Why RIFT Has One Million Subscribers and Other Games Don’t

Categories:

a. MMORPG

August 16, 2011

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Gamasutra has an article up today revealing our the first concrete subscriber numbers for Trion Worlds’ RIFT. In it, Vice President, David Reid, reveals the following:

He first turned to Rift, the company’s first release from March, which he explained now has over one million customers and is the “second largest MMO in the West.”

First off, I think we can all let off our collective sighs now. If you listened to blogs and forum posts you would think that the game is dying. RIFT having over 1M subscribers not only tells us that it is the “second largest MMO in the west,” it also tells us that the game has increased in popularity since it launched in March. Very few other games can say that nearly six months down the line. Relative to other major releases, RIFT’s pre-order numbers were fairly modest. Steam picked up quickly, almost surprisingly so, but let’s be honest, RIFT was no Warhammer Online, SWTOR, and certainly wasn’t boasting about breaking any records. It flew under the radar for almost its entire development cycle only to come out of the corner swinging and show everyone else how it’s done.

Second, and IMHO, much more importantly, these numbers show that Trion has figured out what it takes to create a successful post-WoW MMO. They’re not part of the pre-release, sell lots of boxes, fade off crowd that virtually every other MMO is a part of. What’s the difference? It’s certainly not the gameplay. Though rifts are dynamic and interesting, and the polish is high-end, what you actually do breaks down into the same things we’ve been doing since Everquest: Make a character, kill lots of monsters, get loot, level, and raid. Not revolutionary but familiar and with a Trion coat of polish. That’s not a knock.

No, what their success shows us is that regular, quality updates are what keep people around long-term and keep new players coming in every day. Why don’t people unsubscribe? Because there’s always something new to look forward to. And those updates make players from other games excited and wonder what all the fuss is about. It keeps Trion in the news cycle, always with something new and exciting and in response to something players have asked for. It keeps them on top of balance, and bug fixes, and player suggestions. Their update schedule has quite literally pushed them to the forefront of the MMO consciousness when every other game falls into the obscurity of quarterly updates.

I guess the question at this point is if TOR and GW2 have learned this same lesson. It’s always been my fear that full-voicing and ultra-long production cycles make for longer wait times between patches. Can either of them match this pace? GW2 maybe, hopefully, but TOR almost certainly not. Both of them better try to one-up WoW, though, because if they don’t, Trion made sure they’re going to look slow as snails by comparison.

 

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Making Time to Be Healthy

Categories:

a. MMORPG, d. Everything Else

August 13, 2011

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Scarybooster has a good post up encouraging gamers to break the stereotype of being overweight, unmotivated, and generally thought of as lazy. We all know how un-true this is, but one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of my gaming buddies don’t find time for exercise in their daily routine. There are the usual excuses of not having time, or space, or money to shell out for a gym membership. I’m here to tell you that they are only excuses.

I’m going to be frank: I hate working out. I do, and I procrastinate with it worse than any regular exerciser you probably know. Worse, I’m embarrassed to be seen doing it. I need privacy or it’s not going to happen. So this gym stuff? Yeah, out of the picture. And yet, every single day I get off my butt and go through a short routine to “maintain.” I’m beyond the point of wanting to impress other men. I went through the weight lifting phase most teen guys do and got myself to the point of being able to match much burlier guys than myself in arm wrestling matches. Needless to say, once you get out of the alpha-male mentality you’re arm wrestling days are pretty much through. Once you hit a certain point, your priority becomes more about not gaining weight rather than making sure you can beat Joe Somebody in a fight.

 

This is all to say that if I can work exercise into my day, anyone can. And it’s important. Spend a lot of time sitting? Deep vein thrombosis might be in your future. This includes desk jobs. Want to live longer? Get up mid-session and stretch your legs. Before you sit down to relax in the evening, take 10-15 minutes and do some crunches.

