Rift's First Anniversary with Scott Hartsman

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We interviewed Trion Worlds' Scott Hartsman about Rift's first anniversary and how far they've come in just one short year.

Rift has just reached its first anniversary; the mood in Telara couldn’t be more jovial! Executive Producer Scott Hartsman chatted with ZAM for a bit about the wild ride in the past year, his favorite memories, and what the anniversary world event contains.

“I was 30 seconds late, ” Scott said by way of introduction, “because I was just tweeting out the exciting news: we just had our 10 millionth Lootable played on the Rift Mobile App. We’re giddy about this because it’s a gigantic number, and gigantic numbers are fun! ” The Rift anniversary event began just last week, and the team has been cooking up all sorts of fun for players.

“We just did a prologue event with loot piñatas springing up all over Telara last week. This world event overall is going to be just a little bit different than what we’ve done in the past, because we’re having a very strong, celebratory/Mardi Gras theme to it. It’s the biggest of the events we’ve done so far; all new content, new minigames, new rewards. It will run for the next month or so and we’re mixing it up with all sorts of other, smaller, events… things like bonus weekends, to sale on the game, to rewards that let players go back in time to buy up items from previous world events. This is the “Pull out all the stops, holy crap, boy are we happy to be here! ””

Look back into the past: before Rift launched, what were you thinking about? What were your greatest concerns and hopes?

“Will this actually work? That’s the thing, most of our stress happens during Beta. We knew we were doing smart things, but we were always waiting for a terrible thing to happen and break the game! But the secret to quality is repetition. By the time we got to Beta, we were pretty good at launching updates; and by the time we got to launch, it almost felt like just another Beta update. Luckily, it ran like it was too!

Like any company we had the normal concerns: are players going to buy the game? Are they going to subscribe? Are they going to quit within 5 minutes? We had the campaign that we loved, and an incredibly great Alpha community that went back a year or two prior to the game launching. And lots of them have stuck with us, and many more have joined. ”

So, we’ve had patches that allow players to kill dragon gods, and 1. 6 opened up a gigantic new map. Which has been your favorite and why?

“Ember Isle was one of my favorites; I have a couple different favorites for a couple different reasons. I mean, what other company could do this (adding, a huge new zone bigger than any single zone already in the game)? Other than that, I was a huge fan of when our first slivers came out, because I am an active Rift player and raiding is one of the activities I do enjoy quite a bit. Then again, I’m also a PvPer, and a crafter… and an explorer and a collector, so i kind of do everything! And then the update where we rolled out instant adventure was an important one to me. The ability to bring players together and keep them engaged is something I think we do in a way better than pretty much anybody. And IA was one of the best ways we’ve done that; it’s a theme we’ll definitely be sticking to in the next year for sure. I definitely enjoy the Chronicles too; when they first came out I was definitely one of those people who were running them over and over again because they were FUN! And now I’ve backed down to maybe 2-3 a week instead of a day; that sates my soloing desire for the time being. It’s also a fun way to really test out your gear and challenge yourself; when you can finally solo one of those you know you’ve really gotten somewhere. It’s like “Hey! This is meant for two people and I’m doing it with just me! ” It’s great to be able to do that in an MMO. ”

Rift has had several major successes across the genre; what sticks out as the greatest achievement?

“Well, the 10 millionth Lootable was a great milestone, but I think what made me so happy was the support of the company to launch a mobile add-on that has its own gameplay for free. We might look to charge for stuff in the future, but in the meantime this is something our developers were passionate about and wanted to build. And for all the things it does right now, I think it’s lovely. The fact that we can create gameplay outside the game that helps keep people in touch is something we’re incredibly proud about. And how about weddings? When i first heard people were passionate about this kind of event, I was kind of surprised; but I’m glad how it worked out and the players love it (Note: Rift won a Guinness World Record for most in-game weddings in a 24-hour period). We love to give our players something more than just “go kill creatures, or other players. ” We refer to it internally as “verbs other than stab. ” And being able to do all these other things are what really set aside the Rift experience.

How has player feedback affected the game?

