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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    Hmm, while I'm sure that they tried to protect the RIFT team as much as possible (because RIFT was the biggest revenue stream) I remember some posts that contained tons of staff that were laid off that were definitely going to affect the game.
    The vast majority of the layoffs were from the Defiance team, but there was a big layoff kerfuffle in the Rift team around x-mas just after SL launched (it was claimed that most of the layoffs were people who were hired for the SL crunch time). When Hartsman returned a few months ago they wound up closing the Defiance studio entirely and moving that production into the studio where Rift, EON, and Archeage is being made. I think the most telling evidence for the current state of the Rift team is that they currently have a grand total of 2 designers working on classes (really good ones who are totally on the ball and know their work inside and out, mind you).

    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    I wanted to see RIFTs take over lands, see more huge champions come through, but it never happened.
    I'm so with you here. I feel like every time I move to a new MMO, I arrive just in time to see the best parts get cut, and Rift is doubly frustrating because it has so much potential just waiting to be developed.
    Last edited by gonterf; 2013-12-08 at 11:56 PM.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    Hmm, while I'm sure that they tried to protect the RIFT team as much as possible (because RIFT was the biggest revenue stream) I remember some posts that contained tons of staff that were laid off that were definitely going to affect the game. I cba to dig them out, not trying to be down on RIFT, it's a great game, I just don't think that there's much left in terms of its lifespan. It went from a promising MMO that did things a bit differently, to one that adheres quite strictly to the basic MMO content types. I really enjoyed the overpowered invasions during the first months of RIFTs launch, blowing the ability that reduced your damage by 75% and doubled your damage while you waded into the enemies. I wanted to see RIFTs take over lands, see more huge champions come through, but it never happened.

    Nevermind, just ignore me, I'm just one voice regretting that the game isn't what he wanted
    A game not being what you wanted is fine. But saying a game is dying because it's not what you wanted it to be is truly silly. The layoffs didn't impact the Rift team, which Daglar confirmed multiple times during the livestream. They were cutting huge chunks of Defiance staff, and laying off people working on other projects as well (End of Nations and likely Archeage).

    Quote Originally Posted by gonterf View Post
    The vast majority of the layoffs were from the Defiance team, but there was a big layoff kerfuffle in the Rift team around x-mas just after SL launched (it was claimed that most of the layoffs were people who were hired for the SL crunch time).
    That's standard though for the most part. Bilzzard did it when D3 launched, BioWare did it when SWTOR launched. The pre-launch development teams for games are much larger than the post-launch maintenance teams, and the same goes for expansions many times. They bring additional people on to work on the huge singular chunk of content, then remove them once that's launched and they can shrink down to their previous size again.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    A game not being what you wanted is fine. But saying a game is dying because it's not what you wanted it to be is truly silly. The layoffs didn't impact the Rift team, which Daglar confirmed multiple times during the livestream. They were cutting huge chunks of Defiance staff, and laying off people working on other projects as well (End of Nations and likely Archeage).
    This thread is a list of people who worked at Trion on RIFT some of them for years and you're telling me that they're all temporary hires who's contracts ended when the expansion launched? Two of the class devs definitely were not in that category (not that anyone was sad to see the Warrior dev go).

    Look, dying is probably the wrong word to use, it seems harsh and gets peoples backs up. But the game has definitely peaked already and there has been significant decline (imo) since. Gone are the innovations, the new risky features RIFT wanted to try, gone is the fast update and bug fixing schedule. RIFTs never evolved beyond static nodes with limited replayability. How cool would it have been to see a few RIFTs open in one corner of the map with ARMIES pouring through and watching those armies move to new tears, open them up allowing yet more enemies through? Why can't enemies build fortifications, can't we see the trees and buildings become corrupted in the same way that the ground does? They built a massive expansion for RIFT with huge new lands so that they had space, and honestly I think other than the highest level three zones it's all wasted space.

