Trion Purchased By Gamigo

I got back from Las Vegas last night and finally feel human again after scarfing down some Taco Bell for lunch. I fully intended to start my write-up of the EVE Keynote from EVE Vegas but decided to do a little web surfing first. I stopped by The Ancient Gaming Noob and, "Holy Cow!", Trion Worlds was purchased by Gamigo. All reports indicate over 80% layoffs as a result, as Gamigo immediately cut all but 25 members of Trion's workforce.

At this point I recommend reading Wilhelm's excellent piece on the buyout. He did the deep dive into the financial structure of Gamigo so I don't have to. I am going to copy/paste a required financial discloser release because I found something interesting. Your mileage may vary.

Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014

gamigo AG: acquisition of Trion Worlds games company to further strengthen its market-position in the games market.

Hamburg, October 22, 2018: gamigo AG ("gamigo Bond" WKN: A2NBH2 / ISIN: SE0011614445) has acquired major assets from Trion Worlds Inc. Trion Worlds is a leading US gaming company with offices in Redwood City (California) and Austin (Texas) and has as publisher and developer of online and console MMO-games, well-known games such as Rift, Defiance, Trove and ArcheAge in it's portfolio. The assets of the company have been acquired by gamigo's subsidiary Golden Gate Games Inc., via an "Assignment for the Benefit of the Creditors" process, in which the buyer only buys those assets, with which he wishes to continue the business.

The gamigo group has acquired the majority of the assets, including the platform, takes over employees to operate the business and gets the full publishing rights of the games. The IP's of the Trion Worlds games have been acquired by gamigo's sister company Padmapani GmbH and are made available for gamigo group, worldwide and exclusive.

It is expected that the Trion Worlds acquisition will add on gamigo group level revenues of at least USD 18 million in 2019. Depending on the speed and success of restructuring and integration, management expects an additional EBITDA of USD 1 to 4 million, based on unlocking substantial synergies and economies of scale as proven in numerous acquisitions before.

The full purchase price amounts to a low USD two-digit million amount (including possible earn-outs).


About gamigo AG:
Since its foundation in 2000, gamigo has developed into one of the leading publishers of free-to-play online and mobile games in Europe and North America. In total, the gamigo Group employs more than 250 employees at its headquarter in Hamburg and branches in Berlin, Münster, Darmstadt, Cologne (Germany), Warsaw (Poland), Istanbul (Turkey), Chicago (USA) and Seoul (Korea). The company's core portfolio includes successful gaming titles such as Aura Kingdom, Desert Operations, Dragon's Prophet, Echo of Soul, Fiesta Online, Goal One, Last Chaos, Shaiya and Twin Saga. gamigo grows via organic growth as well as through acquisitions and has made over 20 acquisitions since 2013, including games, media and technology companies as well as individual game assets.

Disclaimer:

This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by the management of gamigo AG or its affiliated companies. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of gamigo AG and its affiliated companies and the estimates given here. Neither gamigo AG nor its affiliated companies assume any liability to update these forward- looking statements or to adapt them to future events or developments.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look up what "Assignment for the Benefit of the Creditors" actually meant. I wound up landing on the blog of a bankruptcy lawyer from California. The Gamigo purchase wasn't due to ansy investors. Instead, Trion flat out couldn't pay its bills. An Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors is the state version of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, perhaps better known as liquidation.

ABCs are a state law, rather than a federal law, concept.  They have been used in California for almost a hundred years.

In an ABC the business hires someone to liquidate the assets and distribute the proceeds to the creditors.  The business assigns the assets to that person for that purpose.  The assignee then serves as a sort of private “Chapter 7” Trustee, and has a fiduciary obligation to maximize the liquidation proceeds.

One fundamental difference between Chapter 7 liquidation and an ABC is that an ABC usually does not involve any court – state or federal.  The result is that an ABC is a more streamlined process that takes less time to complete than a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Thus, while the net effect is frequently the same in both processes:  the business is liquidated and ceases to exist, the time involved can be significantly less in an ABC.

Another difference is that in a Chapter 7 the creditors have very little, if any, input in the process, whereas in an ABC the creditors have to agree to the results beforehand for the process to succeed.

The other bit of information was the purchase price. We actually have a recent sale with which to compare the Trion sale. Less than two weeks ago, on 12 October, the sale of CCP Games to Pearl Abyss finalized. In that transaction, Pearl Abyss agreed to pay $225 million upfront, with up to an additional $200 million in deferred performance-based payouts. The potential $425 million deal is in start contrast to the "low USD two-digit million amount (including possible earn-outs)" quoted in the financial release announcing the buyout of Trion.

In truth, I did not play Trion games, so I can't really claim an emotional attachment to the game company. I played Rift at launch but never made it to level 25, and Defiance up to maybe level 10. But I do remember Scott Hartsman from his time working on Everquest 2 and wish him luck wherever he winds up, although I hear that is not a popular sentiment at the present time.

Tis The Season To Exploit And Bot

A lot of people see Eve Online as a game filled with bad people who do bad things.  When thinking of these evil acts people look at things like scamming and unconsensual PvP.  Regular readers of my blog know I define actions a little differently.  I look at things like botting, 3rd party RMT and exploits as the really bad acts.  Looking at the first days of 2013 shows evidence that bad people don't just play Eve.

The first example comes from The Secret World.  Funcom held a Mayan zombie apocalypse event to celebrate the move to a buy-to-play model and the coming end of the world.  As part of the event the top 1000 scoring players would receive a title and the top 100 would receive an in-game pet.  On 7 January that planned changed due to some players discovering a way to "exploit the mechanics and reach impossible amounts of points which in turn alters the rankings to unrealistic results."  In this example of players exploiting game mechanics all that was at stake were some titles and pets.  Funcom resolved the situation by giving all players the title and pet.

A more serious situation arose during Guild Wars 2's Wintersday holiday event.  On 3 January Massively described the exploit.

"Players were able to use a single high-level snowflake, a Black Lion salvage kit, and a bit of metal to generate effectively limitless globs of ectoplasm (which are kind of a cornerstone of the economy, as they're used in the majority of high-end items). The exploit was closed, but not before an apparently large number of people took advantage of it."

Many players are upset with the permanent bans issued by ArenaNet but this is not the first big exploit encountered in the game.  Back in August over 3,000 players were permanently banned for using an exploit for crafting high-level weapons “one thousandth of their normal price.”  ArenaNet relented and reduced many of the bans down to 72 hours but apparently the event did not deter many from taking similar actions over the holidays.

