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An analysis of year one content
Trion has a reputation of being the fastest 'ever' at pushing out new content. And at first it was well earned. As the one year mark hits, with no patch inbetween now and and the anniversary, and no hint of an expansion in the near future, is it time to rethink this a little.
First I will start with two areas Rift did well with: 10 man 'raids' and features. 6 raid rifts and 3 small, 4 boss zones is pretty good for small guilds out there. They didnt use the crutch of tuning large encounters for small groups. The negative is that part of this covers the lack of release content
As for features, Rift has seen Planar Attunement, Chronicles, Instant adventures and tons of other little things. All three of the big ones are much smaller in scope than they should be, but Rift has also added craft rifts, a LFD tool, and player weddings.
Next up is PvP, Rift did a lot here too. A new WF, alternate rules, mercs, overhaul of crap that didnt work (ranks, PvP souls). the nerf bat swung hard at times but things are getting close to a decent state. Attempts at better world PvP have been a little underwhelming so far though, but they are at least trying.
All this is great, and these three points are surely expnasion quality content. But here is where the cracks start to show a little.
Land mass. Ember Isle is wonderful. Its the best zone in the game. However, its the *only* new zone, in what is the smallest game in the genre. 'But other games dont release zones for free', well they do (though not of this quaity) but we are talking overall content, and if you were given an expansion and the only landmass in it was EI, you would have some issues. (Or you bought Age of Discovery)
Dungeons. Rift has seen a total of two dungeons added. TWO. and it was a two part dungeon. Yes, they added two 'master mode' dungeons. Yes, they are different mechanics. But it is a reused dungeon all the same. Think of the amount of time people spend doing dungeons. And two new ones is it. Again, this is fantastic for free updates, but we are talking overall content here.
Raids. Rift launched with a 5 boss raid. A month after launch, they added a second 5 boss raid. And then in August Hammerknell opened up, 11 bosses and one very tough encounter at the end. And thats it. The next raid is march at the earliest, and could not even make it to april. over 8 months after Hammerknell.
1 zone, 2 dungeons, 2 raids added. Imagine getting an expansion with that.
I keep bringing up overall content, and expansons. Why? Because they matter for large chunks of content. ANd Rift cant compete with EQ1 or EQ2 and the content development after launch category anymore, *unless* an expanson drops soon.
EQ2 had a rough first year. It wasnt as well received as hoped, and of course that other MMO released at the same time. They had a curious development plan for it. EQ2s second year would see it start on the path to becoming the great game it became, but its first year was most definitely busy. The first 11 months saw two adventure packs and an expansion. In between saw a dozen Live updates, which added a crapload of very small pieces of content. A raid encounter here, a small group zone there. It retooled its craftng system, adjusted mob difficulties, and added the mentoring system. Not bad for free, but nowhere near Rift. The first expanson pack sucked. In fact I wont even count it. The second, however, wasnt bad. Splitpaw added something that Rift didnt even touch, content for midlevels. Solo instances (and heroic and raids). And 11 months after release, Desert of Flames launched. Compared to the three excellent expansons that followed it, DoF wasnt spectacular, but it added two large overland zones, a bunch of dungeons, a few long quest lines, a new city, and, of course, raid content. The combined content of the free updates, splitpaw saga, and desert of flames is certainly larger than the amount of Trions content, and by a good deal.
However, advantage Trion, in a big way, in quality. That is *not* the case with EQ1.
Trion has an extra month here, because it took 13 months for SoE to release Kunark. But man, what an expansion it was. Kunark itself would dwarf Telara. East/West Cabilis. Field of Bone. Kurn's Tower. LAke of Ill Omen. Warslik's Woods. Swamp of No Hope. Kaesora. The Overthere. Fronteir Mountans. the Mines of Nurga. The Temple of Droga. Burning Woods (wherever it is this week). Emerald Jungle. City of Mist. Karnor's Castle. Howling Stones. Chardok. Skyfire Mountains. Veeshan's Peak. Epic Quests. ANd Im probably forgetting some stuff. (Like Firionia Vie and those *&!@ Drachnids). *THAT* is content. Sorry Trion, you cant compete with that, and I dont care how old the game is. Content is content, and this was *QUALITY* content.
Oh, and inbetween release and Kunark was the plane of Fear, Plane of Hate, and Plane of Sky, which combined for more raid content than Trion put out.
And both games kept their pace up. EQ2's 2nd year saw much better quality than tis first, and its third year even better. Eq1? Velious and Luclin were almost as big as Kunark and PoP was the biggest amount of raid content the genre has eer seen (and quite a lot of still popular group content).