    I wish it weren't the case, vanilla RIFT was great. I just think that all of the potential is gone as RIFT slowly collapses into another boring MMO.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    This thread is a list of people who worked at Trion on RIFT some of them for years and you're telling me that they're all temporary hires who's contracts ended when the expansion launched? Two of the class devs definitely were not in that category (not that anyone was sad to see the Warrior dev go).

    Look, dying is probably the wrong word to use, it seems harsh and gets peoples backs up. But the game has definitely peaked already and there has been significant decline (imo) since. Gone are the innovations, the new risky features RIFT wanted to try, gone is the fast update and bug fixing schedule. RIFTs never evolved beyond static nodes with limited replayability. How cool would it have been to see a few RIFTs open in one corner of the map with ARMIES pouring through and watching those armies move to new tears, open them up allowing yet more enemies through? Why can't enemies build fortifications, can't we see the trees and buildings become corrupted in the same way that the ground does? They built a massive expansion for RIFT with huge new lands so that they had space, and honestly I think other than the highest level three zones it's all wasted space.

    I wish it weren't the case, vanilla RIFT was great. I just think that all of the potential is gone as RIFT slowly collapses into another boring MMO.
    I have to agree with you, people really did downplay those layoffs when they happened. Trions staff as a whole really shrunk in size and much of it did in fact come from the Rift team. However, that happened nearly a year ago now. I can't believe it is still being brought up as proof of a dying game. Certainly, after all that happened, content did slow down a bit and lots of people were concerned. Since then though, F2P transition happened, a surge of players joined and very recently content has begun to come out pretty quickly again.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post

    Could really use a decent triple A fantasy MMO, WoW is casualville now, RIFT is dying a slow death (or stabilising, as some call it), seems there is a lack of decent looking, raid orientated, fantasy MMOs.

    Meh.
    You do realize we are getting older right? Hell I started playing WoW when I was in my early 20's and I older now. Life does tend to turn people into casuals. Rift has always been a casual paradise due to what they give you to outside of raiding.

    The raiding has always been niche in Rift. I seriously wish someone would tell Daglar.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    However, that happened nearly a year ago now. I can't believe it is still being brought up as proof of a dying game. Certainly, after all that happened, content did slow down a bit and lots of people were concerned. Since then though, F2P transition happened, a surge of players joined and very recently content has begun to come out pretty quickly again.
    I hope that is the case, but there's never been a case of an MMO stalling and managing to pull out of the downward trend. Maybe FF14 is managing it, not sure. F2P is indeed a shot of adrenaline for many games, but in most cases it merely delays the inevitable.

    I think what I miss most is the wasted potential of the game. So much more could have been done but already Trion are rehashing content and falling into the same 'raids, dungeons and battlegrounds' pattern that every MMO gets into. I really miss the massive invasions that turned into world PvP brawls. So many features just get added and are never supported: the RIFTs and invasions never really evolved, the leaderboards mean nothing, my girlfriends dimension is still ranked 5th despite her not playing in almost a year, master mode dungeons should have been available at the start of SL but weren't.

    So much potential, ugh.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
    The raiding has always been niche in Rift. I seriously wish someone would tell Daglar.
    I actually disagree, I believe that the raid scene is the bleeding edge that everyone aspires to whether they admit it or not. In the same way that we'd all love to be able to be millionaires but few will ever get there, wanting a better quality of life keeps us trying. Same thing for raiding, we may never be #1 but we all aspire to be better.

    Mind you part of this is because raiding is the only path to obtain the best gear (which equates to the best quality of life or having the most millions, in my above example). If there were other competitive, group based activities that offered better gear/reward, that's what would be the bleeding edge.

    Raiding just tends to be the best way anyone has thought of yet to create challenging, engaging, lore telling content for gamers, and mostly it works pretty well. Raiding in RIFT has been pretty amazing for the most part (bar a few bugs *cough*).

