i think a lot of people here are forgetting that rift was a failure as a mmorpg and at the time they decided to finally go free to play the games server populations sucked. The game play mechanics are not going to make people want to stay and play a wow clone forever , match that with the age of the game itself and the normal people leaving because they are bored and thats why you have to milk the whales much more now. Honestly I think this game is about dead in the water soon anyways and it wouldn't surprise me if you see a shutdown notice this year or next just from the age of the game alone. Its not like this game had super good numbers ever anyways for players and retention rates. Usually when you see companies getting much more greedy its because they are more worried about their jobs and revenue not because they really want to just stick it to their playerbase.
Failure as a MMORPG?
You have a very interesting definition of failure.... Rift had 100 million revenue in less than 8 months post launch with Rift.
I think most game studios would kill for a failure like that
Failure as a company and failure as a defining product are different things. Rift failed to dominate the market. It failed to set a standard. It failed to be a contantly growing IP base. While making money is nice it does not make a game a success to the gaming community.
According to you then - every MMO other than WoW failed.
As none dominated the market, none set the standard - "constantly growing IP base" is arguable.
Also as far as online games go - LoL dominated the market way more than WoW - does that mean that WoW failed as an online game?
Hehe
Again bizarre definition of failure you got there.
Many have set standards. Things that have made them standout. WoW set a population standard, but stole many standards from games that will be remembered in history. Rift will not. EQ, AC, and DAoC all set standards. Eve made a stable PvP game that will be remembered. UO brought up the graphical MMORPG to a larger market. All remembered.
EQ,AC and DAOC will always be remembered with rose tinted glasses, not for what they actually were. And save your "wow stole this and that from eq", EQ copied ideas from UO, yet i don't see you EQ lovers accept that fact, apart from the 3D environment and character view most of the core features are identical to UO. And not to mention coding of game were directly copy pasted from a MUD developer. Compared to EQ, WoW is more original since they did all the hard works of coding themselves. When it comes to game people want to see an established settings, thus even before mmo or even rpg came in light there were hundreds of games that looked and played exactly like pacman, there were hundreds of fighting games on arcade and etc etc, just because WoW is also a 3D 3rd person game doesn't mean it is entirely copy pasted from EQ.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Rift set the standard for the Rift invasion system - that can overtake entire zones.
It will be remembered.
Regardless of how I feel about some of their design and revenue decisions I agree wholeheartedly with this. Zone Invasions were awesome.
There were also some other really cool innovations and spins they put on existing mmo designs. Instant Adventures, various types of Rifts (there many different types), Ember Isle in its early incarnations, Master Mode dungeons, 1 and 2 person instances, and shinies (like EQ2), among other things. The soul system and ability to combine them to make any class archetype able to take on any role is another really neat concept. They did a lot of cool stuff like that.
I will always have fond memories of the game for those things alone. Also, having played a lot of EQ2, I always considered it much more in the spirit of EQ2 with some standard thempark "WoW style" features than I have ever thought of it as a WoW clone.
The two best things about Rift were invasions at launch and Ember Isle.
I completely disagree about it feeling like EQ2 though. The reason most consider it a WoW clone is because almost every single *core* feature of the game and the way it played was either directly from WoW, or WoW with a spin on it. Take the soul system, it is clearly WoW's three tree structure only they gave you the ability to pick the three trees. The combat was directly from WoW, hell rogues even have a 5 combo point system. Crafting? Just the same, simplified bare bones sytem in WoW. Heavy uses of currencies in its dungeon grinding system? Yup, WoW (I know EQ2 does this now too). The dungeon style? Yup, WoW. Not like EQ2's mix of open world dungeon and more puzzly instances. People that have played a lot of MMORPGs and are honest about things can clearly tell the difference between similarities because its the same genre and starting directly with WoW's system and iterating off that.
Over time its drifted from WoW (housing was certainly a direct lift from EQ2) and doesnt quite feel as mush like WoW as it did at launch, but the roots are clearly there.
The thing that really separates EQ2 and WoW from Rift though is the quality of the game world. Norrath and Azeroth are just a hell of a lot more interesting than Telara. Rift really fell short in building an interesting world and being able to present it.
Rift certainly has tried though. To me the first year as the population staretd to crumble was a lot of throwing shit up against a wall and seeing what stuck. Instant adventures, for some reason i'll never figure out, stuck. Master mode dungeons? not so much. They released, what, 2 of those? Planar Atunement? Better than having no AA system but so completely boring. Conquest? Cramming another games feature (3 faction PvP) in a setting where it makes no sense (2 faction world).
