Rifts: Planes of Telara MMO from Trion

[Squee]

Huh. I’ll probably check this out. I usually don’t look at free to play games since the vast majority are monetized in such a way that ends up pissing me off, but this looks pretty reasonable. Even friendlier than the Secret World’s buy to play implementation it looks like.

Wasn’t interested in Rift until this, but now I kinda am.

[Razgon]

I initially dismissed this, but Trion is actually doing something really interesting with Rift’s conversion. They give you the entire game for free.

The only restriction for F2P is that you only get 2 character slots and 3 bag slots, which will obviously be sold in the cash shop. Beyond that, you get the full game, exactly as if you were paying their subscription fee today-- and if you purchased Rift at any point in the past, like I have, you get the full 6 character slots and 5 bag slots, exactly as if you were paying the subscription today.

This is kinda revolutionary.

If you “subscribe”, which they’re now selling in 3, 14, and 30 day increments, you get a bunch of bonuses. You loot extra money, mounts are faster, and there are some other nice perks too, but all of them are in addition to what you would get if you subscribed today.

They’re also selling “REX”, obviously inspired by EVE’s PLEX. But instead of converting to a subscription, it’s a tradeable item, purchasable for cash, that when used provides “credits”, the cash shop currency. Again, tradeable. So this allows “free” players to actually subsidize subscribers and kills gold farmers, because it allows players to set the exchange rate for in-game gold.

It’s a bold move. The exact opposite of the pussies at SOE. Trion is embracing F2P substantially more than the previous leader, Turbine, and they’re doing so in a customer-friendly way. I hope they succeed, they deserve to succeed, and that this becomes the standard for MMOs in the future.

Its also exactly what The Hidden World does, and that works out pretty well. How well it works money-wise, I’ve no idea though.

[stusser]

Not exactly, you need to buy the box to play TSW. But yeah they are also embracing F2P.

[rei]

I had a sub briefly when I quit WoW the first or second time. I could come back if F2P had these restrictions.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around how weird the lore was.

[Razgon]

Not exactly, you need to buy the box to play TSW. But yeah they are also embracing F2P.

Ah, that is true - I just read that you got extra stuff when you purchased the expansions which is a neat way of doing it.

[rhinohelix]

The Justicar/Shaman/Sentinel may be my favorite class of all time. I may have to fire this up if/when my current GW2 run dies out.

[stusser]

This site has a deal that gives a free copy of Rift plus the expansion. The catch is that you need to play the free version (capped at lvl 20) with their program running until you get “experienced”, which is the top 60% of Rift players with their program running. This basically comes out to leaving Rift open for 10 hours. The promotion started in April and they still have 3000 copies to give out, so I imagine it doesn’t take long to get to experienced.

The full game gets you 4 extra character slots and extra bag slots in F2P, and the expansion gives access to the 4 extra “souls” in F2P.

I’m not gonna do it, because I’m waiting for the true F2P but if anyone has an extra expansion code, I would be much obliged. Once Rift goes F2P I imagine those codes will be gone instantly.

[Teiman]

I just couldn’t wrap my head around how weird the lore was.

Could you detail that a bit more?, all I remember is some invasion from other planes (so nothing extraordinary). And then some time traveling spells, so a bit more Eh, but not much.

[unbongwah]

Any good beginner’s guides out there? Turns out I have a copy of Rift I never activated - must’ve bought it in some Steam sale & forgot - so I figure I might as well give it a shot before it turns F2P.

For that matter, is there any particular server where the Qt3 contingent congregates?

[instant0]

If the game had a dungeon system at launch I’d probably be playing it still. Oh whell. It has some nice stuff, and they eventually added addons so there is that. The PVP-Scenarios might actually work now as well, instead of giving you the same scenario 85% of the time.

[stusser]

They’ve made a crapton of changes since launch. They have addons now (although not many of them), they added nameplates, rogue combo points are on the player not the target, there’s a LFD, they allow cross-faction grouping/guilds/etc (factions are just RP now), there are single and dual-player instances, there are these new things called “instant adventures” that group you up with a bunch of people and give you objectives in the persistent world, etc. Just a metric ton of changes.

And again, it will all be completely free. If you ever purchased the box, there’s no reason to pay them anything ever.

[peacedog]

I’m not sure how well I will adjust back to “statuesque combat”. But I have been contemplating picking this up again.

[rei]

Could you detail that a bit more?, all I remember is some invasion from other planes (so nothing extraordinary). And then some time traveling spells, so a bit more Eh, but not much.

I didn’t gel with the creatures, classes, lore, backstory. It was a little weird and not a straight high fantasy thing.

[malkav11]

I just didn’t find the lore interesting.

[instant0]

RIFT was fun doing the whole exploration/collection stuff though, wish more games did that. EQ2 had a nice run with all the collections, just a shame it took up oh-so-much-inventory.

[JFrazer]

Wish they had announced this 2 weeks ago. I earned the free game + expansion pretty fast. I already have the full game and expansion though, but adding it to an existing account gave you a free month so I went ahead and did that. If I had known they were going to F2P and that the game + expansion would unlock the extra character slots and souls, I would have posted the code here as a “first one to claim it gets it” kind of thing.

I’m hoping the bonuses you get from the subscription end up being worth it. I came back to the game when Storm Legion was released. I’ve been really happy with the changes they’ve made, so I went ahead and pre-subbed for a year ($9.95 a month). Kinda frustrating that a month after committing to a full year, they announce it’s going F2P. I’m all for supporting the game, but really don’t want to end up with buyer’s remorse. The perks they have listed on the sight don’t trip my trigger. I’ll reserve judgement until I see the full subscription benefits and the loyalty programming (they aren’t releasing the loyalty details until 5/31)

[blah]

Rift wins the “Least Value” award of my gaming collection. For some reason I always go back to it, and subscribe for 3-6 months at a time, but I never end up playing more than a day or two. I’ve probably been subscribed for half the games life and would bet I haven’t played more than a few weeks total. It’s a solid and polished game, but I just can’t get into it. Maybe it’s the lore, or the setting, or something, but as mentioned before it just never gels. Dunno why I keep going back, but at least now I can do so without wasting any money.

[MrGrumpy]

I activated my account, got the three days and the free xpac from Raptr.
I’ve not played in two years (stopped playing after getting burnt out on MMO’s) and boy, am I lost. Did manage to do some crafting quests and completed a solo instance with my 50 ranger. I have no real recollection of how to play him. Luckily my SO has played on and off, so at least she’ll be able to guide me through the all the changes. I think I’ll end up staying around for a while as I always liked the game.

[instant0]

With that Raptr offer, can you move the XPac to your existing account or do you need to make a new one?

[strummer]

With that Raptr offer, can you move the XPac to your existing account or do you need to make a new one?

You can use it on your existing account. Note, however, you do not get the “30 days free”, i.e. it won’t make a “trial” account into a subscription account for 30 days. So if you want to get the subscription benefits until the full f2p change in June, you’ll have to pay for a month.