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'RIFT Lite' announced, makes first 20 levels free to all [Updated]
Trion Worlds has just announced that its fantasy MMO RIFT, which released to wide acclaim just 11 months ago, will today launch an introductory version of the game known as RIFT Lite. Similar to Warhammer Online's Endless Trial and World of Warcraft's Starter Edition, RIFT Lite will allow "anyone with a Trion account to experience the game's first 20 levels at no cost and with no playtime restrictions." Players will be able to access the capital cities as well as Terminus, Mathosia, Freemarch, and Silverwood, all the way up to level 20 and on any server, for the low, low cost of zero dollars. In the press release, RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman, who told fans last November that Trion had "absolutely no plans whatsoever" to turn RIFT F2P, stated that his company believes "a Lite edition with no time limit is the best way for players to see what an amazing experience RIFT continues to be." Diet RIFT launches today in conjunction with the latest patch, Carnival of the Ascended, which brings player weddings, dungeon overhauls, and PvP tweaks to Telara. [Update: The official RIFT Lite website has now gone live.]
Trion plans RIFT's 2012 attack strategy
With 2011 locked in as a highly profitable year for Trion Worlds, the studio is eager to prove that it didn't pull off a one-trick-pony with RIFT by leaping into 2012 with guns blazing. Scott Hartsman emphasized that the studio's emphasis on having a responsive live team that quickly and decisively acts on player feedback is a key element in what makes RIFT special. "We want to make greater strides for 2012," he said. Hartsman also opened up about Trion's plans for 2012, starting with the Return to Telara free play weekend that's currently active. The team is preparing to unveil plans about major improvements to the PvP system, including ways to lower PvP wait time, improve the PvP soul system, increase rewards, and perhaps have a form of open-world PvP that isn't limited to factional combat. Other areas of improvement for the year he mentioned include giving players tools for social gatherings and tweaking the crafting system.
Massively Exclusive: The story and presents behind RIFT's Fae Yule
All in-game holiday festivals were not born equal, but they do seem to share a family resemblance when it comes to being merry and bright. RIFT's Fae Yule is but one of many, many Christmastime MMO holidays that we're witnessing this month, but the team at Trion Worlds is looking to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd with its depth and sense of fun. So why do the inhabitants of Telara celebrate Fae Yule and take time out of their busy schedule of slaughter and soul-absorbing to decorate the town and scarf down bucketfuls of eggnog? What do they sing about when gathered around a crackling fire? What kind of present is appropriate for the fellow who already has the gift of immortality? It's time to sit on Trion's lap and ask for your greatest wish in game while jolly St. Hartsman tells you all about the lore and in-game goodies behind RIFT's festivities. Ho-ho-hit that jump and let's get started!
Scott Hartsman: RIFT going F2P would be a 'large net negative' for the game
With so many former subscription-only MMOs turning to free-to-play/hybrid business models these days, one might assume that Trion Worlds feels the pressure to do the same with RIFT -- but that is far from the case. Speaking with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman confirmed that Trion has "absolutely no plans whatsoever" to transition RIFT to a F2P model. He cited strong business and a growing game as reasons why the company is happy where it's at. Embracing F2P, in Hartsman's opinion, would end up hurting more than helping in this situation: "One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you'd have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be -- that would be a fairly large net negative for RIFT and the RIFT community." While Hartsman confirms that F2P attracts large amounts of users, he also says that it fundamentally changes how an MMO studio approaches the game itself. "Take a free-to-play game or a social game, where the business is all about -- the social games' word for it is, 'going whaling,'" he said. "The idea is you have a paying player subsidising the play of, potentially, dozens or hundreds of other users. And so you have to be willing to create a game that has the ability to make huge sums of money from relatively small numbers of people. Once you decide that you are going to enter the whaling business, it's a different mindset and a different set of goals you're designing for entirely."
