No, I didn't say you personally were doing it (you did not) but this type of thread attracts forum pvpers who then go on their endless personal sub-threads where they end up accusing others of being bots and so on and so forth...
Do you still pay taxes to your local, and the federal gov't? in spite of the plethora of private, self-serving, tyrannical interests embedded therein that have been reported on for decades and continue to ravage the welfare and basic dignity and rights of your common, fellow citizen - when not those of yourself and your loved ones? unless you decide to completely retire from society and live a hermit's life atop some far away mountain eating roots and meditating in silence for the rest of your life... you have to find compromise. I never said I think it's okay what gamigo or Trion did or do but that doesn't forbid me to hang around and commit on some personal level to the game still.
No, it surely isn't okay as I'm certainly not being defeatist by saying so - look at it from another angle: it's a publishing company that essentially does nothing but acquire defaulted assets and keep them up for profit; they never hid their intent, we've seen many videos of their CEO saying exactly what they do, why, and how. all I meant is, do not delude yourselves. We let Trion deceive us because they created and did great things with the game for a while but their final run with Rift, let me say, was much worse than anything gamigo has done.
Naw, I "stuck my head in the sand" when I gave up on the beautiful game because of politics, bureaucracy, what have you... my prerogative if I have one would be, there's only so much we can do in our limited lifetime and with our even more limited resources - grasp the day, enjoy what makes you happy... machinations and bigger interests will likely always be around and yes we should fight and resist, but we don't have to forfeit our personal enjoyment for that. You choose to step away, that's your personal choice and I can only respect that for reasons that are yours alone, and so I wouldn't say you're "sticking your head in the sand" - but when you ask for the game to be shut down, you're at the very least ignoring hundreds or thousands of other players to whom the game still means a great deal.
As far as I know there aren't any statistics that gauge "having fun," are there? I've seen Steam charts which show the same metrics from Trion's last year; I've just gotten back and am only doing crafting/carny dailies, going to the bank, checking what all my alts have, what items do what and how they work, relearning stuff... in between I look around TB and Meridian and see not really fewer people than back in the day. I went to Tarken one evening and we did a casual NMR VI run by a guild from another shard that is new to me, talked to the guy and he told me they run all content over the week. Their guild chat was lively and laid back. ofc no one knows what will happen tomorrow let alone a year from now - how and why would you let that logic keep you from enjoying a game that you like?
Without trying to delve in the semantics of it, supporting does entail updating, which in turn does not necessarily comprise development. They have kept the game up and running, which equals supporting and updating; on development I haven't really seen anything other than some things that supposedly were almost finished by Trion, and this new faction or whatever it be that the fired devs were working on. I don't agree with calling a game dead on there not being further content develop't - look at GW1, would you call it a dead game? how many years without a speck of new content, and yet, look at the community and activity in-game...
Which exploitative items do you mean exactly? Battle Pass, in my opinion is sh!t but it keeps and even pulls some interest from players, but I wouldn't call it "exploitative" especially because it has a free option - the one thing that comes to mind are those boxes of dungeons chest charges that are basically loot rights for cash. THAT is BS, and that was designed and implemented by, yours truly, Trion. If you look at the history of these p2w items you'll see Trion was the one screwing it up there again and again, for years ever since a mere couple months after NMT launch when Brasse came out full of dwarven verve shoving it down our high-elven throats that we had no choice but accept that the earring slot thither-to available with in-game currency was going for credits only. Honestly, gamigo shop management feels quite smooth and stress-free compared to Trion's. Gamigo has basically stuck to cash shop skins, which are not exploitative at all, on the contrary.
That's all good, I've been in gw2 as well and very happy with it and yet... Rift is specialall games are "exploited" to some degree, are they not? I honestly don't see how whatever you think gamigo is doing here is worse than what Trion did - remember those sales they did shortly before the surprise bankrupt announcement, of some packs going for $100? and all the p2w items, the pre-ordering of Starfall Prophecy (a fiasco through and through) calling it a "premium" DLC just to make it free 6 months later, and on and on and on...
We know they will never come out and say that because private corporations don't function that way. As for misleading, that's the nature of marketing itself. People should know better and yet, most don't and that's how the advertisement industry continues to thrive. In my opinion they're scrambling, trying different options with some occasional development but as they're not per company mission tied to that it feels like it's all over the place. I just don't agree witht he notion they're dragging a mangled corpse of a game. One has to know they're trying to make a profit from the game without any a priori development of content. Don't come into Rift today expecting what any other big MMO normally offers. Now and then there'll be some seasonal event minions and skins, achieves and the BP, and with luck some new faction or tier of gear or mini map or something. This game already has too much goodness in it to be called a mangled corpse even if it gets zero new things, ever. If they update the PTS, do you really take it as a sign whatever gets on there is going live at all? I'd think that's reading a little too much into it, especially nowadays. You don't have to be okay with anything they do to still enjoy the game you love, as long as they don't pull the plug and cripple it in a blatantly nefarious way like they did to Atlas Reactor.
My final take is, if they keep Rift (the live game, not the PTS, which isn't really the game) as they have been, it could and will be enjoyed by many players for many years still.
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