1.3 Free Server Transfers For the Foreseeable Future, Possibly Forever

[Numtini]

From facebook:

ather your friends in RIFT and play anywhere, any time....
 
When the next major RIFT™ update hits early this summer, subscribers will be treated to a surprise – free character transfers. Trion Worlds announced today that with RIFT 1.3, players will have the ability to move to select servers in their territory once each week, taking all items, achievements, and titles with them. Additionally, guild leaders will be able to move their guild’s level and experience.
 
“MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they’re on, and that’s why we’re offering this as a free service to our subscribers,” said Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer. “RIFT is both a game and a service, and adding free server transfers is just one more way we can make this the best possible MMO experience available.”
 
Whether you want to play with friends, check out a new server, or avoid queue times on highly populated servers, you’ll be free to move about Telara. As a part of this grand experiment, there will initially be no limits on the number of times you can transfer your characters or guild.
 
Character transfers will remain a free service for the foreseeable future, and could become a permanent addition to the RIFT experience.  Subscribers will be able to perform the transfers inside of the game itself once the patch is live.
 
The RIFT Free Trial and Ascend-a-Friend programs are currently in full swing. For more information go to www.RIFTgame.com/freetrial and www.RIFTgame.com/ascend.

[Xanthippe]

Just announced, FAQ here.

1.3 expected early this summer.

Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance.

Can transfer from and to any ruleset realm.

Trion continues to demonstrate how to do things right (or maybe, to keep me happy).

[Lakov_Sanite]

edit

"Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance."

from the other thread, this makes it sound exactly like what wow does now when it come to overpopulated servers.  If its only open for a couple servers then this won't mean much.

[Threash]

It will mean more balanced servers...

[Hawkbit]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

[Xanthippe]

edit

"Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance."

from the other thread, this makes it sound exactly like what wow does now when it come to overpopulated servers.  If its only open for a couple servers then this won't mean much.

Sorta kinda like what WoW does, except for this:  "As a part of this grand experiment, there will initially be no limits on the number of times you can transfer your characters or guild."  We'll have to see how it gets implemented, of course, but it sounds a great deal more open than WoW.

The MMO industry has always had terrible customer service.  It's improved over the years, but it's kind of like the tourist industry in the sense that the service providers have disdain for the customers.  I'm sure game development would be a lot more fun if it wasn't for all those shitty players.

[Jherad]

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?195616-Free-Character-Transfer-FAQ

Can I move from a PvP shard to a PvE shard or vice-versa?

    Of course! The rule set of your current shard will not prevent you from moving to a shard of a different type. So PvP, RP, PvE, or RPPvP to your heart’s content - Just remember, you’re subject to the rules of your new home! (For example, non-consensual PvP on PvP shards and stricter naming policies on RP shards.)

Hmmm....  

[EWSpider]

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?195616-Free-Character-Transfer-FAQ

Can I move from a PvP shard to a PvE shard or vice-versa?

    Of course! The rule set of your current shard will not prevent you from moving to a shard of a different type. So PvP, RP, PvE, or RPPvP to your heart’s content - Just remember, you’re subject to the rules of your new home! (For example, non-consensual PvP on PvP shards and stricter naming policies on RP shards.)

Hmmm....  

For most other games I'd feel like this was a big deal, but Rift has been a somewhat strange experience for me (on a PvP server).  I have a level 50 Cleric and a 38 Rogue and I've been ganked (attacked by a high level player I had no chance of killing) maybe 3 times?  I've had more PvP encounters than that, but they were fights I could have or did win.  Basically what I'm saying is it wasn't any harder to level up on a PvP server than a PvE one.

[caladein]

Sorta kinda like what WoW does, except for this:  "As a part of this grand experiment, there will initially be no limits on the number of times you can transfer your characters or guild."  We'll have to see how it gets implemented, of course, but it sounds a great deal more open than WoW.

That likely won't even come into play (and if it does, WoW's timer on paid transfers is what, three days now?).  If you can only go from High Pop to Low Pop, once you're on a Low Pop server, you're stuck.

They could do it where they only lock down High Pops to incoming transfers and Low Pops to outgoing transfers, leaving most of the servers in the middle open for players to move around in, but the disclaimer "Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance." sort of rules that out.

The big difference is the timing: new routes announced weekly and possibly lasting only within that week.  WoW's sort of come randomly and have a decision window of two weeks or so.

[Miasma]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

They recently told us that they are going to charge us money just to group for dungeons with friends on others servers, so no...

[01101010]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

They recently told us that they are going to charge us money just to group for dungeons with friends on others servers, so no...

[Threash]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

They recently told us that they are going to charge us money just to group for dungeons with friends on others servers, so no...

