How much time do a new player need to understand the game? It is a question needing research.
For a person who understand the aviation and geography, if the demand is high and competation is not fierce(new server), 15 days is enough. I build a base in lhasa in 2014, when the airport is not transferable, so 70% flights fly empty. I read the instructions and understand why.
As an experienced player, I found it quite difficult to start at an old server such as kaitak, or RUN airport in a server of one month old. 15 days and 10 million will now work.
For a person who is not familiar with airlines, I have no idea. In free1, I see some new players restart some times to get the business running.
Such as Shanxi Airlines, he builds Datong and Linfen as hub, where is not transferable, and get an T204 from loan purchase, whose installments consum large amount of money.
The free servers are effectively a fig leave: We require a permanent free tier to be able to have the game on Steam (it’s complicated). But we do not want to endorse them beyond a simple “demo”. In a perfect world, AS would still be “pay to be play” with 60 free credits to give it a try for free, as it has been for almost two decades before we went to Steam.
As a new player who’s been going for around four weeks now I can really see where OP is coming from and what appears to be an issue, at least to me, when it comes to the new player experience: you can either play on short lived free servers or jump into paid worlds that have been going for so long establishing a foothold is a challenge. You’re competing against players who’ve had more time, taken all the valuable (and probably easier) slots and can undercut you on routes where you start competing with them. On top of that they’re probably much more experienced, understanding which knobs they can turn to outcompete far better than the new player can.
One can argue that this (competition) is the whole point of the game, and to some extent I agree, but is it what we want new players to experience?
OP’s suggestion does two things, it allows new players to experiment on newly reset worlds and therefore more even footing, and it allows AS to convert those players into paid users who continue their enterprise. A year long period (or say, 9 months) will hopefully learn the player enough to either jump into an existing long-term world or will give them enough time during which they’re playing the game and paying for it to start on a new medium/long term world when one is to be spinned up, where they can start from day 1 to compete.
I can imagine a game like this struggling to attract and retain players, and for me if bleriot hadn’t been started up during the period I was playing around on the free world’s I doubt I’d have still stuck around, feeling like the free world experience is too short lived and the longer lived servers are too hard to compete on or join an alliance in.
There are short term worlds starting regularly that last almost a year. Even if a short term world has been running for 2 to 3 months there is still tons of opportunities available, so if you miss starting on Day One of one of those servers it doesn’t mean you can’t build a successful airline.
Those short term servers are the next natural step after free servers.
I don’t disagree, it just feels like OP’s suggestion is a more natural path forward and a more “integrated” path to tempt players who onboard on a free world to continue playing beyond that.
I like the idea of free servers converting into paid temporary worlds. I wouldn’t wanna play there but it might be a usefull thing for new players. And could bring in extra revenue.
I might sound like a dinosaur but I think the expectations of new players today has changed compared to how it used to be. AS is a complex game and takes time to learn. Usually multiple years. Back when I started new players used to start flying props in places like Yemen, Bolivia, Nepal, Mozambique, etc. The ambition wasn’t to have 1000s of planes and dominate a big market but instead build a small but profitable airline. That way you learn the basics of the game and in time will be able to challenge the big guys.
Nowadays new players seem to see the large markets in older game worlds and believe the world is full. It isn’t. There are plenty of great opportunities on all worlds.
If anyone needs help to learn the game and build a big carrier come to Idlewild. We are a group of old experienced players who would love to help those who want to learn the game.