Worried with the lack of content, and Rift's future.

[Deleted]

*tin foil hat* If he even works there anymore.

In any case, no content, no updates, and general silence are even worse signs. Regardless of whether the production on this game has gone to crap, not hearing a single thing likely means the content isn't ready or coming soon. If it was coming soon, it means they aren't doing a very good job communicating anything to us and it's still bad because of that.

All signs point to Defiance sucking the life out of everything we enjoyed.

*tin foil hat* maybe they slowed down and became unresponsive to drive us all away to Defiance? (good job i am fucking loving defiance right now)
OT:
I am really disappointed in Trion at the moment, they are not the company i fell in love with, Rift has become something they obviously don't have the time for at the moment, and it has driven me and may others away, i mostly PvP in Rift, and the fact us pvper's get treated like second class subscribers, and none of our money has been used to develop some new meaningful pvp content in over a year disgusts me to the bone, there are 4 days left on my sub, if 2.3 looks promising i will return, but so far looks like a load of BS, everything since SL launch has been content promised with the Xpack in the first place ( and not even all of it, EG new CQ map). it literally heartbreaks me that Trion are heading in the direction they are, SL could have been incredible.

[Synoviarift]

The incentive for PvP should be fun, not forced on PvEers who could care less about it in a game that is primarily PvE focused.

I am so fucking sick of hearing this argument. The incentive of fun for most ANYTHING in an MMO is simply NOT ENOUGH - ever - period. It is well-documented that we play MMOs for the effort/reward cycle that is consistently reinforced from level 1 until max level in every single MMO in history. If you remove this effort/reward cycle from any segment of MMOs, you have effectively removed much of the desire to even participate. Rift is currently facing this very problem with its PvP as the only rewards available are negligible upgrades in gear that are borderline worthless. There are no rewards worth fighting for: no mounts, no titles, no costumes: nothing of value. No actual incentive to do participate in PvP. And, further, it doesn't help that Rift PvP is a mindless zergfest with little potential for skillful play.

[Deleted]

People will PVP for fun and no reward.

i have to agree with you ther, I love pvp, it's the first thing i do in any game, over anything else, at the moment im playing defiance and all i seem to be doing is pvp at the moment because its so god damn fun! the only rewards there are titles and costumes? i think.

---------- Post added 2013-04-23 at 04:43 AM ----------

I am so fucking sick of hearing this argument. The incentive of fun for most ANYTHING in an MMO is simply NOT ENOUGH - ever - period. It is well-documented that we play MMOs for the effort/reward cycle that is consistently reinforced from level 1 until max level in every single MMO in history. If you remove this effort/reward cycle from any segment of MMOs, you have effectively removed much of the desire to even participate. Rift is currently facing this very problem with its PvP as the only rewards available are negligible upgrades in gear that are borderline worthless. There are no rewards worth fighting for: no mounts, no titles, no costumes: nothing of value. No actual incentive to do participate in PvP. And, further, it doesn't help that Rift PvP is a mindless zergfest with little potential for skillful play.

I get what your saying too, i love to be better then everyone else in my 3p33n elite PvP gear, killing scrubs. But, if a games PvP is good enough, and balanced well, and its fun, people will play it for no reward.

[Lathais]

I am so fucking sick of hearing this argument. The incentive of fun for most ANYTHING in an MMO is simply NOT ENOUGH - ever - period. It is well-documented that we play MMOs for the effort/reward cycle that is consistently reinforced from level 1 until max level in every single MMO in history. If you remove this effort/reward cycle from any segment of MMOs, you have effectively removed much of the desire to even participate. Rift is currently facing this very problem with its PvP as the only rewards available are negligible upgrades in gear that are borderline worthless. There are no rewards worth fighting for: no mounts, no titles, no costumes: nothing of value. No actual incentive to do participate in PvP. And, further, it doesn't help that Rift PvP is a mindless zergfest with little potential for skillful play.

Funny that people play so so many FPS games and sports games online just for a quick match, win or lose, no reward at the end. Funny that games like LoL and Smite and, umm, can't remember the name of the other one a bunch of my guildies played, have no levels and no rewards other than a fun match. It's weird that there are so many examples of games that do not offer rewards yet people play like crazy.

Even still, I somewhat agree, I mean there's nothing inherently wrong with a gear treadmill or rewards. That however does not justify a endless grind. CQ Power, due to decay, is quite literally and endless grind. There is no shiny at the end. There is not a great reward waiting for you. It's just an infinite grind for the sake of keeping people playing a failed feature.

In the end, yes, I do agree with some type of reward, but getting to the reward also has to be fun and challenging. You must have both in an MMO.

