So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Well, as a point of note, it's 2:30 am on a Thursday mornign (or in my mind still wednesday night) and every server is medium except for one pvp server which is high.
doesn't feel unpopulated to me.
i will say that there are some areas that are set up in such a way that they are just a pain in the nect to get around. That "grand canyon" looking area on the defiant side just does't feel right.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
Rift is not dead and will not be dead for a long time.
WoW certainly gained subs following release. EVE online went from 35k, to what it is now. In fact there's quite a few MMOs that have seen increased subs, just not those of recent release.
Rift however is far from dead. Its seen a fall off, as one would expect, but it still extremely healthy and the drop off hasn't been that great. There are however a lot of bored level 50s already, and many who don't like the direction Trion seem to be taking it.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
Looking at the different games all games with huge box sales the first month experience considerable losses to their population. I think Rift has a better chance to succed than than AoC, War, and Aion, but the game doesn't have anything to hook players long term.
So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
Odd. So basicly what you are saying is that almost all MMO's have failed. Its fairly public information on what the industry retention rate is. As well as looking around at all the MMO's that are live *dramatic pause* just goes back to your claiming that almost all MMO's have failed... Yet they somehow have been around for years making money.
quote repeated "Games that succeed do not lose subs." response: yes they do.
My Rift account had the big ol' "cancel" button pushed. That doesn't mean the game failed. They had more sales than they ever expected and what subscribers they actually retain... will more than likely fit into their company prediction of expected subscribers.
So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
Rift is not dead and will not be dead for a long time.
WoW certainly gained subs following release. EVE online went from 35k, to what it is now. In fact there's quite a few MMOs that have seen increased subs, just not those of recent release.
Rift however is far from dead. Its seen a fall off, as one would expect, but it still extremely healthy and the drop off hasn't been that great. There are however a lot of bored level 50s already, and many who don't like the direction Trion seem to be taking it.
I think you misunderstand. Each game would have initial losses as time went on. Happened to all MMO's. Players either did not like the game immediately or did not want to sub. As time progressed they eventually sold BIG (WoW) or kept falling over (WAR). But, saying within the first 30 days they are "losing" subs either based on sales or a tracking service is not going to give all the data.
What I am saying is using the first 30 days to call the death of a game because servers have lightened their load is ludicrous is all.
Now, if we come back in 6 months and the servers have been merged down to 6-12 shards and the game is selling in bargain bins for 9.99...then maybe you can say something.
Of course, LOTRO, AoC and other MMO's have also done this, and still run.
WoW certainly gained subs following release. EVE online went from 35k, to what it is now. In fact there's quite a few MMOs that have seen increased subs, just not those of recent release.
Rift however is far from dead. Its seen a fall off, as one would expect, but it still extremely healthy and the drop off hasn't been that great. There are however a lot of bored level 50s already, and many who don't like the direction Trion seem to be taking it.
I think you misunderstand. Each game would have initial losses as time went on. Happened to all MMO's. Players either did not like the game immediately or did not want to sub. As time progressed they eventually sold BIG (WoW) or kept falling over (WAR). But, saying within the first 30 days they are "losing" subs either based on sales or a tracking service is not going to give all the data.
What I am saying is using the first 30 days to call the death of a game because servers have lightened their load is ludicrous is all.
Now, if we come back in 6 months and the servers have been merged down to 6-12 shards and the game is selling in bargain bins for 9.99...then maybe you can say something.
Of course, LOTRO, AoC and other MMO's have also done this, and still run.
As a general rule that is correct, at least for recent releases. A 30 day drop off is to be expected, as are 60 and 90 day ones. It usually between 40 - 60% over three months, then they equalise or nose dive. However don't confuse turn around with drop off. Not all MMOs have seen declining subs, at least short term. Many have however seen a high turn over of players.