My routine goes something like this:

  • 25 push-ups – hands close together
  • 75 crab-squats – because no one wants a flabby ass
  • 250-300 crunches – much less than it sounds
  • 25 push-ups – hands apart

All-in-all it’s about 10 minutes, makes me sweat a little (but not enough to require a change of clothes), and gets my heart rate up. I don’t eat the best when my wife isn’t home, so sometimes I gain a few tenths of a pound and have to make it up the next day, but for the last eight years this routine has kept me floating in a weight range I’m comfortable with. My wife and I also like to walk for an hour or so a few times a week; it gives us time to reconnect after the work day and enjoy the fresh air. Here’s another tip, count up how many calories you’re taking in throughout the day. Scale that back progressively over a couple days and don’t exercise. Soon you’ll find out how many calories your body uses in a day without any exercise at all. It will give you some basic knowledge on how your body works and how much you can eat without worrying about packing on the pounds.

All this to say that getting yourself into a routine takes some work and dedication but is one of the best decisions you can make. When I was young, I used to be the fat kid. I got picked on and I hated it. Today though, maybe it was a blessing, because without that I doubt I’d pay as much attention today. Be the guy (or girl) who’s still looking good at your high school reunion. You’ll walk away feeling better about yourself — even if the only person who notices is you. That’s who you’re doing this for.

[I agree with Scary. If you’re a blogger, spread the word and share what you do to take care of yourself. If you’re a reader, leave a comment — here or somewhere else. This is important, and even if only a single person takes our lead, it’s worth the time it takes to share. Help some folks get that extra year or ten with their families.]

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The Irony of Challenge in RIFT

Categories:

a. MMORPG

August 11, 2011

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Many players who say the game is too easy are the same who use macros in their normal rotations. RIFT will literally let you simplify fighting down to two buttons, in some cases, and three in most others. How do you complain because content is too easy from one side of your mouth and then ensure it takes less thought with the other?

Just a thought.

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Avoiding the Fun

Categories:

a. MMORPG

August 11, 2011

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I really have no idea what this has to do with avoiding fun. This guy is avoiding something, though, and he's going to have a hell of a time not ripping his hair out. Eyelashes? Nah, we don't need em.

For the first time in probably three months, I tanked an expert dungeon in RIFT last night. It really wasn’t because I felt like being the stalwart defender or guardian against the night or even leader. No, the real reason is that if I didn’t I might have given up on RIFT entirely.

I go through phases, I’ve noticed. Sometimes, most times, I really enjoy digging into an MMO. This is usually during the leveling up process where there’s always the next ding to look forward to. Then I hit the endgame and get a good feel for it before getting bored. It’s not a knock against the game I’m playing, though RIFT’s dungeons could stand to be a little shorter, but more of my need for an internal vacation. When I play level through an MMO the first time I become a bit of a sponge, and all that soaking can leave a guy worn out. To unwind, I spend a lot of time in single-player games and namely Call of Duty — though, I might add, my time played in Black Ops is ~50 hours, my time on my cleric is ~300.

Anyways, in the last couple months since I hit the level cap, I’ve done nothing but DPS. It made me lazy. I got geared up for the one role and going back to tanking started to seem scary. Groups in RIFT are welcoming, but who wants to be the guy that doesn’t know the encounter? DPSing in RIFT is more complex than, say, WoW (you have to move more), but it still takes far less attention to detail than tanking does. So despite the fact that I spent my last year in WoW tanking, and while leveling up in RIFT, I avoided it; this activity that I knew I loved, I simply didn’t sign up for. How weird is that?

Something tells me I’m not alone in that, though. As gamers, we get in grooves. When you do one thing a whole lot, it starts to feel like your thing, while everything else takes on a foreign sheen not unlike your first time doing anything in a dungeon. How many people were nervous the first time they stepped up to heal? I know I was. Hell, it took me a year to even try tanking and another one after that to go back to it when I failed (this was Burning Crusade era). Then everything clicked and tanking became my new groove, just like that.

Until RIFT, that is.

