Both RIFT and TRION  are great, but the game IMO is dead.

I quit it some time ago due to empty servers. I m always keeping an eye on it just to see how its going, because i had great times playing it. Despite this, at least in EU, servers remains empty. There are only 3 mediums and 1 high (all pve and only 1 english) and only at peak hours.

Today i logged in again using the 5 day free option and you know what? game is even better but servers are once again empty. Even with the free pass servers are the same. 3 medium and 1 high. i m playing at the high one (Icewatch) and even this feels empty, at least as a guardian

I dont know how things are in US but in EU are as i said above.

I think its time TRION reconsiders their pay model.Ii think its time to make it either B2P or F2P. At least thats my opinion and i m fully respecting both RIFT and TRION.

thx for reading and sry for my english :)

Originally posted by Gravarg
I hope it never leaves subscription.  I can't stand the F2P or B2P crowd, they have no obligation to play. They just migrate from game to game, never really learning what they're doing in any single game.  I only play subscription games.  If they changed it to F2P or anything other than subscription...I'll probably leave, just like I did to Lotro (although I have lifetime sub there hehe).  I have no problem finding groups to do things with, so maybe that's just EU servers, but my server is just fine population-wise.

And how exactly changing subscription target is harder than that? Just buy game, pay for month or two, then switch to new target, repeat as many times as you want to.

On topic: I would go back to Rift regardless it's business model as soon as they made it not PC exclusive.

I plan on returning to Rift when they make it f2p or b2p. It is a solid game but nothing makes me feel like it is worth 15 a month.  I would prefer b2p like TSW but f2p would work for me also.   I expect it will happen soon enough.

I remember playing LOTRO well before it went f2p and getting slammed by people in game telling me there is no way this game would go f2p play, well.....     

Just waiting on Rift now.

Originally posted by flizzer

I plan on returning to Rift when they make it f2p or b2p. It is a solid game but nothing makes me feel like it is worth 15 a month.  I would prefer b2p like TSW but f2p would work for me also.   I expect it will happen soon enough.

I remember playing LOTRO well before it went f2p and getting slammed by people in game telling me there is no way this game would go f2p play, well.....     

 

Just waiting on Rift now.

 

LOTR is kind of a strange case though; if you look back in time the big problem with LOTRO's money was that a LOT of folks bought 199 lifetime subs when it launched and proceeded to play for 5+ years for free.  they had med and high pop servers where half the people were all playing for free anyway.

Originally posted by Manolios

Both RIFT and TRION  are great, but the game IMO is dead.

I quit it some time ago due to empty servers. I m always keeping an eye on it just to see how its going, because i had great times playing it. Despite this, at least in EU, servers remains empty. There are only 3 mediums and 1 high (all pve and only 1 english) and only at peak hours.

Today i logged in again using the 5 day free option and you know what? game is even better but servers are once again empty. Even with the free pass servers are the same. 3 medium and 1 high. i m playing at the high one (Icewatch) and even this feels empty, at least as a guardian

I dont know how things are in US but in EU are as i said above.

I think its time TRION reconsiders their pay model.Ii think its time to make it either B2P or F2P. At least thats my opinion and i m fully respecting both RIFT and TRION.

thx for reading and sry for my english :)

I didn't vote, don't want to even know the results. I just find it strange how one can have the balls to base such a huge financial and internal change to a company and its marque title from a singular, limited view of what appears to them to be a dead game. If all companies based their financial decisions off the whims of a few limited observations from bored, disgruntled players, the whole genre would be abandoned and dead. And we all would have zero choices in the mmorpg genre because they would all be shutdown.

Originally posted by itchmon

Originally posted by flizzer

I plan on returning to Rift when they make it f2p or b2p. It is a solid game but nothing makes me feel like it is worth 15 a month.  I would prefer b2p like TSW but f2p would work for me also.   I expect it will happen soon enough.

I remember playing LOTRO well before it went f2p and getting slammed by people in game telling me there is no way this game would go f2p play, well.....     

 

Just waiting on Rift now.

