Home › Game Forums › Rift
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Population trends
Puremallace
Member Posts: 1,856
in Rift
So I figured someone had to do it and yeah it did peak my interest about the debate that TOR's launch/headstart would completely derail Rift. I am guessing right about now is going to be peak time for most MMO's like WoW/Rift/Aion/WAR/EQ2, so this is the best time to get a snip it.
I'll try and get another one in like a month or something. My original theory that most people who were going to not sub to Rift for TOR had already left seems to be proving itself.
I figured this might be a interesting topic.
12-8-2011
12-13-2011
12-29-2011
Comments
I don't think we will see much of a hit. The servers seem to have stabilized of late. According to rfift status Rift got a bump in population the week of Ember ISle release but it then went down back to where it was prior to Ember Isle.We don't have a single player in my guild leaving for swtor and I nly know one who will even be playing it and that is only part time as a second game.
I am not cocerned about Rifts population. The game is doing amazingly well. The retention rate with 55 servers 10 months after release is pretty amazing. Rift could still lose half its population and still be quite successful. IMO there are to many people playing Rift. My server always seems crowded. I often wish there were a lot less people.
I think ToR is drawing from a different audience than the most of the players who are stillplaying Rift. Plus almost all the players in Rift are pretty happy with Rift.
But I am curious to see the Rift Status numbers the next 4-5 weeks.
58 NA servers down to 27 with 6 more ready to go is amazing retention?
I think Rift's population has stabilized to "people who want to play Rift". A lot like Warhammer's and AoC's population has stabilized to people who want to play those games. The people who want to play something else have already stopped playing. It just so happens that Rift's stable population is a good bit higher than the competition (so far).
If Rift (and other games) do take a hit, it'll be a month or two after SWToR gets going. Word of mouth would be the biggest draw for established players of other games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
99 serevrs down to 55 10 months afetr release is pretty amazing retention. Look at recent releases they all lost 2/3 of their intial sales in 6 months. Keeping over 50% is pretty amazing. Not to mention 55 servers is a huge amount. EQ2 when it peaked after recovering from its bad launch only had 16 total servers. Rift may end up going down to 30 servers or even 15 but even if that happens its a very successful release.
Compare that to AoC dropping down from 49 total servers to 18 serevrs 6 months after release. Then down to its present number of 4, 2 years after release. No Idea how many Warhammer has but I am sure its not many. Aion dropped to 4 NA servers 2 years after release. Rift is doing quite well now 10 months after release.
Right now Rift is the number two western P2P MMO by a long shot and the most successful western mmo since WoW's release. That will likely change with SWTOR and GW2.I am sure SWTOR and GW2 will sell a lot more boxes. Hard to compare GW as its not a P2P game but I am sure SWTOR will lose a lot mroe people but they will have a big advanatage as they will be able to replace those people with new people because of the name brand of Bioware and all the SW fans. Rift only had 10k total forum signups 2 months prior to release. So to sell over a million boxes the at release and to have 99 servers at release is pretty amazing. Still having 55 servers is also amazing.
But whats most important about Rift unlike these other failed games is Trion believes in the game enough to keep investing in new content. If they believed the game did not have a healthy long term future I doubt they would be putting the money they are into new content. Insteaed they would likely be nickel and diming us to death on new content to rake in as much as they could befroe going away. But they are doing the exact opposite and investing in the games long term future. Eq2's regrwoth I hink is something that made an impression upon Hartsman. if you keep building the game people will keep coming.
I would not be worrued about the population but rather I am excited by Rift's population. I would only begin to worry if Trion sopped putting money inot the game in the form of new content. If they did that then I might be agree with some of the doomsayers. But as long as they keep providing support to the game with new content then Rift looks nothing like failed games like AoC, Vanguard, and Warhammer.
hmmz about hour till what most consider prime time and even more people allowed into TOR. Server status for Rift looks identical to what I have posted above. What I am looking for is a point where it stabalizes in that EQ2 fashion or how Aion settled at a small number of 4.
That stabalization point because in the genre of themeparks TOR is about the biggest hit I think Rift will be taking for awhile. I know patch 1.7 is probably about to go into testing and I get the feeling it will have a world event leading up to the Maelforge raid. I am almost willing to put money on the fact that raid will open up the same day TOR 30 subs are coming due.
It will be very interesting to see where it is in a month. My best guess is WoW is taking just a brutal hit right now thanks to TOR. Hell I know Aion took such a bad hit EU is about to go F2P. I know more then a few guilds in Aion NA that were guaranteed dropping it for TOR, so expect NA to follow very soon.
And as of right now on a friday night there are 12 low pop servers instead of the usual 6. They may still make it to medium by the time, but it is well into primetime for 2/3 of the population. Definitely a noticeable slowdown but not an omg 50% left slowdown
EvE is very possibly ahead right now, they are 350k+.
Most successful since WoW short term but I think LOTRO had 250k after year 1 and 275k after year 2, Rift isnt a guarantee to beat that
http://riftideas.com/shardwatch/
Friday night, heart of primetime....11 of 27 servers low pop. Im actually surprised, I didnt think it would make that big of a difference.
Im betting Puremallace wont be taking a screenie and posting it though lol
No i was watching it as much as everyone else. I also looked at this
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/status
Honestly this was expected or if anything not expected. Massively hyped game just launched I expected as much, especially with the curiosity it has with the story content. Alot of my guild has said they will check it out and play it along side Rift for atleast a month.
