Let's see, Trion was lowering the prices on the boxed edition of Rift less than 3 months after going live (never a good sign) and then was dumping them at fire sale prices ($5) by 6 months. Virtually every blogger and Let's Player on YouTube quit the game not long after reaching level cap from boredom (along with probably most players). The game itself, while polished, was pretty standard fare with a few twists; lore was "borrowed" from several games (certainly saves on dev costs when you can just copy, paste, and do a minor rewrite on lore and art designs), now they are pulling this BS stunt of pretending their server mergers aren't mergers. Yeah, right.
If your servers are healthy and busy you don't force the players on them to move elsewhere. If your servers are healthy and busy you don't overwhelm them by adding even more players onto said servers. It is really sad, and embarassing to be honest, when a company is so lame they can't even be honest about this kind of thing. Even sadder that the mods here are afraid of losing ad revenue and go along with it.
More importantly, this pretty much shows what Trion thinks of their players (the few that are left?) and MMORPG players in general. I certainly won't be buying anything by this company after this kind of PR stunt and will advise all my friends stay far away from them too. I used to be fairly generous in regards to Rift, even if the game itself wasn't exactly stellar in any way: same old combat system, generic two-sided faction world, nice world graphics but so-so character design and clunky animations. Now I just feel pity for them sinking so low. At least we have a new phrase the next time some company tries to cover up their server mergers with PR BS: they're "pulling a Trion"
Let's see, Trion was lowering the prices on the boxed edition of Rift less than 3 months after going live (never a good sign) and then was dumping them at fire sale prices ($5) by 6 months. Virtually every blogger and Let's Player on YouTube quit the game not long after reaching level cap from boredom (along with probably most players). The game itself, while polished, was pretty standard fare with a few twists; lore was "borrowed" from several games (certainly saves on dev costs when you can just copy, paste, and do a minor rewrite on lore and art designs), now they are pulling this BS stunt of pretending their server mergers aren't mergers. Yeah, right.
If your servers are healthy and busy you don't force the players on them to move elsewhere. If your servers are healthy and busy you don't overwhelm them by adding even more players onto said servers. It is really sad, and embarassing to be honest, when a company is so lame they can't even be honest about this kind of thing. Even sadder that the mods here are afraid of losing ad revenue and go along with it.
More importantly, this pretty much shows what Trion thinks of their players (the few that are left?) and MMORPG players in general. I certainly won't be buying anything by this company after this kind of PR stunt and will advise all my friends stay far away from them too. I used to be fairly generous in regards to Rift, even if the game itself wasn't exactly stellar in any way: same old combat system, generic two-sided faction world, nice world graphics but so-so character design and clunky animations. Now I just feel pity for them sinking so low. At least we have a new phrase the next time some company tries to cover up their server mergers with PR BS: they're "pulling a Trion"
Pretty much every MMO company is like this. I could care less honestly, I like Rift and will continue playing for a long time since they are good developers and keep pushing content continuously. But personally I don't really trust ANY MMO company, since most of them will do ANYTHING to keep subs up and save face for whatever reason.
So with that, its basically all about choosing your poison.
Let's see, Trion was lowering the prices on the boxed edition of Rift less than 3 months after going live (never a good sign) and then was dumping them at fire sale prices ($5) by 6 months. Virtually every blogger and Let's Player on YouTube quit the game not long after reaching level cap from boredom (along with probably most players). The game itself, while polished, was pretty standard fare with a few twists; lore was "borrowed" from several games (certainly saves on dev costs when you can just copy, paste, and do a minor rewrite on lore and art designs), now they are pulling this BS stunt of pretending their server mergers aren't mergers. Yeah, right.
If your servers are healthy and busy you don't force the players on them to move elsewhere. If your servers are healthy and busy you don't overwhelm them by adding even more players onto said servers. It is really sad, and embarassing to be honest, when a company is so lame they can't even be honest about this kind of thing. Even sadder that the mods here are afraid of losing ad revenue and go along with it.
More importantly, this pretty much shows what Trion thinks of their players (the few that are left?) and MMORPG players in general. I certainly won't be buying anything by this company after this kind of PR stunt and will advise all my friends stay far away from them too. I used to be fairly generous in regards to Rift, even if the game itself wasn't exactly stellar in any way: same old combat system, generic two-sided faction world, nice world graphics but so-so character design and clunky animations. Now I just feel pity for them sinking so low. At least we have a new phrase the next time some company tries to cover up their server mergers with PR BS: they're "pulling a Trion"
That orange bit made me chuckle, nice one, I agree with your post Beka.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
'Bottom line is that we’re not merging any servers. The 11 shards in question are being turned into trial servers for a future large-scale trial promotion.'
