thrasher

@Fishyfishfish1 LOL!! Christmas (the celebration not the word) was around way before christ was born, it comes from pagan holidays the church wanted nothing to do with and most "real" christians dont celebrate it as anything more then a time for festivities to celebrate life, family and friends.

http://www.pathlights.com/theselastdays/tracts/tract_22m.htm

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

This game is a MESS!!!! i recently returned after a year or so off (RL got in the way) I was there from beta to about 2 months after the cap hit 55. on Reni you could get 1 mil for like 5 bucks from the gold sellers when i left, the whisper i got last week said 130 mill for 10 LOL.
On top of this the TP was reset for chapter four and I have nowhere near the amount I had when i left, missing cash shop items, gear missing off my toon etc. thought maybe i was hacked but my diamonds and rubies were still there. very low population, almost nothing in the AH, no more diamond/gold trading in the AH the forum overrun w bug complaints different GM's but exact same responses to the issues, i cant even play anymore and I loved this game to death becuase of the gear customization, soo very sad it fell so far so fast :(......
one of the magor flaws that helped this issue get worse is the fact the endgamers are geared(whats left of them) and dont have dia's to sell no more and theres nothing to waste gold on so it builds up to insane amounts even back when i was regualr could pull a few mill in a day with some work .......................

As much as i hate to compare such a polished title as rift to a F2P I would like to see more games do it like Runes of magic, once u cap your skills are no where near max and you can keep gaining points - i know its a grind buty at least it adds a reason to keep grinding other then the next level shiny!!

@rhorle RIFT called it a birthday not massively

either pop in on e of the few offline games that look interesting or ( more likely for me ) go fishing, lol

lots and lots and lots........ lol.
to try and summerize a little to reach mid to end game raiding ability is very costly first you have to buy the pur stones to transmute with usually around 5 bucks for an 8 or 10 pack when they are on sale and it takes 6 stones min to stat out just one piece of gear, on top of this you can stack stand AND also + gear +ing gear adds hidden attributes like a cape +1 adds 5 stam +2 adds 15 +3 adds 25 etc.
the stones you buy to do this have a med to low success rate so u usually get to +2 or +3 then use ruby shop stones (you get free rubies w cash shop purchases) which are 100% working.
THEN there is also the ability to "tier up" the gear . example you have t4 and want t5 well it takes 3 t4 stones to make one t5 stone (remembering you need 3 stones min to stat anything.) (some peeps have t 5 t6 gear and t12 weapons)so you can do the math from there

Now comes the fun part, to do this without paying other players staggering amounts of gold for the stats means: you start running dungeons like cyclops lair and kalin shrine for stat drops build some gear and then move on to the next instances to do it again (and again and again) this is where most people get upset realizing that the gear they spent 40 bucks on is good for 2 or 3 instances before you need more.
I played from beta to ravenfells opening on one server grinding it out cash free it was hard but i did it. then I maxed two toons to 55/55 on another server but that time i used cash because the diamond/ auction house is a joke now.
I am also one of those 1000 dollar players and I got tired of the constant money sink at high levels but your not doing ANYTHING riad or end game related without this gear.

(might be wrong about the korean ver of RoM but I was sure it it was out for awhile under a diff name there b4 we saw it)

yes I agree and your probably right but you also have to take in account alot of the other games that are global with area restricted servers some are farther along on content then others and at varying degrees of polish so somehow these companies are getting content out for their respective areas ahead of others.

I wish i could remember some examples but sheesh i go through f2p games like candy and can barely remember what i played last month lol.
heck I can remember the diff between europe and na versionsof the cash shop when RoM started here and also dont forget RoM is even older in korea (under a diff name if i remember correctly

Such high hopes fr this game but the article states froggy will NOT be in charge of the NA version, thats awesome, as an ex runes player I will never play another game run by them the service is terrible and all they care about is dumping more content and not fixing the crap thats been broken forever.
chances are as aggressive as frog is the EU players may see more content then NA but most likely the NA version will be more polished lol. whew crises diverted!! (for now)

made it to lvl 10 but I cant get past the cartoony PS2 graphics myself, dont mind playing games made w older graphics engines but this is just a little to bright and fruity for my tastes. oh well, next.................