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According to MMOCulture.com, Trion Worlds is shutting Rift's Korean service down on April 25th. According to the report, Rift could not keep pace with Diablo III and Blade & Soul enough to make a profitable inroad into the Korean market.
The MMOCulture site is down, doubtless due to server overload, but you can check it out later.
We have reached out to Trion Worlds for comment and will report back any further news.
Comments
Asian games fail in NA and NA games fail in Asia.
P.S. Switch RIFT to B2P in NA ala Aion, TSW, GW2 and TERA, and watch population POP!
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Yeah D3 doing great in China , 90 % bots working for 24 hours on act 3 all day same place same s...... hilarious but i do look for Soul & Blade , seems the only mmo that is a bit diferent and interesting and has good pvp system.
But Eu and Usa players can go pick up chese from the shelves in elder scrols the ultra booring series got an mmo sequel now . LOL It's not going to have more players than the other series of Morowind.
D3 is doing great in Korea but I am confused what D3 doing great in China with farmers have got to do with Korea. Do the two countries share the same servers ?
Rift is a good game but I think it is just not terribly original and too derivative except for the rifts themselves. I guess it was just not enough to keep interest in the game in the Korean market.
Dude im trying too wait patiencely for B&S, i have a feeling that this game will be big in NA/EU.
"Rift could not keep pace with Diablo III and Blade & Soul enough to make a profitable inroad into the Korean market."
Could not keep pace? I.e. it's not entirely their fault they foundered?
That's how I'm reading that.
I'd say it's complete bull. The title was simply lost in translation.
If you compare all the games coming out of S-Korea, even the most "subdued" ones, they're nearly epilepsy inducing to many of the Western crowd. with their art direction and palette choices.
Compared to those, even Rift seems "meh" to the point of being prudish.
I remember reading the annoucement that Rift was being brought to Asia and all I could think was "really?..."
Except that WoW and Diablo 3 are huge over there and that FFXI was big in the west and that PWE and Nexon have made enough money in the west to want to open up offices there and higher western programmers to make them even more popular. Oh, and that Archeage is at the top of the hype list here with a bunch of people looking forward to it and that Bliss and Black Desert at the top of many peoples waiting lists...
So yeah, if you exclude the games that are popular, you are correct.
Korea is the cutting edge of MMO culture? In what universe? The last asian MMO I played was terrible. It was a long pointless grind with virtually no story, lame anime-inspired graphics, and a focus on action and combat at the expense of almost everything else.
If they don't like Rift then screw them. They can keep their lame games. I have yet to play one that appeals to me.
How many of the 10+ million people that plays WoW knows the story? With its cartoon graphics, long pointless grind except for a shiney and holy trinity handicapped gameplay focused on raiding at the expense of almost everything else.
Cutting edge is always lost on those always expecting the same and attacks what is DIFFERENT, just because its different.
Thus comes Xenophobia, the biggest reason why its a lot harder for good games to be accept through the world. I bet that same arguement you just brought up couldbe reversed for them saying it about western games having pointless grind, no story, lame Western or kiddie style graphics, and a focus on action and combat at the expense of everything else.
Yeah, the only thing I'd have to change at all was the the comment about the art style, thats literally your points can so easily be reversed and they make sense. Hell, your Xenophobia even plays part in people like like World of Warcraft which for me is sad that the focus point of people not liking the game was the "Pandas" (in Warcraft 3 btw) or "Asian theme" rather then the actual problems the game had.
I'm not sure you are the one who is confused.
China
South Korea
Elder Scrolls
Should probably do a little research.
How do you conclude Korea is cutting edge MMO culture? Explain what you call cutting edge in any of their games. They like big grinds and lots of rare weaponry, things Rift does not really have.
this.
i told so many times in so many posts that the popylation in EU sucks. 1 high and 3 medium servers in peak hours. only one of them english.
They need to make it B2P YESTERDAY!
Because the geardrops are so frustratingly random, that it makes the perfect hardcore grindgame the Koreans love.
You're unhealthy and should visit a doctor.