RIFT, free-to-play, and stickiness

We’ve all heard the news by now: RIFT’s going free-to-play in less than a month.  No big surprise; everyone’s wondered for a while, F2P is like a “second launch” that most MMOs enjoy, and RIFT had the structure of RIFT lite and the shopping cart in place.  Still, this news gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up from me.

RIFT is one of those games that while I may no longer be playing it, I have nothing but fond affection for it.  It’s a highly polished, full-featured MMO that deserves a healthy-sized audience.  I have no idea how many people are still subbed, of course, but I don’t think it was in danger of dying any time soon.  A F2P switch doesn’t always signal a hail Mary survival throw, but sometimes it’s just a good business decision to bring in more players and make more money and ensure a longer lifespan for the title.

I’m impressed that RIFT launched and survived over two years as a sub-only game in this current MMO climate.  People predicted RIFT to go F2P a long time ago, and Trion stuck with the subs (and quite aggressive marketing techniques) up until now.  The sub was something that stuck in people’s craw, because it forced players to make two tough comparisons when deciding to stick with RIFT or not: Is it worth paying for RIFT when I can get so many other MMOs for free?  Is RIFT worth the same (more or less) sub price as World of Warcraft?

Now those questions are moot.  The sub barrier will be gone (but the sub itself is still an option) and we’ll see how RIFT can compete with the rest of the F2P pack.  I predict that it’ll do just fine for itself.

In terms of the details of what’s free and how Trion’s going to be making money, I am quite pleased to see that there’s not going to be any silly SWTOR-like restrictions on classes, souls, and content.  The base game (1-60, not including the expansion which must be purchased separately) is free and that’s all there is to that.  Awesome.  Instead of hobbling the game and making you pay to un-cripple it, the devs are taking the philosophy of giving the game away and then making money from extras (and those who still wish to sub).

That’s when we get into some of the murkier elements.  Most of the cash shop mentions are generally fine — cosmetics, boosters, mounts, expansion souls, and so on.  What has a few folks worried is that RIFT will also be selling gear, although there’s a limit on how good of the gear this is (the devs are promising that the absolute best still will come from dungeons, raids, etc.).  This I don’t like so much.  Even if it’s not “the best”, it still offers a significant shortcut and toes the “pay to win” line.  Maybe you’re okay with games selling gear, but I’ve long ago decided that that’s where I draw the line in my acceptance of F2P offerings.  It undermines progression (as gear is tied to in-game quests and activities) and can offer ways for PvPers to get a leg up on the competition through the virtue of the dollar.

That aside, it’ll be interesting to see how REX will combat gold sellers and create a new economy in the game.

Free-to-play isn’t enough to get me to come back right now, as my plate is more than full.  But if you’ve never given RIFT a try, seriously check it out.  I spent well over a year in that game and loved a great deal of it.

RIFT image dump

So this might be the last time you hear me talk about RIFT for a while.  A couple weeks ago I decided that I was at the point where I was ready to give the game another break after spending eight or so months in it.  No big drama here, no huge fallout, just wasn’t feeling it lately and wanted to pare down my “currently playing” selections so I could get more time in with LOTRO, TSW, and GW2.

To commemorate my past year in the game, here are some of my favorite screenshots:

RIFT: Before and after the fall

As of late I’ve been putting more dedicated time into RIFT, LOTRO, and GW2 — the former two to make serious headway in the expansions, and the latter because I’d really like to wrap up world exploration so I can move on to an alt.  I’ve been enjoying these slightly longer play sessions because they’ve helped me really get into the stories going on.

For RIFT, I’m currently in the heart of Brevane.  I had assumed that this continent would’ve been the duller of the two new ones, especially since Dusken is all about a horror-themed wasteland.  Yet I’ve been surprised; Brevane is quite a puzzle.  It’s all about the ruins of this highly advanced “magi-tech” civilization that fell almost overnight and your exploration into what happened.  It’s a compelling mystery, made even more so interesting by the quest flow.

I have to hand it to Trion, they really came through on the promise to make the expansion less about vacuuming up quests at hubs, doing them, and boomeranging back, and more about constant progression through a story and areas.  So this past weekend I was in the Eternal City, the big town in the center of the continent that’s been overgrown with nasty flora.  You’re going in after a lost expedition and piecing together clues as to what happened here.  After several quests, you are tasked with rescuing a guy who’s in the middle of this mutant camp.  Instead of just plowing your way in there by brute force, the game has you find a disguise, prepare diversions, and then stage an epic breakout.

