Nothing for the little guy? or "Why should I keep playing?"

[Ashina]

first if you look at DoV as launched and NOT what they added after DoV launch months later, they are about equal. Get back to me in say July/August and we can discuss whether EQ2 has actually released more. Also so far we have Trion's current track record. Do we want to go and look at the almost 2 years before we got anything new between RoK and TSO. How about the mess that was SF when they had to hold off on New Halas? Yeah they brought UD along but that was 1 year and 6 months after TSO. You are adding the expac plus the mid year update (18 months) vs a 12 month cycle. This is being more than disingenuous.

RoK: November 2007
SO: November 2008
TSF: Feb 2010

The biggest gap in the games history was 16 months and that was the only time it was ever more than 12 months.

EQ2 has released 8 expansions in 7 years. Even if you throw out AoD since most of the content isnt in game yet (stupid WoW model of expansions) its still 7 expansions in 7 years. I could also compare it to the year where Kingdom of Sky and Echoes of Faydwer were released 10 months apart .

But I was merely looking at the number of new content thats been added to the game in 14 months (since Rift's launch), and the list is quite large. Doesnt matter what expansion it belongs too, its NEW content.

You say get back to you in July/august? Even if Trion releases another patch the size of EI they will be behind still, and august is around when EQ2's Qeynos revamp will come out and who knows what else will be added with that.

[Galibier]

RoK: November 2007
SO: November 2008
TSF: Feb 2010

The biggest gap in the games history was 16 months and that was the only time it was ever more than 12 months.

EQ2 has released 8 expansions in 7 years. Even if you throw out AoD since most of the content isnt in game yet (stupid WoW model of expansions) its still 7 expansions in 7 years. I could also compare it to the year where Kingdom of Sky and Echoes of Faydwer were released 10 months apart .

But I was merely looking at the number of new content thats been added to the game in 14 months (since Rift's launch), and the list is quite large. Doesnt matter what expansion it belongs too, its NEW content.

You say get back to you in July/august? Even if Trion releases another patch the size of EI they will be behind still, and august is around when EQ2's Qeynos revamp will come out and who knows what else will be added with that.

But you are dodging things. Drunder was not released until GU 60 which was on May 30th of 2011. LU 59 (DoV proper) was released in its VERY broken state on Feb 22 2011 (I say broken because heck when I noted their bad move on trying to do PQ's with the same servers and server configurations they used previously even Smoke Jumper respond that is was "stupid" [his words]). The main thing is though you are comparing 16 - 18 month long developement cycles to a 13 month dev cycle which is disingenuous at best.

[Ashina]

But you are dodging things. Drunder was not released until GU 60 which was on May 30th of 2011. LU 59 (DoV proper) was released in its VERY broken state on Feb 22 2011 (I say broken because heck when I noted their bad move on trying to do PQ's with the same servers and server configurations they used previously even Smoke Jumper respond that is was "stupid" [his words]). The main thing is though you are comparing 16 - 18 month long developement cycles to a 13 month dev cycle which is disingenuous at best.

Remove LU 60 and go off 61-63 and EQ2 still wins though. And if you project out to 16-18 months for Trion, which will be one more big patch at their current pace, LU 60-63 wins too

But in a way you are right, it all comes down to the expansion timings for full dev cycles. In a few months we will have reached a point where WoW has added more content to their game than Rift. My thoughts are that the glacial expansion cycle negates the speed at which they have added content. Based on past games Ive played, I expect an expansion every year, or at least close to it. WoW fails to meet those expectations. I definitely give Trion some leeway because of the amount of free content, but the expansion isnt even on the horizon. We know it wont be out before november based on the shots of the board a few months ago, and that is all we know.

As cool as Fishing and Survival are, its still the same zones Ive been staring at for 14 months, and the world was small to begin with it. I want new adventures, not instant ones in the same old lands.

[Renna]

Thos of us who do not raid, and are not top-tier pvp are all in the same boat.

We have seen the entire map (got the achievement to prove it.) We have hunted artifacts until our feet fell off. We have crafted (at least until we realized that crafting is worthless at providing decent gear.)

I agree with the poster who said we would like to see a new map or two.

While we enjoy the world events, for the most part, they are all reskins. The carnival notwithstanding, it's all go out, gather this trinket, turn it in for [X] and wait for the last event, where we can join if we're end-game ready and geared.

Yes, Trion has given us tons of new content, but the vast majority of it is for high-end PvP or PvE, not all the stuff in the middle. How about some new content for the mid 30's? A new map to explore? A new mid-level instance?

Boredom: It's not just for 50's any more.

[Garibaldi]

How about some new content for the mid 30's? A new map to explore? A new mid-level instance?

If you're below level 50 and bored then level up. The game should only really begin at level 50 - the ceiling beyond which you can't progress.
(Trion should have gone down the same road as that ancient MMO "Ultima Online" and not had levels. Skills and Stats which can be improved over time and/or through use are great, but levels are a bad idea as they lock so much content away when you're too low level to interact with it, and make too much content virtually worthless it becomes too low level for you.)

[Galibier]

It stil;l amazes me how people keep complaining about pre-level 50 issues when Trion came right out and said during the betas that Rift was going to be about end game and getting to 50 was just a means to that end. Heck Hartsman said "I don't care if people get to 50 in one day because we have end game." That kind of blunt statement should be a HUGE hint.

