Rift F2P

[dd0029]

Well this will be interesting.

The EU site gives some of the initial limitations. Most notably fewer bag slots (wtf?) and fewer character slots.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, but if you've ever owned Rift, you get the whole game in a buy to play scheme, it looks like. Which is awesome.

[Zetor]

If everyone can access all content (and level to cap), does owning the expansion basically just unlock the 4 SL souls?

[Rokal]

If everyone can access all content (and level to cap), does owning the expansion basically just unlock the 4 SL souls?

Yep

After June 12, all players will have total access to the entire world: every dungeon, every raid, every Warfront, and every level. We won’t be locking our content or advancement behind walls – our goal is to break down every barrier. We want more people playing together and more people having fun together. A new free player has restrictions on their starting inventory, character slots, and you won’t have access to the Storm Legion souls, but you really are getting the whole game for free.

Works for me, my sub expired when I was halfway through the Storm Legion content so F2P means I'll get to finish that someday.

[dd0029]

Looks like. And with the way they moved abilities around and re-jiggered things, it's rough to play without the new souls.

Some more information from Joystiq and MMORPG.com interviews. There will be actual gear to buy as well as lockboxes. There will be a Reddit AMA coming later today as well.

The initial currency will apparently be tradeable in game. Cash->REX->Rift Store Currency->Game stuffs.

[Zetor]

Yeah, kinda like a PLEX and GW2 gemstore mix. I hope it works out in practice!

[Paelos]

I can't tell if not giving F2P players any access to the selling part of the AH was an oversight in the implementation, or if that's something they are actually intentionally going to do. That's a draconian measure in my mind. Even in SWTOR lets people trade two items on the AH, and it launched F2P with some of the most ridiculous restrictions I've seen.

[Pennilenko]

I can't tell if not giving F2P players any access to the selling part of the AH was an oversight in the implementation, or if that's something they are actually intentionally going to do. That's a draconian measure in my mind. Even in SWTOR lets people trade two items on the AH, and it launched F2P with some of the most ridiculous restrictions I've seen.

Frankly it is an acceptable paywall. It is a trivially small amount of money if you have a gaming rig ,and high speed internet, and enough free time to be playing an mmo.

[Paelos]

How much are we talking about. The amounts and the fact it's hidden behind loyalty or something make this obscure.

[dd0029]

They changed some of the limitations on things like the AH and something else I can't remember to a validated email address. I believe the currency caps are still in place. I know the platinum cap is 1k.

[Pennilenko]

How much are we talking about. The amounts and the fact it's hidden behind loyalty or something make this obscure.

You get loyalty for purchasing real money currency, and using rex (real money to tradeable currency), and buying premium or what ever they call it time. $5 gets you enough loyalty to use the full auction house and just enough gems to buy a little fluff.

Also the in game store item window thingy shows a loyalty scale and clearly outlines what you get at which loyalty markers. There is nothing obscure about it if you inspect it. Also defeating obscurity is information all over their forums dealing with every little nuance of the free to play organization.

[Paelos]

You have a very different definition of clear when it comes to this stuff. Clear to me is "pay $5 for AH access, click here." What we have instead is gem conversions, loyalty points, different tiers, timed usages, and other odd things I haven't figured out.

[Sky]

I have to agree with the primate. I wanted to see what rewards I had as a vet and I'm still not sure. Part of a green tier, I think.

And then they wrapped that whole RMT window into the ingame vendor windows? Wha? I went up to the tutorial vendor to sell off some crap and had to figure out what the heck was going on. Just a weird set up.

[Pennilenko]

I don't share your confusion. I had no trouble figuring out the system. To illustrate how opposite my experience was to yours, I actually thought to myself that they had done a nice job with the store and the set up. I am not implying I am better or anything, because I think both of your observations are valid from your point of view. I just can't relate to the confusion.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't know to go to the store to look for veteran rewards, and I didn't know where in the store to do so.

Leading to further confusion was they were giving me a cryptic message when I was trying to use the auction house, which I finally learned was an unvalidated e-mail, yet they had been communicating with me since early beta.  Turns out I had to do some weird claim function -- in game -- to enable it.

