So why is this game dying? Yes, i'll exaggerate whenever i want.

[Kuya]

The game seems to have lost a lot of people, and the forums here are nowhere near as active as the thread about the game (before it came out) used to be. I haven't really tired of the game since i haven't hit max level yet, although you don't see me screwing school over the game.

This is fascinating to me, because initially the game seemed to have done everything right. What i'm getting is that people are burning through the content at incredible speeds, including endgame, so people are left with nothing else to do. Is this pretty much THE problem the game has right now?

As it stands, i can see me getting bored with the game too, and waiting out for either TERA or GW2.

[xopher]

Population is mostly rogues. Rogues aren't wanted for endgame. People get to 50 and have nothing to do. Maybe after 1.2 we'll see some increase.

[Alderaan]

Population is mostly rogues. Rogues aren't wanted for endgame. People get to 50 and have nothing to do. Maybe after 1.2 we'll see some increase.

Although this is a good point about rogues, unfortunately most of them exaggerate not being wanted. Obviously you're going to have trouble finding groups when there are so many of them. On top of that, many don't want to play bard or anything except the one specific spec they like. This game isn't like that and most rogues don't want to adapt.

We have rogues breaking 1200 dps in raids and giving warrior's a run for their money. Unfortunately right now that means it's either NB or bard or go home. This is also the case for warrior's and BM's so this is on Trion to give us more options. 1.2 should help with this and i can only see it get better.

A lot of the issues i feel also has to do with lots of people being stuck in the 10-man mindset and can't or don't want to get 20 people together to even raid. My server only has 3 guilds that have even cleared Greenscale and many are stuck on Herald in RoS. This seems to be the case for many servers. The content is there, for a game only 2 months old, people just have to get together to do them. It's a different story if you've cleared all the raiding content, but to be bored and not have done so seems silly to me.

[Crizto]

Yeah I feel there is plenty to do in this game. But one guild I was in ran into serious trouble getting a 20-man roster set up. Dungeons were the only option as far as guild activity went, with a few Expert rifts. Raid rifts seemed very difficult to do for a new 10-man roster to do, so those were ruled out. In the end the guild flopped as recruitment halted, and leaders stopped logging on.

I recently joined an active raiding guild, and am having a blast. I've yet to find myself, even before joining this guild, to be bored. I for sure grinded out dungeons both T1/T2, and even enjoyed that. Maybe FFXI prepared me a bit more for the grind lol, but I managed to get great gear for both Tank/Bard/Melee/Ranged DPS through dungeons and prepare myself for raiding. Hell, I even enjoy doing the dailies, with the exception of Stillmore since the quests are so spread out...

I gotta agree with the exaggerated rogue QQ'ing as well... I mean I noticed that my only option was bard at the start, but maybe after a week in and landing a few T1 pieces, Rogues can become competitive DPS and tanks.

[Eaglestrike]

Well, the thing my friends have been saying, and they're a "casual hardcore" gamer type, only putting in a few hours a night, but mostly every night: It takes too much commitment to do one thing. They say it can take up to 4 hours to do a single T2 dungeon and that requires you to be there the whole time. I'm guessing this basically means that every night is Dynamis. They say that the issue is trash having way too much hp, that it takes SO long to kill and that the bosses are great and wonderful. They're about to quit but are at least waiting for the patch to see where things go before making such a decision.

For myself, it was...just a reskinned WoW, and I was bored of that MMO model. I wasn't really bored of WoW when I quit for Rift, I just had no future in that game with all my friends moving over and not wanting to make new ones. So when Rift had the exact same feel as WoW, but with more grind and less PvP fun for leveling (most of my WoW time had turned into leveling alts over and over heavily through PvP) it just didn't click with me. I actually made a return to FFXI, with a newfound appreciation for the game because it's an MMO that's still reasonably successful, does most of the same things(end game events with grind, etc.) as the WoW/Rift game, but in a completely different manner. Of course this also makes me even more disappointed FFXIV sucked because FFXI still needs a coding overhaul to fix some of its shit, but oh well.

