They should definitely make another in-game video with fantasy characters dancing to rap music in a fantasy world tavern.

That totally made me want to come back soooooo much.

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Originally posted by jeremyjodes
It's a tough economy man. game developers are starting to feel it as well. if you think about blizzards not feeling anything. they are notoruis for not givin a crap. they have tons of cash. but they have been holding out.
 

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But your defense of them and this strategy basically boils down to "Well, look at Blizzard. They do the same thing" which is strange.

$0 huh?  Wonder how much it will cost in another 3 months.  Free and a free promotional mount if you subscribe?

Don't get me wrong.  I approve of their marketing tactics.  Just commenting that this industry is goofy.

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Almost five years after the release of the first expansion, you can buy Burning Vanilla for $20.  Three years after the second expansion, they'll offer you their Wrath for $40.  A year after the third expansion, they'll Cata-size your game for $40.

Seven year old game, three expansions - going to cost you $100 to play.

Might want to mention the smart strategy to the folks over at Blizzard...heh.

It is kind of funny, cause most games out there do go with the strategy that you mentioned - reduced box costs, better bundled deals to get into the game.

Sure, you'd be silly to spend that $100 for WoW at the Blizzard store - you could spend $77 over at Amazon...cough.

WoW has always been the exception to the rule.  Surely you don't need me to tell you that?  And if they keep losing subs, it may not be an exception for much longer. 

True about that. However I just visited http://www.riftgame.com/en/shardstatus/ . Weird but I though that at launch there were more shards (not by like 1 or 2, more disappeared). Also those shards that are now gone were present here this summer still. I guess this aggressive strategy didn't really work that well. But this time we can't blame WoW as WoW's subs are also declining. Slowly but still. We can't also blame any other MMO as there were no major launches nor expansions or so to any MMO game that could potentially hurt playerbase that much.

You know what? I hate to say this as I don't really like SWTOR, don't really see anything for me there. But still what I think is that Trion during this year saw decline of population and tried to do something to prevent it as they obviously couldn't do that with the content. And now somehow I doubt that this recent "promotion" isn't in any way connected with next month's launch. Something that community of Rift (at least on Whitefall) was speaking about even months ago. And they weren't exactly saying "I am gonna play Rift no matter what";)

It's £ 4.99  on the EU official site with 30 days included.

Games like EQ2 have been zero dollars to start for years now, they just never really announced it. Do the trial and start paying monthly fees and you are in, just without the latest expanson. OK, it is going full F2P if it havn't already just, but the idea in't exactly new.

MMOs get their income from monthly fees anyways. I wouldn't call it great news for Rift though, it means that they are nervaous about TOR or have been losing players lately, after all havn't Rifts been out even a year yet. No disaster though or they would announce it as F2P, but not good either.

I love the broad generalization people do.

Games dead!  No one's on the server!

Nevermind the other 50 some servers.

I play on Freeholme, and the servers packed with people.  There are new people constantly joining the game as well.  Every day someone's asking how they claim stuff from the collectors edition, or how to upgrade to a full account.  That's just on my server.

I can Q dungeons or Warfronts and they pop almost instantly as well at 50, a little slower at the lower levels.

Every zone has events going off, and the only way for an event to start is for people to actually be in the zone.  Often times multiple zone events are happening at once, across 3 or 4 zones. 

I play at just about any given time, from early morning, mid afternoon, to late in the evening, and there's  always people on freeholme.  I can Q dungeons and WF at any time of day and they'll popl at 50, dungeons are a little longer in the mornings.

The game is not dead, or dying, there's just a handful of haters on these forums.  And a lot of MMO's don't charge for the client anymore.

BTW, Blizzard still sells the 1.99 trial cd's in stores.  

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Originally posted by Uhwop

The game is not dead, or dying, there's just a handful of haters on these forums. 

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Don't ditch Rift for ToR

Exploration in Rift sucks!!

Some (negative) thoughts about the current state of Rift

Ok lost anther friend.

Trion you need to fix the Population issue

It seems like a handful of haters on the official Rift forums as well, not just here. If you measure a game (or anything) in terms of increase as growth, then Rift is dying because they are not increasing their subs fast enough to replace ones that left. The low server pops and continued shutdowns show that or else Trion would be OPENING servers, not continuing to shutter them.

If you are measuring it in terms of being able to neither go up or down, then that's debatable. Some say the pop is holding steady but don't have any more proof than the ones saying my friends left. It's all anecdotal.

