Rift: Planes of Telara

[Mrbloodworth]

Thats what auto loot is for.

[Slyfeind]

I like it when they start small and have to add servers later. But...over 30 new servers?    All I can think right now is how many will be dead by the end of the year.

Oh well, I'm looking forward to playing tonight.

[Ghambit]

I like it when they start small and have to add servers later. But...over 30 new servers?    All I can think right now is how many will be dead by the end of the year.

Oh well, I'm looking forward to playing tonight.

What's better is even after having to add 30 new servers, Abigale (sigh) still had the nerve to essentially blame the community for not spreading the pop. load better.  
They flat out werent prepared.  So the vast majority of the headstart was spent for most in queues, something that headstart was designed to prevent.

I bet if you dug around you'd find Rift breaking records for the amount of cross-server alts people have made.  I think I've got like 10 chars. spread over 6 different servers.   I've NEVER had to do that before unless I was just name-reserving.

Also, if they want so much to balance server load, they need a bit more in their server-load UI than "low, high, and full."  They've got an actual server count (1200/1500 etc), but it's some 3rd party website shit somewhere.

Lastly, and I give this suggestion free of charge.  Studios need to learn how to allow players to pre-pick their servers before even launching ANYTHING.  What good is having a fuckin server list if you cant interact with it nor see the pops?  Spend an hour making an acct. connected website that allows people to take spots on the server before launch and you're set.  Very fuckin simple.

[Rasix]

I like it when they start small and have to add servers later. But...over 30 new servers?    All I can think right now is how many will be dead by the end of the year.

Oh well, I'm looking forward to playing tonight.

Yah, they may have overshot by a significant margin there.  Who knows though for sure.  This headstart felt busier than WoW's launch.

Still enjoying Rift a lot, but I'm very much still toying around with the noobler aspects of it all.

[Koyasha]

I'm really starting to think that the idea of discrete servers where your characters are attached to a particular server is one that needs to go away, and the sooner the better.  Some of my experiences with Rift along with a comment on the GW2 thread, I think it was, prompted me to think that a better way to handle it would be to log into the game, have a Character Server where you create and choose your characters, then each time you log in, you can pick which world server to go to.  Your usual server full today?  Pop over to another one, and use global chat to tell your friends to come over here if you want to do something with them.

The things that might be lost would be server-specific economies and communities, but I think those are starting to be a thing of the past already with things like xserver battlegrounds and dungeons.  Server specific economies aren't really beneficial to any average player, as far as I am aware either - a global economy would probably be of higher benefit to most players since it would be impossible to do things like cornering markets and the like.  And for the most part, I think people would still stick to one server as their 'usual' server, so the community angle wouldn't be completely gone I don't think.  Pair that with a decent chat channel system (see: EQ, EQ2, City of Heroes/Villains - NOT WoW, Rift, etc where channels cannot be secured) and communities would still develop.

[Falconeer]

I am tempted to launch another betting thread. It would be like this:



Rift 6 months from now:

[ ] Above 1 million subs.

[ ] Below 1 million subs.

Wanna play?

[Soulflame]

I was not happy about how the game smashed me in the face with how unfun it was in the 22-3x range.  Plus the endgame did not seem appealing at all.

I've made it to the mid-20s without hitting a funwall. In fact I would say that Gloamwood is actually more fun than Silverwood, certainly the massive Death invasion we fought off.

I was referring to Warhammer.  Sorry.

[Ghambit]

I'm really starting to think that the idea of discrete servers where your characters are attached to a particular server is one that needs to go away, and the sooner the better.  Some of my experiences with Rift along with a comment on the GW2 thread, I think it was, prompted me to think that a better way to handle it would be to log into the game, have a Character Server where you create and choose your characters, then each time you log in, you can pick which world server to go to.  Your usual server full today?  Pop over to another one, and use global chat to tell your friends to come over here if you want to do something with them.

