I have been gone from rift since november of last year.  I do not know anyone that plays this game anymore.  What server has a healthy population, and what are some of the top guilds?

I know alot has changed in the past year, and SL looks pretty cool. 

• Guards on PvE servers (only) are tougher vs. players.
• Public groups can now be merged.

• Raid rifts -- new rifts aimed at raid-sized groups.
• Locations can be linked in chat.
• Coin lock feature (When logging in from a new computer or such, you get emailed a code; until you enter it, you can't do anything that destroys your stuff or removes money from your characters.)
• Mobile authenticator added for Android and iOS.

• First world event (world event mechanics added).
• Video capture, complete with YouTube uploading.
• Unmerge option for public groups.
• Rift contribution is no longer measured against other players.

• Self-cast modifier key added.
• River of Souls event bonus pack for characters who existed prior to the event.
• River of Souls raid open.
• Change to AFK logic; if there's no queue, you can be idle for a very long
  time without getting kicked.

• LFG tool added (same-shard only; this changes later)
• Wardrobe slots (cosmetic equipment)
• Crafting rifts -- new rifts that reward crafting materials
• "Slivers" and quantum/omen sight added.
• New "sliver" raid added, enterable only with those abilities.
• New diminishing returns design for CC in PvP.
• Experts retuned for LFG, and to stop requiring second healers.
• PvP rank adjustments.

• LFG instance ranges increased.
• Item sellback and purchase confirmation added.

• Guild banks.
• Character transfers added! Character transfers are free, once per character per seven days.
• AH remembers recently-used prices.

• "Trial shards" introduced.
• "Exposed" removed.
• Bind-to-Account vouchers for planar currencies.
• Most event currency made Bind-to-Account.
• Hammerknell Raid now open.

• PvP rifts added.
• LFG goes cross-shard.
• New sliver raid (Drowned Halls)
• Alternate-mode warfront feature added.
• Water Saga epic quest chain added.
• Quest items stored in separate quest bag.
• BoP items tradeable to eligible characters for 30 minutes.
• Soul Quests removed (souls are now purchased)
• Synergy Crystals added (they give soul-specific set bonuses from armor sets)
• PvP ranks 7 and 8.
• "Take All" button for mailbox.
• New crafting cooldowns.
• Apothecaries can salvage planar essences.

• Can stay mounted in more of Meridian or Sanctum.
• Taskbar icon flashes when message boxes pop up.
• Vengeance stat added for PvP, Valor retuned.

• Chronicles (solo/duo instances) added.
• Veteran rewards added (subscription-length bonuses).
• Planar Attunement (post-50 advancement).
• Master-mode dungeons.
• New warfront, Library of the Runemasters.
• Introduction of addon API.
• Ancient wardstones removed.

• All zone event sourcestone is now purple, drop rates and costs retuned.

• Ember Isle -- a new zone for well-geared 50s.
• New dungeon, Caduceus Rise (actually more than one instance).
• Fae Yule world event.
• New sliver raid, Rise of the Phoenix.
• 90% mounts adjusted to level 30, not 40.
• Addons can manipulate inventory.
• Foraging and mining of some mob corpses.

• Instant Adventure -- LFG-like open-world adventure for 45+.
• Mail to your own characters on same account regardless of faction.
• Auction House is also cross-faction.
• Rift Mobile app (access to guild chat from smart phones/tablets) for iOS.

• Massive revamp of PvP ranks and gear.
• Massive itemization revamp at 45+.
• T1/T2 experts combined into a single tier.
• "Purpose" system provides soul templates to help newbies to a role.
• In-game weddings.
• Master-mode Caduceus Rise.
• River of Souls chronicle.
• 6th role slot.
• "Mercenary" system reassigns players to opposite side in warfronts to reduce queue times.
• Wardrobes have individual settings for equipment visibility.
• Crafting uses bank items.
• HUGE volume of UI updates -- seriously, read the patch notes for these.
• XP lock -- you can disable XP gain. (Removed in 1.9)

• Guild bankers added in crafting areas of capitals.
• Change to Target Nearest behavior.
• Item comparison tooltips show stat comparisons.
• Equipment visibility on the non-wardrobe wardrobe slot.
• Ember Isle restricted to level 48+.
• Ember Isle added to the "only one event" group of Ironpine
  Peak, Shimmersand, Stillmoor.

• Infernal Dawn (new 20-player raid).
• Fishing and Survival skills.
• Guild Finder.
• Leaderboards.
• Instant Adventure on Ember Isle.
• Seals (a new inventory slot, exclusively crafted).
• New max-level crafting quests.
• Anti-Planar Augmentation and Holy Champion replaced with a new Fury of the Ascended power.
• Many pet graphics updated.
• Debuffs have a new priority system to prevent weaker debuffs from overriding stronger debuffs.
• New recipes to refine 20 of a material at a time.
• Addon-style @ specifiers work even if you don't use addons.
• Non-party-leaders can recommend players for invitations.
• "Usable" at the Auction House now filters out already-known recipes.
• Many more UI tweaks and improvements, QoL changes, and so on.

