Free Trial - No Time Limit?

This is interesting news:

"As part of the adjustments to the game's Free Trial version that we announced via the May episode of Freshly Picked Vana'diel and other various channels, we are raising the character level cap from 50 to 75.

We are also planning to remove the Free Trial's time limit in late September, allowing players to enjoy it without any time restrictions."

Could we see a bunch of level 75 players running around doing group content together? Like dare I say... a private server experience without the pitfalls of being on a private server? That would be pretty cool.

It would encourage new players to try the game for a while, team up with other 75s, and then possibly decide they want to move past that by paying for the sub. It seems like a good bridging of the gap for players in two minds over wanting to commit to this or not.

It definitely has aiming at the private server crowd vibes, especially with genkai quests removed.

Did they say genkai quests will be removed?

"now is the perfect opportunity to invite them to join you"

How the f am I supposed to invite people to play with me if I'm on a closed server SE?!? Bit tonedeaf, but what else is new.

I remember seeing something about genkai quests being removed up to 75.

Maybe I hallucinated it.

They need to be removed, but they have not.

Also, tone deaf, absolutely. No one wants the free trial to be unlimited, it accomplishes nothing.

You can't even go anywhere. Or do anything or obtain any gear worth a damn. No AH. No trades. Nearly impossible to get materials to craft.

It is completely *** pointless thinly veiled as an improvement.

There are some issues with the free trial to 75

- Cannot put anything on Auction House.

- Cannot invite people to a party. So, If a bunch of friends signed up for a free trial together, they would still need at least one person to be subbed, otherwise they can't form parties.

- Cap of 100k gil. No trading or bazaar. Only 10 fish catches per day.

- Can't send /tell, but can reply to a /tell. No yells or shouts allowed, but I believe party chat works,

- Limited on which jobs you can play and which areas you can visit.

- You can summon up to 3 trusts, but won't be able to get more.

It's a pretty limited experience, but one that could be worked around if people really want to play this game on the official servers for free with others.

isn't the fish bit only for the first 2 weeks / level 20?

Does it make a difference?
(it does not)

The AH limitation is understandable given how key that is to much of the games economy as is trading/bazaars for potential abuse, the rest seems like a shot in the foot though should have at least given up to CoP, maybe AU but CoP at least gives you basically full access to the mainland zones, partying especially is core to the game so gating that off just seems silly considering how already limited a trial player is

RoZ, CoP, ToAU, WotG, add-on scenarios & the first part of RoV would be nice.
Leave out Abyssea & SoA since that's post-75 content.

I think the end of WotG was designed for level 90 characters.

Likely, based on Moonshade Earring being lv90.

Wotg offers nothing anyway (sch dnc). CoP and RotZ do.

Trial should just come with all the jobs unlocked. The whole point is try stuff. Can't try half the jobs.

Lists inarguably the best subjob for a solo melee, esp if trusts are unavailable (No trusts is the 75 era meta, is it not???)

Another dogshit take from the president of the FFXIAH Dogshit Take club.

forgot about that, just remembered all WotG up through Fiat Lux are level 75 items.

I doubt much will come of it, if anything it can popular servers with freebie accounts but I seriously doubt people will stay considering most of the game is still locked away lol.

It's a good way to make a thousand accounts on fenrir before it closes and sell them.

Lets you start ticking 45 days and you can clip all 5 genkais, who gives a *** if they get banned there's literally zero investment.

inb4 Eiryl almost single-handedly gets every server locked down due to how many accounts he creates.

If I was going to make a six character mule team, I'd probably do this free trial to 75 before I pulled the trigger and started paying for them.

It would also be interesting if lapsed payment resulted in free trial limitations instead of making it so you can't log in. I bet they would have kept many more players logging in regularly if they could chat in /l for free, and a lot of them would probably bounce between paying and not paying.

There are a TON of (possibly necessary?) restrictions that would make that impossible, most notably free trial players can't trade (no linkshells), form parties, or use the AH/Bazaars.

Leveling from 1-75 on a mule with all these restrictions, plus not having half the advanced jobs, would be a nightmare.

