Anyone playing this game can attest to the population growing steadily. I had 40 days off because i was out of town. Came back and immediately noticed the increase at my server. Also, there are like 4 servers almost constantly at high now instead of 2 or 3. I'm anxious to see what happens when the free weekly server transfers come up.
Not going to comment on the figures, guess we'll have to wait for the annual returns for those but......Good for them, the industry needs more success stories.
You'll be waiting a long time for those annual returns, since Trion Worlds, Inc is not a publicly listed company.
Nice to see that nearly 1 million post, pretty much validates what a large portion of the population has been saying, basically they never had as large a player base as the "fanboys" wanted to claim. There is no way they ever hit 750k players if they still haven't sold 1 million copies 2 months later. The retention rate isn't close to 50% so they have less than 500k paying subscribers now, most likely in the 300k range.
That's funny, I was basically agreeing with that yellow part of your comment only completely disagreeing with the rest of your post.
To me it showed that it was sheer and utter nonsense, the claims of Rift critics that kept referring to the vgchartz list that showed a mere 127k subs or so in the 1st week after launch. Obviously, they were wrong and not for a small part.
Those who said that Rift's sales and player numbers were more in the 750-900k range were a hell of a lot closer to the actual situation.
It also showed to me that after CATA's incorrect sales numbers and now this that those vgchartz sales numbers can't really be trusted, since they're obviously lacking a lot of data.
Based on activity trend figures so far, it appears that Rift has managed to hold on to around 55% of the playerbase it had after launch.
While it's all speculation, based on the comments of the Trion people and (very rough) comparisons with other MMO's, I'd say that subs and player numbers will be around 500k for now.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Five of us joined Rift together, and had a really good time. Unfortunately, Trion relied a little too much on the concepts of rifts/rifting, and we all got bored pretty quickly with the game.
It's a good game, and we did have fun, did some end-game raiding, etc - but for us, it just got real old real quick. New updates = more rifts. Want to craft more? Great , go kill a crafting rift *sigh*. Have a big group and want better gear, do an epic rift, etc etc etc... it just gets to the point where you run right past the rifts, because you know if you take that one down, another will respawn in seconds. There just wasn't any point to the rifts, except mere/more grinding.
All our accounts are up early July, and we have all left/are leaving. Again, the concept was fine. We had a great time for a couple months... but they just really seemed to drop the ball on keeping it fresh and coming out with new ideas/new content. As well, our server has been losing pop steadily, which makes it even worse for grouping. People don't even bother with the new and shiny LFG tool... there is no reason too.
Good luck and have fun those of you staying in Rift. Bonk old Lord Greenscale on the head for us. We're off to greener pastures (ones that don't contain rifts.)
Five of us joined Rift together, and had a really good time. Unfortunately, Trion relied a little too much on the concepts of rifts/rifting, and we all got bored pretty quickly with the game.
It's a good game, and we did have fun, did some end-game raiding, etc - but for us, it just got real old real quick. New updates = more rifts. Want to craft more? Great , go kill a crafting rift *sigh*. Have a big group and want better gear, do an epic rift, etc etc etc... it just gets to the point where you run right past the rifts, because you know if you take that one down, another will respawn in seconds. There just wasn't any point to the rifts, except mere/more grinding.
All our accounts are up early July, and we have all left/are leaving. Again, the concept was fine. We had a great time for a couple months... but they just really seemed to drop the ball on keeping it fresh and coming out with new ideas/new content. As well, our server has been losing pop steadily, which makes it even worse for grouping. People don't even bother with the new and shiny LFG tool... there is no reason too.
Good luck and have fun those of you staying in Rift. Bonk old Lord Greenscale on the head for us. We're off to greener pastures (ones that don't contain rifts.)
Good summary.
I would add that TRION have seriously screwed other types of players too.
As well as players needing more content vs grind, they are allienating players that don't mind grinding out content as long as they get some worthwhile reward (Gear/Rank) that raises the profile/nominal value of their character, thus enabling them to differentaite themselves.
Trion devalue the effort of these types of players by reducing the price of gear/rank etc, dumbing down content SO SOON after launch etc. Why grind if you get it for free / it is worthless in a matter of a couple of weeks ?
TRION are dumbing down content and making soul/class choices largely irrelevant, throwing free trials and discounting boxes, introducing recruit a friend inventives and changing important aspects of gameplay that develop community.
The only customer they are appealing to is the new one and they loose those so soon after they hit max level and realise what a joke the end game is .
Five of us joined Rift together, and had a really good time. Unfortunately, Trion relied a little too much on the concepts of rifts/rifting, and we all got bored pretty quickly with the game.
It's a good game, and we did have fun, did some end-game raiding, etc - but for us, it just got real old real quick. New updates = more rifts. Want to craft more? Great , go kill a crafting rift *sigh*. Have a big group and want better gear, do an epic rift, etc etc etc... it just gets to the point where you run right past the rifts, because you know if you take that one down, another will respawn in seconds. There just wasn't any point to the rifts, except mere/more grinding.
All our accounts are up early July, and we have all left/are leaving. Again, the concept was fine. We had a great time for a couple months... but they just really seemed to drop the ball on keeping it fresh and coming out with new ideas/new content. As well, our server has been losing pop steadily, which makes it even worse for grouping. People don't even bother with the new and shiny LFG tool... there is no reason too.
Good luck and have fun those of you staying in Rift. Bonk old Lord Greenscale on the head for us. We're off to greener pastures (ones that don't contain rifts.)
Very nice and well written post there. I think its a good game as well but I just couldn't find a reason to stay. Most of the Rifts I helped close early on.. I only helped close because they were on top of quest areas. Because.. to be quite honest not long into beta I'd already had enough of.. Rifts. They should have spent more time on the rest of the game.
