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Good question. If you sub, your account is locked into P2P mode and you can't go back to F2P. Some people like freedom and flexibility and don't want to get locked in.

Yuengblood

Good question. If you sub, your account is locked into P2P mode and you can't go back to F2P. Some people like freedom and flexibility and don't want to get locked in.

This is something i have never really understood tbh .

I would think that letting people sub here and there , then when it expires locking the skills to whatever the Unlimited Trial cap is would work better .

Wurm Online ( not trying to promote it ) does exactly that . It has an unlimited length , skill locked trial where all skills are capped at a value of 20 ( max being 100 ) . If you subscribe ( buy Premium ) , you can raise your skills above 20 , and also build things like stone houses , ride carts / sailboats etc ( which are all just out of skill reach of free players ) .
Once your Premium expires , you can still log in and play , but your skills become artifically capped at 20 again ( note you don't lose them , they just become blocked ) and you lose the ability to do the things a premium can , until you resubscribe once more .

The only thing they really need to make possible is paypall payments (even if it would cost more it's just so easy and most ppl have it already, I've actually seen f2p's leave because they couldn't pay with paypall)

what about packers, appartement, gh, gear, ...

everything that homin has would be lost till he subs he wouldn't be able to access his packers/app/gh, ...
the stuff he's wearing should be auto unequiped (wrong lvl)
and so on

I probably could pay for someone else's subscription if there was a WG-sanctioned (as in use ryzom.com to credit it, not send the cash to their paypal)system in place for it. Person bribes me with materials or a pocket-healing service of pre-agreed conditions, I pay in 5-10-15-30 day cards.

Would allow people to subscribe with the current system, except you can go on guild chat and say "uh guys.. my sub dies in 3 days and my paycheck is 2 weeks behind (freelancer woes.. sigh)" and score 3x 5day cards. Naturally, anyone who bypasses the Ryzomcard (tm) and goes to cash for mats risks the sanctions any normal MMO would give out for it. LOTS Item Mall games allow the sale of mall items for in-game cash, of course balance goes out the window hence why I don't even MENTION selling items, not even cosmetic. Ours is a slightly different case to say the least =D

(Would be nice to get some official reply on these lines of thought in this thread)
/rant off

I would think that letting people sub here and there , then when it expires locking the skills to whatever the Unlimited Trial cap is would work better .

Subox

what about packers, appartement, gh, gear, ...

everything that homin has would be lost till he subs he wouldn't be able to access his packers/app/gh, ...
the stuff he's wearing should be auto unequiped (wrong lvl)
and so on

yes ...

I understand your concerns but what you seem to be asking for is a reduced sub for part-time players.

If I was in the situation your example student is in, I would sub for 3 months (or whatever), then let it lapse and play an F2P character part-time. Then when I can play full time again, re-sub and go back to the main character.