They already have 33 trial shards for NA. So they are planning something that needs 44 trial shards.
Yes, I completely believe Trion. 100% truth.
Bottom line is the game with 200k subs puts out content faster then th game with 10million subs. {mod edit}
{mod edit}
Really though, Trion is being extremely dshonest here and treatng people like they are idiots and your defense is 'WoW doesnt put out a lot of content'.
1. CCP does monaclegate and probably half the population jets. They are still trying to recover. Do not throw that 300k number around anymore after that crap.
2. Shut down the guy who was publishing live server stats and exact numbers
Rift:
1. Reduced box price and offered trial asap
2. After they up'd what a server could handle offered free transfers and the population consolidated.
3. Took hits after the first 30 days after the WoW fans left(TOR fans does this sound familiar)
TOR:
1. Not as widely accepted as most fan claimed
2. Pvp is getting hammered due to multiple basic issues that were overlooked. These guys one month later are just now starting to argue class balance after they argued for a month over basic crap.
3. End game is WoW. If you got into this expecting different then you need help or more mmo experience when someone says themepark what that really means.
I will not write Rift off because they are the first game since WoW to have more then 4 servers after the first year and not be f2p. You guys seem to think it is easy to compete against a game that has a 7year head start. Want me to link any of the post from the TOR forums from WoW fans looking for 7 years worth of content on release date?
1 server full with a queue of 202. 2 servers high pop. 10 medium pop. 14 are low pop. 11 of the 14 are the servers being moved to trial status, so that leaves 3 that are low pop. so 16 servers right now after the trail shard change up.
1. CCP does monaclegate and probably half the population jets. They are still trying to recover. Do not throw that 300k number around anymore after that crap.
2. Shut down the guy who was publishing live server stats and exact numbers
Rift:
1. Reduced box price and offered trial asap
2. After they up'd what a server could handle offered free transfers and the population consolidated.
3. Took hits after the first 30 days after the WoW fans left(TOR fans does this sound familiar)
TOR:
1. Not as widely accepted as most fan claimed
2. Pvp is getting hammered due to multiple basic issues that were overlooked. These guys one month later are just now starting to argue class balance after they argued for a month over basic crap.
3. End game is WoW. If you got into this expecting different then you need help or more mmo experience when someone says themepark what that really means.
I will not write Rift off because they are the first game since WoW to have more then 4 servers after the first year and not be f2p. You guys seem to think it is easy to compete against a game that has a 7year head start. Want me to link any of the post from the TOR forums from WoW fans looking for 7 years worth of content on release date?
What does any of this have to do with Trion's dishonesty?
Oh and a history lesson: LOTRO had more than 4 servers a year after launch, and it didnt go f2p for years after that.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by Puremallace
Eve:
1. CCP does monaclegate and probably half the population jets. They are still trying to recover. Do not throw that 300k number around anymore after that crap.
2. Shut down the guy who was publishing live server stats and exact numbers
You should sign up to CCP's newsletters. They're throwing around 350k now.
Well, they are good at spin. If they are converting some existing servers into Trial Servers and asking existing players on those servers to transfer elsewhere, it's still basically server merging, but with the onus put on players to actually move their characters, rather than the process being automated and with out choice.
I don't see the point otherwise. With most existing players at the cap, there should be plenty of room in the lower level zones of existing servers to accomodate trial customers. This also tells us that the non-converting servers are expected to have plenty of room for an influx of high level toons from the effected servers, which tells you that even in the most populated level ranges, they are still far short of capacity.
Sort of a shame, since influxes of new players through trials and promotions usually offer existing players a great opportunity to make some additional alts with the expectation of more lower level characters to play with.
They should have just admited the merges, rather than trying to spin it. Spin makes you wonder what else they might be hiding.
This whole trial server PR spin is starting to get annoying.
"Bottom line is that we’re not merging any servers" -bottom line is your game is down from almost 1mio to about 150-200k within like 4 month.
Bottom line is that "we're not in Azeroth anymore" is now "there's not anyone in Telara anymore".
I still like the game, but Trion is getting on my nerves with their false pretends.
