Some thoughts as a former free trial player

[TheHoodedHobo]

I've been subbed for almost 3 years now and was partially not subbed before because of finances. I played the free trial a couple of times previously and bounced off because I just never really had anyone to play with. I finished ARR, always burned out in HW, came back a year later and repeated. But now that I've subbed I know the problem. If I had been able to experience the game with parties, free companies, etc earlier I would have subscribed so much earlier and stayed subscribed.

Some of the free trial restrictions are to prevent botting I understand that but if you add a way for a free trial player to become verified and then become able to be invited to FCs (prob keep FCs invite only) and form their own parties I think less players will bounce off the game and find a community. The free trial now goes to the end of shadowbringers which took me almost 500 hours from ARR to end of Shadowbringers when I first played through the expacs. 500 hours of no guilds, only being able to be invited to parties and not being able to form them yourself. That's rough. Yes I think the restrictions to lessen botting issues are a very very good thing. But I think letting free trial players have access to this feature after some form of verification will give you more subscribers. Even if they don't all subscribe some will tell their friends and some of those friends may subscribe.

Yes, some people break down during leveling and subscribe for this very reason, but others like me just stopped playing. I would have been subbed for 7 maybe 8 years if I had access to guilds from the get-go and knew the game was good XD. But instead I bounced off and only ended up subbing for 2(coming up on 3 later this year.)