The Decline of Dimensions - Who's Still Building?

[Refuge]

It's needless to say that Rift has hit a wall and it seems to have had a massive impact on the building community too. This of course is not surprising, but I thought I would give my own take on why this has happened, despite me likely stating the obvious:

- Builders want to build in a live and thriving environment. They want to show their talent to more than just a handful of players. Who can blame them? It can be pretty grueling to complete some of these immense projects, but the more that admire it, the more worthy of your time it becomes (for most builders anyway).
- They also want to build alongside players who are actively choosing their own form of progression. This then gives them feeling of uniqueness and importance. For example a dimensioner might not think they're very good at raiding, but have an abundance in talent when it comes to building dimensions and they want to show this to not only other dimensioners but particularly non dimensioners too.
- I also recognise the fact that many players like to dabble in all areas of the game and therefore casually play around with their dimensions too. So how does this affect big projects? Well apart from building they may use it for; rare collecting, achievement boasting, PvP, guild meetings, role playing, damage testing and lots more and all these will increase the likelihood of investing time in building too.
- In summary dimensions as it's own game wouldn't work at all (for example we haven't seen an increase of building when there's nothing to do in PvE!), but as an addon it's truly amazing. But like all addons the main game needs to succeed for the addon to succeed.

Anyway that's just my 2 cents on why I think their has been such a steep decline in new projects. It's not like we're struggling with content anyway! Hardcore builders were never too bothered about main content and relatively speaking we've had so much given to us this year. The problem is we lack an audience! Such a shame really!

So, moving on..

Out of interest, who's still out there building and hoping to wow us with their next reveal? And who's decided to call it a day?

[Hersheykisses]

I'm still building, I've just always been a slow builder. As to why I continue building? It's more for personal enjoyment than to show them off and get accolades.

[Refuge]

I'm still building, I've just always been a slow builder. As to why I continue building? It's more for personal enjoyment than to show them off and get accolades.

And I'm completely in the same boat too. Hopefully I will complete at least one big project before Rift is shut down just for my own personal gratification, but at the same time I would like to have at least some of my closer friends and fellow dimensioners come see my work and hopefully appreciate the effort I've put into it.

For me though I'm more of a tourer, and therefore not upset people are not seeing my work, but upset that there are less works of art being produced these days for my eyes to indulge upon.

[Laeti]

I stopped building for a while because I wasn't sure where Rift was going and with the limited time I have I just chose to spend it elsewhere. Seeing how the game is still around and supported by the new owners I've decided to come back to building and touring.

Just like Hersh mentioned above, I also tend to build very slowly and I don't do it for recognition of any kind but rather because I enjoy being able to materialize my ideas and it's exactly what Rift dimensions allow me to do like no other games have so far. Sure it's nice to see that other people like the results of my work but it's not why I plan to keep doing it. I do agree that if the game in general isn't very active it'd be odd to expect any growth in activity in one part of it (especially since many dimmers enjoy more than just building and lack of activity in other content drives them to look for that content elsewhere, like it did for me with PVP).

[Dancingmoon]

I am still building away and I rarely have people tour my work so build for my own pleasure and for my guild's RP entertainment. I think that the idea of saying that Rift is going to 'shut down' is pretty harsh and has the potential to be an awful self fulfilling prophecy.

I love this game, I love building in this game and have reasonable hopes that it will keep on trucking and eventually the dust will settle and developments will happen. Yelling for them won't make them happen any sooner. What we have in the game hasn't gone so enjoy what we have, build with what we have and wait and see.

Also I am probably going to get yelled at but...actually looking forward to the shard merge. All these places that I have to remember to tour, all the builders whose work I love and I will be on the same shard as them.... #excited

[Jaedor]

As Laeti, Dancingmoon and Hersh have mentioned, I build because I'm inspired to build. I don't build for accolades or +1s, just for my own enjoyment.

Having said that, I miss some of my game friends who are not playing, as chatting is a fun pastime while building. But I've also been pretty burned out irl for the past year so haven't built anything I'm ready to show. The touring I've done hasn't seen a lot of new builds so I can see where FWOB is coming from but I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions drawn.

I continue to think that Rift is the best building game out there if you like a realistic art style. I've tried several other games and they don't hold a candle to the way the feature was fleshed out by Trion. We can hope that Gamigo will continue to support the feature but in the meantime, I'll continue to build when inspired, as I've done for the past seven years.

[Maelya]

I just reactivated my subscription as an annual subscription because I just wanted to level my transfered Prime character on the NA server and there was an good offer about 7,08 €.

I do not have a problem with Gamigo and I also have a good impression about our new GM´s. I had looked at the financial statements and reports and that looked all right. So why not? If Rift will be closed, then I have traded with lemons. But the game is still fun.I am not glad with everything and there are some bugs in the game, but at least I am sure, that happens in every game.

