Rift goes P2W in a paid expansion - Boycott the new caches and packs

[Eleccybubb]

I would disagree here. There are lots of perfectly fine F2P games that haven't slid into a P2W system. Dota for example, it's been doing F2P right for a long time now. So has LoL, Warframe, Path of Exile and even Hearthstone. There's nothing at all intrinsic to F2P that will force an eventual slide into P2W.

I think the issue is more that the publishers of smaller titles tend to look at how well the big names are doing, decide they want to make EA amounts of money from their F2P game and as a result copy the kinds of stratergies EA are using to rake in $800 million from a single title alone. These days it seems it's just not enough to have a successful F2P game, you're either making ALL of the money or you're scraping by. That's far from the truth, it's been shown time and time again that even unknown companies can make F2P games that are both profitable for them and fair to their players.



To be fair, I still have more people on ignore in Rift than I have in LoL and Dota combined - In fact, it's orders of magnitude larger! (6 across both LoL and Dota where as I have 63 on ignore in Rift). Rift is, by far, been the worst gaming community I've been a part of. Your milage may vary, but I run into far more ragers, trolls, elitists and just downright awful people in Rift than anywhere else.

I have that exact same thing with Rift. People tell me smaller games always have the better community but Rift is the prime example of a smaller game that just doesn't. In fact out of all the MMOs I've played I'd put it as the worst I've experienced but this is off topic a bit.

The thing is though Trion have been pulling this questionable stuff for at least 3 years now. It's not new that they brought something like this into the store when in the past they have sold raid gear (they still do but it's LFR quality which is more than enough to get you into Normals), paid classes that again at one point were more powerful than the non paid ones, bonus rolls for real money, a paid gear slot and the ability to equip a specifically named piece of gear.

Hell they even gutted plat grinding this expansion to deliberately sell REX and then pulled the "swimming in plat" garbage.

It's not new from them and this latest P2W fiasco was simply them seeing how far they could push it. And it backfired. A lot. Oddly though they listened (rare of Trion these days) and have been temporarily removed. I imagine all they will do is add a new currency in 4.4 to give them an excuse to sell these boxes again.

Again as I said and this isn't always true but when F2P games bring in these really large purchases it tells me that it might be close to being on it's last legs due to the need to charge this much. I'd genuinely love to see if there are quarterly reports for Rift anywhere to satisfy my curiosity on how much it makes each quarter.

However I agree with you. There are F2P games which are some of the largest out there or have a higher playerbase and have no P2W bs in them. The ones you listed are prime examples and seem to be doing pretty well from what I've read.

[Darkdaemon]

blah blah

Hello Ayn Rand

[StrawberryZebra]

However I agree with you. There are F2P games which are some of the largest out there or have a higher playerbase and have no P2W bs in them. The ones you listed are prime examples and seem to be doing pretty well from what I've read.

The two do seem to be very tightly correlated, yes. Determining if it's also the causation is much harder to get a solid grip on.

For good case study, look at F2P game Paladins. Until recently it was consistently one of the most populated games on Steam, right up there with the likes of CSGO, Dota and TF2. They've just added in a new P2W like lootbox, similar to the BF2 ones, so it's going to be interesting to see how far they've dropped from November to December. It's going to be more interesting to see how it plays out when the game is, finally out of Beta. Watch this space!

If you don't have the time to invest in raiding to obtain those items, why should a company GIVE them to you for free?

If you don't have the time to raid, why would you GIVE a company money for things you're never going to get the chance to use?

Congratulations on spetacularly missing the point!

When's the last time any of YOU have paid out even one cent to Trion for anything?

I used to buy mounts, skins and so on from Trion semi-frequently. I buy new games all the time anyway, I've got more than enough disposable income to spend on them. Thing is, Trion have moved further and further away from simple one time £5-10 purchaces. Be that Lootboxes, which are another issue entirely, or charging far more than the content is worth for it as they've done with some of the Packs in the past. They're catering to Whales almost exclusively now, which forces people like myself out of the economy.

