I've come back to RIFT as well and I'm really enjoying my time here.
I was a beta tester that never purchased the game simply because (as others have stated) didn't feel it was worth the sub. First off, I was not a fan of the races in RIFT. I have no problem with the traditional Human, Dwarf, Elf variety; it's just that there's not much after that. Simply put, if RIFT had classes similar to WoW's, I'd be in Heaven! Furthermore, I felt the game was far too linear and offered virtually no replay value. And finally, I was afraid that rifts would not only become repetitive, but would pose a real issue if server populations ever dropped (fearing a player would be stuck in an area with a rift without adequate backup, rendering the rift pointless to attempt on one's own).
Thankfully however RIFT has now gone free-to-play rendering the rift point, moot. As many of us know, F2P games usually maintain a healthy population overall regardless of the game's popularity status.
As others have also stated, I'm very pleased with RIFT's F2P transition unlike what has transpired with other games such as SWTOR, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I love financially supporting the games I play. I've purchased just about every mainstream MMO to come along in the last 10 or so years, most often the CE model of the game in question, as I did with the SWTOR CE (yes, I got suckered in). I've also subbed to most games at one time or another (more than 6 months after launch in the case of SWTOR).
However, it is the principle that matters and that is the reason why I now choose RIFT over other F2P games like SWTOR (and Neverwinter for that matter). It's the way I feel a company treats or rather values their customers that will ultimately earn my dollar. You can tell that Trion, for the most part doesn't think of their customer base as stinking, heavy-breathed, drooling mouth-breathers. Sadly the same can't be said for other games out there...*glances over in Cryptic's and EA's direction*.
Honestly, if SWTOR's F2P were as pleasing as RIFT's, I'd still be playing it, as I love the story-paths and absolutely love the Star Wars IP. Same could be said for others like Neverwinter as I love Forgotten Realms.
Unfortunately as the saying goes, "If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas!"
So, in the meantime until companies like EAware and Cryptic/PW pull their heads out, I think I'll be sticking with RIFT.
How do the rest of you feel? Does a company's business practices influence your decision to play their game, even if the game or its IP is otherwise enticing? Or will you support that game regardless?
"the frighteningly zone-locked Lord of the Rings Online for horrendous examples of free-to-play transitioning gone bad"
Come on Suzie, the zone locking in Lotro was easy to remove. I still find the Lotro implementation to be one of the best moves to ftp, besides just subbing for a month unlocked a lot of things. SWTOR is much worse.
First time I have tried Rift and they did do a good implementation of ftp. Their IOS security app is broken though. Fun game.
Yeah, I was having issues IOS authenticator as well. Apparently, you have to hit the sync every time. Well, that's what worked for me.
For what it is, quest hub theme park, it's not bad. However, becuase it's a quest hub theme park I'm just really having a hard time getting into it. Tired of holy trinity game play too. The warfronts are OK, but I'm not going to do my leveling strictly with that either. Oh well, it's just not for me.
Only one MMO this year has released as P2P (including B2P). Enjoy this while it lasts as without great new P2P MMO's being launched you are not going to see any great F2P hybrids coming out.
We will be left with F2P at launch MMO's to set the quality standard...good luck with that.
I do not know about Rift as of yet, there must be a catch somewhere, they carnt go from P2P to F2p and not have some sort of catch where you will have to use the item shop eventually?
There isn't a catch. The only thing a F2P player does not have access to for free are the 4 new Souls (Classes) that came with the Storm Legion Expansion. And even then, if a F2P player farms enough Platinum (currency), they can just buy REX: Rift Exchange which is basically an item which is bought with real money from Trion and resold by players using in-game currency (so it sort of helps fighting off Gold Sellers as well). That item will give you a certain amount of Cash Shop credits which you can then use to buy whatever you want (including the 4 souls that are locked).
RIFT is amazing. They have improved this game soooo much over the past couple years. I think it's the best MMO on the market right now... And it's free.
Ever wonder why WoW hasn't gone free-to-play? Simple, games that have quality are worth a subscription.
That being said, WoW isn't worth even "free" to me, but that's because I hate WoW for destroying the MMO genre. (plus it's just too easy for me, no fun there)
That aside, this article just means that RIFT was hurting something fierce if their subscriber numbers were so low that "F2P" boosted them up a bit.
Sad really, but not unexpected considering they tried to copy WoW with a little bit of unique "flare". I hope the developers laid off a bit ago from TRION are doing well .