But to suggest that it's "only" mmorpg.com that has a "handful of haters", you must not even read your own official forums.

Problem with Rift is and never was about price. It is also not about polish & bugs which hurt many previous mmorpg's (Vanguard anyone?).

It is about game itself. 

Game world is small and claustrophobic. Quests, game mechanics all are just screaming "Rift is all about hitting level cap".

It is just "same old" + game is soulless and feel very generic.

Gameplay concept and formula Rift uses got old long ago. People tired of it and I doubt copying WoW will get them anywhere.Well anywhere else than beign 300-500 k subscriber game - which is NOT all that bad.

Imho we might actually see population decline in mmorpg's - part of playerbase will drift towards MOBA games and other non-rpg mmo games, like mmofps, mmorts. Some will go for social games and some come back towards lobby games - like Diablo 3 or lobby-like pseudo mmo like Vindictus.

Genre stalled and finally that's slowly starting to take effect, new mmorpg's not beign able to get all players that leave WoW, so some of them just leave mmorpg genre.

Not to mention of increasing number of vets that leave genre or roam around on forums / news sites not playing any mmorpg for long months / years as well, cause new mmorpg's does not offer anything for them anymore and old mmorpg's are getting really old or changed too much or closing.

Still Rift might survive if Trion is content with having 300-400 k of subscribers.

Might need to close down few servers though and have "balls of steel" in few coming months as quite a bit of players will leave for Swtor.

Some will come back as always and also cause even though Swtor is very themepark like Rift, it seems to be diffrent enough that some ex-Rift players will not like it.

I tried Rift again back during the free weekend a few weeks ago. Nothing was going on. I know there are the Rift fanatics who probably claim that there are more people than ever.

WHERE ARE THEY?

The few experiences I had in dungeons and warfronts I enjoyed, but the lack of that regularity led me to quit. That weekend I found no groups, and no warfronts. I'm so over playing solo in a MMORPG. I can do that with no monthly fee, and not worry about having to alter my lifestyle so I can raid  the same dungeons over and over to get the best gear.

Not worth playing a MMO if the other people only want to solo a bunch of lame 1 player quest.

Originally posted by Robsolf

You'll see this in MMO's pretty commonly from now on, I think.

MMO's aren't like single player games, where all your money comes from boxes, and the occasional DLC.  No matter how successful your game is, at some point, your box price becomes the gate that blocks your company from receiving new sub money.

The more aggressive you are in pricing after the big launch boom, the healthier your population will be.  After the 3 month mark, almost every player that intended to pay full price for the game and play it will have done so.  Your goal then, is to find the price everyone else is willing to pay for the box.  $40?  $30?  $15?  Even free?  Any player you get with a free box will get you $15 bucks a month, as opposed to keeping your box priced at $60 and getting nothing.

It's a smart strategy.

 

Which business school did you go to ?

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Originally posted by Thunderballs

Which business school did you go to ?

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Can you point out what's wrong with his assumption? I find it very coherent and well reasoned. I see no flaw there.

Originally posted by Uhwop

I love the broad generalization people do.

Games dead!  No one's on the server!

Nevermind the other 50 some servers.

I play on Freeholme, and the servers packed with people.  There are new people constantly joining the game as well.  Every day someone's asking how they claim stuff from the collectors edition, or how to upgrade to a full account.  That's just on my server.

I can Q dungeons or Warfronts and they pop almost instantly as well at 50, a little slower at the lower levels.

Every zone has events going off, and the only way for an event to start is for people to actually be in the zone.  Often times multiple zone events are happening at once, across 3 or 4 zones. 

I play at just about any given time, from early morning, mid afternoon, to late in the evening, and there's  always people on freeholme.  I can Q dungeons and WF at any time of day and they'll popl at 50, dungeons are a little longer in the mornings.

The game is not dead, or dying, there's just a handful of haters on these forums.  And a lot of MMO's don't charge for the client anymore.

BTW, Blizzard still sells the 1.99 trial cd's in stores.  

+1

Originally posted by fenistil

It is just "same old" + game is soulless and feel very generic. Gameplay concept and formula Rift uses got old long ago. People tired of it and I doubt copying WoW will get them anywhere.

Some will come back as always and also cause even though Swtor is very themepark like Rift, it seems to be diffrent enough that some ex-Rift players will not like it.

