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Why Don't More People Play This?
Seriously. I played back at launch and it was huge. I just got back into since there are no other decent MMOs out. It has aged well in terms of graphics, the souls system allows for so much unique customization, and the costume/dye system is very accessible and well done. The support role is unique, just a lot of good things I see but nobody is interested. Very sad, especially given the lackluster competition.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
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There Is Always Hope!
Some excellent features that set Rift apart from the competition were nerfed completely to the ground shortly after launch. Afterwards it managed to offer a good deal to the players until about 2013 I think and then Trion's unique combination of desperation, greed and incompetence prevailed. Good thing that Trion is gone now - not that the new owner is any better, of course - but at least the sands of time (and causality in a market economy) give us this little satisfaction...
It's not like there is some kind of injustice happening here. The game (and the way it has been managed) deserves exactly the number of players it has.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
I recall getting a character to max level after about 3 months in and realized the "endgame" (rerunning dungeons and gear grinding) really was of no interest, it lacked any sense of purpose so I went back to EVE.
For what it's worth, it's why I don't play any other MMORPGs, most don't offer what I'm looking for in a virtual world.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
The souls were also prone to fundamental problems that Trion was never really able to fix (I'm pretty sure they more or less gave up around the end of Storm Legion). Also, a good 1/4 - 1/3 of the abilities across different souls of the same calling were pretty much duplicates: you could decide for a spell X from soul Z or its duplicate from the same calling with a slightly different name and visual effect. And in the end, you ended up macroing everything into one or two buttons anyway.
Rift was pretty schizophrenic from before its release, it's like there were two games that were developed in parallel and then dumped together in the same world. On one side you had the dynamic system, events, rifts, invasions (they were not completely new, other games had done similar stuff before) and then there were the most traditional static game systems and quests.
The clash between the two approaches came immediately after release and that's also when it became apparent that the game lacked proper direction. WoW was at its peak, with WotlK population of 12m, no other game could beat the behemoth on its own turf (classic theme park). Trion didn't realise that people complaining about not being able to do traditional static quests in Rift due to dynamic events overrunning zones were not their target audience. The company was too obsessed with their absurd "you're not in Azeroth anymore" mantra to see what was happening. They ruined the main feature that set the game apart, in order to please players who would regardless go back to WoW sooner or later, because WoW does that stuff better.
Instead of developing the major feature identifying the game (which even was in the name of the game!), Trion butchered it - and never recovered from the change. Instead of adapting the quest system to also change and evolve dynamically with the events, they turned towards static world and quests, thus becoming a cheap B-movie to the Hollywood blockbuster that was WoW.
They could have had the game generate all kinds of dynamic NPCs, war camps / forward outposts for players to hand in random quests in areas where quest givers were killed by the invasions and to hand out missions in dynamic campaigns to retake the settlements and zones, integrating it all with crafting to build up resources, arm the resistance and help repel the invaders - Trion did none of that, leaving the dynamic system forever stunted, bland and ultimately pointless.
In addition to this schizophrenic game design, Rift's development was heavily front-loaded - there were very few major new systems added or developed more deeply after the launch. Instant adventures, planar attunement - while not too bad - were pretty shallow additions intended to prolong the grind, while at the same time making it easier to jump in and start grinding at a moment's notice. The only truly great major feature that Trion added post-launch were the dimensions; and to some extent mentoring (but that was also mostly meant to cover up the thinning player population).
There could be a whole chapter written about their game engine, which shows how little the pre-release dev leads knew what the game was supposed to be - but this is getting way too long already, so I'll stop here.
It's no wonder the game went downhill, to be honest I'm surprised it lasted this long. It probably says more about the state of the MMO scene than it does about Rift, though.
Also, "Rifts" got annoying really quickly.
I think its a solid game - my biggest faults is the class system is too formulaic, and I've never been a fan of AA systems. I like hard caps on character progression.
Since I was already tired of raiding I dropped out when I got my PvP and expert dungeon gear within a few months.