I Think Rift has found its niche group ... Most have returned to Wow and now tha EQ 2 is up quite a few have returned there. I think rift population has stabilized for the most part unless more people think about rage quitting over the expert Nerfs.
So Pick a server if it is not up to your liking ... just transfer off to another server ... coming 1.3 oh yea For Free
From what I've seen it is steady but the turnover is very high. In other words the trip from excitement to boredom is very quick with the new players replacing the older players at a steady rate. Can't keep that up though everntually they will have to do something to make the game viable long term.
The player base in RIFT currently is fine.. The problem in RIFT is constant Hit and Run grouping. And total lack of socialization.. NO one talks in Public channels. As in like almost ever. You know people are there playing because you will see them run past you. Join your group in a RIFT or invasion area. However many times you will feel like you might as well be playing a Single player game with alot of NPCs thrown in. Because no one talks to you..
You might get someone respond every now and then when you talk to them. You might even be able to get a group together to accomplish a dungeon every now and then. My advice bring a group of friends with you.
If the player base was steady and Rift was doing well then they wouldnt need to advertise so much, they wouldnt need the trials or the buddy keys to bring players in. Even the welcome back weekends. How many games in the past that were doing very well did this, i dont recall any.
WoW advertised non-stop for years including major TV celebrity campaigns (William Shatner, Mister T, others?). I don't see that as an indication that they were slipping in players. They just wanted more as hitting critical mass (a playerbase so large that they aren't hurt by rivals) seems to have been a priority.
Blizzard has announced that William Shatner, Mr. T, and Verne Troyer have signed on for a World of Warcraft ad campaign. Mr. Shatner's and Mr. T's spots have both been produced and are available on the World of Warcraft official site, while Mr. Troyer's spot has not released.
So that would be >3 years after release not .... less than 3 months in Rifts case..as you seem to want to ignore....
If the player base was steady and Rift was doing well then they wouldnt need to advertise so much, they wouldnt need the trials or the buddy keys to bring players in. Even the welcome back weekends. How many games in the past that were doing very well did this, i dont recall any.
WoW advertised non-stop for years including major TV celebrity campaigns (William Shatner, Mister T, others?). I don't see that as an indication that they were slipping in players. They just wanted more as hitting critical mass (a playerbase so large that they aren't hurt by rivals) seems to have been a priority.
Wow, so I guess that means Trion has made way more then WoW did in its first 3 months and can afford to stay on par with WoW's advertisements only after launching a little bit ago.. I see you're point man, based by that logic Trion must be having a HUGE success with Rift.. Thanks for bringing that up!
Currently Playing: Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
If the player base was steady and Rift was doing well then they wouldnt need to advertise so much, they wouldnt need the trials or the buddy keys to bring players in. Even the welcome back weekends. How many games in the past that were doing very well did this, i dont recall any.
WoW advertised non-stop for years including major TV celebrity campaigns (William Shatner, Mister T, others?). I don't see that as an indication that they were slipping in players. They just wanted more as hitting critical mass (a playerbase so large that they aren't hurt by rivals) seems to have been a priority.
Wow, so I guess that means Trion has made way more then WoW did in its first 3 months and can afford to stay on par with WoW's advertisements only after launching a little bit ago.. I see you're point man, based by that logic Trion must be having a HUGE success with Rift.. Thanks for bringing that up!
I would think Trion has not made all the money WOW made in just 3 months...but they saw what WOW did to get where they are at in the industry and are not wasting any time. Why ignore a successful formula. They are a WOW 'clone" after all. More power to them. They have a decent population....and offer premium transfer services for free to make sure they keep players. Yet still ..these things and abundant advertising are apparently portents of doom...damned if they do..damned if they don't. I just know that I play on 2 different servers..and both still have me waiting briefly in queues from time to time. Sucks when I wait to play a failing game.
I think its absolutely amazing that People will sit on here and claim RIFT is a failing game... I am no fanboy... But I can assure you that is one thing it is not.
Trion games doing all the advertising is actually a great thing to do, and I for one applaud them. To many games come out that have the potential to be great games but get no notice from general public. Advertising makes all the difference in the world. I for one wish several of past games I played that I thought were great would have advertised.
Take Vanguard for instance. SOE failed to push the game.. Even after they squashed the bugs and issues that plagued the game at its forced early launch. Advertising Campaigns could have went a long way to bring old people back or new people in.
