Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Yamota

How many months have the game been released, 3 months? It took more than that for AoC and WAR to nosedive in subs and the server merges to start.

The fact is that Rift has lost 50% of players according to Xfire, since Launch and it has just stabilized with the release of the trial. So I would say it is way too soon to say that this game wont follow the same fate as WAR and AoC. After 3 months more we will have more info to tell.

{mod edit}

 

And... Um... Rift only has to add content and some functional fluff... Mythics and Funcom had, on top of that, to clean up their engine or finish some core functionalities years after their release.

Originally posted by IrishChai

 

Not to mention all the gold-sellers around the world jump on free trials for every MMO like flies on [expletive].

This exactly.

RMT are consistently creating new accounts to MMOs they are active in.

One account gets banned, they use the next... that one gets banned... they use the next... and so on. Meanwhile, they continue to create new accounts to replace the ones that are no longer usable.

Keep in mind this is happening all day long, every day, across every server, by multiple companies. That adds up.

Now before someone gets all bent out of shape thinking I'm saying that Rift isn't doing well... I'm not. Just shining some perspective on it. Of the thousands of new accounts they're reporting, a notable % of those is going to be RMT. No question.

On the other hand, of course, having the free trial is a great motivator for folks to check it out. No committment nor cost in money, only the hard drive space and time spent trying it out. The question there, of course, becomes "Of all the trial accounts created, how many are converting to full paid accounts"?

From what I can see, it looks like they haven't released that info... which seems rather telling to me.

So... basically, it's the same routine all developers/publishers pull. Find the most impressive sounding number you can find, and use it in your PR.

For example, when FFXI could no longer boast ~500,000 actively paid/played accounts, they resorted to citing how many characters had been created. Given that it's not at all unusual for a FFXI player to have up to 4 or 5 characters (a main and 4 mules or alts), "number of characters" isn't all that meaningful. But then, people do tend to be impressed by big numbers.

Citing "accounts created", however, is the least impressive to me due to the above mentioned circumstances. Over the game's life time it'll have several million more accounts created, easily. Again, the important question is, how many of those accounts are translating into $$$ for Trion.

When they come out and say they have 2,000,000 paid accounts that are actively played... I'll be impressed. 'til then, it's just the usual PR with "big sounding numbers".

I wonder what the ratio is for the "Ascend-a-Friend" program is for people? I know it doesn't show who STAYS subscribed to the game, but it at least shows who bought the game after playing the free trial. My ratio was about 10/38. If someone could compile all that info somewho it'd give a better respresentation of actual active accounts right now.

 Rift is a fantastic polished game with a pretty good dev team. There are several annoyances and decisions I personally have with the game but the good outweighs the bad by bounds for me. I've been playing everyday I think since beta 4 or so, and I still love invasions and instantly being in a 20 man raid and rumbling across the hills on mounts as Rifts and mobs pour out, super fun. For whatever reason this still hasn't gotten old with me.

Anyway..

 The population on some servers is for all intents and purposes dead, without exaggeration. Dead as in, you get server firsts for grey items, the auction house has a dozen items total. There a few brave souls around, but it's dead Jim. Others like Wolfsbane and Briarcliff are packed and have Q's on weekends because as word spread they were populated, players re-rolled there from their low pop.

 The part where Imi (I'm familiar with him from the boards, he definitely likes the game in all posts) talks about server merger talk dying down is plain baloney. No offense to him, but that isn't even "stretching the truth", it's flat out wrong. There are more posts than ever asking for mergers, Trion announced free server transfers (for certain servers only I believe) which has given low pop players something to look forward to, but there is continuing merger talk from across the playerbase.

 I think Trion deserve some praise and damn good on them. You know why? They showed the industry that if you release a working polished game and support it, you can succeed. I hope the boneheaded studios that keep hoisting crap onto the market finally gain some sense and do it right as well.

If they had a low trial->subscription rate, they'd never admit it - but you can rest assured that were it high (3mil is a GREAT population for a MMO released since WoW hoovered the market) they would be bragging.

They're a good company, and Rift is a solid, comparatively well polished game - I didn't enjoy it myself, but I did buy it just to give them some cash, but you're silly if you think they have anywhere near 2-3mil accounts and aren't tooting their horn over it.

My personal guess is they are hovering around 350k paying subscribers right now but it is just a guess since there is no way to know. Maybe a tad bit better off than AOC or WAR after 3 months and I think it stays more stable than those did over the next 3 months but it isn't some big smash hit, it isn't a failure either (and neither was AOC though WAR might have been since it cost so much to make).

I was wondering if total players joining Rift to play per day are greater than total leaving Rift per day or the other way around. I think patch 1.2 introduced new reasons to quit i.e. dungeon grind introduced. Two million plus forum accounts is an interesting statistic and the rate of growth of those accounts suggests healthy interest still.