I was in Beta and played at Release. The game was horrible then. I played for about 6 months and figured I would never play it again. I even threw away my collectors box and all the crap that it came with. When it went F2P, I happened at a time that I wasnt playing anything else, or I might not have tried it out. Im so glad I did. Im having more fun now than I ever did previously. The changes they have made to the game will mean big changes to other current and future MMOs.
If your a doubter, so was I. You gotta give it a shot. So much fun.
Only one down side, I wish the WoW Fanbois would have stayed with WoW. With it being F2P the Chat is as bad if not worse than Barrens chat. I have to turn it off most days.
Like anything else, you have to take the bad with the good.
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
"the frighteningly zone-locked Lord of the Rings Online for horrendous examples of free-to-play transitioning gone bad"
Come on Suzie, the zone locking in Lotro was easy to remove. I still find the Lotro implementation to be one of the best moves to ftp, besides just subbing for a month unlocked a lot of things. SWTOR is much worse.
First time I have tried Rift and they did do a good implementation of ftp. Their IOS security app is broken though. Fun game.
Yeah, I was having issues IOS authenticator as well. Apparently, you have to hit the sync every time. Well, that's what worked for me.
Hmm, that's odd...I don't seem to have any issues on my Enormous, One-Trick-Pony, Samsung Galaxy S4! :P
I retried to see what is going on and wow tons of lag.It felt like i was stuck around 5-10 fps.
I messed with the settings on high and low to see if much changed and nope.Low settings looked a lot like high settings and lag was badly there even with shadows completely off.I played this on release and it was not hat bad,so something is amiss,perhaps server lag,i really don't know ,but it feels like no culling to control loading of graphics.Textures are highly compressed so again that is not the reason,like i said graphics are very average.
Aside from that there is bag limits like 2-3.I couldn't play it longer as the lag was so bad it was giving me a bad headache and locking up steady was just not fun.The game that hit the spotlight for lag the most ever was Vanguard and yet this game is far worse.heck i just played FFXIV Beta and it kept me around 30 fps even with very good graphics.Even when Eq2 the first real good looking game was all bugged and improperly coded it ran better than Rift is right now.
I would pin point the lag to too much clutter on a map,many sounds going off,too many meaningless objects and too many npc's but it was not this bad before.So it is probably a combination of server lag,maybe some problems with culling and just too much gpu loading in general.
The reason it seems badly coded is because inside the starting warehouse i was facing literally nothing to overload the system and yet it was already lagging bad.It feels like around 5-10 fps,i have a real good feel for that having played a lot of first person shooters and understanding both gpu and latency very well.It did say the server load was high so some is definitely server lag.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"the frighteningly zone-locked Lord of the Rings Online for horrendous examples of free-to-play transitioning gone bad"
Come on Suzie, the zone locking in Lotro was easy to remove. I still find the Lotro implementation to be one of the best moves to ftp, besides just subbing for a month unlocked a lot of things. SWTOR is much worse.
First time I have tried Rift and they did do a good implementation of ftp. Their IOS security app is broken though. Fun game.
Yeah, I was having issues IOS authenticator as well. Apparently, you have to hit the sync every time. Well, that's what worked for me.
Hmm, that's odd...I don't seem to have any issues on my Enormous, One-Trick-Pony, Samsung Galaxy S4! :P
Can you wave your hand over it to make it flush the toilet for you? =P
I agree that Trion has done a great job going f2p. It is not in your face all the time trying to get you to buy something. I love how you can open the shop and purchase with credit or ingame currency anywhere you are. The f2p is not what will stop me from continuing to play the game (at current I still sub.).
What will hinder me from continuing to play Rift is the fact that the factions are still sharing everything, not only that but little is faction specific anymore. You can now purchase the other faction's mounts, etc and I still have to play "nice nice" with the other side!!!! I know for many they don't care about this nor do they even think about how the lore is all messed up now, but this matters to me. When I pvp I want to have an enemy, but half the time I am teamed up with my enemy. NOT only am I forced to be a mercenary with my enemy, but I share guilds, raids, IE, and dungeons AND now They can even defect and be a part of the opposite faction !?!?!
In a time when more and more old school players (especially) are crying for 3 faction divided experience Trion is pretty much doing away with factions all together!
Is an excelent game and one jewel in this sea of p2 win games because its real free to play, give the game a try and maybe u find urself in love with a nice mmo worth of spend some dime from tiemto time
I agree that Trion has done a great job going f2p. It is not in your face all the time trying to get you to buy something. I love how you can open the shop and purchase with credit or ingame currency anywhere you are. The f2p is not what will stop me from continuing to play the game (at current I still sub.).