Rift has a steady Population. Are people leaving sure, however like me new people are coming in. As well. I for one plan on sticking around and seeing where the game goes. Even though I do still plan on trying out GW2... My plans to try out SWTOR have changed since coming to RIFT>
I'm still getting dungeon groups so what the hell, on the sole European rp server as well. The population seems healthy enough at peak times, so I really have no worries for now.
Rift has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem of the mass exodus following the first 1-2 months.... free trials, half price boxes, recruit a friend, advertising, specila events (cough), recruit a friend, nerfs of chars, dumbing down end game content/dungeon difficulty/ pvp point grind....
Any bounce is as a result of this ..... a massive discount and sale of the brand, the content and the player base .....
Low population on your server does not equal low population on all servers.
I have characters spanning 3 different servers. One I stopped playing on because it consistantly has a Queue. Wait WHAT?! A Queue. Yes a Queue, never very large. But just the other day, it did in fact have a queue. And thats a server that usually is marked Medium. The other two servers I play on remain very active. Even during non-peak hours there were enough people to fight about how to clear the rift invasion that was occuring. And these are on servers that 90% of the time are marked as medium. I've yet to encounter a server that's dead... but... I havn't played on them all. I've played on 3 of what, 50 NA Servers? If you don't like the population on your server, they are about to give free transfers. Which will be followed I'm sure by server merges.
But it is a catch 22, if players feel like it's dead. It doesn't matter if it's true or not something is making them feel isolated and thats bad.
If the player base was steady and Rift was doing well then they wouldnt need to advertise so much, they wouldnt need the trials or the buddy keys to bring players in. Even the welcome back weekends. How many games in the past that were doing very well did this, i dont recall any.
Sadly for Rift they had lots of players try out the game in the beginning which cuased them to invest alot into servers. But many droped off after first month and they are probably loosing a steady amount of players per month.
Rift will still have a sizeable fan base, but you should start to see server merges about 6 months after the release. Maybe a major content patch.
But Rift being so middle of the road game play wise and the lack of alternate leveling paths does keep players from resubbing after they hit max level. Then there is the gear grind which is becomeing just that, a grind. Even WoW is starting to feel the effects of players just being burnt out of gear grinding to only have to re gear grind every new raid dungeon that they bring out.
But still, Rift is a alternative to WoW or EQ2, so players who have accounts will prob play a month here or there just to cut the burn out of those games. Still wont help Rift on the long run.
Wow is doing well and has trial keys and welcome back currently available at the moment. Also had the introduce a friend program so your argument here totally fails.
It simply isn't correct to claim that Trion doing in weeks/months since launch what Blizzard has done over years =is the same marketing strategy.
You'd also expect TRion to have a few very healthy servers at this stage even Funcom managed that with Age of Conan and far fewer incentives this early after release.
A few apparerntly healthy servers is a very very long way short of TRIONS published objectives or those things it would have to be achieving / achieve in order for it to be a success in a meaningful sense for mmorpg players looking for a game with a medicre prospect of offering them anything other than a few months play and a worthless character/account at the end of it.
If you give credence to XFire numbers or Steam numbers, then yes, Rift's playerbase is steady. I'm sure Trion would prefer that the game's population be increasing, but steady is good too.
I'd like to see something new added to the game...and by new I don't mean another raid, but something new that you don't see in the current crop of MMO's out there now. Of course, they might be saving some of the new stuff for their two upcoming games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
I Think Rift has found its niche group ... Most have returned to Wow and now tha EQ 2 is up quite a few have returned there. I think rift population has stabilized for the most part unless more people think about rage quitting over the expert Nerfs.
So Pick a server if it is not up to your liking ... just transfer off to another server ... coming 1.3 oh yea For Free
Artorus Giltanus - Ranger EQ1 Retired
Arturien - 90 Deathknight WoW
From what I've seen it is steady but the turnover is very high. In other words the trip from excitement to boredom is very quick with the new players replacing the older players at a steady rate. Can't keep that up though everntually they will have to do something to make the game viable long term.
The player base in RIFT currently is fine.. The problem in RIFT is constant Hit and Run grouping. And total lack of socialization.. NO one talks in Public channels. As in like almost ever. You know people are there playing because you will see them run past you. Join your group in a RIFT or invasion area. However many times you will feel like you might as well be playing a Single player game with alot of NPCs thrown in. Because no one talks to you..