I think its amazing that while Trion has never published sub/pop numbers everyone seems to have the ability to quote sub/pop losses in the hundreds of thousands.
Hahah soo true. Everyone knows their stuff to the letter , that why i am so amused by this forums.
I play Rift, I like the game, and I like the content updates, they always do a good job for the most part (bugs aside).
That being said, the way the community team is managing the situation is shameless. They is virtually ZERO interation with their customers on this, it was sprung upon us with no post, and if you question it, or point out issues, they lock the threads down, or give infractions, or delete them outright. And we''re talking just regular posts, not ragequit posts, not troll posts.
The damage their community team is causing, to me, seems far worse than these actual merges (call them what you will, but they're merges).
Hartsman should have been right out there initially with a Producer's letter, prior to this, explaining the new year goals, and this could have been included.
Yes, I smell f2p too. I have no intention of quitting at this time, but the community team's actions are definitely pushing me out the door. F2P would seal it.
Your are dillusional if you dont think TRion is preparing for a large influx of players. And what player base might that be? Hmm let me think. What have MMO companies done in the past that caused a large spike in their player base relative to their current subs? So great in fact that they would need to dedicate 11 servers for it?
HmmI gee let me think I just cant figure it out, Im sooooo puzzled...........
Lets review.
Trion is practically giving their game away now, what you can get it for like 4 bucks with promotions?
Trion has lowered their monthly sub rate
Yes my friends Rift is going the hybrid model of LOTRO deal with it.......
Most mmo companys add a few servers for promotional trial periods, not lock servers out and force players to merge to another one. If you read between the lines it stands to reason that they are getting ready for a f2p model soon or using the "trial server" excuse to merge people without letting on that they need to. Either way Rift is a fun game. I play now and then. It offers a different flavor to the WoW style gameplay.
they're being smart. is not server-merging and its not ignoring the problem.
good for them. if only blizzard would do the same...
This! People should take a good look at WoW's Realm list during primetime and see the vast majority of servers being Low populated!
Blizzard is really desperate to try keep up the appearance and just plain ignoring the inevitable! Which is only harming their paying playerbase, as a lot of people are stuck on low pop servers, unless they fork out a lot of cash to tranfer their toons to a high pop server... which has a high chance to become low pop too.
to be fair (and im no bashing rift) my server was dead >< , i changed the pass and got 3 free days , log in , and the city was empty , /who 1-50 ........not even 20 ><
transfered 1 char to another server , boom , lots of ppl around
Peoples, look from a business point of view, what do you expect them to do?
Announcing "Oh SWTOR is way too popular and we are heavily losing subscribers? We will close down 50% of our servers and we definitely don't have confidence anymore."
They are a business, they need to do something about the bad situation ahead, and thats the choice they make. Does it matter if they are really losing subscribers or not? Unless everyone here plays rift, I don't see why people are fussing over. They need to maintain a business, and being subscription based allows almost no competition.
And thats why subscription method isn't a healthy situation for the MMO genre, it forces players to make a choice into which game to play, and face it, only hardcore players can maintain 2 or more subscription, which is like 8-10% of the market.
I don't think Rift will go free to play anytime soon, but Buy to play might be imminent, current market just doesn't allow too many AAA P2P games to survive with the casual playerbase growing and growing.
Oh and this also shows one thing, server maintance is dirt cheap now, if they are really losing subscribers as a lot here says, maintaining so many servers will thus cost them a lot of money, but from the trial servers shown, server cost is at least covered by box cost.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
I don't think trion is being dishonest about anything. If there were server mergers they wouldn't be able to spin it any way. What I don't understand about this community is that mostly everyone LOVES, simply LOVES to bash games without actually knowing the whole scoop. My favorite comments are "F2P by x" but I don't see that as much of a problem. F2P is not the death of a game it's a switch in business model, and believe me people love F2P. So, If trion did decide to go F2P by X their revenue would shoot up because as it stands there is literally nothing to play on the market. And let me now say that what is on the market is going to go F2P by X because that is where the future of MMORPGS appears to be going. People rather download the game and see if it is worth their time and when they get hooked they end up blowing cash on virtual items, it's inevitable.
I'm sure someone is going to debate this with me but in my opinion RIFT is a great game, and trion is a great dev company and they are constantly proving it by releasing these new patches. They don't just add dungeons with rehashed boss models, they also add whole new lands for free. They don't just slap some title nex to RIFT, call it an expansion and make you shell out cash like certain devs do because they have already established a player base and are milking them for all they are worth. Trion stands by their product and are trying their best to give their players what they ask for. The only problem I do see is that trion is having to deal with a community that is so critical, judgemental and negative without any real reasoning behind that it that I almost feel that with every offical statement trion makes they should link an achieve before they proceed.
