Rift’s new invasion event, River of Souls, was great at first. Running around Telara helping prevent the takeover of the Alsbeth troops was a lot of fun for the first week and a half. To be quite honest, I was really obsessive about trying to get the spectral horse mount to drop, it didn’t. As I became increasingly frustrated with my inability to collect this rare mount, other players became increasingly irritated at Trion’s postponement of the final two stages of this event. An announcement was made the day that phase two and three of the event were supposed to go live. The announcement stated that the launch of these final stages in Europe had not gone well, and that the patch was causing some stabilization issues. They had decided to halt the event’s progress and instead, extend the first phase for one week. I wasn’t bothered by the delay because as far as I was concerned, this just gave me more time to farm my new mount. However, a lot of people were upset because they had made arrangements to have the day off of work and other things. I admit that Trion could have made this announcement much sooner. Be that as it may, I spent the whole next week farming to no avail. One week later, everyone is excited for the final stages of the event, and the unlocking of our new raid. I, as well as many others, try logging into the game servers only to find a several hour wait in queue. What?! There hasn’t been a queue for my server since a week or two after launch! These final stages of the River of Souls were only scheduled to take a few hours at best, and now tons of people can’t even log in to participate! I found out later that the reason for the queue was due to a certain someone at Trion deciding that this weekend would be a great weekend to also have free to play trials. Smart, really smart. Let’s let thousands of people who aren’t paying to play this game clog up all the servers on the day of the most important event we have seen so that paying customers can’t even log in….. To say the least, people were furious. I got lucky and was able to log into my account after the server crashed and all of the queue were reset. The event only latest a half an hour at best, I can only assume this was because there were around 600 people in each zone. These mobs didn’t stand a chance.
Trion has made amends for this catastrophe though. In my opinion, anything other than the fiasco of releasing this event on a free to play weekend was to be expected. It is always a learning curve and I am confident that the next world event will go much smoother. I have no intention of canceling my account, and I don’t think that anyone else should either. Trion has gone above and beyond in customer service and I believe that Rift is still well worth playing.
I was also delighted to find this posting on the forums, just another example of the great customer service at Trion:
River of Souls World Event Wrapup
When we set out to get this unveil event in front of you, it was all about some serious ambitions.
Great new types of content to unveil a brand new raid zone. Events that really push the edge of what's possible not just in Rift, but in any MMO of its kind. All within an incredibly rapid amount of time following launch.
In this case, while we did get to "what's possible" we didn't get to "solid gameplay for the entire game universe." The later phases of the event were too concentrated and time-compressed, which caused issues on a number of worlds. Ambition is important -- It's what keeps us improving day to day, week to week, month to month. But, it's equally important to know when you walked too close to the edge and got cut.
Great new types of content to unveil a brand new raid zone. Events that really push the edge of what's possible not just in Rift, but in any MMO of its kind. All within an incredibly rapid amount of time following launch.
In this case, while we did get to "what's possible" we didn't get to "solid gameplay for the entire game universe." The later phases of the event were too concentrated and time-compressed, which caused issues on a number of worlds. Ambition is important -- It's what keeps us improving day to day, week to week, month to month. But, it's equally important to know when you walked too close to the edge and got cut.
Between our previous experience with zone events and now with world events, we have a much better idea of the range we can create "fun" for at a mass scale in the future, and the steps we need to take to continue progressing the more solid gameplay experiences that only happen in RIFT. As I had posted earlier, our next world events will already be taking everything we learned, as well as all of your comments about the event, into account. Please do keep them coming -- I guarantee we're here reading them all, weekend or not. As developers, none of us are happy when anyone who chooses to spend their valuable time in our game feels like they got the short end of our aspirations. To that end, even if something goes great for some, when it doesn't go great for all, we're going to go out of our way to make it up in some way wherever we can. We're going to assume that if you are an active subscriber you were intending to participate in the final stages. 1) Operating on that assumption, later this week everyone will be receiving an in-game mail with the River of Souls Event Reward Pack containing:
Symbol of Purity – This item starts a quest you can complete to obtain
· 250 Otherworldly Sourcestone
· 1x - Purified Treasure Cache – Contains a random chance of obtaining one of the special world drop event rewards from the day of the event
o Common – Grave Goods Bag -Unique 20 Slot Bag (NEW ITEM)
o Uncommon - Shroud of Anti-Life – Lorn non combat Polymorph
o Rare – Nimble Spectral Horse – 90% Speed Mount
o Ultra Rare – Swift Spectral Warhorse – 110% Speed Mount
· Shadetouched Weapon Cache – The starter item for the Rare Death weapon quests. You can choose whichever level appropriate one you'd like.
· The following two Achievements, since not everyone who was (or wanted to be) present was able to obtain them.
o Grim Hero
o Grim Protector
2) The achievement for kneeling to Alsbeth will remain available in her incarnation inside the River of Souls.
3) Additionally, we're also going to continue the Otherworldly Sourcestone drops for the next few days, for those who haven't yet finished off their collections and would care to.
4) And since the question has come up quite a few times -- the ability to complete the quests from the Shadetouched Weapon Cache will continue, such that you're always able to finish them.
We do thank you for your patience with us during this first ever World Event. We know that patience isn't infinite. We do respect that fact greatly, and you have our word that we're listening and reacting smartly for the next round.
- Scott
3) Additionally, we're also going to continue the Otherworldly Sourcestone drops for the next few days, for those who haven't yet finished off their collections and would care to.
4) And since the question has come up quite a few times -- the ability to complete the quests from the Shadetouched Weapon Cache will continue, such that you're always able to finish them.
We do thank you for your patience with us during this first ever World Event. We know that patience isn't infinite. We do respect that fact greatly, and you have our word that we're listening and reacting smartly for the next round.
- Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment