So while the rest of the MMORPG world goes quietly beserk over the 'SOeBay' Affair, back to my current pet project: Operation Cheapseats!

First some definitions. The idea here is to see how far I can get on free trials alone, before having to actually subscribe for anything. The rules are simple:

  • 1. No Money Spent: This is the crucial part of the thing. Internet connection costs are okay; I'd be paying those regardless of any indivual game, and even if not playing any MMORPG at all. Likewise, electricity to power the PC, inital cost of PC, etc don't count. There are two key spends in online gaming; Intial Box Purchase, and Monthly Subscription Fee - it is these I am seeking to avoid.
  • 2. Always Have At Least One Game On Trial: When one trial ends, I should be ready to go with the next within a day at the most. The idea here being to see what sort of continuous span I can manage before having to sign up with anything. Typically, most online games offer a 14-day trial, although there are exceptions, and usually this 14-day trial is a once-only deal, mostly to stop people like me doing exactly this kind of experiment. Therefore, to achieve any kind of continuous span, a great many games will have to be sampled. However, the market today is such that there are at least 70 titles to choose from, (Source: MMORPG.com Gamelist) all of varying degrees of quality, and a great many of them offer a trial period. (I'm not looking forward to Furcadia.)

The plan presents a few key hurdles.

Client Download: The bulk of any MMO cost goes on buying a box from a shop. This box will contain a CD we'll use once (And STILL have to patch for 30 mins), a map we'll look at while we install the CD, once, and a manual we won't look at all, and that is probably already patched into obsolecence. And sometimes a pewter/wicker/canvas/aluminium nick-nack that we'll be faintly bemused by. Once. And all that usually costs about £30-40. ($50ish)

The sad thing is that not a lot of that goes to the people who made and run the game. Mostly it's unecessary bloat that ends up in the pockets of a distributor, and in the age of Broadband ADSL, many game developers are moving toward online retail and distribution, as it means more money goes directly to them. So by downloading the trial client, we've avoid the bulk start-up cost, and the free-trial client is usually the same as the full retail one; only the account status is different. However, a full online game client can be 2 gigabytes or more. Even with very wide broadband, this still means careful planning and scheduling can be needed to get the thing installed.

(Note: Although technically 'free', and a good way to avoid massive downloads, I am choosing not to use free trials found on PC magazine cover CDs, as the magzine itself is an extra cost of about £6. Feel free to interpret your own rules in this regard though!)

Credit Card Requirement: They've obviously seen me coming, and to stop people just repeatedly chaining these trials, a credit card number is usually required even for the freebie. This also allows them to start charging sunscription the instant you stray over the end of the trial period. So these Trials are one-shot, and you must be meticulous about dates, re cancellations. Indeed, with client download for free-trial, they tend to charge you for the client in the first month if you miss this. The client in this case is not really 'free', it's on sale or 'return', of sorts. (This also presents some problems if, like me, you've already had a proper paid account on any of these games - they'll know that your credit card has been here before. A free trial would be taking the piss a bit at that point.)

Types of 'Free': Be sure to know exactly what the terms are. It is standard to offer 'One Months Subscription Included' with a boxed game. This only applies to the boxed game, purely so there is no hidden costs to being able to use it right away off the shelf - it might even be a legal requirement. A free trial is a different sort of deal altogether, usually much shorter. In this kind of experiement it does pay to actualy read the Terms and Conditions.

There are further problems of a more gameplay-based nature; 14 days is not nearly long enough to actually get anywhere; levels, wealth, power, etc, but in my experience, these 14 days are long enough to learn and master the controls and UI, get a good look around the various starting locations/home cities, spend long enough with the basic class gameplay to see how it will be for the next five years, amass a modest amount of Stuff, and have a good run at exploring the game world, albiet runing and hiding lots instead of slaying your way through.

(I tend to find that the early newbie bits of the game have the most promise, probably for the very reason that 14-day trialers haven't decided if they want to pay yet.)

It's NOT long enough to make friends, join a guild, earn anything cool or impressive or have any kind of impact on the game world, so clearly this project will not apeal to everyone. I tend to be an online tourist anyway though, so this should work well for me, and it isn't just a free ride either; over the next few months, I'll be poking into all manner of online games I'd have never looked at otherwise, and who knows, maybe one of them will beat me, and I'll stay. I hope so...