More recently Trion's business practices have shown me that they are not to be trusted, that they will change their minds about their model as soon as it no longer suits them. Both the quantity and the quality of their content has nosedived and their monetisation has gotten both more aggressive and more expensive since NMT. These are both huge red flags for someone like myself.

Simply put, I cannot support them any more because of all the crap they've pulled in the past. Plenty of other posters here are in the same situation, we used to enjoy Rift, but the game and the company has changed so much that we no longer feel they're doing anything to earn our money. We want the Trion that were straight as an arrow back. The kind we felt had player interests at the forefront of any decisions they made. We were happy to support Rift when it was "No Tricks. No Traps". Now, even should the company backtrack all the way on their monetisation changes it would be too little too late. They've already thrown away any and all goodwill we had for them to make some quick cash.

But by all means, continue to beat that drum like a corporate mouthpiece. Insist, nay demand, that everyone pay Trion a monthly tribute. Play up just how poor and defenceless Trion are being attacked by miserly players who refuse to give them money. Continue to boast proudly of how much you've spent on Rift. Wear that Patron halo like a badge of honour!

Just know that nothing you have said, or will say down this line of discussion, will have any relevence to why former customers are upset over the state of Rift in the present. There are legtimate reasons why players may no longer use the Rift store and sweeping them aside landed Rift in the current mess that it is in.

[Kyanion]

Pay to win is when a company allows you to pay real money for items you can't obtain in the game any other way that are equal or more powerful than those you can obtain for free/regular means. What Rift is doing is allowing players to pay real money for a few accessories that are ALSO obtainable for free in the game by regular means.

I am not going to bother reading the entire word soup you spit out, you really need to make much smaller posts. Anyways, this that I quoted is the most laughable part. I'm sorry that you don't understand what P2W is but if you support actions like that you clearly don't get it. If more popular games like FF and WoW tried to put gear on the cash shop that was the same things you could get in the current raids people would be outraged and rightfully so. You are trying to focus on a 'more powerful' facet that does not matter. The SAME power level is just as bad as more powerful and some people would even argue that weaker gear on a cash shop is ALSO just as bad.

[Eleccybubb]

I am not going to bother reading the entire word soup you spit out, you really need to make much smaller posts. Anyways, this that I quoted is the most laughable part. I'm sorry that you don't understand what P2W is but if you support actions like that you clearly don't get it. If more popular games like FF and WoW tried to put gear on the cash shop that was the same things you could get in the current raids people would be outraged and rightfully so. You are trying to focus on a 'more powerful' facet that does not matter. The SAME power level is just as bad as more powerful and some people would even argue that weaker gear on a cash shop is ALSO just as bad.

The thing is there are plenty of F2P games and B2P games that do not have a single P2W element. And yes B2P counts considering a lot of people would have paid an initial cost for this game and were unable to get a refund. They charged £34.99 for this initally in which is the equivalent of most game expansions and delivered less content, less quality of content and the recent P2W elements.

People defending this really do confuse me. That whole "this is fine" attitude is the reason there are a lot of F2P games out there with an extremely low playerbase. Games that started off well and due to the elements introduced have sunk to an extremely low population.

People here have listed F2P/B2P games that have a cosmetic or non P2W/P2A cash shop. You have no way of excusing Rift. Yes a business is supposed to make money and it's been proven that games don't need to resort to shady tactics to do so. So saying "this is fine" for games that do is just grasping for straws.

[Pratt]

Wow is pay for raid gear on the ah, or pay for raid carries, and no one cares. Blizz removed it one step from direct pay to win and everyone ignores it. There are multiple items listed for over 500k. Sure some people on this board have that, but I'd bet 90% of the people who buy stuff like that buy tokens. That's $70+ for one item.

[Calfredd]

Wow is pay for raid gear on the ah, or pay for raid carries, and no one cares. Blizz removed it one step from direct pay to win and everyone ignores it. There are multiple items listed for over 500k. Sure some people on this board have that, but I'd bet 90% of the people who buy stuff like that buy tokens. That's $70+ for one item.

Not really comparable since other players had to get the gear to post on the AH and let's not get into how much more work mythic raiders need to do to carry someone who bought a run.