I´ve just done a hidden quest in Shimmersand, I never noticed it with my old main on EU. I played immersed in the game and this is, what I wish from a game.

I will also build in my dimension and I always build alone. No one had visit my dimension in former times, so there should be no difference. I even used the dimensions for my RL hobby and made patchwork patterns before sewing them.

[Tamarama]

I've come back to Rift after immersing myself in WoW for their new expansion. I have noticed many changes for the better (new items, return of the hellbug and other events, lowered cost of some dim items) and some for the worse (my pet no longer auto attacks, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag in dimensions, removal of single dim items from some holiday events, etc).

Overall, my impression is that Rift is very slowly recovering from the strange fugue that Trion put it into.

It's true that a great building system needs a good game around it. Everquest's Landmark failed in part due to the lack of good game. Rift is a great game; I alternate between Rift and WoW, as each provides aspects of play the other lacks. If I could only combine the best of the two games, I'd be a happy Radish. (Seriously, WoW needs player housing - all those art assets going to waste.)

I'm not convinced the dim scene in Rift is dying, I'm seeing new players intermixed amongst the old. I think we've lost our big names, the movers and shakers and organisers. We no longer have websites devoted to dimensions and I think that leaves us with a lack of focus and sense of community.

Which reminds me, is my website still accessable? Better Homes and Dimensions I can no longer get in to edit it.

[Loveyttsab]

Thank you for this post, Refuge!

Was very busy in real life, lots of work to do So, didn't had much time to build. Didn't had inspiration. But I am around. I do log every day just to see whats going on, see how everyone doing and then i tour dimensions for a bit....and ...finely got my inspiration! So, im around, building away Just finish my new dimension (gonna post it soon).
Glad there is so many reactions here on forum

Greetings to all <3

p.s. so agree with Dancingmoon, merge will be a great thing to us dimmers

[Refuge]

I never meant to put a massive downer on it, but of course when you're talking about why a game is losing population then this was an inevitable effect of the post.

Apart from the monologue (lol), I wanted to pull people out from the cracks and see what's going on in the community! And clearly a lot of us are still around. Honestly, if the servers just went off next week, I wouldn't feel like I've wasted any time building, and I would hope others feel that way too, let's just keep going!

I've spoken to a few people on RiftDimensionAddicts discord and I think it's about time we had another community dim contest. I'm happy to organise this one and will get back to peeps around July after I've figured out the logistics.

[Refuge]

Which reminds me, is my website still accessable? Better Homes and Dimensions I can no longer get in to edit it.

Yep it's still there! A legendary site it still is! I'll likely still use it as a resource for my touring.

[NightShift1]

Still building - working on serenity from firefly atm and a few others , two movie dims coming soon .

Odintia - Greybriar

[Fire Serpent]

I still enjoy building dimensions but it's not my priority in Rift so my output is low. Despite that I am currently working on a new project. I do not advertise my creations so unless it was entered in a contest my dimensions are rarely visited by people I don't know.

Dimensions I have finished in the last year (newest to oldest):

1) Studio of a Starmage (Veylin@Laethys) 11/18/18 This was a contest entry so I'm sure you saw it already.
2) Picture Window (Veylin@Faeblight) 4/17/18 This was created on Prime with its limited resources and was a contest entry. It was inspired by the next dimension on this list, "Pretty Please".
3) Pretty Please (Natsia@Laethys) early 2018; This was made for a friend who asked for something, "pink, white, blue, purple and PRETTY!". It took a long time to build and was quite the challenge since I tend to do "quirky" rather than "pretty". The bridge was almost a nightmare.

[Maybella]

Out of interest, who's still out there building and hoping to wow us with their next reveal? And who's decided to call it a day?

I'm still wanting to build, but have been busy with a new job and moving, etc., and don't have any ideas to spark my creativity, right now. I first fell in love with RIFT because of the dimensions, and spent countless hours happily building away. Then I found out about contests and got involved in them. Then the contests stopped. And my interest fizzled. There is no prize support at all from the game, so people were putting in their own money to get prizes together to give out to the winners.

Everybody loves a good contest...

I would personally love to see some sort of contest that would entice casual builders, and maybe even non-builders, to join in alongside the serious builders. I had a thought awhile back of getting interested players to put something in a 'pot' that would be distributed to the winners, but there doesn't seem to be any simple way to do that.

[Manasha]

You can tell just by the dimension channel in game that there is a severe decline. Usually, you only see ppl log in and out of the channel for the first few hours after a patch as ppl start to trickle back into the game. But here it is on a Sat afternoon and there are so few ppl in the channel I get notifications when ppl come and go.