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" -- Mufasa ---
Peoples, look from a business point of view, what do you expect them to do?
Announcing "Oh SWTOR is way too popular and we are heavily losing subscribers? We will close down 50% of our servers and we definitely don't have confidence anymore."
How about treating customers honestly. Just say that they are consolidating servers to maintain the high quality multiplayer experience for everyone.
This is a dumb move by Trion that isn't fooling anyone.
Peoples, look from a business point of view, what do you expect them to do?
Announcing "Oh SWTOR is way too popular and we are heavily losing subscribers? We will close down 50% of our servers and we definitely don't have confidence anymore."
How about treating customers honestly. Just say that they are consolidating servers to maintain the high quality multiplayer experience for everyone.
This is a dumb move by Trion that isn't fooling anyone.
Another point of view, if everyone understand why they are doing this trial server, they are hinting to everyone that they are doing server merge. But from a business angle, they can't admit that they are losing money, especially for a company that has move onto the share market, or they will mean huge consequences for their shares, possibly the downfall of the company considering Rift is their only game out right now.
If Blizzard lost subscribers, they can't say we have lost *insert number* amount of players, but focus attention that they are still going very strong.
They is how business goes, they can't openly admit losses because investers will take heavier note on that. But instead they need to focus on positives. And as how a lot of people have said, thats the PR machine.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Peoples, look from a business point of view, what do you expect them to do?
Announcing "Oh SWTOR is way too popular and we are heavily losing subscribers? We will close down 50% of our servers and we definitely don't have confidence anymore."
How about treating customers honestly. Just say that they are consolidating servers to maintain the high quality multiplayer experience for everyone.
This is a dumb move by Trion that isn't fooling anyone.
Another point of view, if everyone understand why they are doing this trial server, they are hinting to everyone that they are doing server merge. But from a business angle, they can't admit that they are losing money, especially for a company that has move onto the share market, or they will mean huge consequences for their shares, possibly the downfall of the company considering Rift is their only game out right now.
If Blizzard lost subscribers, they can't say we have lost *insert number* amount of players, but focus attention that they are still going very strong.
They is how business goes, they can't openly admit losses because investers will take heavier note on that. But instead they need to focus on positives. And as how a lot of people have said, thats the PR machine.
Blizzard has to report those numbers, which is how we know they lost something like 1.7 million subscribers in a year. They avoid server merges by offering cross server group finding.
Investors know exactly how much revenue has gone down. Trion can't hide those numbers from them. Players on small servers also know when the population has taken a nosedive.
Trion has been building a solid reputation. This marketing gimmick is a move in teh wrong direction.
I play Rift, I like the game, and I like the content updates, they always do a good job for the most part (bugs aside).
That being said, the way the community team is managing the situation is shameless. They is virtually ZERO interation with their customers on this, it was sprung upon us with no post, and if you question it, or point out issues, they lock the threads down, or give infractions, or delete them outright. And we''re talking just regular posts, not ragequit posts, not troll posts.
The damage their community team is causing, to me, seems far worse than these actual merges (call them what you will, but they're merges).
Hartsman should have been right out there initially with a Producer's letter, prior to this, explaining the new year goals, and this could have been included.
Yes, I smell f2p too. I have no intention of quitting at this time, but the community team's actions are definitely pushing me out the door. F2P would seal it.
We'll ignore the huge server message that they put up a week ahead of time.
We'll also ignore the posts that they made in each of the forums for the servers that are effected.
We'll ignore the multiple threads, that were made the day the server message and forum messages were posted, in the general discussion forums; many of which were the same exact thing you wrote. Which is interesting seeing as they're COMPLAINING A WEEK BEFORE THE REQUESTED TRANSFER DATE.
If we just ignore all that, then yes, they never told anyone, and they're closing or licking threads made about the issue.
If we just ignore all the truths and common sense, then everything you said would actually be sensible.
We'll even ignore the fact that if you aren't following the game, and happen to return after the 18th, that your characters will be sitting on the server they recomended.
We can even ignore the fact that if you're in a guild, on one of the effected servers, and the guild leader transfers, you get a message that pops up in guild chat and in the middle of the screen telling you what server the guild leader moved to. We'll ignore that everyone in poorly run guilds, with guild leaders who don't discuss things with their members, have no trouble at all following thier guild.
