The title of this post is not completely true – I did hit level 26 today on my Defiant cleric. I’ve been playing off and on since release and this is my highest level character. Of course I’m playing Rift meshed between a handful of other games and real life, but there’s another reason why I’ve been neglectful in my leveling. Pictured above, the cleric in Stonefield. This zone is almost completely empty every single time I play. It’s me fighting minor rifts alone, me questing alone, and me in the small quest hubs alone. In fact the last few times I’ve played I haven’t seen a single other character around. It makes for some pretty lonely times. Of course, this is also mostly my fault. While everyone else was off leveling and exploring – I was playing other games and so I was left behind. It makes sense, I don’t expect anyone to hang back and wait for me and I state this every time I join a guild, that I tend to take things slower, and do my own thing. Sure, I could use the new LFG tool and get into a dungeon eventually, but I wanted to explore the massive outdoor world. I just wish this tier were not so desolate.
As if it were not bad enough that I never see anyone around me – I also never hear anyone in the public channels for my level or this zone. I enjoy doing my own thing and watching chat filter by, the illusion of being social without actually being social. Except for some reason that doesn’t work here, either. I’m not on Faeblight server which which is where most of my twitter friends ended up, I’m playing on Deepwood – and there ARE lots of players around. Meridian is full(ish) every time I head there. Because there is only one starter zone and progression is so linear and there is no mentoring in game there’s very little reason for folks to want to come back to the lower level zones unless they are working on achievements and collections. One of my major pet peeves has always been seeing huge empty zones – there should always be a reason for a player to go back to a zone within a game. When new zones are added (or levels) they tend to make older zones obsolete.
Needless to say, I haven’t been logging in nearly as much as I’ve wanted to. I do my crafting dailies, as well as the dailies in Meridian, and wander about completing a quest or two before logging out. Hopefully I’ll get inspired enough to work my way out of this tier and the next one will be better.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I’m on Faeblight too. Don’t have any max players but 2 in the 40’s and 1 in the 30’s. For over a month, the only leveling I’ve done on any of those characters is thru rifts and invasions. Haven’t touched a quest in any of the high level zones. Only did a handful of quests in Droughtlands with my main. Its very hard to find a capable group below max level to even do dungeons so stopped looking for those. Last dungeon I did was Kings Breach back when I was still questing in Scarwood Reach. That was the last zone I got the zone quest achievement. Only dungeon I’ve done on alts was when someone shouted they were running Iron Tombs with a couple of 50’s who were powerleveling a friend so joined up in that. Due to the sameness, alts haven’t touched quests at all. Sure I’m missing out on faction and story quests but not sure I’m in this game longterm after my 3 month sub expires so just playing with what is fun to me when I log in.
If you’re a quester and a completionist, I can see why you would want to go thru the zones but be prepared for them to be empty as you level up. On my lowest alt, even for invasions I don’t see people for the longest time. When I ask in zone chat if anyone is fighting them and where the main raid force is all I get at times is silence. Fun game!
@Hunter — I can’t seem to zone into Stonefield on Faeblight and NOT have a major invasion going on. I play fairly late at night on weekdays and on weekends whenever I can (usually early afternoon for an hour or so), so I might be remembering weekend afternoons of something, but Stonefield always seems plenty active to me on this server.
I have had much the same experience in faeblight stonefield, but on my other server shatterbone, it wasn’t nearly as bad. Depends on the server i guess. The update a couple weeks ago that upped invasions worked for a bit, but fell off after a while.
The mid game in rift is a bit of a dead zone.
Have to echo your feelings about Rift with regards to my lvl 31 Defiant cleric. At least on my server there used to be zone events fairly regularly in Stonefield. When I moved to the next zone (can’t remember the name), I’ve only ever seen one zone event. Since I’m mostly here for the zone events and world events (questing is fairly generic imo), I’ve had little reason to log in lately. I know I could push myself higher and that I could have pushed myself harder when everyone else was leveling BUT I shouldn’t have to. Not sure what Trion can do, but I’m hoping a world event will bring me back in and stoke my interest for the game again.
@Yetian – I don’t want to switch servers, because this is the server with my other half and his guild, I do have alts over on Faeblight but they’re even more neglected then the ones on Deepwood, hehe.
@Scopique I’m some what of a completionist so I’m doing quests a few levels lower then me progressing my way through the zone. So far I’m still near the entrance / middle, although I look forward to the time when I’m closer to the portal on the far west side!
I recently made a pure Rift/invasion alt and have found Silverwood has plenty of people around on my server, granted that could be down the trial that is running.
I have Yetian at 45, Naitey (Crafter at 13) and now Strychnine my rift/invasion/pvp/harvester char at 9.
Mentoring in Rift is something they need to add as it would make things much easier, not only for going to help others but to do lower level achievements or quests you’ve missed without slaughtering everything in seconds.
Wodge posted on our blog that there are free server transfers available so you could join your twitter friends if you fancy doing that.
Nail on the head, SG. Nail on the head XD
My 20-something cleric is ALSO abandoned in Stonefields. This zone will go down in my “zones I hate”, along with Darkshore in WoW and Qeynos in EQ2.
Thankfully, I think it lightens up a bit once you get over by the waterfalls. There’s a porticulum over there, so getting back and forth to Meridian is a snap. There’s also more people over there, although the zone is still sparsely settled.