Is RIFT still what it was like?

[Deleted]

Hi,

Haven't played RIFT in a while and recently departed most games due to real-life circumstances and little time really.

I'm not exactly looking into getting into an MMORPG and this is just a general question - out of interest for Trion's playerbase!

I bought RIFT on the day of release, pretty stoked in hope to find something that would give me the same feeling I had when I first joined WoW - getting lost everywhere and having no clue what Orgrimmar (the city) was!

Unfortunately, I didn't get this - probably due to the long-term experience I've now had with MMO's, I suppose - if only I could erase my memory, huh? :P

So - is RIFT still going strong, in comparison to how it was at release? It seemed very lively but a few months after I returned for a few days and it seemed, well, rather dead and I found a lot of players ignoring my questions etc. and being somewhat unhelpful - although, I didn't tell them that. Lol.

Let me know, and sorry for the essay

[Sleepysnik]

Would call it anything but dead really. With the combination of mentoring/instant adventures even the low level zones now have usually crawling with people. Also they just did some hardware upgrades which let them merge servers into "mega servers" without using phasing and the likes. My server now peaks at medium, usually hangs around low. And it's FAR from a ghost town. They said part of the reason was to prepare for the upcoming expansion.

Anyways, kinda had the same feeling when I started Rift. Wow probably seasoned me too much to get that overwhelming feeling in new MMOs. But Rift still has me going, so much to do
I can recommend the secret world for a refreshing take on the mmo genre tho. Some rather challenging(!) parts, and if you want to you can play it like a single player RPG, GREAT story. Since I'm not raiding in Rift I figured I would check it out before the Rift expansion. Not bored for a second, paying at least as much attention to story as I did with games like Skyrim and The Witcher 2.

[DeltrusDisc]

Totally agree with Trlz in regards to Rift, things have really livened up. There is so much to do, and if you're on one of the higher pop shards (I am personally on Deepwood US, one of the biggest shards) then you have a pretty good chance to meet a LOT of people. Frankly in the evening I'll go into Meridian and it will be PACKED yet on top of that, there will be several entire raids going on, people out there doing IAs, events, invasions, and all sorts of things. Rift is certainly going strong!

[Arthzil]

And I disagree... tried returning but after almost falling asleep waiting for warfront I just gave up... I did finally get in, but it wasn't even half full... shards are being shut down one by one in Europe and most that are up there barely ever see high population. It's not dead but getting there, expansion is prepared only so they don't hit the rock bottom on the wave of MoP and GW2.

[Tarien]

And I disagree... tried returning but after almost falling asleep waiting for warfront I just gave up... I did finally get in, but it wasn't even half full... shards are being shut down one by one in Europe and most that are up there barely ever see high population. It's not dead but getting there, expansion is prepared only so they don't hit the rock bottom on the wave of MoP and GW2.

Considering that all of Europe is one huge battlegroup I think you queued as a low non-50 character at some obscure hour of the night (if you did at all). There have been server merges recently - but only to alleviate the issues with the games population polarizing on just a couple of servers. This allowed more hardware for the busier servers (they merged the server hardware too) and generally more players per server all round.

Considering that the Conquest groups fill almost instantly and they are 200 vs 200 vs 200 I cannot see how the game is dead tbh. World events are still jam packed on my server (Icewatch), and the city is actually somewhere I avoid during peak hours as it is so busy.

[Fencers]

It's the most robustly updated and supported MMO on the current market. An expansion is coming in a few months and the game is profitable enough to allow Trion development of 2 other major projects. Rift is still privately owned as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift_%2...ontent_updates

[DeltrusDisc]

It's the most robustly updated and supported MMO on the current market. An expansion is coming in a few months and the game is profitable enough to allow Trion development of 2 other major projects. Rift is still privately owned as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift_%2...ontent_updates

jeeeeez. Really puts into perspective how fast they update content! Though 1.6 to 1.7 and 1.8 to 1.9 have been slightly longer intervals, however I won't hold it against them, not like it is 6+ months.

[Slipmat]

This.....is..... RIFT !!!




Eh, so is this



Videos were made before Ember Isle came out which was another step up in graphics

[Deleted]

All i can say is that Blightweald has between 200-300 people on line lately both factions, without ever checking the peak hours that usually are 20:30-23:30, since i am busy wiping on spine :P.
even with 300 people on line, the population is stuck at "low". Sign that the servers must have increased capacity.