Rift at this stage seems to be doing better than most. **EDIT TO ADD** Long term I don't think it will however do well. GW2 and SW:TOR are going to impact the market "big time", even if for a short while. With many seeing Rift as little more than a filler MMO. Rift is also little different from WoW, in fact I'd go as far as saying it a dumping ground for those that struggled with Cataclysm (as Rift is easier), or exhausted its content. Blizzard could kill Rift's popularity with a single content patch.
Well, at least we can get one thing out of the way.
Rift will never match WoW numbers...and I expect NO MMO ever will.
If players can get over that intital hump and live with that fact, they might actually enjoy the game instead of armchair analyzing the data to see if the next big MMO is a failure.
WoW and EQ both gained subs the 2nd month, they did not have a falling off period. Both games suffered heavily in the 1st month from not having enough servers or strong enough infrastructure, basically they couldn't meet the demand there was for the game which is why with time they only increased population.
They are also the only two games that have substantially grown the genre population so far, though I expect TOR will even though I doubt it will be a very good game.
Coming with WoW as some kind of standard to compare with is just flawed reasoning. They just got everything right and got lucky timing, kinda like Microsoft did with Windows. Not gonna happen again for next 10-20 years.
GW2 or TOR will fail same as Rift does if You'll compare them with WoW and just like Rift they will succeed if You ignore WoW and look at other MMO. It's just hype atm, in reality we'll see queues, bugs, unbalanced classes and lots of rage and drop in subs after 30 free days or in case of GW2 after doing all content which will be more or less same time.
XFire shows a 20% drop of played hours compared to the peak one month ago. So as predicted this latest "great" game is starting to lose ground.
How much you wanna bet that by next month it will be at 50% of peak?
I'm sure the overall population is still very healthy, but they need to merge servers and allow character transfers NOW. They added a ton of servers after launch to accommodate the initial rush of players. But now that that has dropped off, they need to bring down the number of servers so there aren't so many people stuck on desolate servers faced with re-rolling on more populated servers.
I'm playing WoW now because I already had a character there. In one three months after Cata, I'm sitting here with 3 x 85 level chars, 1 that has seen it all, 2 decked in Conquest PvP gear. The game has nothing. Boring PvP and horrible balancing. Devs there can't decide on anything stable for characters. Things just are terrible.
Why do I play? Because I have 3 of my closest friends playing there and we can play the game without it taking up our life.
WoW is a game you can play 2 hours tops a day and be able to have it all still. It's been so scaled down and certain weekly limitations in place that keep you from excelling past other players with honor/JP/Vp caps. The game itself is not that good and quite boring. Just look at the new archaeology profession. That is a TRUE GRIND worse than Aion. I literally spent several days, all day when I had time off, farming that stupid 2 handed weapon. I never got it. RNG is worse than hoping for my Fenris pant proc.
PvP and Blizzard do not ever belong in same sentence. They have it all wrong. But it is entertaining for a short while till you back to screaming at people in chat cause none know what the heck is going on and the other half your team is AFK honor farming. It's ridiculous. Anyone that defends WoW is utterly retarded. Not trying be a troll. I'm serious.
OK... Let's talk bout Rift. Rift tries to mimick this POS by bringing something new. It almost worked. But this is why it didn't for me. The combat system was very cadenced. VERY. Almost everything on a GCD was terrible idea and it was a slow GCD too that couldn't be altered with Haste or anything. Autoattacking was like waiting on the bus arriving 15 minutes early to the bus stop. It just was like "OMG, F*****G SWING ALREADY!!!" They needed to fix the auto attack and not have dmg strictly based off your skills. This made the combat feel terrible. Chasing someone around waiting on auto attack and GCD was a negative experience to say the least.
Then what else could there be. The game looked good but it wasn't immersive, the content was a fly by. Max level in 3-7 days was just silly. You can't even do that in WoW (ok maybe you can a bit but the quests are little fun and silly and have minigames to boot.) I just feel like in a new game you need to delve your players into the story and the world a lot more. Questing and grouping and such is what creates community. End game is important yes, but I think you really need to build that community first. You don't need zerg content and that is what Rift gave us which took a lot away from the feeling of the game. I actually felt Aion's speed was great when leveling, but they didn't have enough content in Aion to make the leveling smooth though and people just hated grinding same mobs over and over for 2 days to get 1 level cause no quests or dungeons to do. But seriously, the game had a good leveling pace. There was other issues with Aion but that's another post in itself. To me that was the game that could have been if they were a little smarter and didn't rush and had stuck to their original concept and not westernize it. What they did was kill both the westerners and both the people that loved it for it's original PvP concept.
