Rift Going Free-to-Play

"The MMO developed by Trion Worlds will make the move away from a subscription-only business model on June 12. Following the jump, players will have access to the entire game world and be able to access all current and future updates to the game.

An optional subscription will still be available and will allow players access to "Patron" benefits to enhance their experience. An in-game store will also allow players to buy additional boosts, vanity items and mounts for real-world money.

The developers of Rift are keen to keep the experience as fair as possible and do not want the free-to-play model upsetting the feel of the game.

'As a gamer's game, a super fun and fair experience is of the utmost importance to us,' said Rift creative director Bill Fisher. 'The best gear in the game will always have to be earned through playing Rift.'.

This sentiment echoes recent comments from Blizzard which reflected on their real-money auction house feature in Diablo 3. This took out part of the fun of finding new weapons and equipment through playing the game, as the achievement was lessened by the knowledge that each new piece could have easily been bought for a small fee.

Other titles from Trion Worlds suggest that the developer is staying away from the subscription model from now on. Last month it released transmedia title Defiance which requires the game to be bought but no ongoing subscription much like the Guild Wars model.

'We have been listening to feedback from our players and watching the continuously developing MMO community,' added Fisher. 'We are very excited to bring an enhanced game experience to everyone, without barriers.'

Rift launched in March 2011 and received its first expansion, Storm Legion, in November 2012. A free-to-play option with a level cap of 20 and other restrictions also debuted in early 2012 in a bid to attract new players. "- Rift shifting to free-to-play | bit-gamer.net

Anybody planning on playing Rift during the summer when it goes free-to-play? I know I am.
If anyone has played Rift, any comments on how the game is is appreciated.

 

I may give it a shot. My guess is Trion is just following in En Masse's footsteps with the big boost in player base when they went F2P with TERA.

 

Interesting indeed, gonna try it for sure.

 

TERA went f2p because it was complete junk. I played TERA for a few hours till lvl 16 on a trial. Every other mmo that I've played lasted at least two weeks for me, that's how bad TERA is.

 

Okay, so what seems to be the issue with it? Some of the reviews I've read about it was generally positive. Is there too much grinding, not enough PVP elements, or is it because of laggy servers?

 

Basically there are no quests in it, unless they call "talk to npc, go kill xx monsters in some spot, return to npc" a quest. In Guild Wars or SW:TOR most of the quests are FUN, but in TERA they are not.

 

As someone who's played guild wars 1 for five years and played Gw2 for about 6 months now, I can honestly say that the quests and leveling is not fun at all. However, I seem to be a rarity who thinks that. There is still grind and typical quests that are abundant within the game, to say that most of the quests are fun is false, half are fun the other half are typical "go kill" quests.

 

Meh... I have enough with the mmos.... WoW... SW... GW2... all the same terrible and boring gameplay.