As i am looking back in time, the 1 year anniversary was a golden oportunity, the hype and the positive energy could boost the game above 500k but in the process, i think the haste to push out content fast caused problems.
Maybe it would have been better to hold ID one week more, and predict the situation in icewatch the first weeks after conquest went live.

For conquest it self pre fixes i have not an opinion, but it seems that it become a camp farm and a zerg head to head onslaught, without that being the intention of the BG. Some people were dissapointed, and now, that it got hotfixed, some other people are dissapointed.

I am sure it will get better, but next patch should be more carefully implemented, cause some errors at launch, destroy the tons of work those people are putting into making the game better! And after a few days it is working as intended, but in the mean time the damage has been done :S

[Deleted]

Hi,

Haven't played RIFT in a while and recently departed most games due to real-life circumstances and little time really.

I'm not exactly looking into getting into an MMORPG and this is just a general question - out of interest for Trion's playerbase!

I bought RIFT on the day of release, pretty stoked in hope to find something that would give me the same feeling I had when I first joined WoW - getting lost everywhere and having no clue what Orgrimmar (the city) was!

Unfortunately, I didn't get this - probably due to the long-term experience I've now had with MMO's, I suppose - if only I could erase my memory, huh? :P

So - is RIFT still going strong, in comparison to how it was at release? It seemed very lively but a few months after I returned for a few days and it seemed, well, rather dead and I found a lot of players ignoring my questions etc. and being somewhat unhelpful - although, I didn't tell them that. Lol.

Let me know, and sorry for the essay

People move from server to server, and perhaps your first server of choice had been a half-dead one when you joined again, and today it might be a trial server. Free server transfers is good in that point which means that you can join a populated one now. I always experienced the rift community to be a really helpful one. Sure there's elitists and trolls but if you ask there's usually someone who help. It's also easy to find guilds. Sure, there's spaminvites to scrubguilds but people even whisper and ask you to join more serious guilds. You feel very welcome in Rift by the community, or that's at least my opinion. You just need to be where the people are =)

If you are a pve person I cant see why you would play any other mmo than Rift. There are many raids, and tricky raids and also pve content over your head. They succeeded very well in that field. However, if you are a pvp player... don't expect it to be the best game out there =) Pvp is the weak side of Rift, and they have lost plenty of pvp players from the game and are likely to lose more. So, go pve as main direction if you want to play rift, it's more a pleasent surprise while pvp is more of a letdown :P I mainly pvp and resubbed to rift to try conquest and it's been hell of a ride and Trion ended up turning it into more pve focus, as in what they do best =) So I will just play the free days and then wait for other game that cater my need for pvp better =)

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 06:25 AM ----------

Considering that all of Europe is one huge battlegroup I think you queued as a low non-50 character at some obscure hour of the night (if you did at all). There have been server merges recently - but only to alleviate the issues with the games population polarizing on just a couple of servers. This allowed more hardware for the busier servers (they merged the server hardware too) and generally more players per server all round.

Considering that the Conquest groups fill almost instantly and they are 200 vs 200 vs 200 I cannot see how the game is dead tbh. World events are still jam packed on my server (Icewatch), and the city is actually somewhere I avoid during peak hours as it is so busy.

Sure it's not dead yet, but neither GW2 or MoP has been released :P

[Zetno]

So, go pve as main direction if you want to play rift, it's more a pleasent surprise while pvp is more of a letdown :P I mainly pvp and resubbed to rift to try conquest and it's been hell of a ride and Trion ended up turning it into more pve focus, as in what they do best =) So I will just play the free days and then wait for other game that cater my need for pvp better =)[COLOR="red"]

I'm not a raider at all, in fact my main end game focus is PVP. I have a rank 50 warrior and and I really don't see any other AAA game out there on the market with more enjoyable PVP than Rift. I don't like arenas, and I think the warfronts in Rift are nicer than in WoW. I'm not subbing to SWTOR because I'm not giving money to EA. I've pre-purchased GW2, but I still have 6 months of Rift sub and I'll still be playing that too.

[Deleted]

I'm not a raider at all, in fact my main end game focus is PVP. I have a rank 50 warrior and and I really don't see any other AAA game out there on the market with more enjoyable PVP than Rift. I don't like arenas, and I think the warfronts in Rift are nicer than in WoW. I'm not subbing to SWTOR because I'm not giving money to EA. I've pre-purchased GW2, but I still have 6 months of Rift sub and I'll still be playing that too.