That leads to probably one of my favorite moments in the game, a pulse-pounding chase up an aquaduct while this MONSTER of a critter chases you and your rescued knight.  You eventually run out of track and the NPC tells you to jump for it.  I’m like… okay… this is going to hurt, and then leap hundreds of feet to my doom.  Happily, I landed in water — and in a new zone.  The whole quest line was a way to get me into this new zone for different adventures, and I didn’t realize at the time it was doing so.  A really neat moment that had me saluting the game and eager to see what lay ahead.

RIFT: A Winning Formula

When I was leveling my Cleric, the Inquisition spec was my hands-down favorite.  I’ve always been a sucker for DOT-heavy classes — there’s just something satisfying about poking mystical holes in bad guys and then watching them bleed out while they can’t do anything about it.

So this spec was just great, up until I went off into Storm Legion lands.  Then for some reason it didn’t work so well.  The mobs had their health jacked way up and the damage I was putting out didn’t cut it.  I found myself getting beaten up a lot and even dying, and so reluctantly moved on to other specs.

Happily, I did revisit this build last weekend.  I took it apart and thought about what I really wanted it to do.  Lots of DOTs, some self-healing, and survivability.  So I swapped out the Sentinel soul I had in there for some reason and added in the Defiler (along with the Inquisitor and Cabalist).  Suddenly… it clicked.  I became a DOT powerhouse, even more strong than how I used to be.  I started picking fights just because it was a lot of fun seeing how fast I could take them down.

Between those three souls I have 6-7 DOTs that get applied right up front, along with a channeled hurt/heal spell and a delayed time bomb.  The key to all of this is laying down the Defiler’s awesome beacon of despair right up front.  That pet grabs aggro like crazy, and even though you take half of the damage that it’s receiving, I’d rather take half than all AND the beacon damages them per hit.  So with the beacon grabbing aggro, I can lay out all of my DOTs and judge whether or not (usually not) that I have to reapply them.

The awesome thing about this build is that even though I’m taking a little bit of damage through the whole fight, I’m also constantly healing myself.  A couple of the DOTs heal while they do their damage, so it generally evens out to whatever hurt I’m taking from the beacon.  Barring that, I have three self-heals at the ready that can be applied in a pinch.

For me, this is a perfect build.  It’s low-stress to use, kills relatively quickly, and doesn’t require more than 7 or 8 keystrokes per mob death.  The only downside is that it’s really geared toward one mob at a time; multiples take some DOT juggling, and the beacon can get owned pretty quickly if they gang up on it.

I believe in Tinkerbell!

There are many combat pets in RIFT and I’ve pretty much tried them all.  Being a bit of a pet freak, I couldn’t be expected not to, really.  It’s just more fun having a companion giving you a helping hand — and I always like feeling as if I’m ganging up on a bad guy.

What I didn’t expect is that my favorite pet would be, of all things, Tinkerbell.  Tinkerbell is the informal name I’ve given to the Druid’s greater faerie healer, this little floating waif who packs surprising utility.  If I have her out in whatever build I make, I know that I’m going to faceroll the opposition.  You just can’t oppose pint-sized powerhouses.

The reason I love the faerie healer is that she (a) pumps out an incredible amount of heals and (b) supplements that with some decent DPS.  Sure, she’s not pure DPS like the faerie spirit caster or the satyr, but it’s not nothing, either.  Seriously, when she’s out, I do not have to look at my health bar at all.  She can have two mobs on her while I attack a third, and I know that she’s just not going to die.  I like to think that she’s snickering at the bad guys as they hack at her while she farts fairy dust in their faces.

I’m quite worried that one day Trion will nerf her into the ground, and I’ll be left with this crippled, fluttering bug-girl who will do nothing but remind me of better days.  “Do you remember when we used to dance on elite bosses’ faces?  Or when you /AFK’d in that field of lava and I chain-healed you for 45 minutes until you came back from dinner?  Remember those good times?”

And I’ll have to be, “Quiet!  You’re not her.  YOU ARE NOT HER.  BEGONE!”

Don’t leave me, faerie healer!  You are the HMO plan that Telara needs!  Keep healing until they take the sky from you!

What I played in 2012

Rather than stretch on the Flushies past my current level of interest, I thought I’d start wrapping up the year by saying a few words about each game I played in 2012.