I thought time is money, or is this stuff fully automated by now? It probably also makes a dent in ones electrical bill and I imagine, since SE doesn't earn money with these accounts, it would make sense to dial up the auto ban for those free accounts.


At first I thought it's a attempt to get private server players back on board, too. However, with these restrictions, which most of them admittedly are necessary because otherwise RMT and regular bots would abuse the living poop out of free trail, I doubt it's going to be enough incentive. I don't see where this is better than what a private server offers.

Also lets not forget that these private server players probably also pilled up a crap ton (metric) of sunken cost fallacy by now. I don't think you can lure the majority back without forcing the private servers to close.

Private server people were always stressing how much they want back 75 party play, so if you restrict the possibility to invite each other...


If it's true that you need 1 subscribed player to form a party with free trails it sounds to me much more like they targeting current subscribers. They trying to incentivize more multiboxing by reducing the hurdle of entry in hopes once players invested time into those alts the sunken cost fallacy will tip a lot of them over to start paying for them.

just cut the price of seekers edition permanently (if not to 10, less than 40). they always make so much extra unnecessary work for themselves.

The party invite limitation is very SE and too limiting.

Why restrict socialising in a free trial.

Restricting party invites to only others on free trials makes sense, not everyone.

DO Allow Them: to form parties, to lvl up to 75, unlimited access, to send tells to OTHER PPL on free trial, Allow them all expansions for 75 content (all except WOTG, Aby, add-ons, SoA), hold more than 100k Gil [RoE sparks give 1m per week…], Mog wardrobe 1-2, to join LS, to use /assist chat, buy AH items.

DON’T Allow Them: Sell AH Items, /tell ppl with Sub [can reply to /tells], trade with people.

REMOVE Lvl cap quests. Make them optional.

Upon logging in, GIVE THEM: 50k Gil, All maps to OG and RoZ and COP zones, Brief instructions on where to go, a voucher for sparks‘R/E’ LVL 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75 armor/weapons for a job of their choice so they can feel like they are getting stronger without needing to farm sparks.

I don't think so?

1-75, you're swinging once and your trusts kill the monsters. Do 2 characters at a time using your main as w/e makes sense and killing stuff with Valaineral, Shantotto 2, and Yoran Oran.

Depends on your goals. Let's saying you're making:
GEO (subjob: SCH RDM WHM)
COR (subjob: NIN DNC DRG)
BRD (subjob: NIN DNC WHM)
WHM (subjob: SCH RDM)
PLD (subjob: BLU RUN)

You can't level the bold jobs...

You also can't buy anything, can't get help from anyone for any quest or mission you ever do, etc.

And you have to do each character individually and can't cleave, party up, etc. You don't have access to many EXP camps because they're in future zones. You also can't do a lot of RoV because you're locked out.

edit: actually apparently they CAN be invited to parties, just not make a party themselves. That would make it significantly less annoying, but still fairly pointless. You're gonna spend $100/month on 6boxing for years, but afraid of paying $25 for the < 1 week it takes to get them to 75?

Why would a vet care about any of that.

Those are actual trial player issues not a guy making new boxes.

You really dont need any special buffs 1-75. It's slower, but it's also free. Gear doesn't matter trusts do everything. Buffs dont matter trusts do everything.

You can party, you just can't invite. Get someone to invite your 3 then leave, it won't autobreak the party.

There's a large difference between someone trying XI for the first time and the guy speedrunning a multibox lineup.

The point of a free trial should be to paint the game in the best possible light to attract new players, not continue to skirt around RMT related issues they refuse to address directly.

Yes but no. RMT make up a significant portion of profit, you dont want them playing free chars instead. You also don't want a shitload of new RMT pissing off existing RMT. You certainy don't want 10,000 chinese flooding every server taking over gustaberg again, right. Especially if they aren't paying those subs.

Most of the free trial choices are unnecessary and really stupid, but some are necessary.

If I could get free trial accounts to collect sparks and find a way to trade that'd be tens of thousands of lost sub revenue. And if i could tell from those accounts I'd be an even bigger ***, go ahead ban the account it's free.