[Synoviarift]

Funny that people play so so many FPS games and sports games online just for a quick match, win or lose, no reward at the end. Funny that games like LoL and Smite and, umm, can't remember the name of the other one a bunch of my guildies played, have no levels and no rewards other than a fun match. It's weird that there are so many examples of games that do not offer rewards yet people play like crazy.

Even still, I somewhat agree, I mean there's nothing inherently wrong with a gear treadmill or rewards. That however does not justify a endless grind. CQ Power, due to decay, is quite literally and endless grind. There is no shiny at the end. There is not a great reward waiting for you. It's just an infinite grind for the sake of keeping people playing a failed feature.

In the end, yes, I do agree with some type of reward, but getting to the reward also has to be fun and challenging. You must have both in an MMO.

Your first paragraph is blatantly false.

League of Legends, for example, offers a plethora of vanity items much like those I listed in my post as rewards for being successful in PvP. I haven't played Smite so I can't speak to that game. FPS games almost always offer leveling and countless vanity rewards for participation as well. Since you mentioned FPS games as well, let's talk about perhaps the most successful: the Call of Duty franchise. They offer leveling with countless vanity items to obtain and there are regular tournaments available for prizes. Imagine how many people would play Starcraft II, for example, if there was nothing on the line. If there were not ratings to maintain and improve, no rewards to obtain, no hopes of making it into a sanctioned tournament and no sponsorships to potentially earn some day. Starcraft II would be DOA without these things.

Rift has none of this: no rewards of note. Further, the rewards that ARE available (negligible gear upgrades and costume sets of the same exact gear you're already getting) are available to literally everyone. There is no need to play well, improve, and push yourself to get better. Anyone and everyone can easily get every single "reward" available in Rift. It's a simple grind with nothing behind it and this is largely the reason people outside of a very small minority in Rift consider Rift PvP to be laughable.

[Edge-]

Your first paragraph is blatantly false.

In modern times it's far less common due to modern game design. However this was the case for many, many years.

[Fencers]

League of Legends, for example, offers a plethora of vanity items much like those I listed in my post as rewards for being successful in PvP.

Actually you can't get any vanity items in League of Legends for being good at PVP. All vanity items cost real money.

Also very few players would ever see the rankings or prizes of Starcraft compared to the number of players of Starcraft. It's like less than 1% of all Starcraft players that even compete or see any kind of tournament play themselves.

If there were no tourneys or rankings in SC2 it would have more or less the same number of players. The skill gap between leagues in SC is enormous. Grand Masters themselves are like ~200 to 300 or so players per region. With huge gaps in the regional styles themselves. But even if we dropped off all the GMs... that's 1k players.

Blizzard have more than 1k players of SC2.

Also what about fighting games? Which had no-prize events and still do, running for years on end?

Guild Wars 1? Which still has a spectator mode in PVP and still has GvG battles ongoing? Of course, they ran for years with high popularity and no reward but titles too.

These aren't small niche games either. These are some of the most competitive, and in the case of League of Legends, some of the most widely played games. The enormity of League of Legends alone is still mind boggling.

[Lathais]

In modern times it's far less common due to modern game design. However this was the case for many, many years.

exactly. I guess I'm getting old.

[Voidism]

I played Quake 3 Arena and Unreal until my ears fell off <3 My first true FPS loves

A thread on the official forums: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...t-2-3-a-2.html

"Wrong

Ill just drop in and say 2.3 is sooner then you think."


But... no official

[Lathais]

I played Quake 3 Arena and Unreal until my ears fell off <3 My first true FPS loves

A thread on the official forums: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...t-2-3-a-2.html

"Wrong

Ill just drop in and say 2.3 is sooner then you think."


But... no official

Yeah, I'm gonna believe some random guy on the internet. That was not a Dev post or anything. Let's look at the facts. It has not even been on the PTS and Trion has not said a word. We're talking one of the hugest patches in MMO history...not even on the PTS yet. Maybe it will be on the PTS soon, but it is not going live anytime soon, unless they rush it out without enough testing, which would be worse than having a large lull.

[Kelimbror]

Yeah, I'm gonna believe some random guy on the internet. That was not a Dev post or anything. Let's look at the facts. It has not even been on the PTS and Trion has not said a word. We're talking one of the hugest patches in MMO history...not even on the PTS yet. Maybe it will be on the PTS soon, but it is not going live anytime soon, unless they rush it out without enough testing, which would be worse than having a large lull.

Yep...this is really the problem. No matter how it unfolds, it's already late. I'm crossing my fingers that it hits before my sub runs out, otherwise I don't know if I'll even give it a chance. I finally maxed a character in GW2 (which costs me no additional money) and I'm having a blast. I might decide to pocket any sub money to save up for Wildstar, not to mention the plethora of RL things beating down our door.

