Is Rift dead?

[Deleted]

So how do the servers seem? Are there enough, non-bot players around both in US and EU?

[Lathais]

Game is nowhere near dead. Servers are alive and well and very active. If that is not enough, LFD ques are cluster wide, so you can get grouped with anyone on any server. There are also cluster wide chat channels so you can find PuG raids from any server and join them. In addition, for zone events, you can jump from server to server at-will and return to your home server when you want.

[Deleted]

Well you can pug raids every single day, PvP queues are on average less than a minute, PvE queues are on average for tanks: instant-one minute, healer: 1-5 minutes, DPS: 1-10 minutes, city is breaming with people, high end zones have plenty of people. That is my experience with it on the standard playing hours.

[Fencers]

The game has a playable population on US servers.

[Deleted]

I bet the game had 5 times more players if 50-60 wasnt so slow, 50 hours terribly spent. /quit @ 54

[Khelendros]

I bet the game had 5 times more players if 50-60 wasnt so slow, 50 hours terribly spent. /quit @ 54

Its not slow now and it won't matter in a short while anyways. You will be able to take that 54 and mentor up to 61 or whatever and go do Nightmare Tide content with everyone else.

[notorious98]

Its not slow now and it won't matter in a short while anyways. You will be able to take that 54 and mentor up to 61 or whatever and go do Nightmare Tide content with everyone else.

It's still a pretty long grind. If you have XP pots or are a Patron, it's obviously faster. But as F2P, it still takes a decent chunk of time. That's from straight questing/carnage. I haven't run any dungeons so I can't say what the XP gain on those are in comparison.

[Edge-]

It's still a pretty long grind. If you have XP pots or are a Patron, it's obviously faster. But as F2P, it still takes a decent chunk of time. That's from straight questing/carnage. I haven't run any dungeons so I can't say what the XP gain on those are in comparison.

While I don't disagree that it's a bit long, at the same time it's still faster than it was when SL launched and the game was still subscription based. The 25% reduction in mobs needed for carnage quests did make a bit of a difference.

As for dungeons, they're all worth running at least once. Between the item for completing them the first time and the experience from the quest(s), they're a very solid way to get a nice experience bump immediately after you're high enough level to run a new one.

[Segus1992]

I can chime in on the leveling process past 50 taking too long. I quit before I reached 60 as well. Damn shame, too. I liked my Mage.

[Deleted]

I can chime in on the leveling process past 50 taking too long. I quit before I reached 60 as well. Damn shame, too. I liked my Mage.

You really should try again now,... it goes so smooth. For me too fast actually. Even with that -40% experience potion

But to come back 2 topic:
Rift is not dead. There are lots of people leveling, getting their professions on max lvl, etc.

[Tankendog]

The game is very much alive. I can get a characte from 50 to 60 now in 3 days. Its increadbly speedy with patron and vials.

[BenBos]

So how do the servers seem? Are there enough, non-bot players around both in US and EU?

Rift had 99 full servers at launch back in 2011...

Rift shrank to 19 servers by mid 2013 and so they decided to go free to play.

Today Rift has only 13 servers world wide mostly at low to medium levels...

That's a capacity loss of 85%...over less than 3 years DESPITE going free to play ...

Make your own conclusions. My bet is server shut down by 2016.

[potis]

Rift had 99 full servers at launch back in 2011...

Rift shrank to 19 servers by mid 2013 and so they decided to go free to play.

Today Rift has only 13 servers world wide mostly at low to medium levels...

That's a capacity loss of 85%...over less than 3 years DESPITE going free to play ...

Make your own conclusions. My bet is server shut down by 2016.

Even though i havent played Rift in awhile.

Tell me again about CRZ and Connected Realms and game population?

According to the few posts around with the whole "Who makes what money" they make more than enough to stay open with the people they have + Archage launching soon.

[BenBos]

Even though i havent played Rift in awhile.

Tell me again about CRZ and Connected Realms and game population?

According to the few posts around with the whole "Who makes what money" they make more than enough to stay open with the people they have + Archage launching soon.

WOW did not loose more than 85% of its population like Rift did WITHOUT going free to play...

I never understood this Rift game by advertising "you are not in Azeroth anymore"

That policy is one straight line to extinction in 4 years time. You can never beat the original by copycatting.

In fact games like Rift killed the subscription based MMO industry overnight. It killed the industry overall even.

If it weren't for Blizzard, MMO's would now represent the same niche market as hex wargames and point and click PC adventures.

I am pleased games like Warhammer, Vanguard, Rift, Aion and other WoW copy cats die a very fast death. But it makes me sad ....because they hurted the MMO industry overall.

[mickybrighteyes]

That policy is one straight line to extinction in 4 years time. You can never beat the original by copycatting.

WoW is kind of proof to the contrary

[Deleted]

Rift does fine, they make enough money from the shop to keep having a profit. The funny thing is they have about 1 10th or even less of the players that wow has. Yet in the same timeframe that wow has released nothing at all contentwise, Rift has released the following:

Patch 2.4 with a Raid, a dungeon, a chronicle, cross shard IA's and pvp rank 90.
Patch 2.5 with 3 chronicles, a raid, a dungeon, a mini-saga, gifts of the fae (new gamesystem with random lvl 60 dungeons), iron pine peak rehaul, new dimension.
Patch 2.6 with a new tradeskill, UA sets, bounty system, air saga prelude, dimensions rehaul and more raid preludes.
Patch 2.7 with 4 new souls (between spec and class say), new questlines, ui rehaul, a few t3 raids and a new warfront
Patch 2.8 with more prelude quests/raids, new dungeon, rehaul of the pyromancer soul, revamp of the auction house, and multirole actionbars.

Expansion 3.0 is on the brink of being released, and it will be completely free......

All of the above is high quality content (the raids are arguably better than wow's raids) and all of this got released after the soo release, so basically in the same timeframe that Blizzard brought out..... nothing at all. This is while Rift is f2p and releasing a free expansion soon. This is while Blizzard is still charing 15€ a month and charging 40€ for their expansion.
So in this sense, no Rift is not dead. Actually if you compare the amount of released content, you could easily claim that WoW is dead compared to Rift.

[Chickat]

Its not dead, but its not booming either. Id say the servers are about as populated as wows medium pop servers. Still plenty of people to play with as of this moment.

[BenBos]

Its not dead, but its not booming either. Id say the servers are about as populated as wows medium pop servers. Still plenty of people to play with as of this moment.

Going from 99 servers to 13 in less than 3 years DESPITE GOING FREE TO PLAY is pretty much a disaster.

When they went free to play they still had 19 servers just 10 months ago.

Another proof free to play doesn't make a game "better" either.

At this rate the last servers will be merged by 2016 and unplugged.

Oddly enough, it will have had the EXACT same life span as Warhammer (2008-2013).

That's very logical too.

[edmorte]

Free to Play and commitment are not supposed to be together.

F2P is cool for LoL, Dota2, etc. Games where you invest your time on a daily basis are not going to benefit from F2P model.

Persistent worlds, either sandboxes or themeparks are not good to F2P philosophy unless you pay! P2P going F2P is a dead product extending its lifetime. People start to realize they either pay or they are going to spent a LOT of time not having 100% "potential of play".

Well, I know for sure my day only have 24h and I don't plan to waste it on semi-full games (F2P model without pay). AND I'm not for sure, pay just to feel superior.

[openair]

Guys, this is the Rift sub-forum. Ppl who frequent here are well past the "compete with WoW for subs or = dead," the "f2p = dying," and the "profitable but not as profitable as wow = will go bankrupt or financial failure" hyperbole.