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Community => Other Games => Topic started by: Adelante on May 15, 2013, 04:51:39 PM

Title: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Adelante on May 15, 2013, 04:51:39 PM
Source: http://www.riftgame.com/en/promo/freetoplay.php

Is anyone even remotely interested in this?  I quit the game on a very bad note (and somewhat publicly on the old CoH boards in the Rude Tells thread) thanks entirely to a GM that developed a personal vendetta against me.  He was so angry that I continued to get e-mail that I'd been banned from the game periodically, months after I had stopped playing (I stopped playing because he thought it'd be entertaining to delete every item I had on my 3 highest-level characters).

I was curious if I could get my account back in good standing and e-mailed their support team this morning.  Within 20 minutes I had access to my account restored, though as I don't have a subscription I can't see if my stuff is there (which, after so long, I don't particularly care about anyway).  I guess their support process has improved, it was fast and courteous.

Anyway, I may look into it once it is F2P, mostly for the scenario-like PvP.  I kind of miss that.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Minotaur on May 15, 2013, 07:54:52 PM
I enjoyed RIFT. They took a direction I didn't like in that it became almost totally "raid or don't bother". I was a crafter, I could craft every item in the game that was worth crafting, then they made the new high level craftable shinies require stuff that could only be acquired in raids, so I quit. It's a decent game solo, but I hated the community, particularly around pickup dungeons and raids.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Aggelakis on May 15, 2013, 08:59:35 PM
I played in the RIFT beta and for the first six or nine months. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I really like the 'open team' concept and the 'malleable world' thing they had. However, like Minotaur, I saw it heading in the raid-or-gtfo direction and became disenchanted. I solo almost exclusively in pretty much every game I play so being able to do stuff at high level without requiring a party is pretty important to me.

I'll check it out again and see how things have changed since I left, but reading up on it shows more of the same, and I'm not likely to change my opinion.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Minotaur on May 15, 2013, 11:03:51 PM
It did amuse me that when they first introduced fishing into the game, it was a dwarven activity done with dynamite. They subsequently introduced it properly.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: dwturducken on May 15, 2013, 11:31:43 PM
I would be interested in "dwarven" fishing! :)
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FlyingCarcass on May 16, 2013, 12:07:20 AM
It did amuse me that when they first introduced fishing into the game, it was a dwarven activity done with dynamite. They subsequently introduced it properly.

You mean that isn't the proper way to fish?
 ???


On a side note, how's the PvP in Rift? More specifically the battlegrounds (or whatever they call it)... I could go for an MMO where casual PvP is an option (since player-vs-player stuff is normally what I do in online games... CoH was an exception for me).
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Adelante on May 16, 2013, 12:32:27 AM
When I left the PvP was still pretty active and entertaining.  I enjoyed it a lot, and it will likely be the main reason for me to return.

As far as Raiding culture goes... yeah.  I agree. The game did take that Raiding turn, and it's unfortunate.  I remember my guild at the time came over from WoW because they were sick of all the Raiding... then immediately jumped into Raiding in RIFT and made it a Raid-focused guild as opposed to the casual grouping guild I had initially joined.  I was disappointed.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Dollhouse on May 16, 2013, 01:03:47 AM
I played through the beta, and while I elected not to subscribe (largely because I remain totally burned out on high fantasy as a gaming genre), even before launch the game was polished and stable. Trion do good work.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Golden Girl on May 16, 2013, 02:25:50 AM
So does that leave only WoW and EVE as the last 2 subscription dinosaurs?
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Everfreefire on May 16, 2013, 08:17:49 AM
Both the Final Fantasy MMOs are subscription-based...Rather, FFXIV will be once it is out again.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Adelante on May 16, 2013, 11:46:13 AM
Darkfall's subscription-based, the new Camelot game is going to be subscription-based too.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FatherXmas on May 16, 2013, 04:10:51 PM
No word on income models for Boobs & Skin or Wildstar yet.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Adelante on May 16, 2013, 09:11:07 PM
Pretty sure Wildstar has been mentioned to be F2P in the past, but I dunno.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Nightmarer on May 16, 2013, 09:21:34 PM
I'll probably give Rift another go then, had a Warrior and a Rogue at lvl 50 but will probably have to start from scratch since I don't think I can re-learn how to play them, specially on so many different roles available, guess I'll start with a Cleric and see how it goes.-
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Rust on May 17, 2013, 12:13:51 AM
Both the Final Fantasy MMOs are subscription-based...Rather, FFXIV will be once it is out again.

I'm fairly certain they slit FFXIV throat with the disastrous initial launch. They'd be wise just to keep running with FFXI and pretend FFXIV never happened.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FlyingCarcass on May 17, 2013, 12:23:32 AM
I'm fairly certain they slit FFXIV throat with the disastrous initial launch. They'd be wise just to keep running with FFXI and pretend FFXIV never happened.