[Darkdaemon]

So many straw man arguments

So many ad hominem attacks

[Kyanion]

Wow is pay for raid gear on the ah, or pay for raid carries, and no one cares. Blizz removed it one step from direct pay to win and everyone ignores it. There are multiple items listed for over 500k. Sure some people on this board have that, but I'd bet 90% of the people who buy stuff like that buy tokens. That's $70+ for one item.

Not even the same damn thing and you know it. You can buy gear off the AH sure, inflated ilevel titanforged stuff that in some cases is worse than tier that is 30 levels lower than this super ilevel piece. It isn't direct pay to win and no one is 'ignoring' it. Also a 500k item would be about 60 dollars in Bnet tokens. So you wouldn't be fully gearing out in any case.

- - - Updated - - -

The thing is there are plenty of F2P games and B2P games that do not have a single P2W element. And yes B2P counts considering a lot of people would have paid an initial cost for this game and were unable to get a refund. They charged £34.99 for this initally in which is the equivalent of most game expansions and delivered less content, less quality of content and the recent P2W elements.

People defending this really do confuse me. That whole "this is fine" attitude is the reason there are a lot of F2P games out there with an extremely low playerbase. Games that started off well and due to the elements introduced have sunk to an extremely low population.

People here have listed F2P/B2P games that have a cosmetic or non P2W/P2A cash shop. You have no way of excusing Rift. Yes a business is supposed to make money and it's been proven that games don't need to resort to shady tactics to do so. So saying "this is fine" for games that do is just grasping for straws.

I don't get the whole 'this is fine' attitude either. Using WoW as an example if they tried to pull that shit I'd be outraged as well. I barely tolerate the Bnet token as it is but if they went farther than that? Screw that noise. I will not play any game that goes P2W and lets whales have actual advantages like that. I don't play phone games like that for the same reason.

[gaymer77]

Hello Ayn Rand

No clue who that is but hi anyway

If you don't have the time to raid, why would you GIVE a company money for things you're never going to get the chance to use?

Congratulations on spetacularly missing the point!

Congratulations on not reading what I said and accusing me of missing the point. There are plenty of people (not just in Rift but in WoW too) that don't have the time to invest in weekly raiding every single week at least a couple nights a week. They may have time to hop on to raid every couple weeks or on the weekend when some guilds do an alt raid or clean-up raid. These people want to be able to join in with their friends/guildmates and have fun raiding with them WHEN THEY CAN and still feel they were able to contribute to the raid's progression that night instead of being a liability or getting carried. I don't know about YOU but I feel bad when I look at the meters and see I did shit compared to the other members. THESE are the people that these lootboxes are catering to. Its your player with disposable income but lacks the time to invest in a second job of raiding when they get home from their 9-5 job. Its the college student who has some disposable income that has to choose between doing homework & studying or raiding when their ass isn't in a seat at school. Do you understand NOW who this is catering to?

I used to buy mounts, skins and so on from Trion semi-frequently. I buy new games all the time anyway, I've got more than enough disposable income to spend on them. Thing is, Trion have moved further and further away from simple one time £5-10 purchaces. Be that Lootboxes, which are another issue entirely, or charging far more than the content is worth for it as they've done with some of the Packs in the past. They're catering to Whales almost exclusively now, which forces people like myself out of the economy.

Again I sound like a broken record but nobody is forcing you to do anything here. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you don't like the lootboxes or can't afford it or don't want it, don't buy it. It really is that simple. Nobody is saying "oh you have to buy 4 lootboxes a week in order to continue to play the game or your account will permanently be banned". Nope, they aren't. They are simply offering these things to people who want them. Maybe I could recommend THIS GAME to you instead of Rift since you obviously don't like Rift anymore.

More recently Trion's business practices have shown me that they are not to be trusted, that they will change their minds about their model as soon as it no longer suits them.