  7. #27
    Could really use a decent triple A fantasy MMO, WoW is casualville now, RIFT is dying a slow death (or stabilising, as some call it), seems there is a lack of decent looking, raid orientated, fantasy MMOs.
    It is likely that the bolded will have a limited appeal in cost to dollars outside of the hugely established developers and products.

    Wildstar will have 2nd era style raids in their elder game structure, however. Otherwise, I think World of Warcraft will likely remain the "champ" in that particular gameplay avenue for a few more years still.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    I hope that is the case, but there's never been a case of an MMO stalling and managing to pull out of the downward trend. Maybe FF14 is managing it, not sure. F2P is indeed a shot of adrenaline for many games, but in most cases it merely delays the inevitable.

    I think what I miss most is the wasted potential of the game. So much more could have been done but already Trion are rehashing content and falling into the same 'raids, dungeons and battlegrounds' pattern that every MMO gets into. I really miss the massive invasions that turned into world PvP brawls. So many features just get added and are never supported: the RIFTs and invasions never really evolved, the leaderboards mean nothing, my girlfriends dimension is still ranked 5th despite her not playing in almost a year, master mode dungeons should have been available at the start of SL but weren't.

    So much potential, ugh.
    It guess you can look at it as delaying the inevitable if you choose. All games die eventually and changes must be made to keep them going. I guess you could say every expansion to every game ever, or every DLC released for any game ever is just delaying the inevitable. Any change made to any game at any time is just to delay the inevitable.

    Rehashing content, same 'raids, dungeons, BGS' pattern? Those are the activities that most people in game participate in, that's why they get the love.

    You miss the massive invasions that turned into world PvP brawls? Those are not popular things. This is proven by the fact that as soon as faction unity came out the PvP servers became ghost towns. People transferred to PvE servers because they could care less about world PvP. Look at any game really. PvE servers outnumber PvP servers 5:1 or more. Pretty much every MMORPG out there. So much potential for what? A really small portion of the player base? In the end, they are a company trying to make money. They look at their internal metrics, see what activities the majority of people are participating in and develop content based on that.

    As far as rated Dimensions go, the only ones that get rated, or likely even seen, are the ones from people in large guilds that ask all their frinsd and guildies to go +1 it or the ones that spam general chat getting people to go look at them. Also, at least in my guild, only about 5% of the people in my guild even care about dimensions. The rest do not use them or care about them. I am sure there is a larger portion of the community that does than that though, based on the fact they have competitions based on them and things. That could have just been them trying to get people to use the feature they spent so much time on though. I dunno. Would have to see those internal metrics again. Personally, I bet less than 50% of the population even cares about them though. Just a guess.

    Master Modes? When 50 was the cap it was very difficult for me to form groups for MMs, even within my guild. Hell, look at RotTD. Most people compare that dungeon to a Master Mode and think it should be classified as one. What happens 90% of the time you get it on random? Group decides to wait 10m and re-que. MMs were not and likely would not be a popular feature. There's those internal metrics again though.

    So what it comes down to is that you are in the minority. You want features that are not what the majority of players want. I am sorry for you as likely you will not find a game that does what you want. Games, as businesses, must focus on what sells, not what does not.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    <snip> read this

    Games, as businesses, must focus on what sells, not what does not.
    Yes I can see that's really working for Trion.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    Yes I can see that's really working for Trion.
    Is it not? They're currently focusing primarily on Rift, putting both EoN and ArcheAge on the backburner. Defiance is getting only minimal support as it bombed pretty hard, and they're pushing out a lower budget MMO in Trove. It was pretty obvious that they were trying to expand too quickly and do too much well before Hartsman came back, and it bit them in the ass in a major way when Defiance bombed. Now they've scaled things back to focus on what's making them money and make some smaller steps to expand in other games.