In the wake of major botting problems in addition to the previous exploit ArenaNet is taking a hard line with violators.  ArenaNet Support Liason Gaile Gray issued the following statement on the GW2 forums:

"I’ve seen the numbers, and the damage to the economy could have been substantial, if the exploit wasn’t closed down and if these people were allowed to use their ill-gotten gains. People whose accounts were terminated were the worst offenders. I’m talking a lot of ill-gotten gains that posed a significant potential impact on the economy.

"Any time you take one thing and can make two, and then four, and then sixteen… ya gotta know that’s just wrong. (I won’t quibble on the odds, but overall, that form of doubling was not outside the realm of possibility.) And to perform that action hundreds and hundreds of times? That’s call 'exploitation,' and that’s against the User Agreement, the Rules of Conduct, and all that is holy.

"I know the OP will disagree. But we’ve been more than kind, in the past, and everyone needs to own up to his/her errors and recognize: We all are part of the game economy, and those who exploit it are hurting the rest of us.

"Exploit closed.
"Worst offenders terminated.
"That’s what has to happen to make things right for all of us."

Another company taking a hard-line with exploiters and botters is Sony Online Entertainment in its new MMOFPS Planetside 2.  SOE CEO John Smedley had already declared war on cheaters using aimbots and other hacks.  Yesterday morning a patch was finally released that fixed the Sunderer crash exploit.  Apparently while SOE staff took some time off during the holidays the hackers ran wild, causing players to disconnect within certain areas.  Now that the development staff is back in the office, Planetside 2 Creative Director Matt Higby tweeted “As a side note, we have log evidence for players who were causing it and will be banning.”

Finally, another company that let its guard down during the holidays was Trion.  Included in yesterday's RIFT 2.1 Hotfix 2 patch notes was this introduction:

"While we were out for the holidays, there was a marked rise in both fishing and onslaught farming bots. We know that the vast majority of you are responsible, upstanding, and incredibly attractive Telaran citizens, but we do need to take a moment to remind everyone that automating play is a violation of the terms of service that will be acted upon.

"As of today, we’ve already shut down a few thousand accounts over the recent rise in fishing botting, and we’ve begun removing gains from others in places of extreme bot use. A good number of these botters were brought in, as is often the case, on stolen credit cards and fraudulent Rift purchases.

"That said, some folks do innocently use keyboard-assistance software while they’re at their computer. We’ve gone out of our way to make sure that differently-abled gamers are able to use the assist software that they need.

"Unfortunately, for the next week or two, until the bot situation gets back under control, use of this software may intentionally be randomly unreliable, up to causing random disconnects. We ask that you please refrain from using keyboard automation software in the meanwhile."

For those new to the dark underworld of MMORPGs, the references to stolen credit cards and fraudulent game purchases indicates that Trion busted a lot of gold farmers and/or bot accounts utilizing botting software.  The fact that the developers needed to state they need weeks to solve the situation and that those with physical ailments are affected point to some of the negative side effects that people just don't think about when discussing the subject of botting and illicit RMT.

One principle that I see when looking at botting and the illicit RMT business not just in Eve Online but in all games is that as long as players are willing to break the rules that the underworld will thrive.  This past Christmas season showed that RMTers have a lot of fertile ground to worth in.

The Digital Dozen: 8 May 2012

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 6 May 2012.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played
1	1	World of Warcraft	52.6	63,959
2	2	Star Wars: The Old Republic	12.8	15,519
3	9	Tera	7.4	9,039
4	3	Aion	6.9	8,367
5	5	Eve Online	3.9	4,728
6	10	Guild Wars	3.4	4,172
7	6	Lord Of The Rings Online	2.9	3,539
8	7	Metin 2	2.8	3,418
9	8	APB: Reloaded	2.6	3,197
10	11	Need For Speed World	2.0	2,379
11	12	Star Trek Online	1.4	1,729
12	NR	Vindictus	1.3	1,612

 Total MMORPG hours played Sunday:160,298 

MMOPRGs saw a decrease of 10.4% in the number of hours played by the Xfire community over the previous week.  

Tera Launches:  Tera's full launch was 1 May and the game quickly rose to the #3 spot on The Digital Dozen.  The biggest losers seem to be World of Warcraft as WoW tourists visited a new game and RIFT, which dropped off the list two weeks ago and will struggle to regain a spot.

EA announces new SW:TOR subscription number:  On the EA Q4 2012 earnings call yesterday the game publisher announced that subscriptions for Star Wars: The Old Republic had fallen to 1.3 million at the end of April from 1.7 million at the end of January.

SW:TOR lost 23% of its subscribers during this time

While the number of subscriptions declined by approximately 23%, the hours played by Xfire members declined by 61% over the same period.  As I speculated 3 weeks ago, I think part of the discrepancy between the two figures is that EA was doing things like giving out 30 days of free game time to people likely to unsubscribe at the end of April in order to keep the subscription numbers as high as possible.

For last week, SW:TOR saw the number of hours play decline another 10.7% over the previous week.

The Hulkageddon Effect:  This week is the first week I have both the Xfire data and Eve Offline data for the Eve Online player-run event Hulkageddon V.  During this event players try to destroy as many mining ships as possible.  Of course, the players who fly those mining ships don't like that.  One theory is that miners will sit out the event and not even log into the game.  In that case we should see a big decrease in both the number of hours played by Xfire members and the actual average number of players logged into Eve as posted on Eve Offline.  I now have numbers for 29 April, the first day of Hulkageddon V.  Now begins the test.  How well does Xfire reflect concurrency trends in Eve Online?

Xfire vs Reality

 

The graph shows the available data from 1 April to 6 May.  At the beginning of April the Xfire numbers to not track well with the actual average number of players online because of the technical glitch that added 1 hour to every player on 8 April.  But by the end of the month the Xfire numbers started tracking closer to reality.  In fact, for the first day of Hulkageddon V, the numbers tracked a lot closer than I thought they would.  Comparing 22 April to 29 April, the number of hours played by Xfire members declined 3.9% while the average number of players actually logged into Eve declined by 3.3%.  If the trend continues, the average number of players online on Sunday should have stayed steady or increased slightly as the Xfire numbers increase by almost 1% this past week.