Is this for real or some exaggeration for comedic effect?

[Pennilenko]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

They recently told us that they are going to charge us money just to group for dungeons with friends on others servers, so no...

Is this for real or some exaggeration for comedic effect?

Real

[caladein]

I'm interested to see if WoW reciprocates. 

They recently told us that they are going to charge us money just to group for dungeons with friends on others servers, so no...

Is this for real or some exaggeration for comedic effect?

With the continued popularity of the Dungeon Finder, many players have been asking for a way to group up with real-life friends who play on other realms to take on instances together. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about a new feature currently in development that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.

As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don’t have a release date to share quite yet. It’s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We'll have more details to share with you as development progresses -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.

(emphasis mine, source)

[Threash]

Fucking clownshoes, and it makes me think this was another deliberate fuck you from Rift.

[Dren]

This just shows to good effect that we NEED a game out there like RIFT if not just for the fact that Blizzard will act like the Monopoly they are.  Having the compeition will force this kind of "Oh yeah? We have that even better AND free with sub." to happen more often.  We as consumers only benefit in getting a better product and service ongoing.

Without Rift, you just have Blizzard's word that any new feature will be just too hard and costly to include with subs.  I mean, their money hats just wouldn't be as full of money otherwise.

[Xanthippe]

Competition is good for that reason exactly.

For me, the developers behind Rift have a terrific attitude toward players, and it shows.  Even though Rift is very similar to WoW, this part is not.  The community, also, is not like WoW's (at least, not on my server).  These things matter a great deal to me.

[Dren]

Competition is good for that reason exactly.

For me, the developers behind Rift have a terrific attitude toward players, and it shows.  Even though Rift is very similar to WoW, this part is not.  The community, also, is not like WoW's (at least, not on my server).  These things matter a great deal to me.

I understand and agree.  However, be careful on the community thing.  It isn't like that's something anyone can control.  I'm guessing the only reason it is a "good" community now is because WoW is still damming up the unwashed masses.  If that ever breaks, all bets are off.

[Xanthippe]

I understand and agree.  However, be careful on the community thing.  It isn't like that's something anyone can control.  I'm guessing the only reason it is a "good" community now is because WoW is still damming up the unwashed masses.  If that ever breaks, all bets are off.

You're right about that, although I do think that community is something that can be handled in different ways to encourage or discourage particular behavior.

Blizzard used to be very strict about things like swearing on open chat channels (I was warned by a GM about saying fuck on general way back near launch).  The open chat channels used to be much more pleasant.  Coincidence or guided behavior?

It seems to me that something changed in the past two or so years in the community to the point where it became a major drag for me to play WoW on my server.  (It's not just that I'm getting old - I was already old when I started playing WoW.)  I'm pretty jaded and cynical, but if I have to play an mmo with all the chat channels turned off, I might as well be playing a single player game.

[Dren]

Yes, you are right, it can be controlled to a certain point.  The critical change I think is in population.  There reaches a point where it just doesn't make sense, nor is really possible to control as many people as WoW has now.  So, you get the enforcement of just the basic things to keep everything from falling completely apart.  Loss of community due to that?  Probably.

*Edit: got comma happy

[Count Nerfedalot]

I'm a card-carrying fanboy of Scott, but I'm calling bullshit on the combination of this

“MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they’re on, and that’s why we’re offering this as a free service to our subscribers,”

with this

Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance.

Either you're free to roam at will regardless of server populations or the bit about doing this so you can play with your friends is blatant bullshit.

[Mrbloodworth]

Or, you make a system that allows for transfers, but does not effect server stability. ( AKA, what they have done )

 

[01101010]

I'm a card-carrying fanboy of Scott, but I'm calling bullshit on the combination of this

“MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they’re on, and that’s why we’re offering this as a free service to our subscribers,”

with this

Restricted to servers that are selected by Trion to maintain balance.

Either you're free to roam at will regardless of server populations or the bit about doing this so you can play with your friends is blatant bullshit.

Well... I suppose you could orchestrate a destination server that Trion would be ok with. So technically, he is right... just means your friends on server A may have to move as well as you on server B to a completely new server C.   

[luckton]

I agree with Count in that it's a contradiction to say that you free server transfer anywhere in order to play with your friends, but then limit which servers people can actually transfer to.

This means that only low-pop servers will be eligible for the high pops to transfer off of.  I can only think of two kinds of people that this would benefit:

A) The PvPers who wants to make a name for themselves by being 'king of the server'
B) People who hate login queues (They still happen, at least on my shard of Wolfsbane)

For everyone else, people on low-pop servers 'want' to go to high-pop because:

1) 'Potentially' shorter LFD queue
2) Better chance of getting and winning zone-wide invasions.

