Rift Drops to $5 for the Summer

[RanceJustice]

In a time where most MMOs are now trying to sell you more and more rehashed junk, its nice to see RIFT going the other direction. I've played pretty much every major MMO since EverQuest and I have to say that (as much as I really, really liked parts of Warhammer Online), Rift is the first Post-WoW MMO to "Get it right". It takes elements from WoW and all the other fantasy MMOs (Like Public Quests from WAR etc...) and polishes them until they shine. Its not a huge leap forward, but a sturdy step that makes it better than the vast majority of fantasy MMOs that tried to compete with WoW.

If you like MMOs or maybe just want to try something new if you've only played WoW, I can't think of a better offering than RIFT at the moment. See you on the Roleplay servers!

 

[Earaldor Xerron]

I don't think this sale applies te Europe. There seems to be some price drop for both upgrade and standard editions but the sale mentioned in this article is something extra on top of that. The only difference between the two seems to be one month's subscription fee.
I don't really care for MMOs but this really isn't a nice move...

 

[Jake Martinez]

You can get a free trial - just download the client from their home page. It lets you play for a week, up to like level 18 or 20.

That being said, this game is just like World of Warcraft, except not as good. Which is funny, since they shamelessly stole all the game mechanics. Guess they couldn't steal the creativity and lore.

 

[Sean951]

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

I don't mind a subscription fee when I feel I am getting my moneys worth. Most games that I have seen that started as free to play were... underwhelming. If they go free to play as a way to keep a fan base, then it will at least still look decent, but ya. There's my opinion at least.

 

[Nurb]

I'd rather pay a monthly fee where everyone is equal, because that's usually cheaper than buying all the items, storage, and other things in a F2P game.

 

[Nurb]

EDIT: Nevermind

 

[Catalyst6]

You can get a free trial - just download the client from their home page. It lets you play for a week, up to like level 18 or 20.

That being said, this game is just like World of Warcraft, except not as good. Which is funny, since they shamelessly stole all the game mechanics. Guess they couldn't steal the creativity and lore.

I thought that the mechanics were as good if not better as WoW in many ways. However, they fell victim to not having a backcatalouge of lore to pull from like WoW or WAR, which results in "who the hell cares" syndrome when it comes to the actual plot of the game, which was their real failing.

OT: I bought it a while ago and never really got into it due to a combination of MMO burnout, a growing Steam library, less free time, and general apathy towards it. It's fun, but not a gamechanger.

Although I'd say that anyone who buys into an MMO anymore is a fool. The F2Ps greatly outnumber the paid ones, and I'd be surprised if that model doesn't die out sooner than later.

 

[Red Albatross]

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

This is a really tired argument. Servers cost a lot of money to run and if the game developers don't get paid, there's no new content.

It's exceedingly difficult to have a hobby that doesn't cost a crapload of money. $15 a month is a steal for the amount of entertainment you get if you actually like the game. I pay more that for one round of golf.

 

[commasplice]

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

I don't mind a subscription fee when I feel I am getting my moneys worth. Most games that I have seen that started as free to play were... underwhelming. If they go free to play as a way to keep a fan base, then it will at least still look decent, but ya. There's my opinion at least.

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

This is a really tired argument. Servers cost a lot of money to run and if the game developers don't get paid, there's no new content.

It's exceedingly difficult to have a hobby that doesn't cost a crapload of money. $15 a month is a steal for the amount of entertainment you get if you actually like the game. I pay more that for one round of golf.

That wasn't really supposed to be an argument against monthly fees; I just dislike them. Honestly, the biggest problem I have with them isn't that I think all games should be free or anything. It's more that I'm fairly broke and can never afford to pay them. It's a personal thing more than a principle thing.

As for an actual argument against them, well:

A) What about the fact that, until WoW came around, online Blizzard games had no subscription fees? They seemed to run their servers just fine without constantly sapping their userbase of funds. Maybe it's something about the rising cost in game production. Maybe servers cost more to keep running these days. I really don't know.

