I do not know HTC's business model or how much they have budgeted for advertising as it may be cost prohibitive in some areas. 

[OOZ662]

I've been sitting around wondering if I should join back in recently. The biggest thing keeping me from doing so are memories of the account management system. It used to be that if you wanted to stop paying for a month, your account was permanently locked. You come back, you have to create a new account, lose all your perk points, and e-mail support to get your GameID transferred. If they revamped the system to where it worked like every other subscription out there where all your details were stored but your access to the game (or it's "paying members only" features) were turned on and off based on account status, I'd probably give things another go.

So, has it?