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RIFT shutting down in Russia [Updated]
The last rift has closed for Russia's version of RIFT. An announcement has been sent to the players of the game that (roughly translated) claims that the game will have to be shut down due to Trion Worlds' refusal to continue supporting the localized version. That shutdown will happen... well, today. So if you play on the game's Russian servers, we really hope you didn't have any major plans for the evening. Belver Online, the company responsible for the localized version, is offering former players compensation in the other online games it operates. Russia's version of RIFT had continued to operate on a subscription-based model for several months, with several Russian players migrating to Trion's European servers out of a desire to play the game's free version. There are no plans for Trion to produce a Russian-localized client of its own. Our condolences to players affected by the shutdown. [Update 6:00 p.m. EDT] - Trion contacted Massively to provide an official statement. We, too, are saddened by the shut down of RIFT in Russia, which was announced in September. In trying to effect the smoothest transition possible, we kept the service running well beyond the October 10th sunset period to make sure as many customers as possible would be taken care of. When a partner began charging its users nearly $100 each in unauthorized "transfer fees" as well as subscriptions that extended beyond the time they knew the servers were going to be closed, we can confirm that we did have to end the extended sunset period. We've successfully transferred over thousands of Russian players and will continue to help any others who want to continue playing on the Trion servers. Anyone who was previously on a Russian server and was impacted by this shutdown can reach out to our customer service team and we will assist in any way we can to get them in back into RIFT as quickly as possible. And it won't cost $100. [Thanks to Fredelas for the tip!]
Vaneras announces closure of four European servers
European CM Vaneras made an interesting announcement just the other day: Four EU realms will be closing entirely with Patch 3.0. The EU realms Molten Core, Shadowmoon, Stonemaul, and Warsong will be closing up shop, and free character transfers will be offered to other, currently unannounced EU realms. The destination options will be announced within the next week.Don't worry, though. These realm closures have nothing to do with any dips in WoW's popularity. It's actually due to the launch of WoW's Russian localization. A vast majority of the players on those particular realms were Russian players, and they migrated to the new Russian servers when they opened up, leaving most everyone else high and dry. The equipment these four servers run off of will likely just be used elsewhere, since Vaneras stated they'll be prepped for Wrath of the Lich King's launch after being taken down. Most likely they'll need to launch a few more realms when Wrath rolls around, but it was just far easier to fold these four into larger communities at this point.[ Thanks, Swarfy! ]
