You can’t un-ring the bell

For me, at least, it was never about the loot.  It was about being there, participating with my guild, taking pictures and having tales to spin about that time when…  The River of Souls event has come and gone and Trion can’t un-ring the bell of the Phase 2 event that left many customers queued out of participating.

Scott Hartsman posted a message on the official forums that basically apologized to customers who had issues and outlined what they were doing to make amends.  Not a loot whore, it can’t replace being there but I don’t know what else they could do other than running it again.  I hope they take this mishap into account when designing events in the future.  

Even players who haven’t been as active will come for one-time only events.  You should expect mass participation from subscribers.  Oh well, the good news is that we’re playing on highly populated servers where we don’t have problems finding others to do content.  Bad news is that it’s not the place to be if everyone wants/needs to be online at a specific time.  Hopefully, Trion will refrain from intentionally orchestrating such a need in the future.

When I get over my hissy fit of paying for 3 accounts, where we each play on different servers yet none of us were able to participate, I’ll accept Trion’s peace-offering and move on.  I still look forward to what comes next and expect Trion to do it much better.

Comments

[Pan]

I wasn't able to get on yesterday afternoon either. I played in the morning and took a break for lunch, then omg wtf 4 - 5 hour queues on Faeblight. I bailed and stayed offline.

The rest of my experience with the game has been great. I'm really enjoying it, but they made some poor choices for how to execute this particular world event. I had a brief Warhammer, "WTF were they thinking?", flashback.

Anyway, I wrapped up Gloamwood this evening and I loved that zone. I'm hoping Scarlet Gorge doesn't disappoint.

[João Carlos]

Sincerelly, the best descryption about all this ner rage we are seeing after the world event was made by Syncaine (http://syncaine.com/2011/04/18/rift-grim-harvest-world-event-was-awesome/):

"We want truly dynamic content! No I missed the dynamic content, wtf is this /wrist!"

You cannot have them both way, sorry. If the world is dynamic, things will change. Events will happen... and will be done.

The problem with static worlds is exactly that the world don't change, the events are forever repeatable. it will ever be kill taht 10 rats, it will ever be kill that boss mob, that will forever respawn.

But add a dynamic content and we see a lot of nerd rage...

[Saylah]

This was planned content with a set date and time, NOT DYNAMIC so I can't give them a pass on that one. This was staged and highly orchestrated content. What part was dynamic? Everything about it was pre-determined before it started.

Even worse, is that Trion FORCED A SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES AND CRITERIA THAT THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE COULD NOT MEET - log every player who wanted to participate into the game. How can the players be at fault or negligent there?

I didn't miss it because I was off filing my fingernails or painting my house. We missed it because the server couldn't handle the load and they know, or should know, precisely how many subscribers are on each server.

Setting up a situation where anyone who wanted to see the finale had to be online - all at once, knowing full well the servers can't it support it was bad news from inception. It's like airlines overbooking seats. They took a gamble and lost. As a customer they sold a seat too, I did my part. I showed up before the event started. The fact that I couldn't get on the server is on them. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY WAS THE REALIZATION THAT NONE OF OUR ACCOUNTS COULD GET ON THEIR SERVER.

Pisses me off just thinking about it - again.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

@Pan - That depends on your tastes. I've heard some poo-poo the zone as another red clay zone found in every MMO but I disagree. What I like about the Rift zones is that regardless of the climate associated with the zone, these are not barren zones. No, they are full of life and activity. Cultures live and thrive in all types of climates and Rift is the first game I've seen build their zones with that philosophy.

I really liked Scarlet Gorge. And I'm enjoying Iron Pine Peaks which is a snowy frozen tundra which I typically hate. It took me a few trips there to realize why I was enjoying it. That's when it dawned on me that it wasn't some frozen wasteland full of nothing but yeti and polar bears. It was still an active NPC inhabited community that felt organic.

[João Carlos]

@Saylah
"This was planned content with a set date and time, NOT DYNAMIC so I can't give them a pass on that one. This was staged and highly orchestrated content. What part was dynamic? Everything about it was pre-determined before it started. "

Can you give a definition of dynamic content? And give a descryption about how it happens?

You will see it will be a miss it and it will be gone event...

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Dynamic - capable of change. What about this event was capable of change other than Trion delaying the start times? If the goal was dynamic start times - uh, okay, they succeeded.

Besides which, if the best argument for this foobar is the definition of dynamic, we can stop talking now. Many players were trying to get online BEFORE the event started on their servers and couldn't. Bottom lines is that Trion orchestrated a set of circumstances their infrastructure couldn't support.

[Pan]

@João That's a poor straw man argument.

The problem with the world event wasn't dynamic vs. static content. The content, regardless of type, was inaccessible to many as they couldn't log in as the provider of the content improperly judged their ability to offer it at the advertised time.

Arguing over what type of content was being offered is irrelevant. Trion's structure for the event, underestimation of the level of interest they would have, and their capacity to handle the player volume all combined in an unfortunate way. Let's see how they adapt and perform next time. Trion has responded well over the last month and seems to learn from their mistakes.

@Saylah
/agree on the zone and NPCs. I'm very impressed with their attention to little details. Even last night as I traveled through Gloamwood I heard faint crying and realized it was one of the quest NPCs near the road that was distraught over his situation. I also find that I actually leave the music enabled in Rift. This is rare for me in an MMO. It's incredibly well done with the way they layer individual pieces together appropriate to the situation. Fantastic audio work...

[Saylah]

@Pan - I'm really looking forward to revisiting the zones after Stonefield level. It's taken less and less time to level per zone and some level ranges had options of where to quest. I dabbled all over the place, too eager to see new stuff but will circle back at a more leisurely pace later.