The game is just yet another wow clone/wannabe and nothing else really to it (not trying to troll here its just a known fact). Most mmo's have a massive player exodus after the free month, its just how it goes usually, even WoW had a big exodus after the free month, then blizz started hardcore advertising and had to add new servers due to it, never underestimate the power of a tv commercial in the middle of a program thats popular.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
I think the general trend now-a-days is for MMO populations to spike upon release and trend downward from there. Its a good sign that there is demand for something new and fresh than what is already available.
Rift is really just a polished "me too" product. Nothing wrong with that at all - it does what it does very well. I would find it expected that players tired of the "WoW" approach will not stick around in Rift for long.
One thing to keep in mind - the next big MMO isn't going to replicate WoW, its going to refine and improve upon its weak points - which is essentially what Blizzard did to previous MMOs (deliver a game, in an increasingly popular genre, and improve/refine/polish standard mechanics and features).
If anything, I'm seeing more people in the Moonshade Highlands area than I've ever seen before. Enough people that I was invited to a group for RD out of the blue while clearing the death rift invasion.
Two of my wife's friends at work just started accounts. I'm not sure what prompted them to start now but they've started after the initial month of everyone else playing the game. Rift's population seems pretty stable to me, especially compared to the other games I've tried out over the last couple years.
I think it's important to keep in mind how much of the "drop" or "jump" in game population is perception. If you see more people, then the game population is higher, if you see fewer people, then the game population has dropped. Whether the game's population has risen or declined isn't information that's available, only your experience with the game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
X-fire appeals to a certain demographic if any of your are using that to quantify the number of subs its simply a flawed and slightly idiotic arguement .I don't know how many were playing in month one because of real life hassles but joining in month two I thought it would be a little like AoC or Warhammer in terms of the numbers I saw on the servers but its more like WoW . I can't move for people playing . I dunno how well its selling worldwide but in most of the pc game european charts in month two its number 6 ( Cata is number 5 ) .
The games going well and very healthy community but mainly more adult player . My lotro kinship plays it we ve got about 40-50 players to my knowlage none of us use X-fire but like most european guilds we use vent . I know its hard to tell the real sub numbers but all the european servers are at medium -high or full and sometimes I have to wait to get into a server . The warfronts take about 4 mins to get into which is about comparable to WoW . No problem with groupings for intances . Anyway we had all these arguements about drop of about WoW 6 years ago and X-fire figures over the years .
Remember theres plenty of WoW players(I say WoW players because those that play other games are less likly to start up or comment on thread like this because they are way past this kind of arguement) that don't like to see a game coming along that offers a decent alternative and from what I've seen thus far RIFT looks like it may . I'm enjoying it and keeping an open mind myself if I get to the point it bores me I'll simply move on to something else . Thats the mature thing to do. I'm an occaisional WoW player becuase I still enjoy the pvp and it'll still play on my old laptop when I'm away from home but l'm not such a sheep that I have to play it because its the most successful game or such an elitist that I wont play it because its considered uncool by the hardcore mmo crowd . Either way is just as childish in my book .
Of course not every single player uses xfire. Xfire is useful the same way a poll is useful: get the results from a small sample and extrapolate to the whole. Obviously it's not going to be 100% accurate but it's still a fair assumption that a major trend in Xfire usesrs represents a similar trend in the game as a whole.
I, for example, don't use xfire and have mostly quit playing Rift in the last week because I just got bored with it. Wasn't a concious decision to stop playing, i just somehow found other things more enjoyable to do in my free time.
This is after 1 month mind you and also quite similar to the drops AoC and WAR experienced. After three months they were down to less than 50% of peak and where are they now?
Rift is going the same route, trust me on this.
I haven't slept in 3 weeks worrying about the possibility of a rise in the population of Rift. Tonight, I'll sleep like a baby.
Thank you for this service.
Ha
The following statement is false The previous statement is true
I am a very casual type gamer. I play RIFT, I use x-fire. First month I was logging in every day, playing 30+hours a week. Now second month, I have settled into a very "normal" (for me) play pattern for MMOs I play. Log on about 3-4 days per week, and average about 15 hours week.
