For a company trying to get more players into their community they sure are trying their best to separate players from interacting.

Not really, it prevents gold and PL spammers from taking over chat. If you like the game that much, convert it.

I agree, trials should not be permitted to chat. Unfortunate, but gold spamning is horrid in most games when these sort of restrictions aren't in place.

Yes, it does make sense as far as preventing gold spammers but in the context of trying to convince people to play, blocking them from experiencing the community is a bad idea.

It"s a great idea. You don"t need chat to experiance the gameplay mechanix, graphics or gameplay.

Yay! Funcom actually thinking for once!! Death to RMT and goldspammers >(!

I'm currently on a 14 day trial of eve and man i wish there was that restriction in that game too.  It's ridiculous the amount of spammage we get from gold sellers.

isnt it kinda hard to get involved in the organized PvP without the ability to chat? Isnt the PvP THE selling point of AoC?

You don't need to participate in the community to see if you enjoy the game?

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My God, what have MMOs become?

 Its a balanced pay-off .... the community is saved from spam and the gold sellers are throttled from in-game advertising ... but the trial players miss out on one huge area of MMO - the community. I am in favour of chat restrictions every time, I only wish WoW had done it back in the day. 

Originally posted by Bodeus

isnt it kinda hard to get involved in the organized PvP without the ability to chat? Isnt the PvP THE selling point of AoC?

You're not going to experience any organized PvP in 10 days or whatever.

And if you'd paid attention to the advertisements Funcom puts out, the main selling point is apparently M rating, sex, and all the killing animations such as decapitation.

Originally posted by Bodeus

isnt it kinda hard to get involved in the organized PvP without the ability to chat? Isnt the PvP THE selling point of AoC?

How much end game raiding do you expect to get into within 14 days?

No global chat is a good idea for two reasons:

1) Keeps away gold spammers.

2) Keeps Barrens-Chat level stupidity away from the eyes of new players and potential subscribers to the game.

Originally posted by Kaisen_Dexx

You don't need to participate in the community to see if you enjoy the game?

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My God, what have MMOs become?

lol yeah. that is kinda defeating the purpose of an MMO... I dont know, I might try Trail I might not. Is it mostly people solo'ing and PvP from time to time?

I agree no chat hurts, but they should allow PM and group chat for trails.. not world chat..

Originally posted by handshakes

Originally posted by Bodeus

isnt it kinda hard to get involved in the organized PvP without the ability to chat? Isnt the PvP THE selling point of AoC?

 

How much end game raiding do you expect to get into within 14 days?

No global chat is a good idea for two reasons:

1) Keeps away gold spammers.

2) Keeps Barrens-Chat level stupidity away from the eyes of new players and potential subscribers to the game.

So are you saying there's no organized PvP until endgame in a supposedly PvP focused game?

And you apparently agree with hiding things from potential players that may drive them away solely to get them to give Funcom some money. Sure you're not fishing for a commission?

#1) AoC is not PvP focused, the PvP was tacted on.

#2) I thought all of the gold farmers left when they found out gold was pretty much worthless in this game as there is nothing much worth buying.

Frankly, I've not even given the trial a shot yet (new vidcard on order/not here yet, and I'm almost forcing myself to wait for 1.05), but I'm damn happy to see they're not allowing chat for trials.

A lot of the point for this trial is giving players the opportunity to see if the game will even run for them, and to try out the combat mechanics.  The reality of it is, you can digitally buy this game for $20, which is peanuts to begin with, and can find it cheaper elsewhere if you choose to look.  It's not like you're taking a $50 dive if you really want to get a deeper experience once you know you're interested, and 7-14 days is way more than ample to determine if you want to give a game a real shot for a month.

Besides, I'm like some others here - what are you expecting to do in the 7-14 days you get for free?  Look at this trial like demos of the days of old - a quick glimpse to see if it hooks you.  If it does it does, and if it doesn't, move along.  Just because the trial's not so restrictive as to cut you off at like, level 10, doesn't mean you have to power through as much as you can to see everything before you buy it.

Originally posted by sanedor

I agree no chat hurts, but they should allow PM and group chat for trails.. not world chat..

PM's would still be abused my the Gold Spammers.

Having the policy of no chat for Trials is the very least Funcom can instigate to ensure the paying customers are not bombarded with unsolicited messages and advertisments , other MMO's have adopted the same policy and Funcom are just following the same path.

Turbine did the same thing.. It knocked the bottom out the gold spammers world, it sucks that companies have to do this but it works.

They're not doing it to limit people's fun. Sadly, it's a needed precaution because gold spammers will immediately invade like a swarm of cock-a-roaches.

Yep,  WOW, LOTRO, WAR and every other game except EVE does the same thing.   There is just too much room for abuse, and really in 7-14 days, you really don't communicate that much with other players.

Originally posted by Bodeus

isnt it kinda hard to get involved in the organized PvP without the ability to chat? Isnt the PvP THE selling point of AoC?

yeah sieging is the selling point to age of conan, but you wont do that till wel after your trial is up. chat is not needed for the trial, you either like it or you dont.

At least with this game they give trials their own chat channel to talk about the game with.  Was very active on the Wiccana server all day yesterday.

Trial channel was overflowing with scrolling chat all day, I'd say a good half of the chat was coming from veteran's of the game coming back to try it again and the other part of the chat was discussion about newbie questions, what class is good...how this game compares to war and wow etc...the typical chat you would expect.  So yeah.  Try and know wtf you guys are talking about next time.  You can chat in Trial chat all day, they just don't want gold spammers to make trial accounts to spam their paying customers, is that so hard to understand?

As many others have said it is because of gold sellers and PL ads. I remember the first trial in WOW, you had loads of goldesller and PL sites using trial accounts simply to advertise for the game. And trust me you lot would be happy that they have limitied if anyone of you knew how bad it was in WoW. Imagine 6 different companies all spamming chat royally until they got banned, then they get a new trial account rinse and repeat.

It was impossible for normal players to have a conversation at all at times.

Wow, I've never been acused of shilling or a game developer. Well rest assured, I don't work for Funcom, nor am I some Fanboy. I just play the trial, and I'm just pointing out stupid arguments people post. Including yours. Here we go:

Putting on a good front for players is EXACTLY the point of game trials/demos. When has a game developer ever loaded a demo up with the worst content their game has to offer? The Gears of War 2 demos at E3 never showed any of the crappy vehicle sequences, but nobody ever accused Epic of hiding things from potential players that may drive them away solely to get them to give Epic money. You know why players didn't say that? Because that would be asinine. Yet here you are...

Now I know you are one of those weirdos that took the crappy release of AoC to heart for some strange (likely perverse) reason, but the fishing for commision bit is a far fetched conspiracy theory even by your standards. Really, I'm surprised that your rectum has enough room for both your head AND your tin foil hat.

Now I'm off, back to enjoying my free trial to a game that I likely won't subscribe to anyway. Unless my master plan here works and I get my big fat commision payment.