Rift was an STD (something to do) mmo from the onset. A lot of people that played Rift said they were just playing it as a holdover mmo until their game of choice released. This was known back during the open beta period, i remember many players in chat saying that they were just going to pick it up to hold them over until SWTOR and GW2 released. But things would seem kinda grim for Trion if the dedicated fanbase start to leave, due to the content not having any appeal to them. I played the game for 2 months and felt that the world was to small, the story was lacking and uninteresting, and quests from level 1 didn't feel any different from quests at lvl 50.

They had content backed logged prior to launch and released that content in stages.    Interesting strategy on their part but I think they should have launched with all that extra content at the get go, even if it meant pushing the launch date back a few months.

~Dynamic events (rifts) was a mess~

SWTOR is all you need.

Give in to your hate.

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Originally posted by stayontarget
They had content backed logged prior to launch and released that content in stages.    Interesting strategy on their part but I think they should have launched with all that extra content at the get go, even if it meant pushing the launch date back a few months.
~Dynamic events (rifts) was a mess~

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The game was made like.. someone's parents about to go on vacation imo.

Mom: "Okay Billy, your dad and I will be away to Cancun for the week. I pre-made all your meals and snacks in case you get hungry. Don't eat it all in one day because it's just enough for each day, ok? Love you, buh-bye!"

Billy opens the fridge; sees:

Monday: Turkey Pot Pie/ apple snacks

Tuesday: Turkey strips/ ice cream

Wednesday: Turkey sandwiches/ Ho-hos

Thursday: Turkey fajitas/ cake

Friday: Turkey salad/ pie

Saturday/Sunday: Fried/baked turkey/ applesauce

This game, although "good"... is just one big turkey with some snacks.

Originally posted by Myria

Originally posted by Z3R01

 

I strongly believe that we will never see a dev that releases as much new content as RIFT did its first 10 months.

So many development man hours to give its playbase content and still everyone finds something to dislike.

 

Trion releases the smallest MMO world in history. The zones are microscopic, few, and mostly shared. The "cities" are literally a couple of rooms and a courtyard. The dungeons you level in are the same ones you play at endgame, half of them made irrelevant as 1.2 turns T2 from a minor challenge to a laughable faceroll. One raid at released, finished so fast it made people giggle. Second raid, River of Souls, released in an "event" that was an absolute disaster even after having been postponed, RoS completed within hours of release. A long series of carbon copy "event" follows, interspersed with 10-person "raids" that not only are faceroll, not only re-use every single model (including the drops being identical to gear you level in), but are so microscopic by the time you get to the end you can't really believe that was all it was.

Seriously, the whole "They added so much content so fast!" line has gotten so old. When you start with a tiny amount of content having to add more quickly is a given. When what you add is, by and large nothing but cut and paste -- Hey, we added one boss, it's a whole new dungeon! -- no one is impressed.

Rift has been bleeding subs from near day one. People damn well do know what they want, and the soulless crap Trion regurgitates on a regular basis clearly ain't it.

This +10. this poster has got there head on stright. not only was the game very small to begin with but they made it almost child-like to to get to max lvl. recycleing instance content for engame grouping was just, well lazy and uninspiered. at realise Rift wasent even half the size WoW was.

Originally posted by DannyGlover

IMO, they should ditch all the dungeons, raids and battlegrounds and develop Rifts. They have the foundation in place to make them able to encompass all the standard mmo themepark trappings. Why not just go for it and channel all your content through various rifts. Get rid of instanced content altogether and make rifts massive. Spawn small non instanced dungeons and raids. They already have stuff sort of like it bow they just gotta go nuts with it.

Could you imagine a rift tearing open and an entire town with multiple levels spawns out of it? Or three rifts open across a zone that players can do king of the hill faction pvp with. How about trade routes between rifts where players can make "deals" with travelling merchants for rare crafting materials.

Trion can totally do this. They just need to let go of the WoW formula and really embrace their own thing. I'd resub in a New York minute.

with the curent crop of MMOs on the horizon, i think this its a little to late. Trion had something in there hands that they could have made great. but took the keys to that new shiny car and they went drove if off a cliff. now i dont think anything could bring this game back to what it SHOULD have been. and your right. they put to much time and effort into instance and raids and forgot all about rifts them selves. what was stoping them from having rifts open that you could go into? a vast new world to explore. like i has said somewhere else. they would have to double the world size and add some GREAT featurs ( NOT INSTANT ADVENTUERING) -what a stupid idea- for me to resub.

Originally posted by Gormok

Rift was an STD (something to do) mmo from the onset. A lot of people that played Rift said they were just playing it as a holdover mmo until their game of choice released. This was known back during the open beta period, i remember many players in chat saying that they were just going to pick it up to hold them over until SWTOR and GW2 released. But things would seem kinda grim for Trion if the dedicated fanbase start to leave, due to the content not having any appeal to them. I played the game for 2 months and felt that the world was to small, the story was lacking and uninteresting, and quests from level 1 didn't feel any different from quests at lvl 50.

they have already started leaving. at peak time there may be 2 or 3 severs at high pop and the rest barly hitting medium. i wish i know what the % of there current player base is still from launch. im geussing it cant be much. maybe 40% and thats only becasue they had founders pricing that they didnt want to get rid off. i know that when i left the game ( mind you i had a 6 mouth sub i played till it ran out) most of those that i started playing with were long gone.