We did T1 Foul Cascade tonight. Did we wipe? Oh yeah, five times actually. No one yelled at me. No one vote-kicked me (even though I offered to leave out of embarrassment after the third wipe). They were simply patient while I remembered all the tactics every good tank needs to know. After the first hour, I had my timing back and that calm cool that stays panic when something goes wrong. Once that came back, it became a matter of knowing the boss strategy, and we didn’t wipe again.

Here’s the magic part: I walked away from the game tonight feeling rejuvenated. Where every other time I’ve logged in this month consisted of my queueing up before logging out in boredom, tonight I would have stayed logged in longer if it’d been any earlier. Knowing how different a feeling that really is, it makes me excited to get up tomorrow and try my hand again. It’s a breath of fresh air.

The point being, if you’re anything like me, trying something new — even if you’re not sure about it — might be the surprise you need to keep yourself going. All too often we expect the game to bring the options to us and leave a to-do list right on our front door when really we’re so much more empowered than that. Try something new today, be it a game or a role or a class. You just might like it!

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Documentary Review: The Raid – A Giant Mole Which, As a Saving Grace, Isn’t TOTALLY Covered in Those Hairs We Find So Gross

Categories:

a. MMORPG, d. Everything Else

August 8, 2011

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I recently watched the preview of the new MMO documentary, The Raid, which you can watch for yourself here. The movie presents the most accurate portrayal of raiding currently available. It’s all the greater shame, then, that the movie consistently falls back on stereotypes for no discernible reason other  than it’s what people expect to see.

But let’s talk about the positive. The actual film-making is very good. I really appreciated how the director cut together the interviews with in-game footage; the thoughtful compilation of interviews, encounters, and webcam film went together very nicely.  The points covered are also very well done and answer questions parents and non-gamers may ask on the most general level: Who, what, and why. Sound design was also great.

Which brings me to the negative. Within the first 15 minutes you’ll see:

  • Expressions such as “rape your face”? Check.
  • Misogynist lines such as (and I’m very lightly paraphrasing) “Female gamers fall into two groups … they’re either really nice or they’re a bitch. They’re either really good or they’re bad.” Check.
  • Giving up of necessities (like shopping and exercise… minus Red Bull and Charleston Chew, of course)? Check.
  • Saying “F*ck* and “Sh*t” because you can? Check.

And an ending crescendo:

  • Bleeped out “He’s a f*g for your d*ck?”
  • White kid shouting “N-word!” in ? Check.

This is a pattern they trace from the opening segments until the closing scenes. What’s worse, it genuinely feels like the raiders intentionally portrayed themselves this way. Most of the time they’re normal, likeable people. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they come off with something you have to shake your head at. The Raid is another example of a documentary that knows what its audience expects to hear and lives up to that through these random, but very unfortunate reminders. The whole film seems to say, “Hey, you see these people? They could be normal, right? Maaaaaybe — gotcha! Rape your face! Two-mode women! We’d die in the hood so we’re racist behind closed doors!”

Midway through the movie I was forced to ask myself, “who is this being made for.” And that’s they key. A movie like this isn’t made for the MMO players who, let’s face it, don’t need a movie to tell them how raiding works. This film was made for the non-indoctrinated and the fringe candidate. It was made for parents, girlfriends, teachers, and siblings. It was made for the techie whose buddy talks about WoW at work. In that light, it seems that the director may have realized that the “average people doing not-average things” approach wasn’t the best way to sell tickets (or downloads).

If you can get past the flaws inherent in targeted-documenting, The Raid is worth watching. Like it or leave it, the stereotypes they present are still what MMO players are striving against. It’s not all bad, I promise. If The Raid does one thing right, it’s including enough accuracy to give the best representation of modern raiding — the activity, not the people — there is. That’s not necessarily glowing praise considering there’s very, very little competition, and what there is has largely been found in slanted docu-news specials on prime-time TV.  Where real players may take umbrage with some of the characterization that takes place. Some of these people are normal and do absolutely nothing to draw ire, which is really too bad for them because they’re all going to be lumped into one; as a matter of fact, the majority of offensive and filthy language comes from two people: Lore, who you might know from the WoW community, and Greyhammer, who you probably don’t know from anywhere. A word of advice for this group, get rid of Greyhammer. He obviously makes people uncomfortable and made you all look way worse than you probably are.

