Flock of Gamers

Wednesday afternoon I started feeling a little sick. By the time I got home from work I was feeling a lot sick. I went to bed and stayed there essentially until this morning. So I was off the social networks for about 36 hours.

When I got back online, everyone I know (not literally) was playing Rift again, or getting ready to play Rift again.

I have to tell you, that was freakin’ surreal. Made me feel like I’d been offline for 36 days, not 36 hours!!

As best I can figure it there were two factors leading to this sudden (and I expect, brief) resurgence of interest in Trion’s flagship MMO:

First, an expansion was announced and second, Raptr was giving away copies of the game to certain users.

Oddly everyone who went to PAX East got a copy of Rift but that didn’t seem to lead to anything, so I’m guessing it was the expansion news more than anything that has re-kindled player interest.

Being one of the flock, now I’m interested too. One of the reasons I grew tired of Rift was that the player population left me in the dust and so the mid-levels found me wandering the world with no one to take on rifts with. I’d be in zones with literally 3-4 people. The new expansion is supposed to add a huge amount of content; I sure hope it can also pull in player population to fill that content.

I have to wonder what MMO marketing people think about the viral-ness of an MMO’s waxing and waning. If a marketing person could figure out how to motivate the flock to come back to a game…well it seems to me they could write their own paycheck.

6 thoughts on “Flock of Gamers

  1. It’s the expansion. Even though I’m NEVER high enough to take advantage of them, they always get me re-interested, especially if they’re infrequent enough.

    But moreso, there’s 2 reasons for Re-Rifting for me: 1. The xpac has HOUSING! Or something like it. And 2. Adarel (Emily) said that PTS is testing mentoring and lower level instant action adventures.

    But right now, the world is SO FRIGGIN DEAD. I’m level-appropriate for Scarlet Gorge, and I’m the ONLY PERSON THERE. Everyone in Meridian is level 50. If ghost-towns make you sad, then you won’t find any solace in the game yet (if at all).

  2. Not sure why you got moderated…sorry about that.

    Housing could be cool but I’m not even sure what instant action adventures are. But as soon as I see “lower level” I get interested. 🙂

  3. I’ve never left Rift and renewed for a full year when my first year ended, though I’ve not played much lately since Diablo has sucked us in big time.

    It’s definitely the expansion causing all the buzz, but the upcoming patch has some cool stuff, too. They’re doing a form of 3 faction PvP that has folks excited. They’re also adding mentoring where you get rewarded with real-level appropriate stuff.

    Instant adventures were previously only available for level 45+. You ‘queue up’ and get ported to a group (or as many as a raid) doing a series of quests out in the open world.

    I’m hoping that once mentoring is in, no zone will be a ghost-town, at least for invasions, since folks like me who love the open world content will be able to set our level and go.

  4. Ya know I totally forgot I got a free copy from PAX but yeah the only reason I signed up is for the free month. After 30 days I don’t really plan on playing. I am still under an annual pass with WoW and 2 subs is out of the question at the moment. However player housing does sound awesome. I know not a lot of people like that soft of thing but I love it. I think its all that HGTV I watch or something.

  5. Housing is the one thing that might lure Angela into the game!

    Merrie, I didn’t realize you were still playing! That’s encouraging!

  6. Once the Diablo hold lessens, I do fully intend to play more Rift. I have lots of fishing to learn yet. 🙂

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