• Nameplates added! New settings. Color is based on the colors that unit
  names were drawn in.
• Streaming client; you can now play before a patch is fully downloaded.
• Porticulum cost changes (in-zone ports are always cheap).

• Conquest: New three-way PvP for level 50s.
• Mentoring: Starting at level 15, you can artificially lower your level, whether solo or in a group.
• Instant Adventure expanded to Silverwood, Freemarch, Gloamwood, and Stonefield.
• Queueing for "random adventure" may mentor you to put you in a low-level group.
• Barbershop! Basically, recustomization of appearance other than race or sex.
• New raid sliver, Primeval Feast. Harder than RotP.
• PvP ranks increased to 50, along with new armor and such.
• World event.
• Optional icons showing what NPCs do.
• XP locking feature removed (replaced by mentoring).
• Cross-shard friend and chat functionality; you can send tells to Character@Shard, and you can join Channel@Shard private channels. Public channels are not cross-shard.
• Daily quests for fishing and survival, additional features and functionality.
• Improvements to the 300-skill crafting quests.
• Cut/copy work in the chat input field.
• World Event currencies that recur moved to the Currency tab.
• Many addon API improvements.

• Friends list is now cross-shard within entire region, not just wargroup.
• Friend and ignore lists not cleared when changing shards.
• Many encounter and Conquest tweaks.

• Faction boundaries reduced dramatically on PvE shards. PvP shards keep most of their boundaries, but LFG is cross-faction everywhere.
• Guilds can contain members of both factions, and can do either set of guild quests.
• Groups, whether player-formed or public, can contain members of both factions (who are not flagged).
• Dungeons, instant adventures, and such are all cross-faction.
• Characters can trade and mail across factions.
• Characters can marry cross-faction, and public channels are shared (except World Defense).
• Cross-shard tells, friends, etcetera are all also now cross-faction.
• You can buy things like expansions, CE upgrades, character or guild renames, inside the game.
• Instant adventure added to Scarwood Reach.
• World event for fall.
• Lots of lighting and fog improvements because of the Storm Legion rendering updates.
• Icon overhead markers available (not just numeric ones).
• Automatic "fill soul" button on soul trees.
• Rare spawns should be more reliable.
• Shuffling of locations and contents in Meridian and Sanctum to improve various things.
• Train All button on calling trainer.
• Bag UI scaleable.
• Combat logs, screenshots, etc. moved to My Documents folder.

Originally posted by Dranny
People leave MMOs. Sometimes they come back. Since people who come back always want to know what's changed, I've decided to maintain a post that covers the key changes. This is mostly personal opinion. I'm mostly ignoring soul and calling balance issues and tweaks, with a few rare exceptions; suffice it to say that balancing is ongoing, and you should always assume that you need to review your builds.

There are a number of new porticulums, especially in very early starting areas. If you haven't been to them in a while, it may be worth running around and picking these up.

I'm mostly ignoring bug fixes. So basically... This is at most maybe 5% of the changes made. But it's the changes that really stuck out as being big changes that would affect what you can do in the game.

How to use this post: If you remember the patch during which you last played, skip ahead to that heading. If you just remember about when you last played, use the handy cheat sheet to look up what patch it was.

February 2011: Beta to Head Start
March 30, 2011: Patch 1.1
May 10, 2011: Patch 1.2
June 22, 2011: Patch 1.3
August 3, 2011: Patch 1.4
September 28, 2011: Patch 1.5
November 16, 2011: Patch 1.6
February 1, 2012: Patch 1.7
April 18, 2012: Patch 1.8
June 27, 2012: Patch 1.9
September 12, 2012: Patch 1.10

Note that there are tons of hotfixes, and a few patches have had sub-patches (1.0.1, 1.2.1). I ignore these and just treat everything during a given patch as "hotfixes".

You may also find the official RIFT trailers and videos interesting.

Beta to Head Start

Patch notes for beta aren't really available to us now. Among the biggest changes that occurred during or near beta:

• Guards on PvE servers (only) are tougher vs. players.
• Public groups can now be merged.

1.0 Hotfixes

• Raid rifts -- new rifts aimed at raid-sized groups.
• Locations can be linked in chat.
• Coin lock feature (When logging in from a new computer or such, you get emailed a code; until you enter it, you can't do anything that destroys your stuff or removes money from your characters.)
• Mobile authenticator added for Android and iOS.

Patch 1.1

• First world event (world event mechanics added).
• Video capture, complete with YouTube uploading.
• Unmerge option for public groups.
• Rift contribution is no longer measured against other players.