Yes, Trion's content is for free. But lets stop throwing out this nonsense of 'fastest development ever'. And 'a patch every month'. 7 patches in 12 months is not a patch a month. The question is, is this content coming at the expense of a quality expansion. If Trion releases an awesome expansion sometime in the next 4 or 5 months then this year they had is truly as wonderful as it seems. But they need that expansion. Telara needs to grow.
Comments
Wait what? You are comparing the content of an expansion with the content of a patch? Are you out of your mind? You are comparing RIFT to the game with the most expansions ever? Look at WoW. WoW had its first expansion after 2 years.
I always saw EQ2's way of doing it as greedy. Having soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many expansions costs the players a great deal and EQ2 sacrificed quality for the sake of quantity. Yes, they did have quality content but the majority of it lacked any degree of polish.
What is commendable about Rift is that you get all that content only in exchange for your sub. Too many MMOs have forgotten that our subs were supposed to also cover content development which no longer seems to be the case with MMOs. They focus too much on expansions and as a result we get too little content for the sub players have to pay.
What is the opportunity cost of the patch updates Rift has been doing? I don't know but I sure as hell don't like having 1-2 expansions per year on top of my sub. That is just a rip off. And you never know...maybe Trion is working on an expansion but hasn't revealed any details.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I would rather pay for the amount of QUALITY content that EQ and EQ2 provided over their first 4-5 years than get what Trion gives for free. Its not like MMORPG gaming is expensive. A months sub is cheaper than a night at the movies, and I get more than 2 hours per month out of it.
They are the fastest at pushing PvE content. They haven't pushed much PvP content the last year.
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EQ1 and 2 were both faster with PvE content in their first 4-5 years.
I think Trion has done ok wth PvP, PvP content is largely player generated anyway. they are stills earching for the answer to world PvP but they are trying.
Going back through your post history, you appear to be quite outspoken in your dislike for Rift. Is it possible that your write up on it is a little biased?
Quality of content can be subjective. Quantity, not so much. I dont dislike Rift either. Its mediocre and its a shame, because it does some things really well.
Size for the sake of size doesn't really impress me as much as it used to. I'd much rather see highly used areas then vast tracks of empty barrens. World PVP will never happen if the landmass is too large for the players to meet (Or if they fly over in a rocket.) Same for meeting new people while questinggrinding PA or doing Instant Adventure, rifts etc. The whole idea was to have MORE interaction with people, not less.
The addition of new WF's to Rift impressed me as a good example of what should be done. It introduces very heavy use areas that many people will play through constantly. The Library and Escalated Whitefall, Escalated BG etc provided much needed variety in what is a heavily replayed section of the game. Effectively 7 warfronts, not too bad. Two re-use terrain, but when you're there to kill each other, that just doesn't matter.
They're adding things we ask for, like weddings (though god knows I didn't ask for it), LFG tools (remember it didn't start with it), ways for non-raiders to see lore, ability to use add-ons, mobile apps, coinlock, ascended ceremonies, wardrobe slots, more pets, more mounts, cross faction AH. There's more but I tend to lose track.
Lets face it too, MOST of the dungeons in EQ2 go to waste. How many of them did you go into on a frequent basis? (No solo'ing doesn't count) So re-using the same basis for expertmaster modes and adding additional mechanics and depth to those dungeons makes WAY more sense than just a one off no one will see again.
Does any of this count as "content" ? I never really thought so, but everyone else seems to think it does.
(apologies as well if it rambles some, at work and doing this in free moments)
I like that instant adventure system they added which automatically places you in a Rift raid. You can log in for 15 minutes, queue for a Rift raid then log out feeling like you've accomplished something. Plus, it's a good way to grind out planarite if you were like me and skipped mostly all the rifts that spawned while you were leveling up because you didn't want to finish them by yourself.
I like the little things, like AOE looting. Or artifact placement both regular and the added twisted artifacts!
Your first paragraph is incorrect.
The new tier 20-man raid is around a month away.
I know this and don't even play anymore.
Content is as Content does... I don't concider it "new" unless it really and truly is new. I mean, world events every patch, were nothing more than a new element to fight... after a while I didn't bother with them anymore.
Holiday content was more of the above...collect x currency, for y fluff...
The raids were pretty good...but being that's all I ever did consistantly, it lead to burn out...
Don't re-skin a boss or mob and proclaim it NEW please.
http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-general-discussions/general-discussion/293766-welcome-back-guide-whats-changed.html
i think you "forgot" a "few small features"
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strait up, this right here. dude is always sayin,"i like Rift, but i dislike most things about it, and let me somehow try and compare it to XYZ". the EQ1 staff can fit in a cubicle, and there's a reason for it. they're open about the size of the team they've had, and props to them for still putting out content for us, but damn.. i'm not going to compare the content to trion. it's a completely different game now. newer MMORPGs are going to take more to make. this guy's been on these Rift forums for a long time now doin this. i don't get it lol. if you don't dig the game, quit the trollin bub. they spit on your brand new shoes or something? "they've really only put out one real patch because it's all part of 1.X".
