RIFT: One Year Later

[Treig]

Lots of good comments and feedback in here.

I've had the on again, off again pleasure of experiencing RIFT since Beta II. I previously subbed to WOW for a couple years, played WAR, LOTRO and a few others. For me, looking forward to what 2012 could bring that keep me engaged in RIFT:

1) Keep the regular content pushes

2) Continue to refine the sub-systems, especially CRAFTING
a) More synergistic recipies between professions
b) More synergistic materials between professions
c) More recipie option leveraging the Planar themes with +Fire Damage or +Fire Resistance, etc.

3) Make a concerted effort to evaluate and develop a balanced in-game economy

4) Make serious improvement to the Auction House - UI, item organization, searching, historical data (both personal and server), etc.

5) Add a new race or two for each side

6) Add a new soul for each Calling (assumes fixes and balances to existing to certain acceptable degree along the way)

7) Add little improvements like the 'Purposes' - perhaps Barbers, tabbed personal Bank Vaults, shared personal Bank Vault tabs for all my characters (yes I can use mail - this is easier), etc.

Some off the wall ideas:

Crafter's Board - Post LF xxx item. Attach materials. Let crafters create the items for a set fee (preventing theft of materials, etc.)

Sockets or Prefix / Suffix semi-permanent Enchants - Runes cover part of this, but there are obviously prefix / suffix in random in-game generated items, why not let crafters in on this game?

Guild Crafting - High level recipies available at set guild levels - guilds learn the recipies and individual crafters can pay a guild fee to learn to create T1 / T2 equivalent gear (helps progression guilds get new folks into the end-game faster, provides an additional use for guild levels, and helps provide an economy for in-game materials).

Just some random thoughts from someone considering re-subbing if things like Crafting get some attention.

[Zyzyx]

That's waaaaay to quick.

That is what my warrior/cleric guildmates are getting per hour solo.

I would like to be able to group with them without costing them exp or having to complain until mage/rogue solo specs are brought up to the same level as warrior / clerics.

Personally, I'd prefer to play with my friends in an mmo and not be forced to play single player mode to get the best rewards. Therefore, they need to increase the rewards of group play or give me the same access to solo play rewards as players who chose a different option at the charachter select screen.

[Gehrgontra]

Moreover, we’re also looking into the introduction of a Mentoring system, which will empower players to play through areas they have not been for quite a while and be well rewarded for it.

This'll be interesting to see. Rather curious to see if this will reduce our effective power while mentoring down to their level in a sort of reverse-bolstering system, or reduce our effective level (thus the spells available), or some mix of both. Either way it would be great to be able to go through one of the earlier dungeons and be there for the lowbie Chloromancers wondering if tank healing ever gets better, or help a guildy through a quest zone without killing the exp rate.

And I would totally love to see a barbershop implemented. If I had known so many mage sets would feature popped collars, I would have gone with a different hair style

[Fujitasix]

The mercenary system and its instant queues has temporarily scratched my itch for a persistent PvP playground, but I still hope you've got something 40v40+ in the works.

Otherwise, what an awesome first year. Congratulations to the best MMO on the planet in such a short time, and I'm looking forward to a lot more.

[Deathnaught]

Great work so far! Best first year by a LONG shot. A few notes if I may:

1. In the beginning it seemed everything was tested to the point of zero (ok, as close to zero as possible) bugs, etc, before being released. Frequent releases are great, however if its at the cost of stability its not worth anything at all. For some time now youve gotten into an old SOE habit of releasing something so buggy its like an alpha that nobody even looked at. Bugs so obvious that content could not possibly have been successfully run through even once in a test. So please, as much as I love to see the new content, and hope you keep it up, Id rather see more stability work before it all comes out.

2. Need more / better guild perks. (*COUGH* guild halls). Currently, after about level 10 there's nothing worth spending points on. Most of the perks are worthless

3. guild xp for raid kills, at least for first time kills

[Telnedra]

Kudos to everyone on Trion for this game. Lots of updates, (need More pets! ) and generally an enjoyable gaming experience. Congratulations to you and I hope 2012 brings you all much success!

[Souldancer]

I know there are some who don't agree with having the functionality at all - but a lot of us do want it for accessibility purposes. The add on language is too crippled. You won't win any subscribers by forcing the default UI down everyone's throats, not after they have been spoiled in other games with powerful tools to bring it to a minimalistic and very sleek look. Your comments about the add ons allowing different UI layouts are a little out of place since we really can't change anything at all about the UI. I have no idea what you have been looking at, but it sounds like you either don't know what's possible in other games or just have a low opinion of UI comfort in general.