I can imagine a mother, or friend, or techie walking away and saying “THAT’s the kind of person you spend time with?” Still, like I said, it’s not all like that, so it’s still a cut above the Dateline NBC days of Everquest romances gone wrong and hit-monger headlines about the Chinese dying from exhaustion. In the end, however, this is a movie that will only convince you of wherever you were leaning in the first place. Take it for what it is.

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Buying Gold Could Support North Korea

Categories:

a. MMORPG

August 8, 2011

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Folks against gold buying have what seems to be the strongest argument supporting their cause yet. From the New York Times (and linked to Kotaku since NYT requires an account), news breaks that Kim Jong-Il has been sending the country’s PC elite into the MMO world to pave the way for gold-farming bots.

On Thursday of last week, police in Seoul arrested five graduates of North Korea’s “elite science universities” and discovered that the group was tied to “Office 39,” an undercover illegal activities ring driven from the North Korean government. Here is how Kotaku presents it:

Office 39 “gathers foreign hard currency for Mr. Kim through drug trafficking, counterfeiting, arms sales and other illicit activities,”

Over the last two years, the team was able to earn $6 million dollars, 2.7 of which was sent back to their North Korea dictator.

I’ve never purchased gold before, but this should raise some serious moral questions for anyone who has or is considering doing it. Despite the light-hearted tone of the Kotaku post, these transactions are something that a huge part of our community has taken part in. It should turn our collective stomach to know that we may have helped fund the suffering of other human beings. It’s one thing to “maybe sorta” support wrecking a game’s economy and account security, it’s another to take a chance with your money supporting the oppression of an entire nation. Let’s not forget the whole “this guy is nuts and is pursuing nuclear bombs” thing, too. Taking a risk like that, honestly, is so morally bankrupt that it verges on narcissism.

Now we know. Buying gold is definitively bad unless it’s the company itself selling it. We don’t know where the money goes. We don’t have the means to find out where the money goes. And like so many things, simple Google searches don’t come close to being real research.

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Join us tonight for the FINAL episode of the Rift Watchers podcast

Categories:

d. Everything Else

August 6, 2011

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[IMPORTANT: Taken from the Rift Watchers main page. Game By Night is unaffected and will probably see more activity with the extra free time.]

Hi Everyone,

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that tonight will be our final episode of the Rift Watchers podcast. Over the last eight months, we’ve joined together on a more-or-less weekly basis to talk about a game we all love. The project has been an almost daily part of my life, in one way or another, for nearly every day since we started. The community and the team at Trion has received us wonderfully and in a bigger and kinder way than any of us ever thought we’d see. It was exciting and a pleasure to say the least.

The big question, then, is “why?” The answer is pretty simple: Rift Watchers is a project that I wanted done with my full effort or not at all. Every episode took nearly eight hours from start to finish and required a significant amount of planning. As we all move forward with our lives, responsibilities change. Gavin, as you probably heard, got an internship with PC Gamer; he’s on the path toward the career he’s wanted for as long as I’ve known him (and it couldn’t be happening for a better guy, incidentally). Jeremy is regularly flown around the country doing a job that requires more dedication and time than many his age would be willing to commit; and that says a lot about who he is as a person and how much he’s willing to put forth for his burgeoning family. For my part, I’m embarking on my journey towards a Master’s degree and beginning a new job making sure aspiring teachers find placements in the best districts New York State has to offer.

We all still find time to play, read, and discuss RIFT regularly.

The reality is simply this: Rift Watchers is not something I ever wanted to be “fit in.” Over the last eight months, it’s become “my baby” in many ways, and like a protective parent, I want it do be done justice; I want the original vision and standard to be maintained. I don’t know that that’s possible anymore, at least for now. And so we find ourselves here. Rather than ebb into the classic “podfade” we’re electing to pull the train into one final stop, bid our passengers farewell, and watch the steam fade off  by the sunset’s light.

