Common theme on this forum?

[Runintowalls]

I think the attrition factor is mostly due to rift requiring a much better computer and graphics card than other games, specifically wow. Players try rift and honestly I haven't met anyone with legitimate gripes about the game besides "it wasnt for me" which can and probably does mean anything from "I'm broke and can't afford the monthly subscription, when will it become free to play?" to "my graphics card can't handle rift so I can't raid or be competitive in pvp, even on lowest video settings, so I quit, but I'll pretend I don't like the game, though I really wish I could play"

there was a point several months ago that many hardcore grinders finished the end game content and got bored, some thought pvp was broken, and they only pvp in MMOs, some were waiting for hammerknell, others waiting for ID raid, still others did those raids and felt they had nothing else to do because they only played the game for the top tier content and couldn't enjoy zone events, dungeons, leveling, exploring, puzzles, etc.

rift offers a ton of content but some players only want one thing, like pvp or end game raiding. the most fun I had in rift was enjoying all the different content types.

I don't know if more players are coming back or new players starting now, all I see is the login queue, and low/medium population could mean anything from 500 or 5000 players in a zone. they may have even redefined the "low/medium/high" population values or how many players can be online in a zone at a time to reduce the chance of login queue.

I think the game is great and they're the best MMO, they have a lot of potential and I have no complaints except that some content goes against my religious beliefs, though some principles are in favor of those beliefs. I don't enjoy the hellfire theme, for example, though I do like the angel and faithful guardians. there's many subtle nuances and references to religious undertones and themes, but that's just my preferences and personal taste.

rift is the best game I've ever played.

[Ricen]

Rift has just done really well to sustain and more importantly, 'deliver'. The CMs and developers listen to the community more and release content regularly. It may not be as talked about as much as SWTOR and even TERA, but it's doing better than both imo - it's just maintaining those subs and even slowly growing.

Its so true ! Really Rift totally fell out of the lime light over the past few months because these rushed, poorly made games (Mainly Swtor) Took the center light.
Sorry to bash on Swtor, but i think most of the gaming community can clearly see its in a little rut at the moment. So Yeah Rift has kept growing slowly and kept maintaining steadily and i think we are in store for just the same amount of growth and prosperity even through Gw2. I think its fair to make that call that they will at least maintain what they have achieved so far.

[Bullettime]

SWTOR bled players, D3 has little replayability, and we're at a large dead zone in WoW content. People are experimenting with different games now and with a less jaded view than they did at launch. While not a very big fan myself, Rift still isn't a bad game in any sense. Players are just now realizing that with the launch hype dying down and boredom with alternatives. People are giving it an actual chance now.

[willowe]

SWTOR bled players, D3 has little replayability, and we're at a large dead zone in WoW content. People are experimenting with different games now and with a less jaded view than they did at launch. While not a very big fan myself, Rift still isn't a bad game in any sense. Players are just now realizing that with the launch hype dying down and boredom with alternatives. People are giving it an actual chance now.

Yeah, I'm seeing this. I have an IRL friend who played WoW for 7 years, he bought Rift last July during a $5 sale, did like 5 quests, said 'lolol the mobs drop candles like Kobolds!' and quit...making fun of me for playing a WoW clone. Well, he got bored of 4.3, and tried Rift Lite. Said friend is now unsubbed to WoW and is 3 mos subbed to Rift.

I try to hide my smug grin, but it's hard, if he hadn't been such a tool 11 mos ago.....

[Fencers]

I think the attrition factor is mostly due to rift requiring a much better computer and graphics card than other games, specifically wow.

Very common among players who primarily played World of Warcraft &/or little else. Warcraft being one of the broadest commercial games on the market. There are an awful lot of WOW players for whom it was/is their only game; usually played on some big box store, off the shelf PC.

To be sure, other MMOs have their optimization kinks on release. We're likely to find as many disappointed players in the tech forums of Age of Conan, Aion, DCUO, SWTOR, LOTRO in their early days as on Rift.

This is something that has kept MMOs in the gfx dark ages actually. Compared to how Max Payne 3, Battlefield 3 or any number of games run & look on my PC compared to even Tera or Rift? Joe FamilyPC and his 24 friends are a bit of an albatross.

[Trialtm]

Its so true ! Really Rift totally fell out of the lime light over the past few months because these rushed, poorly made games (Mainly Swtor) Took the center light.
Sorry to bash on Swtor, but i think most of the gaming community can clearly see its in a little rut at the moment. So Yeah Rift has kept growing slowly and kept maintaining steadily and i think we are in store for just the same amount of growth and prosperity even through Gw2. I think its fair to make that call that they will at least maintain what they have achieved so far.

Again, not to bash, SwTor is already possibly hinting at going F2P already.

---------- Post added 2012-06-22 at 08:01 AM ----------

It seems there was a rather massive spike back around February once people were getting bored with DS, and with the 1-year celebration in Rift. But once that ended, seemed like the population dropped off a bit again. I do think that the pop will go back up especially the closer you get to the expansion.

And what Tarien said about the 30-45 is correct. At least, that's how it was for me.

Yea DS and the LFR killed it for me. Thats pretty much when i came back to Rift. I think it was a F2P weekend and i hoped back on all my old toons. I forgot i had a lvl 43 Mage. I remember i stopped playing because it was like riding a bike in sand at that level. But i powered through it and literally when u hit 45 u can fly to 50 with IA's. And there SO much fun! Its awesome running around with 19 other people and just literally lighting up a town when u all crash threw there entrance. Mobs and spells are flying everywhere. Tying these into endgame is another great way to get you out and about into the zones again too. And dont forget the great big zone invasions. They are constantly going off. No one really sits around in the capitals. I think its a great alternative to X Y leveling. And correct me if im wrong but i believe Blizzard is incorporating these too but is calling them something else.