The things that might be lost would be server-specific economies and communities, but I think those are starting to be a thing of the past already with things like xserver battlegrounds and dungeons.  Server specific economies aren't really beneficial to any average player, as far as I am aware either - a global economy would probably be of higher benefit to most players since it would be impossible to do things like cornering markets and the like.  And for the most part, I think people would still stick to one server as their 'usual' server, so the community angle wouldn't be completely gone I don't think.  Pair that with a decent chat channel system (see: EQ, EQ2, City of Heroes/Villains - NOT WoW, Rift, etc where channels cannot be secured) and communities would still develop.

What you're talking about is kinda like sharding.  Which was done 1st with CoX.  Only those shards were linked below a few over-arching servers with chats and economy.  You run into issues with world-pvp if you do it this way though.  It'd have to be strictly a PvE game with simple BGs to pull it off.

[Rendakor]

I'm really starting to think that the idea of discrete servers where your characters are attached to a particular server is one that needs to go away, and the sooner the better.  Some of my experiences with Rift along with a comment on the GW2 thread, I think it was, prompted me to think that a better way to handle it would be to log into the game, have a Character Server where you create and choose your characters, then each time you log in, you can pick which world server to go to.  Your usual server full today?  Pop over to another one, and use global chat to tell your friends to come over here if you want to do something with them.

The things that might be lost would be server-specific economies and communities, but I think those are starting to be a thing of the past already with things like xserver battlegrounds and dungeons.  Server specific economies aren't really beneficial to any average player, as far as I am aware either - a global economy would probably be of higher benefit to most players since it would be impossible to do things like cornering markets and the like.  And for the most part, I think people would still stick to one server as their 'usual' server, so the community angle wouldn't be completely gone I don't think.  Pair that with a decent chat channel system (see: EQ, EQ2, City of Heroes/Villains - NOT WoW, Rift, etc where channels cannot be secured) and communities would still develop.

Please no. A real server community is something I really miss from WoW, and it's refreshing to play an MMO where the people you play with are all on your server.

[Hawkbit]

1.  They'll be above 1million subs in 6 months. 

2.  I'm confident that they've got a server merge process in good order.  These guys have covered nearly every base so far, there's no reason they wouldn't have seen this one coming either.  It always looks bad to the general populous when a game closes servers, but what option does a game have (outside a GW style no-server system)?  A healthy single server is more profitable than a series of dead servers.  These games thrive on people interacting. 

[Pendan]

15 minutes after they came up all the new servers were still at low status. 5 minutes before the rest of the servers came online 2 were at heavy, 1 was at full, about 6 at low, rest (10?) were medium. 20 minutes after rest of servers came online no server (old or new) is over medium.

Conclusion, was not a lot of new subscribers itching to play on "release" day. During the hour that other servers were down pre-order people role new characters on new servers to pass the time. They generally chose a busy server just so if they ever go back to those characters the server might have a bit of a population.

I don't understand why industry professionals so underestimated demand on pre-order first day and so overestimated demand on release day. Everyone that was anxious to play would be in pre-order. Everyone else will be on slow trickle in. WAR made same mistake with too few servers given to community in initial list so all guilds picked based on that list. They then opened too many servers after that initial list which resulted in bad press of having to close servers. Only hope is Rift will not lose players as fast and new players will continue to trickle in. Problem is getting to max level is faster in Rift and overall less content including lack of RvR and "alternate advancement" to keep people interested at max level. Under 1 million in 6 months.

[Sobelius]

15 minutes after they came up all the new servers were still at low status. 5 minutes before the rest of the servers came online 2 were at heavy, 1 was at full, about 6 at low, rest (10?) were medium. 20 minutes after rest of servers came online no server (old or new) is over medium.

1. Check population/queues tonight when most U.S. players are home.
2. Check again this weekend, the first weekend of a fully open live game, and there should be a stronger sense of pop distribution/server queues.

[Modern Angel]

Guys, everything is at low at 1pm Eastern with a few mediums I think the only hope is that the game doesn't die oh god


Under 1million, only because most people have no clue just how massive an amount of steady subscribers 1million is.