Rift to me will always be the game that should have been great but just didn't make it. And i think a lot of it is because the game had no clear vision when it was built so it has always felt soulless to me.
I'm not criticizing them for monetizing. I'm criticizing them for how they go about it and how they've treated long term paying customers. That's a huge reason why I've moved on to other games.
My favorite was selling the full year bundle for the first expansion while actively (and secretly) working on the F2P transition that was happening 6 months into that year.
If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game. All this does is to add a pay wall by limiting free to play member being able to do dungeon, raids and war front.
Like City of Steam, this may put both Rift and Trion on their last legs as for me they have no other games that I care to play.
Here let me fix that.
"If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game....because they can no longer play a computer game completely for free on that backs of other players that costs millions of dollars to create and maintain"
Sniff Sniff......
Good for Trion, maybe the plague ship that is F2P is starting to slowly change course.
If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game. All this does is to add a pay wall by limiting free to play member being able to do dungeon, raids and war front.
Like City of Steam, this may put both Rift and Trion on their last legs as for me they have no other games that I care to play.
Here let me fix that.
"If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game....because they can no longer play a computer game completely for free on that backs of other players that costs millions of dollars to create and maintain"
Sniff Sniff......
Good for Trion, maybe the plague ship that is F2P is starting to slowly change course.
Less people doing dungeons sounds like a loss for everyone to me.
It may drive out some of the truly F2P people, of which there arent all that many anyway. It will also drive out people like Torval, who sub occasionally and use the cash shop occasionally. Its also an *extremely* unpopular move on the Rift forums, which consists only of patrons to begin with. Partially due to the way they are selling this move, by telling their paying players they are getting some big boost to their value when they are only getting things they don't really care about in the first place.
And as far as those truly F2P people, in a medium/low population game like Rift those F2Pers make the game feel more alive and give more people to play with. this keeps some patrons around longer.
I can never quite figure out what runs through the brain of players who never support the games they play. What do you think will be the longevity of these games ? When you want to play the game ,enjoy it but refuse to contribute a single cent for it to prosper. In this scenario when the game shuts down you go 'oh my god these greedy people shut the game down that still had so much life to it'. It might have helped if you had bloody well supported it when you had the chance.
You are supporting it by playing it. Almost noone would use cash shops if there weren't free players in the game making it more appealing. "Free" players aren't freeloaders.
This is so self serving. I am not referring to how the company is trying to bolster their population but about how a player who enjoys a game should support it monetarily. Not some nonsense about supporting it by playing. The only reason you are playing is because you're enjoying the game not some altruistic reason of supporting it. Don't make me laugh about the selfless reason of support instead of just free loading on those who actually pay to support the game.
In the end every time a game shuts down when you had the chance to help it look in the mirror and ask yourself how much of a parasite you were and how much you could have done to help the game stay afloat. Don't give me platitudes .
Ease up with the hostility and projection there sport. I'm not playing the game anymore mostly because I don't like how they've shifted monetization.
They charged $150 for the Ultimate Nightmare Tide pack which had a mount that worked underwater and on land and, at launch, could only be obtained by spending that amount of money. That was regardless of whether you're a subscriber or not, which I was at the time. Not only that but the soul pack was separate and released a couple of months before for $35 where they hinted that this was their way of paying for the upcoming content as the areas themselves would be all access. So if you wanted the entire package you had to pay near $200 for an expac in addition to your subscription fee which offered very little at the time.
I do believe in paying for games. I have pay for 3 subscriptions right now (ESO, SWTOR, and Wildstar). I also sometimes subscribe to EQ2 or LotRO. I also buy game cash and extras in the store. I don't spend exorbitant amounts, but I do spend a little extra so please put down your high horse.
I'm not criticizing them for monetizing. I'm criticizing them for how they go about it and how they've treated long term paying customers. That's a huge reason why I've moved on to other games.
I genuinely apologize for the way I sounded. To be perfectly honest I have not played Rift for years and never when it went F2P only when it launched and Beta. I did not realise until your explanation how detrimental this idea is. The way you have itemized and explained does make it look like it will drive away even the paying ones.
