Are other game studios taking countermeasures against RIFT? [Updated]

@Rindon
The Cancel Subscription button is back. They say that its removal was unintentional. Whether that's true or not, who knows? Some people will believe it was deliberate no matter what they say.

The Cancel Subscription button will not be there if you have already canceled your sub. Your account will still show as active until the end of the paid time, but the cancel button will be gone. If you have a current sub -- one that's scheduled to rebill -- you should see the Cancel button.

@Apakal

Yes to paragraph 1.
No to paragraph 2.

@Apakal

And I thnk you are full of it. WoW is used to dominating the field and like any competitor they play everything comng out. Dropping 4.1 is a desperate attempt to retain some of the ppl who are already bored by the weak content Cata provided.

@Snichy
Agree with you. The arrogance to think that precious Blizzard is somehow above-it-all, ridiculous.

@Apakal I have to agree. I really don't think that Blizzard needs to be worried by Rift, WAR is already dead and needs more than the removal of a button to get back on track, and Rift is about as relevant to Mortal as Pong is.

Still, conspiracy theories are cool.

@Apakal

I'm sure subs will spike down a little bit, even if it's just for a month or two.

Even a couple percentage point spike in subs would draw attention, and it's possible they're trying to prevent it from happening.

It's not like they're so rich that they don't care what happens in the industry; that's just naive.

Blizzard are very good at what they do. Therefore, even the slightest sniff of a competitor (justified or not) should illicit a reaction. It just makes good business sense and I have no problem with it, as it will more than likely result in a win/win situation for the player.

@Puremallace

FFXIV had 650K accounts at the end of its beta, it has about 10K-30K now.

Beta numbers are meaningless, its when cash is involved that numbers have significance.

@Apakal

Last I remember Blizzard has always "coincidentally" released something around the time a potential challenge pops up. I think for WAR they either announced BC's release or released one of the new services or something.

Also with TOR being fully voiced, Blizzard's been trying to add a new layer of immersion in by tossing voices onto characters where they can in quests and whatnot. That's something they just started to do with the Argent Tournament, and TOR was already common knowledge then.

Basically if they're fount out to have a drop in their... 12 million or so subscribers? They'll flip if it even drops down by 1 million, since they seem to constantly try to get it higher.

But oh well. If it it means Blizzard will actually listen to player stuff more or whatnot (doubt it), and try to improve WoW to be more fun at endgame (when it currently sucks and is boring as hell), that would always be nice.

@Puremallace
A plateau is a plateau. I hope Trion gets some dollars and can keep developing content. They're going to need to.

I'm not saying I don't want Rift to succeed (or even care for that matter). I played in some of the betas, I think its ridiculously over-hyped, I think the novelty is going to wear off real fast. Just my take.

I won't be playing it. Have fun if you do. If it matters, I won't beplaying WoW either, so let's not start with the fanboy accusations.

@mmark true but by the sounds of things play mechanics was also what doomed FF14 to low subs.

@Scott Ossington

In FFXIV's case, the player base remained high for the first month, they were adding servers like crazy. It wasn't until the first free month was over that the playerbase made its mass exodus, prompting Square to make the game free to play until further notice (which continues to this day)
While there were grumbles of bad gameplay from a relatively small group of people, the masses were silent and still playing the game until they were asked to pay.
The basic takeaway is that; as long as its free, you really don't know if the game has bad mechanics or not.
I certainly hope that Rift has compelling gameplay for the developer's sake as well as the industry, but we just don't know yet.

@ImperialPanda

Sorry to see that you didn't understand my post and that you think that insulting people is a form of discussion.

oh well.

but I was in the betas, I did see what happened. Your interpretation of events is different than mine.

@mmark

Yeah my interpretation of 1 + 1 = 2 is different from your interpretation.

I understood what you said perfectly, and what you said was wrong, period.

@Apakal. Massively thinks what the Rift marketing team tells them to think.

They are just trying to get more hype for this crappy game.

And I thought Fox News was bad... This is just shameful "writing".

Bet this post get deleted, Joystiq sites like censor and hide the truth just as much as China and N Korea.

@Drunken Irish Sniper You sound like a broken record. Stop spamming every Rift thread with your nonsense. Don't like it don't read it. Many people want to read Rift stories and articles.

@Snichy
DCUO was launched Jan 11th, F2P for CO was slated for Jan. 27th since November of the former year. A little over 2 weeks =/= coincidence.

Dropping patch notes on the same day as another games release, however, is another story.