Digital Dozen: 28 February 2012

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 26 February 2012.  For more details about the methodology, click here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played
1	1	World of Warcraft	53.5	76,671
2	2	Star Wars: The Old Republic	20.2	28,968
3	8	Guild Wars	3.6	5,091
4	3	Eve Online	3.5	5,075
5	4	Lord of the Rings Online	3.1	4,385
6	5	Aion	3.0	4,288
7	6	Star Trek Online	3.0	4,280
8	7	Metin 2	2.4	3,414
9	10	APB: Reloaded	2.1	3,065
10	9	Need For Speed World	2.0	2,858
11	12	Maple Story	1.9	2,684
12	11	Rift	1.7	2,501

 Total MMORPG hours played Sunday: 187,919

Another week, another decline in the total number of hours played in MMORPGs with a drop of 12.1% overall.  Of the top 12 games, only Guild Wars saw an increase in play among Xfire members as it jumped 5 spots to take the number 3 spot, edging out Eve Online.  Eve almost bucked the trend, seeing a drop of only 0.6% in playtime.  The biggest drops in play were Need For Speed World (20.5%), Star Wars: The Old Republic (19.4%), Rift (17.6%), Metin 2 (17.5%) and World of Warcraft (16%).  Those 5 games accounted for 91% of the decline in MMO game play.

MMOData.net - One reason I put this feature together is the lack of data on subscriptions in MMORPGs.  When things go well, game companies are always eager to tout the numbers.  When things go bad?  Well, the numbers start going away.  Even a company like CCP, known for its openness, stopped the publication last year of the Eve Online Quarterly Economic Newsletter that published subscription numbers every three months.

One of the main sources of information for subscription numbers is MMOData.net.  Since December 2009 the site has attempted to track MMORPG popularity.  MMOData.net's definition is a bit different than the one I use.

• The game should have the capability to support at least 500 concurrent users on a single shard.
• The game must include a graphical common area where players can interact with one another inside of the persistent game world. This excludes lobby and chat room based interaction.
• Combining point 1 and 2 : There must be a graphical common area where in theory 500 players can come together and interact with one another.
• The game must make use of persistent characters or avatars. This means that you should be able to log in after logging out and find your character or avatar as advanced as you left them (or more).
• The game must contain some form of advancement.

I believe this definition leaves out games like Guild Wars, this week's #3 game.

Right now MMOData.net has current data for 8 games.  Ranking the games gives a bit of perspective to the Xfire numbers.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Aion
3. Star Wars: The Old Republic
4. Runescape
5. Eve Online
6. Lord of the Rings Online
7. Rift
8. Perpetuum

Looking at the list, two games are not in the Digital Dozen.  Runescape, published by the U.K. company Jagex, is a free-to-play game not very popular with the Xfire crowd.  Perpetuum, the robot science-fiction game, tries to emulate Eve Online and publishing their numbers is one way to do so.  Aion is an interesting game when looking at the Xfire rankings.  Aion is a huge Korean game but the numbers for Xfire are mainly for western players.  Even then, Aion frequently makes the #3 or #4 slot in the rankings.  How Aion's upcoming switch to F2P in the West will affect the rankings is something to watch over the next few months.

One interesting item is the ranking of Rift.  The ranking for Rift was lowered to just below the numbers for Lord of the Rings Online and the accuracy of the numbers coming from Trion was lowered from grade B to grade C.  In the Xfire rankings Rift usually holds the bottom spot in the Digital Dozen while LotRO stays in the top half.  Looking back to January, LotRO seems to have at least 50% more playtime by Xfire players than Rift every Sunday.  Are fudging the numbers the sign of decline for a game?  If so, then watching MMOData is a good way to tell when that is happening.

20 Is The New 30

I remember listening to a podcast (I think it was Shut Up, We're Talking) and listening to a discussion about how MMOs seemed to bog down in design when a player reached level 30 or so.  The idea was that game designers were focused on making the beginning of the game so good that it hooks players and end game content to retain players that an area in the middle levels dropped off in quality and felt like it was put in just as a bridge to the good stuff.  Looking back, going through Stranglethorn Vale in Vanilla World of Warcraft felt very much like that.  In EverQuest 2 I lost the desire to play my paladin when I hit level 31 in Zek but I managed to power through the pain with my ranger.  Level 30 was not a good time.

This past year I've noticed that I am hitting that meh feeling in games around level 20 instead of level 30.  Is that because I moved to the sandbox called Eve Online and have less tolerance?  Given that PvE in Eve is pretty much of a grind I don't think so.  I think the reason is that game developers have decided they only need to spend the first 20 levels hooking a player and have to devote more resources to producing end game content (i.e. raids) before launch.  Without that end game content, the players who race through the game start complaining that they have nothing to do and then a negative word-of-mouth campaign begins.

I think the trend began with Age Of Conan and its infamous Tortage experience where the game changed completely at level 20 and leaving Tortage Island.  I can't tell for sure because I played the other major MMO to come out at that time, Warhammer Online, and never made it past level 13.

For me, the two major MMO titles published in 2011 were RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic.  I enjoyed RIFT up until about level 18 but the game just became a log for me around level 21 and so I left the game.  Currently I'm playing SWTOR and I've hit a wall at level 23.  Do I really want to go on?

The wall I've hit is partially my fault, I think.  Having played Eve Online for 2 1/2 years I'm used to a universe I can just wander around in at will.  The only limits are the skills I've learned and the amount of isk I've earned.  SWTOR is a very theme park game and not following the way the developers wants you to play can lead to difficulties.  Take for example space combat.  My character is a smuggler.  Why in the world would I put my ship at risk in combat, especially for a corrupt Republic?  And believe me, the Republic is corrupt.  The same goes for ground combat.  I am only in it for the money and I have a stealth belt.  Why do I want to leave a huge body count behind me when I don't have to.  And to tell the truth, I haven't seen very many groups looking for healers.  On the last two planets I've been on, the count in local chat hasn't excceded 60 and been more around 40 when I've been playing.  Let's just say that I barely was level 23 when I arrived on Tatooine and the mobs in the quests I'm fighting are level 25.  I might have to do something I've never done before.  Grind mobs.  Ugh!

I'm going to fight through the pain to get my legacy by finishing the class story on Alderaan.  I'm just hoping that the experience gets better and that 30 is the new 40.

Looking Ahead to 2012 And Back At 2011

Happy New Year!  I usually prefer to look ahead to the new year but I made some predictions for 2011 and I should look at how well I did before moving on to looking at 2012.  So here is a look back to see just how insightful I really was.

