First, this is what you get when you pay 15 a month in ESO
-All DLC (except the Morrowind DLC)
-Monthly "income" to spend on the cash shop
-Access to the infinite sized harvest storage bag for all the crafting resources
-Lots more bonuses, but those are the "big" ones for me
-In GW2, all you do is buy HoT and can buy quality of life stuff but it isn't really needed. Buy expansions, but free updates in-between. Very free as a "free" player, some things locked out but not that bad
In SWTOR...
-(I think) all DLC when you pay monthly (pretty sure, I never bought any and could still access it)
-Monthly "income" to spend on the cash shop
-Terrible free model, but great pay to play model
LOTRO I didn't play long, but you also get a monthly income to spend on the cash shop by paying, still gotta buy DLC but you can save up each month to get it
Now that is just a couple examples.
In RIFT, this is what you do not get and have to pay even more
-You have to pay to unlock bag slots, and they are PER CHARACTER, NOT account wide. You also only get 2 free bag slots, and the bags are so tiny they fill up faster than any MMO I've played
-You have to pay to unlock DLC/ability packs
-You do NOT get a monthly income to spend on the cash shop
-All you get is a crappy small percent off of each cash shop item, and you still need to pay a lot of money to unlock everything
So ESO, SWTOR have amazing monthly fee models. LOTRO pretty good too. GW2 has an amazing free model, and while gotta buy DLCs, thats more once to twice a year and you get a lot of content for free anyway
Rift itself is fun, the rift invasions are great. The graphics are actually really nice, and I love the character models. But, very terrible cash shop model compared to the MMOs I listed above.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Comments
The monthly sub is all a waste, you will need around one thousand dollars to unlock all dlc, bags, skills, crafting, builds, etc. Its 400 dollars or so just for level 65 raid gear. The different types of in game money is a mess its not balanced at all most things you earn are usless end game.
The game has the same bugs is had since day 1. Example, 6 evil things want to drink your blood you kill the first one and you are stuck trying to attack the dead corpse a lot of the time. This is not because the corpse has loot in it for you to take.
Rift could be and should be so much better then it is now days.
You don't need all the souls. Most of the paid for ones are junk anyway.
Or choice B: I can pay a monthly sub in RIFT, and look at how many things I do not get without paying and how so little is rewarded for actually paying, unlike the above MMOs. And also wonder why paying so much to unlock bags, for just a single character and none of my other characters...that sounds like fun, always fun to imagine why a company does something like that.
And I'd be even okay with it if I had all bag slots and access to bigger bags. Inventory management is in my top 5 important things in a game, especially an RPG. Nothing is worse (tedious wise) than spending time dealing with inventory. And I'm the guy that picks up...EVERYTHING (partly because of Fallout 3, 4 and the Elder Scrolls games and ever since Morrowind I pick everything up lol). And 2 tiny bag slots, with very little bags really doesn't help on top of the other things.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
-You have to pay to unlock DLC/ability packs"
Pretty much the same for Guild Wars 2 actually. A new character starts with a backpack that has 20 inventory slots, and 2 bag expansion slots for equipping bags of various sizes to further increase your inventory space. Bag expansion slots are sold in the gem shop and are a single character purchase.
For free DLC, there are the Living World episodes. But, each episode is only free until the next episode is released. All you have to do is log into the game before the next episode is released to have it unlocked for free for your account. Otherwise, if you missed an episode during the free period you have to pay for it. I have seen new players complain it's not fair they purchased HoT and it didn't include all content, since they weren't there for the previous LW episodes.
But on the bright side, not a single thing in the gem shop, or even black lion chests, is needed for the game. It's all cosmetic and convenience items (including bank/inventory storage space because you can live with what is provided for free).
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