Considering a Return

[philefluxx]

Hello All,
Im considering coming back to Rift. I played in beta, played a couple months after launch. I really enjoyed the game, but I stopped playing for 2 reasons:

1) Like many others, WoW essentially made me lazy. It became very very hard to play a game without addons, LFD, Summoning Stones etc. I wont lie, but it just seemed like Rift just needed a tad more dev "conveniences". I was around for the launch of the LFD system which actually worked rather well even though it wasnt X shard, but there were a few dungeons it never seem to pop. But Im happy to see this system has gone cross shard

2) Population or lack there of. Population was a real deal breaker because this game is not designed like WoW is today where you can sit in a city all day long. Rifts, Invasions, and large scale world events inspire world interaction. Playing on servers such as Briacliff and Wolfsbane, I would find myself playing alone most of the time during rifts and invasions. Or maybe find one person to help with the elite Rifts which we could never beat the timers.

Reading through patch's 1.3 -1.5 it looks like most of everything in #1 has been overhauled for the better. So the deciding factor is #2. If I react, will I find myself alone leveling up a new toon or finishing one of my others? Am I stuck with my 50 Warrior if I want to have real group play?

[Saladbar]

Free realm transfers should allow you to find a server with your existing characters that suits your needs. Also, some of the changes in 1.5 are designed to try get people more active in zone events (more rewards). I play on Shatterbone (US PVE), and we never seem to have a lack of folks out in the world doing crifts, pvp rifts, invasions, etc..

I thought Wolfsbane and Briarcliff were the most populated PVP servers, so I am kind of surprised you had participation issues.

[Puremallace]

See the addon thread I just made ENJOY!

[philefluxx]

Free realm transfers should allow you to find a server with your existing characters that suits your needs. Also, some of the changes in 1.5 are designed to try get people more active in zone events (more rewards). I play on Shatterbone (US PVE), and we never seem to have a lack of folks out in the world doing crifts, pvp rifts, invasions, etc..

I thought Wolfsbane and Briarcliff were the most populated PVP servers, so I am kind of surprised you had participation issues.

Me too and I had not orignally started on those servers but rolled toons to try and find a populated server!

See the addon thread I just made ENJOY!

I did, thank you

[Fishyface]

2) Population or lack there of. Population was a real deal breaker because this game is not designed like WoW is today where you can sit in a city all day long. Rifts, Invasions, and large scale world events inspire world interaction. Playing on servers such as Briacliff and Wolfsbane, I would find myself playing alone most of the time during rifts and invasions. Or maybe find one person to help with the elite Rifts which we could never beat the timers.

I just started about 3 weeks ago and i really havent had any trouble finding people to do invasions with while i was lvling from 1-47. Usually a group a 10-15+ in us primetime (which is when i play).
The only invasion ive never seen people at was the scarlet gorge one, and i dont blame them that place sucks. But probably the main reason you dont see people running around doing rifts is because most people solo them, and dont really need any help with them. Alot of guilds do expert rifts together instead of pugging. And from what i can tell DRR (daily raid rift) is pugged most of the time.

So to sum that all up there are still plenty of people playing, not as many as your going to find in wow, probably more equivalent to a wow server on low pop.

Hope that answers your question about population.

[Zoneseek]

Yeah I think a buddy of mine and I are gonna roll some new chars up come december when we have some good gaming time. See how things have changed.

[Deleted]

I've been trying out the trial version for a couple of days now and have to admit I have encountered a very similar problem. There is hardly ever anybody around, mostly I'm running around on my own, closing rifts, questing, etc. I tried picking a high population server but the best I could find was medium and still the world seem incredibly empty. This afternoon I was happily doing some quests when an invasion popped out and got stomped by a massive flood of level 20 something that turned my character into fish food under three second flat.

The type of world events that happen in Rift, I like the principle and idea of it but it does seem to have bad side effects. Like for example my case where I'm alone against a battalion of mobs that are 5-7 levels higher than me to begin with. It would perhaps be a more enjoyable experience but what happened today was a long way from being fun.

