Tag: Rift

Rift $50 Starter Pack For New Accounts Only


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Trion Worlds is selling a $50 “Essentials Edition” bundle for Rift that includes all of the essentials that a character needs to get started. The pack includes all of the souls from Nightmare Tides and Storm Legion DLC packs, Primalist Calling with six souls, Planewalker: Water ability, 2 bag slots, and 2 earring slots. Objectively, and considering its contents, it is a good deal.

It will also only be available for new players, starting tomorrow (May 11th). Current players who wish to get their hands on this pack will have to do so before 8:00am PST on May 11th.

(Source: Rift)

Trion Making It Possible To Buy Artifacts In Rift


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There are well over 8,100 artifacts to collect in Rift, a number that likely has hardcore collectors chomping at the bit to get started and others probably crying behind their keyboards. In an update coming next week, players will be able to buy artifacts with credits, the cash shop currency bought with real money. From the news post, it appears that the price of artifacts comes down the more you have collected in each set, rewarding players who go out and find them in the game world.

The goal, naturally, is to give an out to players who have spent a lot of time searching for the artifacts with no luck, as senior development director Simon Ffinch puts it:

“It’s really for people who have tried for months or even years to complete a set and just can’t do it – we don’t want them to be frustrated, we want to enable them to be able to complete it and move on,” says Simon. “It’s actually designed to encourage gathering or trading for artifacts,” he explains, “Because when you open a fresh collection with no items in it, the price per slot is ludicrously high. No one is going to want to buy them at that point.”

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Rift: More Perks For Patrons, Less For Everyone Else


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Trion Worlds is improving Rift, provided you’re a paying member. If not, you might log in to find your game experience is actually worse off than when you left it. Trion Worlds has been making a few controversial decisions regarding how they monetize their games over the past week, each time noting the need to enhance revenues and support their titles with the conclusion that “it’s just business.” Today, the company announced new enhancements to Rift’s patron subscription. Subscribers will enjoy immunity to soul vitality loss, a 50% discount on auction house fees and commissions, stacking charges, rest experience, and queues for specific warfronts and dungeons.

In addition to enhancing Patron status, these changes are designed to enhance the development revenues of the game as a whole, supporting the game we all love. We are fully committed to the long-term health of RIFT, and exploring options such as these that will keep Telara evolving over time

If many of the things listed above sound like features that Rift already has, that’s because they are. In enhancing Patron, Trion Worlds is actively revoking features from free players that have been present since the game went free to play. Trion Worlds waved away criticism over removing access by free players by describing the features as “not necessary in order to play.” The changes to queues, for the unaware, means free players will only be able to queue for random dungeons.

These are of course beneficial and convenient, but not necessary in order to play RIFT. Therefore, they are the sort of thing we believe should be reserved for Patrons. When we reviewed RIFT as a whole this year, we identified this as an area we had overlooked previously. On a side note, any non-patron can group with a Patron friend, who can then select specific queues for the group. In this way, a Patron provides benefits to those around them.

(Source: Rift)

Rift Forces Cash Shop, Trion Worlds “It’s Just Business”


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Is Rift having financial difficulties? It sounds like a loaded question, but it’s one that many are asking in regards to a recent update and Trion Worlds’ response to player criticism. Today’s update removed the ability to purchase earring slots and Planewalker: Water via runestones, a grindable currency, making them available only through purchases in the cash shop. While players are perfectly capable of grinding in-game currency to buy REX, many players have pointed out that the platinum limit on free accounts is lower than the cost of REX, making it impossible to obtain the items without first throwing some money down on your account.

Trion’s reason for the change has similarly been met with controversy, responding that “this is a business decision,” according to community manager Eric Cleaver.

Ultimately this is a business decision, to best support RIFT moving forward into the future. We’re on the cusp right now of RIFT’s 5th Anniversary, and we’ve got great stuff planned for 2016. But that stuff takes Engineers and Designers and CS and QA and a whole lot of other folks.

Having a large team producing amazing things is a benefit to everyone who loves RIFT, both those making it and those who play it. But making games like RIFT is expensive. and so we need to sell things in game to pay those folks. We try to offer a variety of services that appeal to a broad selection of folks. Sometimes we try one thing, sometimes we try another. But it’s always a learning experience.

Both Earring Slots and Planewalker: Water went through a number of iterations during development before release, and when Nightmare Tide did release we decided at that time to allow them to be acquired via either a substantial investment of time via Voidstones or with purchase of a Nightmare Tide Collectors Edition. It’s been over a year now since that release, and the team has decided to move in a slightly different direction with these unlocks.

Incidentally, the update comes alongside a change to Rift’s referral program, and no longer allows for players to use their referral points to purchase REX.

(Source: Rift)

Trion Worlds At Gamescom: Infodump


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Trion Worlds has announced a major info dump at Gamescom, with details regarding all of their first party titles. More information on individual updates will be coming in the next few weeks, but for today the company has pushed a small blurb on each title:

  • Rift: Patch 3.4 introduces a new calling, the Primalist, along with six new souls and a Planewilds expedition zone, new raid, new dungeon and more.
  • ArcheAge: An update called Heroes Awaken will introduce “significant updates and add fresh content to the game.” The update will bring in a new hero system as well as upgrades to guild progression, housing, and a new Diamond Shore zone.
  • Trove: New end-game content and a new class as the game prepares to launch on Mac.
  • Defiance: Higher tier weapons, a new enemy, and more.