 

LOTR is kind of a strange case though; if you look back in time the big problem with LOTRO's money was that a LOT of folks bought 199 lifetime subs when it launched and proceeded to play for 5+ years for free.  they had med and high pop servers where half the people were all playing for free anyway.

Yup, I agree LOTRO is different with the lifetime subs.  So glad I got mine actually.  I dont play as much anymore but nice to know I can hop back on if I chose to.  The LOTRO combat is what feels so old to me at this point.  After dodging and moving in GW2, I have a hard time standing in place and hitting buttons.

But I digress....

Well, going on the assumption in this thread ( I know always dangerous to believe a thread on MMORPG is any way connected to reality, but just suppose...)  If the servers are this low in pop and people are turned off by this, I imagine they will need to do something soon.  I know they have free weekends. I still get notices from them for this.   I tired Rift for a month trhough a Steam Holiday offer and , like I said, found the game solid but not enough to justifiy a sub.  With a bunch of new games coming out( new shinies!....hehe,  I like Skrit)   I expect Rift will see a further population plunge.  

Honestly, I don't mind if it stays sub or goes B2P. I don't like F2P games and try not to support them unless they're very good. However, I do support B2P. I like feeling like I've invested something.

Anyhow, I don't care either way, simply because if it's a good game and I enjoy it, chances are I'll be paying something whether it's a sub or through the cash shop (or both if they have it).

If I were Trion, I would think outside of the box.

1-50 leveling = free

level 50 expert dungeons, raids, tier 1 PA $5 per month

leveling 50-60, tier 2 PA, but no experts/raids $10 per month

full game $15 per month

It's strange to me that the EU servers are so low because there are more US servers and they have a lot of people playing. 

In the US it's far from dead...

I just don't see how a game like this could go fully free to play. The cosmetic items, and mounts are already pretty bland and half the time what you wear doesn't really stand out.

I think if they made vanilla free to play, and storm legion 39.99 they would fill the servers up tomorrow.

I don't know about other servers, but Faeblight (US PvE-RP shard) is always full of people.  I can't walk into meridian even on my desktop without my fps getting cut by at least half, and my desktop is a beast :)  If you aren't an RPer, Wolfsbane is probably where you want to be, it's always medium then goes high during peak.  I don't know, but I think alot of people that played on Landroval server in Lotro left and came to Rift.  I've met so many friends from lotro that remember my name, they're like "hey, you're from lotro right?" lol.

Edit: Trion needs to steal the ABC music system from lotro so I can take up residence in the meridian pub tent and play music for people XD  That's probably the only thing I like about lotro over rift when it comes to RP.

Originally posted by Gravarg
I hope it never leaves subscription.  I can't stand the F2P or B2P crowd, they have no obligation to play. They just migrate from game to game, never really learning what they're doing in any single game.  I only play subscription games.

I hope it never stays subscription. I can't stand the sub crowd, they made the game a job and feel obligated to play.They dont play for fun like the B2P or F2P crowd and they act like only they know how to play in every single game. I only play non subscription games.

See what I did there?

If it goes anything, I'd hope freemium. Typically has the best chance to avoid making cash shop P2P. Really haven't been playing it much though got a bit burnt out on it. Unfortunately they haven't added raids or anything that made it pop like Hammerknell had.

Either way, its one of the games I feel is worthy of a sub fee. Not perfect but has plenty going for it. Where WoW destroyed their talent system, Rift improved theirs with so much diversity and choice without all that much balance issues with it (PvE wise) that  the other game seems to have despite dumbing down talents in order to make THEIR lives easier (it wasn't done for the players, we know that full well despite how they had tried to pitch it). 

Still its flawed, theres way to much boring grind in the expansion, the Hunt Rifts requiring groups to do effectively is a bit tiring and a pain, despite the fact they are enjoyable.

None the less, given they don't do heavy cash shop and keep customization as open as possible and prevent 'pay 2 win' I'd not mind, thus why a freemium model wouldn't be bad, able to garnish subs while hopefully cutting back on to much cash shop goods.