Another thing Rift actually had to me was bugs. Yes, it was a polished game but I saw a lot more bugs than you think. Some were horrible. And the classes just didn't feel finished and quickly thrown together. Great concepts and ideas, failed delivery. Rift is another game I really loved until I played Beta/Alpha, then went tumbling down fast as it was too much of a WoW clone and yet not really pushing to get out of the niche that would make WoW players consider coming to the game because it was excelling in areas that WoW wasn't like in PvP, choices, classes that actually distinguishable and varied. When I heard near all classes could tank or heal, I was like omg. I could have came up with 32 classes with real differences. The information is out there just don't know what the problem was. Rifts were not random. The only thing I enjoyed was the zone events but they grew old quick. And then don't forget about those lower level players that can't even do them because no one in lower zones anymore. That's a bummer too. I remember trying to solo a L17 Fire Rift that took over my quest hub in Beta when I was 14. Yeah, that went over well when I tried to pull one and they all zerged me down. Like said, great concepts, but in the end, bad execution. This is stuff that could have been fixed.
The designers also talked about how they would never release the game unfinished. It did feel rushed regardless of what they said. I think it could have used a little more tweaking and such before it actually got released along with some changes. I personally love exploring and the areas felt smaller than Aion's zones (and Aion's zones were terrible small).
Anyway, not meaning to rain on people's parade. Some are enjoying it and will continue to do so. (My whole guild has already quit of near 100 players, though.) I'm just explaining why I chose not to sub. I think it could have been much bigger and much more fulfilling cause the game really sounded like it had potential for longevity when I was researching it. I think things were left so vague that the imagination went a little overboard as with all games we haven't experienced but want to.
XFire shows a 20% drop of played hours compared to the peak one month ago. So as predicted this latest "great" game is starting to lose ground.
How much you wanna bet that by next month it will be at 50% of peak?
I'm sure the overall population is still very healthy, but they need to merge servers and allow character transfers NOW. They added a ton of servers after launch to accommodate the initial rush of players. But now that that has dropped off, they need to bring down the number of servers so there aren't so many people stuck on desolate servers faced with re-rolling on more populated servers.
Perhaps. But as I said in another thread, Last "night" or rather 'early morning' at 2:30 am all the servers were at medium except for one pvp server which was full.
I just got off of playing at 2pm during a week day and was pretty much doing rifts with a small group. Finished three up solo and then decided to break for lunch.
The game seems pretty healthy to me. There are a few areas that don't seem conducive to healthy activity such as that grand canyon looking area on the defiant side. I had a pretty large lull of activity there for several reasons. but I just got past that and thigns have picked up.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
So what, this happens with almost every mmo. I'm sure this game will stay were it is now.
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
Rift is not dead and will not be dead for a long time.
Aion actually has 44 servers still up and running. They are just almost all Korean. So did Aion really fail? Not really... It only failed to appeal to the Westerners. Most the people I knew playing the NA version of the game were Koreans themselves. But I'm not going to talk good about the game. It still failed where I think it could have succeeded if they just put a little effort in the right areas. The problem with most devs and game companies, lots don't even play MMOs. Heck, many times, they don't even play their own games. So they can' forsee the problems that lie ahead. They rely on Alpha testers and a very small in-house test crew of usually around 10 people.. Hardly a real test.
Rift has one thing that was going for them though, I hope holds true still to this day. Trion was communicating a lot with their community. I don't know if they still are cause I'm not much in touch with the game anymore. (I just stopping by mainly to see how the game is going.) But if they still are, then you might see some changes that could keep some players around.
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.
