Thought on a Rift reborn?

[Eughe]

What they aren't doing is wooing old player that have left. I accidentally pressed and old book mark and downloaded the game again.

However i can't say i heard/seen any announcement of new expansion or anything of that nature. Sweetheart deals or whatever.

A massive promotion blitz to older players/emails would/could be a starting point of drumming up interest.
If that DID happen, i haven't seen it.

[EdgeyonWolfsbane]

Let's face it, simply giving ANY real news regarding the future direction of RIFT would help start the cause. The reason we have all the speculation, armchair CEO's, suggestions, and everything else.... EVERY SINGLE day.... is because everyone is left to speculate and relate experiences to the ones they had in the past. This does absolutely nothing but make people sound annoying after they said the exact same thing 500 times, mainly because the outspoken are almost ALWAYS the Naysayers. Seriously... I'm not trying to offend anyone but I have to read every day from someone who has absolutely zero bearing on the topic how it "will" be or "may" be or how they "think" it will be. After a year... and frankly at least another before that, it gets old.



Then, the fact there hasn't been any new information regarding forward direction for a year just leaves the intelligent ones to think most of these people are correct about the future. Let's be real... if ANYTHING from this thread were in the works would it not seriously benefit the game to actually tell people it's coming or being worked on? The fact that hasn't been done speaks volumes.


So, we all just enjoy what is keeping the game alive....


Dimensions (Very unique)
PVP (Call it broken but it's still a lot of fun)
New Players (This will happen simply because of what Gamigo is and offers)


....until one day we find out the truth, the truth that we always hope will be told now and never comes.

[Wrastion]

I see both sides pros and cons. However, I would 100% call this severe maintenance mode seeing as how there are 1,000 things being reported and 10 things fixed every 6 months with the rest of the updates being business-thriving things like cash shop stuff and/or simply adding/taking away already established events. Thats it.

The dream, however, which is a pure dream, and imo the best course of action, would be a new expansion with adding 2-3 more simple masteries, not levels, for simplicity sake.

Adding new gear levels and masteries would allow them to advance the game while passively fixing a ton of things vs. trying to fix 1,000 issues of old. New level weapons and equipment would erase the current gear-reliance. New expansion would allow them to tweak abilities within the trees to balance souls. Even some masteries could be implemented with better boosts only for certain unused souls to bring them on par with the only-viable souls of current without having to tweak the trees if they wanted to go the lazy route. New pvp gear and frags would streamline gear and pvp equality for fairness, etc..,

At this point I believe it would be easier to simply move forward to fix things by advancing stuff vs. trying to fix things at their current state.

Although Im simply predicting any of the new mmos coming out in a year or two will eventually draw away the playerbase simply by virtue of something new, and something actively being worked on with visible effort vs. waiting 6 months to see 2 actual changes happen. I think an updated Rift with a new engine and fixes by someone who understood where the unbalancing issues came in would be immensely popular, though. Good luck selling that pitch, however.

[imjake]

Id love something like that. They need a whole new engine and animations though. And there is no way id want this vile company running it.

[arus2001]

I'm inclined to agree with the assertion that MMOs are a dying breed, but that's largely due to the hardcore elements demanding zero deviation from oldschool systems while decrying anything and anything that dares to deviate from their fixed image. As is, we've already got people here insinuating that a raid would somehow "save" Rift. Nope. Not in the slightest. Understanding and investigating MMO demographics would hastily point out that it's rare for current top-end content to exceed a 15% completion rate. To me, that says there are 85% of a community that can't or won't touch it. This then demands investigating why, with reasons often involving time requirements or lacking the social connections to do it consistently. Difficulty can also be a factor, but that's something nuanced relative to the rest of a given game.

To tag on to that difficulty aspect, I'm going to bring up the concept of the Rotation. Rift, for example, may have had a relatively forgiving macro system to help cut down on the need of excessive key use, but when you're in a fast-paced environment trying to dodge mechanics on top of basically playing a miniature piano, you're going to lose people to frustration and attrition. Propose simplifications and/or streamlining and you invite backlash from the aforementioned hardcore crowd and their fear of deviance. Part of me recalls an old interview with the old devs and how if players walk away from an encounter angry at each other instead of the game, that they've done it wrong. This is something I feel very true, and very valid when you begin to consider other outside factors like physical handicaps or even the quality of hardware the person is playing on. If you're looking at a 25-step rotation, that's 25 chances to screw up over however long a given encounter is intended to be. When there's no wiggle room for recovery and/or you're forced to endure a significant loss of potential, that's when you risk breeding contempt between players.

How do we get around this? Well, there are a few ways. Good macro systems can contribute. Changing something like basic 1-2-3 chains to auto-attack combos can also work. Some games employ morphic buttons. I'd even point to something like FF12's Gambit System as a potential means of passing off grunt work to AI, leaving the player to focus more on positioning or emergency ability use. Any and all could help cut down on what can be seen as an elitist barrier of entry, but you'll again see pushback because some players have convinced themselves that certain content is for their eyes only.

Which then brings us to add-ons. Parsers are popular here, but also a source of toxicity. Someone not performing up to par? Calling them out isn't guaranteed to go well. Just silently kicking them doesn't really do any good, either. When used for self-improvement, there's not really anything wrong with them, but when we do factor in things like the rotation (and variance between classes/builds), how many times someone's seen a given encounter, and other outside factors like fatigue or distraction, and they probably shouldn't be considered the be-all of player scrutiny. However, this also behooves devs to not rely on harsh DPS checks and to leave a bit of flexibility to figuring out an encounter. We also can't ignore that more questionable add-ons have existed across MMOs that dramatically change how players perceive a game, including (pre-)calling attacks and conveying definitive advantages over people who don't/won't use them or don't even know they exist. The MMO community also needs to get over itself and be willing to teach instead of dismissing players off to a youtube video or wiki. Yes, some people prefer playing blind, learn more by doing, or certain sources not covering questions/perspectives they'd have.

