Well this weekend was kind of horrendous for the aggronaut. I am still in a lot of pain from my previously mentioned ailments. One of my good gamer friends happens to be a doctor elsewhere in the country. So prior to today I had simply been following her directions. At the urging of my wife however I mad a second attempt at getting in to see the doctor, and was successful.
The positive that the doctor doesn’t think it is nearly as dire as originally planned. The negative is, it is still a major infection that several days worth of powerful antibiotics will hopefully clear up. As a result, since I am still very much in excruciating pain you my readers are going to get a rather crummy post today. I figure it is better to post something than let a day lapse with no updates. Here’s hoping I am right.
In the Blink of an Eye
This weekend the river of souls event wrapped up. Like so many I was unfortunate enough to miss it. I spent the early part of my afternoon performing necessary wife maintenance as we ran around town doing errands. When I made it back around 4pm I got the privilege of sitting in a 1 1/2 hour queue. After fighting through the queue, I logged in only to find the event was over.
So several weeks of lead up were gone in a flash. I had been warned that this might be the case, that phases 2 and 3 would only take a matter of hours, whereas phase 2 took a matter of weeks. All that said I was prepared to miss the event, and spending time with my wife was a better choice of my time. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I am any less bummed about having to miss out on the content.
Why I Love Trion
Interesting thing is, when Trion saw how fast phases 2 and 3 went, the immediately realized they had screwed up. I give them massive points for trying to carry out an event of this scale weeks after the launch of the game. As a result they had no real way of knowing how popular it would become, nor did they really have any live data to determine how to scale those last few phases. Once built and deployed they were pretty well committed to the conclusion.
One of the things I truly love about Trion is the level of interaction they have with the community. For example I know of several Trion employees who have read my blog, and I still feel like an unimportant voice in a sea of millions. So if they are engaging with the little guys like me, that tells you they are doing it at all levels of the echelon. However the biggest sign that they care came in a post from Scott Hartsman on Saturday after the events wrapped.
Official Thread on Rift Forums
When we set out to get this unveil event in front of you, it was all about some serious ambitions.
Great new types of content to unveil a brand new raid zone. Events that really push the edge of what’s possible not just in Rift, but in any MMO of its kind. All within an incredibly rapid amount of time following launch.
In this case, while we did get to "what’s possible" we didn’t get to "solid gameplay for the entire game universe." The later phases of the event were too concentrated and time-compressed, which caused issues on a number of worlds.
Ambition is important — It’s what keeps us improving day to day, week to week, month to month. But, it’s equally important to know when you walked too close to the edge and got cut.
Between our previous experience with zone events and now with world events, we have a much better idea of the range we can create "fun" for at a mass scale in the future, and the steps we need to take to continue progressing the more solid gameplay experiences that only happen in RIFT.
As I had posted earlier, our next world events will already be taking everything we learned, as well as all of your comments about the event, into account. Please do keep them coming — I guarantee we’re here reading them all, weekend or not.
As developers, none of us are happy when anyone who chooses to spend their valuable time in our game feels like they got the short end of our aspirations.
To that end, even if something goes great for some, when it doesn’t go great for all, we’re going to go out of our way to make it up in some way wherever we can.
We’re going to assume that if you are an active subscriber you were intending to participate in the final stages.
1) Operating on that assumption, later this week everyone will be receiving an in-game mail with the River of Souls Event Reward Pack containing:
Symbol of Purity – This item starts a quest you can complete to obtain
- 250 Otherworldly Sourcestone
- 1x – Purified Treasure Cache – Contains a random chance of obtaining one of the special world drop event rewards from the day of the event
- Common – Grave Goods Bag -Unique 20 Slot Bag (NEW ITEM)
- Uncommon – Shroud of Anti-Life – Lorn non combat Polymorph
- Rare – Nimble Spectral Horse – 90% Speed Mount
- Ultra Rare – Swift Spectral Warhorse – 110% Speed Mount
- Shadetouched Weapon Cache – The starter item for the Rare Death weapon quests. You can choose whichever level appropriate one you’d like.
- The following two Achievements, since not everyone who was (or wanted to be) present was able to obtain them.
- Grim Hero
- Grim Protector
2) The achievement for kneeling to Alsbeth will remain available in her incarnation inside the River of Souls.
3) Additionally, we’re also going to continue the Otherworldly Sourcestone drops for the next few days, for those who haven’t yet finished off their collections and would care to.
4) And since the question has come up quite a few times — the ability to complete the quests from the Shadetouched Weapon Cache will continue, such that you’re always able to finish them.
We do thank you for your patience with us during this first ever World Event. We know that patience isn’t infinite. We do respect that fact greatly, and you have our word that we’re listening and reacting smartly for the next round.
– Scott
Basically they realize that they misjudged the popularity of the event, and for all of us who could not participate fully like we wanted to they are going to give us some of the things we could have gotten from participating in the event. This feels so much different than the Call to Arms debacle, this feels like a company who truly misjudged the scale of an event and is going out of their way to let us know that they will plan better in the future.
I managed to get almost everything I had wanted from the event prior to phases 2 and 3, so in the grand scheme of thing this is not a huge deal to me. I knew that by choosing my wife over the game I would be giving up my shot at the cool stuff. For me it was a good decision, but I am sure there are others who feel far more distraught over the chain of events.
I have faith that future events like this will be scaled in a way so that each phase lasts a number of days instead of a number of hours. Initially I was disappointed in the entire event, I was expecting non stop invasions. But I have come to a point of peace on it, I did enjoy the new rifts and I hope they will stay in the rotation for awhile. I was just expecting something more grand.
Make the pain stop
Well there you have it, that is about the best post I am able to muster while under pain. I hope these antibiotics will work quickly and return me to a blissful state of not hurting all the time. Hopefully this post will tide you all over until something slightly more substantial can be posted.
Sorry you’re feeling poorly Bel! Get well soon!
While I give Trion kudos for the way they are handling the whole episode, I still think it was pretty poor planning to begin with. Considering the massive MMO experience behind their production and development team, they HAD to know that planning an event at a specific time was going to cause chaos.
I saw it coming a mile away and logged in 2 hours before the event (it was cold and rainy and a terrible day for running errands anyway 😉 ). I was in Moonshade when the bosses spawned. I got to the location of the first boss in a matter of seconds, but got disconnected halfway through the fight. I got reconnected and got to the 2nd boss, and dc’d again halfway through. I managed to stay connected for the next 2, but latency was so high I didn’t even see the mobs really. I did manage to get the title and the shadebound weapons cache and a whopping 10 planarite. Another guildmate was connected and active for all the fights and got nothing, not even the title, so needless to say on Saturday afternoon we were very disappointed.
Trion’s response will solve my main complaints with the whole thing – a reward for really participating all the way up to the finale, and a chance to finish the weapon quest, and my guildmate will get his title. I’m sure the next event will be much better.
@everyone wishing me well – thanks much 🙂 I hope the antibiotics do wonders
@saleny – Yeah I really think they will have learned some vital lessons and event number 2 will be awesome 🙂
Hope you feel better soon… you haven’t missed much of anything 😉
Hopin’ ya feels way better soonest, bro.