They all seem to make the same mistakes and never learn.
The population indeed did drop after the 1st month..
The population is still VERY healthy on almost all servers..
You'll have no problem finding a group for instances...
You'll have no problem queing up for a warfront..
This game still has more of a population then 99% of the MMO's out there..
/end thread
Seriously, whats listed above is what it comes down too.. Population did indeed take a hit but Rift is still very highly populated some servers still have ques at peak hours.
Currently Playing: Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
Therein lies the short and long of it. Not making light of WoW players, I play it also, but rather the need to justify playing it/going back to it as opposed to any other game.
There's no need. If WoW floats your boat more than Rift then by all means play WoW. For all it's faults and on-going problems WoW is successful at what it does for those millions of players that log into it. So play it.
I like Rift right now so I'm playing Rift.... right now. I'll play it right up to the point that it isn't fun any more. And from the groups I run into from Sanctum to Shimmersand (yes, I'm grinding ally faction doing dailies and dropping off gear for artisan marks) I'm not alone. Low level toons (presumably some are not alts and so are new players) to maxed out players. Everything in between.
I don't think I'm going to be alone for awhile yet.
"Heart grow stronger, Will becomes firm, the Mind more calm, as our Strength lessens..." Battle of Maldon 991 AD
The population indeed did drop after the 1st month..
The population is still VERY healthy on almost all servers..
You'll have no problem finding a group for instances...
You'll have no problem queing up for a warfront..
This game still has more of a population then 99% of the MMO's out there..
/end thread
Seriously, whats listed above is what it comes down too.. Population did indeed take a hit but Rift is still very highly populated some servers still have ques at peak hours.
I've never seen anyone type "/end thread" or "/thread" and have the thread actually end with that post.
Therein lies the short and long of it. Not making light of WoW players, I play it also, but rather the need to justify playing it/going back to it as opposed to any other game.
There's no need. If WoW floats your boat more than Rift then by all means play WoW. For all it's faults and on-going problems WoW is successful at what it does for those millions of players that log into it. So play it.
I like Rift right now so I'm playing Rift.... right now. I'll play it right up to the point that it isn't fun any more. And from the groups I run into from Sanctum to Shimmersand (yes, I'm grinding ally faction doing dailies and dropping off gear for artisan marks) I'm not alone. Low level toons (presumably some are not alts and so are new players) to maxed out players. Everything in between.
I don't think I'm going to be alone for awhile yet.
Yep, agree, agree. If you enjoy a game, there is no need to rationalize your choice. It's for entertainment purposes anyway, it's not to score points in popularity with jaded forum posters. The problem comes though if you feel you're stuck playing a game because of your friends, but you don't really enjoy it. Then it's time to tell those friends that you really don't enjoy the game and want to try something else.
Switching games in that sense allows you the possibility to make new friends all the while keeping in touch with the old.
Therein lies the short and long of it. Not making light of WoW players, I play it also, but rather the need to justify playing it/going back to it as opposed to any other game.
There's no need. If WoW floats your boat more than Rift then by all means play WoW. For all it's faults and on-going problems WoW is successful at what it does for those millions of players that log into it. So play it.
I like Rift right now so I'm playing Rift.... right now. I'll play it right up to the point that it isn't fun any more. And from the groups I run into from Sanctum to Shimmersand (yes, I'm grinding ally faction doing dailies and dropping off gear for artisan marks) I'm not alone. Low level toons (presumably some are not alts and so are new players) to maxed out players. Everything in between.
I don't think I'm going to be alone for awhile yet.
I played Rift before going back to WoW, I did give it a chance. The one thing that killed it for me fast. The sloooooow boring combat and horrible almost non-existent auto attack. If you have such a long GCD, least make auto attack functional. Allow weaving or something. Just don't let it be hit 1, wait a whole second, hit 1 again, wait a whole second, ok now hit 2. There's nothing to change the cadence really. So this is why I didn't bother. Maybe 6 months down the road and a few updates it might appeal better to me but if I'm going to play a WoW-like game, I might as well stick to WoW itself cause Rift to me offered actually less. The trees were illusion to variety, don't care how many choices you got, you still ended up with the basic cookie cutter crap, the crafting was a snoozer and lifeless, the rifts were repetitive and lackluster after you killed 100 of them, dungeons weren't skillful enough, and the leveling was just too easy and fast and didn't immerse the player at all. The only fun I had was on PvP server and one zone event on the enemy side where we wiped them on their event and took their reward.
