Worth starting up as a new player?

[Gxeternal]

I played the 7 day trial and had fun while playing it, but im wondering if there is enough of a population to bother starting this game on a regular basis.
How is the population at both lower and max levels? Will a new player be able to find people to run with and not just run through the world solo all the time?

[agnow]

You should be able to start up but theres not many levelling .. the game is best at max level, but levelling isn't so slow.. While you level you could always chat in the channels.. very firendly and helpsome community, you could always chat a little while you level.. but the time i have been levelling i have seen some run around and quest in the same are .. so it aint that dead, just pick the right server

[Structures]

if you go on a high pop server you'll have a decent amount of people to level with

[Lathais]

I just started a few weeks ago and am having a blast. There's plenty of population, we even get pretty good que times in the lower PvP brackets most of the time. Never have issues finding a group for dungeons either. Seastone btw.

[Primalthirst]

I'd have to say that I always find the levelling pop to be low in comparison with the end-game pop.
But then I would estimate over 90% of characters to be max level and it isn't uncommon to see hundreds of players out in the world doing zone events.

My advice would be that when you level try to queue for dungeons and warfronts fairly regularly to break up the questing experience a bit.
I find all questing boring in all games though, you may be different.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

After level 30, there's really only one leveling path (via questing, at least). That means everyone leveling up through questing is working through the same zone(s) as you. Additionally, players are always participating in zone events, they're fishing, or out collecting artifacts, regardless of zone level. Unless you're playing at 3am, you're going to find plenty of folk around. Even if you spent the entire leveling experience alone, you've got a buff that'll help you wipe rifts off the map with ease, and multiple specs to allow you to fill any role in dungeons or PvP as a temporary escape from questing.

Honestly, there's never a bad time to start playing Rift. There are so many distractions and alternate activities that you could easily spend a month leveling up, just for the sake of seeing and experiencing it all. At 50 it won't take much effort to find a guild. Just find yourself a medium pop server and you're set. If you're not content with the server, you're free to transfer your character(s) every seven days at no cost to you.

Outside of F2P, you're not going to find a better deal (or opportunity) anywhere.

[Edison]

Been thinking of starting up Rift again, If i'm on a high-pop server how many people is there in each zone on a normal day peak time?

[Azuri]

Been thinking of starting up Rift again, If i'm on a high-pop server how many people is there in each zone on a normal day peak time?

I've never actually sat there and counted people but the game is full of people at max level in the max level areas of the game. When a world event launches in Ember Isle there can be I'd say as many as 40 to 80 of each faction participating in the event. Rift is designed to get people out in the world not sit in the city and wait for ques to pop.

A random video one time to indicate the average participation in a said event.

[Atreyu82]

heh nice video Azuri, but why nyancat for the music >.<

[Azuri]

heh nice video Azuri, but why nyancat for the music >.<

Ugh it was done by request some time ago by a guildy who was nyan freak. I did some tweak on youtube that is changing the music to anything but that atm. Hopefully it works.

[mavfin]

I would not start up as a new player. Rift was pretty awesome for a while, but now they've gone the 'raid or die' route. You can no longer get any gear progression in the things that made Rift unique - rifts and the dynamic outdoor things. They made a new set of raid/instance gear, but nothing new for those who want to do what makes Rift different from other MMOs. If I just want to raid, there's lots of MMOs, and definitely others besides Rift where I have many more friends to raid with.

I have active time for a few more months (I paid for six months, thinking they'd keep their outdoor progression up with the rest, faith in Trion was misplaced, it seems.), so we'll see what they can do before then, but I cancelled the recurring part of my sub today.

[Azuri]

I would not start up as a new player. Rift was pretty awesome for a while, but now they've gone the 'raid or die' route. You can no longer get any gear progression in the things that made Rift unique - rifts and the dynamic outdoor things. They made a new set of raid/instance gear, but nothing new for those who want to do what makes Rift different from other MMOs. If I just want to raid, there's lots of MMOs, and definitely others besides Rift where I have many more friends to raid with.

I have active time for a few more months (I paid for six months, thinking they'd keep their outdoor progression up with the rest, faith in Trion was misplaced, it seems.), so we'll see what they can do before then, but I cancelled the recurring part of my sub today.

They just did a raid patch which was long over due, sheez next patch will address the next group/type of players.

[mavfin]

They just did a raid patch which was long over due, sheez next patch will address the next group/type of players.

