Beginning the slow death - F2P

[Fozzik]

Can't say I didn't see this one coming -

http://www.riftgame.com/en/lite/

Now the only question is how long they will keep things running... I doubt this move is going to bring in all that many new subscribers. It might bolster the number of players on the servers (in low-level areas) for a while, but I just don't think the game itself is good enough to keep players playing. Also, whatever tight-knit community there was surrounding a game like this (as the numbers drop, it kind of gets distilled into only the most die-hard fans...so it tends to improve the community as the voices of unrest and dissent wander off) will likely take a big hit as the free to play crowd shows up. I'm guessing it's going to get rather ugly.

I think that the people pulled away by SW:TOR was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. The sad thing is that people will be leaving SW:TOR probably just as quickly and quietly as they did Rift (for many of the same reasons), but I doubt they'll go back to Rift.

How much more evidence do developers need? Even a highly-polished, well executed game fails to retain its players even though they followed the conventional wisdom very faithfully...and even one of the most popular franchises and highest budgets ever can't overcome the failed conventional wisdom. This genre needs a reboot...and I think it might get it this year.

[Loampounder]

Wow, that was fast. It may not be as dire as you say, Fozzik, because the boredom in Rifts does not happen until higher levels. At lvl 20, you have gotten out of the low-level blandish quests and have started some interesting areas and may be enticed to sign up for more. They may actually keep some new players, albiet for a short time becuase those players will be the type to drop the game as soon as adventuring slows down.

One problem for Rifts is that there is little replayability at low levels. A f2p play could go through two story lines before getting bored. It may be interesting to log in every few months for free to experience that Rift environment, but I would not be spending any money on it.

How much more evidence do developers need? Even a highly-polished, well executed game fails to retain its players even though they followed the conventional wisdom very faithfully...and even one of the most popular franchises and highest budgets ever can't overcome the failed conventional wisdom. This genre needs a reboot...and I think it might get it this year.

Sadly, I don't think anyone on the development side will think that deeply about what is wrong with the industry.

[AsheMan]

They didn't even hit their one year anniversary. It doesn't look quite as bad as the usual F2P models because it seems like it's essentially a free trial to level 20 and no microtransactions, but I suppose going full F2P has to start somewhere.

[mmorpeegee]

They didn't even hit their one year anniversary.

doh...

[Fozzik]

I think their strategy (at least how they think about it in the meetings at Trion) is that they think they will catch people as they leave SW:TOR and don't want to go back to WoW. I don't doubt that a lot of folks will try the game, or play it again after leaving sometime last year...but I seriously doubt it's going to help their sub numbers in anything approaching the long-term.

With the games coming out in the next six months, and with Rift being so shallow and bland...I just don't think it stands much chance of doing anything but continuing to shrink. I think they are opening the door on F2P, and will be cranking it up as the sub numbers continue to fall. Time will tell.

It's odd...I see the same comments over and over on various message boards about Rift. They go something like this -

Quote

Rift really is a good game. It:
A) had a good, smooth launch
B) is very polished
C) gets updates / additions really often

BUT,

I don't plan on subbing personally, because:
A) it's meh...no real soul to the world or anything to keep me playing
B) it's got nothing but grind at endgame
C) it got old really fast
D) it's not worth the time / money / whatever

Unquote

Now I find this to be a very strange sentiment. In my mind, the definition of a good game is one you want to play...one that is worth your time and money and effort. A good game is one that draws you in and makes you excited - one that you are attached to and think about when you aren't playing.

Based on that, I would say that pretty much everyone is in agreement that Rift is a BAD GAME. The fact that it had a good launch, or is highly polished, don't seem to really matter in terms of where the rubber meets the road (players wanting to play). Sure, some people are playing because there's nothing better and they just want a fantasy-themed place to hang out with friends...but by all objective measures (sub numbers, player response, etc), the game did (and continues to do) very poorly. I can't think of any other reason for that to be the case other than it's a bad game.

Good games don't lose their players this fast. Good games don't have everyone giving excuses as to why they don't play.

It just frustrates me sometimes that people can't call a spade a spade. I wish Rift was a better game...but let's not kid ourselves. They are doing this because they have too small a subscriber base, and that subscriber base is continuing to shrink. Why? Because it's not a good game.

