"You're not in Azeroth anymore". Rift's worst mistake was trying to be a WoW killer. That's how you instantly kill your game.

I was part of Rift in the beta and an active member of the forum community. There were quite a few of us "regulars" that would often chat with each other and other players. I'm not sure exactly where it was on the timeline after launch, but at some point they hired new mods for the forums and we noticed a ban wave. People that had been talking to each other for over a year daily suddenly found themselves banned for very mild reasons. Complaining about a ban was also conveniently a bannable offense, so people who tried to chat with each other about the event were effectively silenced. A lot of them simply stopped showing up at all. Being the blunt and controversial type, I made a very lengthy and scathing post calling out the lead forum mod, a mod that had been around and active in the community along us regulars since beta. I went through my ban history and why each of them were bullshit. He replied after many people posted their similar concerns and began voicing their own unfair bans. He claimed he would go through my list and see what he could make of it. After a while he replied that he had removed most of them, but left others. Among the ones he left were bans for complaining about the bans he himself claimed weren't justified. I asked him what they're going to do about their new ban-happy mods and they said they'd look into it. Bans calmed down for about 2 weeks before it went right back to full speed. At this point I made a post letting them know I would be cancelling my sub (I paid 1 year in advance) if this shit kept up. Of course it did, and I left.

That's a long and boring way of supporting your theory that they cared more about their image than their community. It happened far earlier than you might have thought as this all took place before it went free to play.

"they would learn a painful lesson that PC community are ruthless, especially the MMO audience"

you can say that again~

“You can buy stat granting gear in the irl currency shop”
“Gear must be earned”

Pride and accomplishment lmao

Such a shame...Rift had a LOT of great content speaking from my experience from the vanilla days. The PVE side of the game was best in its class, even surpassing WOW at the time in my opinion. RIP old friend 😢

When Rift went F2P, they deleted all my char's with over 100 plat on them, & my guild/guild bank.
Then abused me thru support.
Then perma-banned me for showing what they said. F Trion!

Rift was so beautiful. It was enjoyable simply running around on my turtle and taking screenshots all day.

RIFT was the only modern MMO that ever successfully codified the support role in a group, and it is the feature from that game I most hope someone more competent will steal.

I loved my bard in rift. It was so much fun at the start. Decent support, high burst damage capability, high survivability, great mobility. So much fun in PvP. Then I left for a couple months and they completely screwed the class. And after how much time and energy I sunk into it, it put a bad taste in my mouth and I stopped playing altogether.

after watching almost all your DOAG videos, i think its safe to say most games die from one thing in common, greed

Oh yes, Defiance. Played it for 3 days and never touched it again.

I love your series man, always interested in watching another entry.

The class/soul system is hands down the best system I have ever seen in a game. I so hope to see it in a new MMO.

"The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan" Why does this not surprise me?
For those who don't know, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is an investment organization associated with the teachers union of Ontario, and they have their fingers in so many businesses. I think they own around half the shopping malls in Ontario.

Rift was so fun when it first came out. I think it was probably one of the highlights of my MMO experiences.

Rift was a great game at launch, but had a strange feel to it. Can't put a finger on exactly what, but it all felt a bit plastic.

This series is so good.  I'm glad someone on yt understands what kind of content people desire.

Very nice video, I was surprised when people told me I had to watch this video because I was in it :)
Unlike most other people that did a "death of a game" genre video on Rift, you actually researched quite a bit!

I can only repeat myself once again:
Rift was imo, the best MMO out there and the most fun i ever had!
Trion... well they worked hard to kill their game and company, so congrats to them!

Much love for producing content like this! New era of quality essays on youtube

I played RIFT for around 900 hours when I was 12. I quit playing at the end of 2011, before Storm Legion came out. I'm glad I wasn't around when it was falling apart. Yet, i spent so much time in RIFT's world, that I always think about it.

You could solo queue for dungeons through the dungeon finder. I did a lot of dungeons while levelling. And sometimes I would stay in the instance after the dungeon was completed and all the other players had left. I would just walk around and look at stuff. I would hide all the UI and take screenshots of the map. I would walk from the start to the end, and find all kinds of interesting details everywhere. Like a small table with cups on it next to a tree. I wonder who sat there? The satyrs and the fairies that were the enemies in the dungeon? What about this one river that ran through the instance. Where did it start? What was the story of this plane?

RIFT imo had some great level design and atmosphere, especially in its vanilla version. I spent a lot of time in Stonefield, for example, the 20-27 levelling zone for the Defiants faction. I kept revisiting this zone because I was almost done on all the achievements in the zone. If you completed all of them, it would grant you with a rare companion (small non-combat creatures that would go around with you) and a title.

Stonefield was a zone full of tribalistic Ogres. The ground was dark and black. Green here and there, but not foresty. The region was mountainous overall. The sky was almost always dark and cloudy.

There were giant bones and skulls all over, half buried in the ground. The ogres made their homes close to some of them. The bones were said to belong to some ancient beings. I doubt that this was followed through in any other storyline after this region ended. It was like all the regions were self contained, story-wise too. Nothing followed them up, but they were great fun. Especially while levelling.

Imagine my surprise when I finished stonefield and moved on through the path at the end of the zone, to reach Scarlet Gorge.

I still remember the pathway that led from Stonefield to Scarlet Gorge. You had to complete some quests from the quest givers that stood in front of a small building next to a trail. There was some sort of machinery next to them, if i remember correctly. Like a watermill. Once you were done with those, the quests led you to the next zone, Scarlet Gorge. You went through a kind of natural wall, and if i remember correctly, took an elevator that looked like the kind of thing they'd use in a quarry. Then you were in a valley of stone. Everything was yellow. Everything you saw around you was rock.

The whole zone was a mix of red and sand looking stone. The enemies reflected that. The quests was exciting. It was such an experience to explore. All the other zones reflected that. I remember the 'Arctic zone' in the higher levels, and how it was connected to the next higher level zone with a similar pathway. Everything changed, and it was a completely new region to explore, leaving behind really good memories and genuine experiences with quests, NPCs, and a world you really cared about.

As a 10-something year old, spending that much time being fascinated with all this world building, I was sad for many years about this RIFT"s decline. How could such amazing worldbuilding (in my eyes) go to waste? Those amazing crafted atmospheres and fictions are still out there, it's a shame no one gets to see them because of bad company decisions.

Watching your videos makes me realize, what I have been so painfully missing all these years was the worldbuilding, the design, the lore, the practice of creating a fictional world. Yet, now I clearly see that it was by design that an MMO should have those elements to be successful. Worldbuilding, zones, experiences, memorable encounters is the trademark of the MMO genre.

After seeing this video, I am no more so sad about all these experiences not getting the recognition they deserve. Instead, I just acknowledge the great work from lore writers, zone and instance designers, and digital artists that went into it. Work like theirs make many MMO great experiences to remember for a lifetime. They did a job well done in RIFT, and I am thankful to them for giving me an incredible world to experience in my earlier years.