    As to the delaying the inevitable bit, as Lathais said, every MMO dies at some point. F2P or P2P, it doesn't matter, MMO's will shut down eventually, regardless of their business model. And considering how F2P has proven to be more profitable for many smaller/medium sized MMO's, greatly extending and improving the support they receive from developers, I'd say it's a good move in general for the vast majority of MMO's that have made the change.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    Master Modes? When 50 was the cap it was very difficult for me to form groups for MMs, even within my guild.
    Effort vs. reward. At 50, MM dungeons offered gear that was at best on par with what you could get from a pug raid, and required relatively more attention. Of course no-one ran them. Challenge modes in WoW are the same way - people run dungeons to upgrade their gear, and if the dungeons don't offer upgrades then they don't run them. Does anyone think FT, EE, or TotDQ would get run regularly if they dropped the same gear as experts? In fact, just before SL launched I remember it getting quite challenging to find groups for the tier 1 raids unless they were the weekly, because a good chunk of guilds just didn't bother with them.

    Stats will only tell you part of the truth. The majority of players will engage in the low effort activities: it honestly doesn't surprise me that artifact hunting is the top activity, but does that mean that there should be nothing harder to which players can aspire? Looking at metrics from WoW, developing raids has never made financial sense because only a small fraction of the player base ever saw them (until they introduced LFR), I think it's safe to say that the game as a whole benefited from having top-tier content though. I am, and always have been of the opinion that top-tier content should be in 5 player or open world form instead of raid form, but until a game seriously tries that out, there's no way to know what the metrics would say (though Neverwinter and Guildwars 2 with their half-assed mostly-non-tiered implementations both seem to have decent populations even if they aren't growing).
    Last edited by gonterf; 2013-12-09 at 09:27 PM.

  12. #32
    Brewmaster Mefistophelis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by theWocky View Post
    Yeah - watch my Rift series - I'm getting 30fps on my 3.4~3.8Ghz Haswell with 780ti - most of the time slowing down to less than 20fps in events. I know they're working on it, but damn... it's frustrating.
    I've been watching your videos . Your pc is beast compared to mine and we're kinda at the same fps range . Only thing is that mine in 20 man warfronts goes to 10-15 fps . Annoying as hell .
    I come across a quiet river, that wonders through the trees.
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    In resignation to the forest, that's held me for so long.
    I close my eyes and drift away into nature's evensong.

  13. #33
    Herald of the Titans Slipmat's Avatar
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    All European Shards are High population every night for past 2 months now consistently without fail, a sure sign the game is in decline.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Slipmat View Post
    All European Shards are High population every night for past 2 months now consistently without fail, a sure sign the game is in decline.
    Except Phynnious. And that's what happens when you condense your player base into a handful of servers. Take a look at this. Notice how last weekend the server was constantly full 24/7, this weekend not so much? Same for Laethys, Wolfsbane and Seastone in the US. There are never any queues anymore. Give it a couple months it'll be even less.

    Honestly I don't know why I argue this point, it's a shitty argument to make because in every MMO even the almighty WoW subs are in decline, there isn't an MMO out there opening new servers unless it's in the first month or two of launch. Numbers are always declining. It's also pointless arguing what I did above as a) the devout following are just going to close their ears and deny it and b) I don't give two shits about numbers anyway my argument was the direction and content speed are nothing like what they used to be.

    And yes Edge what you say about Trion refocussing on their one profitable game is all true, but it's probably too late now they've lost half their staff/playerbase.

  15. #35
    Herald of the Titans Slipmat's Avatar
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    In case you haven't been keeping up, the European cluster is once again split into two separate entities, prior to this split a few weeks back, queue times were off the hook, hours in some cases.

    So now with two separate clusters capacities were once again increased and the load is spread out a lot better, only downside is losing the French and German player base especially in Conquest, playing with lemmings now is not exactly "encouraging"

    The charts merely confirm what i already said, shards are High every time at prime time, Phynnious was a French shard and got changed to "International", seems most people are happy to play on English and French/German ones

    Rift is still going strong, no idea why people seem determined to try and prove otherwise, been hearing the same song now coming up to three years soon that the game is dead--dying--nobody plays it

  16. #36
    Rift is still going strong, no idea why people seem determined to try and prove otherwise, been hearing the same song now coming up to three years soon that the game is dead--dying--nobody plays it
    People claim this about almost every MMO. Even the market leading World of Warcraft has died a thousand deaths on various internet forums.