I would never categorize you as not supporting the game. I was merely making a general observation about players who continuously enjoy a game and play it without contributing any money. They feel their presence is enough of a contribution which to me is rubbish and in my opinion that attitude is a very selfish and destructive in the end . I think if you truly respect a game company that is giving you enjoyment then for goodness sake throw some money their way.
The part about Rift being a wow clone alot the stuff rift does took there idea from wow why is that? If your trying to get people to come to your game got to feel like close to the last game you came from. MMO that did not copy wow end up in the dead and there are very few that made it but people won't touch it do to is to complex for them or is not wow something easy to use.
WoW was same boat took there idea from other mmo noting new here idea being taken added in to there game happens all the time with mmo.
What about FF14 a wow clone too? I bet people will rage at me saying that. Mmo take idea they use it make it work with there own spin.
If people want to see a real wow clone they are out there they not looking in to it harder.
What about FF14 a wow clone too? I bet people will rage at me saying that. Mmo take idea they use it make it work with there own spin.
For one, the crafting is a huge departure.
Class building is completely different.
The combat, while still tab target and GCD based, has a much different feel to it.
FF XIV is merely in the same subgenre as WoW (theme park). It plays almost nothing like WoW and almost nothing was taken from WoW (as opposed to the genre WoW happens to be in)
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
What about FF14 a wow clone too? I bet people will rage at me saying that. Mmo take idea they use it make it work with there own spin.
For one, the crafting is a huge departure.
Class building is completely different.
The combat, while still tab target and GCD based, has a much different feel to it.
FF XIV is merely in the same subgenre as WoW (theme park). It plays almost nothing like WoW and almost nothing was taken from WoW (as opposed to the genre WoW happens to be in)
Same case about it people will call rift copying wow dugeon queue system same in ff14 they even go as long as to combat but the combat is not the same. But I was just making a point how people think I know FF14 is not wow clone even rift.
Is just way of people thinking 1 or a few thing that mmo haves thats seen in wow even the game didn't start the idea it's a copy to there eyes.
Hell even people still say wildstar full copy of wow when the combat and crafting is a new level even the class not even a copy of wow but people still think is a wow clone.
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
I asked my contacts at Trion, Zenimax, Blizzard if they've seen any pop impact from BnS launch - none they could see.
They've all seen more impact from Fallout 4 launch believe it or not but it was temporary.
Your contacts are giving you the company line. No business entity readily admits to losing market share to a competitor. I would expect you to know that doing so is just not good business sense. A newly released game does not register hitting one million active users in one week without having an impact on its competition. That's just common sense. Regarding no developer caring about BnS, that's just more nonsense talk. Any savvy, informed, and successful business entity cares about its competition, and especially one that just reported hitting one million users in one week. You are a very naive soul if you believe those announced Feb 10th changes are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with the exact date that BnS is releasing its next expansion in NA/EU.
If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game. All this does is to add a pay wall by limiting free to play member being able to do dungeon, raids and war front.
Like City of Steam, this may put both Rift and Trion on their last legs as for me they have no other games that I care to play.
Here let me fix that.
"If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game....because they can no longer play a computer game completely for free on that backs of other players that costs millions of dollars to create and maintain"
Sniff Sniff......
Good for Trion, maybe the plague ship that is F2P is starting to slowly change course.
Less people doing dungeons sounds like a loss for everyone to me.
It may drive out some of the truly F2P people, of which there arent all that many anyway. It will also drive out people like Torval, who sub occasionally and use the cash shop occasionally. Its also an *extremely* unpopular move on the Rift forums, which consists only of patrons to begin with. Partially due to the way they are selling this move, by telling their paying players they are getting some big boost to their value when they are only getting things they don't really care about in the first place.
And as far as those truly F2P people, in a medium/low population game like Rift those F2Pers make the game feel more alive and give more people to play with. this keeps some patrons around longer.
I cant argue with you on some of those points, they are true I'm sure. But the switch to F2P in MMO's has basically destroyed most MMO's for me, the games play RADICALY different then pure sub games, and that's what bothers the hell out of me, and my opinion on this will never change.
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
I asked my contacts at Trion, Zenimax, Blizzard if they've seen any pop impact from BnS launch - none they could see.
They've all seen more impact from Fallout 4 launch believe it or not but it was temporary.