It wasn't an accident, either. It's not a bad game because they tried to do too much and couldn't finish, or because they were clueless and inexperienced and didn't know better. Rift is exactly the game they intended to make...it was executed very well. So there's literally no excuse at all...they followed the conventional wisdom very carefully, distilled it the best way they could. They even defended it vehemently in their community and championed it in their marketing. They turned a deaf ear to their community, and concerned folks who told them that this exact thing was going to happen.

It's important to the genre that players, developers, and Trion themselves recognize that it's failing because it's bad, and not what players want. Stop making WoW clones. Stop tossing 60 million + dollars down the tubes every few months. Stop making ever-more-shallow, ever-more-casual, ever-more-grindy, loot pinatas based solely on the Skinner box psychology. Put back the social play, the virtual world, the depth and consequence and meaning. The genre can't handle people continuing to pretend that a game like Rift is A-Okay and that it's a complete and unrelated coincidence that pretty much nobody plays.

Games like GW2 can't come soon enough. It's going to bust a cap in the ass of the conventional wisdom, and thank goodness for that. It won't be a perfect game, by any means...but at least it's going to finally show that it's reasonably possible to think for yourself as a developer, and that a game CAN be made without using WoW as a template. If it succeeds the way I think it will...things will start to change. And that's a GOOD THING (tm).

/rant off (for now)

[AsheMan]

I won't go so far as to say RIFT is a bad game. It's only bad if you factor in long-term subscribers as a necessary statistic for being good.

Rift really is a good game. It:
A) had a good, smooth launch
B) is very polished
C) gets updates / additions really often

BUT,

I don't plan on subbing personally, because:
A) it's meh...no real soul to the world or anything to keep me playing
B) it's got nothing but grind at endgame
C) it got old really fast
D) it's not worth the time / money / whatever

That's pretty much my feelings towards RIFT. I bought it, played it to level cap and felt like I had accomplished most of what the game offered. Then I quit.

[Fozzik]

I won't go so far as to say RIFT is a bad game. It's only bad if you factor in long-term subscribers as a necessary statistic for being good.



For a subscription-based MMORPG? I would think you'd have to factor that in.

What exactly are these games supposed to be, anyway?

I can't imagine how Trion thought they would maintain a long-term subscriber base considering their game design, but it certainly SHOULD be something to which developers in this genre pay attention.

It had to just be the assumption that if you made it just like WoW, you'd have 10 million subscribers for seven years, end of story. They probably didn't think a whole lot deeper than that, and I'm sure the pitch to the money men was almost that exactly.

[AsheMan]

Good points. I really don't know what they were thinking. I can't imagine them ever dreaming of coming anywhere near WoW's numbers. WoW is an anomoly. It couldn't have been predicted and next to impossible to replicate with the same success, kind of like facebook.

I'd like to think they were shooting for a few hundred thousand players.

[perfect]

This isn't really F2P, but a trial limited to certain levels. Most games do this at some point, some sooner than others, but it's pretty much standard across the genre.

Will be interesting to see if you can keep going to the WFs at 20. I'd expect a bunch of trial players to sit at 20, keeping the WFs full of PvP. Happened in WAR with their trial (the T1 Scenarios were always popping; the T2-4 rarely popped).

[Fozzik]

This isn't really F2P, but a trial limited to certain levels.

It's a really blurry, grey line. I think they are sticking their feet in the water, to see how it goes. I think they'll move more in that direction if their numbers don't get a bit yeasty.

Based on their reported earnings for their first 10 months, and based on the estimates of the number of box / digital sales they've had...I estimate they have a bit under 200k subscribers now, and that number is dropping. I seriously doubt that was what they were shooting for when they pitched the game...they were going for mass-market appeal and targeting their game and marketing directly at WoW.

I don't see Scott Hartsman in a meeting with the suits saying, "We plan on selling around a million copies of the game, and then losing 9/10ths of those subscribers in the first year. We want an average subscription length of 3 months or less." If that was his pitch, I don't know how he got any money.