Also, my server is just as active as it was at the start. No problems with population at all. In fact sometime I am still waiting for respawns of heavily quested areas. Also, I played WAR and AION, and can assure those who are comparing RIFT to the fate that awaited those games, there is one big problem with that argument. In both WAR and AION, the payerbase was very active and vocal in chat about their dissapointment with said games. There is NONE, ZERO, of that going on in RIFT.
As we all know wow has like 13,000,000 people playing so
13,000,000 / 30,266 = 429 people for each 1 in x-fire
so times that into the rift number
3,677 x 429 = 1,577,433 people in rift!
So seems like rift is doing fine because I based it on x-fire
What a terrible way to do statistics.
Using that technique, if done correctly, rift would only have 200 000 players. However it is the worst way to compile numbers. Its a great way for a shill to lie to victims however since not many seem to know how to count.
Now if you do statistics for real you could come up with an estimated 618 200 players for rift. Even then, it is wrong, as we know how many players there were in WoW in their first 6 months, but we do not know how many of those were using Xfire during that time. So the best estimate that can be done is comparing WoW now, with Rift now, which due to the maturity of both games is one of the most flawed ways to do statistics.
So currently the best estimate would be to say that there are between 200 000 - 800 000 players in Rift, which is still nowhere close to the 1.5M you estimate as the over-inflation from asian players is far too great to even consider ignoring.
The issue is...There wil be drop off just like every other mmo.
There are too many other AAA MMOs being released too soon.
Rift does not do anything different enough for it to compete in a world with WOW, GW2, and TOR. It just doesn't.
It's going to be a foot note, just like AoC, WAR, LOTRO, DDO, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, CoX, CO, DCUO, FXIV, and AION.
{mod edit}
In other news, I think it is worthy of mention that LOTRO and DDO woke up before it was too late.
Also, to be fair, it doesn't have to compete with ToR. ToR is
1) Not released
2) WoW in space
3) Probably gonna wind up in the footnote list.... they could be buddies.
Adding to footnote list:
EQ2, SWG and especially Alganon.
Alganon, when it was P2P, was run by a EA-minded person who wouldn't get it out of his head that copying WoW was the best way to go. It crashed hard. Burnt, and was "salvaged" (i guess) by someone who took over. Sadly however, it crashed so hard no one remembers it even exists and it therefor is not an "example of what not to do" to the rest of the MMO devs.
I agree. I think TOR will be a footnote as well. I was more trying to make the point that this game as well as a few to shortly follow will be rather forgettable. While I personally despise GW, I ackowlege it's success and I think GW2 as a very good shot to have some staying power. As far as Turbine...The shop killed it for me.
I could care less about retention rates being this or that all I care about is if my guild has a ton of people. (It does) I can get groups ( I can) and if I have fun while playing ( I do)
I will leave these talks to the loud vocal minority who has no game to play because they are either waiting for the game they think will be the one true game or they are too jaded to enjoy the genre anymore. Good luck in your searches......Telara is calling me
The rest of the guild I went to visit RIFT with left-- to no surprise on the part of any of us-- as they have other investments in time and strategy to tend, or other well-considered reasons for leaving. My time there amounted to a Spring Break.
Groups? I might have found them outside the guild (some offers were received) but was reluctant to join or to look for them while wondering what guildmates were up to in other games and situations.
I had a lot of fun playing, and while it might have predictably had a natural end at some point in the future, I wasn't done with the fun when I left-- I was only out of my original company, and decided (treating the experience as a dance) to go home with the ones who brought me.
If anything, the experience proved to me that I am not jaded and can still enjoy the genre.
There is nothing to be gleaned from a drop at the end of an introductory period except what we already know: Some people game-hop. Some only play betas before getting bored or cheap. This could be seen back in 2003 or so and it is nothing new now.
Casilda Tametomo, Priestess of Soldeus | AKA Lepida Aegis-Imperium.com
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
The issue is...There wil be drop off just like every other mmo.
There are too many other AAA MMOs being released too soon.
Rift does not do anything different enough for it to compete in a world with WOW, GW2, and TOR. It just doesn't.
