Is Rift Fre to Play Again
Five years ago, Trion Worlds moved its subscription-based MMO Rift to a free-to-play model. Today, it re-introduced subscriptions as an option with Rift Prime, a "time-locked progression server" entirely separate from the complimentary-to-play version of the game that will let people play through the game from its original country with no loot boxes and an in-game store that offers cosmetic items but no equipment.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz recently, Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman explained why the game was going back to its roots.
"In any game that converts from subscription to free-to-play, there's ever going to be some number of people who preferred it the way it was before," Hartsman said. "That's in literally every game that's washed this. And the games themselves can go on to huge future success in the new model, merely there'southward always that grouping of people that would love to re-engage if the game just had its previous business concern model."
Rift Prime number may entreatment to people who want to re-alive the game's early days as much as those who dislike free-to-play mechanics.
That re-engagement is a key role of the programme for Trion Worlds. Hartsman said that like many other MMOs, Rift has had a "stable" histrion base in contempo years that sees nigh of its fluctuation around new content releases. People come up dorsum for the large updates, play through some of the new content then go dormant over again. Trion Worlds has been looking at means to go them to stick effectually longer and make it more appealing for the user base that lapsed a long time ago.
That raises questions about fragmenting the player base, but Hartsman isn't concerned about that. For i thing, admission to the Prime server is essentially a new perk of the Rift Patrons program (an existing component of the free-to-play game that gives players who pay a monthly fee an assortment of perks), so the player base between the 2 technically overlaps completely. And even though information technology means potentially having one grouping of players playing on gratuitous-to-play servers while another group focuses solely on the Prime server, Hartsman suspects a significant number of those segmented players simply wouldn't be effectually otherwise.
"We've seen this in other games from other publishers and one of our own, besides," Hartsman said. "If you can do something where everybody starts fresh from scratch, you actually will get a disproportionate, exponential growth around that new activity, and around that new server. You lot won't see it on the [free-to-play] game, and that's absolutely fair to say, simply you volition see a asymmetric proceeds of people who played in the past and aren't playing any more."
Hartsman said it helps that by forcing players to start from scratch, the Prime server will limit the discrepancies between players' power levels. And past simply including the original continent of the game at the kickoff, it forces all the Prime players into closer proximity.
"So much of what goes into making MMOs fun is if y'all are on par with everybody else at the aforementioned fourth dimension and doing the aforementioned stuff. That's where these games polish, especially in our game where so much of the innovation and fun was the big open up-world mass events."
Every bit the Prime server ages, new content will be unlocked at an accelerated time frame, with Trion expecting to take at to the lowest degree a year to bring the Prime server upwards to the speed with the free-to-play game'southward content updates. Afterwards that time, the Prime number server will exist airtight, and players will exist able to transfer their characters over to the gratuitous-to-play servers at no charge.
"The take a chance is that 100% of our alive service players say 'To hell with this free-to-play affair. I desire to go play on Prime.' OK, so how bad is that case, really?"
Hartsman said the plan to whorl out a time-locked progression server had been kicked around for a year, only the bodily business model they would use for it came virtually before long after a loftier-profile misstep in the company'southward free-to-play strategy terminal December. That was when the company rolled out a $100 loot box that gave purchasers one of 42 random premium mounts, a move that drew plenty of anger from its player base.
"I call back that i lived for about an hour and a half," Hartsman said of the hastily pulled offer, adding, "At the end of the day, nosotros want to do what our players desire u.s. to do. For us it's well-nigh keeping people happy. That particular issue itself was an unfortunate oversight. Similar I said in my apology, I deserve the blame for it. I looked at information technology. I thought I was seeing something other than what it was. I thought information technology was a component of a larger pack, and I did not at all realize what I was looking at was the entirety of the pack. When we saw what people idea about information technology, we said this was not what we thought information technology was, and definitely not the reaction nosotros desire, so that's gotta become."
With that fresh in mind, it fabricated the decision of how to package the Prime server offer much easier.
"I can admittedly tell y'all it took my decision process, when the team pitched [the Prime business concern model] to me, downwardly to a affair of virtually v seconds to a yes instead of hours or days to a yes," Hartsman said. "If nosotros can do things that nosotros know will make players happy, that's exactly what nosotros want to practice."
In a all-time-example scenario, Hartsman said the Prime server brings back long-lapsed players, a portion of the player base of operations runs characters in both versions, and Trion gets to consider what the next time-based service offering would look like. But he acknowledged everything the visitor does is going to acquit some element of take chances.
"So what'south the risk? The risk is that 100% of our live service players say 'To hell with this free-to-play thing. I want to go play on Prime,'" Hartsman said. "OK, so how bad is that case, really? A bunch go over, they all pay subscription now, and they're happy. So maybe we're doing exactly besides as we are today, and players are happy in the process. That's a risk I can live with."
Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-07-free-to-play-and-back-again
0 Response to "Is Rift Fre to Play Again"
Post a Comment