Podcasting has been a longtime hobby of mine, and all of us, and I’m sure — sure — it’s something we’ll come back to. We’ll let you know when the train starts rolling again, bound for Telara or elsewhere, and make sure you have a ticket to ride.

Until then, we’d love if you’d join us for one last show tonight via our Livestream. We’ll be going live at 10:30PM EST on our channel page. Tweet it, share it, and do what you will; we want as many people there as can make it. Stay tuned to our Twitter for to-the-minute updates during pre-show.

Thank you for everything, guys, and a big thank you to our friends at Trion for supporting us throughout it all. Remember to add the site to your RSS readers. We’re staying live here for the foreseeable future, posting as we will, and sharing our adventures in the first MMO of the next-generation.

 

Cheers,

Chris

 

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The Multiverse – Season 02 Episode 08 – “Milk Them Mode”

Categories:

a. MMORPG, d. Everything Else

July 21, 2011

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Hey Gang,

It’s been an interesting set of weeks and we thank you for sticking with us and awaiting this episode! Adam and I have our travel behind us, so we came together Saturday to talk about the utter WEALTH of MMO news that’s cropped up this last month. On the docket today:

  • RIFT’s state of the game address and looking into the future – too much open world PvP?
  • Fan Faire – What doth thou learn, ser Adam?
  • A brief trip down monocle lane…
  • Darkfall 2.0… a NEW game?!?
  • And much, much more!

This episode was very fun to record and Adam did a great job of putting it together. As always, if you like it, please consider dropping us an iTunes review!

Enjoy the show!

Vagary Homepage
Subscribe to the Show
iTunes Feed
Download/Listen Here

 

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My Experimental Interview with Trion and The Electric Steam Sale Experiment

Categories:

a. MMORPG, b. Console, d. Everything Else

July 15, 2011

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Happy Friday, folks.

Today looks to be a beautiful day going into a great weekend. I’m a bit excited for tomorrow, actually. I’ll be doing a special podcast with the community team at Trion. What makes that even more exciting – or nerve-wracking – is that I’m going to be doing an experimental episode with them, more akin to This American Life than Rift Watchers. Thankfully Cindy and Zann will be there, and they’re both genuinely nice and fun to talk to. The three others coming along I haven’t met, though I know Amary from the forums. You probably do, too; she does the patch notes.

I’ve actually not played RIFT much lately. I was edging into a break about two weeks ago, and the Steam sale pretty much decided for me. It’s a great game, the most sticky I’ve played since WoW, and I’d hit it hard over the last three months. I hit 50, got myself nearly done with the first set of plaque gear, and realized that the next step was raiding. That’s great, but if I followed that path, I would have burnt out. No doubt about it. So I’m taking things easier, enjoying some next games, and —

Watching Netflix on my 3DS. Say whaaaat. But it’s true, as of today the Nintendo 3DS is worth owning. Ocarina of Time almost got us there, but today was a big step forward, and the recent additions to the e-shop provide a lot of options.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I put so much emphasis on the Netflix over, say, the game library (not entirely, the game library right now). The answer is pretty simple, and married men represent: I have a wife. And being that my wife enjoys a handful of programs I do not, I’m now explore my queue instead of probing the intricacies of Seattle Grace Hospital. Plus, I don’t have an iPhone, so this is rather new for me.

Anyways, this Steam sale got the best of me. I was on a music kick this year and purchased both Beat Hazard and The Polynomial. Beat Hazard is a mix of Space Invaders and Audiosurf; it’s a dual-stick shooter where the levels, incredible firework-like visuals, and the power of your weapons are based on the song you’re listening to. The Polynomial is a first-person flight shooter where you’re music helps generate an amazing space arena. It’s essentially what every former hippy wishes they’d had in the 70s, except that it’s filled with vampire-ball monsters and weird space-jellyfish (see trailer).