New Games:  I made predictions about two games, Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT.  I almost predicted that SW:TOR would launch in 2012 but chickened out and stated that SW:TOR would launch in December 2011.  I got that prediction right.  RIFT is a little different story.  I got the Q1 launch date correct but not the number of subscribers.  Even though Trion has never released numbers, the MMO page on Xfire on 1 January indicated that RIFT players spent half the time in-game as Eve Online players.  Since I predicted a subscription base of 300-400 thousand for RIFT, I will consider that a missed prediction.

Existing Games:  This category is why I should never make predictions.  I only made predictions about three games: Eve Online, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars: Galaxies.  First, Eve.  Looking back one would never know that is the game I play the most.  I wrote that Incarna would lead to a new peak concurrent user record over 67,000 users.  Eve did set a PCU record of 63,170 but not during June or July.  The disaster that was Incarna also helped to ensure that the number of subscribers fell below the 380-400 thousand I predicted at year end.

For EverQuest 2, my predictions didn't work too well either.  Because SOE doesn't release numbers, I'm not sure if the players who proclaimed they were moving to RIFT came back.  I did predict rumors of a second round of server merges but I think SOE just finished the first round of mergers less than two weeks ago.  And of course, my prediction that the free-to-play service for EQ2 would remain separate from the subscription servers failed when EQ2 went F2P on 6 December.

Finally, my predictions about Star Wars: Galaxies.  Sure, they all came true, but that is because LucasArts pulled the plug on the IP so no work was done.

Eve Multi-media:  I have to say that Incarna really hurt the creative community surrounding Eve Online.  Because Incarna basically was a Minmatar closet instead of actual walking in stations with the never released establishments that I thought would lead to a lot of machinima being produced.  I did predict that there would be 10 Eve-related podcasts and I could claim that.  Looking at the Eve Pod Pack page, I count nine podcasts I consider to be active, ten if I count Voices from the Void which seems to be in indefinite hiatus.

What's Ahead For 2012?  I won't have any predictions for 2012 but I will tell some of the stories I expect will dominate the MMO news.

1.  Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The game is going to dominate the MMO coverage for at least the first half of 2012 and possibly all year.  I think everyone is going to play.  I've even broken down and started playing the game.  The question hanging over the game and the genre is will the game maintain player interest throughout the year.

2.  DUST 514.  If SW:TOR is newsworthy because of the sheer amount of money spent on developing the game, then DUST 514 will be a major story because of the innovation (or folly) of the attempt to merge a PC MMORPG and a console first person shooter (MMOFPS?) into one virtual world.  I keep hearing and reading gamers complain about a lack of imagination in games as all developers try to imitate World of Warcraft.  One thing about the Viking spaceship developers in Iceland is that they are stretching the boundaries of game design.

3.  New Game Announcements.  I expect that this year gamers will find out more details about three eagerly awaited projects: Blizzard's Titan, SOE's EverQuest Next, and 38 Studios' Copernicus.  None of these MMORPGs will debut in 2012 but the companies will tease us with enough news to make us believe these will be the games that will dominate 2013, although I believe 2014 is more realistic.

4.  Real Life Politics.  I expect that the real world will inject itself into our games in 2012.  I'm not sure exactly how yet, but between a lot of governments needing money, the U.S. presidential election in November and whatever is really happening in China, gamers will have the real world chase them into their virtual world safe havens.

That's it for now.  As I wrote above, I'm not good at the whole prediction business so expect to see a lot of things occur that I failed to see.

Halfling Stew - Brenlo's Back On Air

I found out last night that Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, longtime Community Manager for SOE games who ended his career there as Senior Producer of EverQuest2, is now on-air with a show on Online Gaming Radio called Halfling Stew.  Broadcasting Sundays from 1700 - 1900 PDT (don't ask me why U.S. gamers usually use Pacific time), he is co-hosting with Christie "Kiara" Renzetti, who also worked for SOE with the EQ2 community.

And what are they talking about?  RIFT.  And MMOs, but we get a to hear Brenlo and Kiara talk about the new kid on the block.  The only problem for Brenlo is that RIFT has no halflings in it.  Kiara is lucky in that the Defiant has a flavor of dark elves called the Kelari.

No matter what I thought of Brenlo's stint as the senior producer of EQ2, I always did like him on the SOE podcast, which he started.  Looks like I'll have to check out his show Sunday.

Downloaded Star Wars: Galaxies

I don't know what this says about RIFT, but yesterday I downloaded the 14-day trial for Star Wars: Galaxies.  I may be crazy, so is this just proof that I should take "may be" out of the statement?  I'm not so sure.

I've been playing RIFT, and while Trion created a nice game, I played similar DIKU-style push button combat games, between WoW and EQ2, for over 4 years.  And after realizing that Eve University was created before WoW was published, I figured that maybe I needed to look at some of the older games for some avatar combat.  Besides, with The Old Republic due out in the near future, Star Wars: Galaxies may be in its final months and I'd be kicking myself if I never gave the game a try.

I do advise that anyone who wants to try SW:G first try the free trial just to make sure it runs on your system.  I have doubts it will run with my ATI 4800 series video card (and yes, the drivers are up to date) but it runs okay on my computer with an NVIDIA 7950 GT card.

I've only played a couple of hours so far but the combat is different.  I actually have to target with my mouse and fire, not just click on a mob and mash buttons on the action bar.  It is a little bit twitch-based combat, which is something I'm not really good at, but I'm looking for something different. 

Each character profession is also supposed to have a different storyline.  For my first character, I chose a spy.  I've already run into one mission that was a bit difficult until I realized exactly how stealth works.  After that, I had to do something a bit unexpected, but running out of a successful mission followed by a hail of gunfire was pretty cool.

I don't know if I'm really going to play much, but I haven't played RIFT in about 2 weeks now and I want to get some avatar game play in.  CCP just did too good a job with the Future Vision video and now I want more.  Maybe I just need to stick to science fiction from now on.

Running The Subscription Numbers On RIFT and Eve Online

Elementalistly at Lowered Expectations has been trying to use X-Fire and Raptr to gauge exactly how many players are subscribed to RIFT and has been using Eve Online subscription numbers to gauge just how successful his calculations are.  Oh my!  Actually, using Eve Online is a pretty good gauge for testing out theories since CCP, unlike most MMO publishers, is pretty open with their subscription numbers.