It's going to be a foot note, just like AoC, WAR, LOTRO, DDO, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, CoX, CO, DCUO, FXIV, and AION.
Just wait we will be saying the same about GW2 and TOR after a couple of months being played , people are not just hapy with any games coming out right now and neither of those 2 games will change it.
I can't help but wonder how many subs dropped after the first month of WoW. Thankfully we were not all so obsessed by sub numbers back then.
I'm not sure if wow ever had a drop in sub numbers And indeed, this obsession for sub numbers makes no sense at all!
WOW didn't have a simillar drop as these other games because WOW was first to market with a super polished linear themepark ride w/ no height limit. Come one, come all....something for everyone type of mold that has become the standard all the major publishers are reaching for.
The reason games like Warhammer, Aion, and Rift (all excellent games by the way) have the huge drop in subs is because its the same trick pony that you've already invested countless hours and dollars already in WOW. After the newness of the graphics and the thinly vieled gimmicks wear off......you wonder why your running another kill quest (for the 1000th time) to get this toon to lvl 40, when you could just log in your level capped character in WOW and jump right into endgame with all your pals you made over the last several years.
The reason there is such an obssession with sub numbers now is because Electronic Arts, NCSoft, BioWare, Sony, and Square Enix are looking at the sub numbers. They haven't touched a single sandobx MMO game in the last 5+ years because they have been creating games to go after that big ole 12,000,000 subscriber pie.
Before WOW, I think Ever Quest topped out at 1 million subs. Before that, Ultima Online held the Guiness Book of World Records title for most number of subs for a MMORPG at 200,000. No one was looking at the MMORPG genere at that time....or paying attention to subs.
Now that Blizzard has proved that you can tap into a larger section of the overall gamer market (casual gamers) and make away like bandits with this monthly fee + box sale pricing model.....all the AAA Publishers have stuck their big toe in the mix, and most have failed.
folks need to GET OVER this whole obsession with sub numbers....WoW is the only game more or less that has had that kind of success. Honestly people...
"Well let me just quote the late-great Colonel Sanders, who said…’I’m too drunk to taste this chicken." - Ricky Bobby
I foresee this game being 2nd is sub numbers for a while, at least till SWTOR and GW2 come out, it's doing pretty dandy if you ask me. Still alternating between 7-5 on xfire and my server seems active.
I can't help but wonder how many subs dropped after the first month of WoW. Thankfully we were not all so obsessed by sub numbers back then.
I'm not sure if wow ever had a drop in sub numbers And indeed, this obsession for sub numbers makes no sense at all!
WOW didn't have a simillar drop as these other games because WOW was first to market with a super polished linear themepark ride w/ no height limit. Come one, come all....something for everyone type of mold that has become the standard all the major publishers are reaching for.
The reason games like Warhammer, Aion, and Rift (all excellent games by the way) have the huge drop in subs is because its the same trick pony that you've already invested countless hours and dollars already in WOW. After the newness of the graphics and the thinly vieled gimmicks wear off......you wonder why your running another kill quest (for the 1000th time) to get this toon to lvl 40, when you could just log in your level capped character in WOW and jump right into endgame with all your pals you made over the last several years.
The reason there is such an obssession with sub numbers now is because Electronic Arts, NCSoft, BioWare, Sony, and Square Enix are looking at the sub numbers. They haven't touched a single sandobx MMO game in the last 5+ years because they have been creating games to go after that big ole 12,000,000 subscriber pie.
Before WOW, I think Ever Quest topped out at 1 million subs. Before that, Ultima Online held the Guiness Book of World Records title for most number of subs for a MMORPG at 200,000. No one was looking at the MMORPG genere at that time....or paying attention to subs.
Now that Blizzard has proved that you can tap into a larger section of the overall gamer market (casual gamers) and make away like bandits with this monthly fee + box sale pricing model.....all the AAA Publishers have stuck their big toe in the mix, and most have failed.