Well, isnt it lonely at the top? Because I dont think there is ever r50s only vs r50s only in warfronts? It's usually who has more of highest rank and they gy camp the others. Sure, being able to kill lots of people because you outgear them might appeal to some people =) But I'd rather have ease up the gear grind to make more equvivalence in warfronts, because the warfronts themselves aren't too bad, they are rather fun. It's just that some people try to gear up and some people roflm stomp the ones who try to, and none of the warfront has such great graveyard that you enjoy spending hours on them.

[DeltrusDisc]

This.....is..... RIFT !!!

This was awesome, I wish we could do these flying effects. =/ I'd be all over that, though I'd probably abuse it to death! XD

Eh, so is this

That Life-Death rift is weird, and never fully spawns... weird.

Videos were made before Ember Isle came out which was another step up in graphics

Blocked in USA by content claims from EMI?! Wtf. The USA.... one of the biggest potential viewers. Gah, screw you, licensing shitheads.

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 09:19 AM ----------

And I disagree... tried returning but after almost falling asleep waiting for warfront I just gave up... I did finally get in, but it wasn't even half full... shards are being shut down one by one in Europe and most that are up there barely ever see high population. It's not dead but getting there, expansion is prepared only so they don't hit the rock bottom on the wave of MoP and GW2.

Like Tarien, I must say you must not be level 50, because I can queue for a WF and be in in a few minutes or less.

As for waves leaving for MoP/GW2?

I know NO ONE in Rift who has ANY interest at all in returning to WoW, and that's quite a few people. People in Rift will literally laugh at the idea of WoW, we all respect it for what it was, but Rift is a great WoW 2.0, essentially. As for GW2? Yeah, some are thinking of going, but I've met more people who are like "it's just another over-hyped game like SWTOR and Diablo 3 were." While that may be a fair assumption, I do personally think GW2 may do fairly well, though I really wonder, I'm just going to see. GW2 is really for a very niche market though, tbf, and I don't think that is really Rift players. We have our 3 faction pvp, and it is awesome, GW2 players can have theirs.

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 09:24 AM ----------

Well, isnt it lonely at the top? Because I dont think there is ever r50s only vs r50s only in warfronts? It's usually who has more of highest rank and they gy camp the others. Sure, being able to kill lots of people because you outgear them might appeal to some people =) But I'd rather have ease up the gear grind to make more equvivalence in warfronts, because the warfronts themselves aren't too bad, they are rather fun. It's just that some people try to gear up and some people roflm stomp the ones who try to, and none of the warfront has such great graveyard that you enjoy spending hours on them.

Frankly I am on Deepwood US and am just recently rank 26, and the teams seem fairly evenly matched. I know they were trying to implement r50vr50 pvp, but they are having trouble. (Legitimately shocking.) Sometimes of course, one team will dominate the other fairly well, but it's never been so bad that I was like, wow wtf? This isn't WoW where you have a crap ton of top-pvpers going into BGs and steam-rolling the other team. ;p

[Deleted]

Like Tarien, I must say you must not be level 50, because I can queue for a WF and be in in a few minutes or less.

Frankly I am on Deepwood US and am just recently rank 26, and the teams seem fairly evenly matched. I know they were trying to implement r50vr50 pvp, but they are having trouble. (Legitimately shocking.) Sometimes of course, one team will dominate the other fairly well, but it's never been so bad that I was like, wow wtf? This isn't WoW where you have a crap ton of top-pvpers going into BGs and steam-rolling the other team. ;p

First, long queues for lowlvl warfronts. Hm, and there people said that removing twinks wouldn't affect queues in lowlvl warfronts :P Guess they killed leveling up in warfronts then, instead of leveling with twinks people cant level in pvp at all :P Too bad, at least I had a blast leveling up in pvp.

I dont know about matching, when I play at peak hours that's usually the team with most r50s that graveyardcamp the other. And it's not fun, and the graveyards aren't that pretty. I know they tried to match teams, but it seems there arent enough lowranks and there aren't enough high ranks and they chose shorter queues overall instead of be strickt on the matchmaking. But that's probably because of flaws in the system. First new players aren't encouraged to take part because there is this huge gear grind and spending warfront after warfront either in the graveyard or being bursted down is a turnoff for a lot of people. And the people that got the patience and willpower to climb all the ranks are lonely on the top with not many other players in same situation. There's nothing competitive for them to do now, and all they can do is faceroll lower ranks in warfronts, and some people ofc enjoy that but some get bored and leave as well.
The huge gear gap is the biggest problem in Rift, and I hope they do it better in next x-pac
I havent played wow since november, cant remember how it worked really =) But I know I never felt that catching up in gear in wow was a years job with casual gameplay, it was quite fast and easy compared to Rift that takes at least several months.