Trion just went out and got 85 million more in funding... so they could expand into asia and continue work on their other games. They are also eye-balling an IPO. What do those things mean to me? They didn't make the money from Rift that they were planning for...and they are trying to stay afloat through other means. If they do an IPO, I certainly won't be buying any stock.

[mmorpeegee]

That's pretty much my feelings towards RIFT. I bought it, played it to level cap and felt like I had accomplished most of what the game offered. Then I quit.

Ditto exactly. For me it wasn't even close too. I enjoyed myself, but it was literally like 50% short of what I want out of an mmo. In other words for me to have cared about continuing, it needed double the content it had, ie double the number of instances, double the number of warfronts etc..

It also made me realise just how sterile 'instances' are. It's not something I realised until I played WoW and then I realised what a downer they can be. Unlike EQ where people would shout camp check and then you would set up camp in a different room, and with different people and different trains and stuff, it felt like a different experience each time. But with instances, once you've done it once, every single other time you do it is the exact same experience all over again. And because they made such a lame grind out of it by providing tokens which you needed a billion of to get raid gear or whatever, it made just think that you could probably just macro the entire instance...

Sigh.

[perfect]

...Unlike EQ where people would shout camp check and then you would set up camp in a different room, and with different people and different trains and stuff, it felt like a different experience each time....

I understand your sentiment here but I don't think I'm a fan on being gated from progression (loot and higher XP) because another player or group is hogging the spawn/camp is what I want from a MMO. I also don't think that I should be griefed (trained) by people cause they can (and will, cause, well, you know people).

If only there was a game coming out this Summer that would give us the feeling of 'adventure', of different experiences each time we play.

[Fozzik]

If only there was a game coming out this Summer that would give us the feeling of 'adventure', of different experiences each time we play.

/em giggles like a schoolgirl

[mmorpeegee]

I understand your sentiment here but I don't think I'm a fan on being gated from progression (loot and higher XP) because another player or group is hogging the spawn/camp is what I want from a MMO. I also don't think that I should be griefed (trained) by people cause they can (and will, cause, well, you know people).

If only there was a game coming out this Summer that would give us the feeling of 'adventure', of different experiences each time we play.

Yea I hated all that crap too. Although I think there is a good solution in the middle. EQ was a pain in the ass because of what you said, people hogging the frenzy camp and noobs leaving 1000 mobs at the zone line for when you zone in. But the new instanced way is too far in the other direction and makes everything too predictable and ordered. I think the best solution is what Vanguard did! Make it un-instanced just like EQ was, but instead of bottlenecking you with just 2 good dungeons for whatever level range you are, have loads of dungeons instead.

It sounds like a solution which is easy to say but hard to deliver, but I reckon Vanguard managed to deliver exactly that! Just a shame about the rest :p

/em giggles like a schoolgirl

Lol, how does GW2 deal with this issue?

[perfect]

...It sounds like a solution which is easy to say but hard to deliver, but I reckon Vanguard managed to deliver exactly that! Just a shame about the rest....

I wonder how much different your sentiment would have been if Vanguard had been successful. What I mean is that if EQ had VG's numbers, no one would have ever complained about a camp cause there would always be room.

[AsheMan]

/em giggles like a schoolgirl

I think you're getting way too hyped. Your high expectations are only going to cause disappointment.

[Fozzik]

I think you're getting way too hyped. Your high expectations are only going to cause disappointment.



I think I'm probably the best judge of my hype level, and I also think I'm a pretty darn good judge of these games. My skepticism and critical eye are still firmly in place. You've nothing to worry about.

I'm not just blindly spazzing out about some marketing I saw. I've researched the game very extensively, and carefully considered a TON of factors to reach my opinion on the game. I've actually got a pretty darn good track record on predicting what games will be like when they launch (other than Vanguard, which I learned a great lesson from).

My expectations are that GW2 will be a good game, and one I enjoy playing. To me, I don't think that's setting the bar impossibly high...actually it's quite reasonable to expect that from any game you pay for.

Am I hyped? Yes. Is it warranted? Wait and see.

[Fozzik]

Lol, how does GW2 deal with this issue?

For the most part, that's where the central content in the game (dynamic events) come into play. The game world will be in constant flux, and there will be almost no direction... you just head out and find adventure. That's probably the simplest way I could describe it.

