Allow demo players to drive at all racing tracks?

[Mike Nike]

The problem: too less active players in Turbo Sliders Online Servers

First of all: a short funny (or sad?), little bit ironic and partly highly exaggered introduction
I'm writing in the view of a full version player, who has got one of his worse TS days...


It's a nice day and you decide to spend some hours of your sparetime for playing Turbo Sliders.
Nice, that you have got the full version, since you could play more than just 3 demo tracks.
You navigate to the menu Network and enter the Serverlist.
Wow, the list is so long, that it fills even 2 pages.
But when you look at the number of players in the servers, you are shocked by the emptyness:
0/10, 0/12, 0/16, 0/20 ...
But look there, 6/16 players in a Server! Ooh, what a bad luck - it's one of these EasySlider Demo Servers, where the half of the players are playing the game for their first time...
And if you are not Razzle, Mike Nike or one of some relative less other Full Version players, then you decide to leave again, except you like to play alone at an empty server in the hope someone else is joinging it.
Or are you deciding to leave the serverlist already again? Like so often before, too?
You left the serverlist, left the game and you think about, if you should not stop playing this game for a while, some days, some weeks, some months... (note that I, Mike Nike, would not stop playing so easily ).



some assumptions, some facts - some problems:

- People with the full version are too often forced to play at only 3 tracks in only some less servers with usually just 1 car
- People with the demo version are allways forced to that...
- too many demo players loose their interest too early, since the 3 tracks are boring them on the long time
- too many full version players loose their motivation to keep on playing TS, since there are too less active players in the full version servers



some suggestions - some solutions:

TS 1.1.0 update for demo players:
- permission to drive at all tracks with the default track format
- no permission to drive at trackformats of TS modifications (for example: PunaBall)
- no permission to build tracks (& tiles & terrains)


disadvantages:
- no backward compatibility?
- tracks can be made in the earlier TS versions (0.86-)
- in relation less demo players would maybe have the need to buy TS

advantages:
- less demo players stop playing TS
- less full version players stop playing TS
- the community of demo players is growing very fast, compared to the current speed
- although, perhaps, in relation less demo players would buy TS, the absolute number would be probably high enough to let the community of full version players grow even faster

[Flexman]

I think too that the limits of the demo-version should be reconsidered. Many discussions here are about which tracks etc. there should be on the servers and what we can do to cause more people playing there. We read from time to time that the situation should get better as more players register, but now it's over a year and things really didn't change.

As the old unlimited version and the demo servers show us that there would be enough people in the servers but were not willing to pay maybe Jollygoodgames should consider letting them drive on normal racing tracks but having other goodies for people who are willing to pay. The situation that only demo servers are full is not good for registered players either.

So many people do not plan to pay for anything but when the are allowed to drive on all racing tracks there could be other things that cause a real fan to register for, e.g.

• changing car colors (and only grey demo-players)
• track editor
• punaball support + servers
• in game music or sound

The advantage would be

• more players everywhere
• the community is not split into demo-server and other drivers
• demo players would not stop playing early and maybe go on driving. and even if they do not pay they'd recommend the game to more friends then.
• players who only play the game for a short time and therefore won't register are not only in the demo server and will help other servers getting enough players
• demo players won't think "why should i register? the full servers are empty anyway"

I think that recommending to friends is also an important point. When we wanted a friend having a race with us we told him "try the game and join a cup, or play with us on the LAN" - but then "oh you don't have a licence". So he didn't really try or start playing that game. I'm sure he would if it was possible to join a usual cup or make a LAN-session.

There will be many drivers without licence but if still a certain amount of them registers for some reason, maybe it would be possible to have still enough profit. Whenever this topic comes I have to refer to Soldat - a game which has enough full servers, but won't have if only registered players could join them. There for registering you get something else, but this still causes players to register!

So, write your ideas here!

[Jazzyclub]

for me:
- track editor blocked
- punaball blocked
- cant have custom color on car
- a limited time to play "or in general or in game"
1) general: after 5-10 or more minutes the game shutdown in auto
2) in game: you can join in a full version server but you can only see the race "in this way the demo player can feel the emotion of a full version cup"

- give more track available to play on "not all 23 demo tracks"
and more...

[Flexman]

yes, jazzy some time limits or a certain amount of races per day is also better than the current limit. although i still first would first try things that do not prevent people from racing, but that's at least better than that 3 tracks solution.

Other possible things: Nag-Screen, History Recording Blocked, not able to change graphic resolution, no track preview (although i'd also try to avoid this one)

[xzeal]

I have never actually been restricted to a demo version, so i don't know how much it would influence my decision to buy the game or not, but i doubt the number of full version players would increase, instead the activity in the demo servers would increase, since those would even be acceptable for most full version players.