[Pennilenko]

Really? You mean the giant coin lock icon with a questionmark that gives you a pop up when you hover over it or click  on it that explains the process, and why in great detail, was confusing. You guys gotto be trolling me now. I don't even like rift enough to try this hard to defend it. Come on guys, this stuff is easy, and not confusing in the least.

Edit: The in game knowledge base has entries explaining veteran rewards. There is also a website faq and pages of questions and answers on the forums.

[Paelos]

Read some other forums on this stuff Pennilenko. The official forums have a specific area of noob questions where this shows up. You can understand what they are TRYING to do without understanding the points and methods behind it. I understand what they locked stuff behind loyalty, yet I couldn't easily find how much loyalty you got for converting a gem. That kind of thing should be front and center.

[Sky]

Yes, we're all low-IQ trolling morons. That must be it. If only we had played mmo before.

Anyway.

After a couple nights of dicking around and getting my settings more or less back in place, I played my newb cleric a bit. I used to roll a badass tanky cleric in alpha but it got nerfed to hell and back (used to be able to tank heroic mobs solo pretty easy). You can't really tell anything at low levels before stuff ramps up, but the Justicar/Sentinel/Shaman was definitely kicking some serious ass.

Joined up on some zone adventure that was nifty other than everyone else having some awesome mount and me being slow and not getting much reward (green mace upgrade). But it was good for getting back into the swing of it.

[dd0029]

Joined up on some zone adventure that was nifty other than everyone else having some awesome mount and me being slow and not getting much reward (green mace upgrade). But it was good for getting back into the swing of it.

For this mount thing, they added a cool feature a while ago after mentoring showed up. Everyone in the group should get a buff to be as fast as the fastest person in the group. Slow is for newbs!

They did just wise up on the account cap thing today. Once you hit the 7000 loyalty, you don't need to claim or do anything. The account is just unlocked. Hooray for realizing stupidity after the fact.

I believe the tooltip on the Rex gem specifies the loyalty you get. But the shards of loyalty that show up just say something like"a little", which for the one I got means 15 points.

Leveling clerics always annoyed me. I found that their power curve fluctuates wildly. For a while melee is really strong, then it tanks and you have to switch to a ranged caster spec, then a pet spec. Then back, around and in circles.

[Pennilenko]

Yes, we're all low-IQ trolling morons.

You know I don't think that. However, I do think you guys are getting trained into a pattern of lazy hand holding. Seriously the information is out there. It took me less than a couple of minutes to understand everything you are complaining about. This bothers me because I know most of you are smarter than I am. So the only answer is lazy training. None of this post is sarcasm. I really don't understand difference between our experiences.

[Pennilenko]

Leveling clerics always annoyed me. I found that their power curve fluctuates wildly. For a while melee is really strong, then it tanks and you have to switch to a ranged caster spec, then a pet spec. Then back, around and in circles.

I came back to a level 50 cleric, and am attempting to play some of the storm legion content. I had good gear for my cleric when i left, tier one raid gear. I can't figure out a decent spec. The combat feels like moving through jello with my cleric.

Rogues unfortunately are the same. Freaky hybrid specs with ridiculously complex rotations to be super effective. Don't even think about queuing for a dungeon unless you are using one of the popular forum specs or the players will kick you. Got my rogue to 54, I'm not sure its worth continuing.

[Sky]

I dunno, I mostly played in alpha. Every time I came up with a great spec it got nerfed into oblivion, I guess they had good data mining and I was spiking it. As a cleric I never had a problem finding a spec that just destroyed the shit out of things, maybe one or two mobs that gave me a little trouble due to a resistance. I'm just happy the Justicar/Sentinel synergy seems to have been restored a bit. They used to be so ridiculously synergized (along with Inquisitor's light side) but it was also really fun.

I think they over-compensated early on, pruning out too much synergy between souls when half the fun was finding those synergies and loading up on them. I spent at least half the game experimenting with combinations (before there were training dummies).