Dynamic events will constantly be moving and changing, whether through player interaction, interaction with other events, or just playing out on their own. Some events will be one-offs and reset when they are completed, but many events will chain and branch together across a whole zone...altering things for days or even weeks before ending up back where they started.

You'll be able to "camp" an event chain...but it will involve movement across a landscape and a whole series of objectives. In other words, you'll be able to stay roughly in the same area and "camp" for as long as you want, but you won't be doing the same thing the whole time. Because each single event in the chain is relatively short, and you can join in and leave whenever you want and still be rewarded for participation...there's really none of the barriers you get in typical task-grind questing (like being forced to wait for a turn-in to be available, or having to deal with trying to get everyone in sync and on the same step in the quest).

Camp stealing or mob stealing won't be an issue...because more players showing up or joining in will not negatively affect you in any way. The event will scale up in difficulty to maintain the challenge when new players show up, and loot and experience are handled individually. Additional players showing up to help with the chain you are working on will just mean more opportunities to work together with cross-profession combos and supporting abilities, and more chances to make some new friends.

Events will scale in challenge up to a max number of players...I think typical events scale up to 10 players and then some events will scale all the way up to 100. If you run into an event that's already got 10+ players and things are getting trivial...you can just head off in any direction and find a different event to take on. No rails, other than a very loose level progression...and even that will matter little because of level scaling and side-kicking. Oh, and because you're level gets scaled down to the content...nothing ever becomes trivial. You don't have to worry about missing out on any particular event or chain, and having it forever locked away in a lower level range. You can come back to ones you missed or ones you liked any time you want.

[perfect]

I think you're getting way too hyped. Your high expectations are only going to cause disappointment.


Also, he's in the Beta. Not that he said that, mind you.

[Loampounder]

I will admit that I logged on to Rift to see how their trial system is. The system is easy; I got into my old account with no problem and simply could not select the characters above lvl 20.

And I had some fun. I forgot how smooth the gameplay was and how glossy the environment was. I went into the skill tree and was once again enticed by all the choices. I will probably play some more and see how much of the low levels I have forgotten.

I know all ready that I won't stay long in Rift (glossy world with no depth) but, coming from my VG gameplay recently, I enjoyed how pretty and smooth it is. Is it a "success" if I long in to experience the world but won't subscribe to go beyond lvl 20?

[AsheMan]

Also, he's in the Beta. Not that he said that, mind you.

Hehe, I was trying to get him to acknowledge he was privy to some type of insider information, but he's too good.

[Fozzik]

Hehe, I was trying to get him to acknowledge he was privy to some type of insider information, but he's too good.

It's really just that I love ... *cough*

I love pretending I'm important and have magical future-telling abilities. Also I like playing coy and being shifty about betas in which I'm not taking part. :)

I think anyone looking at all the same info would come to the same conclusion...GW2 is probably going to be pretty good, and a breath of fresh air. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it.

I was in Rift testing for three or four months before launch, but I knew it wasn't going to be a game for me long before that. Sometimes, you just get a gut feeling about things. I've learned to trust my gut.

[ForestWhitakerEye]

Good points. I really don't know what they were thinking. I can't imagine them ever dreaming of coming anywhere near WoW's numbers. WoW is an anomoly. It couldn't have been predicted and next to impossible to replicate with the same success, kind of like facebook.

I'd like to think they were shooting for a few hundred thousand players.

My theory is that previous AAA games like WAR and AoC had fallen on their faces due to lack of polish. I really think Trion thought that if they polished their game to a high shine and didn't bomb their launch, people would flock to it.

I think they also thought that if they were keeping their development team full time, they could keep people by providing the kind of content the players wanted. They have done that, and 6 content updates in 9 months isn't too shabby.

I think their problems are threefold. First, it came out in 2011, not 2008, so people have had a lot more chances to get tired of the traditional MMO, not just from AAA games, but also F2P like Champions Online and such.

Second, I think a lot of their content was just phoned in. Every quest hub seems like it's Kill X mobs of type A, Loot Y items off mob type B, Collect Z number of ground spawns, all while avoiding mob type C who is just there to annoy you. Then go back and do 3 more quests in the same area, then get a fedex quest to send you to another hub to repeat.