"The reason games like Warhammer, Aion, and Rift (all excellent games by the way) have the huge drop in subs is because its the same trick pony that you've already invested countless hours and dollars already in WOW. After the newness of the graphics and the thinly vieled gimmicks wear off......you wonder why your running another kill quest (for the 1000th time) to get this toon to lvl 40, when you could just log in your level capped character in WOW and jump right into endgame with all your pals you made over the last several years."
LOL !!! I can only speak for myself, but if I thought like that, I would have never left EQ for Lineage 2, and Lineage 2 for WoW, and WoW for EQ2, and EQ 2 for WAR, and WAR for AION, and AION for RIFT. The only investments I care about, are the ones in my brokerage and 401k accounts respectively. After that, if anyone thinks of time invested in these games as a worthwhile, meaningful, cant let-it-go investment, really needs to do some soul searching.
RIFT is fun, new, and is my flavor of the month. Also, I run several MMOs and rotate off L2, AION, and EQ. --- the only 2 MMOs I will NEVER resub to are wow and WAR.
Weather is getting better also, so those that actually venture outside for other reasons then just work or food tend to do that instead. So naturally numbers will get lower on all games even wow till winter starts to roll in again.
70 monk eq1 80 bruiser eq2 43 druid wow Currently playing : rift
Comments
All I can say is this: This surpizes you.. why?
The game is just yet another wow clone/wannabe and nothing else really to it (not trying to troll here its just a known fact). Most mmo's have a massive player exodus after the free month, its just how it goes usually, even WoW had a big exodus after the free month, then blizz started hardcore advertising and had to add new servers due to it, never underestimate the power of a tv commercial in the middle of a program thats popular.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
I think the general trend now-a-days is for MMO populations to spike upon release and trend downward from there. Its a good sign that there is demand for something new and fresh than what is already available.
Rift is really just a polished "me too" product. Nothing wrong with that at all - it does what it does very well. I would find it expected that players tired of the "WoW" approach will not stick around in Rift for long.
One thing to keep in mind - the next big MMO isn't going to replicate WoW, its going to refine and improve upon its weak points - which is essentially what Blizzard did to previous MMOs (deliver a game, in an increasingly popular genre, and improve/refine/polish standard mechanics and features).
If anything, I'm seeing more people in the Moonshade Highlands area than I've ever seen before. Enough people that I was invited to a group for RD out of the blue while clearing the death rift invasion.
Two of my wife's friends at work just started accounts. I'm not sure what prompted them to start now but they've started after the initial month of everyone else playing the game. Rift's population seems pretty stable to me, especially compared to the other games I've tried out over the last couple years.
I think it's important to keep in mind how much of the "drop" or "jump" in game population is perception. If you see more people, then the game population is higher, if you see fewer people, then the game population has dropped. Whether the game's population has risen or declined isn't information that's available, only your experience with the game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
X-fire appeals to a certain demographic if any of your are using that to quantify the number of subs its simply a flawed and slightly idiotic arguement .I don't know how many were playing in month one because of real life hassles but joining in month two I thought it would be a little like AoC or Warhammer in terms of the numbers I saw on the servers but its more like WoW . I can't move for people playing . I dunno how well its selling worldwide but in most of the pc game european charts in month two its number 6 ( Cata is number 5 ) .
The games going well and very healthy community but mainly more adult player . My lotro kinship plays it we ve got about 40-50 players to my knowlage none of us use X-fire but like most european guilds we use vent . I know its hard to tell the real sub numbers but all the european servers are at medium -high or full and sometimes I have to wait to get into a server . The warfronts take about 4 mins to get into which is about comparable to WoW . No problem with groupings for intances . Anyway we had all these arguements about drop of about WoW 6 years ago and X-fire figures over the years .
Remember theres plenty of WoW players(I say WoW players because those that play other games are less likly to start up or comment on thread like this because they are way past this kind of arguement) that don't like to see a game coming along that offers a decent alternative and from what I've seen thus far RIFT looks like it may . I'm enjoying it and keeping an open mind myself if I get to the point it bores me I'll simply move on to something else . Thats the mature thing to do. I'm an occaisional WoW player becuase I still enjoy the pvp and it'll still play on my old laptop when I'm away from home but l'm not such a sheep that I have to play it because its the most successful game or such an elitist that I wont play it because its considered uncool by the hardcore mmo crowd . Either way is just as childish in my book .