So my point of getting bored of the game was just faster than yours I guess. Like I said, I'll play WoW for a little while till something better comes out. My 10 man is working on heroic raiding and that is way more fun atm and challenging than anything Rift has to offer atm plus, I have RL friends on WoW atm and some of them actually quit Rift also for same reasons. (maybe down the line 6 mos from now, that might change but at that point I'll be looking in GW2 or SWToR or something, not Rift.)
I almost feel the game was rushed out. I think this time was actually optimal cause there is a gap in MMOs atm. GW2 is stll little ways off, Tera, SWToR, B&S, etc. It was probably a smart move to just push it out regardless of the final product to get what they could in subs cause they would only get a smaller chunk had another MMO or two was released before them.
Comments
I have been playing half as much since the 1.1 patch. It had a lot of senseless and enthusiasm crushing changes.
Apparently, I just tried to read a thread created with a title similar to this...yet it was deleted. Whats been changed?
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Well, as a point of note, it's 2:30 am on a Thursday mornign (or in my mind still wednesday night) and every server is medium except for one pvp server which is high.
doesn't feel unpopulated to me.
i will say that there are some areas that are set up in such a way that they are just a pain in the nect to get around. That "grand canyon" looking area on the defiant side just does't feel right.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
No MMO has EVER gained subs after launch...heck even WoW's sales in it's first 10 weeks kept going DOWN (check the stats here...(http://simple-n-complex.blogspot.com/2011/04/spectating-riftis-that-decline-in-your.html). Any game needs time to grow and flourish. Development and word of mouth as well as good reviews all help.
Rift is not dead and will not be dead for a long time.
WoW certainly gained subs following release. EVE online went from 35k, to what it is now. In fact there's quite a few MMOs that have seen increased subs, just not those of recent release.
Rift however is far from dead. Its seen a fall off, as one would expect, but it still extremely healthy and the drop off hasn't been that great. There are however a lot of bored level 50s already, and many who don't like the direction Trion seem to be taking it.
You should really checkout a more reputable source. LOTRO gained subs from 2007 - 2009, but did not have the huge box sale numbers the first month.
http://mmodata.blogspot.com/
Looking at the different games all games with huge box sales the first month experience considerable losses to their population. I think Rift has a better chance to succed than than AoC, War, and Aion, but the game doesn't have anything to hook players long term.
Odd. So basicly what you are saying is that almost all MMO's have failed. Its fairly public information on what the industry retention rate is. As well as looking around at all the MMO's that are live *dramatic pause* just goes back to your claiming that almost all MMO's have failed... Yet they somehow have been around for years making money.
quote repeated "Games that succeed do not lose subs." response: yes they do.
My Rift account had the big ol' "cancel" button pushed. That doesn't mean the game failed. They had more sales than they ever expected and what subscribers they actually retain... will more than likely fit into their company prediction of expected subscribers.
What does that mean? success.
ironic I know.
I think you misunderstand. Each game would have initial losses as time went on. Happened to all MMO's. Players either did not like the game immediately or did not want to sub. As time progressed they eventually sold BIG (WoW) or kept falling over (WAR). But, saying within the first 30 days they are "losing" subs either based on sales or a tracking service is not going to give all the data.
What I am saying is using the first 30 days to call the death of a game because servers have lightened their load is ludicrous is all.
Now, if we come back in 6 months and the servers have been merged down to 6-12 shards and the game is selling in bargain bins for 9.99...then maybe you can say something.
Of course, LOTRO, AoC and other MMO's have also done this, and still run.
