Rift 4.0 - Starfall Prophecy

[Slipmat]

My thoughts

4 zones...RIFT zones are massive, so thats good

It will actually be 5 zones, the end zone for level 70, Tenebrean Schism, will open a few weeks after launch





So far the Expansion looks good on paper, seems to be plenty of things to do, can't wait until Beta testing starts.

[Mercane]

Tell me again why you're even here when you clearly don't even play the game?

Does anyone still play Rift?

[Slipmat]

Does anyone still play Rift?

Naw, nobody at all, not even at 5am in the morning....

[Leyre]

Naw, nobody at all, not even at 5am in the morning....

so, thats like half the people you would find on orgrimmar in the morning

Hopefully they have fixed their weird ass momentum after a high jump

[theWocky]

Does anyone still play Rift?

Not really. It still has a (dwindling) player base of (slobbering) loyal, die hard fans - like "Rift Community Ambassador" Slipmat here. Still not convinced he's not on Trion's payroll. Check his post history and make your own judgement.

Currently, there are almost double the average of players of Lord of the Rings online on Steam compared to Rift
http://steamcharts.com/app/39120 - losing over 8% a month - and LotRO is technically in Life Support mode.

A few weeks ago, they removed phone support from the Patron Bonus (I assume due to dwindling numbers) - email only. Just another thing taken away and contracts between customer and company changed. It started with taking things from F2P customers and making them "subscription only" and then touted as "patron features"

This "expansion" is just a last ditch attempt by Trion at another cash-grab in my opinion. 2 Dungeons, 5 (empty?) zones (ala last two in Storm Legion - "we need space to put stuff" - spoiler! it never happened) ? Really? This is a patch, not an expansion.

And when you've bought the B2P game, guess what, a few patches in, based on their erratic business model history, you will probably be able to buy "bracelets" as an item slot. Don't say I didn't warn you. They aren't even releasing the "expansion" complete. The 5th zone appearing in a content patch "later" - and no raids either.

Rift is a game with an identity crisis. B2P with sub, then F2P with paywalls, P2W elements, now B2P with F2P with P2W elements?

There's one or two Rift YouTubers left, mostly out of date fan sites, the largest closed in February, but the big twitch guys like Towelliee actually want to be paid because they haemorrhage views when they play Rift.

A few months back, Rift had the biggest give-away in MMO history for a month and only about 4,500 people appeared to participate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pad9KJYpRzc - so maybe 10,000 players - at a stretch? They also gave away 10,000 boost-to-40 keys in June, then another 10,000 and the second batch hasn't been fully claimed yet - still like 2k over http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/...-Giveaway.html

The game suffers from obscenely over-the-top strict forum moderation due to customer discontent with players starting up http://reddit.com/r/mmorift as a place to discuss without being banned on forums. Most people have given up complaining and just left. Recent server instability that they can't seem to fix doesn't help.

Oh, yeah, then there are the Pay to Win elements, the blatant disregard for being fair and make amends when they make in-game policy changes (Affinity points and Ocho - as an example - "Sorry guys, I forgot to tell you about the change, but it's too late now to fix, suck it up, my bad", the buggy, unfinished, rushed raids with allegations that this is done so that close-to BiS items can be put on the store for cash, the mass exodus of top raiding guilds, the drama between Trion employees and raiders, politics, etc.

Did I mention the grind? Will make you want to kill yourself. It's bad. Really bad. Hey! new content! Let's kill some bunnies. Lets jump on 100 balloons. Fun times by all.

Tell me again why you're even here when you clearly don't even play the game?

Oh, and Slipmat, the guys commenting are "here" because this is an MMO RPG site. You don't get to post your intoxicated fanboism, WoW bashing, general sarcasm here under the protection of Trion mods under team "Arch 'n Ocho". Heck, if it weren't for MMO Champ, no-one would even know Rift exists any more.

[Mercane]

so, thats like half the people you would find on orgrimmar in the morning

Hopefully they have fixed their weird ass momentum after a high jump

So- less than my Friendship Moose runs at 2 AM?



Got it.

[Puupi]

Is it just me or does the new map look like.... well, something dirty... ?

[Eleccybubb]

So you say.....that's even worse, if a video game gets you so worked up into a nerd rage why even continue playing it? go outside, catch some Pokemon

Not even surprised to hear that coming from the unofficial MMO champion Trion community rep.

[8bithamster]

Is Rift still the usual

"Lol you can buy raidgear in the store!"
"If you want to be able to use all your gearslots, you need to throw cash at it!"

game?

I played it for a while, but the monotonous zone system (I got to 40 or somesuch) and things I heard about above just made me give up

[Eleccybubb]

Is Rift still the usual

"Lol you can buy raidgear in the store!"
"If you want to be able to use all your gearslots, you need to throw cash at it!"

game?

I played it for a while, but the monotonous zone system (I got to 40 or somesuch) and things I heard about above just made me give up

There is an optional VERY obnoxious grind for earrings. You have to grind a fuckton of Platinum to buy the tradeable credits. Like I said no gear slot should be gated by real money or a dirty grind in any MMO and I don't know of any big one who does the same.

[StrawberryZebra]

PLEASE TELL ME THEY ARE REVAMPING SOUL TREE PLEASE PLEASE (for their sake, not a consumer's).

I would love it if they could get around to doing this. Far too much unnessacary bloat in all the soul trees at present for anyone who's not a Primalist. They're crammed full of so many useless filler talents just to make up the numbers its unreal. Cutting a lot of the passive "Plus x% damage" talents and adding them directly to the soul gift would go a long way towards removing a lot of the clutter.