Oh another thing my friends seem to complain about is the lack of a guild on the server. There might be one guild capable of doing raids and it seems not enough other people have the roster to get to 20, so unless someone steps up to lead some guild there is nowhere for them to go to progress through that aspect of the game.

[Katlan]

For me, it was a combo of things:

#The soul system is diverse, yet most souls arent balanced so it really only limits classes to about 6-7 souls across the board (among all classes). Yes, you may see rogue's who are rangers or Marks for raids, but in order to be good you aren't going to want to be those. And when you break it down to having about 6-7 souls that are viable, it makes everyone the same as you your gonna see tons of bards, tons of NB's, ect...

#I don't like seeing only 4 classes, idk if all the souls were viable. That means your bringing like 5+ of each armor type to raids and that blows. And since very little armor is class specific it means everyone needs everything.

#ppl are allowed way too many souls. Yes, its awesome on paper. But when you get into experts and w/e your expected to be able to change between 2-3 roles per boss, ect... That sucks, its just too diverse and doesn't make anybody unique since your expected to be everything. Would you take a rogue who didn't have a bard spec over a rogue who did?

#Rifts are like Besieged and Campaign. It's a lot of fun at first, but then you realize they aren't that diverse and its the same thing over and over again and your camping zones for achievements since you can't see whats going on in other zones. Not only that, rifts die out at 50 unless you want achievements really.

#It's pretty much identical to WoW aside a few things, but WoW is overall more polished. So why start over in a game thats like WoW, if I left WoW for this game? Maybe if you came from another story, but if I want to gear up 100% the same way as I do in WoW, Ill just play WoW

i can go on

[Lucavi]

I had a huge interest before I left for my new job training. Since coming back, I haven't touched the game. For me, its really more about the MMO genre than anything. I know I'm not going to have the time, nor the desire to spend 4-5 hours a day in a game for small increases in performance through constant raiding. I'll probably play it again soon just to level up some new classes, but I can drop 2 hours in marvel or TF2 and get a lot more out of the time spent than 2 hours in Rift or any other MMO.

Its a great game, for sure, I probably just need a new genre with swords and sorcery to sink my teeth into.

[Alderaan]

Replayability is also an issue when you only have 2 starting areas and the need to only roll 3 alts.

I do agree T2's take way too long when you first get into them but once you're geared you can clear most of them in a hour (not counting DSM). It's not going to happen with PUG's though which is i think how most players attempt them.

[Pyree]

I don't think the problem is that people have exhausted the current content, but rather think the opposite is more likely, that they just have lost interest in exhausting the content. I can say for sure that a vast majority of the players have not cleared all of the content. My guild is the only guild on my server so far that has cleared all of GSB and RoS, and I only know of two others that are remotely close. So a lot of people out there have a lot left to go. However... these raids are so difficult for a lot of people that they've just given up on ever completing or even attempting them, it seems. And I think there are a lot of people with similar feelings towards the T2 expert dungeons, even. When people have given up on these raids and dungeons, it removes a lot of playable content for them, and thus gets boring.

Basically right now there is a lot of content for hardcore players, but for the more casual players I'd say it's lacking significantly. They try to do the same things as the hardcore players, since that's about all there is now, but don't do well at it and get discouraged. And as with any game, the casuals are a majority of the population, losing them is a big deal. We'll see how changes in 1.2 affect this, I think there are a few things that will help out casuals:
1. Instance bosses being nerfed, and gear being buffed.
2. Much easier to get lures for Expert/Raid rifts, these are events that could easily be done by medium to large casual guilds with high success. Might even see some pugs doing them after the patch.
3. LFG tool, hard to say now but we'll see if it helps them get more involved in some of the instances.

Might be more, but those are the changes I recall off the top of my head that seem like they may help, and I'm definitely looking forward to see how this patch all plays out.