The only problem with that is when you don't know what the subscription numbers for Eve Online are in order to check your work.  A lot of people are letting him know that Eve Online has more like 360,000 subscribers, not the 450,000 that his formula predicted.

Eve Online Subscriptions From the Q4 Quarterly Economic Newsletter (p.8)

Still, if we can assume his totals from his formula are 25% too high across the board, then the number of subscribers for RIFT after a month and a half after launch is in the neighborhood of 725,000 - 750,000.  But that is just if you use the formula.  Elemetalistly has been playing the X-Fire game for a long time and actually gives a much broader estimated range of subscribers to RIFT: 600,000 - 800,000.  Looks like my prediction that RIFT would have more subscribers than Eve at the end of the year still has a chance of coming true.

Looking at Elementalistly's work also gave me some insight into how Eve is doing as well.  According to both X-Fire and Raptr, Eve player activity is going up.  I don't really see it when I look at the concurrency numbers when I log in, but those numbers may be down because of the crackdown on bots and RMT activity CCP Sreegs announced at Fanfest.  But how many RMT sites register with X-Fire or Raptr anyway?

The current trend Elementalistly reports for Eve is consistent with the numbers CCP Dr.EyjoG reports in the QEN.  The number of accounts in Eve went down this summer over the "18 months" rage and started to inch their way back up starting in January.  The question now is whether the number of real players entering the game will exceed the number of accounts banned by CCP for botting/RMT.

Related post: So What Is Eve Online's Current Subscription Number?

World Bank Report: 20% of Virtual Game Currency Sold Is Hacked

I am currently reading a virtual economy report sponsored by the World Bank titled Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy (hat tip: Terra Nova).  I plan on writing more about the report, but given the angst about botting and RMT in Eve Online, I thought I'd publish this quote from the report now:

The popular term “gold farmer” refers to a game laborer who plays an online game in order to produce virtual currency that can be sold for real money. The first “gold farms”, offices where multiple farmers sit at rows of computers and earn wages by producing virtual currency, probably evolved from gaming cafés. Although gold farmers have captured the attention of the Western gaming public, today they represent only a small part of the production sector in the third-party gaming services industry.

The main competitor to gold farms comes from automated bot farms. Bot farms use arrays of computers that each run several instances of the game, each controlled by a program known as a bot.  Perhaps only a tenth of the staff of a manual farm is needed to monitor the bots. Another source of competition are criminal hacker groups that break into players’ and gold farmers’ game accounts, steal the currency, and sell it for real money to wholesalers and retailers. One industry expert suggests that manual farms produce 30 percent of the virtual currency sold by retailers, bot farms produce 50 percent, and hacker groups “produce” 20 percent by stealing it from other players.

Lehdonvirta, Vili. & Ernkvist, Mirko, 2011. Converting the Virtual Economy into Development Potential: Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy, Washington, DC; infoDev / World Bank. pp. 16-17

I should add that this passage is describing third-party gaming services and not game companies themselves.  Thus, CCP's PLEX sales and Sony Online Entertainment's Live Gamer Exchange servers for EverQuest 2, Free Realms and Vanguard do not count in the above description.

So folks, especially all of you who play Eve Online, there is a reason that people equate botting with RMT.  Because that is where the industry gets about one-half of its currency it sells players.  And the people who are buying in-game currency very well could be contributing to the misery of those whose accounts are hacked, since so much of it comes from hacked accounts. 

Yes, by buying gold, plat, isk, gil or whatever from these 3rd party RMT sites you are giving people an incentive to go out and hack other players' accounts.  If you don't think hacking can affect a game, just ask those who played RIFT at launch.  And if you want to hear a horror story, listen to the beginning of The RIFT Podcast #34 in which Ari described how a guildie fought a hacker for an hour for control of his max level character.

I'll climb off my soapbox now.  But one last note about the report.  Among the experts who contributed was CCP's very own Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson.  While Eve isn't mentioned by name, I'm glad to see that the game I play is drawing interest from sites besides Eurogamer and Massively.

Alsbeth Is Coming

One of the problems I have is that with my schedule, I sometimes don't have time to play RIFT.  I'm going to have to take a break from researching blueprints and hauling PI products around to take part RIFT's first world event.  After all, I play on the Alsbeth shard and the shard's namesake is the star.  Here is the press release:

30-Day Update Heralds Massive Invasions, Unique Loot, and New Epic Raid Zone

Trion Worlds today announced the first worldwide, fully dynamic conflict event for the immensely successful MMORPG, RIFT™. The battle for Telara intensifies as world-changing invasions from the Plane of Death engulf the planet, giving Ascended heroes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of a key moment in the game’s history. Beginning March 30th, players will witness the true power of Regulos the Destroyer, and the world of RIFT will never be the same.

This robust update comes less than a month after the game’s March 1st launch, making it one of the most aggressive post-launch content releases ever for a new MMORPG.

Unprecedented Invasions & Exclusive Rewards

Starting next Wednesday, Alsbeth the Discordant will lead massive invasions across every zone in Telara, raising legions of liches, ettins, and gravemakers to battle Ascended. Over the course of about a week, participating players of any level fighting these invaders can earn hundreds of new items including exclusive rewards, such as a Spectral Horse and a transmogrifying disguise that turns Ascended into the rotting undead. But be warned: once the rifts are sealed, these items are gone forever.

Raid Zone: River of Souls

If Ascended are successful in their efforts to drive back the invasions, they can journey to the “River of Souls” 20-man raid zone at the edge of the Plane of Death where Alsbeth the Discordant is reanimating the recently departed and recruiting them into Regulos’ army. Guardian and Defiant heroes will have to wade through these decaying hordes to reach Alsbeth and make her account for her abhorrent crimes.

I also hear that some class balancing (i.e. nerfs) are going to happen too.  I've linked the alpha notes and I'm really waiting to see what happens.  One good thing about not playing a lot is that I really haven't leveled very high (my highest character is level 20) so my game play really shouldn't change much.  But because my crafting isn't that high, I can only make 6 slot bags.  With all the one-time goodies, I need more bag space!

Rift Patches March 17-18: Patch 1.02 and Hotfix 8

NOTE: This article is about RIFT Patch 1.02, not Patch 1.2.  I regret the error in the original title.