[Zetno]

Well, isnt it lonely at the top? Because I dont think there is ever r50s only vs r50s only in warfronts? It's usually who has more of highest rank and they gy camp the others. Sure, being able to kill lots of people because you outgear them might appeal to some people =) But I'd rather have ease up the gear grind to make more equvivalence in warfronts, because the warfronts themselves aren't too bad, they are rather fun. It's just that some people try to gear up and some people roflm stomp the ones who try to, and none of the warfront has such great graveyard that you enjoy spending hours on them.

At least 50% of warfronts I'm put into are R39-R50.

[DeltrusDisc]

I havent played wow since november, cant remember how it worked really =) But I know I never felt that catching up in gear in wow was a years job with casual gameplay, it was quite fast and easy compared to Rift that takes at least several months.

Frankly, no one said Rift is exactly casual in comparison to WoW, in fact, I'd say most of us would consider it quite the opposite.

I personally like a tough environment that forces you to learn quick or die, it keeps you on your toes. Rift is not for everyone, I won't lie, but those who want a challenge, will find it here, not in WoW.

[Deleted]

Frankly, no one said Rift is exactly casual in comparison to WoW, in fact, I'd say most of us would consider it quite the opposite.

I personally like a tough environment that forces you to learn quick or die, it keeps you on your toes. Rift is not for everyone, I won't lie, but those who want a challenge, will find it here, not in WoW.

Well I know that if highest rank in rift was standard for the pvp players, then the pvp would be more challenging than it is today. Ganking people with worse gear have never been my main focus in pvp =) Skill based pvp with people on similar level. And arena in rift would have been epicness, I love the soul system in that game and if they focused balancing them in pvp it would have been a pvpers wet dream, so many choices (yes, it will never happen). Anyway GW2 is really great, not perfect but beats other mmo pvp by a thousands

[Tarien]

Anyway GW2 is really great, not perfect but beats other mmo pvp by a thousands

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but I found GW2 boring and can't see where the long term appeal is tbh.

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 01:49 PM ----------

Sure it's not dead yet, but neither GW2 or MoP has been released :P

D3 had more impact than SWTOR despite all the expectations, I fully expect that neither game will particularly impact RIFT. MoP will continue to bore people with it's casualness and lack of variety at endgame, and once people figure out that GW2 has no endgame content (that isn't reused leveling content) they'll get bored of that too.

Now kindly take your GW2 agenda elsewhere.

[Deleted]

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but I found GW2 boring and can't see where the long term appeal is tbh.

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 01:49 PM ----------



D3 had more impact than SWTOR despite all the expectations, I fully expect that neither game will particularly impact RIFT. MoP will continue to bore people with it's casualness and lack of variety at endgame, and once people figure out that GW2 has no endgame content (that isn't reused leveling content) they'll get bored of that too.

Now kindly take your GW2 agenda elsewhere.

Do you find GW2 boring overall, or just it's pvp content? I'm just talking about pvp that I find more interesting than any other mmo pvp out there.

Anyway, I can imagine that there will be a loss of EU players next upcoming months. Even if you could believe that people would get bored with GW2, and if they are pve main players why leave rift in the first place? But well, in order to know they will get bored they will be away and play the game and quite a bunch of people will do it. Same as MoP, Rift is a cheap filler game to play while waiting for expansions and I guess many people will go and embrace the land of pandas. They might get bored, sure, but they will be away for a while to find out if they get bored. Time will tell if Rift will be the trustworthy place to go back to, or if the other games/xpac is appealing enough to make them stay over there. But no doubt that EU servers will see a loss of players the upcoming months. If Trion however make an overpowered xpac and release it just in time when boredom hits in the other games, they might start to rise and shine again. Time will tell bro, time will tell. But I think believing that most EU Rift players will just look at the new upcoming games *shrug* and continue to play Rift, well... it's simply not going to happen =)

[Tarien]

snip

If you want to discuss your opinions on GW2 feel free to do so in the GW2 forum(s). Thanks.