[Voidism]

Yeah, I'm gonna believe some random guy on the internet. That was not a Dev post or anything. Let's look at the facts. It has not even been on the PTS and Trion has not said a word. We're talking one of the hugest patches in MMO history...not even on the PTS yet. Maybe it will be on the PTS soon, but it is not going live anytime soon, unless they rush it out without enough testing, which would be worse than having a large lull.

Oh I agree. I wonder why he wrote that. Maybe he literally thinks it wont be in june, but at the end of may or something. "Sooner" is pretty relative. Some people believe their own... beliefs?... enough to make such claims it seems.

Anyways, I just ended my sub. Now I need something else to do. Maybe GW2. Haven't been online for 6 months or so. I disliked their whole 360 on gear power increase for new tiers. >.>

[Calliso]

Yeah no idea what sooner then people think really means. Since people do have different ideas of when the patch is coming out. I am crossing my fingers for next week personally. I really wish Trion would just come out and say though. I mean even if you can't give us an exact date something like it should be on pts in the next couple of weeks would be nice info. Of course I am hoping at this point that the patch is far enough along that they could be more specific, but I also realize stuff can suddenly come up and cause delays. I am excited about Fridays livestream because maybe just maybe we will actually get some info about the patch and when it is actually coming! Or knowing my luck they will just talk about the lore and at the end I will be left going "Wait that was it!?" *sighes*

Funny thing is I have actually been logging into Rift more recently. But still don't play anywhere near the amount I used to.

[Puremallace]

The dead silence from Trion has been amazed. It leads me to believe 1. Elrar has been fired or 2. He is just doing CM shit for other Trion projects. Zero post about the livestream on 4/26. Zero post aout the Raptor rewards. Only way we know something is happening is by the updates on the front page.

Zero updates on 2.3 or an expected release date. Zero pts testing. Zero info on what Stronghold could possibly be. Not used to Trion being so silent. Also these pvp debates in relation to Rift are no worth it. Pvp in Rift is relatively ignored by the devs and treated as an additional feature as a way to shut up a part of the player base.

Go read this and you can see why pvp in Rift is in a sad state

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...brings-custom/

^ This is from a b2p game while Rift is still P2P. If you want to know why American/Europe audiences are constantly questioning the pay to play model then here is prime example #1. I do not even like GW2 and have never played, but yet they get shit we have been wanting for 2+ years.

[Deleted]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...brings-custom/

^ This is from a b2p game while Rift is still P2P. If you want to know why American/Europe audiences are constantly questioning the pay to play model then here is prime example #1. I do not even like GW2 and have never played, but yet they get shit we have been wanting for 2+ years.

I wasn't aware audiences were constantly questioning, from my experience you get what you pay for (at least for games that require vast amounts of resources like MMOs).

Having not played GW2, you are apparently unaware that the game sold as an "e-sport" had its sPvP population (the instanced PvP and proposed e-sport) collapse faster than Rifts PvP population did, that the support in GW2 is generally poor, that they take forever to fix even game breaking bugs (weeks/months), that the general perception is they are under resourced, hence instead of the torrent of pathces you get with a game like Rift, you get one patch a month.

For a game sold as an e-sport, they should of had custom servers, spectator mode, ratings, etc in from the start, that they didn't is part of the reason most people left, last time I checked Rift was not sold as an e-sport, so quite why you would expect them to implement spectator mode or custom arenas is a mystery.

Pretty much without exception the best MMORPGs I've played in terms of quality have been sub based (EVE, LOTRO, Rift, etc), everything from customer support, to bug fixes, to quality of content, and so on, indeed when some of them have switched to other models (LOTRO for instance) the quality across the board noticably dropped.

[RoninaThorstone]

The dead silence from Trion has been amazed. It leads me to believe 1. Elrar has been fired or 2. He is just doing CM shit for other Trion projects. Zero post about the livestream on 4/26. Zero post aout the Raptor rewards. Only way we know something is happening is by the updates on the front page.

Zero updates on 2.3 or an expected release date. Zero pts testing. Zero info on what Stronghold could possibly be. Not used to Trion being so silent. Also these pvp debates in relation to Rift are no worth it. Pvp in Rift is relatively ignored by the devs and treated as an additional feature as a way to shut up a part of the player base
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...brings-custom/

^ This is from a b2p game while Rift is still P2P. If you want to know why American/Europe audiences are constantly questioning the pay to play model then here is prime example #1. I do not even like GW2 and have never played, but yet they get shit we have been wanting for 2+ years.