How free transfers off of a high-pop server will make life better makes me go  .  Cross-server LFD wouldn't even be a fix for me because there's still the zone-invasion thing, and I do love doing those.  But you need people to win...if they all go somewhere else, leaving you with people that are in the zone yet want NOTHING to do with the invasion and continue to spam the zone chat channel with "Derp, can someone help me with this quest that anybody but me can solo?", how does one win invasions?  They need to actually have the number of invasion forces along with the stats of the invasion-related mobs scale with the current zone population.  Or better yet, make it scale, but also make the zone boss at the end of the event scale a la CoH/CoV's zone bosses, in that regardless if you're level 3 or 300, the boss is a challenge.

I understand the play-on-words that Scott has said, and technically he hasn't lied...you can play with friends if they're on different servers, just so long as you and your friends don't mind moving to a new server on your own volition.

I believe that ultimately we will get to the hard solution; the servers will be merged by force in time.  It's not a question of if it will happen, but when.

[Numtini]

Did I miss an announcement about what kind of limitations it will have? Because there's a big difference between "you can move only to these two servers and not from these" (Ie, WOW server balancing) and "we're not going to allow transfers to these two servers because they still have queues for login." As far as I know they still haven't said which it is?

[luckton]

Did I miss an announcement about what kind of limitations it will have? Because there's a big difference between "you can move only to these two servers and not from these" (Ie, WOW server balancing) and "we're not going to allow transfers to these two servers because they still have queues for login." As far as I know they still haven't said which it is?

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?195616-Free-Character-Transfer-FAQ&p=2470538#post2470538

What do you mean “select shards”?
We want the shard you select to provide the best experience possible. It is important that there remains a balance between Guardian and Defiant players and to that available shards do not become too over populated or unbalanced. For this reason you will only be able to move to specific shards we’ve selected to accept new transfers, please note the shards available for transfer may change over time.

From what I can tell, you can transfer from 'any' server, but you can only go to 'select' servers.  So kinda both load-balancing while also trying to be more open than WoW.

[Draegan]

RIFT is getting addons.  Addon UI on the character select screen is on the PTR.

[Numtini]

Hopefully they will keep it primarily as UI customization which I would kill for, but keep away from stuff that plays the game for you.

This begs the question were all these features set and ready to go other than testing or do they have an incredibly nimble development staff.

[March]

Hopefully they will keep it primarily as UI customization which I would kill for, but keep away from stuff that plays the game for you.

Yes, I would hate for the UI to interfere with my Macro's   

(actually, I agree completely with you)

[luckton]

RIFT is getting addons.  Addon UI on the character select screen is on the PTR.

 

Bring on the on-screen combat meters, invasion alerts that don't require me to check the world map every 5 minutes, and custom unit frames!

+bonus points if they have the addons be done in LUA
++bonus points if they devise some kind of tool that can assist authors in importing their addons from WoW, if LUA is allowed.

[Draegan]

What I want:
Custom Hotbars
Buff and Debuff filters and bars
Custom Unit Frames (the ones in game are shit).
All-in-one bag frame
Ability cooldown in numbers.
On screen DPS meters.  It'll work so much better than the other solutions.


Everything else I really don't need, but might be nifty.  AH addon would be great.

[Rasix]

What I want:
Custom Hotbars
Buff and Debuff filters and bars
Custom Unit Frames (the ones in game are shit).
All-in-one bag frame
Ability cooldown in numbers.
On screen DPS meters.  It'll work so much better than the other solutions.


Everything else I really don't need, but might be nifty.  AH addon would be great.

That's pretty much all I ever install as far as WoW mods go.  I'd be happy with that as well. 

[Threash]

Something that can fix their incredibly bad buff/debuff displays would be wonderful.

[Draegan]

That's pretty much all I ever install as far as WoW mods go.  I'd be happy with that as well. 

Same here.  Trion actually did a good job with raid warnings that you really don't need a DBM like mod.  I just want to be able to move around that warning frame and make it bigger.  Sometimes if you're up close to a boss with all the shiny graphics going off, you can't see that small white message. 

I would also love to be able to highlight the name of the person being called out in some mechanics.

I can't think of anything else I typically use or want.  Maybe a gatherer type of addon, not really needed but nifty I guess.

[Numtini]

I would like a "healing UI" that would show hots and conditions where I can actually see them. And a separate XP bar. Those are the big things I care about.

Mostly I tinker with how things look. I managed to replace every single element of the WoW interface and used a complete replacement (Profit) in EQ2.