MMORPG.com's Drew Wood recently had the opportunity to sit down with Rift Producer Adam Gershowitz to talk about the upcoming v1.1 patch and the River of Souls live event set to begin this week. Check out the conversation and then weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

The patch is known as the River of Souls update and isn't just a new zone that's being opened up, but a whole event structure that will be going along with it. Adam was very clear that this will be the first of many massive world events. This is the first time the team will be telling a story that takes place across the whole of the server, all at one time, so that when the patch launches it'll affect the entire world of Telara.

Read more of Drew Wood's Rift: Adam Gershowitz Interview.

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

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Originally posted by SgtFabulous
The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

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It's obvious to anyone that they timed this as an incentive to keep people playing past the first free month, there's always a big drop out after the first free month in any MMO launch, if Trion can do something to stem that a little, well more power to them. I'm looking forward to seeing what the event has to offer in terms of gameplay and loot, as is most of my guild, should be a blast :)

Kicks off tomorrow btw.

Patch 1.1 goes live on March 30, 2011.

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 

Hehe, you cynic! You're sadly probably right though. It was interesting how they said that players would have to take part to get all the goodies. I think they might be hard worked having to do this every month to keep players happy though.

What is most interesting to me, and very indicative of the state of modern MMOs, is that the first new zone for Rift is a raid zone. It's been one month and they're already adding new raid content to the game, over lower level content. It speaks volumes of how MMOs have progressed so that they're all about the endgame now.

I notice they also said there are different paths to progress through the raid content too, unlike the lower levels dungeons which were just linear paths. So you trudge through level after level of linear content only to finally get a taster of something interesting by being top level and raiding. So much for the journey.

There is something very wrong with MMOs.

Those evil bastards!! I can't believe they are trying to get us to keep playing their game!! Jerks will probablly come out with an expansion right before Chirstmas to try and get people to ask it for a persent!! Will the greed ever end!!

They're already showing a focus on raid content, expected, but very disappointing.  I don't understand this concept when you consider that the majority of the playerbase of any game doesn't care for or participate in raiding.  Considering the horrible replay value of the game with it's railroad straight progression, you'd think they would add a lot more low to mid level zones so you can avoid repeating the exact same content for each of your toons.

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 

And?
What would you do? Would you time it for a week after the next sub date? Are you pointing this out as a negative, or just because you think you've been extra quick at noticing the obvious?

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 

The only reason any MMO introduces new content is to try to keep people subscribed. It's an MMO, content is the product. Guess what they will probably do next month...

Originally posted by EvilGeek

 

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Originally posted by SgtFabulous
The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

---

It's obvious to anyone that they timed this as an incentive to keep people playing past the first free month, there's always a big drop out after the first free month in any MMO launch, if Trion can do something to stem that a little, well more power to them. I'm looking forward to seeing what the event has to offer in terms of gameplay and loot, as is most of my guild, should be a blast :)

Kicks off tomorrow btw.

In addtion "why not"?

Any company who decides to try to keep their customers by providing something new on a continuous basis, especially in the mmo world, is doing something right.

So I say "good for them".

@Sgt.Fabulous: if they would like to do this every month going forward I wouldn't say no.

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 

 And what is wrong with that? Tell me? That's what we are paying for after all. If the other MMO's did that there would be a hell of a lot more decent choices in the MMO world right now rather than lazy developers and boring lackluster games out there. RIFT has arrived and has set the bar for the next new games to achieve much higher than it was previously. I doubt that few will be as successful as RIFT is headed.

Personally I think that in the next year or three we'll get many new high quality mmos.. the market is expanding... if companies keep on churning out games ready for release... not games that are "almost" there the market will follow suit.  I truly doubt that WoW fits everyone's tastes but it has the largest community and most diverse activities... with ToR, GW2, ... possibly EQnext(we have almost no info on this one), and Tera.. more gamers will have more choices.. choices that might fit with their tastes better than they're previous game.  Here's to hoping.

At the risk of being modded, you guys are replying to someone with a SINGLE post.  People are out there purposely trying to rile people up and get them flagged/banned for silliness.  Just a reminder from someone who has recently been on the repeated recieving end.  Best just to ignore them.

Of course the new content is being released to make players stay an extra month. How many MMO's do you know release extra content after a month and not just a patch? if they had not released content you would would have been asking where is the new content, they do and you say it is just to keep us in the game. :)

@sloeber

I may be wrong but this could be a case of the need for a sarcasm font.

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 Are we really starting to complain about getting new content now? I don't see the problem, it doesn't matter if they release the patch one month after release to keep player to subscribe, it's a great way both for the company and the players to see that trion releases fresh content not too late after launch. I like it!

Now if they can just fix the support for nVidia 3D Vision Glasses I will be all set to subscribe.

isn't this the guy who was one of the art guys for Warhammer & then magically became a dev for no reaon?

Originally posted by holifeet

Originally posted by SgtFabulous

The only reason they have this update timed specifically for the start of April is to get another month of  subscription from people.

 

Hehe, you cynic! You're sadly probably right though. It was interesting how they said that players would have to take part to get all the goodies. I think they might be hard worked having to do this every month to keep players happy though.

 

What is most interesting to me, and very indicative of the state of modern MMOs, is that the first new zone for Rift is a raid zone. It's been one month and they're already adding new raid content to the game, over lower level content. It speaks volumes of how MMOs have progressed so that they're all about the endgame now.

 

I notice they also said there are different paths to progress through the raid content too, unlike the lower levels dungeons which were just linear paths. So you trudge through level after level of linear content only to finally get a taster of something interesting by being top level and raiding. So much for the journey.

 

There is something very wrong with MMOs.

 

LOL, Your last line is too true!  Why do MMOs even bother with any levels prior to the FOTM max level.  Just start everyone at max level and be done with it.   Two weeks into Rift one could see the pre 20 areas devoid of life other than the occasional re-roller.  4 weeks in and the same can be said for much more.  All that content passed by in a blink of an eye.   And yes I did the quests, and yes I did explore.

But seriously, I start to question game companies that create massive amounts of content, with massive amounts of time devoted to developing it only to have it virtually unused after a months time. Now they are pressed into a "panic" to create new content for the masses.  Its a vicious cycle.  

So I look for a game that has old content.  I mean really old content that has as much purpose today as it did at game launch.  EvE Online.  If your familiar with it, you would know that a place called Jita (a solar system much like sanctum or meridian in Rift), is as important today as then.  Why can't avatar based, fantasy MMOs develop along those lines? 

It may coincide with the 1 month anniversary of launch, but at last we don't have to wait like in other games.  It took EQ years to fix a major crash bug, let alone get content patches out.  Trion has done numerous fixes and is already releasing a content patch.  I'd rather have Monthly Content patches (*cough* DCUO lied about it *cough*) than not any at all..

Edit: Maybe I won't have to go through the same raid a hundred times before they release a new content patch (like every other MMO).