As a general rule that is correct, at least for recent releases. A 30 day drop off is to be expected, as are 60 and 90 day ones. It usually between 40 - 60% over three months, then they equalise or nose dive. However don't confuse turn around with drop off. Not all MMOs have seen declining subs, at least short term. Many have however seen a high turn over of players.
Rift at this stage seems to be doing better than most. **EDIT TO ADD** Long term I don't think it will however do well. GW2 and SW:TOR are going to impact the market "big time", even if for a short while. With many seeing Rift as little more than a filler MMO. Rift is also little different from WoW, in fact I'd go as far as saying it a dumping ground for those that struggled with Cataclysm (as Rift is easier), or exhausted its content. Blizzard could kill Rift's popularity with a single content patch.
Well, at least we can get one thing out of the way.
Rift will never match WoW numbers...and I expect NO MMO ever will.
If players can get over that intital hump and live with that fact, they might actually enjoy the game instead of armchair analyzing the data to see if the next big MMO is a failure.
WoW and EQ both gained subs the 2nd month, they did not have a falling off period. Both games suffered heavily in the 1st month from not having enough servers or strong enough infrastructure, basically they couldn't meet the demand there was for the game which is why with time they only increased population.
They are also the only two games that have substantially grown the genre population so far, though I expect TOR will even though I doubt it will be a very good game.
This is the most reasonable, sensible post in this thread.
Coming with WoW as some kind of standard to compare with is just flawed reasoning. They just got everything right and got lucky timing, kinda like Microsoft did with Windows. Not gonna happen again for next 10-20 years.
GW2 or TOR will fail same as Rift does if You'll compare them with WoW and just like Rift they will succeed if You ignore WoW and look at other MMO. It's just hype atm, in reality we'll see queues, bugs, unbalanced classes and lots of rage and drop in subs after 30 free days or in case of GW2 after doing all content which will be more or less same time.
I'm sure the overall population is still very healthy, but they need to merge servers and allow character transfers NOW. They added a ton of servers after launch to accommodate the initial rush of players. But now that that has dropped off, they need to bring down the number of servers so there aren't so many people stuck on desolate servers faced with re-rolling on more populated servers.
Why do I play? Because I have 3 of my closest friends playing there and we can play the game without it taking up our life.
WoW is a game you can play 2 hours tops a day and be able to have it all still. It's been so scaled down and certain weekly limitations in place that keep you from excelling past other players with honor/JP/Vp caps. The game itself is not that good and quite boring. Just look at the new archaeology profession. That is a TRUE GRIND worse than Aion. I literally spent several days, all day when I had time off, farming that stupid 2 handed weapon. I never got it. RNG is worse than hoping for my Fenris pant proc.
PvP and Blizzard do not ever belong in same sentence. They have it all wrong. But it is entertaining for a short while till you back to screaming at people in chat cause none know what the heck is going on and the other half your team is AFK honor farming. It's ridiculous. Anyone that defends WoW is utterly retarded. Not trying be a troll. I'm serious.
OK... Let's talk bout Rift. Rift tries to mimick this POS by bringing something new. It almost worked. But this is why it didn't for me. The combat system was very cadenced. VERY. Almost everything on a GCD was terrible idea and it was a slow GCD too that couldn't be altered with Haste or anything. Autoattacking was like waiting on the bus arriving 15 minutes early to the bus stop. It just was like "OMG, F*****G SWING ALREADY!!!" They needed to fix the auto attack and not have dmg strictly based off your skills. This made the combat feel terrible. Chasing someone around waiting on auto attack and GCD was a negative experience to say the least.
