Rift Starts 2012 with New Subscription Plans, Free Month
Trion's new subscription plans for Rift makes it somewhat cheaper than Blizzard's monster MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
Trion Worlds this week sent over an email announcing new subscription plans for its fantasy-based (World of Warcraft killer) MMORPG, Rift. The new plans are actually rather competitive, asking a mere $99 USD for a entire year's worth of Telara madness. If that's a bit too steep for your wallet, Rift now offers three months for $12.99 USD and six months for $10.99 USD.
But wait, there's more! Any multi-month subscription plan purchased in the month of January comes with a complimentary 30 days of game time. Bonus game time is applied automatically after the initial subscription period ends for any of the three said plans.
"It’s been an amazing year for Trion’s first critically acclaimed title, which recently received 'Game of the Year' accolades from MMORPG.com and 'Best MMO Game' from IGN.com," the company said on Thursday. "The development team is currently working on the seventh major patch for the game, which is due out in the next several weeks."
Compared to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Rift subscription plans are rather cheap. As of December 2011, one month of World of Warcraft costs $14.99 USD whereas a three-month subscription costs $13.99 USD per month and a six-month subscription costs $12.99 USD per month. Note that both World of Warcraft and Rift require users to pay the 3-month and 6-month subscriptions in full at the beginning of the billing cycle.
Here's a description of the game for the uninitiated:
Adventure in the world of Telara as either a noble Guardian or technomagical Defiant and enter a dynamic fantasy where 8 primal forces battle for control in an ever-changing landscape. Build your own class using the Ascended Soul system, embark on epic conflicts that bring you into the story, battle others in exhilarating Player vs. Player combat, achieve new heights of power by tackling epic raids, and so much more.
Definitely meant: three months for $12.99 USD per month and six months for $10.99 USD per month.
WoW had a fun run, but quite honestly, it's sucked all the aspects of replaying another MMO for me. I don't want to level another character to do the same thing I was doing before in another game. Developers need to reach out and start coming up with some fresh ideas. Prospects of hearing that Planetside 2 (FPSMMO) or any other MMO that can think outside the box and accomplish the same if not more of their goals is something I look forward to.
But then again... this is Trion Worlds (lol) we're talking about here. They spit out MMO's faster then Nadya Suleman can birth babies.
I would be interested in playing Planetside 2. I enjoyed Planetside.
I got that as well, but I would check it out for at least 3 months if it was truly 12.99 for 3 mo.
Rift currently is a much better game that WoW. I very much enjoyed Rift myself, but the pace at which its content is being created to consumed, it cannot keep up and satisfy the demands of some subscribers. I wouldn't say Rift has failed. Look at the loss of WoW subscribers, there's a large base, but there's a lot of people cancelling. Wow popularized mmorpgs and hype maybe dwindling. SWTOR will have to work to stay a head of Level 50 subscribers to reduce boredom and with the dialog content creation will be much slower.
Dust 514 will be interesting to play. EVE Online is a terrific game and it would awesome tie MMO populations togeher and have the pvp mechanics of EVE injected into the FPS genre.
On the other hand 3 friends of mine picked it up during the last month, all of them ex-wow players and one just had bought star wars and putting it aside after less than 5 hours of playtime.
i hope diablo3 is no all bright and happy
lulz
These new subscription prices mean nothing... certainly not a sign of a dying game... one would be foolish to think so. The 1 month price remains unchanged, keep that in mind. This allows people who love the game to save some money in the long run and Trion gets more money up front. New players aren't going to come in and purchase a one year subscription initially so the idea that they're struggling to get subs is absurd. Trion may lose money in the long haul if players take advantage of these packages, but if the population continues to grow like it has the past couple weeks then it wouldn't matter.
According to Trion Worlds' own website, they've only "spit out" 3 games thus far.
End of Nations looks more cartoonish than WoW does....
Trion Worlds was licensed by Syfy to create Defiance.....
Rift is just a bad joke...
Nope....Diablo3 is exactly how it should be. Dark and gloomy.
WoW is also 7 years old....majority of the subscription losses are due to lost interest or life taking over. Regardless of how you look at it...Rift will never kill off WoW. WoW is simply dieing of old age.
It is sad that we live in a time where games have lost almost all innovation and originality (except for indie games which tend to exceed in this area) and instead all just want to follow this straight path. MMORPGs isn't the only genre suffering from this either but they by far have gotten the worst of it.
The end game raids in amazing. They need a lot of skill and guild coordination, something you cannot easily find in other mmorpg games.... (only seen this in Everquest and the best mmorpg of all times Vanguard).
The only problem i saw with the game and with most of these games is that the levelling system is way too fast allowing mmorpg freaks to run through the basic content in less than 4-6 months. The end raid remains unsurpassed even then.
People do not leave mmorpgs only because they tend to become boring. It is because the economic crisis is hitting so many countries that people now can;t really afford to pay for a game they spend less time on.
All companies now must think that a better subscription policy will not only bring in new players but keep their current ones. Take into account that people from countries with economic problems will not be able to pay a whole year of subscription upfront, but the 3 month and 6 month sub look very enticing indeed.
As for the new f2p trend in mmorpg games.... Careful what you call f2p. A lot of functions or utilities come with paying money and you honestly end up paying 4 to 5 times more than a monthly subscription.
And by the way, it is time to get over this idea of other mmorpg games copying WOW. WOW has copied so many of its predecessors in the mmorpg history that you can't possibly imagine. It is simply the fact that WOW introduced more people in the mmorpg genre than any other game due to its previous Lan success.