Rift – Page 3 – MMO Fallout

Rift Server Merger Incoming

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Trion Worlds has announced an upcoming server merge to the MMO Rift. Previously Trion would sneak around the need to merge their shards by switching them into “trial” mode and forcing players to transfer off of them anyway. This time around the company is going for a good old fashioned merger, shutting down three North American and four European shards on October 23rd and 24th for each region respectively. According to the announcement, the company hopes that one day the server architecture will allow them to run multiple languages on the same servers.

Players with names already taken on the server they are merged into will have to change theirs, and guilds with conflicting names will be marked with a ! and will be able to change their name via customer support. This only affects the players on the shards that are shutting down, not the players on the destination shards.

(Source: Rift)

Trion Neglected Rift China, Says CEO

Rift is shutting down in China, and the CEO of Shanda Games (Xiangdong Zhang) has revealed to the Chinese press that the problem lied with a lack of response from Trion Worlds leading to a poor experience for Chinese gamers. According to Zhang, Trion Worlds did not respond to requests for localized content, and eventually the call was made to shut the servers down just six months after launch. According to MMO Culture, Shanda Games has much more faith in Final Fantasy XIV, noting a larger effort toward international release by Square Enix.

Earlier this year, Rift shut down in Korea following a poor reception.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Trion: Hartsman Returns, Branch Closed

It is Christmas time, right? Trion has welcomed back Scott Hartsman as CEO. Some of you may remember back in January that Hartsman resigned from his position as Executive Producer on Rift, which some speculated had to do with disagreements over the then-rumored plans to make Rift free-to-play. If the move was to try and secure a higher position at Trion, then it was a success.

With all good news comes bad, however. Trion has also confirmed to Massively that the company has shut down its San Diego branch, moving operations to the Redwood City Studio. Many of the staff from the San Diego studio are expected to make the transition over to Redwood City.

“As part of this transition, we are working hard to ensure that a number of great people will be making the move from San Diego to the Bay Area and continue their work at Trion,”

Now about ArcheAge…

(Source: Massively)

Rift Tops Raptr’s Charts For June

Let me put my hard hat on real quick. Alright. Raptr is a desktop app similar to Xfire that we’ve featured here on MMO Fallout because it not only tracks your game time and achievements across your consoles, it also regularly gives free stuff at the cost of absolutely nothing. Thanks to a strong promotional effort between Raptr and Trion, Rift came out on top as the most played game of June, with a whopping 13% of the pie. World of Warcraft came in at #5 with three MMOs dropping out from last month’s list: Defiance, Neverwinter, and The Old Republic.

As far as PC games go, Guild Wars 2 ranked #7 with The Old Republic at #10, Neverwinter at #12, Star Trek Online at #14, Marvel Heroes at #17, and Microvolts at #18. Defiance showed up as #13 most played games on the Xbox 360.

You can check out the top lists at the link below.

(Source: Raptr)

Rift Tops Raptr's Charts For June

You can check out the top lists at the link below.

(Source: Raptr)

Rift Compensates For Shard Transfers

Going free to play has a habit of causing disruption, especially when it comes to the more popular servers. In the case of Icewatch and Akala, two European shards, the already popular servers became overloaded thanks to the influx of new players ready to give free to play a try, as well as the returning players who had already called the server home. As a result, Trion was forced to alleviate the load by converting the shards into “trial status,” forcing players to move their characters elsewhere using the game’s free server change tool.

What is trial status, you ask? When a server is put on trial status, only the starting cities of Meridian and Sanctum are available. Characters are fully accessible and do not lose any equipment, but must be transferred off of the server in order to play in areas beyond the starting zone. Transferring is free and does not carry any of the normal restrictions of how much platinum your character may have on them. A guild master may transfer his guild over to a new server, in which case each member will be notified on their next log in and be given the opportunity to follow.

Since players are understandably angry at this move, Trion is compensating refugees from Icewatch and Akala with exclusive titles, an exclusive wardrobe set, and +1000 loyalty.