I'll even go a little further and ignore the fact that they aren't restricting transfers to one per account, and that I moved all my characters off one server to another the same night.
I'll just ignore how easy it was to transfer.
Becuase if we can ignore all the facts, truths, logic, and common sense, we can start to pretend that Trion is behaiving like a bunch of douches, giving us a weeks notice about the transfers via the forums and server message.
How dare they make me change my name, and then delete my thread because there are already a half dozen threads exactly like the one I made, and give me an infaction because I kept on making post after post about the topic after they locked 3 other duplicate threads I made! How dare they!!!
It strikes me reading this thread that the Trion hate stems from them cockblocking the haters "server mergers! game failing!" threads that would inevitable litter the internet at the first opportunity.
There is so much angst by people that they can't get their little knife in its laughable. I almost feel people have them typed up and are ready to hit submit only to be repeatedly denied by the trial servers argument.
I mean, really. You're never going to buy another Trion product becasue of this "dishonesty". And when they go free to play and make use of the servers are you going to come back here and tell us how you got it wrong?
Comments
Let's see, Trion was lowering the prices on the boxed edition of Rift less than 3 months after going live (never a good sign) and then was dumping them at fire sale prices ($5) by 6 months. Virtually every blogger and Let's Player on YouTube quit the game not long after reaching level cap from boredom (along with probably most players). The game itself, while polished, was pretty standard fare with a few twists; lore was "borrowed" from several games (certainly saves on dev costs when you can just copy, paste, and do a minor rewrite on lore and art designs), now they are pulling this BS stunt of pretending their server mergers aren't mergers. Yeah, right.
If your servers are healthy and busy you don't force the players on them to move elsewhere. If your servers are healthy and busy you don't overwhelm them by adding even more players onto said servers. It is really sad, and embarassing to be honest, when a company is so lame they can't even be honest about this kind of thing. Even sadder that the mods here are afraid of losing ad revenue and go along with it.
More importantly, this pretty much shows what Trion thinks of their players (the few that are left?) and MMORPG players in general. I certainly won't be buying anything by this company after this kind of PR stunt and will advise all my friends stay far away from them too. I used to be fairly generous in regards to Rift, even if the game itself wasn't exactly stellar in any way: same old combat system, generic two-sided faction world, nice world graphics but so-so character design and clunky animations. Now I just feel pity for them sinking so low. At least we have a new phrase the next time some company tries to cover up their server mergers with PR BS: they're "pulling a Trion"
Pretty much every MMO company is like this. I could care less honestly, I like Rift and will continue playing for a long time since they are good developers and keep pushing content continuously. But personally I don't really trust ANY MMO company, since most of them will do ANYTHING to keep subs up and save face for whatever reason.
So with that, its basically all about choosing your poison.
That orange bit made me chuckle, nice one, I agree with your post Beka.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Hey lets see I can do this too:
WoW:
1. The went free to play up to level 20..uhohhh
2. They lost 1.7 million players in 2011
3. Prices slashed across the board
4. Diablo 3 bundeled into a WoW 12 month sub
Eve:
1. CCP does monaclegate and probably half the population jets. They are still trying to recover. Do not throw that 300k number around anymore after that crap.
2. Shut down the guy who was publishing live server stats and exact numbers
Rift:
1. Reduced box price and offered trial asap
2. After they up'd what a server could handle offered free transfers and the population consolidated.
3. Took hits after the first 30 days after the WoW fans left(TOR fans does this sound familiar)
TOR:
1. Not as widely accepted as most fan claimed
2. Pvp is getting hammered due to multiple basic issues that were overlooked. These guys one month later are just now starting to argue class balance after they argued for a month over basic crap.
3. End game is WoW. If you got into this expecting different then you need help or more mmo experience when someone says themepark what that really means.
I will not write Rift off because they are the first game since WoW to have more then 4 servers after the first year and not be f2p. You guys seem to think it is easy to compete against a game that has a 7year head start. Want me to link any of the post from the TOR forums from WoW fans looking for 7 years worth of content on release date?
checkin server status right now.
1 server full with a queue of 202. 2 servers high pop. 10 medium pop. 14 are low pop. 11 of the 14 are the servers being moved to trial status, so that leaves 3 that are low pop. so 16 servers right now after the trail shard change up.