Then what else could there be. The game looked good but it wasn't immersive, the content was a fly by. Max level in 3-7 days was just silly. You can't even do that in WoW (ok maybe you can a bit but the quests are little fun and silly and have minigames to boot.) I just feel like in a new game you need to delve your players into the story and the world a lot more. Questing and grouping and such is what creates community. End game is important yes, but I think you really need to build that community first. You don't need zerg content and that is what Rift gave us which took a lot away from the feeling of the game. I actually felt Aion's speed was great when leveling, but they didn't have enough content in Aion to make the leveling smooth though and people just hated grinding same mobs over and over for 2 days to get 1 level cause no quests or dungeons to do. But seriously, the game had a good leveling pace. There was other issues with Aion but that's another post in itself. To me that was the game that could have been if they were a little smarter and didn't rush and had stuck to their original concept and not westernize it. What they did was kill both the westerners and both the people that loved it for it's original PvP concept.
Another thing Rift actually had to me was bugs. Yes, it was a polished game but I saw a lot more bugs than you think. Some were horrible. And the classes just didn't feel finished and quickly thrown together. Great concepts and ideas, failed delivery. Rift is another game I really loved until I played Beta/Alpha, then went tumbling down fast as it was too much of a WoW clone and yet not really pushing to get out of the niche that would make WoW players consider coming to the game because it was excelling in areas that WoW wasn't like in PvP, choices, classes that actually distinguishable and varied. When I heard near all classes could tank or heal, I was like omg. I could have came up with 32 classes with real differences. The information is out there just don't know what the problem was. Rifts were not random. The only thing I enjoyed was the zone events but they grew old quick. And then don't forget about those lower level players that can't even do them because no one in lower zones anymore. That's a bummer too. I remember trying to solo a L17 Fire Rift that took over my quest hub in Beta when I was 14. Yeah, that went over well when I tried to pull one and they all zerged me down. Like said, great concepts, but in the end, bad execution. This is stuff that could have been fixed.
The designers also talked about how they would never release the game unfinished. It did feel rushed regardless of what they said. I think it could have used a little more tweaking and such before it actually got released along with some changes. I personally love exploring and the areas felt smaller than Aion's zones (and Aion's zones were terrible small).
Anyway, not meaning to rain on people's parade. Some are enjoying it and will continue to do so. (My whole guild has already quit of near 100 players, though.) I'm just explaining why I chose not to sub. I think it could have been much bigger and much more fulfilling cause the game really sounded like it had potential for longevity when I was researching it. I think things were left so vague that the imagination went a little overboard as with all games we haven't experienced but want to.
Perhaps. But as I said in another thread, Last "night" or rather 'early morning' at 2:30 am all the servers were at medium except for one pvp server which was full.
I just got off of playing at 2pm during a week day and was pretty much doing rifts with a small group. Finished three up solo and then decided to break for lunch.
The game seems pretty healthy to me. There are a few areas that don't seem conducive to healthy activity such as that grand canyon looking area on the defiant side. I had a pretty large lull of activity there for several reasons. but I just got past that and thigns have picked up.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
No. Games that succeed do not lose subs. They gain subs. From the looks of things my 6 month prediction for Rift to die may end up being sooner. They just adjusted how the servers show up on the login screen. If they kept it the same way as launch it would show over half their servers as "low" population.
LOTRO - Lost subs and even laid off workers within it's first year. Sold only 172k copies in it's first QUARTER (lol)
AION - Shut down and merged servers
Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - Both bleed subs like crazy, yet are still going.
All still here to this day, some even after 4+ years. Calling Rift dead after 6 months, especially for a game more fleshed out, stable and polished than the other games listed were at launch is... silly.
No MMO has EVER gained subs after launch...heck even WoW's sales in it's first 10 weeks kept going DOWN (check the stats here...(http://simple-n-complex.blogspot.com/2011/04/spectating-riftis-that-decline-in-your.html). Any game needs time to grow and flourish. Development and word of mouth as well as good reviews all help.
Rift is not dead and will not be dead for a long time.
