Paid areas, Telling the player where they can't go Options

[Amy Pond]

I am wondering the best ways of telling a player when they can't enter an area that you need to have perhaps the full game to enter.

RuneScape does this rather bluntly - "you can only do this on a member's world" or something like.

Adventure Quest is a little more in-your-face with a page saying you must be a Guardian and leading you to a purchase page.

Another alternative is just to hide the thing altogether. Only make said door, gate, etc appear if you're playing the full version. This might make the free game easier to play, but it doesn't show the effect of the paid game having a huge extra world very well.

Then another way would be to have some sort of in-game storyline thing replacing "paid accounts" - players who have bought the game become "knights" - then instead of saying "you have to pay to enter here", the game subtly says "you must be a knight", or "you must have the king's favour", or something like that.

Anyway, thought it would be an interesting discussion.

[Kulimar]

I personally don't like it when a game comes to a screeching halt and rips me out of the experience by reminding me that I'm being a cheapskate

If possible, I would try to hide these areas and weave them into the storyworld as "mysterious", "forbidden", or "forsaken realms", etc. and then when users pay for the full game, you actually show these being unlocked or tie why they are open into the story somehow.

The other alternative is to have the paid version's information OUTSIDE of the main game, but positioned on the title screen or in a HUD or menu somewhere. It's OK for that type of 4th wall breaking information to be there, because the player is in a different mindset at that time.

Those are my thoughts on it anyway.

-Sage