Third, I think they definitely needed at least two leveling paths per faction. If the quests had been more interesting and there had been two paths, I think people might have stayed longer to see them make good on their promises of frequent updates.

[mmorpeegee]

I wonder how much different your sentiment would have been if Vanguard had been successful. What I mean is that if EQ had VG's numbers, no one would have ever complained about a camp cause there would always be room.

Yeah I always wondered that too. I guess a full Vanguard would be just as bad as a full EQ :p But it depends on server sizes I guess and how full they are allowed to get. Still, I reckon I would still take it over the instanced way. The current instanced way at least... I think I would like instances more if they were a bit more random. Although got a feeling that what Fozz is about to explain makes even that obsolete :)

(dynamic events)

Jeez this game is off the hook. It's a lot more sandboxy than I was expecting actually. Reminds me of when I first read about Darkfall and they talked about roaming bands of mobs like wolves or something, that might kill an Orc camp and then the camp becomes a camp of wolves instead and the Orcs need to find a new home or whatever... Basically, dynamic. But GW2 sounds like it does it in a more complex way.

As with everything I've heard about this game, it blows my mind that they are trying such a fresh and advanced approach to pretty much everything. But it also makes me especially anxious about whether they can actually pull it off or not. I always thought Sigil were the MMO dream team that could do anything and it all went wrong. It will be interesting to see if this dream team can follow through to the end.

[Nepenthia]

My theory is that previous AAA games like WAR and AoC had fallen on their faces due to lack of polish. I really think Trion thought that if they polished their game to a high shine and didn't bomb their launch, people would flock to it.

I think they also thought that if they were keeping their development team full time, they could keep people by providing the kind of content the players wanted. They have done that, and 6 content updates in 9 months isn't too shabby.

I think their problems are threefold. First, it came out in 2011, not 2008, so people have had a lot more chances to get tired of the traditional MMO, not just from AAA games, but also F2P like Champions Online and such.

Second, I think a lot of their content was just phoned in. Every quest hub seems like it's Kill X mobs of type A, Loot Y items off mob type B, Collect Z number of ground spawns, all while avoiding mob type C who is just there to annoy you. Then go back and do 3 more quests in the same area, then get a fedex quest to send you to another hub to repeat.

Third, I think they definitely needed at least two leveling paths per faction. If the quests had been more interesting and there had been two paths, I think people might have stayed longer to see them make good on their promises of frequent updates.

I'm still playing Rift so it's obvious that I didn't get terribly annoyed by its flaws. And I think their system of frequent updates and consistent development is really nice. So a few comments:

Rift does not succeed as a true mmog world for me and I don't think ever will. It definitely has the quest issues mentioned above. And the lack of leveling paths and new starting experiences do create issues with replayability. So in comparison to the lovely world of Vanguard and its interesting gameplay, Rift doesn't embody what I dream of in a true mmog.

So why do I keep playing? Because I have fun playing Rift for what it is. I don't play it with the same intensity of, say, EQ or VG. But there is a lot to do, updates keep adding new fights to conquer and I happen to like the options to log in and solo or duo or do small group dungeons or raid or just hang out and chat while looking for solo achievements and artifacts.

What Trion has been doing, I think, is to consistently bring out updates that provide content across the spectrum of playstyles, i.e., each new major update brings difficult content for hardcore and doable (sometimes too easy) content for casual players. That also then gives them the option to very gradually adjust difficult content that has been conquered by the hardcore players, to make it accessible to casual players. Hardcore people get the fun of winning over the content first and casual people get to the content within a reasonable time. I think this has been generally accepted by the playing population as a reasonable game mechanic. Hardcore gets bragging rights and challenge; casual can attain the content without needing a huge guild or constant grinding.

The free-to-play option has actually not had much of an impact on the regular servers because it has been maintained separately. Rift did, I think, make an error in closing down too many servers in response to SWTOR. With people coming back, some servers got overloaded again and queues and lag have been a small problem. It looks like it'll even out again because in Rift, you can change servers easily and without cost. We'll see.

