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Thinking abour returning, some questions to former players
Hello guys,
I bought Rift when it launched and played till lv30 if I remember correctly. I was thinking on returning, but I am a bit lost on all the F2P changes and expansions.
As an old player who bought the game, how much money would cost me to have the full Rift game (all features, souls, etc). Does being an old gamer who bought the game give you anything? (like bonuses, or no need to buy an expansion, etc). I read somewhere that expansions content are all free except that you need to buy the souls? As I like playing sub games and don't mind paying one, does paying the sub of Rift give you any content so you don't have to buy it from the shop?
How is Open world pvp? I need a pvp server in my mmorpg, so how is open world pvp and pvp in general?
thanks in advance 
Comments
Any money you spent on Rift for the sub is credited to you as loyalty in the F2P version of Rift. Loyalty can get you some cool items, especially at higher tiers.
Rift today is wide open and you don't have to spend a dime to access all the content to level 65. But if you want to have the souls from the Storm Legion and Nightmare Tide expansions, they will run you anywhere from $50 to $200 depending on which version you buy and how it's packaged. I recommend checking out Amazon for discounted box prices. And on the off chance you left your characters with a lot of plat, you can buy just the souls from the in-game store using in-game currency.
Buying a subscription (called Patron) gives you substantial benefits including: bonuses to XP, notoriety, tokens, PvP marks, 10% discount on store items bought with credits as well a Loyalty increases of 7000 per month of subscription. Some of these bonuses can be purchased as vials in the store; because they are free to Patrons, the savings is substantial.
There is no open world PvP in Rift, but there is a NA PvP server (Seastone). PvP happens in warfronts, conquest, arenas and in PvP dimensions. One of the big changes with 3.0 was the normalization of gear between PvP and PvE, and it remains a hot topic among the PvP playerbase.
I recommend you check out http://forums.riftgame.com/ and especially http://forums.riftgame.com/general-discussions/general-discussion/401629-welcome-back-v4-guide-whats-changed.html. Hope this helps.
What do you mean by there is no open world pvp in rift? There are pvp servers, so I wanted to know how are they population wise and if people fight at the open world (as it is enabled on those servers) frequently or it has become a dead activity
Ah ok, I misunderstood your question.
There have been some server merges so the only PvP shard is Seastone (NA). I don't play there so can't answer your question about shard pop, etc. But you might find some info on the PvP forum or could ask there: http://forums.riftgame.com/game-discussions/pvp-warfronts/
PvP is practically dead in the game, thanks to them completely removing PvP gear and neglecting that side of it. You have to do PvE now to get good gear for PvP. Open world PvP doesn't really exist outside of the PvP servers (which are dead).
A year ago I would have recommended the game to anyone. Now, no. It's becoming more of a cash grab with strong pay to win elements, like equipment slots that require cash to access on a per character basis. Customer service is appalling, like all Trion games.
I wouldn't worry to much about the souls you pay for there are a ton that come with the game for free. My cleric can be a tank healer and DPS all in one
I would try the game out again and see if you want to spend anything. I'm still trying to decide what I should purchase first but I definitely don't feel a "need" to buy anything.
The community is awesome some awesome people in chat randomly sent me some plat so I got my first mount & for the yule event I like immediately got a 32 slot bag!
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Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
Well I'm just a lowly level 21, but I decided to participate in a few Warfronts and I actually did pretty good and they were fun
It only took around a minute to get into them, and out of the two I did I got first blood in one & I only died twice. I usually suck at PvP as well so I'm surprised (I also went as a cleric druid, which I do not believe is the "pvp spec"). I did not know that they granted EXP either, so I am happy that I will have a variety of ways to level up in this game! 
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Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
PvP still here, many people still run warfronts and cq so far from dead, whats doing bad right now is world pvp do to old gear system they try to fix it that people still complain about.