1.1 Hotfixes

• Self-cast modifier key added.
• River of Souls event bonus pack for characters who existed prior to the event.
• River of Souls raid open.
• Change to AFK logic; if there's no queue, you can be idle for a very long
  time without getting kicked.

Patch 1.2

• LFG tool added (same-shard only; this changes later)
• Wardrobe slots (cosmetic equipment)
• Crafting rifts -- new rifts that reward crafting materials
• "Slivers" and quantum/omen sight added.
• New "sliver" raid added, enterable only with those abilities.
• New diminishing returns design for CC in PvP.
• Experts retuned for LFG, and to stop requiring second healers.
• PvP rank adjustments.

1.2 Hotfixes

• LFG instance ranges increased.
• Item sellback and purchase confirmation added.

Patch 1.3

• Guild banks.
• Character transfers added! Character transfers are free, once per character per seven days.
• AH remembers recently-used prices.

1.3 Hotfixes

• "Trial shards" introduced.
• "Exposed" removed.
• Bind-to-Account vouchers for planar currencies.
• Most event currency made Bind-to-Account.
• Hammerknell Raid now open.

Patch 1.4

• PvP rifts added.
• LFG goes cross-shard.
• New sliver raid (Drowned Halls)
• Alternate-mode warfront feature added.
• Water Saga epic quest chain added.
• Quest items stored in separate quest bag.
• BoP items tradeable to eligible characters for 30 minutes.
• Soul Quests removed (souls are now purchased)
• Synergy Crystals added (they give soul-specific set bonuses from armor sets)
• PvP ranks 7 and 8.
• "Take All" button for mailbox.
• New crafting cooldowns.
• Apothecaries can salvage planar essences.

1.4 Hotfixes

• Can stay mounted in more of Meridian or Sanctum.
• Taskbar icon flashes when message boxes pop up.
• Vengeance stat added for PvP, Valor retuned.

Patch 1.5

• Chronicles (solo/duo instances) added.
• Veteran rewards added (subscription-length bonuses).
• Planar Attunement (post-50 advancement).
• Master-mode dungeons.
• New warfront, Library of the Runemasters.
• Introduction of addon API.
• Ancient wardstones removed.

1.5 Hotfixes

• All zone event sourcestone is now purple, drop rates and costs retuned.

Patch 1.6

• Ember Isle -- a new zone for well-geared 50s.
• New dungeon, Caduceus Rise (actually more than one instance).
• Fae Yule world event.
• New sliver raid, Rise of the Phoenix.
• 90% mounts adjusted to level 30, not 40.
• Addons can manipulate inventory.
• Foraging and mining of some mob corpses.

1.6 Hotfixes

• Instant Adventure -- LFG-like open-world adventure for 45+.
• Mail to your own characters on same account regardless of faction.
• Auction House is also cross-faction.
• Rift Mobile app (access to guild chat from smart phones/tablets) for iOS.

Patch 1.7

• Massive revamp of PvP ranks and gear.
• Massive itemization revamp at 45+.
• T1/T2 experts combined into a single tier.
• "Purpose" system provides soul templates to help newbies to a role.
• In-game weddings.
• Master-mode Caduceus Rise.
• River of Souls chronicle.
• 6th role slot.
• "Mercenary" system reassigns players to opposite side in warfronts to reduce queue times.
• Wardrobes have individual settings for equipment visibility.
• Crafting uses bank items.
• HUGE volume of UI updates -- seriously, read the patch notes for these.
• XP lock -- you can disable XP gain. (Removed in 1.9)

1.7 Hotfixes

• Guild bankers added in crafting areas of capitals.
• Change to Target Nearest behavior.
• Item comparison tooltips show stat comparisons.
• Equipment visibility on the non-wardrobe wardrobe slot.
• Ember Isle restricted to level 48+.
• Ember Isle added to the "only one event" group of Ironpine
  Peak, Shimmersand, Stillmoor.

Patch 1.8

• Infernal Dawn (new 20-player raid).
• Fishing and Survival skills.
• Guild Finder.
• Leaderboards.
• Instant Adventure on Ember Isle.
• Seals (a new inventory slot, exclusively crafted).
• New max-level crafting quests.
• Anti-Planar Augmentation and Holy Champion replaced with a new Fury of the Ascended power.
• Many pet graphics updated.
• Debuffs have a new priority system to prevent weaker debuffs from overriding stronger debuffs.
• New recipes to refine 20 of a material at a time.
• Addon-style @ specifiers work even if you don't use addons.
• Non-party-leaders can recommend players for invitations.
• "Usable" at the Auction House now filters out already-known recipes.
• Many more UI tweaks and improvements, QoL changes, and so on.