Aion actually has 44 servers still up and running. They are just almost all Korean. So did Aion really fail? Not really... It only failed to appeal to the Westerners. Most the people I knew playing the NA version of the game were Koreans themselves. But I'm not going to talk good about the game. It still failed where I think it could have succeeded if they just put a little effort in the right areas. The problem with most devs and game companies, lots don't even play MMOs. Heck, many times, they don't even play their own games. So they can' forsee the problems that lie ahead. They rely on Alpha testers and a very small in-house test crew of usually around 10 people.. Hardly a real test.Rift has one thing that was going for them though, I hope holds true still to this day. Trion was communicating a lot with their community. I don't know if they still are cause I'm not much in touch with the game anymore. (I just stopping by mainly to see how the game is going.) But if they still are, then you might see some changes that could keep some players around.
They all seem to make the same mistakes and never learn.
The population indeed did drop after the 1st month..
The population is still VERY healthy on almost all servers..
You'll have no problem finding a group for instances...
You'll have no problem queing up for a warfront..
This game still has more of a population then 99% of the MMO's out there..
/end thread
Seriously, whats listed above is what it comes down too.. Population did indeed take a hit but Rift is still very highly populated some servers still have ques at peak hours.
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
Therein lies the short and long of it. Not making light of WoW players, I play it also, but rather the need to justify playing it/going back to it as opposed to any other game.
There's no need. If WoW floats your boat more than Rift then by all means play WoW. For all it's faults and on-going problems WoW is successful at what it does for those millions of players that log into it. So play it.
I like Rift right now so I'm playing Rift.... right now. I'll play it right up to the point that it isn't fun any more. And from the groups I run into from Sanctum to Shimmersand (yes, I'm grinding ally faction doing dailies and dropping off gear for artisan marks) I'm not alone. Low level toons (presumably some are not alts and so are new players) to maxed out players. Everything in between.
I don't think I'm going to be alone for awhile yet.
"Heart grow stronger, Will becomes firm, the Mind more calm, as our Strength lessens..." Battle of Maldon 991 AD
I've never seen anyone type "/end thread" or "/thread" and have the thread actually end with that post.
It certainly is.
Huge % of original player base left or are levelling alts
Obviouasly there are still plenty of people playing but by and large those players havent hit level 50 and done a lot of end game content.
Caveat Emptor
Yep, agree, agree. If you enjoy a game, there is no need to rationalize your choice. It's for entertainment purposes anyway, it's not to score points in popularity with jaded forum posters. The problem comes though if you feel you're stuck playing a game because of your friends, but you don't really enjoy it. Then it's time to tell those friends that you really don't enjoy the game and want to try something else.
Switching games in that sense allows you the possibility to make new friends all the while keeping in touch with the old.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
I played Rift before going back to WoW, I did give it a chance. The one thing that killed it for me fast. The sloooooow boring combat and horrible almost non-existent auto attack. If you have such a long GCD, least make auto attack functional. Allow weaving or something. Just don't let it be hit 1, wait a whole second, hit 1 again, wait a whole second, ok now hit 2. There's nothing to change the cadence really. So this is why I didn't bother. Maybe 6 months down the road and a few updates it might appeal better to me but if I'm going to play a WoW-like game, I might as well stick to WoW itself cause Rift to me offered actually less. The trees were illusion to variety, don't care how many choices you got, you still ended up with the basic cookie cutter crap, the crafting was a snoozer and lifeless, the rifts were repetitive and lackluster after you killed 100 of them, dungeons weren't skillful enough, and the leveling was just too easy and fast and didn't immerse the player at all. The only fun I had was on PvP server and one zone event on the enemy side where we wiped them on their event and took their reward.
So my point of getting bored of the game was just faster than yours I guess. Like I said, I'll play WoW for a little while till something better comes out. My 10 man is working on heroic raiding and that is way more fun atm and challenging than anything Rift has to offer atm plus, I have RL friends on WoW atm and some of them actually quit Rift also for same reasons. (maybe down the line 6 mos from now, that might change but at that point I'll be looking in GW2 or SWToR or something, not Rift.)
I almost feel the game was rushed out. I think this time was actually optimal cause there is a gap in MMOs atm. GW2 is stll little ways off, Tera, SWToR, B&S, etc. It was probably a smart move to just push it out regardless of the final product to get what they could in subs cause they would only get a smaller chunk had another MMO or two was released before them.