Trion Worlds’ End of Nations stand was constantly busy; but their MMO Rift was getting a lot of attention too, despite hitting retail long before the Eurogamer Expo. How and why has Rift managed to generate and sustain so much interest? I spoke with Trion Worlds’ head of community in Europe, Sebastian Streiffert, to find out.
One of the main features of Rift is the eponymous rifts themselves, which appear dynamically and spawn enemies into the map. Wasn’t moving away from what it’s been established MMO players will pay for a risk? “It was a bit of a gamble at first, I’ll admit that. But we did it in a way that didn’t impose too much on the way players want to play the game.”
What sort of player is Rift aimed at? “I think we’re looking primarily at core gamers, or players that are already familiar with MMOs; but Rift is a very straightforward game. It’s not difficult to get into, we have tutorials. The rifts themselves allow users to quickly jump into action for a few minutes, then back out. So I think it already appeals to a casual audience.”
“I feel that subscriptions suit some games.” says Streiffert, on the issue of free to play MMOs. “In Rift, we push our content to such a degree, that we had to expand our team after launch rather than downsize as most MMO developers would do. There are no plans to bring Rift to the free to play model.”
Having confirmed that there are no plans to bring Rift to consoles, I ask: could it work, a console Rift? “Sure, why not? It’s difficult, because you’re looking at a lot of skills, and a limited number of buttons. There would be some challenges.” So why do MMOs, even now, struggle to flourish on consoles? For example, DC Universe Online (PS3 and PC) recently announced that it will offer a free to play model from late October… “One reason is that console gamers are generally more casual in their nature. They want to pick up the game, play for just a while. Free to play models are perfect, as they don’t have to commit to a long term game.
You also see different types of titles on consoles. We don’t see strategy games, we don’t see MMORPGS; because I think they require a different approach that sometimes makes them difficult to work.”
And fan feedback on Rift, post-launch? “Oh, it’s been tremendous. We have received so much positive feedback. Of course you’re going to have negative opinions as well; but unlike a lot of other MMO companies, we are on this feedback monitoring it. You can see this in every patch we’ve released since launch. We always take this feedback into consideration, there’s been so much feedback from the community.”
And future DLC will be fan-influenced? “Yes, definitely. I mean I work with the community, we’re out there every day to listen to what players think about certain features. We say to the developers ‘hey, people are saying this, what can we do?’. So there’s a lot of dialogue going back and forth internally.”
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