"Death of a game: RIFT"

[dope_danny]

The latest of Nerd Slayers 'Death of' series that covers shut down or heavily over the hill MMORPG's on the decline focussed on Rift this time around. Its a pretty interesting video, i never knew Trion was founded by EA and NCsoft employee's. It also reminded me of how everybody i know was playing during Storm Legion but abandoned it before the next expansion came out. A nostalgic look back but kind of highlights issues that were around long before the current stuff.

[lokoma]

free to play was the ultimate downfall i would say, also i remember the game seemed to take a big hit in the rift ember isle patch

[grexly75]

free to play was the ultimate downfall i would say, also i remember the game seemed to take a big hit in the rift ember isle patch

Unfortunately true, though there are some games that do well with F2P, but they are designed with F2P in mind (Guildwars 1 & 2).. With Rift it wasn't and the other thing is the developer/publisher was in the end the major factor for Rifts demise..

Same thing with Wildstar it held promise and was different, but as soon as it went f2p and now with the gift of hindsight, one could see the writing was on the wall and not long after Wildstar went f2p it went belly up as well due to that, and the turmoil with the developer/publisher..

[shadowmatrix]

I loved Storm legion but Nightmare Tide started off as meh and declined into sigh.

[Eleccybubb]

Meh no sympathy.

Game got what it deserved in terms of it's decline due to the devs/higher ups going all money hungry towards it.

Could have been a great game today and now

https://steamcharts.com/app/39120

Can't be that many left on Non Steam either.

It competes with games like Everquest and Everquest 2.

But hey bright side is that one of it's competition shut down (Wildstar).

[Kyphael]

Ah, I still remember when Rift came out, touted as a WoW killer much like SW: ToR. lol I never gave it the time of day, graphics looked better than WoW's but by then I already didn't have the time for two games and was already invested on progressing my characters on WoW.

[ryanmahaffe]

Meh no sympathy.

Game got what it deserved in terms of it's decline due to the devs/higher ups going all money hungry towards it.

Could have been a great game today and now

https://steamcharts.com/app/39120

Can't be that many left on Non Steam either.

It competes with games like Everquest and Everquest 2.

But hey bright side is that one of it's competition shut down (Wildstar).

That isn't a brightside for RIFT. At least Wildstar died with the dignity of staying a pro consumer f2p model.
RIFT gets worse and worse every year.

[IIamaKing]

Anyone saying FTP was the downfall is silly. The game was dead 3-4 years ago w/o FTP. Game was already dying. FTP kept it alive a lot LONGER but it was always doomed.

[Typhoria]

Anyone saying FTP was the downfall is silly. The game was dead 3-4 years ago w/o FTP. Game was already dying. FTP kept it alive a lot LONGER but it was always doomed.

The game was at least enjoyable prior to it going FTP. Once it went FTP, grinding any currency/rep was so much worse even while continuing to subscribe.

[Eleccybubb]

The game was at least enjoyable prior to it going FTP. Once it went FTP, grinding any currency/rep was so much worse even while continuing to subscribe.

Not to mention they made it P2W twice and thought they could get away with it before reverting it.

"No tricks no traps". Yeah... right.

[Typhoria]

Not to mention they made it P2W twice and thought they could get away with it before reverting it.

"No tricks no traps". Yeah... right.

The most P2W I saw was buying previous tier gear (for a shit ton of money); I quit shortly after Grim Awakening raid in Storm Legion. I do miss some of the class design though, Riftstalker was incredibly fun.

[Eleccybubb]

The most P2W I saw was buying previous tier gear (for a shit ton of money); I quit shortly after Grim Awakening raid in Storm Legion. I do miss some of the class design though, Riftstalker was incredibly fun.

At one point in NMT they removed the void stone option for the earring slot.

That's absolute P2W. It's a gear slot for real money.

Then they tried to sell BiS accessories during Starfall Prophecy which they quickly went back on.

[Soikona]

It’s a shame really. Smoothest launch MMO I have ever played, best customer service and very interactive with the community. Over time, Rift changes its focus from excellent customer service and quality gameplay to cash grab and rushing things out of the door. Game had a lot of potential, just sad to see that potential wasted because of the big wigs upstairs.

[Nyel]

"Classic" RIFT was amazing. I loved that game. The graphics, the classes, the dungeons, raids, the world. It was really amazing. A shame that it has been ruined by bad decisions.

