"Death of a game: RIFT"

[Exorzon]

I used to play a whole lot from the very beginning up until the same day they launched the f2p model, sure it had lost quite a bit of subs up until that point but for me the game died that day

[Osmeric]

They even made their own "we're not in azeroth anymore" commercials which was cringe as all hell. Games like rift/wildstar/swtor/warhammer all had potential, but thanks to being touted (and expected publisher wise) to be wow/wow-killers they almost immediately started to flounder when they didn't get the numbers off the bat.

I don't think they floundered because they were touted as WoW killers. They floundered because they were flawed. They weren't WoW killers, but it would not have saved them to have avoided saying that.

[TigerBanks]

Does anyone still play rift? Lol
I was playing it like in 2013 may be, was not even interesting at that time.

[Trassk]

I played it for like a week back in 2014. It's not even on my new pc I got a few years ago, and I carried over other games from my previous pc to the new one.

[Highelf]

I actually enjoyed it when I was playing it. But then Godfather 3 happened with WoW.

[Nato85]

had such high hopes for this game

[xuros]

I enjoyed that classic/vanilla type server a LOT. Sucked that they handled it the way they did though. Guessing the new gatekeepers of Rift have not added anything new of substance since taking over the job have they?

[Calfredd]

Something is definitely up when even Slipmat hasn't posted in nearly 6 months.

[Big Thanks]

MMOByte did a video on Rift.
Thats pretty big Had to post it here

[Osmeric]

Thanks for the video, very interesting. I think it shows there's money to be made from these near-dead games. Gamigo's business model seems to work.

One thing that brought back memories were the talent trees. In this age when people are complaining about talent simplification in WoW, Rift was an example of going way overboard in the other direction. This never made any sense to me or, I suspect, to most players.

Also: OMG that stripper armor.

[Kyanion]

Another sign of a dead game is when the staunchest defenders of anything the game does (even the total bullshit) vanish. You saw that fast with games like Star Wars for example. Though Star Wars at least somewhat came back from near death.

[Coffeh]

Exactly. They should have marketed themselves as alternatives and not replacements. Healthiest form of competition. No one's knocking the king off his throne with arrogance instead of actual results.

The irony is that the actual WoW killer...was WoW.

[oplawlz]

Thanks for the video, very interesting. I think it shows there's money to be made from these near-dead games. Gamigo's business model seems to work.

One thing that brought back memories were the talent trees. In this age when people are complaining about talent simplification in WoW, Rift was an example of going way overboard in the other direction. This never made any sense to me or, I suspect, to most players.

Also: OMG that stripper armor.

I actually disagree - the original talent trees were pretty awesome. Lots of hybrid specs that were cool and fun for pve and pvp. Unfortunately the devs were quick to nerf the unique ones into oblivion and you ended up with just a few cookie cutter specs that were at all viable.

[Osmeric]

I actually disagree - the original talent trees were pretty awesome. Lots of hybrid specs that were cool and fun for pve and pvp. Unfortunately the devs were quick to nerf the unique ones into oblivion and you ended up with just a few cookie cutter specs that were at all viable.

They may have been cool, but I also think they didn't work. They presented players with a huge amount of noise, complexity whose only purpose was to obfuscate what the players should have been doing. The end result will be that many players will shoot themselves in the feet with bad choices. It's like the original WoW talent trees, only more so.

This was all compounded by an initial BC-like raid design with a single difficulty per raid. So if players nerfed themselves by bad choices, they soon found themselves blocked. I don't think it's surprising the game bled out in the first year. It wasn't WildStar-level end game fail, but it WAS fail.

[Kyphael]

The irony is that the actual WoW killer...was WoW.

As Mark Twain said, "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." WoW isn't as popular as it was at its peak in 2010, but it's still alive and kicking.

[Justpassing]

As Mark Twain said, "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." WoW isn't as popular as it was at its peak in 2010, but it's still alive and kicking.

I think it was "rumours of my death".

[Tyris Flare]

As Mark Twain said, "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." WoW isn't as popular as it was at its peak in 2010, but it's still alive and kicking.

And makes more profit now than it ever did.

[EllieNora]

When RIFT came out I thought it both looked and played absolutely amazing and despite how good the game looked, it could literally be run on a potato. The engine was decievingly good, i loved PvP since I played when it was new, so warfronts were absolutely poppin' loved the talent system, loved the bosses, fuck everything was so good. The only reason I stopped playing it was because the people I played it with went back to WoW and I didn't really wanna meet a new group and be playing on my own until I did. I returned when storm legion came out and was just like...

The changes to Shaman Cleric were pretty pog for a while until they fucked that up too though...

People left WoW for a reason, and coming back and seeing many aspects of WoW implemented in RIFT was a shitshow. And obviously, Trion were NA CS only, and dealing with their customer support at times was a pain in the fucking neck, taking into account I am from Australia, the only time I could ever speak to Trion over the phone was either super late and night, or very early in the morning. I was in Uni back then, that shit was a nightmare. And somehow when I came back CS was still NA timezone based. I think it will be gone within the next couple of years, a skeleton team practically runs that game now and runs it because they're paid to, I doubt many who poured their heart into that game are still part of TRION (since most got laid off or finally reached their limit with the awful decisions from the top). I ended up playing A Realm Reborn instead which imo, was nowhere near as good as Rift was when it came out.

I'll never blame the designers for how bad that game became, because I know it wasn't their fault, it was a circus of imbeciles who completely misjudged their market telling them what to do and are to stubborn to just let this game die. Remember when they said Prime was the lord and saviour for the game only to shut it down a year later because well, it wasn't, it just happened to have a good month orso whilst Rift vets got to temporarily relive their first days playing the game. They were expecting a reception similar to what WoW classic got.

[Pachycrocuta]

Remember when they said Prime was the lord and saviour for the game only to shut it down a year later because well, it wasn't, it just happened to have a good month orso whilst Rift vets got to temporarily relive their first days playing the game. They were expecting a reception similar to what WoW classic got.

Well, I am not surprised that Prime didn't get the reception WoW Classic got, because it wasn't the same. They didn't reimplement classic Rift, with the old talent builds, questing experience, rifts and invasions. It was literally "current" Rift but capped at 50 (I think). That's what I heard on here, anyway. Once I found that out, I didn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

[8bithamster]

Well, I am not surprised that Prime didn't get the reception WoW Classic got, because it wasn't the same. They didn't reimplement classic Rift, with the old talent builds, questing experience, rifts and invasions. It was literally "current" Rift but capped at 50 (I think). That's what I heard on here, anyway. Once I found that out, I didn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Tbh, to ressurect t his thread. I miss Rift in a way, not the "buy all your tier sets with cash" Rift, but when it was released, unbalanced, buggy and weird as it was. I enjoyed the events, enjoyed parts of the levelling. But it got bnland so fast, there was no reason to really keep playing after a while.

When I tried to return.. well it went to shit. I wanted to try Prime, saw what it was and much like Pachycrocuta above me, I didn't want to come near it. It didn't help that one of the biggest fanboys of Rift on this forum was also one of the most toxic people on the Rift forum.