• Lord of the Rings Online — This remains my long-running MMO home, and as such I’ve had plenty of intense periods of play and lax periods of disinterest with it.  The expansion really is a great addition to the game, and I’m quite pleased that Turbine instituted open tapping and remote looting across the entire game.  I’ve just started a new Dwarf Champion, so I’m looking at the possibility of leveling up all over again.
• RIFT — I came back to RIFT in May and I don’t regret it.  I leveled up a Cleric from 1 to 51, flirted with my Rogue, and started to make some headway in the expansion.  The player housing system really impressed me, and it was good to reconnect with my old guild.
• The Secret World — The pleasant surprise of the year that’s given me quite a few great hours of storytelling and adventure with my shotgun-wielding 80s girl.  I’ve come to love our regular group nights and hope that Funcom can keep the magic alive for years to come.  The business model switch was a great move, although I am worried that it won’t bring as much income in for the studio.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic — I enjoyed wrapping up my Imperial Agent’s storyline early in the year, but couldn’t really get attached to a second character and soon fell away from the game.  I did return for free-to-play, tried a Smuggler for a while, but it didn’t quite stick.  I may be coming back again, I don’t know.
• Star Trek Online — I played this off and on over the year, but it’s definitely been of interest lately.  I finally hit the maximum level and have a cool ship to go with it.
• Guild Wars 2 — Really love this game and haven’t been disappointed in it yet.  While I hit level 80 with my Engineer a while back, I’m holding off on alts until I finish my first 100% map completion.
• Runes of Magic — I went through a really brief flirtation with this game during the early summer lull, but wasn’t impressed enough to stick with it.
• Anarchy Online — Spent a few days here and there in the newbie zone, but didn’t have enough time or vested interest to get into the game as much as I’d like.
• Asheron’s Call 2 — Really cool to at least see this game for a couple nights, but I wasn’t going to stay subscribed just for that.
• Champions Online — Returned for a couple days after the fall of City of Heroes.  I actually wouldn’t mind playing this if I had more time and a freeform character wasn’t $50, but as it is, I’ll have to leave it be.
• DC Universe Online — I gave this another try on the recommendation of several friends who rave about it, but just couldn’t get past the horrible character creation process and wonky action control scheme.
• Vanguard — Another “it just went F2P so I should play it” temptation that didn’t pan out.  That’s a pity; I think I’d probably end up liking this game a lot if I dedicated myself to it.
• Dark Age of Camelot — Played this for six weeks for a Massively series.  Was definitely an interesting peek into the past that I never saw, but wasn’t my cup of tea in the end.

That’s it for the big ones, although I did try a few betas (City of Steam, Marvel Heroes) and downloaded a couple titles that got erased almost immediately.  Tomorrow I’ll be looking back at the other major events of the year, and then we’ll just move forward once more!

RIFT: Mazes and monsters

After a very long day yesterday, I finally sat down for some gaming and went straight to RIFT.  It dropped its 2.1 update, and so I thought that the Fae Yule festival would be starting.  I missed it last year, plus the new sledding minigame sounds pretty cool.  Alas, it wasn’t turned on, so instead I decided to work on my dimension.

I’ve had an idea for it, to turn my dimension into a fun maze.  That wasn’t going to work with the default dimension, so I ponied up 10 plat to purchase the Breach Chamber.  This turned out to be ideal for what I needed: a large contiguous indoor space with a tunnel leading into it.

The outline of the maze — the walls — were priority one after that.  The vendors sell these stone slabs on the cheap, and while they look like, well, stone, you can resize them quite a bit.  So I purchased about 40 of them to get started, resized them one by one, rotated them to be walls, and started placing them.  I have no grand design for the maze itself, so I’m just going to let it develop organically.

I don’t want to make the maze frustrating so much as fun to explore, so I’m creating little themed pockets within it.  The first dead end I made has a miniature garden with a lamp, bench, and book.  I was kind of proud at figuring out that I could flip a shrub to hang on the wall, giving the nook a much more leafy vibe.

The other major thing I started to do was to get some stairs in place for the second level.  I thought that that would be important to do early on so I don’t back myself into a corner.  Plus, I need to get up there to start laying down the slabs to serve as the ceiling/floor between the levels.

I also purchased a music box so that the strains of Silverwood’s score would be playing while people explore.

Can I say again what a dream this system is with which to work?  It’s taking some time to make sure everything lines up right and works fine, but it’s ridiculously simple to handle.  I really can’t wait until I get this done and open it up to the public, but I’m not going to pull that trigger until it’s done.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of my progress:

Crucia O’Reilly

I’m in the first zone of Dusken in RIFT’s expansion, and I keep hearing this booming voice coming from… somewhere.  I think it’s supposed to be Crucia, the main villainess, who is taunting us, but I can never understand what she’s saying.  What’s even stranger is that it sounds like she’s using a PA system, kind of like Radar on M*A*S*H.  So now I have the mental image of this lonely dragon/semi-nude lady sitting in an empty office shouting into a mike while drinking a fifth of Scotch.

Happy Storm Legion launch day (plus one)!

“LFG to find my clothes!”