Just play what you enjoy and have fun .
Im going to calculate number of people playing based on x-fire
http://www.xfire.com/games/rft/RIFT/
3,677 people playing rift
http://www.xfire.com/games/wow/World_of_Warcraft/
30,266 people playing wow
As we all know wow has like 13,000,000 people playing so
13,000,000 / 30,266 = 429 people for each 1 in x-fire
so times that into the rift number
3,677 x 429 = 1,577,433 people in rift!
So seems like rift is doing fine because I based it on x-fire
Correlating is fun!
_______
|___
\_______/
=
|X| \*........*/ |X|
|X|_________|X|
You wouldn't understand
i don't know a single person IRL that actually uses x-fire........
Of course not every single player uses xfire. Xfire is useful the same way a poll is useful: get the results from a small sample and extrapolate to the whole. Obviously it's not going to be 100% accurate but it's still a fair assumption that a major trend in Xfire usesrs represents a similar trend in the game as a whole.
I, for example, don't use xfire and have mostly quit playing Rift in the last week because I just got bored with it. Wasn't a concious decision to stop playing, i just somehow found other things more enjoyable to do in my free time.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Ha
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
I am a very casual type gamer. I play RIFT, I use x-fire. First month I was logging in every day, playing 30+hours a week. Now second month, I have settled into a very "normal" (for me) play pattern for MMOs I play. Log on about 3-4 days per week, and average about 15 hours week.
Also, my server is just as active as it was at the start. No problems with population at all. In fact sometime I am still waiting for respawns of heavily quested areas. Also, I played WAR and AION, and can assure those who are comparing RIFT to the fate that awaited those games, there is one big problem with that argument. In both WAR and AION, the payerbase was very active and vocal in chat about their dissapointment with said games. There is NONE, ZERO, of that going on in RIFT.
Enjoy.
The issue is...There wil be drop off just like every other mmo.
There are too many other AAA MMOs being released too soon.
Rift does not do anything different enough for it to compete in a world with WOW, GW2, and TOR. It just doesn't.
It's going to be a foot note, just like AoC, WAR, LOTRO, DDO, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, CoX, CO, DCUO, FXIV, and AION.
What a terrible way to do statistics.
Using that technique, if done correctly, rift would only have 200 000 players. However it is the worst way to compile numbers. Its a great way for a shill to lie to victims however since not many seem to know how to count.
Now if you do statistics for real you could come up with an estimated 618 200 players for rift. Even then, it is wrong, as we know how many players there were in WoW in their first 6 months, but we do not know how many of those were using Xfire during that time. So the best estimate that can be done is comparing WoW now, with Rift now, which due to the maturity of both games is one of the most flawed ways to do statistics.
So currently the best estimate would be to say that there are between 200 000 - 800 000 players in Rift, which is still nowhere close to the 1.5M you estimate as the over-inflation from asian players is far too great to even consider ignoring.
I dunno where you play, but here on the German RP server everything is thick with players. *shrug*
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
{mod edit}
In other news, I think it is worthy of mention that LOTRO and DDO woke up before it was too late.
Also, to be fair, it doesn't have to compete with ToR. ToR is
1) Not released
2) WoW in space
3) Probably gonna wind up in the footnote list.... they could be buddies.
Adding to footnote list:
EQ2, SWG and especially Alganon.
Alganon, when it was P2P, was run by a EA-minded person who wouldn't get it out of his head that copying WoW was the best way to go. It crashed hard. Burnt, and was "salvaged" (i guess) by someone who took over. Sadly however, it crashed so hard no one remembers it even exists and it therefor is not an "example of what not to do" to the rest of the MMO devs.
I agree. I think TOR will be a footnote as well. I was more trying to make the point that this game as well as a few to shortly follow will be rather forgettable. While I personally despise GW, I ackowlege it's success and I think GW2 as a very good shot to have some staying power. As far as Turbine...The shop killed it for me.