What will hinder me from continuing to play Rift is the fact that the factions are still sharing everything, not only that but little is faction specific anymore. You can now purchase the other faction's mounts, etc and I still have to play "nice nice" with the other side!!!! I know for many they don't care about this nor do they even think about how the lore is all messed up now, but this matters to me. When I pvp I want to have an enemy, but half the time I am teamed up with my enemy. NOT only am I forced to be a mercenary with my enemy, but I share guilds, raids, IE, and dungeons AND now They can even defect and be a part of the opposite faction !?!?!
In a time when more and more old school players (especially) are crying for 3 faction divided experience Trion is pretty much doing away with factions all together!
To be fair, the factions divide was not interesting anyways. This goes for most MMO's. Shoehorning players into one side or another doesn't make them care anymore beyond the outcome of what affects themselves. I am in favor of systems that allow players to create their own factions, that is what I want to see in more MMO's.
However, I do think it is strange how things work on the PvP server as a result of factions that aren't divided.
Funny thing is, back then you got easily banned on this website for saying that Rift will go F2P and threads discussing that topic got locked or deleted. Of course only after you've had a squad of white knights touting that Rift is so alive and well and will never go F2P allover you.
Now the same website and the same people hail "Rift went F2P".
It went F2P because for too many people it was just not good enough to spend money on it. For most people though, it was just not good enough to spend time on it. And it still isn't.
Comments
I've come back to RIFT as well and I'm really enjoying my time here.
I was a beta tester that never purchased the game simply because (as others have stated) didn't feel it was worth the sub. First off, I was not a fan of the races in RIFT. I have no problem with the traditional Human, Dwarf, Elf variety; it's just that there's not much after that. Simply put, if RIFT had classes similar to WoW's, I'd be in Heaven! Furthermore, I felt the game was far too linear and offered virtually no replay value. And finally, I was afraid that rifts would not only become repetitive, but would pose a real issue if server populations ever dropped (fearing a player would be stuck in an area with a rift without adequate backup, rendering the rift pointless to attempt on one's own).
Thankfully however RIFT has now gone free-to-play rendering the rift point, moot. As many of us know, F2P games usually maintain a healthy population overall regardless of the game's popularity status.
As others have also stated, I'm very pleased with RIFT's F2P transition unlike what has transpired with other games such as SWTOR, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I love financially supporting the games I play. I've purchased just about every mainstream MMO to come along in the last 10 or so years, most often the CE model of the game in question, as I did with the SWTOR CE (yes, I got suckered in). I've also subbed to most games at one time or another (more than 6 months after launch in the case of SWTOR).
However, it is the principle that matters and that is the reason why I now choose RIFT over other F2P games like SWTOR (and Neverwinter for that matter). It's the way I feel a company treats or rather values their customers that will ultimately earn my dollar. You can tell that Trion, for the most part doesn't think of their customer base as stinking, heavy-breathed, drooling mouth-breathers. Sadly the same can't be said for other games out there...*glances over in Cryptic's and EA's direction*.
Honestly, if SWTOR's F2P were as pleasing as RIFT's, I'd still be playing it, as I love the story-paths and absolutely love the Star Wars IP. Same could be said for others like Neverwinter as I love Forgotten Realms.
Unfortunately as the saying goes, "If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas!"
So, in the meantime until companies like EAware and Cryptic/PW pull their heads out, I think I'll be sticking with RIFT.
How do the rest of you feel? Does a company's business practices influence your decision to play their game, even if the game or its IP is otherwise enticing? Or will you support that game regardless?
Yeah, I was having issues IOS authenticator as well. Apparently, you have to hit the sync every time. Well, that's what worked for me.
TERA does as well, it seems like every F2P released everyone is going to say this same line not realizing other games have already done it.
Suzie,
You think you're doing the right thing, but you're not.
And that's a damn shame.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Only one MMO this year has released as P2P (including B2P). Enjoy this while it lasts as without great new P2P MMO's being launched you are not going to see any great F2P hybrids coming out.
We will be left with F2P at launch MMO's to set the quality standard...good luck with that.
There isn't a catch. The only thing a F2P player does not have access to for free are the 4 new Souls (Classes) that came with the Storm Legion Expansion. And even then, if a F2P player farms enough Platinum (currency), they can just buy REX: Rift Exchange which is basically an item which is bought with real money from Trion and resold by players using in-game currency (so it sort of helps fighting off Gold Sellers as well). That item will give you a certain amount of Cash Shop credits which you can then use to buy whatever you want (including the 4 souls that are locked).