I, too, enjoy Rift, but I see myself already tiring of it after just 2 weeks.
The population is low, making Rifts tedious, defeating Invasion impossible, as well as making dungeons impossible. So two major content providers are not being used, because there aren't enough people. Solution: merge servers or get on the ball with this transfer promise. If this doesn't fix the problem content needs to be adjusted to current population.
And leveling is so fast the rewards you get from Rifts/Factions are quickly outpaced making Rift/Faction grinding during leveling pointless, because they are more tedium than fun/rewarding. My solution would be to increase the XP and faction given by closing a rift. Right now, its better to ignore it and continue to quest/PvP.
The PvP is fun as long as you're a mage or rogue(healers are strong, too, just rarely played). You'd have to look pretty hard to even find a person silly enough to try to bring a warrior out there, which brings me to my other point that warriors suck for everything except dungeons. I'm at a lose for words how 4 months into this game warriors have not been looked at. Solution: Make warriors not suck at solo questing and provide them with ways to mitigate magic damage and add more stuns, interupts and silences.
Comments
Anyone playing this game can attest to the population growing steadily. I had 40 days off because i was out of town. Came back and immediately noticed the increase at my server. Also, there are like 4 servers almost constantly at high now instead of 2 or 3. I'm anxious to see what happens when the free weekly server transfers come up.
2.1 mill accounts created hmm. How many free trials, how many gold sellers, How many people actually subbed past the free 30 days?
Also, that was FORUM accounts created, not ingame accounts.
You'll be waiting a long time for those annual returns, since Trion Worlds, Inc is not a publicly listed company.
That's funny, I was basically agreeing with that yellow part of your comment only completely disagreeing with the rest of your post.
To me it showed that it was sheer and utter nonsense, the claims of Rift critics that kept referring to the vgchartz list that showed a mere 127k subs or so in the 1st week after launch. Obviously, they were wrong and not for a small part.
Those who said that Rift's sales and player numbers were more in the 750-900k range were a hell of a lot closer to the actual situation.
It also showed to me that after CATA's incorrect sales numbers and now this that those vgchartz sales numbers can't really be trusted, since they're obviously lacking a lot of data.
Based on activity trend figures so far, it appears that Rift has managed to hold on to around 55% of the playerbase it had after launch.
While it's all speculation, based on the comments of the Trion people and (very rough) comparisons with other MMO's, I'd say that subs and player numbers will be around 500k for now.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
These sort of numbers can be misleading. We have a healthy population on my server, not hordes but its does us just fine.
Five of us joined Rift together, and had a really good time. Unfortunately, Trion relied a little too much on the concepts of rifts/rifting, and we all got bored pretty quickly with the game.
It's a good game, and we did have fun, did some end-game raiding, etc - but for us, it just got real old real quick. New updates = more rifts. Want to craft more? Great , go kill a crafting rift *sigh*. Have a big group and want better gear, do an epic rift, etc etc etc... it just gets to the point where you run right past the rifts, because you know if you take that one down, another will respawn in seconds. There just wasn't any point to the rifts, except mere/more grinding.
All our accounts are up early July, and we have all left/are leaving. Again, the concept was fine. We had a great time for a couple months... but they just really seemed to drop the ball on keeping it fresh and coming out with new ideas/new content. As well, our server has been losing pop steadily, which makes it even worse for grouping. People don't even bother with the new and shiny LFG tool... there is no reason too.
Good luck and have fun those of you staying in Rift. Bonk old Lord Greenscale on the head for us. We're off to greener pastures (ones that don't contain rifts.)
Good summary.
I would add that TRION have seriously screwed other types of players too.
As well as players needing more content vs grind, they are allienating players that don't mind grinding out content as long as they get some worthwhile reward (Gear/Rank) that raises the profile/nominal value of their character, thus enabling them to differentaite themselves.
Trion devalue the effort of these types of players by reducing the price of gear/rank etc, dumbing down content SO SOON after launch etc. Why grind if you get it for free / it is worthless in a matter of a couple of weeks ?
TRION are dumbing down content and making soul/class choices largely irrelevant, throwing free trials and discounting boxes, introducing recruit a friend inventives and changing important aspects of gameplay that develop community.
The only customer they are appealing to is the new one and they loose those so soon after they hit max level and realise what a joke the end game is .
Caveat Emptor
Very nice and well written post there. I think its a good game as well but I just couldn't find a reason to stay. Most of the Rifts I helped close early on.. I only helped close because they were on top of quest areas. Because.. to be quite honest not long into beta I'd already had enough of.. Rifts. They should have spent more time on the rest of the game.
I, too, enjoy Rift, but I see myself already tiring of it after just 2 weeks.
The population is low, making Rifts tedious, defeating Invasion impossible, as well as making dungeons impossible. So two major content providers are not being used, because there aren't enough people. Solution: merge servers or get on the ball with this transfer promise. If this doesn't fix the problem content needs to be adjusted to current population.
And leveling is so fast the rewards you get from Rifts/Factions are quickly outpaced making Rift/Faction grinding during leveling pointless, because they are more tedium than fun/rewarding. My solution would be to increase the XP and faction given by closing a rift. Right now, its better to ignore it and continue to quest/PvP.
The PvP is fun as long as you're a mage or rogue(healers are strong, too, just rarely played). You'd have to look pretty hard to even find a person silly enough to try to bring a warrior out there, which brings me to my other point that warriors suck for everything except dungeons. I'm at a lose for words how 4 months into this game warriors have not been looked at. Solution: Make warriors not suck at solo questing and provide them with ways to mitigate magic damage and add more stuns, interupts and silences.