Abilities are almost as bad too. Most skills boil down to "do X damage", so you shove them all in a macro in numerical order and have done with it. Thats not interesting design at all, and it removes a lot of the need for players to make decisions. Playing as a Warlock, I've got 5 different DoT spells which all do the exact same thing! You could combine them all into a single button and have done with it and nothing of value would be lost. Quite a few abilities in other souls have direct replacements that, rather than being a totally new skill in and of themselves, could simply be added to the base skill through a talent and have done with it.

Theres a lot of soul tidy up work they could do that would benefit both the players and themselves in the long run.

Is it just me or does the new map look like.... well, something dirty... ?

You have a filthy mind. I approve!

[Heathy]

my brother was just asking me if there are any other good mmos lel. I can't tell if they are trying to heart stake the game themselves, like if its deliberate or not.

I personally just got bored of the choppyness the last time I played, just the whole 5 fps in 20 mans thing, i will take 90% tidi in eve over that any day.

[Edge-]

So far the Expansion looks good on paper, seems to be plenty of things to do, can't wait until Beta testing starts.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more the fact that the expansion is launching with a whopping 2 dungeons worries me.

NT was rough enough with only like 5, and a few bumped up older dungeons added later as experts (I think, forget if they came with launch or not). But new dungeons while leveling? And potentially only 2 experts at cap? Yeah, do not like that in the slightest.

I dig that they're not doing a full $60 deal and going for the cheaper $40, but even then it seems like there's not a ton of content for $40 : /

[Slipmat]

Seems a few more people need to get outside and play Pokemon Go, so much rage from a simple Thread about a video game's upcoming Expansion.

Thanks for all your insightful and sincere thoughts, it has me thinking about not even pre-ordering this Expansion and going to live with some monks in Tibet......

ooopps, too late

[Puupi]

If it wasn't for Legion coming, I would definitely test this one out. Haven't had my RIFT fix sated for years. Maybe I will test it out at some point. RIFT still holds a special place in my heart, I consider it the best MMO ever - but I never really played it super seriously as all my MMO friends were stuck on WoW.

[StrawberryZebra]

I dig that they're not doing a full $60 deal and going for the cheaper $40, but even then it seems like there's not a ton of content for $40 : /

I was thinking the same too. An expansion is nice, but I like to know I'm getting value for what I'm buying. At the moment theres really not enough information out there for me to make an informed decision about if its worth it or not, let alone preordering. I'm sure they have more content in the pipeline, but if its going to be worth the pricetag by the end is a concern.

Seems a few more people need to get outside and play Pokemon Go, so much rage from a simple Thread about a video game's upcoming Expansion.

There's a significant difference between being skeptical or critical and rage. Given Trions track record and their monetisation changes over the past 12 or so months I think a healthy does of skepticism is warrented.

[Eleccybubb]

I was thinking the same too. An expansion is nice, but I like to know I'm getting value for what I'm buying. At the moment theres really not enough information out there for me to make an informed decision about if its worth it or not, let alone preordering. I'm sure they have more content in the pipeline, but if its going to be worth the pricetag by the end is a concern.



There's a significant difference between being skeptical or critical and rage. Given Trions track record and their monetisation changes over the past 12 or so months I think a healthy does of skepticism is warrented.

Don't bother dude. He is just being a childish at this point. Said it before and I'll say it again. Trion could throw a game as bad as Daikatana at him and he would find that acceptable because it's Trion.

[xuros]

Uhm I do. I know for a fact the earring slot is gated behind an obnoxious alternate fucking grind or throwing your money out. Gear slots should never be gated by money or disgusting grinds in an mmo and I can't think of any other well known one who does it. Sorry people have criticisms of your precious Rift that you think is oh so perfect when it is not. I'm surprised you have not applied for a job yet at Trion because you would fit right in. Also got a problem with where I post? Report it to a mod or use the ignore function built into this website.

- - - Updated - - -



NT was fucking disgusting. They basically didn't try and shat on the playerbase.

So you would have prefered to pay more the xpack itself than pay less to unlock the earrings that you never needed before? Such a small thing to complain about.

[Ahovv]

I've said it before, i always thought Trion gave away too much of the game for free, i.e the entire thing

This seems to be a return to Buy to Play and have everything,the Live Stream tomorrow night will tell, meanwhile Massively OP has an exclusive sneak peek at Starfall Prophecy, makes for interesting reading


http://massivelyop.com/2016/08/04/he...nsion/#respond

Also Gamespot just released the trailer for Starfall Prophecy

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/thi.../1100-6442317/

Except it's not "buy to play and have everything." You better believe the cash shop will still exist, and they will continue selling gear on there. If it's anything like Nightmare Tide, there will be dungeon gear (i.e. better gear than anyone in the entire game has) before anyone even hits level 70.

Also expect lots of grinding and artificial barriers to these grinds, aided by purchasing bypasses from the shop.

As a side note, I literally laughed out loud when I read the part about "two dungeons and one raid." It's a shame; the zones actually look interesting. But I imagine it's hard to build quality group content with a skeleton crew.

edit: If Rift had an ethical business model (buy to play, sub-based, or f2p with no a la carte gear or xp bonuses) I probably would have never quit, because my best friends and guildmates wouldn't have quit. It's a shame the game got to this point.

[Edge-]

edit: If Rift had an ethical business model (buy to play, sub-based, or f2p with no a la carte gear or xp bonuses) I probably would have never quit, because my best friends and guildmates wouldn't have quit. It's a shame the game got to this point.

To be fair, there's not a single F2P or even B2P game that doesn't sell experience boosts in some form. They're not that significant anyways since they do little at max level unless you really want to grind a ton of PA levels.