I thought you said you were going to pass on this game. Oh well, glad to see you didn't and welcome to the fold.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
The rest of the guild I went to visit RIFT with left-- to no surprise on the part of any of us-- as they have other investments in time and strategy to tend, or other well-considered reasons for leaving. My time there amounted to a Spring Break.
Groups? I might have found them outside the guild (some offers were received) but was reluctant to join or to look for them while wondering what guildmates were up to in other games and situations.
I had a lot of fun playing, and while it might have predictably had a natural end at some point in the future, I wasn't done with the fun when I left-- I was only out of my original company, and decided (treating the experience as a dance) to go home with the ones who brought me.
If anything, the experience proved to me that I am not jaded and can still enjoy the genre.
There is nothing to be gleaned from a drop at the end of an introductory period except what we already know: Some people game-hop. Some only play betas before getting bored or cheap. This could be seen back in 2003 or so and it is nothing new now.
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
Just wait we will be saying the same about GW2 and TOR after a couple of months being played , people are not just hapy with any games coming out right now and neither of those 2 games will change it.
WOW didn't have a simillar drop as these other games because WOW was first to market with a super polished linear themepark ride w/ no height limit. Come one, come all....something for everyone type of mold that has become the standard all the major publishers are reaching for.
The reason games like Warhammer, Aion, and Rift (all excellent games by the way) have the huge drop in subs is because its the same trick pony that you've already invested countless hours and dollars already in WOW. After the newness of the graphics and the thinly vieled gimmicks wear off......you wonder why your running another kill quest (for the 1000th time) to get this toon to lvl 40, when you could just log in your level capped character in WOW and jump right into endgame with all your pals you made over the last several years.
The reason there is such an obssession with sub numbers now is because Electronic Arts, NCSoft, BioWare, Sony, and Square Enix are looking at the sub numbers. They haven't touched a single sandobx MMO game in the last 5+ years because they have been creating games to go after that big ole 12,000,000 subscriber pie.
Before WOW, I think Ever Quest topped out at 1 million subs. Before that, Ultima Online held the Guiness Book of World Records title for most number of subs for a MMORPG at 200,000. No one was looking at the MMORPG genere at that time....or paying attention to subs.
Now that Blizzard has proved that you can tap into a larger section of the overall gamer market (casual gamers) and make away like bandits with this monthly fee + box sale pricing model.....all the AAA Publishers have stuck their big toe in the mix, and most have failed.
folks need to GET OVER this whole obsession with sub numbers....WoW is the only game more or less that has had that kind of success. Honestly people...
I foresee this game being 2nd is sub numbers for a while, at least till SWTOR and GW2 come out, it's doing pretty dandy if you ask me. Still alternating between 7-5 on xfire and my server seems active.
"The reason games like Warhammer, Aion, and Rift (all excellent games by the way) have the huge drop in subs is because its the same trick pony that you've already invested countless hours and dollars already in WOW. After the newness of the graphics and the thinly vieled gimmicks wear off......you wonder why your running another kill quest (for the 1000th time) to get this toon to lvl 40, when you could just log in your level capped character in WOW and jump right into endgame with all your pals you made over the last several years."
LOL !!! I can only speak for myself, but if I thought like that, I would have never left EQ for Lineage 2, and Lineage 2 for WoW, and WoW for EQ2, and EQ 2 for WAR, and WAR for AION, and AION for RIFT. The only investments I care about, are the ones in my brokerage and 401k accounts respectively. After that, if anyone thinks of time invested in these games as a worthwhile, meaningful, cant let-it-go investment, really needs to do some soul searching.
RIFT is fun, new, and is my flavor of the month. Also, I run several MMOs and rotate off L2, AION, and EQ. --- the only 2 MMOs I will NEVER resub to are wow and WAR.
You do realize that at it's peak, people were taking days off from work and playing 16+ hours a day racing to max level.
You do realize that not every MMO is for everyone, no game, not even WoW, has a 100% retention rate.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
So naturally numbers will get lower on all games even wow till winter starts to roll in again.
70 monk eq1
80 bruiser eq2
43 druid wow
Currently playing : rift