Come now, you honestly think that they will admit that they are losing customers to a eastern asian port? Trion keeps saying that Rift is going ever stronger with so many people playing Rift, we both know that ever since they released Nightmare the number of people playing dropped significantly and not to mention AA has taken away a lot of pvpers from Rift. Several of the current heroes of Ollo came from Rift and they are spending a lot of money in AA, did Trion ever said they lost Rift players to AA?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
I asked my contacts at Trion, Zenimax, Blizzard if they've seen any pop impact from BnS launch - none they could see.
They've all seen more impact from Fallout 4 launch believe it or not but it was temporary.
Come now, you honestly think that they will admit that they are losing customers to a eastern asian port? Trion keeps saying that Rift is going ever stronger with so many people playing Rift, we both know that ever since they released Nightmare the number of people playing dropped significantly and not to mention AA has taken away a lot of pvpers from Rift. Several of the current heroes of Ollo came from Rift and they are spending a lot of money in AA, did Trion ever said they lost Rift players to AA?
I'm pretty much I agree Rift been losing players slowly until AA then most of the few pvp player side whos know where they stay or went there own ways with that hot mess they had with AA.
Right now there main goal seem to trying change how they make money and still pushing for end game raiding to be the main part of the game but people are not biting to push for endgame raiding as the gear grind to high to be worth it to be stuck in a raid dungeon for hours on end. How much effort they made to raiding even if it's buggy or not trying get people to raid still not working to keep players around.
Few updates we got buffing a dps class to make them better for raiding made a few of them crazy strong in pvp.
One of the Main selling point of rift was out door invasions but thats been lacking is not there too hard just no point to them then just a daily or weekly quest. If there goal don't change then putting raiding first they still end up losing people why other part of the games what made people stay are being lacking in effort.
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
I asked my contacts at Trion, Zenimax, Blizzard if they've seen any pop impact from BnS launch - none they could see.
They've all seen more impact from Fallout 4 launch believe it or not but it was temporary.
Your contacts are giving you the company line. No business entity readily admits to losing market share to a competitor. I would expect you to know that doing so is just not good business sense. A newly released game does not register hitting one million active users in one week without having an impact on its competition. That's just common sense. Regarding no developer caring about BnS, that's just more nonsense talk. Any savvy, informed, and successful business entity cares about its competition, and especially one that just reported hitting one million users in one week. You are a very naive soul if you believe those announced Feb 10th changes are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with the exact date that BnS is releasing its next expansion in NA/EU.
These changes are something that I'm pretty sure Trion knew would not go over well. the fact that they announced them when they did is pretty clear evidence that they aren't worried about blade and Soul.
Would a politician raise taxes the day before an election if he was facing a strong candidate that might beat him?
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to. 2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
I asked my contacts at Trion, Zenimax, Blizzard if they've seen any pop impact from BnS launch - none they could see.
They've all seen more impact from Fallout 4 launch believe it or not but it was temporary.
Your contacts are giving you the company line. No business entity readily admits to losing market share to a competitor. I would expect you to know that doing so is just not good business sense. A newly released game does not register hitting one million active users in one week without having an impact on its competition. That's just common sense. Regarding no developer caring about BnS, that's just more nonsense talk. Any savvy, informed, and successful business entity cares about its competition, and especially one that just reported hitting one million users in one week. You are a very naive soul if you believe those announced Feb 10th changes are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with the exact date that BnS is releasing its next expansion in NA/EU.
These changes are something that I'm pretty sure Trion knew would not go over well. the fact that they announced them when they did is pretty clear evidence that they aren't worried about blade and Soul.
Would a politician raise taxes the day before an election if he was facing a strong candidate that might beat him?
I'm sure it will go over just fine with their paid subscribers, which is whom these changes are targeted toward and hoping to keep and convert/gain. In other words, F2P players will come and go .... paid subscribers? Not so much.
As to your analogy, it is off by quite a bit. As this is not so much a matter of punishing any of their players as it is giving something to a sector of their player base and not so much to the other. And yes politicians do, in fact, make promises/concessions to certain lobby groups and VIP campaign fund donors before elections, when they are facing strong candidates that might beat them.
I'm sure it will go over just fine with their paid subscribers, which is whom these changes are targeted toward.
This was clearly not geared towards current paid subscribers. The impact to them is negligible, except maybe for the people that play the AH game.
This change was meant to restrict F2P in order to get more people to sub. The Ah and Soul Vitality were just added so Trion could try to spin it as a positive, and theyve fooled at least one person it looks like.