Again I'm a broken record, businesses change their products all the time to suit their consumer's needs. If the consumer (you know us players) want something bad enough, a company is usually going to make it available even if that costs a little bit more than the consumer wanted to pay. Again, take a look at Blizzard's stance on legacy servers. How many times have they said in the past there will NEVER BE LEGACY SERVERS? And look what we have announced for the upcoming expansion...Classic WoW which is legacy servers. Consumers begged long enough and Blizzard saw how popular the illegal private servers were and decided to cash in & are making them available to their players...at a cost of $15 a month and all the other expansions prior to that being released. Genius idea! Lets cash in on these guys & gals playing the game that also want to play vanilla AND lets bring old players that quit back but force them to fork out $30-50 a pop for expansions they don't have yet just so they can play the original game again. BRILLIANT!

Simply put, I cannot support them any more because of all the crap they've pulled in the past.

Bye Felicia!

But by all means, continue to beat that drum like a corporate mouthpiece. Insist, nay demand, that everyone pay Trion a monthly tribute. Play up just how poor and defenceless Trion are being attacked by miserly players who refuse to give them money. Continue to boast proudly of how much you've spent on Rift. Wear that Patron halo like a badge of honour!

I will do that. When I enjoy a game I support it. I pay money to that game each month to play it. Be it in a subscription fee or microtransactions or both. I want the game to stay alive so I throw money at it if I like it. If I don't, I simply don't play it. There are plenty of other games out on the market that are worthy of where I spend my money.

Just know that nothing you have said, or will say down this line of discussion, will have any relevence to why former customers are upset over the state of Rift in the present. There are legtimate reasons why players may no longer use the Rift store and sweeping them aside landed Rift in the current mess that it is in.

That is totally up to you if you want to financially support a game or not. If you choose not to spend your money on something is completely up to you. Just don't bitch about how other people spend their money or how a company chooses to try and earn money to stay afloat. Just like you probably work for a living, a business is "working" each time they offer something new to buy.

I am not going to bother reading the entire word soup you spit out, you really need to make much smaller posts. Anyways, this that I quoted is the most laughable part. I'm sorry that you don't understand what P2W is but if you support actions like that you clearly don't get it. If more popular games like FF and WoW tried to put gear on the cash shop that was the same things you could get in the current raids people would be outraged and rightfully so. You are trying to focus on a 'more powerful' facet that does not matter. The SAME power level is just as bad as more powerful and some people would even argue that weaker gear on a cash shop is ALSO just as bad.

You know, I'm sorry you haven't learned how to read longer bits of information. I'll keep it short for you this time. You = crybaby QQ'ing over something other people can get that you want. Trion = trying to make money by offering what playes who are not a vocal minority want. Me = going back to playing the game because you're not worth my time Kyanion.

[Kyanion]

You know, I'm sorry you haven't learned how to read longer bits of information. I'll keep it short for you this time. You = crybaby QQ'ing over something other people can get that you want. Trion = trying to make money by offering what playes who are not a vocal minority want. Me = going back to playing the game because you're not worth my time Kyanion.

You know nothing about me, my disposable income, my spending habits or anything. Don't assume shit randomly on the internet okay? You are supporting P2W elements and the backlash was enough Trion shut down the shit. They did realize what the players want and it wasn't bullshit boxes like those. Too bad it harmed their already shit reputation and likely harmed the already low playerbase.

I'm sure you and the other 20 people still playing the game are digging in deep ready to open your wallet for more bleeding.

And finally, stop writing damn books in replies to simple things, that is why you are getting called Ayn Rand and other things.

[gaymer77]

Not really comparable since other players had to get the gear to post on the AH and let's not get into how much more work mythic raiders need to do to carry someone who bought a run.

It really is comparable in the fact that the person who is going to put that piece of gear on didn't step foot in that raid to "earn" it. Isn't that what this whole debate is about, people getting items they didn't "earn" by throwing gold/real money at it when other people have to go out and "earn it" the old fashioned way? Again the mythic comparison is valid as well. That person buying the run didn't do shit to "earn" their gear they get. They paid a fee and got the phatty lewtz! The only reason why Blizzard is stepping in to ban people who pay for this sort of thing with real money is because Blizzard doesn't get a percentage of the cut. If they did, they wouldn't get a shit about it.

Not even the same damn thing and you know it. You can buy gear off the AH sure, inflated ilevel titanforged stuff that in some cases is worse than tier that is 30 levels lower than this super ilevel piece. It isn't direct pay to win and no one is 'ignoring' it. Also a 500k item would be about 60 dollars in Bnet tokens. So you wouldn't be fully gearing out in any case.

