Trion Worlds, now known worldwide as the company behind Rift, one of the most successful PC games to date, may finally be encountering their first big issue. Rift is a PC game where you can connect online and play with people across the world doing a multitude of things from questing to raiding. Trion had a perfect release, no bugs or issues of severe magnitude, and also showed a willingness to work side by side with players to improve their gaming experience. Which leads us to potentially the first problem with a game that seemed perfect….
This week, we touch on a potentially serious subject for Trion Worlds – lack of content at maximum level. As many of you already know, playing MMORPG’s, or massive multiplayer online roleplaying games, is a fun and adventure packed good time leveling up your fledgling baby character into a fully functional, baddie wasting force of nature. This is only half the game however, because as soon as your charecter hits level 50, (the max charecter level), endgame content becomes available. These include raids, zone invasions, max level dungeons, and all sorts of new content that Trion is racing to implement. Here lies the problem. What do you do when people who are paying $15 a month no longer can progress or advance because no content has been created?
Raid Boss - Rift
In Rift, there’s not a whole lot to do at level 50 right now! Trion has a few raids that are implemented already, but these raids are 25-man raids, and it’s really tough to get enough people on a raid at the same time. Compounding the problem, is the fact that 25-man raids, as they should be, are much harder than 10-man raids. In normal MMORPG’s, you start with 5-man groups until you meet the gear requirements for 10-man groups, then after a month or so of completing those, you jump into 25-man content. This gives you better gear, better DPS (damage per second), and a much better understanding of raid movement and awareness. By not having these options available for players, you are forced to do endless dungeons for plaques, then use those to buy gear to get you into the 25-man raids. In Rift, there is a large gap between the fresh 50′s, and those like myself that have been grinding gear for months. It’s much harder for the new guys to get in and experience what they worked so hard to get to.
So what does this mean for Trion Worlds as a company? One thing you don’t want is for people to reveal this information to other prospective customers. You don’t want to be the company that releases an MMO without endgame content. This could potentially generate some negative press, or negative feedback in the MMO community. This could lead to a bad reputation, and a much harder time marketing the game to new prospective customers. The marketing angle that Trion utilized in great amounts was under the slogan, “We’re not in Azeroth anymore!” One thing that their lead competitor, World of Warcraft, does is offer a ton of endgame content. If you are going to market directly against the biggest name in gaming, you better be able to back that up with not only a stimulating leveling experience, but also a bevy of things to do once you reach max level.
If you were in charge of marketing Rift, how exactly would you go about handling this? Trion has a huge new patch hitting on May 10th with a bunch of endgame content, so this solves the problem for the time being. The company could also stress the fact that Rift has the most stable game and client in history. No huge bug fixes have been needed yet. Regardless, its going to be tough going for Rift’s marketing team from this point forward. Some clever strategy paired with implementation is going to be the key here, but until then gamers may, “Wish they were still in Azeroth!”
Raid Boss - Rift