The event that will lead to launch of the raid isnt even on test yet (as of yesterday). There is no possible way this raid is coming out in 3 weeks. My first paragraph was correct, we have gotten our last patch for year 1.
How am I trolling? You need to better understand what trolling is.
FACT: people claim that Trion is the fastest ever at putting out content. I disputed the claim, and I am technically correct.
If I were trolling I would make baseless claims and say stuff just to get a rise out of people. Just because my feedback on the game isnt all rainbows and unicorns, doesnt make me a troll. I am commenting on a game that i currently have an active subscription to, not a game I dont play just to make people miserable.
The AoE looting is nice. Its funny how games come along and add something that makes people say 'why isnt this in every game by now?'. Another example is SWTOR allowing use of materials from bank for crafting.
Rift also adopted that "using bank items for crafting" mantra.
Just as SWTOR adopted the AoE loot thing. Good exchange of ideas.
If only SWToR took a few more ideas here and there....
He also said that there is no patch between the time he made his post and the anniversary. Interesting for two reason, one he's able to see into the future, and two, there was a patch today as well as on the day he made his post.
They started testing the next world event on the PTS last night, and that's supposed to be live for the aniversary as far as I'm aware.
World events, coinsidentally, I didn't see mentioned anywhere in his post. Nor did I see any mention of instant adventures.
Seems starange that someone would spend so much time trying to make a game look bad, when they could just go play EQ1 or 2 which they have nothing but praise for.
BTW, OP forget to mention eveything SoE had to do to EQ2 to try and get people to play it. The complete overhauls that they had to make over the first year or two. Tell everyone about how they had to completely redo the crafting system, or tell everyone about how they completely redid the class system, perhaps the OP can tell everyone about how most of the armour models look alike because the engine they use makes it to hard for them to create new armour models, or did they overhaul the engine yet? Perhaps the OP can tell everyone about the performance problems EQ2 faced, and how most people didn't have a computer capable of actually run the game properly.
EQ2 is a great game, and sony put out quite a bit of content for it, 2-3 PAID EXPANSIONS a year. The players actually comlained about the number of expansions, which is why SoE started doing one free and one paid. However, EQ2 had a LOT of problems that the OP's "analysis" didn't seem to mention.
And the OP is wrong. No other mmo has magor updates every 3 months or so.
If only took a few more ideas from here and there... :P
Fact is, none of these will be our first MMOs. We don't have that "whoaaaaaaaa, this is magical" feeling anymore. We're seeing lots of cool features and nifty stuff here and there, but the wow factor is gone. Once we accept that it's a lot easier to dwelve into new MMOs without feeling robbed or cheated.
My first true MMO was Lineage II, with the great sieges, graphics, combat I thought was nice as well back then. Then came WoW with its free movement and I was all about "I can JUMP now!!! no more getting stuck on every stupid stone on the floor and I can get past fences!!!". Sure did I miss the awesome sieges, but it was a good trade gameplay-wise.
SWTOR to me felt like WoW with lightsabers, that's my best description. Everyone looks almost the same, races are mostly reskins of one another, gameplay-wise it's WoW (I like WoW gameplay), the graphics were kinda "meh, I expected way better from a near-2012 release". The voice-overs are cool the first time, but when you're replaying you'll be begging for a "skip" button.
My main question was: what did this game bring to the table? Why should I play this instead of WoW? As much as I like Star Wars, the game didn't feel that compelling, not at least to pay 50€ upfront.
Rift is almost a year old, brought some sort of dynamic event (rifts) to the table, tried to get a bit away from WoW (no addons support, world PvP could be somewhat ruthless, had a decent community and response from devs. It failed a bit on that in my opinion, as world PvP was nerfed and we have addons now (yay, wish there was support for them from start, they bring community). Gameplay-wise I feel it's a bit worse than WoW, the combat doesn't feel as good. The graphics are pretty good though and the engine is a lot smoother nowadays.
I still think most people either go back to WoW or quit MMOs altogether nowadays. There are the ones that wait for TSW and GW2 as the next big thing, but as nice as they probably are I feel they aren't going to meet the demands of players wanting their "virgin MMO experience" again.
That said, for 12€ you can get 40 days of Rift play, you'll probably have some fun along the way even if you decide to eventually quit. I'd retry SWTOR if it was as cheap just to check on the new patches and higher gameplay, but I don't trust the price will go down soon.
And that's a big enough wall of text, so I'm gonna stop here
o