“We pay attention to all the forms of player feedback, from both test and live servers. We get thousands and thousands of information from the feedback button every day, and all of those go into our bug tracking system where we keep track of the volume of certain keywords. We can keep an eye on hot topics this way. We obviously also scan the forums, although when playing the forum game you need to keep an eye out for trolls. My advice to our new members is “When you get trolled, just read whatever they say in the voice of Droopy Dog and you’ll suddenly be ok with it! ” And obviously, we pay attention to the serious feedback and analysis. We’ve already hired no small number of people out of our community. Some were developers with experience, while others were just smart and passionate. That’s the ultimate way of taking feedback, right? Hiring them! ”
We interviewed Trion Worlds' Scott Hartsman about Rift's first anniversary and how far they've come in just one short year.

If you could go back in time one year and implement a single feature or content update, what would it be and why?

“Instant adventure, hands-down. At the same time, I don’t think we could have had the foresight to see the need of it without going through lots of play and zone events and receiving feedback on a large scale. But the reason I think that would have been a big help early on is because it is really its own on-demand way of playing with other people that immediately eliminates the two big group-killers in MMOs: “I don’t want to be that guy who has to put the group together” and “I don’t want to be that guy who feels guilty by dropping out midway due to real life issues. ” IA bypasses both; I think that’s pretty revolutionary and important. And we’ve just announced Korea and China’s Rift launches; and they will have it at launch! ”


What are the challenges of setting up new launches for China and Korea?

“There’s a lot of up-front work, but it’s not nearly as difficult as our initial launch. We’re working with great folks in both locales: CJ Netmarble in Korea and Shanda in China. Those folks know their territory! They played the heck out of our game, and came back with feedback about what was perfect and what needed tweaks to help it succeed. We went ahead and made the changes to the versions their areas will be getting; but at the same time, we also made some changes here in the us. Take a look at the act of creating a character right now in the game. One of our partners did a playtest and they put a few hundred people through the newbie experience. For our western players? It was super easy, super fast, no problem at all. But in this one test they had zero people make it all the way through! The big hang-ups were around all of the choices the soul system provides. So we took a new look and made the concept of pre-set purposes; now players can say “Hey, I want to be a battle-bard. Click. ” It also shows with what happens now upon receiving new abilities. Previously they would just show up in your hotbar; now you get a pop-up that says “Hey, you got a new ability! Here’s what it does; what do you want to do with it? ” We’ve gotten more compliments on that tiny little convenience feature than we ever expected. So this helps out their own locale as well as the US and Europe. ”

How has Rift Lite come along?

“Rift Lite has been great for us! It’s the best intro program that we’ve done by far and has created more sustained interest in the game than we’ve seen since launch. One of the other core themes you’ll see from us this year is reducing barriers to entry across the board. Picture a world where if you wanted to get into Rift, you wouldn’t have to sit through a 9-gig download. Maybe you just had to install, say, 100 MBs before the game would launch and be playable while the rest streams in the background! We’ve done a bunch of client optimizations over the past year to the point where the game runs just fine on, say, a MacBook Air, which would be an ultra-low spec machine for Rift. But I have one in my office and it runs with 25 fps even in crowded cities. So think of barriers, that either keep players from starting the game, or from playing with other players; those are what we’ll be tearing down in this next year. Because every time we do, the game ends up better for everyone! ”

Tabard reward for the first year anniversary event

Can you tell us a bit about how Rift’s celebrating the anniversary in-game? What will we be seeing in the future?

“Each side has a goal to accomplish. This stage’s server goal is about crafting and gathering; later on there will be a stage about PvP, and then other stages with other goals. It’s the first time we’re doing individual goals as well as having overarching server-based goals with global rewards. We also have these literal carnival games; goofy things like the carnival horse race where you jump on the pad on the ground that represents your horse or the buy rift gold stampeding balloon pop, where you’re in a pen with 20 or 30 other people jumping up and down on balloons. Again, a lot of it touches on the idea of having things to do in the game with other players besides killing stuff. But if players still want to stab things, we’ve introduced a pick-up group for raids that looks back at old bosses in Telara’s past. This is one of our most unique patches yet!

We have things that we’ll be launching short term and long term. One of the medium term goals that we’ve been working on internally for a number of months is even larger and more epic-scaled PvP options. Another big one… we’ve been working on prototypes of some new types of crafting in the game because, again, we are about more than just stab! There are some other good winners, but I think those are all I’m going to allude to right now. That is pretty meaty, though, isn’t it? If anybody hasn’t taken a look at Rift in a little while, I strongly recommend they do so during this event, because it is not just great adventurous fun, it’s also hilarious fun. And we would like to invite everyone to come take a look! ”.

Source: zam.com

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