Enter At Your Own Rift: The big takeaways from GDC
After dining on enough beef brisket to feed an army of hungry cowboys, I returned from Austin's GDC Online to chip away at the Ashes of History world event quests. RIFT had a nice showing at the GDC Online Awards ceremony, walking away with awards for Best Online Technology and Best New Online Game. In addition, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman gave a talk about RIFT's pre-launch preparations and post-launch plans. GDC was dominated by a handful of common topics, like free-to-play, metrics, monetization, and technology. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few of these to see how they apply to RIFT, and then we'll look at the big takeaways from GDC overall.
GDC Online 2011: RIFT's Scott Hartsman on surviving and thriving in today's MMO climate
Recently, we took time to look back on the past six months of RIFT's milestones, and this year at GDC Online, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman sat down for a question-and-answer session to do the same thing. While we've seen the results of Trion's post-launch efforts, Hartsman gave a candid glimpse at what was going on behind the scenes as the team finished up beta and moved toward launch day. He took questions from N'Gai Croal, as well as from the audience, and highlights from the interview follow after the break.
Enter at Your Own Rift: A six-month retrospective
About a year ago I was on a little show called The Rift Podcast with Arithion, Desi, and Trion Community Manager Cindy Bowens. It's hard to believe, but at the time, there was just a trickle of buzz surrounding RIFT and only a few details were available about the game. We're now six months into release, and it's worth taking a look back at some of the memorable moments for RIFT from beta and beyond. There have been many changes in-game, and while the ride wasn't always smooth, it's surprising how much has been added in game in such a short time. In this week's Enter at your own Rift, we'll journey back to beta and look at some of the peaks and valleys as it reached its six-month milestone.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Hal Hanlin and Scott Hartsman on Update 1.5
Chronicles, Planar Attunement, Veteran Rewards, a World Event, and a hint about a brand-new area coming soon are just the tip of the iceberg in RIFT's 1.5 update. Ashes of History is due to launch next week, and Design Producer Hal Hanlin and Executive Producer Scott Hartsman offered up lots of details during a conference call yesterday. Whether you're an experienced veteran or a brand-new player, there's something for everyone in update 1.5. Read on for the full rundown of what's on the way, then take a look at our gallery for the newest Ashes of History screenshots.%Gallery-101448%
Enter at Your Own Rift: How gold farming really hurts the economy
Recently, Trion Worlds CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman talked to Gamasutra about how gold farming is a much bigger threat than we assume, particularly because of the large amount of credit card fraud. Those who played RIFT at launch probably recall the large wave of hacked accounts early on. According to Hartsman, the hacking attempts were so quick and so intense that the game could have been "denial-of-serviced off the internet" when it launched. As I was browsing the Auctioneer the other day, I was reminded of Scott's statement because gold farming has sucked a lot of the fun out of in-game economies in virtual worlds. Markets early on were lively, unpredictable, exciting, and full of freedom but very vulnerable because of the growing illegal trade of in-game currency for real money. In an effort to combat the rising real-life value of gold, games like RIFT have moved away from gold toward a system of non-tradeable tokens. But while these tokens have helped to curb the value of gold and reduce the demand for third-party RMTs, they've also removed a lot of the freedom from players. After the cut, we'll take a closer look at how exactly that's happened and why it hurts the economy.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Forward thinking
RIFT right now feels like it's in the middle of that quiet pause right before all hell breaks loose. In game, we're in the thick of the Waves of Madness event, and good old Scotty's ammunition is working well against the doors of Hammerknell Fortress. The question is, what will happen once the doors are finally broken? Outside the game, Trion CCO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman posted a "State of the game," which outlined what they have planned for the fantasy MMO down the road. But it actually leaves us with more questions than answers. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll look at the world event as well as the summer update, and speculate on what's really coming to Telara.
Global Chat: Broke and richer for it edition
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! This week we're looking at all things money: Who has it, who doesn't, and why it makes the world go 'round. Naturally, Massively writers are richer than seven kings of Arabia combined and aren't concerned with such petty matters, but it seems to weigh heavily upon some of your heads. Hit the jump and let's see what the buzz was like in the comments section this past week!