For me at least, Trion need patch 1.3 to introduce something that will be popular and they need to show me some reaction to certain issues e.g. dungeon grinding and rarity of epic drops, balancing out crafting recipes (eternal planar dusts are overused in a lot of recipes and are the rarest dusts to obtain - potions needing them isn't very nice).

I feel Trion are going in a neutral to slightly negative path in terms of making Rift popular at the moment.

Hopefully they can turn it around.

These account number means absolut nothing whatsoever.

Hell, how many accounts have been created during EQa 12 years history, 15-20 mill over the years?

Posting account numbers only an ad ploy to get the illusion how well a game is doing, and blind fanbois takes it as the gospel to show the world how well the game is thriving, still i read on the main boards sshard subforums how thier server is a ghost town and they are screaming for server merges.

Give us Sub numbers from launch to now to really see how well the game is doing, other kind of numbers are pointless and meaningless.

We are already experiencing a massive wave of un-sub at least on my EU server.

Guess Rift kept many players busy for couple of months...but ultimately it certainly adds nothing new to the genre.

Originally posted by Ender4

My personal guess is they are hovering around 350k paying subscribers right now but it is just a guess since there is no way to know. Maybe a tad bit better off than AOC or WAR after 3 months and I think it stays more stable than those did over the next 3 months but it isn't some big smash hit, it isn't a failure either (and neither was AOC though WAR might have been since it cost so much to make).

I love it with how people just pull stuff out of thin air. the 350k paying subscribers could even be still almost double that as you said we don't know exactly. Its no use then even guessing on numbers at all.

I wish I could pull a guess like that out of my rear and say its there abouts.

All I know is on the 3 servers I play on, Meridian/Sanctum are always packed with players.  During peak hours it get's really full. Worse than Dalaran or Ironforge in WoW.

I hit a wall with Rift.  It was fun for a few months but the end game it is way to similar to WOW to keep my interest past my 3 months sub.  I had fun and do not regret buying the game but it has run its course for me.

The time to watch is July as a lot of 3 month launch subs will come up.

  Rift released that they've sold through nearly 1 million.  For the 'unbelievers'...

  http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35044/Interview_Trions_Debut_Rift_Closes_In_On_1M_SellThrough.php

  Of course, this says nothing about retention - a question they wouldn't answer, but it's still a decent number

Originally posted by Eliandal

  Rift released that they've sold through nearly 1 million.  For the 'unbelievers'...

 

  http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35044/Interview_Trions_Debut_Rift_Closes_In_On_1M_SellThrough.php

 

  Of course, this says nothing about retention - a question they wouldn't answer, but it's still a decent number

your right it is a respectable figure.. and your also correct that it says nothing about retention..  the only figures that matter will always be subs..

AoC sold 1 million in 3 weeks:
http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/comments_news.phtml?id=060608_5

RIFT has sold LESS than 1 million in 3 months!

I am glad bcs there is hope developers realize that "old sausage in new casing" is not the next big thing!

To me, the amount of Rift accounts created is a pointless and useless statistic. I mean, grats to them and I am glad to see them doing well but with so many "try it out", "join your friends" promotions recently, account creation is going to happen a lot and there will be a LOT of new accounts. What I want to know is how many/what percentage of those accounts actually subscribe to the game and pay money for 30 days and then again longer. Those numbers are what truly matters.

Nice to see that nearly 1 million post, pretty much validates what a large portion of the population has been saying, basically they never had as large a player base as the "fanboys" wanted to claim. There is no way they ever hit 750k players if they still haven't sold 1 million copies 2 months later. The retention rate isn't close to 50% so they have less than 500k paying subscribers now, most likely in the 300k range.

Originally posted by Ender4

Nice to see that nearly 1 million post, pretty much validates what a large portion of the population has been saying, basically they never had as large a player base as the "fanboys" wanted to claim. There is no way they ever hit 750k players if they still haven't sold 1 million copies 2 months later. The retention rate isn't close to 50% so they have less than 500k paying subscribers now, most likely in the 300k range.

Actually, the actual article quotes the Rift employee hinting at close to 600k figure. You have to remember these are folks that bought the game after the free trial. 

Anyone playing this game can attest to the population growing steadily.  I had 40 days off because i was out of town.  Came back and immediately noticed the increase at my server.  Also, there are like 4 servers almost constantly at high now instead of 2 or 3.  I'm anxious to see what happens when the free weekly server transfers come up.

2.1 mill accounts created hmm. How many free trials, how many gold sellers, How many people actually subbed past the free 30 days?

Also, that was FORUM accounts created, not ingame accounts.