B) I don't know that this is always the case, but from what I've seen, the free-to-play model works pretty well. Hell, I know I spent a lot more than $15 a month on Mabinogi when I actually had the money for it. And when I didn't, I still got to play with the characters that I pumped all that time and cash into.

C) Well, I just spent the past day or two since that forum post checking out the free trial for Rift and I feel like I have to amend my previous statement. I would not, in fact, pay $5 a month for this game. It was (to steal Sean's words) underwhelming. Was it the worst thing I've played online? Nah. Just stunningly mediocre. In fact, my feelings about it pretty much completely reflect those of Jake Martinez: it tastes like WoW, but blander. Overly complex skill trees (why the hell do I need 5 finishers from the same sub-class thing? Especially when I can only level up the first one I learned.) and same-y fetch/delivery/kill quests.

Don't get me wrong, I know these things are staples of the MMORPG genre by now, but I really feel like you should at least try to change it up if you're gonna compete with WoW. ESPECIALLY when your game's setting is more or less the same.

I know I didn't get the full experience, but I feel like it should take less than 6 straight hours for a game to hook me.

And therein lies another problem with subscription fees: most of the games that require them are just tedious. I mean, it's not because of the fees that they're tedious, it's because the genre is geared more toward money farming than anything else. And that truth is just kind of insulting to me.

At least when a game is free-to-play, it has an excuse for being bland and same-y. At least when players aren't required to pay, the game has a feasible reason for being a buggy clone of another game that is, in all honesty, fairly overrated.

Was I saying in my original post that subscription fees shouldn't exist or that I would never pay one? Not at all. But I do think that if you're going to expect your players to shovel their dollars into your wallet like that, it should be damn worth it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well the end price is still 20$ or 25? (wonderful conversion there), but hey for everyone who wanted to get this it's the perfect time.

I predict however that by the time the summer is over there will be yet more special offers as the game will be sinking into the realm of long forgotten MMO's.

 

[Red Albatross]

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

I don't mind a subscription fee when I feel I am getting my moneys worth. Most games that I have seen that started as free to play were... underwhelming. If they go free to play as a way to keep a fan base, then it will at least still look decent, but ya. There's my opinion at least.

I would pay $5 for a month of this game. I will not pay $20 for a month of this game. Subscription fees are bullshit, anyway.

This is a really tired argument. Servers cost a lot of money to run and if the game developers don't get paid, there's no new content.

It's exceedingly difficult to have a hobby that doesn't cost a crapload of money. $15 a month is a steal for the amount of entertainment you get if you actually like the game. I pay more that for one round of golf.

That wasn't really supposed to be an argument against monthly fees; I just dislike them. Honestly, the biggest problem I have with them isn't that I think all games should be free or anything. It's more that I'm fairly broke and can never afford to pay them. It's a personal thing more than a principle thing.

As for an actual argument against them, well:

A) What about the fact that, until WoW came around, online Blizzard games had no subscription fees? They seemed to run their servers just fine without constantly sapping their userbase of funds. Maybe it's something about the rising cost in game production. Maybe servers cost more to keep running these days. I really don't know.

B) I don't know that this is always the case, but from what I've seen, the free-to-play model works pretty well. Hell, I know I spent a lot more than $15 a month on Mabinogi when I actually had the money for it. And when I didn't, I still got to play with the characters that I pumped all that time and cash into.

C) Well, I just spent the past day or two since that forum post checking out the free trial for Rift and I feel like I have to amend my previous statement. I would not, in fact, pay $5 a month for this game. It was (to steal Sean's words) underwhelming. Was it the worst thing I've played online? Nah. Just stunningly mediocre. In fact, my feelings about it pretty much completely reflect those of Jake Martinez: it tastes like WoW, but blander. Overly complex skill trees (why the hell do I need 5 finishers from the same sub-class thing? Especially when I can only level up the first one I learned.) and same-y fetch/delivery/kill quests.

Don't get me wrong, I know these things are staples of the MMORPG genre by now, but I really feel like you should at least try to change it up if you're gonna compete with WoW. ESPECIALLY when your game's setting is more or less the same.

I know I didn't get the full experience, but I feel like it should take less than 6 straight hours for a game to hook me.