[Shelmari]

Yep, I'd have to say the LFD tool has definitely helped for the better since cross-shard was introduced. As for Shard Population, that seems to be the major problem. I don't know about others but on Laethys, there are certain times when it is populated and others when it is just dead. Being that I'm on the West Coast of the US but the Shard is heavily Oceanic. This actually works pretty well for me, since I get on kind of late PST (8pm or so) and by then there are usually multiple DRR's going and Crafting Rifts. The LFD queue and PVP pops faster than when I get on in the middle of my day.

But with Shard Transfers available, I do not see it as that bad of a problem. Best advice I can give is roll an Alt on a server, hit up /Trade or the Major City chat and ask around about peak population times. If they coincide with yours, great, Shard Transfer away. If not, repeat process on another server

[Puremallace]

Yep, I'd have to say the LFD tool has definitely helped for the better since cross-shard was introduced. As for Shard Population, that seems to be the major problem. I don't know about others but on Laethys, there are certain times when it is populated and others when it is just dead. Being that I'm on the West Coast of the US but the Shard is heavily Oceanic. This actually works pretty well for me, since I get on kind of late PST (8pm or so) and by then there are usually multiple DRR's going and Crafting Rifts. The LFD queue and PVP pops faster than when I get on in the middle of my day.

But with Shard Transfers available, I do not see it as that bad of a problem. Best advice I can give is roll an Alt on a server, hit up /Trade or the Major City chat and ask around about peak population times. If they coincide with yours, great, Shard Transfer away. If not, repeat process on another server

Well thise sort of makes sense lol. Australia and Oceanic is like 4+ hours behind west coast, so 11am is their peak time?

[Shelmari]

Well thise sort of makes sense lol. Australia and Oceanic is like 4+ hours behind west coast, so 11am is their peak time?

I guess? I dunno, math is hard. I'll ask our Aussie guild member what time it is over there when he's on because 11am seems way too early to be anyone's peak time.

[philefluxx]

Some Feedback:

Reacted and played most of the weekend

Leveling population is tolerable on Brocliff err "Briarcliff"
X Server LFD is nice, dps queues between 15-20min, healing 10min tops
Vet rewards rock, Im up to 31 in just one weekend!
From 1.3 -1.5 they seem to have made tons of improvements on this that and the other (i.e. you can buy souls now instead of waiting until 13 to get the quests on your alts, more portals in start zones, better UI response)
They have redone several trees, I have had to respec several roles on multiple toons

Im happy to have resubbed, even if its only while I wait for SWTOR

[Tarien]

Im happy to have resubbed, even if its only while I wait for SWTOR

Just wait til you hit 50, you may never want to leave. I was thinking on trying SWTOR, but honestly it isn't looking amazing, just WoW with a Star Wars skin, and I will find it hard to move to another MMO that doesn't have the development pace that Trion has.

[Chireru93]

Some Feedback:

Reacted and played most of the weekend

Leveling population is tolerable on Brocliff err "Briarcliff"
X Server LFD is nice, dps queues between 15-20min, healing 10min tops
Vet rewards rock, Im up to 31 in just one weekend!
From 1.3 -1.5 they seem to have made tons of improvements on this that and the other (i.e. you can buy souls now instead of waiting until 13 to get the quests on your alts, more portals in start zones, better UI response)
They have redone several trees, I have had to respec several roles on multiple toons

Im happy to have resubbed, even if its only while I wait for SWTOR

hmmm I guess once my wow sub goes out next I'm resubbing to rift. lol.

I loved doing those quests to get my new souls tho idk I just felt like I was actively pursuing making my character better at such a low lvl altho I can see how tedious it could be on alts. I noticed when I lvld a rogue a couple months ago or so the quests weren't in.