Like I said, they have a few months to fix. I can put my CC number back in there anytime if they make those changes, and they've already got my money till late August. But I'm not going to go on blind faith this time.

[Djuntas]

Like I said, they have a few months to fix. I can put my CC number back in there anytime if they make those changes, and they've already got my money till late August. But I'm not going to go on blind faith this time.

Just my problem aswell. Raid or dont do anything. Got capped to fast within like 1-1½ month, then just stopped sadly again in Rift. It's a great exsperience first 10 days /played trough. I did try plenty of world raids, and 1 guild-raid, but its not much different from wow so why bother.

[Primalthirst]

Just my problem aswell. Raid or dont do anything. Got capped to fast within like 1-1½ month, then just stopped sadly again in Rift. It's a great exsperience first 10 days /played trough. I did try plenty of world raids, and 1 guild-raid, but its not much different from wow so why bother.

If you capped out your Planar Conqueror (Open World BiS) set in a month then you are playing a helluva lot.
That's like 6k+ ISS which means you needed to do 20+ Zone events a day, and they take 20-30mins or more depending on server.
If you're doing one aspect of the game for over 10 hours a day then I'm not surprised you got bored.

The reason you would bother is if you enjoy the game more. Some do, some don't.

[mavfin]

If you capped out your Planar Conqueror (Open World BiS) set in a month then you are playing a helluva lot.
That's like 6k+ ISS which means you needed to do 20+ Zone events a day, and they take 20-30mins or more depending on server.
If you're doing one aspect of the game for over 10 hours a day then I'm not surprised you got bored.

The reason you would bother is if you enjoy the game more. Some do, some don't.

Point is, once that's capped, you're done. You either raid if you want to advance your gear, or quit. If they change that, I'll resub. Easy.

If I want to raid, I have an MMO full of wonderful friends to raid with. I didn't start playing Rift to raid again.

[Tarien]

Point is, once that's capped, you're done. You either raid if you want to advance your gear, or quit. If they change that, I'll resub. Easy.

Raiders could say the same, but they don't blame Trion when they run out of content because they rushed through the content playing every night and now there is nothing for them to do. It's not Trion's fault that you burnt through the one aspect of the game that you enjoy, they have a bunch of other people interested in a bunch of other things that need satisfying. Maybe you should try some of those other things. HK is an awesome raid, as good as Ulduar was, not set foot in ID yet but I hear it's just as fun.

[Baelskar]

I thought it was pretty cool at first, but I didn't have a raiding guild that would fit my times. Not alot for me todo. I tried it again after the Instance Action, what was alright for about 2 hours then it was the same grind for me. PvP was alright but really clunky for me. Just me though, the game isn't aimed at my kinda play style or for guys with my kinda play time, still super pretty of a game though running around after hitting level 50 when it launched looking at stuff was pretty cool.

Just my take on it.

[mavfin]

Raiders could say the same, but they don't blame Trion when they run out of content because they rushed through the content playing every night and now there is nothing for them to do. It's not Trion's fault that you burnt through the one aspect of the game that you enjoy, they have a bunch of other people interested in a bunch of other things that need satisfying. Maybe you should try some of those other things. HK is an awesome raid, as good as Ulduar was, not set foot in ID yet but I hear it's just as fun.

Tarien, you got a new raid. I have nothing more to shoot for now. Easy for you to say the above, when you got what you wanted; a new raid, and a new tier of gear to get that I have no equivalent to in my part of Rift. I didn't pick Rift to raid. I could do that already where I was.

Anyway, as I said, they have some time to correct it, like 4 months time. So, if they come up with another tier of IS gear and some more rift content, I'll stick around. If not, then, it's just another raid-centric themepark MMO, and I don't need another one.

[Tarien]

Tarien, you got a new raid. I have nothing more to shoot for now. Easy for you to say the above, when you got what you wanted; a new raid, and a new tier of gear to get that I have no equivalent to in my part of Rift. I didn't pick Rift to raid. I could do that already where I was.

Yes, we have a new raid, after four patches of content that were not raid related at all. Talk about entitled players

If you want a game that isn't centred around raids, try GW2 or TERA, but that is the model that has been in RIFT since day one, there were raids at launch, there will always be raids. I am sure another tier of gear available through the planar route will appear and the next few patches will definitely not be raid related now that ID is out. Show a little patience and maturity, you're making more noise than all the raiders in RIFT and they had to wait considerably longer for the content they wanted.