I am afraid less demo players would buy the game, since i have heard several people talking, that the demo servers are enough for them and that they would never buy the full version.

The results are impossible to predict, but Mike's general idea is worth taking into consideration by Mr. Mannisto and the JGG staff : get demo players more hooked on the game, so their will power would give in and they would buy the full version to see what the fuss is all about.


PS: how many licenses per month do they sell?

PPS: There should be some kind of an introduction to punaball in the demo version, some people prefer pball over racing and most demo players haven't even heard of pball

PPPS: do Ande and the JGG staff even read this forum, since they don't really seem to post anything lately

[Jarno]

How about:
No permission to play on network at all...

That would force many players to buy game and servers would be only full licensed servers so there would always be someone playing.

Bad thing would be that if you cant test network playing, you dont know how fun it would be and that's why you dont buy the game.

Tell me what you guys think of that.

[Flexman]

I have never actually been restricted to a demo version, so i don't know how much it would influence my decision to buy the game or not, but i doubt the number of full version players would increase, instead the activity in the demo servers would increase, since those would even be acceptable for most full version players.

Nono...I think you get something wrong. There won't be demo servers anymore then. So there are just racing servers (for everyone) and maybe some special servers (like punaball) which don't need so many players anyway.

am afraid less demo players would buy the game, since i have heard several people talking, that the demo servers are enough for them and that they would never buy the full version.

But they would at least racie in other servers and that helps the registered players getting more fun. Why should they register when they see how empty the full servers are?

And: You should see that when they drive more often because they have more fun then they recommend the games to more friends and get them to drive too. I think the number of players will increase very much and if only a certain percentage of them registeres maybe that could still be better than having very few players and all of them registered.

The results are impossible to predict, but Mike's general idea is worth taking into consideration by Mr. Mannisto and the JGG staff

I hope they do so!

[Jarno]

How about:
No permission to play on network at all...

That would force many players to buy game and servers would be only full licensed servers so there would always be someone playing.

Bad thing would be that if you cant test network playing, you dont know how fun it would be and that's why you dont buy the game.

Tell me what you guys think of that.

AND:

It would be so that you can see others palying in network but you cant participate for yourself. I think this would be good solution.

[Flexman]

It would be so that you can see others palying in network but you cant participate for yourself. I think this would be good solution.

Not really. You'd punish the registered players. The'd have more fun if there are more other players around even if they are driving with grey cars.
By they way: If they see that so few people are playing in registered servers they won't register anyway.


I think that only guys pay for a game who are big fans and they pay anyway, others don't pay at all - they look for an other freeware game then. So I don't know why you are so pessimistic about this idea and want even more limits for the shareware version.

Also adding more tracks to the demo version won't help. That just would make the situation even worse that more registered players would play in the demo servers then. The idea is to get more people into other servers so that there are more servers with more possibilities making the game more fun and causing more people to play.

[SaniTAR]

I suggest JGG just adds 3 more tracks to the demo, like Luxuryng, Lopjum and Orefield... To keep Demo players playing the game.

[Jarno]

It would be so that you can see others palying in network but you cant participate for yourself. I think this would be good solution.

Not really. You'd punish the registered players. The'd have more fun if there are more other players around even if they are driving with grey cars.

I think that only guys pay for a game who are big fans and they pay anyway, others don't pay at all - they look for an other freeware game then. So I don't know why you are so pessimistic about this idea and want even more limits for the shareware version.

Also adding more tracks to the demo version won't help. That just would make the situation even worse that more registered players would play in the demo servers then. The idea is to get more people into other servers so that there are more servers with more possibilities making the game more fun and causing more people to play.

my way players would be forced to buy the game.
As now there are players who never buy full version but love network playing. But if those cant drive in network they have to buy the game. Thats why there could be more full players and we could get rid of those boring demo servers.

[Flexman]

my way players would be forced to buy the game.

No. They just would play another game then. They won't even look how this game works.

As now there are players who never buy full version but love network playing.

They'd just play other games like Soldat then.

As you cannot force anyone to pay I think it's better to get more players, and this raises the chance of having more guys among them who are enthusiastic enough and would pay for some extra features.

[Jarno]

my way players would be forced to buy the game.

No. They just would play another game then. They won't even look how this game works.

As now there are players who never buy full version but love network playing.

They'd just play other games like Soldat then.

As you cannot force anyone to pay I think it's better to get more players, and this raises the chance of having more guys among them who are enthusiastic enough and would pay for some extra features.

if you download game like battlefield 2 and demo doesnt allow you to play on network. but the game is best when playing network. do you think players doesnt buy the game for that?
If the game is good, you buy it, if you cant play it enough wide already.

