1:04 pm, August 11, 2017
966
Yaviey: State of Raiding in Rift
Quote:
Hi all, First off, let me start out by saying I understand your concerns. I've personally been a pretty big raider in MMOs and I find it to be both challenging and exhilarating. It's certainly one of the most exciting parts about end-game content. Now, in regards to the long list of raids that RIFT has released over the years, yes, it's absolutely true that times have changed. AAA MMORPGs are expensive (not just from a monetary perspective, but also in time and resources) and in its heyday, the game had much more freedom to go and do whatever. It was also a different monetary model and released during a time when MMOs were still the hot new thing. As times have changed, Trion has changed along with them. We went free-to-play, added a cash shop, and refocused our efforts on what our team knew to be successes. Additionally, instead of doing super mega huge content updates in the forms of expansions, we have expansions along with regular content updates. In this process of change, one of the big things that was changed for raiding is eliminating 20-man raids. These were incredibly complex to manage, required tons of resources, and ultimately we didn't see the play-through as high as the 10-man versions. Therefore we re-focused to what was proven to work, and for us, that was 10-mans. As far as a full time-line with everything coming up in the next two years, we sadly at this time, cannot provide you with that. I can tell you that the team has been very hard at work at planning a brand new raid for an upcoming content update (sorry, no dates yet). This will not be a re-vamped raid but rather something completely new. Obviously, we will share more details when we can although that is all that I can offer you right now. Please also keep in mind that we do meet quite regularly to discuss strategy and your input really does come into play. We're just not always able to act (or act immediately). My best suggestion for you is to keep being constructive with your feedback, give us actionable insights we can work off of that will make you happy, and keep this communication going with us. We won't always be able to do everything you want but we can at least discuss it. Thank you!