There are about 5 more low pop servers then what that image above shows. NOWWWWWW does this mean unsubs straight out just using the free x-fer system? That is the tricky part you can pick up and move in a flash.
My big thing is one month from now what will the TOR servers and reviews look like and how will that really affect Rift? I still predict WoW taking a much much heavier hit then Rift.
THE HUGEEEE thing here is it is not just outright killing RIft. Aion EU right away went f2p bam and some people were calling that
First, I commend you for acknowledging it
Second, the wow server status seems roughly the same. its the same PvP servers that have been low pop for months now. All the PvE servers are still medium or better and there are still plenty of high pop servers
third, trying to say the servers went to low on a weekend because of transfers off is pretty silly. Everyone magically said 'todays the day im transferring?' far fetched, to say the least.
Well get a better view next weekend when the riftstatus.net numbers encompass the full early access time and start including the actual launch. i agree it wont kill Rift, but I didnt even expect it to affect it as much as it has.
It is from 99 to 47, but who is counting.
However, I do not believe Trion managed to keep around 50% of its players. Judging from the agressive advertising by Trion in which they give away the game for free nowadays and are offering 30 days free playtime to people who cancelled their account, and observing the high throughput off players from launch till now on the servers I played, my educated guess is that Rift kept around 10% of its players or less.
It takes one to know one.
Nah wayyy more then this. If you look at Aion or WAR, then yes that number applies more. My guess is the 40-50% number definitely applies. Have you seen what Blizzard has been doing lately? Rift is not the only mmo taking a hit.
Its a pretty safe bet that Rift has lost a higher % of its subs this year than WoW. WoW is seven years old and coming off of a very poorly received expansion.
You are right though that MMO activity has been down across the board. But Rift is probably down quite a bit more than the average, and with all the promotions its run it shouldnt be
It might be that the amount of players now playing as compared to when Rift started is 30-50%. I would agree to that. But the amount of players that started to play Rift and have stopped by now is way more than 80%, if not more than 90%.
It takes one to know one.
Say what you want about Rift, but this thread is proving Rift was and is a tripple A mmo. I would prefer for every server to be packed, but the mmo world is not like it used to be. People want quality and quick content for free and will insist on hopping from one mmo to the next.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=43267
There is no denying that Rift was being presented as a triple-A game and even next-gen. But it is the lack of depth that makes the game a fleeting experience. People do not leave because the game has so much to offer. Personally I am not hopping to any other game. But there will be alot of people with the hope another mmorpg might bring them what the current game does not deliver.
It takes one to know one.
I use XFire to gauge population changes and from what I can see there Rift was in sharp decline before SW:TOR was released and probably it will get even worse.
Let's face it, besides the flexible class system, this game has no lasting appeal.
My gaming blog
It's all been said many times before......the game brings little to hold gamers......some twists on pve (but a LOT thats far too familiar).....weak crafting.....RVR that is just awful(and they bragged about their Mythic employees who knew the ins and outs of DAOC ). Development decisions makers ...not all but many....still don't understand their target market.The gamers level of experience..their likes.....the need for a strong reason why a player will STAY with your game.
SWTOR's development decision makers ...so far...are showing the same lack of understanding...bring to games not enoung compelling and fresh ideas...and could have similar results.
Well I am starting to believe that lasting appeal is actually something they are not looking for. They seem to want to get a quick buck from big initial sales and maybe decent subs for 6 months or so. After that they dont seem to care much as these latest triple A MMORPG all have pretty weak end game and zero depth in crafting etc which could make people want to stay longer.
My gaming blog
i agree......anyway if u play a warrior tank u are nearly forced to spec X , if u play a cleric healer X , mage ? X o Y ....
options? well.....not really
I am not very scared of TOR. It is releasing without features Rift launched with so while Rift is looking forward to new content Bioware is having to make up for stuff they missed. Rift is a complete MMO from launch. TOR forums will be asking for what I have detailed below for MONTHS
IMPORT button. TOR pushes alts very heavily but did not have this?
Macros? Some people abused them heavily in Rift and looked like idiots doing it...bind 20 skills then wonder why you are out of energy or why 15 of them do not work..just silly
Social features...facebook, twitter, tumblr full intergration. I can let my friends know what is going on
Targets target..Come on Bioware this is almost a requirement and it was left out
How about the biggest complaint from reviewers? Move any bar you want on the screen and do whatever you want to that bar
Clicking every single item to sell. Yeah this one is small, but still it was there on launch of Rift
Anti aliasing + god knows how many other customization options for graphics
Achievements?? Where are those? Why in gods name were these left out??? Where is that extra incentive to go search or explore?
How about little extra incentives? Where is the incentive to leave the path in TOR? Where is the extra to explore and search outside of mandatory datacron upgrades?
My gaming blog
We wont know the answer until 3-6 months from now. I think it will fair better retention wise than Rift but its going to have a reasonable sized drop.
Honestly we better all be going for TOR to atleast hold 65%. You imagine how bad it will get if 75% of the players leave and head back to WoW claiming it is the best thing to happen in mmo's. Last thing the genre needs right now is Blizzard fan bois claiming "ohh there goes another WoW killerz !1!!1!!"