1.8 Hotfixes

• Nameplates added! New settings. Color is based on the colors that unit
  names were drawn in.
• Streaming client; you can now play before a patch is fully downloaded.
• Porticulum cost changes (in-zone ports are always cheap).

Patch 1.9

• Conquest: New three-way PvP for level 50s.
• Mentoring: Starting at level 15, you can artificially lower your level, whether solo or in a group.
• Instant Adventure expanded to Silverwood, Freemarch, Gloamwood, and Stonefield.
• Queueing for "random adventure" may mentor you to put you in a low-level group.
• Barbershop! Basically, recustomization of appearance other than race or sex.
• New raid sliver, Primeval Feast. Harder than RotP.
• PvP ranks increased to 50, along with new armor and such.
• World event.
• Optional icons showing what NPCs do.
• XP locking feature removed (replaced by mentoring).
• Cross-shard friend and chat functionality; you can send tells to Character@Shard, and you can join Channel@Shard private channels. Public channels are not cross-shard.
• Daily quests for fishing and survival, additional features and functionality.
• Improvements to the 300-skill crafting quests.
• Cut/copy work in the chat input field.
• World Event currencies that recur moved to the Currency tab.
• Many addon API improvements.

1.9 Hotfixes

• Friends list is now cross-shard within entire region, not just wargroup.
• Friend and ignore lists not cleared when changing shards.
• Many encounter and Conquest tweaks.

Patch 1.10

• Faction boundaries reduced dramatically on PvE shards. PvP shards keep most of their boundaries, but LFG is cross-faction everywhere.
• Guilds can contain members of both factions, and can do either set of guild quests.
• Groups, whether player-formed or public, can contain members of both factions (who are not flagged).
• Dungeons, instant adventures, and such are all cross-faction.
• Characters can trade and mail across factions.
• Characters can marry cross-faction, and public channels are shared (except World Defense).
• Cross-shard tells, friends, etcetera are all also now cross-faction.
• You can buy things like expansions, CE upgrades, character or guild renames, inside the game.
• Instant adventure added to Scarwood Reach.
• World event for fall.
• Lots of lighting and fog improvements because of the Storm Legion rendering updates.
• Icon overhead markers available (not just numeric ones).
• Automatic "fill soul" button on soul trees.
• Rare spawns should be more reliable.
• Shuffling of locations and contents in Meridian and Sanctum to improve various things.
• Train All button on calling trainer.
• Bag UI scaleable.
• Combat logs, screenshots, etc. moved to My Documents folder.

I have just leveled a warrior from scratch and a cleric dungeons queues sometimes took a while even as Tank/Healer. Instant Adventures seem to be the way most people level now.

 

But on the whole the game is still very much alive plenty of people to run endgame with. It might not have a huge sub base but it has enough imo to still make the game fun. I would suggest doing some research for which shard you might want to call home if you wish to try it out again.

 

You can play the game for free upto level 20 for anyone new and old players.

Wait, so what changed again  :)d

instant adventures** did they come out with this feature b4 gw2? just saying you can do this if your used to something like gw2 or if your like me and get bored of gw2 and all of the zerg zerg zerg instant adventures you can switch up and do some quest lvling at the town quest hubs...the game isnt great but its not bad either...cuz there really isnt anything else out there..atleast untill EQ goes f2p..but who knows what that model is gonna look like lol

Originally posted by odinsrath

instant adventures** did they come out with this feature b4 gw2? just saying you can do this if your used to something like gw2 or if your like me and get bored of gw2 and all of the zerg zerg zerg instant adventures you can switch up and do some quest lvling at the town quest hubs...the game isnt great but its not bad either...cuz there really isnt anything else out there..atleast untill EQ goes f2p..but who knows what that model is gonna look like lol

 

EQ is f2p and has been for quite some time.

oh thought it wasnt untill march of this year..thx ima go sub!

BLAH! eh nevermind SOE has the worst F2P iv even seen...and even paying 5.00$ a month for what they offer is a joke..i rly lol irl when i saw the silver model

Originally posted by odinsrath

instant adventures** did they come out with this feature b4 gw2? just saying you can do this if your used to something like gw2 or if your like me and get bored of gw2 and all of the zerg zerg zerg instant adventures you can switch up and do some quest lvling at the town quest hubs...the game isnt great but its not bad either...cuz there really isnt anything else out there..atleast untill EQ goes f2p..but who knows what that model is gonna look like lol

 

IA's came out long before GW2

Originally posted by grimal
Also be curious as well.  Are the lower areas populated enough to find groups?  Or is most of the population at max level?

After hearing about Storm Legion I decided to make a Mage character in the hopes of turning him into the new melee mage soul because the first 20 levels is free.  Luckily it didn't cost me anything because I still couldn't stomach the animations or the game world/lore or anything about the game really.  In a perfect world this game would be good but theres just to many little things that detract me from playing.