Who knows tho. Maybe next Wednesday we can IA's in Silverwood, Freemarch, Gloamwood, and Stonefield with patch 1.9.

[Zetno]

I can only speak for EU shards, but I've noticed a pretty dramatic drop in server populations since around midway through 1.8. I'm not sure if this is due to other games such as Diablo, people not happy with the content, or just people spending less time gaming because the weather is nicer, but I hope the community picks up for 1.9. I'm confident that even if it doesn't, the expansion will bring many new and old players back anyway.

[Trialtm]

I can only speak for EU shards, but I've noticed a pretty dramatic drop in server populations since around midway through 1.8. I'm not sure if this is due to other games such as Diablo, people not happy with the content, or just people spending less time gaming because the weather is nicer, but I hope the community picks up for 1.9. I'm confident that even if it doesn't, the expansion will bring many new and old players back anyway.

Its hard to tell on wolfsbane. To me, it always seems healthy.

[Fluffygong]

I can only speak for EU shards, but I've noticed a pretty dramatic drop in server populations since around midway through 1.8. I'm not sure if this is due to other games such as Diablo, people not happy with the content, or just people spending less time gaming because the weather is nicer, but I hope the community picks up for 1.9. I'm confident that even if it doesn't, the expansion will bring many new and old players back anyway.

I think this is mainly the players fault, I know for defiant side a large percentage of people appear to be on Icewatch now. Mainly because 1-2 guilds from the other servers that were large moved to Icewatch then all the other guilds decided to move. Unfortunately this doesn't nothing but damage Rifts population as the unguilded players/players in smaller guilds will then find themselves on very unpopulated servers and might not want to move. If you go on Icewatch though for Defiants it's really busy, I was doing Shimmersand instant adventures with a group of 10 at 8am, by 9am there was Ember Isle instant adventure up and a daily raid rift group formed. When I logged on on Wednesday at about 9.30am there was already a River of Souls raid just ended.

[Zetno]

I think this is mainly the players fault, I know for defiant side a large percentage of people appear to be on Icewatch now. Mainly because 1-2 guilds from the other servers that were large moved to Icewatch then all the other guilds decided to move. Unfortunately this doesn't nothing but damage Rifts population as the unguilded players/players in smaller guilds will then find themselves on very unpopulated servers and might not want to move. If you go on Icewatch though for Defiants it's really busy, I was doing Shimmersand instant adventures with a group of 10 at 8am, by 9am there was Ember Isle instant adventure up and a daily raid rift group formed. When I logged on on Wednesday at about 9.30am there was already a River of Souls raid just ended.

Yeah, but even so Icewatch right now isn't as populated as Bloodiron was even 3 or 4 months ago. There was a period over January and February where there were regular queues to log in, and now at peak times it doesn't seem to top medium population. Other servers such as Riptalon and Blightweald which used to have healthy populations also seem to have quietened down recently. Like I said I don't see this being a permanent problem, thankfully.

[Fluffygong]

Yeah, but even so Icewatch right now isn't as populated as Bloodiron was even 3 or 4 months ago. There was a period over January and February where there were regular queues to log in, and now at peak times it doesn't seem to top medium population. Other servers such as Riptalon and Blightweald which used to have healthy populations also seem to have quietened down recently. Like I said I don't see this being a permanent problem, thankfully.

In January most of the guilds from Riptalon moved to Icewatch and last week most of the guilds from Blightweald moved to Icewatch too. But yes, it is summer holidays and people have exams and are getting results atm so it's a common time for people to be off. It's always the great summer break, guilds always struggle. Games always have lots of players at the start of the year when the weather is worse too. With Storm Legion we should be seeing an influx of new and old players though.

[KevyB]

if there is 1 company that deserve every cent they get its trion

Aye, 'tis why i also bought the mini bonus pack with spindrel the spider to throw them a few more dollars.

[Ricen]

In January most of the guilds from Riptalon moved to Icewatch and last week most of the guilds from Blightweald moved to Icewatch too. But yes, it is summer holidays and people have exams and are getting results atm so it's a common time for people to be off. It's always the great summer break, guilds always struggle. Games always have lots of players at the start of the year when the weather is worse too. With Storm Legion we should be seeing an influx of new and old players though.

Yeah totally agree, there should be a drop in play over summer. Id hope people are getting outside and being active, but besides the point..

Storm Legion, from the small tiny things i have seen. Well hot damn, i want it.

---------- Post added 2012-06-24 at 01:35 AM ----------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9qbz...feature=fvwrel bring back memories ?

[willowe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9qbz...feature=fvwrel bring back memories ?

No, but this does:

[probert]

I think Rift is well positioned for a big increase with the next expansion.

Blizzard offered free, early access to the MoP beta as a substitute for content in their second year of Cata. There's a bunch of problems with this:
- people will be bored of the content come official release
- the 'wow' factor doesn't seem to be there with MoP
- the pandarean really are a polarizing choice... some people love it, some people hate it.

OTOH, the rift expansion is delivering everything people asked for. Personal housing, emphasis upon world events, 2x as many zones. If you look at Ember Isle vs the launch content, you can see how much more advanced their storytelling, questing, and zone creation has become.

Storm Legion might be the TBC for Rift -- the time when the MMO really takes off.