(Source: Trion Worlds press release)

[Community] Let’s Call A Merger A Merger


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Originally I intended this week’s Community column to be speculation about how Trion Worlds would handle ArcheAge’s upcoming server merge, given that the plans are still in the conceptual stage and any real action that will be taken is still months down the line. To fuel speculation, I looked at how server mergers were handled in Korea and Russia under XLGames and Mail.ru respectively, and hoped to get a comment from each party.

While Mail.ru and XLGames didn’t respond to my request, I was told by Trion Worlds that an FAQ was in the works. It isn’t out as of this publishing (approximately 2pm EST on Monday, June 1st), so I’m going ahead with my original plan.

It’s safe to say that the term “server merger” has such a negative connotation attached to it because, in the eyes of the ever-rational internet mob, developers might as well post an announcement that they’ve failed at business. Couple that with a media in love with negative headlines, and you’ve got a recipe for PR disaster. Because of this, Trion Worlds isn’t the first to treat the phrase like they’ve been accused of having lice, and have joined the growing list of developers shuffling players away from low population servers (before closing them usually) without actually using the term “merger.” Even Blizzard opted to develop its engine to support cross-realm play rather than merge its list of low population servers.

There tends to be an even more negative response to this tactic, since if there’s one thing people hate more than being lied to, it’s when companies talk to them like they are lawyers in a courtroom dodging a guilty plea by questioning the definition of the term “murder.” To go back to the previous analogy, they are the kid in school trying to explain that while their head has been buzzed and their hair smells of medical shampoo, there is no way you can prove that they were responsible for the lice sighting that the school warned about over the morning announcements.

This isn’t the first time Trion Worlds merged without ever using the term. In Rift, Trion would convert low population servers to “trial servers” in order to force players off of them without actually calling it a merger. Designating a server as “trial” would result in character creation being disabled (for subscribers) and would limit players to the two main cities, forcing players to transfer off once they had finished the content available in the free trial.

We won’t know what Trion plans on doing with ArcheAge until they release more information, but we did grab this soundbite from their latest Twitch stream:

“It’s basically taking lower population servers and then creating an entirely new server and allowing players to migrate from that server to the new evolved servers.”

If their approach to merging servers in ArcheAge is anything close to what they did in Rift, it is likely that players will be not so gently coerced into transferring over to these “evolved servers,” through various limitations on these legacy servers. This way, once the population has sufficiently dwindled, the servers can be logically shut down due to lack of activity, with any characters remaining forced to transfer off.

So the notion that the servers were never merged is technically correct, and as I have said before technically correct is my favorite kind of correct.

Trion Bans May Now Revoke Game Access


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In case you haven’t seen, Trion Worlds has announced the introduction of a new “forum toxicity” policy. In short, the developer has issued an ultimatum that trolling, threats, and abuse will no longer be tolerated, and swift action will be taken to ensure that the forums remain a squeaky clean place for squeaky clean boys and girls. One issue that seems to have been tossed into the spotlight is the idea that Trion is now suspending and revoking game access for behavior on the forums. That is half true.

As explained on the forums, revoking game access is apparently reserved for players who repeatedly return on alternate accounts to continue trolling.

Users who have previously had their forum access revoked, and create second, third, fourth, fifth…and so on, troll accounts, may now see penalties on their game accounts. (Yes, people really do this.) Those penalties range from suspensions to revocation of game access.

With the proper execution, Rift may actually wind up having one of the few official MMO forums worth visiting.

Lessons From 2013 #6: A Rift Between Regions


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This year taught me that Trion Worlds isn’t all too enthusiastic about overseas endeavors. Over the course of 2013, Rift announced its impending shuttering in China, Korea, and Russia, but what caught my eye wasn’t that the game was shutting down, but why. In early October when Shanda Games announced that Rift would be shutting down in China, the publisher put the blame mostly on Trion Worlds. Xiangdong Zhang, CEO of Shanda Games, pointed to Trion and accused them of not responding to requests for localized content, leading to a lack of updates that harmed the game’s ability to keep customers. Later that month, Belver shut down the servers for Rift in China. In their announcement, Belver also noted that Trion Worlds refused to support the localized version.

The lesson here is not to localize Rift.

Rift Shutting Down In Russia


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Rift is shutting down in yet another region, and much like the Chinese version before it, the blame seems to lie in Trion Worlds not supporting localization. As posted on the official website, Belver announced that the servers would shut down October 25th, noting that the reason stems from Trion Worlds refusing to support the localized version. As compensation, Belver is offering bonuses in several of their other games.

 

Everyone who wants to join the players of our other online projects, the prizes and bonuses. After creating the new characters in Black Fire, Runes of Magic Audition 2 or just email our technical support at support.belver.ru login and enter the game that you played in the Rift and the new character in another of our game – after bonuses will be credited to you within 5 working days.

Chinese developer Shanda Games also laid the blame squarely on Trion World’s shoulders, noting very poor international relations from the developer and ignoring requests to localize content. Rift in China shut down just six months after is launch, while the service in Russia began in December 2011.

(Source: Official website)

Rift Frees Inactive Character Names


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Losing your character name due to a server merger sucks, especially if you can’t find a new name because all of the good ones are taken up by people who haven’t logged in since the game first launched. The good news is that players who do end up losing their names when the servers merge on October 23rd will have a bigger pool of alternatives to choose from. Trion has announced that characters who have been inactive for a long time will have their names reset when the servers merge.

Trion has not detailed exactly what counts as “inactive,” but characters that fall into this pool will be contacted via email to warn account holders to log in before it is too late. If you don’t log in, well that’s on you.

If one of your characters is going to be impacted by this change, you’ll be getting an email from us in the next day or two with instructions. If you are one of these inactive characters and want to keep your name, you’ll just need to log in with that character before October 23rd.

(Source: Rift Junkies)