[Typhoria]

At one point in NMT they removed the void stone option for the earring slot.

That's absolute P2W. It's a gear slot for real money.

Then they tried to sell BiS accessories during Starfall Prophecy which they quickly went back on.

I wasn't doubting you at all, but just wow. I that game went downhill fast. I remember when they had released information on the new souls, physician and such, and thought it was ridiculous that they were charging for those. I never made it to the release of them though.

Oh well at least I can keep the fond memories of what it use to be.

[dope_danny]

At one point in NMT they removed the void stone option for the earring slot.

That's absolute P2W. It's a gear slot for real money.

Then they tried to sell BiS accessories during Starfall Prophecy which they quickly went back on.

That was basically the moment the last of my circle of friends sadly wrote the game off. That and the recycling dialing up. Since then you-know-who and one person on another site are the only people left that still shill the game and sit in their burning room saying 'this is fine'.

[Pachycrocuta]

For me, Rift started going downhill when they started with the preset soul combos, Instant Adventures, and then Ember Isle. Storm Legion came out, touted as 3 massive zones as big as the original Rift continent, but they ended up being huge empty spaces with lots of grind, and looking back, it was a foreshadowing that Rift would be going f2p, which it did not long after SL's release. I am just glad I got the expansion for free from Raptr instead of paying for it. I still have my physical Rift game on my shelf I bought from Walmart.

I lost a lot of interest when they came out with the preset soul combos, "streamlined" Mathosia/Terminus starting areas, removed the quests to gain a new subclass, and invasions being meaningless if you didn't thwart them. Then SL and the f2p came about and tanked any interest. I did mess around with the Dimensions a bit, which would have been amazing if they would have come out before f2p and the excessive monetization they did with them.

[Osmeric]

I played Rift for much of 2011.

I played with a casual guild. They progressed slowly in the raids, and were stymied by Hammerknell. Original Rift had the same problem as WoW's tBC: a single raid difficulty cannot be tuned for the wide range of player skill levels.

The players in that guild gave up and went over to SWTOR (which was more a Rift killer than a WoW killer). I went back to WoW which, when it added LFR, made a BC-like endgame completely nonviable for any future MMO.

[Deleted]

Watched the video few days ago.
Rift was the only mmo - rpg game i played besides wow (that its far from being mmo and rpg for a long time now for the majority of its playerbase).
I enjoyed the game. I enjoyed the talent system. I enjoyed the fact that it was so more "rpg like" without becoming too dark or too gloomy or over-complicated to play it.
Obviously the creators of that game risked a lot, having insanely high expectations that quickly proven to be baseless.
That reflected to their aura, regarding the game. Their frustration was reflecting to the way game evolved and so did their stress to "show results" to their investors. I quited practically before hitting level cap. I played alts before 50 (was like 43-44 on main? don't remember anymore!).
Maybe it was because i joined relatively late and the game was declining as i was playing it, that made me to avoid investing more time in it. It was prior to first XPac, that i never actually bought. I don't regret playing it. Made me realize that i will never invest the rediculous amount of game time to anything else than wow. I don't blame the game for it though. It was me, and apparently lots of others besides me that never felt "hooked to stay", long enough.
What company is to be blamed for though, is for letting those 250.000 or so ppl down, that kept playing it after the first year, and enjoying it enough to keep doing so, for another shot at the "big money", risking to disappoint the few that actually supported them but were enough to keep funding a good, sub based game! Opportunism was all over the hole thing, especially after going free to play.

[Eleccybubb]

-snip-

I actually wanted to come back to this point but kept forgetting.

It's not just that they let players down. It's that they let players down after flat out stating there would not be a major paradigm shift with a F2P model. A lot of longtime players had just had enough and called it quits and went to games that actually gave a damn about their playerbase and providing a sustainable and fair business model.

The game now just consists of diehard fans who still refuse to acknowledge the glaring issues.

And then it went P2W, sold overpriced cosmetics, lootboxes and so on just so the CEO could fill his pockets before selling out to a company where games go to die.

Rift had a good chance at being F2P. Now it's on life support managed by a staff of 25 or so people.

I mean look at GW2. It's on it's second expansion, B2P with a very fair cash shop. Had Rift gone down that road it probably would have been in a way better place.