Square-Enix isn't wise.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Aggelakis on May 17, 2013, 05:07:29 AM
Pretty sure Wildstar has been mentioned to be F2P in the past, but I dunno.
Nope, they haven't settled on a pay scheme yet.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Tremor on May 18, 2013, 01:30:17 AM
I really enjoyed building bases in CoH...piece by piece; moving items together to create tables, beds etc.

When I saw this video, I have to admit I became a bit bouncy.

Rift has 'housing', but they call it Dimensions.  The houses in this video were built one plank of wood at a time by a player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_RA1z666Mo
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Olde Glory on May 18, 2013, 08:59:39 AM
I bouht the game when it first came out but eventually got tired of the lack of community. When I had to go down to 1 sub, I (of course!) dropped it to keep CoH. I don't mind soloing in an MMO, but paying for it month after month doesn't hold really make sense when I own an xbox (that's what I use it for).  In any case, I might give it another try but I'll be rolling a new character if i do.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FatherXmas on May 18, 2013, 09:19:33 AM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/17/trion-reportedly-undergoing-massive-layoffs/
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Aggelakis on May 18, 2013, 09:20:43 AM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/17/trion-reportedly-undergoing-massive-layoffs/
Don't know why you're putting this here, since none of the layoffs came from the RIFT team. Seems like you're trying to incite hysteria. :p
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Everfreefire on May 18, 2013, 09:44:03 AM
I'm fairly certain they slit FFXIV throat with the disastrous initial launch. They'd be wise just to keep running with FFXI and pretend FFXIV never happened.

Yeah, they're working on revamping it now, the Realm Reborn beta is...I'm not sure how far I'm allowed to even say. It exists.

And it is improved, from what I know. Claiming it's dead and should be buried is really silly, at least to me.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Rust on May 18, 2013, 12:15:49 PM
Claiming it's dead and should be buried is really silly, at least to me.

I never claimed either of those things. I just said the company slit the game's throat by launching it in such a state. I mean, it's not often that a game is so bad that the company has to issue an apology to those that bought the product.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Everfreefire on May 18, 2013, 12:23:22 PM
I never claimed either of those things. I just said the company slit the game's throat by launching it in such a state. I mean, it's not often that a game is so bad that the company has to issue an apology to those that bought the product.

So it should have just been left on the side of the road, unburied?  :P
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Golden Girl on May 18, 2013, 07:15:41 PM
Looking arountd at soem of the figures, it looks like Defiance's budget was in the 70-100 million range, but sales were around 30 million - so for Trion it appears to be a simiar level of disaster as the Secret World was for Funcom.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Tremor on May 18, 2013, 07:56:36 PM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/17/trion-reportedly-undergoing-massive-layoffs/
The lay-offs came from the Defiance team, not Rift. :\
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FatherXmas on May 18, 2013, 11:33:46 PM
The lay-offs came from the Defiance team, not Rift. :\

It's being spun as the usual downsizing post launch.  No need for all the artists, model makers and mission scripters when building a world from scratch.

I'm sorry but unless the Defiance team was in another Castle, massive layoffs do affect those left behind.  I imagine a number are making sure their CVs are up to date and are putting out feelers.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Exxar on May 19, 2013, 08:48:58 AM
Well, for what it's worth, the chief Rift honcho (producer or whatever) stated on the forums the other day that the Rift team was unaffected. And when he's so upfront about things, you can be pretty sure that it's true.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: FatherXmas on May 19, 2013, 09:33:10 AM
And I'm not disputing that.  I'm saying that seeing less cars in the parking lot when you pull into work, fewer people in the lounge, etc. still affects those remaining.  You didn't need to be friends with them to miss there presence.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Dollhouse on May 19, 2013, 03:37:11 PM
Defiance just got some "episode content" (in-game mission arc drawing on occurrences in the show), but I noticed that they re-used a lot of collateral (maps, etc.) for it. I'm sure they're going to have to marshal their development resources pretty carefully with a smaller crew.

The idea behind Defiance, a joint TV series/game, is wonderful, but I think we saw one of the very big problems with that pairing: Television series are run on a very strict (rigid, really) schedule. The marketing build-up to a debut episode invariably states the exact day and time that debut will occur, and everyone involved in the production understands that this is 100% non-negotiable.

A game release? Not so much. Game making is a completely different process from television production, and it's not one that lends itself to sticking to deadlines (as I'm sure every single poster to these boards knows).

We saw the problem with this difference with Defiance's troubled first week. If Trion (who usually get that kind of thing more right than most) struggled with having a stable, playable game on the tight schedule of a TV series release, can you imagine the hash most studios would make of this sort of project?
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Jonfan on May 19, 2013, 04:57:03 PM
I played Rift, although only half-hardheartedly, after Nov 30th. It was enjoyable; at least it filled some of the hours for me, if not the void left by CoH. I would agree that the community isn't very helpful, but I did run into some nice players here and there. As a F2P char, you are lvl capped at lvl 20, and once I'd gotten several chars to that point, I had become bored with it and moved on to SWTOR.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Tremor on May 23, 2013, 03:06:36 AM
I no longer approach games with the mind to stay in them for a long-term. The MMO market has gone stale.
At this point in time, I look to have fun in games regardless of whether I like the company or not. I play games because I
enjoy gaming. If I can have some fun for two hours, then I am happy!

