Demo Client

Perhaps including the 4th mission could be an idea?

That way, you show both the basics, and a bit of what the (early), actual missions are going to be - whereas showing just the 3 first missions might give people a slightly more distorted view.
That, and ending the Demo at that point might also be more of a cliff-hanger for some, introducing them to the story as well as the mechanics.

Anyway, I just woke up with a pounding headache, so I might just be ranting.. eh, I mean.. ranting more than usual.

 

I think that, if I were a new player, I might be less inclined to join the game if a live-event had passed and I missed participating. But on the other hand, it is roughly half of the content currently available. Tough call.

 

Good counter-point.

I definitely think having a Demo sooner rather than later would be beneficial, as I can imagine a lot of potential Agent might be intrigued, but simply not sure what they're getting themselves into.
So perhaps include the first 3 introduction missions, as you initially intended, and then later in the Season add in the first few non-introductory missions as the final demo?

As Nikel suggested, the Live Event could potentially pull in a lot of players - so perhaps opening it up to those testing the Demo could be a possibility?


Seems like there's pros and cons for each option - tough call indeed :S

 

This is a question that came in my mind this morning, yeah -- how demo players are treated, plus how to keep players coming in at the end of the season, actually.

I think including them in the first live event would be a wise move. Find a way to alert them and then rope them in.

Maybe give late entry players a $5 discount for Season 2?

I'm on mobile so my thoughts are abridged and scattered but this should be enough.

 

I think I would do both. I would a demo out of the 3 training missions (since someone not familiar with ARGs will take its time to solve them) and the I would give access to 1 live event. This way players will get a better idea of what this is al about.

 

I think the three trainers are sufficient.
I agree that it is a distorted view, they are low difficulty and they aren't main story.
But on the other hand, I think they give a fair presentation of *how* the game is played. Codebreaking, websearches, Agency database and so on. That isn't very different from other games where you play the noob levels for free.
You also get a glance at the dark humor in the briefing videos.
Regarding live content - the IRC channel isn't locked down and most of the live action happens there. They'll get the 'vibe' but only as much of the story as they can see there. But then there is a problem with how to make sure they only lurk...

 

On an unrelated side note, it might be a good idea to make it more clear that this is technically a season pass and have a "more content to be released gradually over the next 3 months" thing in HUGE bold letters. Knowing the general steam public, not making those things extremely clear might lead to a lot of negative reviews.

 

I would limit the official demo to just the training missions. Perhaps at a later date another bonus real one could be added.

However, as Sonne pointed out the IRC and forums are currently open for anyone who simply takes the time to register. Non agents would miss out on official communication of information or clues, but almost everything is posted by agents in one of those two places anyway. Someone absolutely determined to participate for free can currently do so at least to some degree. However, I don't really expect anyone in IRC or forums to say "go away you non-paying persons" at this stage. I , for one, would welcome them as potential recruits. I think the only thing that might really bug people is if non agents were able to actually solve the mission for the group. I'd be fine with preventing that by simply requiring the client or some other tool requiring actual agent credentials in order to complete the mission.

For now, maybe instead of sending official demo players the actual agent email you could just send them a separately crafted notice the next time a live event launches or perhaps after it has progressed for a bit and invite them witness it in action. It's really just a matter of targeting them with a different kind of message: invitation to watch instead of agent instructions. You could do this one time per Zerosh's suggestion.

For later, I think this all does bring up some issues that will require more thought to better address down the the road.

 

I agree with Rohve and Sonne. Demo the training missions - they let people get their feet wet. The live events don't tend to be that exclusive, most of it takes place in IRC and in googledocs, nothing locked. Technically they missed out on seeing the situation room clip but the results are posted in the forum.

You can post something at the end of the demo (at least for the time being) that a live event is about to take place and the Black Watchmen are doing a working interview of sorts, please feel free to join the other new agents by monitoring the IRC channel and the forums.

 

To give a broader picture, what about including the three training missions and then something self-contained, like the occult murder investigation from the alpha (would the lack of flashy video briefings/debriefings hurt it too much? demos are often early/rough versions)? Without giving away too much of the first batch of missions, that would give both a "what the hell am I doing here" orientation for players new to ARGs, as well as something that shows what sort of puzzles the real missions get into - that it's more than just "type the code from a picture into a translation site".

-Bats