I've seen plenty of BIS pieces that were crafted or dropped in a raid and those pieces generally go for well over 500K. Again BIS pieces that are BOE sold on the auction house. Then there's the whole Black Market Auction House which sells titanforged pieces quite frequently that players can bid on and get without ever stepping foot in a raid EVER

I don't get the whole 'this is fine' attitude either. Using WoW as an example if they tried to pull that shit I'd be outraged as well. I barely tolerate the Bnet token as it is but if they went farther than that? Screw that noise. I will not play any game that goes P2W and lets whales have actual advantages like that. I don't play phone games like that for the same reason.

So because YOU don't agree with THEIR decisions to make money you aren't going to play a game? Makes complete sense to me. I play a game because I find it fun & entertaining. But to each their own I guess....

[Kyanion]

So because YOU don't agree with THEIR decisions to make money you aren't going to play a game? Makes complete sense to me. I play a game because I find it fun & entertaining. But to each their own I guess....

*WOOSH* goes the point. Just stop replying to me, you are wasting my time now.

[Eleccybubb]

You know nothing about me, my disposable income, my spending habits or anything. Don't assume shit randomly on the internet okay? You are supporting P2W elements and the backlash was enough Trion shut down the shit. They did realize what the players want and it wasn't bullshit boxes like those. Too bad it harmed their already shit reputation and likely harmed the already low playerbase.

I'm sure you and the other 20 people still playing the game are digging in deep ready to open your wallet for more bleeding.

And finally, stop writing damn books in replies to simple things, that is why you are getting called Ayn Rand and other things.

The funny thing is in terms of content participation it really is at an all time low.

http://www.topofrift.com/

Go to that site and you can see how many guilds participate in raiding. Only 10 have even downed the current 3 boss 10 man raid. And that's literally half of this patches content. The other half was a new paid soul which wasn't well received.

As for raiding the LFR tool they brought in has been an absolute failure since nobody queues for it. Although apparently you shouldn't be queuing for an auto matchmaking system and instead make a group and then queue for it. Logic right? No it's because there are barely any players using the feature itself unless they are fully premade.

As for PvP. Conquest and Port Scion were removed due to lack of participation and Brasse basically said to those wanting to PvP that "Rift isn't a PvP game" and that you should essentially go play Archeage (Trion publish this game.... totally a coincidence ). They literally plug a game they publish which is also a terrible game to go play.

I mean look at their library. Defiance is essentially done for and while they stated their intent for a PS4/XB1 port I don't think it will do any good, Devillian which they also publish flopped, Atlas Reactor went partial F2P and nobody has heard a peep from it since, Archeage which they publish flopped, Trove is the only half decent game and probably the one that is carrying them financially at the moment and as for Rift well this expansion in general has been one disaster after another.

[gaymer77]

You know nothing about me, my disposable income, my spending habits or anything. Don't assume shit randomly on the internet okay? You are supporting P2W elements and the backlash was enough Trion shut down the shit. They did realize what the players want and it wasn't bullshit boxes like those. Too bad it harmed their already shit reputation and likely harmed the already low playerbase.

I'm sure you and the other 20 people still playing the game are digging in deep ready to open your wallet for more bleeding.

And finally, stop writing damn books in replies to simple things, that is why you are getting called Ayn Rand and other things.

You're right. I don't know anything about you, your disposable income, your spending habits, or anything. What I do know is what you have said & how you present yourself on these forums. You make yourself out to be a crybaby who is upset that other people might get something you can't/don't want to get yourself. You and a few others on these forums have done nothing but cry "ZOMG RIFT IS P2W" this entire thread while not listening or taking into account other games out there that have offered or still offer similar features. As for your crying that a whole 20 people play that game, yeah ok if you say so. Rift is not a heavily populated game but its not one foot in the grave either. I see plenty of people out in the world when I'm in game. In fact I'm in Meridian right now and see a good 15-20 in the crafting area alone. Oh but I guess that's where everyone spends their time now is in Meridian in the crafting area.