One problem that has plagued the early days of RIFT has been account hacking.  Trion came out with Patch 1.02 Thursday that introduced the Coin Lock system to help prevent hackers from stripping players' accounts.  But apparently a big gaping hole existed in the system that was closed with Hotfix #8.  So hopefully this major issue will at least, if not halt, at least subside.

But the developers have added and fixed more than the account security systems.  Here are the details of the last two days code changes:

Rift 1.02 – 3/17/11

COINLOCK FEATURE — Account Security

• If your account is logged in from a significantly different location, your characters will be ‘Coin Locked’ until an additional ownership verification is made.
• A Coin Locked account will receive an e-mail to their registered account address containing a code to enter in-game to unlock the account.

• A Coin Locked icon will appear on the bottom center of your screen if your account is in this state.
• While you are Coin Locked, characters on your account cannot:
  • – Access the Auction House.
  • – Send Mail (can still receive and view mail or remove items).
  • – Sell to vendors.
  • – Salvage, Runebreak, or destroy items.
  • – Trade.
  • – You can continue to play and gain coin and items, but cannot get rid of them.
• If you are Coin Locked, click on the Coin Lock icon and enter the code found in your e-mail from Trion.
• You can also have Coin Lock emails re-sent to your email address by clicking the button on the Coin Lock interface.
• Once you have verified ownership from a new location, that location is whitelisted for future account access.
• If you cannot access your email or are otherwise unable to change your Coin Locked status, contact Customer Service.

MAIL SPAM FILTERING

• Reporting mail as Spam now works a lot more like the chat and /tell spam system.
• Sending mail that the game filter recognizes as spam results in an additional coin charge.
• Mail you receive that has been flagged as spam will go to the Spam tab of your mailbox UI.

GENERAL

• Made a number of changes to how NPCs react to higher level characters:
  • – Characters under the effect of Exposed no longer have an additional chance to be dismounted.
  • – Reduced the minimum aggro range of monsters significantly below a character’s level.
  • – Increased the rate at which aggro range reduces as a character’s level increases relative to a mob.
• Fixed Forest Disruptor companion so his footsteps are not as loud as a full-size Treant.

ZONES

• Runic Descent: Expert: Corrected an issue where this instance could end with players still inside.
• As a result of the above change, the Captured Soul NPC will be re-enabled after this update.
• Moonshade Highlands: Rational Ward: Fixed issues with quest not updating.

RAIDS

• Greenscale’s Blight: Ongoing tuning for Duke Letareus, Infiltrator Johlen, Oracle Aleria, and Prince Hylas.
• Greenscale’s Blight: Prince Hylas is immune to player abilities that reduce healing taken.
• Greenscale’s Blight: Fixed an issue that could cause Greenscale’s protective Life Aura to occasionally not spawn.
• Akala: Reduced health of Stone Wardens in the Akala outdoor raid to make the first phase possible with 10 players.
• Akala: Akala’s Aegis of Stone and Gift of Laethys buffs can no longer be purged.

Hotfix #8 – 3/18/11

SECURITY

* Characters cannot be deleted while an account is Coin Locked.
* Characters cannot accept CoD mail if they are coin locked.
* Decreased the cooldown between requests to re-send Coin Lock key emails.
* Logging into an account with an existing connection will now force the connected account to fully exit the game.

GENERAL

* We now correctly refund your money in edge cases where you bid on an auction while it is no longer available.
* Being feared should no longer allow you to be scared right through solid objects or underground!
* Reduced Plaque of Achievement rewards from second-tier Expert Dungeon quests to 4 per completion.

ZONES
* Fixed a bug involving zone event Wardstone targets being destroyed by NPCs just before an event begins.
* The Battle for Port Scion, Whitefall Steppes: Using Riftstalker’s Flashback will cause you to drop the Sourcestone.
* The Battle for Port Scion: Stealth abilities no longer work when carrying Sourcestone.

Slacking In RIFT

As I listen to podcasts and read blogs, I can't help but feel I'm a slacker where RIFT is concerned.  Three weeks after the RIFT head start began my highest character is still a level 17 rogue.  True, I have a level 14 cleric and a level 11 warrior, but I just haven't felt the urge to really get on the leveling bandwagon.  Every time I hop into the game with the intention to level, I get distracted by a rift or, like last night, a boss shows up that I just have to run after and kill.

I think I really just need to concentrate on one aspect of the game because I don't have time to do everything.  The whole special currency for crafters looks really interesting and I should document that just to see how that works.  And then I still need to chase after rifts in order to unlock additional souls.  Both my rogue and cleric have 4 souls now and the game feels like I need to get the rest of the souls available before leaving Silverwood. 

Hmm ... see what I mean?  That's two things.  So maybe I concentrate on those and don't worry about leveling, even though the players who are leveling "slowly" are way ahead of me.  On the plus side, I definitely won't be one of those players complaining about the lack of content in a couple of months.  If I hit level 30 on any of my characters by Memorial Day, I'll be greatly surprised.

Epic Forum Posts

Official forums often have a bad reputation as places sane players should fear to go.  But since my sanity is in question (I am a hauler pilot, after all) I visit the official forums anyway.  Last night I found two threads worth noting.

The first thread comes from the RIFT forums.  After you read this thread, you'll almost never have to read another thread in any game again.  This was the opening post:

Rambling description of my MMO gaming experience that dates back to Meridian59 all through every MMO ever developed. Intent is to establish myself as an "expert" in MMO design and management giving the following outlandish statements I'm about to make credibility.

Positive sandwich talking about the things that the game does well, then placing a game breaking negative that must be changed or the game fails, followed by a reiteration of the previous positive comments. Insert vague references to supposed facts supported by fabricated statistics.

Conclude post with a dire warnings of inevitable doom should said changes not be made, up to and including cancelation of accounts from the entire European Union. Include link for details to sign online petition.

Signed,

Forum Troll 

On page 15 a fourth Trion employee, a developer, jumps into the fun...

Standard reply talking about the various ways to alleviate 'game breaking negative'. Include list of well liked features not related to original complaint.

Reveal that we also share some of the same opinion but must think of the well being of the players as a whole. Tell of own personal experiences within the game to provide a personal connection to both the player and other readers.

Conclude post with exclamation that company is very passionate about important issues. Thank Forum Troll for being as passionate about game as we are.

