It seems like just yesterday that I'd come to discover Rift, via Rift Watchers, no less. In terms of age, Rift is still a very young MMO, having not even seen it's first anniversary yet. Some may argue that in it's short lifespan Telara has already seen it's glory days, and the path from here is nowhere but down. I, however, must wholeheartedly disagree.

Sitting on the sidelines during many MMO releases, I've made a fair number of observations over the last several months in this game. Rift came out of the gate and immediately began to build hype and excitement, which attracted a large number of MMO players to it. Most seemed bored with their current game, and were harboring a stale taste in their mouth. Those gamers played Rift for a short while, until the newness wore off. Many misconstrued the number of players who left Rift after sampling the content as a sign that either Rift or Trion Worlds had failed to deliver a fun game. There were many reasons that people claimed Rift wasn't their cup of tea. The sudden disappearance of just about every Rift podcast definitely did not help matters. Unfortunately, most of those podcasts were produced by people who only played until the newness was gone. Rift still holds a strong interest in the podcasting market, with Rift Reporter still being quite successful in the field, and remaining active to this day.

So, where does that leave Rift today? Is the game dead? Was the entire thing just a burst of hype that captured gamers for an instant, but failed shortly thereafter? No, certainly not! Rift, by design, was never intended to be a new World of Warcraft. Trion Worlds remarked at one point that Rift had been more successful than they'd ever anticipated. So the natural course of players leaving for various reasons probably makes the subscription numbers fall more in line with what Trion Worlds had originally deemed as being successful. Rift was designed to be it's own project and to do it's own thing.

As a long time gamer I would say that Rift feels more like a niche game to me. Dare I say; other than the skin, it feels like more of an EverQuest sequel than EverQuest II ever did. That's based on pure game mechanics, and the direction of the development team. I honestly feel that most gamers who still cling to ‘old school' games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call, or Dark Age of Camelot, might be able to find a more advanced and compelling home in Rift. Even with Star Wars: The Old Republic finally being here, Rift still has a steady player base. This game is anything but dead! The content is always expanding, and more of the fun systems from other games are creeping into Rift, little by little.

As far as the future of Telara is concerned, I've been able to make a few educated guesses based on emails I've received from Trion Worlds as well as in-game messages that have appeared. It would seem that Trion has selected certain lower population servers to become trial shards in the near future. Guilds have been given ample warning and everyone was given free transfers to move wherever they please, as always with Rift. I really find this interesting though, because this tells me even with the beast that is SWTOR, Rift is still planning to expand their playerbase.

It doesn't stop there, either! They sent out a very detailed newsletter this month. A few highlights from patch 1.7 coming down the pipe have been announced, and loads of new content will be coming soon. (More on that in future posts.) Additionally, right around the time this new content hits, all former players are being offered FREE game time to return to Telara between January 19th and January 22nd, 2012. I would highly recommend that anyone who has left Telara and happens to be reading this pop in to check out the new content from patch 1.6, and stay tuned to Rift Watchers for an overview of the new stuff when patch 1.7 arrives. Like a fine wine, Rift only continues to get better with age, and I'm confident we'll see this game be successful for years to come.