Rift going free-to-play on June 12

By today's standards, an MMORPG running for over two years before going free-to-play has been pretty successful with the subscription model. So well done, Rift. Developer Trion Worlds today announced that it will switch the MMO to F2P on June 12, a respectable 25 months after launching. It'll do the usual microtransaction stuff, of course.

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By today's standards, an MMORPG running for over two years before going free-to-play has been pretty successful with the subscription model. So well done, Rift. Developer Trion Worlds today announced that it will switch the MMO to F2P on June 12, a respectable 25 months after launching. It'll do the usual microtransaction stuff, of course.

Free-to-players can romp through every area, quest, dungeon, raid, and character level, but have fewer character slots and carry fewer bags. One imagines those will be two of the "services" sold for real money. Trion will also sell the classes from its Storm Legion expansion and items.

"We are not selling power. We are not pay to win. Every piece of stat-granting equipment that you can buy from the store can also be gained through play," creative director Bill Fisher said. "Our philosophy is that the very best gear in the game must be earned."

Subscriptions fees will stick around optionally, offering boosts to XP, money, reputation, mount speed, and other rewards to those who fancy paying.

June 12 will also bring the launch of Rift version 2.3, with a new zone, extra rift challenges, and more open-world raid bosses. Heaps more raids, quests, and so on are planned beyond that.

Gosh, the gang at Trion Worlds are excited about the upcoming switch:

From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 14, 2013 10:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Rift going free-to-play on June 12.

    By today's standards, an MMORPG running for over two years before going free-to-play has been pretty successful with the subscription model. So well done, Rift. Developer Trion Worlds today announced that it will switch the MMO to F2P on June 12, a respectable 25 months after launching. It'll do the usual microtransaction stuff, of course.

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      May 14, 2013 11:09 AM

      Surprised it made it as long as it did

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      May 14, 2013 11:34 AM

      Been playing for the last two years. It's a good game, though since they laid off a lot of staff(more so than just the expansion folks), it's been a little slow for content creation. I think that had to do with these F2P changes coming though. While I would say the subs aren't great, they are good. I think they are doing this not so much due to dwindling subscribers but due to the model seemingly bringing in more money than a full subscriber base does. I see good things in the future with this move. One being my daughter's account can now go past 20.

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      May 14, 2013 1:10 PM

      Holy shit, about time! I loved RIFT when it first came out, but I just couldn't justify an MMO sub at the time. Came back for like a week when Storm Legion came out but didn't want to sink the time into it... Now that it will be f2p I can play at my leisure.

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      May 14, 2013 1:22 PM

      sad news. i stopped playing a while ago (mmorpgs are no longer my thing, minus EVE of course) but i always thought they had a solid product considering the other MMOs out there that have crashed and burned (deservedly so too)

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      May 14, 2013 1:38 PM

      makes sense

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      May 14, 2013 2:14 PM

      I'll play this again, I enjoyed the game quite a bit.

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      May 14, 2013 2:14 PM

      Finally they can make some serious jack.

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      May 14, 2013 2:29 PM

      I hope it works, they really do offer a great alternative to WoW.

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