(Source: Rift)

Defiance And Rift Raptr Rewards

Here at MMO Fallout, we love Raptr for the fact that it is like an Xfire client that tracks game time, and gives us free stuff just for playing games. No surveys, no advertisements, no subscriptions, no deals, none of that stupid crap you get from other clients. It’s just a game developer looking for publicity, so they go to Raptr and say “hey, we want to give some stuff away.” That stuff can be anything from full games to in-game items, and is usually in-game items. The catch? To obtain most of the rewards, you have to have played a certain amount of game time with the Raptr client running. The Raptr client runs in the background, out of sight and out of mind, ticking your play hours.

Trion has a number of items available for Rift players, including a Tartagon mount, a two headed tortoise for players who reach hardcore status, a pet modeled after the Raptr mascot, and a helmet. For Defiance, the rewards aren’t going to be unlocked until July 3rd and include a starter pack (boosts and a lockbox), elite drifter pack (outfit), a Raptr-themed vehicle. Players can grab a 30% off coupon for Defiance starting the 20th if they are ranked dedicated or above in one of the following titles:

Assassin’s Creed III (PC)
BioShock Infinite (PC)
Blacklight Retribution (PC)
Borderlands 2 (PC)
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (PC)
Diablo III (PC)
Firefall (PC)
Guild Wars 2 (PC)
PlanetSide 2 (PC)
Rift (PC)
Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)
Warframe (PC)
World of Warcraft (PC)

There is only a limited amount of these rewards (five thousand for the Defiance and three thousand for the Rift rewards) so nab them while you can. As always, MMO Fallout will try to get our hands on some codes which we will place on our Twitter feed. Follow @mmofallout for updates and codes.

(Source: Raptr)

Rift Increasing Server Capacity

This may be surprising, but the recent transition of Rift to a free to play model has brought in swarms of new and returning players. As a result, the most populated servers have hit their breaking point resulting in long queues. In response to player complaints, Trion has been working to increase server queues and optimization, with some of those updates coming tomorrow, Friday.

I did raise server caps ever so slightly this evening which completely removed the queue on a number of servers. They may be able to go up further this weekend – our engineers were able to find a number of optimizations based on today’s load on the servers. We hope to have those optimizations up potentially on Friday. The % impact of the optimization is not yet known.

There are also plans in place for Trion to be able to lock character creation on the fly.

(Source: Rift Forums)

By The Way, Rift Is Free Today

One of the few remaining pillars of subscription-only MMO gaming has fallen today, with Rift officially going free to play. Offering “no trials, no tricks, no traps,” Rift free to play drops the required subscription and opens up all of the leveling experience free of charge. Players are able to purchase credits to buy mounts, services, convenience items, and more: nearly five thousand items to choose from. Even if you choose not to throw some real money in, you can always partake in the delights of the cash shop through buying REX, which can be consumed for cash shop currency.

Today also marks the launch of patch 2.3, bringing a new zone for max level players.

(Source: Rift)

Rift Details Loyalty Plan For Members

Rift’s conversion to free to play is turning out to be pretty awesome, if I do say so, and I do. Generally when other MMOs go free to play and decide to keep hold of their loyalty programs, they either award loyalty for all players or they do so only to those who subscribe to the premium membership. In the case of Rift, Trion is doing a little of both. Loyalty points no longer accrue simply from subscribing to the premium service, since a subscription is no longer necessary. Instead, players will fill their loyalty meter by subscribing, purchasing or spending credits, or via Rift’s new REX.

The Loyalty system is, at its core, the same philosophy – it’s our way of saying thanks for supporting RIFT. If you choose to spend real money in RIFT you’ll gain Loyalty (with one little loop hole discussed below *wink*). As you accrue Loyalty, your Loyalty meter will fill and unlock new rewards, like Special Costumes only available through Loyalty, the ability to change your target icon to Elite or Raid status, and unique dimensions.

REX is, as you may have guessed, Trion’s version of PLEX: Cash shop credits that can be bundled and sold to other players, effectively allowing the game to be fully accessed for free. Current and former subscribers will be happy to know that their previous months of service in Rift will count toward their starting set of loyalty currency, and you will be able to keep your already obtained loyalty items.

(Source: Rift)

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