And therein lies another problem with subscription fees: most of the games that require them are just tedious. I mean, it's not because of the fees that they're tedious, it's because the genre is geared more toward money farming than anything else. And that truth is just kind of insulting to me.

At least when a game is free-to-play, it has an excuse for being bland and same-y. At least when players aren't required to pay, the game has a feasible reason for being a buggy clone of another game that is, in all honesty, fairly overrated.

Was I saying in my original post that subscription fees shouldn't exist or that I would never pay one? Not at all. But I do think that if you're going to expect your players to shovel their dollars into your wallet like that, it should be damn worth it.

Oh, I agree with your closing statement entirely. The subscription model works great when the developers exploit it correctly. I quit the game over a year ago, but I played WoW for a long time, and while I played it, I felt like it was worth the $15 a month because I got plenty of entertainment out of it. Essentially, the developers need to view the subscription views as an investment. The players are investing in the future of the game. Future patches, future content, future stability. The subscription model breaks down when the developers just charge $15 a month because they think they can get away with it, without actually offering anything that's worth that much.

I tried Rift in the beta, and sure, it's competent. But it didn't entertain me. I didn't feel $15 would be justified. Would I play it if it were $5 a month? Maybe. But it seems like all new MMOs that come out just charge $15 because everyone else does it. With WoW, I can understand why Blizzard would feel the need to charge $15 a month. They have 10 million freaking people on their servers. That's a lot of servers. That's a lot of server techs. They come out with new content quite often and that's a lot of game devs to pay. But RIFT? Do they really need $15 a month for their much lower subscription base? Logic would dictate that since they don't have the server overhead that WoW does, that $15 should instead be channeled into creating new content and improving old content. That can pretty much apply to any MMO that comes out.

The free-to-play model for an MMO can work, too - again, provided that it's done right. I always hear about Guild Wars and how it's both free and fun, but the problem with the free-to-play model is that free-to-play too often becomes a misnomer. Most free-to-play games aren't really free-to-play, they're pay-to-win. Don't feel like leveling? Buy exp potions. Don't feel like interacting with other people to clear dungeons and get gear? Just buy it. It bypasses the entire point of MMOs - you spend time in the game, and you get rewarded for it. The developers of free-to-play games focus more on making money than they do on making the time invested in their game fun for the players. It's like a catch-22 situation. People with disposable income pay to bypass the time sink of leveling and gearing up. Players without disposable income won't play the game because they feel they can never get ahead. The devs don't focus on making the leveling and gearing up process any fun, because no one does it, and it makes new players either want to pay to get ahead or quit if they can't pay. It's a self-perpetuating cycle of suck.

 

[Nimcha]

I was certainly interested but seeing as how the game is, even with the price drop, almost three times as expensive in Europe as it is in the US I don't think I'll ever be playing this game.

Or any other game from this developer for that matter. It's downright insulting.

 

[Stall]

Rift talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk in the long run. At the end of the day, Rift was nothing beyond a WoW clone with a modicum of new ideas that really weren't interesting enough to propel a new game. Trion ended up being far too concerned with "taking down WoW" (everything from their "We're Not in Azeroth" anymore ad campaign to their rather bold and inappropriate claim of stealing WoW subs), despite it being virtually identical (Yes, I had a level 50 warrior in full T1 and a mage in the 40s when I quit before the end of the first month... please don't say I haven't played the game).

It reminds me a lot of an unpopular kid trying to "overthrow" the big man on campus by being exactly like him, but with a hell of a lot bigger mouth. The BMoC just kind of regards him as a yappy little dog who poses no true threat as a usurper as he continues about his business, while the unpopular kid is filled with visions of grandeur far beyond him. Even though there are lots of kids at school, many of which are doing fine doing their own little thing, Rift wanted to be the BMoC, and is now paying the price for its failed little venture.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Wow, what a blatant plug. Adverts not enough anymore, they pay to market their games in the editorial too? So paying £8.50 for the game with no game time, is somehow better than WoW's unlimited free trial?

"The Escapist: Sponsored by 'Trion Worlds'"