SWTOR, basically, IS Rifts with a new skin, and both are mining the same finite market of WoW refugees (them both being the bastard children of that game).

The part in red, for instance, could as easily be used to describe SWTOR imo.

A for them 'being different enough'... well... it's hard to imagine two games in this space that are more similar that have been made in the West... maybe Alganon's slavish devotion to WoW? I'm not sure.

Makes perfect sense for Rifts to give the client away now TBH.  A shiney new game with a bigger IP and more hype that is in direct competition has arrived in their market space and they need to react accordingly.

SWTOR basically RIFT with new skin.....

Lol...some of the most darnest comments one can only find on this website.

Originally posted by Supersoups

SWTOR basically RIFT with new skin.....

They are extremely similar in a lot of ways, from basic design philosophy up, except that Rifts to give it credit did actually try to innovate it's play systems a bit.

They are both the bastard children of WoW though. Maybe not twins, sure, but definitely brothers.

Like one and chances are you will like the other.

All in my opinion of course (before certain folk start getting all wound up)

Kind of a bad sale as you end up having to pay for your first month anyway.  So $15 to start still.

http://www.amazon.com/Rift-Pc/dp/B002I0HIC8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322760213&sr=8-2

Amazon has it for 10 bucks, box or digital.

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Originally posted by vesavius

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Originally posted by Supersoups
SWTOR basically RIFT with new skin.....

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They are extremely similar in a lot of ways, from basic design philosophy up, except that Rifts to give it credit did actually try to innovate it's play systems a bit.

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Actually, the same thing can be said with TOR and their companion system so yeah...

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by VirusDancer

Almost five years after the release of the first expansion, you can buy Burning Vanilla for $20.  Three years after the second expansion, they'll offer you their Wrath for $40.  A year after the third expansion, they'll Cata-size your game for $40.
Seven year old game, three expansions - going to cost you $100 to play.
Might want to mention the smart strategy to the folks over at Blizzard...heh.

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Many of the people playing Rift today are actually excited about other games still yet to be released (GW2, ToR, TSW, ArcheAge) than Rift. Again, it's not because it's bad, it's just that Rift was kind of an afterthought whereas people have been actively waiting years for the other games.

This will ALWAYS be the case until the final game is made and they cease to exist anymore.. WoW caught fire on the heels of the MMO genre's breakthrough into pop-culture.. Brought alot of new faces to the fight club. And now that it has been there and done that, there will never be another game to capture and hold that many concurrent subscribers ever again..

It wasn't just a key moment in Blizzards history or even WoW's history, it was a key moment in MMO history and gaming history where one single game could take and retain a subscription base of over 10 million people.. But it was a moment in history that will never be repeated.. Unless the industry completely dies and is ressurected some odd years later, with all the "server firsts" ready to be reclaimed..

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Originally posted by Vyeth

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Originally posted by popinjay
 

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Originally posted by VirusDancer

Almost five years after the release of the first expansion, you can buy Burning Vanilla for $20.  Three years after the second expansion, they'll offer you their Wrath for $40.  A year after the third expansion, they'll Cata-size your game for $40.
Seven year old game, three expansions - going to cost you $100 to play.
Might want to mention the smart strategy to the folks over at Blizzard...heh.

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Many of the people playing Rift today are actually excited about other games still yet to be released (GW2, ToR, TSW, ArcheAge) than Rift. Again, it's not because it's bad, it's just that Rift was kind of an afterthought whereas people have been actively waiting years for the other games.

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This will ALWAYS be the case until the final game is made and they cease to exist anymore.. WoW caught fire on the heels of the MMO genre's breakthrough into pop-culture.. Brought alot of new faces to the fight club. And now that it has been there and done that, there will never be another game to capture and hold that many concurrent subscribers ever again..
It wasn't just a key moment in Blizzards history or even WoW's history, it was a key moment in MMO history and gaming history where one single game could take and retain a subscription base of over 10 million people.. But it was a moment in history that will never be repeated.. Unless the industry completely dies and is ressurected some odd years later, with all the "server firsts" ready to be reclaimed..

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The difference is, how fast it takes people to move on though.

In the case of WoW, there are still many people still playing it since launch. In the case of Rift, there were people who bought six month subs at launch and never lasted past two.

Of course people will always leave for other games, which goes without saying. The main thing is the alacrity at which they do so.