Be Careful What You Wish For : Rift

 "...I'll take a Rift Classic server, please. I really miss those Sunday afternoons in Stillmoor."

Me - at the start of the week

 "In the Spring of 2018, we will launch a new server, RIFT Prime...We plan to present RIFT at its roots as much as is possible to do."

 Rift Producer's Letter - three days later

Thanks, Trion! I think.... 

Although I guess no-one should really be surprised at anything Trion does any more, this move does seem to have taken most people unawares. The MassivelyOP thread cuts the company a little slack but posts at Bio Break and TAGN take a more skeptical position, one which I share and then some.

The immediate assumption appears to be that Rift is getting some form of "Progression" server of the kind long-established, now perfected, first by SOE and latterly by Daybreak, for the EverQuest franchise. As yet there's not a whole lot of detailed information on how this might work and what there is does little to encourage any expectations of a true progression server, far less anything that could reasonably considered a return to the Golden Age of Rift as we knew it.

It took SOE/DBG many years to iron the wrinkles out of the Progression concept. Reverting a long-running MMORPG to the status quo ante turns out to be a major undertaking that requires the diversion of considerable time and resources, as Blizzard are no doubt very well aware. Practical considerations mean that even with the best of intentions some infrastructure changes just can't be rolled back. The final result is an approximation, a reminder, of how things used to be, not an archival reconstruction.

That doesn't appear to be an issue for Trion because they don't seem to be interested in taking the time, trouble or expense even to get within hailing distance of the authentic 2011 Rift experience. The Producer's letter makes that abundantly clear to anyone whose rose-tinted glasses haven't steamed up entirely with excitement.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the new server will both be time-limited and set on fast-forward ("The PRIME server will progress at a faster pace than the original launch and will eventually come to an end in spectacular fashion") there remains a much bigger roadblock to any fleeting sense of authenticity: "Many upcoming live content changes that apply to existing servers will also apply to the new PRIME server".

Added to that there's some not-so-nostalgic fiddling under the hood in the planning stage, with the Prime server "dynamically matching characters to their current zone’s level [and] dungeons dropping loot specific to your character’s true level". It's clear from the outset that the goal is not to create any kind of long-term home for players longing for the Olden Days, the way Blizzard plans to do for WoW Vanillaheads and Jagex already did for Runescape purists.

In addition to the aforementioned preset demise of the server, almost inevitably there's also the incentive of "participation awards that carry over to your characters on existing servers." I think that makes it clear that the target audience is existing Rift players out on a jolly.

On closer examination, what this appears to be is a version of another of SOE/DBG's popular and successful money-making tropes, the Limited Time Event Server. Trion did float this balloon sometime last year, in the relatively downbeat Producer's Letter of March 2017. There the talk was of bringing the "challenge" back to Rift with a series of special ruleset servers, possibly beginning with a Hard Mode version.

That went out to consultation and Rift Prime would appear to be the first practical result, its style and direction taking cues form the forum discussions that followed the original announcement. Trion, in their inimitable fashion, have managed to spin a year's worth of complaints about lockboxes, aggressive cash shops and other similarly unpopular business practices as "suggestions on how to make the business model more appealing".

Apparently that means no lockboxes, "a significantly reduced store" and a non-optional subscription. Pardon me for not being impressed. Or grateful.

The one significant, positive effect this announcement has had on me is to make me re-consider my nostalgia for the game. I loved Rift in beta and I liked it a lot at launch but when I take a step back and look at the overall experience more analytically I have to admit that it was a short love affair that came to an unpleasant end.

My time in Rift overlapped the beginning of this blog and it's easy to see my growing impatience and disillusionment in posts like this one from December 2011, some nine months after launch. Soon after that I went back to playing EQ2, then the GW2 beta weekends started, the The Secret World filled a gap before GW2's official launch and by summer 2012 I was a full-time resident of Tyria. 

In February 2012 Trion made the first 20 levels free with Rift-Lite and I enjoyed a fair amount of casual, drop-in low-level play when the whim took me. When they announced the first expansion, Storm Legion, for November 2012, I made the big mistake of buying two copies, lured in by its deal of a year's subscription bundled in. At that point GW2 was suffering considerable issues with bots and we were uncertain whether we would hang around much longer. The expectation was that that Mrs Bhagpuss and I would make a triumphant return to Rift and our short run in GW2 would be at an end. 

Instead, ANet banished the bots, Tyria felt clean again and Storm Legion turned out to be dour and dull. I think I played for about a week and Mrs Bhagpuss for maybe a day or two. In nearly twenty years those two copies of Storm Legion are the MMO purchases I most regret. I consider the $150 we spent on Landmark alpha access to be far, far better value.

After that I soured on Rift. I still dropped in and out once in a while in desultory fashion but neither of us played again until the game went free-to-play. At that point Mrs Bhagpuss had a brief fling with Dimensions until she'd spent all the free currency we got as ex-subscribers whose subs still had months to run.

It's a patchy history at best. I had very good times in beta, a good run after launch and a few odd moments after that. If I'm analytical about it, the main thing I really enjoyed were the Invasions and some of the Rifts. I liked the questing in a few of the original zones and I enjoyed the crafting to a degree. I liked some of the PvP and I also always found Telon to be a visually rewarding world to explore.

The actual gameplay, however, was always labored and clunky and crucially I never developed a close-enough affinity for any of my characters, although some of them had their moments. Leveling was grindy, especially on the second or third character and from Ember Isle onwards that grind became unbearable. Apart from those addictive and occasionally thrilling afternoons in Stillmoor, there's not an awful lot for me to be nostalgic about.

All of which, ironically, means that if anything induces me to give Rift Prime a try it will be the extent to which the experience doesn't accurately replicate the original. I would positively welcome faster leveling, better loot, less grind and the ability to vary the journey (via zone or level matching) from the very limited options available back at launch. When I stop to think about it, it very much appears I never wanted a "Classic" server after all.

Then there's the question of whether I want to pay a subscription for the privilege of playing (most probably in a half-assed, half-interested fashion) through content I've already played through several times already (much of which wasn't that great to begin with). I guess that will depend on what else I'm doing when it arrives and how much spare time I have on hand. Also on whether Mrs Bhagpuss is interested, which I'm willing to bet she won't be. She doesn't really do nostalgia.

One thing I never did first time round, which might justify subbing for a month or two, was dungeons. I saw a couple, briefly, but almost everything I know about them comes from the stories Wilhelm told about his adventures there with the instance group. That might be a diversion worth a few dollars.

Then again, I really feel like I've already given Trion more money than I want to. Last time didn't turn out well at all and there's such a thing as learning from your mistakes.

Anyway, there's no need to make any decisions yet. That time will come when Trion post some hard details, I guess. I'm not holding my breath.