Ever wonder why WoW hasn't gone free-to-play? Simple, games that have quality are worth a subscription.
That being said, WoW isn't worth even "free" to me, but that's because I hate WoW for destroying the MMO genre. (plus it's just too easy for me, no fun there)
That aside, this article just means that RIFT was hurting something fierce if their subscriber numbers were so low that "F2P" boosted them up a bit.
Sad really, but not unexpected considering they tried to copy WoW with a little bit of unique "flare". I hope the developers laid off a bit ago from TRION are doing well
.
RIft has done a great job transitioning to ftp as i happily discovered last night
Go Trion!
I was in Beta and played at Release.
The game was horrible then. I played for about 6 months and figured I would never play it again. I even threw away my collectors box and all the crap that it came with.
When it went F2P, I happened at a time that I wasnt playing anything else, or I might not have tried it out.
Im so glad I did. Im having more fun now than I ever did previously. The changes they have made to the game will mean big changes to other current and future MMOs.
If your a doubter, so was I. You gotta give it a shot. So much fun.
Only one down side, I wish the WoW Fanbois would have stayed with WoW. With it being F2P the Chat is as bad if not worse than Barrens chat. I have to turn it off most days.
Like anything else, you have to take the bad with the good.
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
Hmm, that's odd...I don't seem to have any issues on my Enormous, One-Trick-Pony, Samsung Galaxy S4! :P
I didn't think my opinion mattered that much to warrant a deletion tbh, Suzie. It was only like, what, 11 words, to your essay?
Well written, I might add.
I retried to see what is going on and wow tons of lag.It felt like i was stuck around 5-10 fps.
I messed with the settings on high and low to see if much changed and nope.Low settings looked a lot like high settings and lag was badly there even with shadows completely off.I played this on release and it was not hat bad,so something is amiss,perhaps server lag,i really don't know ,but it feels like no culling to control loading of graphics.Textures are highly compressed so again that is not the reason,like i said graphics are very average.
Aside from that there is bag limits like 2-3.I couldn't play it longer as the lag was so bad it was giving me a bad headache and locking up steady was just not fun.The game that hit the spotlight for lag the most ever was Vanguard and yet this game is far worse.heck i just played FFXIV Beta and it kept me around 30 fps even with very good graphics.Even when Eq2 the first real good looking game was all bugged and improperly coded it ran better than Rift is right now.
I would pin point the lag to too much clutter on a map,many sounds going off,too many meaningless objects and too many npc's but it was not this bad before.So it is probably a combination of server lag,maybe some problems with culling and just too much gpu loading in general.
The reason it seems badly coded is because inside the starting warehouse i was facing literally nothing to overload the system and yet it was already lagging bad.It feels like around 5-10 fps,i have a real good feel for that having played a lot of first person shooters and understanding both gpu and latency very well.It did say the server load was high so some is definitely server lag.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Can you wave your hand over it to make it flush the toilet for you? =P
I agree that Trion has done a great job going f2p. It is not in your face all the time trying to get you to buy something. I love how you can open the shop and purchase with credit or ingame currency anywhere you are. The f2p is not what will stop me from continuing to play the game (at current I still sub.).
What will hinder me from continuing to play Rift is the fact that the factions are still sharing everything, not only that but little is faction specific anymore. You can now purchase the other faction's mounts, etc and I still have to play "nice nice" with the other side!!!! I know for many they don't care about this nor do they even think about how the lore is all messed up now, but this matters to me. When I pvp I want to have an enemy, but half the time I am teamed up with my enemy. NOT only am I forced to be a mercenary with my enemy, but I share guilds, raids, IE, and dungeons AND now They can even defect and be a part of the opposite faction !?!?!
In a time when more and more old school players (especially) are crying for 3 faction divided experience Trion is pretty much doing away with factions all together!
DARK AND LIGHT I GOVERN BOTH
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
To be fair, the factions divide was not interesting anyways. This goes for most MMO's. Shoehorning players into one side or another doesn't make them care anymore beyond the outcome of what affects themselves. I am in favor of systems that allow players to create their own factions, that is what I want to see in more MMO's.
However, I do think it is strange how things work on the PvP server as a result of factions that aren't divided.
Funny thing is, back then you got easily banned on this website for saying that Rift will go F2P and threads discussing that topic got locked or deleted. Of course only after you've had a squad of white knights touting that Rift is so alive and well and will never go F2P allover you.
Now the same website and the same people hail "Rift went F2P".
It went F2P because for too many people it was just not good enough to spend money on it. For most people though, it was just not good enough to spend time on it. And it still isn't.