If you want good communication, the best right now is actually from a F2P game called Firefall.
Every friday they take questions from twitchTVchat, their teamspeak, and phone calls for about an hour. On top of that, they are extremely active on their forums. And not just the community managers. You see the dev team drop by, post some memes, make some jokes, apologize for a glitch or two.

I've had them directly respond to me over twitch chat. Live.
That has never happened to me with P2P or B2P community/dev team.

And the thing is, the communication is insanely important. I trust those guys WAY more than I do trion because they are talking to / with me. The build a relationship with their fans. Now, I was crazy impressed by Elrar and I hope you are wrong and he still has a job. But if he did get fired? That would be one of the worst ideas trion has had since defiance. The people who become the 'face' to the community can not be disappeared to gitmo without making the rest of us extremely nervous.

[Clymene]

Unless Elrar was fired after Friday he still works since he was on the live stream.

[Deleted]

Didn't realize the game was having problems with content releases etc (im not a Rift player but always admired Trion's goals for Rift)

Does the release of Defiance have any sort of bearing on this? it's always going to be tough for a small(ish) company who are already laying staff off to maintain a few projects at once.

It's a shame because they were doing a great job with Rift and I think their work actually inspired Blizzard into getting content out much faster. Let's hope they get upto the standards they set, it would be a shame for another MMO to 'die'.

[Fencers]

I wasn't aware audiences were constantly questioning, from my experience you get what you pay for (at least for games that require vast amounts of resources like MMOs).

Having not played GW2, you are apparently unaware that the game sold as an "e-sport" had its sPvP population (the instanced PvP and proposed e-sport) collapse faster than Rifts PvP population did, that the support in GW2 is generally poor, that they take forever to fix even game breaking bugs (weeks/months), that the general perception is they are under resourced, hence instead of the torrent of pathces you get with a game like Rift, you get one patch a month.

For a game sold as an e-sport, they should of had custom servers, spectator mode, ratings, etc in from the start, that they didn't is part of the reason most people left, last time I checked Rift was not sold as an e-sport, so quite why you would expect them to implement spectator mode or custom arenas is a mystery.

Pretty much without exception the best MMORPGs I've played in terms of quality have been sub based (EVE, LOTRO, Rift, etc), everything from customer support, to bug fixes, to quality of content, and so on, indeed when some of them have switched to other models (LOTRO for instance) the quality across the board noticably dropped.

Guild Wars wasn't sold as an E-sport. It's not even a quarter of the development budget or time. Anet developers said they would have like to push for their SPVP modes to be e-sports. Which they did in Guild Wars 1, mind you.

Anet took a lot of inspiration from MOBAs like DOTA, HON and LoL for GW2 and more action orientated games.

Fairly misleading to suggest GW2 was sold as an "E-sport". Also illogical. E-sports are organic. No developer can add features enough that any game will be an E-sport. That distinction is one of mass popularity and monetization for professional play.

Can't add a spectator mode and omgesports.

There is no logic in that at all. There is no way to advertise that from a publisher POV without massive e-sport specific funding. Tencent, Valve or Blizzard can.

Come on now. Do people really have such little understanding of the video game market in total that these misunderstandings about other games from Guild Wars to League of Legends to even World of Warcraft are allowed to proliferate?

Games aren't even developed the way some of ya'll suggest. 9_9

[Deleted]

Well, personally I would love Rift f2p up to lvl 49 or 50 or something like that. Why? Because max lvl pvp in Rift isn't fun and it isn't balanced. It's the place where the rewards are, I give you that, and you will have rewards to go after for a long time. However, I don't like the imbalances, it's just not fun. Leveling in pvp in Rift was way more fun, even when twinks were in game. I could see f2p-pvp at lvl 49 be amazing in this game. Would there be rewards? Most certainly not, but would it be balanced? Yea, much more than at maxlvl, f2p usually means gear restrictions as well so no possibility for twinking! And that would make me come back and play pvp in this game every now and then. It would be fun, and that's why I would do it.
Rewards in pvp isn't what makes good pvp, it's so many other things. And rewards just as improving looks is good enough for many sometimes. Like if conquest only had costumes as reward, perhaps many people wouldn't play it since it seems conquest rewards today are like a must have for pve players because it affects the player performance in pve. But if conquest was good people would play it even if there was no gamebreaking rewards.
I was surprised reading on Rift forum some time ago that people still discussed conquest. I thought they left it at lvl 50 and moved on, didn't realise they raised lvl to 60 for participation and forced it on pve players... but sure still explains why people say nightfall queues still get full =) They chased all pvp players from the game, conquest wasn't good enough pvp to bring them back for good... so, they had to force it on hardcore pve players =) You can only laugh really, a bit sad :/