You might get someone respond every now and then when you talk to them. You might even be able to get a group together to accomplish a dungeon every now and then. My advice bring a group of friends with you.
Rift has too many servers (like every server but two is listed with a "medium" population), but the population is steady.
World of Warcraft Release date: November 23, 2004
Nov 20, 2007 | 27 comments in our forums
Nov 20 2007 ...
Blizzard has announced that William Shatner, Mr. T, and Verne Troyer have signed on for a World of Warcraft ad campaign. Mr. Shatner's and Mr. T's spots have both been produced and are available on the World of Warcraft official site, while Mr. Troyer's spot has not released.
So that would be >3 years after release not .... less than 3 months in Rifts case..as you seem to want to ignore....
Caveat Emptor
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I would think Trion has not made all the money WOW made in just 3 months...but they saw what WOW did to get where they are at in the industry and are not wasting any time. Why ignore a successful formula. They are a WOW 'clone" after all. More power to them. They have a decent population....and offer premium transfer services for free to make sure they keep players. Yet still ..these things and abundant advertising are apparently portents of doom...damned if they do..damned if they don't. I just know that I play on 2 different servers..and both still have me waiting briefly in queues from time to time. Sucks when I wait to play a failing game.
I think its absolutely amazing that People will sit on here and claim RIFT is a failing game... I am no fanboy... But I can assure you that is one thing it is not.
Trion games doing all the advertising is actually a great thing to do, and I for one applaud them. To many games come out that have the potential to be great games but get no notice from general public. Advertising makes all the difference in the world. I for one wish several of past games I played that I thought were great would have advertised.
Take Vanguard for instance. SOE failed to push the game.. Even after they squashed the bugs and issues that plagued the game at its forced early launch. Advertising Campaigns could have went a long way to bring old people back or new people in.
Rift has a steady Population. Are people leaving sure, however like me new people are coming in. As well. I for one plan on sticking around and seeing where the game goes. Even though I do still plan on trying out GW2... My plans to try out SWTOR have changed since coming to RIFT>
I'm still getting dungeon groups so what the hell, on the sole European rp server as well. The population seems healthy enough at peak times, so I really have no worries for now.
Rift has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem of the mass exodus following the first 1-2 months.... free trials, half price boxes, recruit a friend, advertising, specila events (cough), recruit a friend, nerfs of chars, dumbing down end game content/dungeon difficulty/ pvp point grind....
Any bounce is as a result of this ..... a massive discount and sale of the brand, the content and the player base .....
Caveat Emptor
Low population on your server does not equal low population on all servers.
I have characters spanning 3 different servers. One I stopped playing on because it consistantly has a Queue. Wait WHAT?! A Queue. Yes a Queue, never very large. But just the other day, it did in fact have a queue. And thats a server that usually is marked Medium. The other two servers I play on remain very active. Even during non-peak hours there were enough people to fight about how to clear the rift invasion that was occuring. And these are on servers that 90% of the time are marked as medium. I've yet to encounter a server that's dead... but... I havn't played on them all. I've played on 3 of what, 50 NA Servers? If you don't like the population on your server, they are about to give free transfers. Which will be followed I'm sure by server merges.
But it is a catch 22, if players feel like it's dead. It doesn't matter if it's true or not something is making them feel isolated and thats bad.
---
Live a life less ordinary.
Wow is doing well and has trial keys and welcome back currently available at the moment. Also had the introduce a friend program so your argument here totally fails.
Timing is everything.
It simply isn't correct to claim that Trion doing in weeks/months since launch what Blizzard has done over years =is the same marketing strategy.
You'd also expect TRion to have a few very healthy servers at this stage even Funcom managed that with Age of Conan and far fewer incentives this early after release.
A few apparerntly healthy servers is a very very long way short of TRIONS published objectives or those things it would have to be achieving / achieve in order for it to be a success in a meaningful sense for mmorpg players looking for a game with a medicre prospect of offering them anything other than a few months play and a worthless character/account at the end of it.
Caveat Emptor
If you give credence to XFire numbers or Steam numbers, then yes, Rift's playerbase is steady. I'm sure Trion would prefer that the game's population be increasing, but steady is good too.
I'd like to see something new added to the game...and by new I don't mean another raid, but something new that you don't see in the current crop of MMO's out there now. Of course, they might be saving some of the new stuff for their two upcoming games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.