The other thing that has surprised me is that Rift has been working on adjustments to pvp that actually add to the entertainment value of the game. At first, I was adamant about not playing pvp in any form, as was most of Silky Venom. However, more and more of us have been dipping our toes into the warfronts and, some folks, even the overland pvp rift events. And, it's fun. I was in a warfront the other night where the lead changed back and forth constantly, each side was looking for every point advantage it could gain, and who would win was up in the air until the last couple of minutes. This was not the ganking nasty world of pvp I detest. It was fun and lots of people could play whether they were high level pvp or not.

Smile, Rift is not the end all be all of games but I'm glad it's around to play right now. GW2 looks interesting but we'll see how they come through on depth of content and mechanics. I hope it's good and not a disappointment.

[Vordox]

Speaking for myself RIFT was the anti game.It was everything I absolutely hated in other MMO's. I also played it earlier in Beta with Fozz and Foresteye.It felt like a buncha lazy devs said "Hey lets just put all the shit everyone expects in other games and put it all in here" Seriously, they took exactly zero risk or innovation. It was like money in the bank. I mean I'm sure they knew people would complain but they knew the "MMOBOTS" would quickly qwell the freethinkers with "Well what do you expect they do what works to make money! Get over it!"Rifts were nothing but Warhammer PQs. The scenery was even like "Damn I have been here before in some other MMO" Quests repeated the same from 1 to cap.When I hit level cap I felt relieved not achieved. PvP was a joke and also seemed stolen from Warhammer yet so much less fun.

RIFT was the only MMO I refused to buy strictly on principle.I bought every MMO up to that point in the genre. I decided if I want to change the MMO status quo I need to stop supporting it with my cash. I was just as much a "Mmobot" as everyone else.

I liked GW2 but I excused myself from getting involved in it to early. Many times we can hype things up in our minds and if it isn't like we expect we have no real chance of enjoying the Game. Our minds create this awesomeness and then playing it for real we suffer the "Book vs Movie Syndrome" . It can never meet our imagined expectations.

Now that GW2 is close to release I can read and see that indeed there is much in this game that intrigues me and the innovation is more than obvious.Not only that but the price is perfect!

Nepenthia described me to a "T"! I was playing MMOs after the Vanguard debacle just like that. It was like "Well I may as well get used to this because this industry will never get much better" I think it took RIFT to make me see "Well yeah if WE keep supporting them they will keep churning them out um duh!"

I'm just hoping GW2 doesn't "screw the pooch" with the item shop. That is the only thing I havent seen or heard much about. Just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Wow I certainly can build a wall of text. Sorry lol.

[mmorpeegee]

I enjoyed my time, overall, just a shame it only held on to me for a few weeks.

I loved some aspects of it - being able to almost instantly change your character in to various completely different classes was one of the best features I've even seen in an MMO, and made grouping so much easier and better, and I loved the world and zones, the combat was pretty satisfying, I loved how the LFG tool worked across all the servers, and it was all round a pretty rock solid experience.

But for every positive thing there were at least a few negative things for me :( The warfronts/battlegrounds seemed very bad. One was ok but there were only a few others and those were pretty pathetic. The instances were quite nice but there weren't all that many of them and the experience you had in there was identical every time and it all felt super repetitive. The combat in the game in general was too easy. The quests in general were a bit boring. The world was FAR too small, having basically a dozen zones or something in total. There was bad replayability because there's only really 2 journeys to take in the entire game. World PVP was pointless and boring. There seemed to be not enough longevity, with me reaching max level in just 3 weeks and that includes a bunch of raids and playing every instance and warfront 95 times. But I could have hung in there... if it wasn't for the super disappointing end game which left me with barely any gear to lust after, and what little there was, required seriously repetitive grindage. I kind of wanted to hang around and wait for expansions but there was really far too little to keep me interested at the max level, and the way the game is set up, you barely ever leave your home city once you ding max level too. Dinging max level, what should be a joyous experience, got very depressing very fast.

So yeah, overall, it was a fun few weeks! Just a shame that's all it was. But still I have some fond memories of it so it almost feels like I had a nice 3 week holiday. Looking forward to playing something substantial now though.