[Katlan]

Oh, I forgot one of the most important thing.. TRASH.

This game has so much trash in instances, experts, raids, and even in questing (and you can't run away from 90% of it) that its tiresome. Do I want to fight 50 mobs to get to the back of a cave for a quest? No. Do I then want to turn that quest in only to go back to that same cave and re-fight the 50 mobs again to get to the new quest objectives? Quest were great at the start, but after 40+ its like they blew chunks and just made stuff up. You revist the same small area like 5x+ for a quest hub. Why can';t you get 90%-100% of the quest for that area in one go? Why do you have to re-visit the same cave 5x and the same small area 5x. It killed me inside each time I had to do that.

You get a quest to kill 20 mobs and as your killing them you see these flowers on the ground. You can sure as hell bet the next quest will be to go back to that same spot and collect those flowers.

[niwaar]

I don't think the problem is that people have exhausted the current content, but rather think the opposite is more likely, that they just have lost interest in exhausting the content.

I could not agree more. Of course there are many other reasons for the state of things than just this. This is a symptom of the overall failure of Trion to give players what they want. Content was never "too difficult". It is more apt to say that the current Rift content is "too cumbersome" and people got bored trying to push their way through all the crap that they needed to get to the fun at the end.

[Meko]

I just think the niche of this game, Rifts, is only fun for a little while. I found myself by the mid 20's doing my best to avoid them all together. That coupled with the fact that the souls are all over the place and most seem to be fluff along with the questing seemingly being scattered abroad just made me lose interest in the game early on. I think it's a damn fine game out of the gates as it's new and has a more appealing graphic look (compared to WoW and the cartoon) but in the end, I don't think it's enough to keep people content.

[Shnaklaha]

I really don't know where most of you are coming from. The only thing that has gotten boring for me is t1 dungeons....and that's because i'm fully t2 geared ready for greenscale.

Back a month ago our guild was dying like some others....not enough people on usually for anything aside from 1 dungeon group, nowhere near enough people for greenscale. Our top guild members (the most geared) burned themselves out before the good content came out....they never got to experience raid rifts or hell even the harder expert rifts (i still don't see how air is possible with 5 people of t1 gear level lol). A few unsubbed/never resubbed, a few decided to take a break for RL stuff, etc etc.

What changed? Well, as the leader of my guild I went all proactive on Rift's ass. I convinced our "Sister guild" to merge with us because they too had the same problem, i began openly recruiting in the general chat and gaining some low-ish players (my mentality: reguardless of level, if they're in the guild and have the perks of a early start guild, they're going to stay), and began to encourage use of forums and guild participation.

it took a couple of weeks but....well, we now usually have anywhere from 8-15 people online at any given time (majority are 50), we have 9 to 11 people geared for Greenscale and are EAGERLY awaiting the Sliver content while we wait on the other 9 people to gear up....the new expert/raid rift change will also boost up our gearing of members and train them for later fights....all in all, its going very well.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong, but what I am saying is that people tend to go with the flow when it comes to ideas of "A game is dying" or things along those lines....i specifically AVOID the official forums aside from dev tracker and class/dungeon forums for the sole reason of dying/complaint threads popping up every day....

There is but one problem that Rift has that really explains most of the issues you all are having....if you have a guild, you run with them. If you don't, you're screwed. I don't know how they can remedy this aside from the LFD tool coming next week but....well, i'm sure they're also looking into it. I will agree that most content is geared towards hardcore the higher up you get....but to be honest i'm (as mentioned earlier) a hardcore casual, few hours every night....and I, personally, don't want the content easier, i just want smarter players....which is impossible so the other has to happen.

I'm sorry some of you aren't having too much fun anymore with the game, i wish i had suggestions on how to improve the quality of playtime for you....but unfortunately i cannot think of anything =/.