[Ashina]

It stil;l amazes me how people keep complaining about pre-level 50 issues when Trion came right out and said during the betas that Rift was going to be about end game and getting to 50 was just a means to that end. Heck Hartsman said "I don't care if people get to 50 in one day because we have end game." That kind of blunt statement should be a HUGE hint.

And the fact that 58 servers became 16 should be a huge hint that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do.

[TheGrinnz]

And the fact that 58 servers became 16 should be a huge hint that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do.

or a huge hint that MMOs have a lot more subscribers when they release

[Galibier]

And how many does EQ2 have? WW, you noted just the NA servers. Just saying.

Shard count for a game means jack all. Eve has essentially one but hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Please bring relevant data to the table. There are also a host of reasons why the game has fewer servers now than at launch. The number one being that instead of controlling shard population at launch by putting caps on the servers they just kept throwing shards at us hoping new players would show intelligence and roll on servers that didn't say "full." As a matter of fact a number of the issue Trion has had as the game has progressed is because they gave the herd too much credit for intelligence and common sense.

But apparently the game is making enough money that private investors have poured about another hundred million into the company since the game launched. Investors with that kind of money have savy and they do not invest in a company not turning a nice tidy profit and profit is the measure of success for these games, not shard/server count. Again just saying.

[Ming]

I'm sorry Seebs, I am usually with you on things, but I have to agree, this was not a happy patch for non-raiders. I must say that fishing is absolutely the most boring waste of time, and sad that development time was spent on this 'most anticipated' thing. I don't blame the devs for the boringness of it, it's fishing, how exciting can it be? The only way they could have spiced it up was if there was a chance that you snagged a monster who dragged you under and you had to fight it.

I look forward to the next patch, and hopefully it will have content for the masses this time.

Edit: This happened in LoTRO too, people pushed for fishing, it was put in and it was a snoozefest. I just don't understand how anyone could think fishing is interesting.

ZOMG that would be too cool. More rare items to fish up, also.. make them vanity items I don't care, just something.

[Ashina]

or a huge hint that MMOs have a lot more subscribers when they release

EQ didnt
FFXI didnt
SWG didnt
WoW didnt
EVE didnt
LOTRO didnt

EQ2 is the only major game to show a dip in its first year but show growth after the dip, and thats because EQ2 sucked at launch and was up against WoW. Whats Rift's excuse?

[Ashina]

Shard count for a game means jack all.

Actual shard count does not. Losing almost 75% of your shards with only a small increase in capacity? That means a lot.

[TheGrinnz]

EQ didnt
FFXI didnt
SWG didnt
WoW didnt
EVE didnt
LOTRO didnt

EQ2 is the only major game to show a dip in its first year but show growth after the dip, and thats because EQ2 sucked at launch and was up against WoW. Whats Rift's excuse?

Not sure about these games, but almost every MMO released in the past several years has a free month included with the game purchase. One month after release, the number of players will drop. Many of the statistics I am seeing are too broad to show this. And honestly who cares about subscription numbers if the game is doing well and the shards are populated?

[Ashina]

Not sure about these games, but almost every MMO released in the past several years has a free month included with the game purchase. One month after release, the number of players will drop. Many of the statistics I am seeing are too broad to show this. And honestly who cares about subscription numbers if the game is doing well and the shards are populated?

Free month included has been a standard since 1999. What traditionally happens with every single *good* game over the course of MMO history is the number of players going in > number of players going out, as obviously all games lose subs.

The last few years we have been inundated with poor games. AoC, WAR, STO... These games were so poor that people left them in droves and because of bad word of mouth theres no way the incoming players could keep that up

Rift is a unique case, because it was a complete, bug light (no game is free) that had strong word of mouth. But there was a lot of quick boredom in Rift, perhaps partly because it was also the fastest game ever to cap (that Im aware of). So Rift's retention rates were much lower than you would expect for a game of its quality. Perhaps there is truth to the theory that its a new age so all games will experience a decline over the course of their first year, but Im not ready to believe it yet based only on Rift. Theres absolutely zero evidence to suggest that Rift's decline is because of this vs. because of Rift's game design.

As for who cares about sub numbers? EQ and EQ2 have shown that you can have 150k subs and still have enough of a dev team to produce loads of content so yes, in some ways you are correct. Rift probably is still above 200k even, but well never know for sure. Its pretty clear 2011 saw a steady decline, with a big dip in december, then a bump in jan/feb and a plateau mostly since feb. Plateau is good (rift status showed a decrease in march/early april but nothing severe and has been reversed by 1.8).

What is worrying though, is that you see a fair amount of posters on these forums who have been very positive about the game all along starting to slip. Ive seen several people state how they are unhappy with the current game, but trust Trion so are sticking it out. Without an expansion there will never be a big influx of people, so what we have now is more or less what well have until 2013 (unless GW2 is a steaming turd that scatters people quitting other games to look at Rift). if the loyal vets are starting to get restless, surely the less vocal are starting to tire of stillmoor and shimmersand too.

[Buffee]

RIFT 2.0 Expansion - PLAYER HOUSING - ultima online style, open world housing in PVP marked zone, merdian/sanctum teleporter to the underworld (where the rifts are spawned from)

OFC player housing would absolutly make the player base explode people would resub like mad, but this would require a huge change in the way items are managed. for examble you would be able to drop items from your inventory on the ground, and lock them down in your house, and furniture and all kinds of crazy stuff
but yea, player housing, gg but its gotta be ultima style though to be legit