[Flexman]

if you download game like battlefield 2 and demo doesnt allow you to play on network.

Battlefield does not suffer from having too less players on the network. If they had, the'd need other ideas. Also there is a big company behind and they can make many advertisements etc. and are well known.

I think it's like films. If there is a movie from Hollywood people are going to watch it even if all newspapers write that it is crap. If there is a good film from Portugal then no one is going in the cinema for that even if you tell him that this film is better then the Hollywood stuff. Do you think the makers of Star Wreck would have sold many DVDs if they hadn't given away their film for free?

[Jarno]

so we should advertise more this game

[Flexman]

so we should advertise more this game

That's what they keep saying for a year now... But JJG unfortunately is not Hollywood in this case...

[dby]

1. No demo servers at all.

2. Limited access to network play for demo version. Perhaps locking up more network time by driving locally?

3. Perhaps it also shouldn't be possible to start you own server with a demo version?

4. Editor should work but you can only play your tracks locally, this also goes for downloaded tracks. Only way to play custom tracks over network would be if you join a server with custom tracks.

5. A nag screen.

6. Only basic colouring for cars.

7. No storing of your records.

[dragonstar]

I also think that maybe it would be better to allow demo players to play all tracks. There are players who play "just for fun now and then" and they won't register no matter what the demo version's like, but then there are players who like to "make career" on TS and that ain't possible if you can't have unique name and color in the game.

Like mentioned before there's also some kind of community in the demo server, but if the possibility to have your own name and color would be taken away from demo players, they would be forced to register if they want to have their own names and colours. And that's a big reason to register if you really like to play the game and be part of it's community. Also this wouldn't decrease the number of players who play "just for fun now and then", because for them the pure racing is the thing why they play the game (actually they would play even more if they could play on all tracks).

So I think that this would be so called win win situation if the demo players would be allowed on the full version servers. Demo players could play all tracks and full version players would have more players to play with.

Allowed for demo players:
-All tracks

Not allowed for demo players:
-Your own name (they could be named like player001 etc)
-Custom colour for one's car (but not all demo players should be grey, they could have random colour from like 5 different colours)
-Different mods like Punaball
-Making own tracks
-Record storing
-Maybe not even allowed to talk on TS chat

[Mouse]

so we should advertise more this game

I often visit many gaming forums, and i will start to make topics of TS.

I dont think demo players should be able to race on every track, i think it is ok now, with the 3 demo tracks, but they should get less things to do.

- only 6 or so car colors to pick from (red, blue, green, yellow, black, white)

- Can only use the 5 default cars

- limited time to play (15 min per day?)

- only 2 network cups per day

if they have less things to do, and know the endless fun they will have with the full version, they will buy it.

Commence Mission "TS Forum Advertising"

[Guest]

I totally agree with Dragonstar. That is the best way, how things should be done as fast as possible.

It's good that there are still active players, but there was a lot of more before and also I have been sort of waiting that the community would increase, but it hasn't.

Unless things dont change, I see mainly two options for myself, either quit TS completely or reawake old version and build new community there.

[Guest]

And that was me.

[Punatiainen]

Me, jezuz

[JimMiE22o2]

I agree with most said, I am just sad that this topic had to be opened,

[road_oktane]

The best solution i can figure out is:

-Demo player car's speed should be decreased by 0.9 factor.

So if they want to race fast and be competitive they can buy the game.

The following points dragonstar said are ok too:

[quote]Allowed for demo players:
-All tracks

Not allowed for demo players:
-Custom colour for one's car (but not all demo players should be grey, they could have random colour from like 5 different colours)
-Different mods like Punaball
-Making own tracks
-Record storing
[/quote]

I'd add a disallowed item:
-host a server/game

And another allowed:
-race with any custom car, like: v-f5,v-f1,tsb-f2 on terra

[Flexman]

I agree totally to Dragonstar and Punatiainen. Fine that there now are more good ideas like no custom player names and no record storing.

Also the fact that there are players who play "just for fun now and then" and won't register no matter what the demo version's like is true and that's why I disagree to Mouse. Making more limits in the demo version won't help anything. I also thought about making demo players slower, like road_octane mentioned, but I finally thought that they should have the same chances in the race like everyone else, so that they have fun driving and get some extra features if they register.

I have to admit that I do not pay often for software and the only game I really paid for was slicks'n'slide. Although you could play the game without sersious limits I played it so much (also with friends) that it was worth registering it just for the track editor. I guess I wouldn't have played so much or registered at all if there only was a 3-track-limit like in Turbosliders.

Fine that there are some positive voices, although I ask myself what they voted for. I still believe that the new demo mode could be made somehow so that there are much more players and there are still enough fans who register. Although $19,95 for just the name... Maybe less is more ins this case, $10 would be enough.