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Rift: Story of the Week: Rift Ain't Skeered
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
This week's SotW comes courtesy of Trion's charismatic and emphatic CEO, Lars Buttler. In a recent interview, Lars spoke on Rift being the only real WoW contender, and how they're simply not afraid of SWTOR.
"So I expect many people will try it and even people who haven’t tried Rift will try Star Wars and then we’ll see where they end up in the long run. I’m actually extremely excited about what’s happening in our space. When we started five years ago, there was only WoW. Now there’s Rift as an absolute serious contender, with the most dynamic gameplay ever. Then there’s Star Wars, then there’s End of Nations coming. Then there’s Defiance coming, which was MMORPG’s MMO of E3, ahead of Star Wars. So we’re not afraid at all. We actually look forward to it with great excitement. It makes our point."
Read the rest of this week's Story of the Week: Rift Ain't Skeered.
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Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Ah, boundless foolish optimism! I like it!
The guy had the right to is opinion, of course being the boss his not gonna say our game suck. However after trying Rift and seing how similar it is to WOW, a game which i'm utterly burned out of, i got bored of Rift before the end of my free month.
I'm really not sure what I think about this. I still think that RIFT is still trying to target WoW but since they actually haven't released any sub numbers, all we have is talk at this point. I'd love to see some more data to back up these words.
Rift gameplay is ok, textbook almost. Content and art direction are a matter of taste, of course. It seems to be a solid down to earth title with a good outlook for the future never the less.
But Rift being a, quote: 'absolute serious contender, with the most dynamic gameplay ever.' in apparent comparison to WoW makes me think the good man should perhaps lay off the marching powder for a bit there.
With the poor economic situation globally and more job being lost maybe the cheaper subscibtion game could survive.
To me, Rift was a slightly less good version of WoW, which made it pointless. However they got one thing right which is why the have been so sucessful, it simply worked at launch.
Imagine if innovative games would have done this.....
Remember Old School Ultima Online
I think by "serious contender [to WoW]", Lars means "trying to copy WoW in every aspect".
And, yeah - in that respect he is right. Rift really is the only game that not only could be called WoW 2.0, but is inferior to the original in most aspects as well. I've played it for two months, and it seriously is the one MMO I can't see myself returning to at some point.
It's not that it's bad. It's just completely superfluous. The people they are ostensibly catering to are the WoW vets burned out of WoW. And to those, they offer the same old, same old.
I know many people who play (or used to play) Rift. All of them former WoW players. They were looking for something different to pass the time until TOR came out. Some still play, most quit even before me, but one thing is certain for me : When TOR hits, Rift will face a major problem.
But, yeah, sure. In the aspect of being a copy of WoW, they really have no competition.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
you know the rules of internet,if many people hate a game for not a serious reason(serious being NGE for example)then there must be something good in that game
I certainly can't blame the man for trying to be optimistic in interviews, and if there's one thing you can't fault Trion for it's having great (oftentimes too good, they play things up so much dissapointement is inevitable) PR, but if he really believes the BS he's spewing Rift is in even more trouble than it seems on the face.
The lack of released sub number milestones speaks volumes. Frankly ToR is going to decimate this game, and GW2 will have what's left of the carcass.
Serious contender? Hardly. Stop over on the way to hopefully better games. And if they're not better? It's not Rift people are going to be going back to.
Dunno WoW, Rift and SWTOR can be lumped together. Most players I know only have time for one MMO with similar mechanics.
Also, the small amount of people I know already quit Rift and pre-ordered SWTOR.
So...don't be scared...remain calm.
TOR will not decimate Rift at all, sure it will take some numbers as it will from all other subscription mmos. Disapointment will follow for alot that have their hopes too high for TOR and GW2. Oh and GW2 just like the original will be dull and boring, I have no faith at all in arenanet.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
This has got to be a joke. Drowned in his own imaginary world of success.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Market positioning and public image. A general rule in business is that when entering a realm of competition, position yourself as if your company invented the field and has only minor competition in it. This way consumers coming into the realm without background knowledge simply accept that your company is a "major player" in the field.
Sort of like "the world's first true gaming laptop". There are dozens of companies with this positioning.
On the other side, would you really expect them to say "Yeah, SW:TOR is going to be huge competition and we're going to get stomped"? No marketer in the world would do that.
RIFT is a good game, it does what it is designed to do very well.
That having been said, it has it's share of issues no doubt. I was a closed beta tester selected by Trion during phase one, and I participated in every other phase, as well as open beta, right up until headstart where I was ingame the minute the servers went live.