My old Just/Sent/Sham spec was mostly tank but mostly a hodgepodge. Mostly melee, but had a couple decent ranged attacks in a pinch (in case you stepped in pvp somewhere, the server was originally pvp+ in alpha), and good enough healing with the Sentinel to backup heal. I was with one group where I was off-tank and off-heal all in one, my passive and reactive heals taking care of me while I shored up the tank with my cast and instants and kept aggro on me with decent dps. I'm hoping the new spec can be as versatile and durable, it was a really fun spec to play because you could be effective in so many situations.

[Sky]

Yes, we're all low-IQ trolling morons.

You know I don't think that.

Yep, shitty morning at work. Sorry. My point being if it popped up on our radars as vets, it's something to consider for the UI team.

[Pennilenko]

Yep, shitty morning at work. Sorry. My point being if it popped up on our radars as vets, it's something to consider for the UI team.

I'm willing to accept that. It's easy to forget that there may be people trying this out that haven't played an mmo before.

[Pennilenko]

I dunno, I mostly played in alpha....[snipped for real estate].... I'm hoping the new spec can be as versatile and durable, it was a really fun spec to play because you could be effective in so many situations.

I really believe that their attempts to balance or even have pvp in this game neutered a good deal of the fun from building cool unique builds.

[Sky]

I pushed so hard in alpha to split off pvp from the pve ruleset. I lost count of the times we were bitching about changes due to the pvp implications. As I said, the early alpha server was pvp+, so basically everything was being balanced for a pvp ruleset for the first few weeks, maybe a month. Then some people started whining because some other people who may or may not have had a penchant for rolling overpowered soul combos kept hunting them down incessantly...let's just say I play much less seriously during testing phases. And in my defense, the one time we rolled over a couple that was known pve players I apologized and they were cool, because we generally left the carebears alone.

Anyway, it got worse from there. Other than some bland lore and character decisions probably the biggest gripe about the game.

I still smile when I see the setting for the ability queueing...one of my crusades.

[Pennilenko]

I have often wondered why they never separated the PVP skill effects from PVE. Isn't that a key feature in Everquest 2, in that game they have completely separate tool-tips and effects for skills in and out of PVP. I'm pretty sure Hartsman knew all about that stuff.

[Sky]

Yes, and so was ability queueing. There was a heavy push to be like WoW, and several of the guys on the team seemed to be extremely anti-EQ2. There were also a disproportionate number of Vanguard vets in the testing pool. It was a weird place and mine was often a lonely voice.

[WayAbvPar]

What server are you kids playing on? Just transferred to Threesprings myself to run with the goons. Hoping this can keep me entertained until Hex is up and running.

[Pennilenko]

What server are you kids playing on? Just transferred to Threesprings myself to run with the goons. Hoping this can keep me entertained until Hex is up and running.

I think I am on Greybriar or Wolfsbane or something like that.

[Sky]

I think my alliance guys are on threesprings with BC. I'm an officer, still (with my cleric anyway).

My defiants (higher level characters) are stuck on the trial server and will likely need new names.

I've got a few things coming from KS videogame-wise.

[Pennilenko]

I think my alliance guys are on threesprings with BC. I'm an officer, still (with my cleric anyway).

My defiants (higher level characters) are stuck on the trial server and will likely need new names.

I've got a few things coming from KS videogame-wise.

Hmm i wonder if i can transfer shards. If I will move to three springs and come hang out occasionally.

[Paelos]

I have a 15 dwarf warrior on Greybriar named Tyrox.

[Pennilenko]

Looks like server transfers are free, I will try out that feature when the servers come back up from maintenance.

[Sky]

I think I'll stick with my cleric Kamata for a little bit (level 10). Still a few things to set up (I don't think I ever did get focus casting right heh) but pre-nerf it was my favorite character.

I had also played a warrior to 50 but something just never clicked. I enjoyed pure Reaver (all the way to 50) but could never get into other souls. My highest release character was a necrolock, maybe 38 (on what is now the trial server).