Signed

Random Developer

Definitely an epic post and a must read since almost all of the posters joined into the spirit of the thread.  But not totally all-inclusive.  Over in the Eve Online forums something funny happened.  Someone made the 47,378th post in the Crime & Punishment forums asking the denizens there why they play the way they do.  (For those who don't know, C&P is known as the home of pirates, mercs, and griefers.)  The thread turned into a tribute to Queen, twisting into a parody song at the end.  For those that just want to see the final composed lyrics, Ignition SemperFi compiled all the contributions into one post.  If I could sing, I'd sing the song myself.

Cheetahs Are Cooler Than Turtles

No, the title does not refer to animals.  In both RIFT and Eve Online I spent a lot of time this weekend traveling in each game.  In RIFT I was constantly traveling back and forth either doing quests or chasing after rifts or invasions.  Doing the quests and invasions are pretty cool, but I really hate the travel on the back of the turtles I received for purchasing the Digital Collector's Edition of the game.  If I just do a short burst, then stay in one spot for 15-20 minutes, the travel doesn't bother me.  But when I have to travel for 60 seconds every five minutes?  Ugh!

Not so in Eve.  I was a week overdue collecting all of my data cores from my research agents spread out across New Eden, so I jumped in a Cheetah covert ops ship (because one of the agents is in low-sec) and made the 80+ jump circuit to visit them all.  I don't travel AFK, so I was at the controls during the entire journey, only taking breaks when I reached a station.  I actually find the 90 minute trip rather peaceful.  I just put on a podcast and enjoy the scenery.  Of course, New Eden being New Eden, things aren't all that peaceful.  Someone managed to aggro the gate guns at one of the high-sec gates.  And I'm not sure why at a couple of gates pilots had drones deployed, especially when they didn't have any corp mates with them.  Watching how people behave at gates is one of the things that makes long distance travel in Eve interesting.

TL;DR - One minute on the back of a turtle, bad.  90 minutes in a Cheetah, good.

RIFT Patches March 4-5

The team at Trion really doesn't believe in letting problems linger in RIFT.  The last two days have seen two more hotfixes deployed.  The fixes are coming so fast I had to go to RiftWire to get the notes on hotfix 4.  The notes from hotfix 5 come from the launcher.


Hotfix #4:

• Fixed an economy bug involving the Runebreaking ability.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS

• Greenscale’s Blight: Lockout timer has been changed from 3 days to 1 week.
• Players can no longer reset Expert or Raid instances that are locked to their party.
• Increased the bonus granted by Hit and Focus against Expert Dungeon and Raid mobs.
• Increased the Dodge and Resistances of Expert Dungeon and Raid mobs.

Hotfix #5

* Removed the 'turtle costume' left over on mounted characters whose turtle mount entitlements were removed for the end of head start.
* Tracking abilities no longer trigger global cooldown, which also reduces their effect on Rift contribution.
* Konstantin will no longer be tricked into respawning after being killed.
* Opening a received mail will not start the 3 day expiration timer.
* Mail containing account-level entitlement rewards will not expire.

Six Slot Bags

Sometimes switching between a science fiction game like Eve Online and a fantasy MMO like RIFT produces a bit of culture shock.  Take, for instance, item space.  In my 18 months of experience playing Eve, I have never run out of space for my stuff.  Not so in any of the fantasy MMORPGs I've played, and RIFT is no exception.

Part of the attraction of purchasing the collector's edition was that it came with a 24 slot bag.  Was it worth $10 extra to get a 24 slot bag and a 60% speed travel mount for every character I create.  Hell yes!  But each character in RIFT can carry 5 bags, so upgrading those slots with the biggest bags I can find is a priority in every game I play.

Now, the NPC vendors I've found in RIFT sell players 6 slot bags for the low, low price of 23 gold pieces and some change.  Now that is an incentive to start up the manufacturing profession of Outfitting if I've ever seen one.  (Okay, I don't really need an excuse to craft, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

To create a six slot bag in RIFT requires an Outfitter skill of 30, 7 bolts of burlap and 5 coarse thread.  The thread is purchased from an NPC vendor for 20 silver pieces each.  The burlap?  Burlap drops from humanoid mobs.  That's right, no boring harvesting; just go out and kill stuff!  (Note to Eve players: harvesting in RIFT is a lot more exciting that mining, so it's boring to everyone but us).

Making bolts of burlap requires two pieces of burlap to make.  So not only does making bolts help level your Outfitting skills, it helps free up bag space until you can start making bigger bags.  And if you really want to create a basic crafter that produces something besides bags, just add the runescrafting and butchering professions.  That way, you can make the items required to get your Outfitting skills up to 30, then use the runesbreaking skill to break down the item you just made into components to level the Runescrafting skill.  And Butchering?  Some items for Outfitting require the Butchering skill on certain types of dead mobs to obtain.  Yes, more killing!

Last night I made 3 six slot bags and need to make 5 more for the two characters I currently have and another 4 bags for the last character I plan to create this weekend.  That's a lot of mobs I need to kill to get the burlap to drop, but given the quest system in RIFT, I don't really have to go out of my way to find them.

A Crafter's Journey

I've traveled a long winding course in my MMORPG crafting career since I first put hammer to anvil in World of Warcraft's village of Goldshire back in 2005 to make a pair of boots.  I guess I really love crafting, or perhaps was fortunate that I grew bored of WoW, because WoW's crafting system did not turn me off of crafting totally.  I didn't really mind the system that let me gather a bunch of materials, then park my toon at the forge and click the create all button.  After all, that was a great time to get up and get a soda and fix a sandwich.  For me, the trick to making crafting interesting was figuring out how to gather the materials I needed to make the items.

WoW's crafting system did have two major drawbacks when I played the game back during the vanilla days of 2005-2006.  The first is that a character's crafting level was tied to his/her adventure level.  Ugh!  The second was that to get to max level in your profession basically required raiding?  Really?  I never understood why a crafter could not just concentrate on his craft and had to adventure.

2006 came along and after 9 months of wandering Azeroth I was so sick of WoW that I swore off all MMOs.  That lasted approximately one month when I heard about another game called EverQuest 2 that was allegedly much better.  So I bought the game and found out EQ2 was better than WoW.  One of the things that made EQ2 better was the crafting system.  First off, I could have one character harvest all the types of crafting materials.  Next, crafting ability was not tied to adventure level.  Yay!  So I could concentrate on adventuring with my ranger and crafting with my army of crafting alts.  And I had crafting alts.  By the time I left the game in 2009, I had reached the level cap of 80 in all 9 crafting professions.