Scott Hartsman says gold farming hurts our games more than we know
Gold buying is one of those aspects of MMO culture that is seemingly universally denounced, yet enough people partake in the practice to keep the wheels of this grey market activity going. Scott Hartsman may be saying the obvious when he denounced gold farming and selling to Gamasutra, but apparently it is still something we need to hear. The Trion Worlds general manager shared a glimpse of just how hard these activities hit games, and how concerned he and other studio execs are about the proliferation of credit card fraud that results: "It's those kinds of things where people laugh and go, 'Oh, that never happens.' No. It happens. It happens a s**tload. To the point where, over the last three or four years, I would dare anybody to ask an exec at a gaming company how much they've had to pay in MasterCard and Visa fines, because of fraud. It happens a lot." According to Hartsman, the more these events take place, the more money studios spend on paying fines and dealing with them instead of reinvesting funds into the games themselves -- all because of the "jerks" perpetuating the crimes.
RIFT's first State of the Game address floods players with news of the future [Updated]
Trion Worlds has never been shy in talking about RIFT's upcoming content, especially considering how fast and furious said content's been flying down the pipe. However, the studio may have topped itself today as it gave its first State of the Game address, opening up about the title's history to date and both the near and far future of the team's plans. It's difficult to try to summarize all of this news in a brief paragraph -- so we're not even going to try! Instead, Massively joined a number of other news outlets for a conference call with the RIFT team and Scott Hartsman to clarify all of the exciting content, fixes and features mentioned in this address. So join us after the jump as we look at quality-of-life improvements, new types of rifts, vastly improved PvP experiences, solo dungeons, and something intriguing called "Instant Adventure."
Enter at Your Own Rift: Talking 1.3 with Hal Hanlin
Today we're on the verge of RIFT's third major update's going live. It's a doozy of a patch, too, with a little something for everyone: a raid for endgame players, guild banks for... well, guilds, character transfers for the antsy, and RIFT's second world event for one and all. With Patch 1.3, Trion Worlds puts its money where its mouth is by continuing with its streak of sizable, regular updates. It's a critical patch for some, as it seeks to answer the growing call for more endgame content while an increasing number of players hit 50. Fans of RIFT will most likely welcome the spread of the patch, but detractors will undoubtedly criticize why X was done instead of Y (and don't even get into Z; that letter is nothing but trouble). And above the noise, Trion sails on with apparent confidence and dedication. Even though we got to speak with Trion at E3, I got the opportunity for another pre-1.3 interview with Design Producer Hal Hanlin (which, by the way, is a superhero fake identity if I ever heard one). In this no-holds-barred discussion, we covered the selling points of 1.3, the accusation that RIFT is "dying," and the philosophy behind Trion's rapid stream of content.
Scott Hartsman: 'Happy customers stick around longer'
"Here's the overall philosophy behind all this: Happy customers stick around longer," Scott Hartsman said in an interview with Gamefront. "That's what we think. That's the beginning and end of it." It may seem like common sense, but for Hartsman and the team at Trion Worlds, it's a lesson they feel is easy to forget. He cites this as the driving force behind one of the game's major upcoming changes: the ability to transfer characters between servers for free. Trion hopes that the character transfers will help friends connect without the obstacle of separate servers getting in their way. Hartsman said that the tech behind the transfer is impressive -- not to mention "instantaneous" from a customer standpoint. Hartsman says that the team places a premium on talking frankly and frequently with players. If Trion doesn't always come across as perfect, he hopes that the company makes up for it with communication and sincerity: "We don't want to hide behind a big wall, and we don't want everything to come through a formal mouthpiece. I'd rather have us all out conversing with people and occasionally making a mistake here or there on the assumption that because we are talking to people more means that overall, things are going to be better." The lengthy interview covers a wide range of pressing topics, from the "bumpy" River of Souls event to the LFG system and the free trial program.
RIFT offering free character transfers with patch 1.3 [Updated]
It's always tough when you roll a character on a server but find out that your good friends are on another. The question of "Do I reroll or stay put?" is an agonizing one, fortunately one that RIFT players will not have to struggle with too much longer. Trion Worlds has announced that with the advent of patch 1.3, RIFT will allow players to move to select servers once per week -- for free. These free character transfers include a wholesale move of all of the character's items, achievements and titles. Also, Trion has stated that initially there will be no limit to the number of times your character can hop to a different server. Scott Hartsman thinks this will strengthen the game's community: "MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they're on, and that's why we're offering this as a free service to our subscribers. RIFT is both a game and a service, and adding free server transfers is just one more way we can make this the best possible MMO experience available." Patch 1.3 will also allow guild leaders to transfer over their guilds' details, including levels and experience. The patch is scheduled for "early summer." [Update: Trion has posted a Free Character Transfer FAQ on the forums with specifics as to this service. Check it out!]