[Saanu]

This game is just like WoW as far as population goes when i lvled from 40-50 about two weeks ago i found pretty much no one doing anything in them lvls and i was scared of population problems but as soon as I hit 50 there was no problems at all I will go to an invasion at 4 a.m and there will be just as many people doing the invasion as if it were 8 p.m at night. All i can say is if you like the game i would definetly make a push to 50 population is alot better.

[Puremallace]

This game is just like WoW as far as population goes when i lvled from 40-50 about two weeks ago i found pretty much no one doing anything in them lvls and i was scared of population problems but as soon as I hit 50 there was no problems at all I will go to an invasion at 4 a.m and there will be just as many people doing the invasion as if it were 8 p.m at night. All i can say is if you like the game i would definetly make a push to 50 population is alot better.

Well the reasoning there is simple. The leveling is ridiculously easy. This is not Aion where you spend a week on one level. The definite idea was to make end game the big thing.

[Fishyface]

This game is just like WoW as far as population goes when i lvled from 40-50 about two weeks ago i found pretty much no one doing anything in them lvls and i was scared of population problems but as soon as I hit 50 there was no problems at all I will go to an invasion at 4 a.m and there will be just as many people doing the invasion as if it were 8 p.m at night. All i can say is if you like the game i would definetly make a push to 50 population is alot better.

I was wary at first as well. But as time went on realized that most 50s are out and about and not hanging in sanctum. Once i got to 50 chat it confirmed atleast to me that there are no problems with rifts pop at all. Even though the official forums say otherwise (dont listen to them most of them are mad that they bought 6 months and dont like the game anymore, laugh at them for being short sighted)

[Duravian]

I've been trying out the trial version for a couple of days now and have to admit I have encountered a very similar problem. There is hardly ever anybody around, mostly I'm running around on my own, closing rifts, questing, etc. I tried picking a high population server but the best I could find was medium and still the world seem incredibly empty. This afternoon I was happily doing some quests when an invasion popped out and got stomped by a massive flood of level 20 something that turned my character into fish food under three second flat.

The type of world events that happen in Rift, I like the principle and idea of it but it does seem to have bad side effects. Like for example my case where I'm alone against a battalion of mobs that are 5-7 levels higher than me to begin with. It would perhaps be a more enjoyable experience but what happened today was a long way from being fun.

This is what I feared about Rift. That one day nobody will care to go out into the world. It was so fun when it came out, and each zone was populated to the max with all the new levelers. I guess those days are gone, atleast until the expansion or a major patch. I'm downloading the trial atm because my main acct is locked and was banned because apparently some chinese guy was gold selling with it.... Should I appeal to get my acct back and re-open it again to play?

[Fishyface]

This is what I feared about Rift. That one day nobody will care to go out into the world. It was so fun when it came out, and each zone was populated to the max with all the new levelers. I guess those days are gone, atleast until the expansion or a major patch. I'm downloading the trial atm because my main acct is locked and was banned because apparently some chinese guy was gold selling with it.... Should I appeal to get my acct back and re-open it again to play?

Ya i would appeal for your account back, should be able to if they are anything like blizz.

People still care about the world, even more now since you can get inscribed sourcestone from the invasions in stillmoor, iron pine peaks, and shimmersands. What has happened is the leveling curve was easy and a majority of people are at max level now working on planar attunement, pvp, invasions, and running dungeons.

Anytime i go to stillmoor, iron pine peak, or shimmersand to do an invasion its packed to the brim with people. So much so that bosses are exploding way too fast and people are complaining to trion to let them last longer so they can get to them. They dont know that you get credit as long as your in the public group that is doing the boss.

Btw im on crucia which is a medium pop server, i can only imagine the people at those invasions on high pop, probably lag me hardcore lol..

[Goincommando]

Come back. You must. You know you want too...

Rift is hungry, it wants to eat your soul.

[Duravian]

well i played on a medium server, Regulos(pvp) and i usually got 0 - 1 FPS during an invasion boss... lol.