[Darkdaemon]

I'm calling him Ayn Rand because his views are like a first year philosophy student that read Atlas Shrugged and thought it was the best thing ever

Probably thinks net neutrality shouldn't exist either. Comcast should make all the money it can right? People that can't or don't want to pay are just freeloaders.

[Kyanion]

The funny thing is in terms of content participation it really is at an all time low.

http://www.topofrift.com/

Go to that site and you can see how many guilds participate in raiding. Only 10 have even downed the current 3 boss 10 man raid. And that's literally half of this patches content. The other half was a new paid soul which wasn't well received.

As for raiding the LFR tool they brought in has been an absolute failure since nobody queues for it. Although apparently you shouldn't be queuing for an auto matchmaking system and instead make a group and then queue for it. Logic right? No it's because there are barely any players using the feature itself unless they are fully premade.

As for PvP. Conquest and Port Scion were removed due to lack of participation and Brasse basically said to those wanting to PvP that "Rift isn't a PvP game" and that you should essentially go play Archeage (Trion publish this game.... totally a coincidence ). They literally plug a game they publish which is also a terrible game to go play.

I mean look at their library. Defiance is essentially done for, Devillian flopped, Atlas Reactor went partial F2P and nobody has heard a peep from it since, Archeage which they publish flopped, Trove is the only half decent game and probably the one that is carrying them financially at the moment and as for Rift well this expansion in general has been one disaster after another.

Geez I didn't know it was that bad. So they removed a PvP map and a type of PvP matchmaking system, LFR is essentially dead and they release next to no content and when it does get released not enough people are around to raid it. After looking at their 'library' of games this company sure does seem like the next target of a scummy company like Daybreak, they already ruined EQ Next so they might as well take over Trion and finish them off too.

[gaymer77]

*WOOSH* goes the point. Just stop replying to me, you are wasting my time now.

Instead of being a crybaby & QQ'ing on here, why don't you go find a game to play that meets all of your many demands that also is F2P since that's obviously what you're looking for....

[hulkgor]

Game is already dead in the water. If this bothers you, just take the hint and move on. Seriously.

[Eleccybubb]

Geez I didn't know it was that bad. So they removed a PvP map and a type of PvP matchmaking system, LFR is essentially dead and they release next to no content and when it does get released not enough people are around to raid it. After looking at their 'library' of games this company sure does seem like the next target of a scummy company like Daybreak, they already ruined EQ Next so they might as well take over Trion and finish them off too.

It's not removing it that annoyed me. It's that the CM tried to defend it by basically advertising a game they publish. Just to run you through the content post 4.0.

4.1. 4 boss 10 man raid which was LFR mode only, 10 man upscale of an already existing raid, Eternal Weapon quests which had you mindlessly grinding the same content and an upscale of an NMT Dungeon.

4.2. A new zone that should have been in for launch and was not available for going on 8 months from launch, four new paid souls that should have been done a year or so ago for Primalist, that 4 boss raid from 4.1 got a Normal mode and other minor stuff. So basically this patch had content in that should have been available 8+ months ago.

4.3. A 3 boss 10 man raid and a new paid soul for Mage that is getting really negative receptions due to it's awful mechanics. And no I'm not joking. This is the content for 4.3.

http://www.trionworlds.com/rift/en/2...aw-october-25/

Just in case you don't believe me that is the 4.3 info.

Funny thing was that this expansion was also £34.99 or $40 on launch. Yes they want back to B2P initially and it went back to F2P in not even a year.

- - - Updated - - -

Game is already dead in the water. If this bothers you, just take the hint and move on. Seriously.

It's not that specific detail that bothers me mate. I just want to know why they did it. As someone who enjoys games as a heavy hobby it's just painful to see.

Surely you get where I'm coming from here? I want to know what possessed them to switch to a model that in the long run damaged a game that could have been up there as one of the top MMOs. Which it was during the early days and Storm Legion.

What I find perplexing is why people are defending a blatant P2W move they made? I get people enjoy a game and they are fine to but there is enjoying a game and there is defending a developer for consistently shady moves and acting like it's normal because a few other games with the same/similar model do it.