The other thing that made EQ2's crafting system better than WoW's was the crafting mini-game in which a crafter basically plays whack-a-mole to create an item.  Crafting actually involves skill and hand-eye coordination.  Then hire a talented game developer like Emily "Domino" Taylor to evolve this system further by creating tradeskill writs, crafting instances and crafting quests and SOE had (and still has) a crafting system that arguably is the best in the industry.  Domino is still my favorite game dev of all time.

But all was not right in Norrath for me.  After 3 years of crafting, I started to suffer pain in my left hand from all the button pressing involved in crafting.  Another problem was the cost of EQ2.  In order to have 9 crafters on my account, I had to subscribe to the SOE Station Pass.  When I began playing, the character limit per account was 6 (later changed to 7).  But by ordering Station Pass, I got an extra 4 (later 5) character slots.  Hence the crafting army.  But Station Pass did not have any discount plans for ordering more than one month at a time.  Boo!

Paying extra was okay when SOE games were the only ones I played, but in 2009 I became interested in another game, Eve Online.  I had heard about the game, but I didn't really become interested until the fall of the Band of Brothers alliance and listening to Dianabolic and The Mittani battle it out on The Funky Bacon Show on Eve Radio.  I finally took the plunge into New Eden in August of 2009 and liked what I saw.  With my guild breaking up, combined with the next EQ2 expansion, Sentinel's Fate, coming out in February 2010 instead of November 2009, I made the move to New Eden full time in October 2009.

Eve Online was an eye-opener as a crafter.  Eve has a reputation as tough, and if you want to really play in the big leagues in the best MMO economy, New Eden is the place to play.  A person just can't jump into manufacturing.  In order for making my own products to even make financial sense, I had to learn a lot of skills.  In space, a character can't just wield a pick-axe.  No, in the year YC113, you need specialized mining ships to obtain ore and the skills to fly them properly.  A proper industrial carebear also needs skills to exploit planets of raw materials and the ability to process those materials into products to sell or use in further manufacturing processes.  The budding industrialist also needs a network of research agents and the skills to invent things.  And perhaps most importantly of all, the industrialist needs the start-up isk to make everything possible.

After 18 months of not making much more than ammunition and drones, I'm finally ready for the big time.  That's right, tech 2 production.  I've got colonies on 10 worlds in 5 systems in two constellations.  I've got a network of research agents that reaches out across 4 regions.  I have an industrial command ship that greatly expands my mining capability for the more common ores and a small flotilla capable of smashing level 4 missions in order to gain the more uncommon ones.  I've got the skills to make blueprint copies and shortly will have the skills and basic tools to make tech 2 ships.

In short, I'm about to reach the pinnacle of my MMO crafting career and guide a force of literally thousands of non-capsuleers in creating some of the most complex and awesome items in the MMO world.  And then CCP comes out with the character creator in Incursions as a prelude to Incarna. I had a great time making my characters, but as I picked out the clothing, I looked at the choices and said to myself ...

"I hate those boots.  I wish I could make my own."

I now have the urge to actually get my hands dirty again in addition to directing a vast enterprise from a pod full of goo.  So where can I make a pair of boots?  RIFT.

Yes, RIFT harkens back to those days of old where I collected a bunch of materials, stood by a crafting station and then left to go make a sandwich.  But the boots are much better looking and useful.  Also, because RIFT just launched yesterday, not a lot of information exists on exactly how to do everything.  So I'm trying to figure out the best combinations of professions for the three Guardian characters I plan on creating in order to streamline my supply chain.  After all, sending things via the mail system costs money.  And I'm not really sure what I can make or how valuable crafting really is at the higher levels.

I've had a blast as a crafter over these last 6 years.  I think I'm just about where I really want to be.  After all, doesn't everyone want to have an empire, even if it pales in comparison to many around you?  And don't many successful people just putter around with some of the simpler things they did when first starting out?  Right now, I fit that description.

Late Night Rift Patch - February 28

The RIFT official launch is today and last night the dev team launched one last patch.  I'm not sure exactly how I like this policy of patching the game at any time.  Maybe the practice will end once the official launch hits.  But for now, here are the notes I found on my launcher.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* Ancient Wardstone area quests now automatically shut down one hour after completion or failure. You will need to use your Ascended Power to reactivate the wardstone.
* Fixed a bug with last login time not saving correctly for guild members. The existing display will be updated the next time a guild member logs in.


CULT SAGA
* Forces of the Plane of Death: Changed to require sealing of any Death Rift in Freemarch for updates.
* The Means of the Endless: Drop rate of the Attunement Shard increased to 100% from the Endless Nightbringer.
* Follow That Gnar: The Gnar should be easier to follow, and not disappear from the path.


ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* A Hymn of Frost and Flame: Enkarus Scourge mobs spawned during this quest no longer give experience or loot.

STILLMOOR
* Past is Prologue: Quest can now be completed normally by all Guardian players.


WARFRONTS
* There is now a shorter AFK timer for Warfronts, and players exceeding it will be immediately kicked out.
* The Black Garden: Holding the Fang while on the 'ledge' of your respective faction starting area will award fewer points.
* The Codex: Players should no longer be able to get into the Vault through clever jumping.


CLIENT/SERVER
* Reporting spam will now also automatically ignore the the sender.

RIFT Patch - February 26, 2011

While I haven't experienced issues in the first two days of the RIFT head start, problems exist and a patch came out this morning.  Here are the details for the patch, taken straight from the login client.

QUESTS               
* Freemarch: The Wayward Package quest is no longer offered daily.
* Silverwood: When Rudy Tanlop’s  wagon is under attack during a zone events, he should yell his notification correctly.

EXPERIENCE      
* Dungeon zone quests fixed so that repeat completions do not reward the full first-completion value.
* Fixed a bug causing mobs significantly higher than a player's level to reward far more experience than they should be.

UI
* Raid frames now expand down from the top left corner.
* Zone events that are failed will be removed from quest tracking once again.

CLIENT/SERVER
* The login queue message box can now only be cancelled by clicking on the Cancel button.  You should now be safe to browse the web while queued!
* Improved accuracy of AFK timeout checks in game and at character select to combat queues.
* Server performance improvements.

UPDATE:  When I logged on for an evening session, I had an additional 22 MB patch download, but the launcher didn't have any notes on what the additional content contained.  The above notes are only for the 8am PST patch.