You know that movie and TV convention where a character has something they have been looking forward to — a sandwich, a crossword puzzle, a nap, whatever — but every time they sit down to enjoy it, a distraction comes along and keeps them from it?  That was yesterday for me and RIFT.  Oh, how maddening it was to see the new expansion fully patched and loaded, only to be called away for grocery shopping… and a fussy baby… and a sick kid… and my own pesky need for sleep.

As a result, I’ve only had a half-hour or so to check it out, although my guildies have been raving about it.  I rolled up the new Tactician soul, which is a kissing cousin to my Guild Wars 2 Engineer so much that I could close my eyes and pretend I was in either game.  I also could pretend I was flying over Uganda, but that’s the power of imagination for you.

My second stop was acquiring my first Dimension and fiddling with the tools.  This is something I have to devote a lot more time to evaluating, but I can say pretty confidently that this is one of the most intuitive and flexible player housing systems I’ve ever seen.  It’s just a joy to work with, and the possibilities are endless.  I’m going to try hard not to go broke right off the bat (I’m ashamed to say I don’t even have enough money for my level 50 mount yet), so I’m holding off from buying tons of housing materials for now.  Instead, I headed off to one of the new continents, Dusken, to get that XP, moneys, loots, and  whatever else is coming my way.

It’s definitely tricky to jump into a completely new soul at level 50 and try to make sense of all of the skills and talents, but I think I’m settling on a good rotation.  So far, my Tactician/Bard/Blade Dancer is pretty tough and dishes out a lot of damage in return.  The flamethrower is extremely welcome in crowded battles, and so far there have been several of those.

I’m also pleased to see that the art style for armor has jumped up a few notches.  RIFT’s never had the best style in this department, but so far Storm Legion is looking to change my mind.  It’s definitely unique, but also a lot sleeker and more visually appealing.

So we’ll see how it goes from here!  With SWTOR’s F2P transition tomorrow and GW2′s Lost Shores on Friday, I really want to get in some good time with RIFT later today.  That’s probably an invitation for even more distractions, like 13 dwarves barging in my house and demanding that I feed them dinner and then go  on an adventure.

The Christmas of Too Much

I’ve noticed something interesting about my toddlers come Christmas time.  At least at their age, more presents isn’t necessarily better.  They only have the attention span for the more recently opened gift, not to mention that the excitement level tends to take a nose dive after gift three or four.  So this year we’ve decided to focus on one big gift for each of them with a couple smaller ones to give them later.  That way they can just devote all their attention to one present and enjoy that to its fullest instead of pushing it aside for the next thing.

I feel like I’m in the midst of a “Too Much Christmas” this year.  I’m not complaining, but dang if all of the launches, expansions, patches, conversions, and special events are keeping me hopping.  I’m actually looking forward to December this year more for its quiet than anything else.  I need time to enjoy the gifts I’ve opened, briefly sampled, and then had to temporarily set aside for the next one.

This week offers three big presents for me, one right after the other.  Tomorrow is RIFT: Storm Legion’s launch day, which is probably my most anticipated expansion release this year.  It’s got so much to do that even if RIFT was my only MMO, I would have my hands full with it way into 2013.  Our guild is growing every day as returning players hop back on and fill the chat window up with excited conversations.  Personally, I think that the player housing that’s coming with this expansion will be its break-through feature.  It’s certainly one of the most robust systems we’ve seen in a modern MMO, and I’ve heard more than a few people whisper that it might exceed EQII’s system — if not this week, then some day.

The next present is SWTOR’s F2P transition, which I believe is this Thursday.  That works out well for me, since my one month subscription is almost up and I can just downshift into F2P.  If you’ve been thinking about going back and are anticipating getting some of the new store currency that BioWare’s promised, it’s important to note that you’re not getting Cartel Coin one unless you’re subscribed at the point of F2P launch (or so I understand from BioWare’s latest post).  It seems like this detail could be overlooked by many and has the potential to sour many returning players’ attitudes, so FYI:

“We are literally granting millions of dollars worth of Complimentary Cartel Coins as part of this program. But you’ll only receive a grant of Complimentary Cartel Coins if you’re an active subscriber when the Free-to-Play option goes live!”

I’ve seen a few players on the forums remark that BioWare hasn’t made this condition as prominent as it should be, and I agree.

Finally, Guild Wars 2 is releasing its second content update, Lost Shores.  I’m not as excited about this, mostly because I haven’t heard much that interests me.  New enemy, new area, some pvp stuff… okay.  It could be great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not pushing my happy buttons (which are located between my third and fourth dorsal fins).  I’ll keep an open mind, though!

Beyond this, I’m most excited for TSW’s next update, because chainsaws.  I need a chainsaw in my life.  And I need to put in a couple of hefty sessions to finish out Egypt.