I won't purposely avoid a game because people think it will go belly up or, if it is having a few struggles. If I approached every day with that sort of mindset, I would miss out on a lot of fun times. I take each day as it comes, because no one knows the future.  So it's best to stop pretending you do and enjoy your days, instead of sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for bad news from whichever game you may be playing.

That said, I do look forward to all future MMOs and, being able to give them a shot. I love games and I'm not afraid to have fun!
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: Mistress Urd on May 23, 2013, 05:42:31 AM
So does that leave only WoW and EVE as the last 2 subscription dinosaurs?

I'll continue to vote with my wallet and support EVE and not spend but take up HD space on F2P games.

(Actually a 2 week old character can be "F2P" in EVE with 50 hours of gameplay per month doing not so fun activites to afford to buy a PLEX. I'd rather work 1 hour in RL and pay for a month.)
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: JaguarX on May 23, 2013, 07:13:37 AM
I no longer approach games with the mind to stay in them for a long-term. The MMO market has gone stale.
At this point in time, I look to have fun in games regardless of whether I like the company or not. I play games because I
enjoy gaming. If I can have some fun for two hours, then I am happy!

I won't purposely avoid a game because people think it will go belly up or, if it is having a few struggles. If I approached every day with that sort of mindset, I would miss out on a lot of fun times. I take each day as it comes, because no one knows the future.  So it's best to stop pretending you do and enjoy your days, instead of sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for bad news from whichever game you may be playing.

That said, I do look forward to all future MMOs and, being able to give them a shot. I love games and I'm not afraid to have fun!

That is basically how I always approached MMOs. I knew unexpected death was a risk, but then again so is waking up in the morning. Do the risk of keeling over stop me from going to work, making money, enjoying life, talking to people? Why bother, it's all going to end right what is the point? The point is to enjoy the ride. Except on this ride, the end of it is not usually known until it's right up on ya.


If the end was apparent and exact date of the end was known way back in 2011 I bet many people would pay through the nose to increase the profits, make more accounts and or get friends to join to boost up numbers on paper, and do everything could to save it before the end date. But even with the date unknown why not do this all along? I seen many people post about how their friend list that used to be active is all gray and how many SGs that used to have buch of people is empty, how the PvP zones went from full at all hours of the day to the rare badger running through followed by the badger hunter. To tell you the truth, the very first sign to me was way back in around 2009-2010 when people started mention how empty many servers were now and tossing around the idea of server merging. Seems like people were more worried about losing their names than anything and that idea was immediately panned by most other and most vocal posters there. Probably why it wasnt even thought of as an option in the downsizing, as they figured the strong reaction against it would make it moot when people rage quit over losing their name. In hindsight, I'm sure people can think of another name.

 Many times I logged in and Atlas barely had two instances, when announcement there was a whole lot more, a number of them I havent seen since i8 and I heard they expanded the server pop cap since then no telling how many people was there. But it's like family coming out the wood work to see grandpa when he is on death bed but havent talked to him, or even asked about him or even spoke a single word to him in over two decades. Why do humans wait until the end, when its usually too late to cherish the things they love? Who knows. 

Either way games are meant to be enjoyed and played, and if a game is good I personally dont give a hoot who made it. And on the flip side I'm not going to playa bore of a game just because someone I know made it. But when I play a game for fun and want it to stick around so I can continue having fun, I put in. Even when I leave, I still maintained subscription at the min. If I dont find a game to be fun, oh well I tried it, just not my cup of tea and move on.


But when things go dead by all means if it smells fishy or something could change, go for it. Games can be brought back but always remember to cherish it more than ever like never before because not many games even get second chances once they are gone.
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: dwturducken on May 23, 2013, 02:01:47 PM
While I'll give just about anything F2P a try, I'm a little burnt out on fantasy. I actually like DDO, though I'm not sure I trust its longevity enough to sub (I am encouraged by the upcoming expansion), and I do spend a couple of months a year in WoW.

As for Defiance, I like the concept, but you can't ask for a more risky model! With the quality of shows from "SyFy" being iffy at best, never mind their ability to stay on air for more than a couple of seasons (5, at best, it would seem), investing that kind of time and emotion, never mind the $60 entry fee, just doesn't seem worth it.

(I guess Defiance discussion isn't off topic because it's from the same studio?)
Title: Re: RIFT going F2P in June
Post by: DBadger on June 05, 2013, 09:17:26 AM
I recently resubbed to Rift in advance of F2P and I'm having fun. The new zones are huge, unlike many expansions. One of my biggest problems with Rift initially was the lack of non combat stuff to do, obviously the addition of fishing and dimensions make a nice change of pace. I like the setting of Rift, it seems somewhere between Fantasy and Sci Fi with a nod to Steampunk.

Definitely worth trying once it goes F2P