[Typhon]

WoW suffered these problems a week or two post launch, but there was no WoW prior to WoW.

RIFT has a large population of customers who have played an MMO RPG before and is launching with good word-of-mouth.  I'd be really surprised if their queue issues were entirely behind them on launch day.

[Shatter]

WoW suffered these problems a week or two post launch, but there was no WoW prior to WoW.

RIFT has a large population of customers who have played an MMO RPG before and is launching with good word-of-mouth.  I'd be really surprised if their queue issues were entirely behind them on launch day.

If you are referring to WOW's que problem post launch it didnt last 2 weeks, it lasted for months...as did the lag until they upgraded their hardware.  Just clarifying.

[kildorn]

WoW suffered these problems a week or two post launch, but there was no WoW prior to WoW.

RIFT has a large population of customers who have played an MMO RPG before and is launching with good word-of-mouth.  I'd be really surprised if their queue issues were entirely behind them on launch day.

If you are referring to WOW's que problem post launch it didnt last 2 weeks, it lasted for months...as did the lag until they upgraded their hardware.  Just clarifying.

More specifically, redid their database cluster design because LOOOL loot lag and a poor database setup for obscene volumes of tiny transactions.

On a Rift note though: they probably overshot new servers significantly. I would not be surprised if the bulk of their customer base today are people who had preordered and have already been playing.

[Modern Angel]

We'll see. Frankly, I want to see a company tell the gaming press and fans to fuck right off about the merges = death thing. It doesn't automatically mean the game is dying; WoW has numerous servers that could stand to be folded. People need to quit pussyfooting around because players stuck on a dead server is a far bigger problem than a week of misinformed bad press over server merges.

[Threash]

I was just alt tabbed reading f13 and my rift icon starting blinking, i switch back over and see i'm being attacked.  Do other games have this? because it's fucking awesome and just blew my mind.

[ezrast]

We'll see. Frankly, I want to see a company tell the gaming press and fans to fuck right off about the merges = death thing. It doesn't automatically mean the game is dying; WoW has numerous servers that could stand to be folded. People need to quit pussyfooting around because players stuck on a dead server is a far bigger problem than a week of misinformed bad press over server merges.

City of Heroes opened up free, unrestricted server transfers for a limited time a while back, which let everyone who wanted to move to a more populated server do so while letting everyone else keep their server community and character names (and conveniently avoiding the negative press of a merge). Best of both worlds IMO.

I was just alt tabbed reading f13 and my rift icon starting blinking, i switch back over and see i'm being attacked.  Do other games have this? because it's fucking awesome and just blew my mind.

Heh, yeah, I think I only took time to send positive feedback in beta once, and it was this.

[Chimpy]

I was just alt tabbed reading f13 and my rift icon starting blinking, i switch back over and see i'm being attacked.  Do other games have this? because it's fucking awesome and just blew my mind.

Pretty sure other games have that as well.

[UnSub]

Rift 6 months from now:

[ ] Above 1 million subs.

[X] Below 1 million subs.

A lot of the beta complaints were that RIFT was too close to WoW to be truly sticky.

I don't know what kind of budget RIFT was developed on though; there is a good chance that a sub-1m active sub base still puts Trion Worlds in the black, assuming they didn't spend $60m+ on development.

... also depends on the regions they launch in. More than half WoW's player base is 'Eastern'. WAR managed to keep player numbers "growing" by constantly launching in new regions.

[Amaron]

I was just alt tabbed reading f13 and my rift icon starting blinking, i switch back over and see i'm being attacked.  Do other games have this? because it's fucking awesome and just blew my mind.

Pretty sure other games have that as well.

Must not be the games I'm playing.   Nearly all of them can't even figure out full screen windowed mode.   In an industry where doing the coding equivalent of tying your laces is hard I think Trion is pretty much a shoe-in at this point.

[Stabs]

I was not happy about how the game smashed me in the face with how unfun it was in the 22-3x range.  Plus the endgame did not seem appealing at all.