I talked the game up pretty seriously at the time, because I believed it was going to be a very new experience for people used to the same old thing. However, after a few months the game turned out to be "same old, same old".
PvP has some extremely serious balance issues, and with each large patch a new calling or role becomes FoTM until the next big update. PvE is just your average gear treadmill, nothing special.
The Rifts themselves are the best part of the game, but become very repetitive after awhile.
The thing that gets me though, is that players have been saying right from the beginning that RIFT was just a layover stop while they waited for GW2 or SWTOR. It's a very common thing to read in general chat, and not just on certain servers. I played on three different shards and the above opinion was shared amongst the playerbase on each of them.
Trion doesn't need to be scared, they need to design some seriously innovative content using the systems they have in place. That is the only way they have a hope of competing with SWTOR and GW2, they need to pull a Harry Houdini and make something truly magical occur if they want to hang on to those subs after SWTOR and GW2 launch.
Agreed. Rift was a solid stopgap for those players that were entirely bored with WoW and wanted nothing more than different content and looks with everything else being the same. SWTOR is Rift's biggest upcoming competition as they offer the same thing- solo to endgame then raid, plus SWTOR dresses it all up with far more frills than Rift has available with more in-depth story choices, companions that actually have a function, and a pretty beloved IP. SWTOR is going to be THE "MMORPG" for single players, none out there come close (even with Rift 1.5) and small groups will be pleased that the group size is even smaller.
The only thing imo Rift has on SWTOR is combat because Rift's looks/feels faster and by association the PvP would be more gratifying. With that, even Rift's combat is more of the sos and I'm not complimenting it, just saying TOR's is worse. And regarding Sci-fi (SWTOR) vs fantasy (Rift): Really? Have you even been to a Defiant city, or played through any of their starting area? Because it's pretty sci-fi, if only steampunk-ish.
Do any of you actually think SWTOR will be any different from WoW than Rift is?
I started Rift in closed beta 1, pre-ordered, started playing in head-start. Rift simply blew me away after a few betas. Trion listens to their players and really gives you the feeling that it's a game made by gamers.
Every time they add something new to the game (which is quite often), it gets even better. In the beginning I wished there was a wardrobe feature, bam - we got it, just for example.
I play on 3 different servers (different factions / rulesets), I have 4 50's and I am nowhere near tired of the game. Things are just getting started and that's the exciting part. There is something for everyone, especially since 1.5 and the duo/solo dungeons (Chronicles).
Trion has set an amazing pace and I am very much looking forward to the next event. I have aura stones, wardrobe armor, etc from each event so far. It's a lot of fun collecting not only things like that but the artifacts. I'm not an artifact fanatic, as I don't have the white tartagon yet, but I would blame that on the fact that I play so many characters more than anything I suppose.
Bottom line, the game is only 6 months old, they have given us world events and amazing content, awesome feature additions, etc. in a very small amount of time and they have yet to lose momentum.
People can hate on it all the want, but Trion has so far been an amazing company, with great CS and a fun game. It's literally been years since I played a single MMO this long at one time, with no apparent end in sight. Everyone is different of course, but this is certainly my game.
Call me a fanboy or whatever, but I love Rift.
The game sold over one million copies and has a healthy population. They release content on a regular basis that the community generally seems to enjoy. For a newcome to the industry, I'd say Trion has been pretty damn successful. I don't like the game, but that doesn't cloud my perception of it. It has been a huge success for Trion.
Anyhow, I beta'd SWTOR and Rift should feel comfortable. SWTOR will have record breaking box sales then be considered a failure after 2 months. It is a shallow, golden path game on rails. Rift isn't any better but SWTOR is sure to disappoint at least 3/4 of initial players.
thus THE reason why sub only models suck eggs and usually have bigger issues, another sub only game or set of games releases and pow our numbers have dropped waaaaah. Personally can't wait until all the sub models get to the stage of unsustainability and are forced to switch by this economy. More games to play for those of us who like to bounce around alot.
This is only really a story if the CEO were to come out and say he was scared of all the games coming in the next few months to a year and that WOW is actually mopping the floor with Rift even though they tried there hardest to clone wow for a younger generation, as it stands he's just saying what we should expect a CEO who likes his job to say.
With all that said I think to consider yourself competition to WOW you would have to show that your game is a direct reason behind them losing subs and I would think you should be atleast somewhere around twenty five percent of their subscribers and I don't know if Rift is there yet.
With all that said the neighborhood tough guy is the one who taught me you don't have to be scared to get your ass whooped.