What does any of this have to do with Trion's dishonesty?
Oh and a history lesson: LOTRO had more than 4 servers a year after launch, and it didnt go f2p for years after that.
You should sign up to CCP's newsletters. They're throwing around 350k now.
Well, they are good at spin. If they are converting some existing servers into Trial Servers and asking existing players on those servers to transfer elsewhere, it's still basically server merging, but with the onus put on players to actually move their characters, rather than the process being automated and with out choice.
I don't see the point otherwise. With most existing players at the cap, there should be plenty of room in the lower level zones of existing servers to accomodate trial customers. This also tells us that the non-converting servers are expected to have plenty of room for an influx of high level toons from the effected servers, which tells you that even in the most populated level ranges, they are still far short of capacity.
Sort of a shame, since influxes of new players through trials and promotions usually offer existing players a great opportunity to make some additional alts with the expectation of more lower level characters to play with.
They should have just admited the merges, rather than trying to spin it. Spin makes you wonder what else they might be hiding.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Hahah soo true. Everyone knows their stuff to the letter , that why i am so amused by this forums.
I play Rift, I like the game, and I like the content updates, they always do a good job for the most part (bugs aside).
That being said, the way the community team is managing the situation is shameless. They is virtually ZERO interation with their customers on this, it was sprung upon us with no post, and if you question it, or point out issues, they lock the threads down, or give infractions, or delete them outright. And we''re talking just regular posts, not ragequit posts, not troll posts.
The damage their community team is causing, to me, seems far worse than these actual merges (call them what you will, but they're merges).
Hartsman should have been right out there initially with a Producer's letter, prior to this, explaining the new year goals, and this could have been included.
Yes, I smell f2p too. I have no intention of quitting at this time, but the community team's actions are definitely pushing me out the door. F2P would seal it.
Your are dillusional if you dont think TRion is preparing for a large influx of players. And what player base might that be? Hmm let me think. What have MMO companies done in the past that caused a large spike in their player base relative to their current subs? So great in fact that they would need to dedicate 11 servers for it?
HmmI gee let me think I just cant figure it out, Im sooooo puzzled...........
Lets review.
Trion is practically giving their game away now, what you can get it for like 4 bucks with promotions?
Trion has lowered their monthly sub rate
Yes my friends Rift is going the hybrid model of LOTRO deal with it.......
dont get to arrogant because your beloved SWTOR is going to follow in RIFTS footsteps.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Most mmo companys add a few servers for promotional trial periods, not lock servers out and force players to merge to another one. If you read between the lines it stands to reason that they are getting ready for a f2p model soon or using the "trial server" excuse to merge people without letting on that they need to. Either way Rift is a fun game. I play now and then. It offers a different flavor to the WoW style gameplay.
I wonder how many servers will be left after GW2 release...
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
This! People should take a good look at WoW's Realm list during primetime and see the vast majority of servers being Low populated!
Blizzard is really desperate to try keep up the appearance and just plain ignoring the inevitable! Which is only harming their paying playerbase, as a lot of people are stuck on low pop servers, unless they fork out a lot of cash to tranfer their toons to a high pop server... which has a high chance to become low pop too.
Link to your number source please, thanks.
to be fair (and im no bashing rift) my server was dead >< , i changed the pass and got 3 free days , log in , and the city was empty , /who 1-50 ........not even 20 ><
transfered 1 char to another server , boom , lots of ppl around
but thats mostly faction based ....
Peoples, look from a business point of view, what do you expect them to do?
Announcing "Oh SWTOR is way too popular and we are heavily losing subscribers? We will close down 50% of our servers and we definitely don't have confidence anymore."
They are a business, they need to do something about the bad situation ahead, and thats the choice they make. Does it matter if they are really losing subscribers or not? Unless everyone here plays rift, I don't see why people are fussing over. They need to maintain a business, and being subscription based allows almost no competition.
And thats why subscription method isn't a healthy situation for the MMO genre, it forces players to make a choice into which game to play, and face it, only hardcore players can maintain 2 or more subscription, which is like 8-10% of the market.
I don't think Rift will go free to play anytime soon, but Buy to play might be imminent, current market just doesn't allow too many AAA P2P games to survive with the casual playerbase growing and growing.
