MMMMEEEEAAAADDD!!!: World Records and Free Play

 By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG RIFT Reporter

Hello and welcome to the revival of OnRPG’s weekly coverage of the brilliant MMO, Rift. It has been some time since the Paths In Telara articles were written and now I’m taking over, and changing the name! Don’t worry though, I know the previous author won’t mind. He’s my husband. A lot has happened since the last time Jonathan touched base. Six content releases worth of stuff in fact. He left off talking a bit about 1.1 and the River of Souls event. Since then we have seen six huge releases from Trion Worlds. Which is the most aggressive update schedule of any MMO in my experience. In the 10 months that Rift was live in 2011 it made 100 million dollars. And they’ve announced an infinite, level capped trial up to level 20 known as RIFT Lite. This is something very similar to what World of Warcraft has. But please, Rift players hate being told Rift is just another WoW clone; leave that at the door. In the coming few weeks I will cover topics from previous content releases to catch everyone up to the current changes that have just recently gone live with 1.7. But before all of that there are some important topics to discuss.

Marriage and Divorce: The Telaran Way Making a Record

After listening to many, many requests from roleplayers (and maybe some nonrpers) Trion has opened the floodgates by introducing marriage. Marry your travelling companion! There is only one restriction on marriages. They cannot be cross faction. Cross species? That’s cool. Same sex? Yeah, that’s ok too. But a Guardian wouldn’t marry a Defiant, that’s just silly talk. The weddings themselves can be as big or as small as you like with instanced weddings that are able to hold up to 200 people! All of this is fantastic, very on par with what we have come to expect from Trion. But they’ve taken it a step further.

On February 14th (that’s Valentine’s Day) Trion is hoping to break a world record for the most virtual marriages in a 24 hour period. And what better day to do it? Now I’ve donsomeone my research, went to the Guinness World Record site to see if the record already exists and it doesn’t. But that’s not going to stop anyone from having a fantastic time setting this record! So if you play Rift and you want to take part in this record just have your character get married on Valentine’s Day after 9AM PST. Everyone who takes part in creating and breaking this world record will receive the in game title ‘Tier of Knots’. Which for someone like me who must collect every achievement, title, artifact, etc in every game, this is a complete must! Oh, and should you decide that things just aren’t working out with your spouse there is the option to get a divorce.

Rift Lite

No, this isn’t some sort of all new Rift diet plan. Its Rift’s extended, (unlimited even) trial. Play as long as you want, for free. Sounds awesome, right!? There are downsides. You can only play to level 20. Which most likely means you’ll be able to play in the tutorial zones and the lowbie zones for each faction. There seem to be some mixed feelings about this. I know one person who cancelled their subscription the moment they heard about it. And I know yet another person, a couple actually who have been juggling the idea of leaving another MMO, one they dearly love, to give Rift a free try. This option has opened up the possibility of seeing which of the two games they prefer without any monetary commitment! Yay!

At the moment personally I don’t see what the big deal is. Free means more people will try which means more people will buy, which in turn means more money and a long, prosperous future for Rift. There have been several free weekends and in them I have never once experienced a problem with the people who were there trying things out. It really isn’t that big of a change. The only thing that is different is that they won’t go away in a few days. Is this a sign of things falling apart for Trion? Pfft, no. They just made in less than a year what the original budget for the game was. Rift is always growing, always evolving. That is part of what makes it so great.

1.7 is still so new I haven’t given it a try yet. The one year birthday is coming up sooner than it really feels like it should be. And all in all things are looking great for Trion Worlds and Rift. I know there will be a lot of great things to come and I can’t wait to be the first to experience each new trial Trion throws our way.