Trion Worlds has announced Rift Lite, allowing players to try the MMO Rift without any payments or time restrictions for the first 20 levels. The maximum level within the game is 50, so 20 free levels is more than generous if you ask me. Rift Lite is launching alongside a new patch, Carnival of the Ascended, which you can read about here.
It's been almost a year since Rift launched and I think Rift Lite is the correct move. There are those of us who have always been interested in Rift's world, but not enough to actually shell out the initial investment. Rift Lite fixes this by creating what is, in essence, an extremely long demo. This is a great alternative to the free-to-play model since there aren't any restrictions on what you can do before level 20.
In fact, my experience has shown that the first 20 levels of an MMO are generally the best produced; they're so crucial to the game. If you don't hook the player in this phase, chances are they won't stick around and pay that monthly fee for very long.
You can get in on this action by heading to the website.
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Contest:
7:00 AM on 02.01.2012
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I hate the time-limited trials of MMO's - usually, at the time I activate my account - I get too busy to play much, and the 7/14 days go by and I've only played twice.
I haven't tried Rift yet, but I will if it's free. I was going to try EQ again for old times sake, but the grind is too much.
Their plan was great in theory, I just think they lacked the manpower to pull it off.
My rogue was chucking flaming daggers at faces as a regular attack in his rotation, though. So it evens out.
If they had an expansion under their belt that gave more varied areas, maybe. But where it sits right now, even with the rest of the end game stuff they've added, the 50 level experience of the game is not only pretty fast, but its also pretty generic. Solid, yes, but 20 levels in you pretty much know what to expect for the other 30, and still have a grind.
Game is great, and I absolutely loved not only exploring it, but the implimenting of puzzles and hidden cache's, and I left it with no ill will, but once you hit 50 it gets BORING, and there's little reason to stick around unless you've found yourself a good guild or have friends playing with you. 20 levels for free doesn't help that like new content (like actual zones and even more story elements would) would.
Actually, this reminds me of FFXI, where they held out on raising the level caps, but kept adding endgame content, but in this case no new Zones that I know of, where FFXI kept adding those and classes. Still, FFXI didn't go "free levels!" nor did it make such a move in less then 1 years time.
@Chris Carter
Just out of curiosity, not trying to be snarky or anything, but other then WoW (I believe you've mentioned you've played WoW for a long time) what MMO's have hooked you? I know TOR hasn't, since you've mentioned it a ton, and I'm just curious about what others actually have.
I have to say though that I much prefer the idea of extended demos instead of those old "14 Day Trial" things, because you need a bit of time to get the feel for an MMO and being able to play at your leisure is important for your enjoyment.
DCUO on PS3 or PC is great, whenever you want to just smack around some bad guys or run/fly around. The quests are marginally interesting. The login que for free people is kind of long at times, but if you spend 5 bucks on anything then your accounr gets turned into a premium. The login waits for premium are basically nothing. I bought the DLC for a few bucks, and that's it. Fun time killer.