Also.....our guild ( in my sig) is Retribution on Reclaimer....we have the shard first P6 cleric in our guild (Also first P6 defiant to my knowing, but there's only 1 shard 1st announcement lol, no class specifics), one of the higher level guilds (unless some are 10, but i believe no one is above 9 at the moment...we are going to be 9 when our quest is done), and have a very family-esq community in the guild. Overall...i'm enjoying myself =).

[arus2001]

There is but one problem that Rift has that really explains most of the issues you all are having....if you have a guild, you run with them. If you don't, you're screwed.

I'll supplement this by saying it has to be a good guild, as well. My main issue when playing MMOs is that, socially, I play at random times given RL circumstance. Sometimes up until 6am. The next week I'm going to bed at 11pm. This makes keeping up with even a small core group tricky and if I'm on more of a morning schedule, I'd maybe see 1-3 others in guild at 10am as opposed to 8+ anytime after 7pm.

So, this basically left me soloing crap most of the time, and for anyone who's 50 and alone, the rep grind is absofuckinglutely miserable with the low amount dailies offer. When it's bad enough for one character, the urge to level another completely vanishes.

[Katlan]

Guild's are in issue when a game has population problems and the server cap is like 1500 or something stupidly small. Divide 1500 by 2, and if sides are balanced your looking at roughly 750 players per side on a capped server. A game that has dividing factions needs a higher server cap. And the whole Low - High server status is BS anyways. It's a known fact that the "medium" status has a very low bottom limit. A server can have like 250-300 ppl online and it will show as "medium"

Aside that, i think a lot of ppl have expressed that playing WoW 2.0 is what they "thought" they wanted, but ended up finding out that it's not what they wanted.

[Lucavi]

Probably because they realize that the WoW formula, while refined pretty much to a T is solid for gripe-free gaming, they've been playing it for years now and its simply time for a change.

I've said quite a few times that the genre doesn't exactly have to make some massive leap to some all-new style of playing, because lets face it; there's nothing new under the sun. The new games just have to get away from what currently exists. I'd still like to see a Dungeon-Siege II-style MMORPG, or something that blurs the line between the addicting gameplay of a DS or a Diablo dungeon crawler and the hardcore updated progression of a MMO. The act of playing a single class in a long-ass dungeon having to clear through 300 piles of trash for a 10-30% shot at a random piece of gear that gives me a 3-7% upgrade over my previous gear for 3-5 times a week has just gotten to me, especially with a new job and more shit (fun and un-fun) to do throughout the day.

Its just time for a change in general. It can go backwards, for all I care, but I've spent enough time with the WoW setup, no matter how polished it gets.

[Lucavi]

Edit: Whoa, double.

[AidenCarby]

Honestly, most of the population loss was the casual wow raiders thinking they'd be getting away with the same shit. Also having 99(yes 99) NA/EU servers leaves select servers a little empty, server hops will be available at some point next month which will shake things up a bit. Mergers were talked about but that bad PR with the game being so young.

[Katlan]

Honestly, most of the population loss was the casual wow raiders thinking they'd be getting away with the same shit.

I think you need to redefine your definition of casual vs hardcore. tons of trash just to get to a boss is not hardcore. tons of trash instances just to get to a boss is not hardcore. What makes stuff hardcore is the difficulty of the content. Not endless wave after wave of trash. Its not hardcore vs casual, its that most ppl don't find it fun to wade through an hour of trash just to get to a boss.. thats not content. Some ppl think its fun, others don't. But that doesn't make a game "hardcore"

[AidenCarby]

I think you need to redefine your definition of casual vs hardcore. tons of trash just to get to a boss is not hardcore. tons of trash instances just to get to a boss is not hardcore. What makes stuff hardcore is the difficulty of the content. Not endless wave after wave of trash. Its not hardcore vs casual, its that most ppl don't find it fun to wade through an hour of trash just to get to a boss.. thats not content. Some ppl think its fun, others don't. But that doesn't make a game "hardcore"

10 minutes of trash to first boss in GS, 25 minutes of trash to first boss in RoS. Not sure how that's hard or an hour lol.