Oh and this also shows one thing, server maintance is dirt cheap now, if they are really losing subscribers as a lot here says, maintaining so many servers will thus cost them a lot of money, but from the trial servers shown, server cost is at least covered by box cost.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
I don't think trion is being dishonest about anything. If there were server mergers they wouldn't be able to spin it any way. What I don't understand about this community is that mostly everyone LOVES, simply LOVES to bash games without actually knowing the whole scoop. My favorite comments are "F2P by x" but I don't see that as much of a problem. F2P is not the death of a game it's a switch in business model, and believe me people love F2P. So, If trion did decide to go F2P by X their revenue would shoot up because as it stands there is literally nothing to play on the market. And let me now say that what is on the market is going to go F2P by X because that is where the future of MMORPGS appears to be going. People rather download the game and see if it is worth their time and when they get hooked they end up blowing cash on virtual items, it's inevitable.
I'm sure someone is going to debate this with me but in my opinion RIFT is a great game, and trion is a great dev company and they are constantly proving it by releasing these new patches. They don't just add dungeons with rehashed boss models, they also add whole new lands for free. They don't just slap some title nex to RIFT, call it an expansion and make you shell out cash like certain devs do because they have already established a player base and are milking them for all they are worth. Trion stands by their product and are trying their best to give their players what they ask for. The only problem I do see is that trion is having to deal with a community that is so critical, judgemental and negative without any real reasoning behind that it that I almost feel that with every offical statement trion makes they should link an achieve before they proceed.
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" -- Mufasa
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How about treating customers honestly. Just say that they are consolidating servers to maintain the high quality multiplayer experience for everyone.
This is a dumb move by Trion that isn't fooling anyone.
Another point of view, if everyone understand why they are doing this trial server, they are hinting to everyone that they are doing server merge. But from a business angle, they can't admit that they are losing money, especially for a company that has move onto the share market, or they will mean huge consequences for their shares, possibly the downfall of the company considering Rift is their only game out right now.
If Blizzard lost subscribers, they can't say we have lost *insert number* amount of players, but focus attention that they are still going very strong.
They is how business goes, they can't openly admit losses because investers will take heavier note on that. But instead they need to focus on positives. And as how a lot of people have said, thats the PR machine.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Blizzard has to report those numbers, which is how we know they lost something like 1.7 million subscribers in a year. They avoid server merges by offering cross server group finding.
Investors know exactly how much revenue has gone down. Trion can't hide those numbers from them. Players on small servers also know when the population has taken a nosedive.
Trion has been building a solid reputation. This marketing gimmick is a move in teh wrong direction.
We'll ignore the huge server message that they put up a week ahead of time.
We'll also ignore the posts that they made in each of the forums for the servers that are effected.
We'll ignore the multiple threads, that were made the day the server message and forum messages were posted, in the general discussion forums; many of which were the same exact thing you wrote. Which is interesting seeing as they're COMPLAINING A WEEK BEFORE THE REQUESTED TRANSFER DATE.
If we just ignore all that, then yes, they never told anyone, and they're closing or licking threads made about the issue.
If we just ignore all the truths and common sense, then everything you said would actually be sensible.
We'll even ignore the fact that if you aren't following the game, and happen to return after the 18th, that your characters will be sitting on the server they recomended.
We can even ignore the fact that if you're in a guild, on one of the effected servers, and the guild leader transfers, you get a message that pops up in guild chat and in the middle of the screen telling you what server the guild leader moved to. We'll ignore that everyone in poorly run guilds, with guild leaders who don't discuss things with their members, have no trouble at all following thier guild.
I'll even go a little further and ignore the fact that they aren't restricting transfers to one per account, and that I moved all my characters off one server to another the same night.
I'll just ignore how easy it was to transfer.
Becuase if we can ignore all the facts, truths, logic, and common sense, we can start to pretend that Trion is behaiving like a bunch of douches, giving us a weeks notice about the transfers via the forums and server message.
How dare they make me change my name, and then delete my thread because there are already a half dozen threads exactly like the one I made, and give me an infaction because I kept on making post after post about the topic after they locked 3 other duplicate threads I made! How dare they!!!
It strikes me reading this thread that the Trion hate stems from them cockblocking the haters "server mergers! game failing!" threads that would inevitable litter the internet at the first opportunity.
There is so much angst by people that they can't get their little knife in its laughable. I almost feel people have them typed up and are ready to hit submit only to be repeatedly denied by the trial servers argument.
I mean, really. You're never going to buy another Trion product becasue of this "dishonesty". And when they go free to play and make use of the servers are you going to come back here and tell us how you got it wrong?