Just check out the official forums (which is only paid subscribers). It is a near unanimous hated move. Granted MMORPG forums need to be taken with a grain of salt as they are notoriously whiny, but its clear that people are seeing right through Trions PR spin.
I'm sure it will go over just fine with their paid subscribers, which is whom these changes are targeted toward.
This was clearly not geared towards current paid subscribers. The impact to them is negligible, except maybe for the people that play the AH game.
This change was meant to restrict F2P in order to get more people to sub. The Ah and Soul Vitality were just added so Trion could try to spin it as a positive, and theyve fooled at least one person it looks like.
Just check out the official forums (which is only paid subscribers). It is a near unanimous hated move. Granted MMORPG forums need to be taken with a grain of salt as they are notoriously whiny, but its clear that people are seeing right through Trions PR spin.
Well there you go, regardless of how much you want to read between the lines about the change, you are arguing my point and don't even realize it. If the impact to subscribers is negligible, and that is definitely arguable as the benefits enumerated to them are many and clearly enumerated in the OP, and their intent was to encourage F2P to sub, then you are making my point better than I ever could. As per you, at worst then they will be keeping their subscribers and perhaps gaining some that may have otherwise left for the competition. Either way its a win-win for Trion in the face of adversity (BnS expansion release).
I never said that everything would be rosy and to their advantage as a result of the changes made. I merely said they are making changes in response to the increased competition. Btw, TERA also announced changes that are definitely not good news for their player base yet they were obviously made in response to increased outside competition. According to TERA, they have already advised their player base in advance not to expect any content/expansions until sometime in 2017. Sometimes retreating and regrouping, as opposed to doing nothing at all, is the right move to make when facing competitive adversity.
Comments
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I completely disagree about it feeling like EQ2 though. The reason most consider it a WoW clone is because almost every single *core* feature of the game and the way it played was either directly from WoW, or WoW with a spin on it. Take the soul system, it is clearly WoW's three tree structure only they gave you the ability to pick the three trees. The combat was directly from WoW, hell rogues even have a 5 combo point system. Crafting? Just the same, simplified bare bones sytem in WoW. Heavy uses of currencies in its dungeon grinding system? Yup, WoW (I know EQ2 does this now too). The dungeon style? Yup, WoW. Not like EQ2's mix of open world dungeon and more puzzly instances. People that have played a lot of MMORPGs and are honest about things can clearly tell the difference between similarities because its the same genre and starting directly with WoW's system and iterating off that.
Over time its drifted from WoW (housing was certainly a direct lift from EQ2) and doesnt quite feel as mush like WoW as it did at launch, but the roots are clearly there.
The thing that really separates EQ2 and WoW from Rift though is the quality of the game world. Norrath and Azeroth are just a hell of a lot more interesting than Telara. Rift really fell short in building an interesting world and being able to present it.
Rift certainly has tried though. To me the first year as the population staretd to crumble was a lot of throwing shit up against a wall and seeing what stuck. Instant adventures, for some reason i'll never figure out, stuck. Master mode dungeons? not so much. They released, what, 2 of those? Planar Atunement? Better than having no AA system but so completely boring. Conquest? Cramming another games feature (3 faction PvP) in a setting where it makes no sense (2 faction world).
Rift to me will always be the game that should have been great but just didn't make it. And i think a lot of it is because the game had no clear vision when it was built so it has always felt soulless to me.
My favorite was selling the full year bundle for the first expansion while actively (and secretly) working on the F2P transition that was happening 6 months into that year.
Here let me fix that.
"If this change goes live as is on the 10th, I can see the free to play members leaving the game....because they can no longer play a computer game completely for free on that backs of other players that costs millions of dollars to create and maintain"
Sniff Sniff......
Good for Trion, maybe the plague ship that is F2P is starting to slowly change course.
It may drive out some of the truly F2P people, of which there arent all that many anyway. It will also drive out people like Torval, who sub occasionally and use the cash shop occasionally. Its also an *extremely* unpopular move on the Rift forums, which consists only of patrons to begin with. Partially due to the way they are selling this move, by telling their paying players they are getting some big boost to their value when they are only getting things they don't really care about in the first place.
And as far as those truly F2P people, in a medium/low population game like Rift those F2Pers make the game feel more alive and give more people to play with. this keeps some patrons around longer.