I've made it to the mid-20s without hitting a funwall. In fact I would say that Gloamwood is actually more fun than Silverwood, certainly the massive Death invasion we fought off.

I was referring to Warhammer.  Sorry.

No, no, I understood you were referring to Warhammer. The point I was making is that what happened to you (and many others) in Warhammer has not happened to me or anyone else I know so far in Rift.

As for the number of servers and the prospects of keeping people here's my 2 cents:

Rift has gone viral, will go more viral still and in a genre where WoW has held 90% of market share for a long time there will henceforth be two major players.

Oh and fwiw a guy who works at Trion and posts on the Goon boards stated the 30 new servers was "being conservative".

[Nebu]

Oh and fwiw a guy who works at Trion and posts on the Goon boards stated the 30 new servers was "being conservative".

The MMO groundhog stuck its head out of its hole, saw its shadow, and proclaimed "10 more years of diku!"

[lamaros]

I haven't played the game but from the outside looking it it looks like the game is doing well enough, and the company is run well enough, to kick on and be the first success for a while.

The only thing is, will players give the developers enough time to prove they can continue to make the game better, or will they jump off again quickly. WoW took a long time to get itself sorted in many many many many regards, but they didn't have to compete with themselves while they were doing that.

I am getting really tempted to play just to see what it is like, and I haven't go a MMO at release since... umm... Wow and Guild Wars.

[Lantyssa]

The MMO groundhog stuck its head out of its hole, saw its shadow, and proclaimed "10 more years of diku!"

I totally did that!

[Margalis]

I have not tried FFXI, but I imagine I would find its approach... boring. For me, less interaction makes it feel more like a game, and less like a world.

WOW is pretty much the least worldy and most gamey game out there though.

[Spiff]

I hope 6 months from now they have enough subs to be seen as successful and fund their future projects, but not so successful they feel the urge to milk this heffer for the next decade.

I might be having one of those days (months, years, ...), feeling old, cranky and sick of diku.
Still it's been a long time since I've seen an MMO release as worthy of succeeding as this one, so ... I dunno, give 'em all moneyhats.

[Ratman_tf]

[ ] Above 1 million subs.

[X] Below 1 million subs.

The shiny is strong with this one, but the 1 million MMOG club has the attention spans of mayflies.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah, after seeing 50s already on nearly every server, I'm going to change mine from 1mil to 600k-800k at 6months.  Six months is terrible, anyways, as it's towards the end of summer, less folks subbed then. 

I'm not sure what drives people to power to the end, but I hope they had fun.  I'm having a ton of fun chilling out in the teens. 

[UnSub]

The problem is that right now the rift experience is all fun and new.

A month or two and people will have worked out which rifts are worth dealing with and which aren't, or potentially will have migrated away from particular areas as the critical mass hits a particular level point. How RIFT deals with that is the interesting question.

[Modern Angel]

I'm a huge fan while acknowledging its flaws and I've always thought it was a LOTRO style 300k game. I'm extremely willing to revise that upwards, substantially. Even flirting with the 1mil mark. But, like I said, 1mil steady after six months probably isn't going to happen. People really don't appreciate just how many that is, nor do they appreciate just how much money 300k+ brings in if your development costs aren't retarded.

[Mrbloodworth]

Rumored first content patch is within 3 months.

EDIT: Added URL

[Nebu]

Rumored first content patch is within 3 months.

EDIT: Added URL

From the article:

This is good news for players who are levelling quickly and will be looking for new challenges in the first few months. Will also said that the post launch schedule was one of the most aggressive he has ever laid his eyes on.

I hope that they can keep churning out content and improving.  The team seems to be engaged and responsive.  If they can manage a high level of customer service with content and patches, it may really help them maintain subscribers.  I hope that they're able to do as they claim.  The game has some potential.

[Draegan]

Not really a rumor though.  Content release has been mentioned for 2-3 months out then 2-3 months after than for the different raid content in a few podcasts and interviews.

Only type of content I've heard of though is raid zones.