RIFT podcast celebrates the end with Scott Hartsman
It's a sad day for The RIFT podcast, as its latest episode, 42, will also be its last. It's not due to a lack of interest in the game, however, but rather to real-life health concerns. One of the hosts, Arithion, is extremely ill and apparently can't look at moving pictures on a screen for more than 10 minutes, making gaming impossible. So the podcast creators decided to end the show on a high note, inviting Scott Hartsman and Cindy "Abigale" Bowens to join them for a candid interview about RIFT's future. Hartsman indicated that news about guild banks and character transfers is coming very soon, saying, "We have a slick little answer" for the latter. He also revealed that RIFT's Weather Cast summer ad campaign actually used real weatherpeople, and the fact that the company is continuing with television ads is a good indicator of how well the game is going. The LFG tool has had a huge impact on the game, as Hartsman's seen "multiples" of increments of players diving into dungeons since it went into place. The team is hard at work tweaking the system to make it work perfectly. While The RIFT Podcast is riding into the sunset, there's always hope. "Forty-two doesn't have to be the end," host Desikis said. "Who knows, there might be a comeback!"
RIFT team updates RP server naming policy
The fine folks at Trion Worlds have finally answered a pressing question that's been on the tongues of RIFT roleplayers since launch: What are the roleplaying server naming rules, and how are they being enforced? Scott Hartsman stepped into the forums recently to offer clarification on the topic, something for which RIFT roleplayers are certainly grateful. Hartsman says that the team's goal with naming rules is to "apply sanity and reason, as best as we can, to this inherently subjective topic that's as much about opinions as it is about facts." In light of this, the rules that will be imposed are fairly standard for the genre -- no partial or complete sentences (sorry, Ipwnyouhard!), no pop-culture references, no leetspeak, and no titles that are "obviously out of place in Telara" -- but even so, it's great to see them explicitly spelled out so players know what to expect. Hopefully this will lead to a more enjoyable roleplaying experience for anyone on RIFT's RP servers. For the full post, which also includes some tidbits on customer service feedback, skip on over to the official forum post.
WonderCon MMORPG industry panel explores key topics of the day
At last month's WonderCon in San Francisco, three MMO industry experts sat down to do a panel on many of the pressing questions and issues that players have these days. The lively panel, moderated by PC Gamer's Josh Augustine, consisted of Dirk Metzger (Zentia), Scott Hartsman (RIFT) and Nick Huggett (Runes of Magic), each taking turns to address some of the questions that are commonly asked about these games and the industry at large. These topics included player retention, free-to-play vs. subscription business models, the endless comparisons to World of Warcraft, why MMOs tend to be fantasy-based, some of the biggest mistakes in the genre, how to appeal to both hardcore and casual players, the differences between the Asian and North American market, and the struggle to provide player-created content. The rise of social media also has a significant effect on MMO development, according to Hartsman. "What that kind of forces us to do, bluntly, is make better games right off the bat, because people will tell you if your game sucks." You can watch the video highlights of the panel after the jump.
RIFT's patch 1.2 moved to May 10th
Don't break out the updater just yet, RIFT fans -- we've learned that you are going to have to wait a little bit longer to get your hands on the game's second big update. Patch 1.2, which was tentatively scheduled for a May 4th release, has been moved back to the 10th. Trion Worlds let us know that the patch is still being "polished, tweaked and perfected," and as such the team needs additional time to get it ready. When we talked with Scott Hartsman a week ago about the update, he made sure to mention that all of the details about RIFT's content patch, including the date, weren't set in stone. Patch 1.2 will contain additional endgame content, the wardrobe system, and a new Looking for Group tool.