    Few MMOs "die".

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Slipmat View Post
    Rift is still going strong, no idea why people seem determined to try and prove otherwise, been hearing the same song now coming up to three years soon that the game is dead--dying--nobody plays it
    I already said dying was a poor choice of words. Let's call it the 'typical MMO aging down trend' instead?

    But I still think the spark that Trion had is gone when a bunch of the team got laid off. Some of the most enthusiastic members. Anyone remember Russ 'Honking' Brown. Thats the kind of talent Trion lost

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by theWocky View Post
    Yeah - watch my Rift series - I'm getting 30fps on my 3.4~3.8Ghz Haswell with 780ti - most of the time slowing down to less than 20fps in events. I know they're working on it, but damn... it's frustrating.
    I honestly have no confidence they will add multicore support. At first, it was planned for 2.3. Then they said it will come with 2.4. And now we are on 2.5, and no word of any multicore support.

    It's depressing to drop down to 12fps in CQ while one core is 95% while the other 7 are Idle.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    I already said dying was a poor choice of words. Let's call it the 'typical MMO aging down trend' instead?

    But I still think the spark that Trion had is gone when a bunch of the team got laid off. Some of the most enthusiastic members. Anyone remember Russ 'Honking' Brown. Thats the kind of talent Trion lost
    This

    After Russ and all the other guys left, Rift lost every ounce of innovation that made it great in vanilla.

    What interesting features did Trion add vanilla?


    PA System
    Solo/Duo Dungeons
    Onslaughts
    Conquest
    World Events for each patch
    Mercenary System
    LFG Tool
    Cross-Faction
    PvP Rifts[/LIST]


    What new features have been added to the game in the past year?


    Strongholds?
    Uhh....?

    The simple reason so many are seeing rift as stale is because Trion has failed to add anything interesting in the past year. In vanilla, everything was new. The whole invasion/zone event system was new and shiny. It was awesome, no other game had really done anything like it. They added an alternate advancement system, 10 man raids, PvP Rifts, Conquest, Alternate Warfronts, solo/duo dungeons and many other features that made sure we always had something different, and exciting to partake in. I can't recall a single feature that trion has added to the game since SL that has been innovative. No real new features, just more content for the old features that we have been doing for years.


    Quote Originally Posted by Slipmat View Post

    Rift is still going strong, no idea why people seem determined to try and prove otherwise, been hearing the same song now coming up to three years soon that the game is dead--dying--nobody plays it
    I don't think anyone is saying that. No one is denying the fact that the game is doing well, and still has a healthy population. It still is a great game, and the content that they release is still some of the best in the market, but what we are saying is that the game has lost innovation. It has lost that spark that made it was it was. It has lost what made Rift, Rift. And I think it's hard to argue against that.
    Last edited by Rajadog20; 2013-12-11 at 12:15 AM.
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  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    This thread is a list of people who worked at Trion on RIFT some of them for years and you're telling me that they're all temporary hires who's contracts ended when the expansion launched? Two of the class devs definitely were not in that category (not that anyone was sad to see the Warrior dev go).
    Good thing you threw in that last line or else I would have torn you a new a-hole. Atrius NEVER should have been allowed remotely close to a dev position ever.

    My main issue with Trion is they think they can still completely overhaul souls one patch after another and expect people to keep paying them. The fact is I no longer have to pay for half ass employees who completely tear souls apart and call it development.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
    My main issue with Trion is they think they can still completely overhaul souls one patch after another and expect people to keep paying them. The fact is I no longer have to pay for half ass employees who completely tear souls apart and call it development.
    Are the changes that major from patch to patch? I've not noticed major changes to the souls I play from patch to patch (in general) that alter the way I play, but I'm a madbad casual so it's very possible that I entirely miss it.

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