When you can't bring yourself to log in, you know it's time to quit. Rift just doesn't have the funfactor for me.

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Originally posted by Z3R01
Mmo gamers don't know what they want.

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Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by Z3R01

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Originally posted by Entropy14
Players want something new and fun, Rift was neither.

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No they don't
Inovative games release all the time, i can rattle off  four or five games off the top of my head that noone gave a chance even though for years they've been asking for the features that game offers. 
You want innovation but when you get it you take a fine tooth comb looking for every flaw and blow it out of proportion.

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He said new AND fun, not new OR fun.

 

 

Sure innovative games have been released and "tried" things but most of them (all to this point?) haven't been able to give innovative and fun in the same package. Everyone who played Rift's betas thought this game had broken through.

 

 

Rifts weren't really "new" (WAR's PQ) but they were new enough AND they were fun. The problem is Rift went away from... rifts.

 

The game as you said, has MORE dungeons in eight months than WoW had in THREE YEARS and that should tell you something when a game called "Rift" concentrates on raids/dungeons and ignores just about everything else (rifts, invasions, housing, PvP, middle content/side games like fishing, exploring, pets, etc).

 

 

You say people don't know what they want. It appears Trion doesn't know what people want.. they seem to think people just want to raid in dark dungeons and call it a day. People are tired of that one-trick pony chasing loot and reputation currency grinds. Trion didn't get the memo and made a Everquest/WoW dungeon game in 2011.

 

 

 

 

People do know what they want and Trion claimed they were giving it to them with "We aren't in Azeroth anymore" claims. They saw the rifts and believed them only to have Trion bait-and-switch the game after a couple of months. Rifts are an afterthought now and raiding is the mainstay so if people can get the same old, why not stay with WoW and wait for the Panda dungeons?

Couldn't be more true

Originally posted by Astraeis

I had hope that Trion would turn this game around and transform it into a real mmorpg, but patch 1.6.1 with its instant adventure is the final nail in the coffin of that hope. Rift had potential but was severely lacking in depth as an mmorpg. The story element was there but done poorly. The polish had been done at the expense of depth and variety. So, I had hoped the developers would have noticed that themselves (well, many tried to point that out to them, so that might have helped) and try to repair that, but in fact they chose the opposite direction. Less story telling and more action without any meaning.

As an exploring, adventuring type of gamer the developers have finally convinced me that the world of Telara is not worth saving.

Sorry I figured that out way back in February when they insisted on forcing the "Raid or Die" mentality  instead of creating a brand new form of endgame based on their dynamic content.  That and their total lack of world size, lack of meaningful exploration, and their hand holding extreme for questing was enough tell-tell signs to get out while the getting out was good.

Rift was/is a great game. I player from release till July and had a lot of fun. Rift also had one of the best starts - good ping, no queues, only a few bugs. :>

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Astraeis

I had hope that Trion would turn this game around and transform it into a real mmorpg, but patch 1.6.1 with its instant adventure is the final nail in the coffin of that hope. Rift had potential but was severely lacking in depth as an mmorpg. The story element was there but done poorly. The polish had been done at the expense of depth and variety. So, I had hoped the developers would have noticed that themselves (well, many tried to point that out to them, so that might have helped) and try to repair that, but in fact they chose the opposite direction. Less story telling and more action without any meaning.

As an exploring, adventuring type of gamer the developers have finally convinced me that the world of Telara is not worth saving.

Sorry I figured that out way back in February when they insisted on forcing the "Raid or Die" mentality  instead of creating a brand new form of endgame based on their dynamic content.  That and their total lack of world size, lack of meaningful exploration, and their hand holding extreme for questing was enough tell-tell signs to get out while the getting out was good.

It should have been, but I remained hopeful inspite of those signs for a long time.

Okay so we're all in agreement that Rift is or was DOA and should promptly be dropped into the Pit Of MMO Failures. That about sum this thread up?

Nothing is ever good enough. There are already threads about how SWTOR is a great and terrible failure. I would expect the same for GW2, TSW, Arche Age, Copernicus (God bless them if they can ever get it released.) The same threads were posted about many major MMOs in the past. EQ2 anyone? Did I miss any? 

Rift is a beautiful game with its share of flaws. Some players actually like it. Others are disappointed, The Game Is Doomed naysayers and that's fine. I say tomato, you say tomahto. But drama threads about how we projected our hopes onto Rift and how it "failed" us are overblown hype pieces.

Guess what? MMOs are made by people, they are going to be flawed or sometimes, commercial failures (which Rift isn't) and they aren't ever going to be good enough or everyone's cup o' tea. Constructive criticism is one thing. "Our great Hope failed us" is another. Who knows, maybe someday some group of gamers out there will build their own MMO and Everyone Will Be Happy.

Is anything enough anymore for people to just have fun and enjoy it? 