I also picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game I owned and traded in on the PS3, purely to check out the 3D. It was a pretty big deal for nVidia when it came out, what with achieving the prestigious “3D Ready” label from the company. For $7.50, it was an absolute steal. I’m playing with an Xbox 360 controller and – no exaggeration – the 3D effect is an absolute game-changer. The added depth skyrockets immersion more than you’d believe. Playing through the game seems more like watching the world’s most elaborate dolls in an amazing set rather than animated models. It’s hard to describe, but everything just seems much more solid.

The silence in here has gone on long enough that I feel something has to be said. I’ve been reticent to post over the last few months for a reason I hope that no one takes offense to: Once you’ve been around for a while, it seems like every argument has been stated already. The blogoverse is starting to seem pretty cyclical and instead of coming up with new ways to participate in those conversations, I’ve simply been watching them play out while re-investing in what made me want to blog in the first place.

I love games. MMOs, single-players, arena shooters, and casuals alike. I appreciate the since of youthful exuberance a new game brings me, the excitement of the build-up, and the sneaky ways a good in-game narrative can swoop in and hit you harder than any movie or TV show. Suffice it to say that I’m not going anywhere 😉

 

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Appreciating RIFT’s Single-Server (and Long) Dungeon Queue

Categories:

a. MMORPG

July 6, 2011

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It's a PUG's world

I find groups in RIFT to be very tolerant. I think that’s probably because the queue to join those groups tends to be long in comparison to, say, WoW.  As I’m still gearing up towards 150 focus (a stat mainly available on T2 level gear and craftables), I find myself constantly in queue. At any given time, wait times range from 20 to 60 minutes as DPS and only slightly less as tank. Since I, and I’d assume many MMO players, don’t have 3+ hours to play at a time, this makes that first group valuable, because given the time it takes to run a dungeon and the time it takes to re-queue, probably means it’ll be your only attempt of the night. You have a vested interest in the group’s success. Those wait times effectively discourage players from being trolls.

Yet, 20-60 minutes is a lot. This is on Sunrest (US) — and we’re a high pop. server, so you’d think queues wouldn’t be that bad. I can’t help but feel like finishing quests while I wait is anything but busywork. There’s no great reward beyond story, after all.  So I empathize with the players calling for a cross-server dungeon finder. Dungeons are arguably one of the best pastimes available to the non-raider in RIFT, yet each failed group effectively means less content you get to see.

On the other side of that token, though, there is one huge benefit to keeping things single-server: Community.

It might seem obvious, but I’d like to draw attention to some things that players often wax nostalgic about in WoW. Before cross-server dungeons, people had reputation, groups talked, and you started to feel like you knew the people you played with — or at least recognized their name. It made you feel like part of a community. That is exactly where RIFT is at right now. Level 50 chat thrives and poor groupmates are often called out for their bad behavior. Unlike on WoW, you can’t just behave like a jerk and have no repercussions. On the other side of that, great tanks and healers and DPS get remembered for their competency. It’s less and less a matter of “this shaman is great with his role,” and more “wow, remind me to group with NAME again.” As a result, it’s not uncommon to get thrown into a group with one or more players you’ve joined with before. Or to receive a wave from one of those people later in Meridian.

The value of all this really can’t be overstated. It’s the difference between standing on a busy New York City street during lunch hour and being a student in a suburban classroom. You may not know everybody in that class, but you can at least recognize them.

It’s also brought back the importance of the guild tag. Let’s be honest, your guild in WoW really doesn’t matter to anybody else. A few select groups might get noted for server firsts, but for the most part it’s another element lost in the ether of cross-server dungeoneering. In RIFT, players represent their guilds much more meaningfully. Guilds have reputations, good and bad, and players react to them.

Yet for all of this, playing a tank in WoW has spoiled me. Waiting a long time for a dungeon is a drag.

So the question, I guess, is if it’s be worth it to make the dungeon finder cross-server. I’m inclined to say no because maintaining that community is more important to the whole game than my own progress. Still… How about you?

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