I'm talking specifically about changing the shape of action bars to number grid formats, and fading bars that are not in use until mouseover. Maybe getting rid of all the blue surrounding everything - the stuff that makes the screen look too 'busy'.

I do agree with a lot of folks that this is the best mmo on the market today. But you aren't going to gain the popularity of other games with this militant stance on making cosmetic changes.

[Angyle]

Oh, and now you can fight your own faction thanks to the mercenary system. That totally drags the meaning out of PvP.

I don't get it.

Actually PvP means Player Vs Player.. NOT Faction vs Faction
I can understand how this could bother you if you played on a RP server but otherwise its PvP any way you look at it you are still fighting against other players.

[Angyle]

Awesome news!

One thing I would like to see added is a queue or a much more in your face alert that pops up when zone events occur. Say for example you sign in and "queue" for zone events, maybe it'd have options for particular zones or just all of them. Then when one gets underway it would auto-place people into a raid group for the event. Far to often the raid groups in the field are silent, and you have no idea where they are and the leader isn't paying attention to send an invite.

"The Zone Event '____________' has started in Droughtlands, would you like to join?"

I agree totally. Half the time I spend in events is looking for the raid group only to be one step behind them.

[Trivet]

I was just thinking...with the mention of a mentoring system and more IAs coming in different zones...Mentoring + IA = level 50s doing adventures in freemarch...mind = blown.

[GoldenTiger]

if this means what I think it means... you will have a subscriber for life...

Same... if it means a nice multi-faction open-world pvp zone or objectives (with faction bonuses like mentioned) that would snag me back no questions asked.

Congrats on the first year! Looking forward to what is in store and catching up on what I have missed out on.

Same here as well. I burnt out from too much raiding, went to try another game, and am almost definitely coming back here. I am excited to see what improvements are coming down the pique, and I gather they've made good improvements to PVP progression already.

Really enjoyed reading this post. It just gets me so excited for all the things to come. I have been playing MMOs for about ten years now and this is the first one in all that time that have have subbed a multi-month package for.

So while we're on the topic of things to come I figured I'd throw in my list of hopes.

I'm hoping that there may be an expansion announcement, character customization in-game (barber shop & more hairstyles), more clothing and armor options (regular & wardrobe), housing, just overall more things for us RPer's. I think a lot of gaming companies neglect these items or at least for long periods of time after launch and I feel this game above all other MMOs would greatly benefit from having things like this implemented. It's just such a great setting for it.

A lot of people have already voiced their desires on raids, grouping and pvp which is why I decided to leave those alone in my post.

Thank you Trion for all your hard work in the development of this game. It's just been such a great experience overall and I can't wait to see what this year has in store.

I really couldn't agree more if I tried with this post, on all counts. These are great items to bring up even for non-RP'ers (such as myself), honestly... I loved in DAOC that I could get trophies from bosses and decorate a house/lawn, even with furniture and all sorts of things. It gave a larger purpose to money too which was a nice thing!

I continue to be impressed by Trion's commitment to running a good game, even if it hasn't been the game for me always.

[Deathsdawn]

I have been deployed to afghanistan for almost a year and cannot wait to get back to try out rift's improvements. My five-man is over here with me and I would just like to second your post as it was very well spoken. The dev team at trion has done an amazing job, but we have been talking about the Elite five-man option since rift started. Right now rfit has the perfect platform to launch such an innovative system. I also agree about the gear, at the top level instances allow us to get the lower level legendary gear instead of the top lvl gear out of HK and RoS. This would still give the credit to the 10 and 20 man Raid leaders and their guilds, while acknowledging the things only the most Elite of five-mans can do. Not everyone wants to join a large guild and deal with guild drama and politics in order to accomplish high end PvE.

[Eaker]

For 2012:

1) RIFT ARMORY!!!!!!!!!! You told me 6 months at launch Hartsman!!! lol
2) Hopefully new zones but if not this then..
3) with 2.0 coming soon cause theres only 2 updates left so its expansion time!!! I'd say do it Eve style but i'd buy the exp if you did it wow style.

[Kedoss]

[*]Interactions: You want more of them

When we say interact, we mean both interacting with the game in non-combat ways, and interacting from out of game entirely. “Emphasizing Verbs Other Than ‘Stab’,” is how we talk about it internally. It’s how we think about the kind of a lot of activities you’ve complimented us on over the months – From puzzles and cairns, to artifacts, and more.

Scott Hartsman
Executive Producer, RIFT

Hats off to you sir, and all of TRION, for being the first MMO company to recognize this as an important feature.

[Mogsey34]

Amazing how this mmo with its smaller ego and less hype produced imo the most interesting and enjoyable experience of any game i have played in the last 5 years.

P.s those 5 years included the biggies/