Originally posted by GreenKnight7

Is anything enough anymore for people to just have fun and enjoy it? 

nope guess not..close to 5+ gigs worth of content since launch, but hey Rift sucks I guess. I think we are all supposed to go play TOR now...then quit TOR for GW2? Is that how it works?

Who is the shepard in charge of leading all the sheeple? If I met him I want to kick him in the nuts.

Originally posted by GreenKnight7

Okay so we're all in agreement that Rift is or was DOA and should promptly be dropped into the Pit Of MMO Failures. That about sum this thread up?

Nothing is ever good enough. There are already threads about how SWTOR is a great and terrible failure. I would expect the same for GW2, TSW, Arche Age, Copernicus (God bless them if they can ever get it released.) The same threads were posted about many major MMOs in the past. EQ2 anyone? Did I miss any? 

Rift is a beautiful game with its share of flaws. Some players actually like it. Others are disappointed, The Game Is Doomed naysayers and that's fine. I say tomato, you say tomahto. But drama threads about how we projected our hopes onto Rift and how it "failed" us are overblown hype pieces.

Guess what? MMOs are made by people, they are going to be flawed or sometimes, commerical failures (which Rift isn't) and they aren't ever going to be good enough or everyone's cup o' tea. Constructive criticism is one thing. "Our great Hope failed us" is another. Who knows, maybe someday some group of gamers out there will build their own MMO and Everyone Will Be Happy.

Is anything enough anymore for people to just have fun and enjoy it? 

Take Archage out of that list and your good.

Themepark games are dead yes, some might not know that yet but it's my guess themepark is all they know.

The ressurection of real mmorpg's is on the horizon so just hang in there and try to weather the storm.

Games are what you make them to be for example everyone says Perfect World International is a bad game but when it was released I actually played for 3 months and had lots of fun during that time. I agree the game is a vicious grinder but at the time I thought PWI was a hot game to play and felt hot. I'm actually playing Rift now and FFXIV and both are badmouthed in here a lot but I see through the faults that others find gamebreaking. I don't care at all what other think of the games I play as long as I get lost in the game and feels like I'm part of them I enjoy playing.

That is the problem with this generation of mmorpg gamers, they want everything quick and try to be the best "elite" by making a game feel like work.  Games are ment to be fun not a chore so take your time and play not work.

Originally posted by RedKatana

Games are what you make them to be for example everyone says Perfect World International is a bad game but when it was released I actually played for 3 months and had lots of fun during that time. I agree the game is a vicious grinder but at the time I thought PWI was a hot game to play and felt hot. I'm actually playing Rift now and FFXIV and both are badmouthed in here a lot but I see through the faults that others find gamebreaking. I don't care at all what other think of the games I play as long as I get lost in the game and feels like I'm part of them I enjoy playing.

That is the problem with this generation of mmorpg gamers, they want everything quick and try to be the best "elite" by making a game feel like work.  Games are ment to be fun not a chore so take your time and play not work.

Some of us actually want our games to, not be like work, but actually challenging and requiring you to use your brain. Current themepark games are shallow garbage with no lasting appeal and that is why people are moving from game to game.

Originally posted by BlackUhuru

The ressurection of real mmorpg's is on the horizon so just hang in there and try to weather the storm.

Assume this comment is about GW2...my faith in that game is tested because it has a dev who did not consider jumping to be a good thing to add into a game. Just saying you could jump in Super Mario Brothers.

GW2 is the mother of lets wait and see.

Originally posted by Puremallace

Originally posted by BlackUhuru

The ressurection of real mmorpg's is on the horizon so just hang in there and try to weather the storm.

Assume this comment is about GW2...my faith in that game is tested because it has a dev who did not consider jumping to be a good thing to add into a game. Just saying you could jump in Super Mario Brothers.

 

GW2 is the mother of lets wait and see.

Jumping is in the game .-. Although having your faith tested in an entire game just because you can't jump is silly, as far as I know that was never an issue. They wanted Z axis from the getgo because of underwater.

As for Rift, I can't say I have a lot of pity for the people that tried to 'stick it out.' The developers have never once given any hint or shown any inclination towards originality, they were basing their success off of tried-and-true methods, so why players would turn around and whine because it's nothing new is, to be blunt, amusing. Why would you give someone your time and money when they are, evidently, the exact opposite of what you wanted in the first place? And worse yet, they never tried to hide it? It's not like Trion bait and switched you, you knew what you were walking into from the beginning.

What you have to understand is these mechanics are making it into the game because that's what the game was supposed to be about from the beginning. It's easy to get into, doesn't require a lot of effort, and extremely casual friendly. So, of course, it's only going to become ~more~ casual-friendly as time goes on. Look at WoW.

This is exactly why people need to pull their heads from their bum and think about where their money and time are going in the long run. Short of pulling another SWG, it's pretty obvious what most games will continue to be as time goes on. Let alone that, if you look at MMO trends, even hardcore games get increasingly casual-friendly as they age. Knowing that, if you can't see yourself playing that game for a long time to come, your time should be spent more productively elsewhere until the game you truly want to play arrives.