I would never categorize you as not supporting the game. I was merely making a general observation about players who continuously enjoy a game and play it without contributing any money. They feel their presence is enough of a contribution which to me is rubbish and in my opinion that attitude is a very selfish and destructive in the end . I think if you truly respect a game company that is giving you enjoyment then for goodness sake throw some money their way.
An MMORPG making significant reward changes coming on Feb. 10th?
Sounds like someone is afraid of the "terrible" big bad wolf (BnS).
WoW was same boat took there idea from other mmo noting new here idea being taken added in to there game happens all the time with mmo.
What about FF14 a wow clone too? I bet people will rage at me saying that. Mmo take idea they use it make it work with there own spin.
If people want to see a real wow clone they are out there they not looking in to it harder.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Class building is completely different.
The combat, while still tab target and GCD based, has a much different feel to it.
FF XIV is merely in the same subgenre as WoW (theme park). It plays almost nothing like WoW and almost nothing was taken from WoW (as opposed to the genre WoW happens to be in)
1) Its not making significant reward changes. Just claiming to.
2) No developer cares about BnS, at least not ones that have been through as much launches as Trion has. Many of those launches by far more significant games than BnS.
Is just way of people thinking 1 or a few thing that mmo haves thats seen in wow even the game didn't start the idea it's a copy to there eyes.
Hell even people still say wildstar full copy of wow when the combat and crafting is a new level even the class not even a copy of wow but people still think is a wow clone.
Your contacts are giving you the company line. No business entity readily admits to losing market share to a competitor. I would expect you to know that doing so is just not good business sense. A newly released game does not register hitting one million active users in one week without having an impact on its competition. That's just common sense. Regarding no developer caring about BnS, that's just more nonsense talk. Any savvy, informed, and successful business entity cares about its competition, and especially one that just reported hitting one million users in one week. You are a very naive soul if you believe those announced Feb 10th changes are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with the exact date that BnS is releasing its next expansion in NA/EU.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Right now there main goal seem to trying change how they make money and still pushing for end game raiding to be the main part of the game but people are not biting to push for endgame raiding as the gear grind to high to be worth it to be stuck in a raid dungeon for hours on end. How much effort they made to raiding even if it's buggy or not trying get people to raid still not working to keep players around.
Few updates we got buffing a dps class to make them better for raiding made a few of them crazy strong in pvp.
One of the Main selling point of rift was out door invasions but thats been lacking is not there too hard just no point to them then just a daily or weekly quest. If there goal don't change then putting raiding first they still end up losing people why other part of the games what made people stay are being lacking in effort.
Would a politician raise taxes the day before an election if he was facing a strong candidate that might beat him?
I just wish you would put game names into the subject titles on these reports.
It's annoying.
I'm sure it will go over just fine with their paid subscribers, which is whom these changes are targeted toward and hoping to keep and convert/gain. In other words, F2P players will come and go .... paid subscribers? Not so much.
As to your analogy, it is off by quite a bit. As this is not so much a matter of punishing any of their players as it is giving something to a sector of their player base and not so much to the other. And yes politicians do, in fact, make promises/concessions to certain lobby groups and VIP campaign fund donors before elections, when they are facing strong candidates that might beat them.
This change was meant to restrict F2P in order to get more people to sub. The Ah and Soul Vitality were just added so Trion could try to spin it as a positive, and theyve fooled at least one person it looks like.
Just check out the official forums (which is only paid subscribers). It is a near unanimous hated move. Granted MMORPG forums need to be taken with a grain of salt as they are notoriously whiny, but its clear that people are seeing right through Trions PR spin.
Well there you go, regardless of how much you want to read between the lines about the change, you are arguing my point and don't even realize it. If the impact to subscribers is negligible, and that is definitely arguable as the benefits enumerated to them are many and clearly enumerated in the OP, and their intent was to encourage F2P to sub, then you are making my point better than I ever could. As per you, at worst then they will be keeping their subscribers and perhaps gaining some that may have otherwise left for the competition. Either way its a win-win for Trion in the face of adversity (BnS expansion release).
I never said that everything would be rosy and to their advantage as a result of the changes made. I merely said they are making changes in response to the increased competition. Btw, TERA also announced changes that are definitely not good news for their player base yet they were obviously made in response to increased outside competition. According to TERA, they have already advised their player base in advance not to expect any content/expansions until sometime in 2017. Sometimes retreating and regrouping, as opposed to doing nothing at all, is the right move to make when facing competitive adversity.