Shifting gears, I'd also point to the potential of user generated content. Back in the day, I would've said Rift was on the right track here with Dimensions, but that just sort of fizzled out for whatever reason. The ability for players to make dungeons, puzzles, hangout areas, or whatever is a grossly untapped resource within the genre and can help significantly during periods of content drought. Unfortunately, Rift also tripped on itself a bit by tying the process to the economy and how you obviously couldn't do certain things without having the parts to do it. This perverted a creative process into another form of grind, where players could find themselves spending a significant amount of time trying to make the money they needed for a project, only to discover the project itself was a dud when they started to put the concept to practice. Artists of various forms should know this feeling, but it's rarely something as time intensive as making money in an MMO can be. Anyway, things like Dimensions also lacked the ability to set monsters, danger areas, or more specific scripting conditions. Such things are definitely required in order to create a more robust experience, which is why I'd say this game dropped the ball after a point.

From here, I'd simply say the open world needs to matter. I understand the concept of instancing as pertaining to guarantee a certain degree of difficulty or preventing griefing, but the industry has probably gone a bit too far here in making it so that meeting players out in the wild just doesn't really happen in a meaningful way. I did like Zone Events in Rift, but these weren't without flaw when it comes to viability of completion in off-peak hours, the sheer rarity of certain events, and the effort:reward ratio tanking handily compared to raiding or even running expert dungeons. Devs need to remain aware that content can release DOA if players see no reason to do it. Players also need stop preaching "You don't need X gear to do Y things!" when Y is otherwise a benefit to the process and could come from X in some form. Keep players in the world, keep 'em cooperating, and certainly take steps to avoid things like leeches just waiting for bosses to pop for full credit. Our worlds need to be more dynamic, but also not impossible to change if it's just a handful of players trying to make a difference.

I'll cut myself off here, but there are obviously other topics like making crafting/gathering matter, where PvP should stand, whether or not time gates are a good thing, and then some. I'd also hope that if at least one thing is taken from my word salad, it's that casuals shouldn't be viewed as the enemy or some second-class citizen unworthy of attention. I'd also say a common them across various gaming communities that I've seen die is they don't feel listened to. That also requires more than just a post from a dev saying they are. It means action to that effect, as well, and not 6+ months after an issue is brought up. There is competition out there these days, and it's not just MMOs fighting other MMOs. Once attention is lost, it's very difficult to gain a second chance.

[Skiye]

As the title says what do you guys think of the idea of a rift reborn? I think it would do really well

I'd love any Rift related new content.

That aside, the fact that this game still makes money despite a (now) very small playerbase and no new development for several years leads me to believe that Gamigo is missing a golden opportunity to reboot this game with crowdfunding. People still seem to want to throw money at this title despite it's current poor state.

A fresh start would be a good thing for Rift.

[arus2001]

Sunken Cost Fallacy is a thing and a big contributor to why some people won't drop one MMO for another. I wouldn't look too deeply into people still investing, since if you look at mobile games, people whale for the most inane of things, too.

Rift simply doesn't have the benefit that FF14 did in being an established franchise that got royally screwed by Tanaka's developmental hubris. A Final Fantasy game crashing and burning would be a colossal blow to SE, which is exactly why they diverted so many resources into its resurrection under Yoshida's direction. Some might even argue SE dropped the ball with the FF series starting with XI and making that an MMO, with the offline titles that followed being a mixed bag on reception, with the FF7 remake being yet another all hands on deck sink or swim moment for them. Meanwhile, did anyone know of Trion before Rift? I sure didn't. Of course, they happened to be in the right place at the right time when my interest in XI waned.

The Classic fad otherwise infesting MMOs remains just that in my eyes. It didn't work for Rift. WoW saw a spike of curiosity, but it's waned largely as I predicted it would. Other games like Wildstar tried to go oldschool from the start, but they didn't fare well. The refusal of MMOs (and certain players) to adapt is what has the genre on edge and no amount of gaming equivalent MAGAnomics is going to change that to a mainstream, runaway successful degree. People have seen alternatives and know that pushing one game to play at the expense of all others isn't really healthy for the player or the industry. Frankly, it's a similar problem I see people trying to argue about Diablo 4's production relative to their disdain of D3 and rose-tinted nostalgia of D2. Pleasing 100% of gamers 100% of the time just isn't going to happen. Pleasing only 10-15% is not what many could call a financially viable strategy. Nonetheless, these same people are also free to collaborate and crowdfund their own dream game, but the reason it hasn't happened is because deep down I think they all know it's not actually viable so they'd rather piggyback off the filthy casuals. And that has its own set of consequences.

[Zyyra]

I'd love any Rift related new content.

That aside, the fact that this game still makes money despite a (now) very small playerbase and no new development for several years leads me to believe that Gamigo is missing a golden opportunity to reboot this game with crowdfunding. People still seem to want to throw money at this title despite it's current poor state.

A fresh start would be a good thing for Rift.

You would want Gamigo reboot the Rift? Only thing those clowns can reboot, are servers, and that's because a trained monkey could do it.