Dramatic title used to get your attention.

I thought some of you might find this a little interesting. It's really no big deal, but it's just one of those funny things that people always _suspect_ but can never prove it to be true. =]

I saw a lot of visitor hits coming from the RIFT Forums and Blizzard, so I figured I would check it out.
So yeah, they're watching the RIFT Forums from their company network on company time. I'm sure Trion is seeing a ton of hits from Blizzard's Irvine office (and their other remote offices), but it's not like they would ever share that information publicly.

Considering that most of their GMs and Customer Support staff are outsourced overseas, and based on the system specs of this one example - he appears to work in the graphics/cinematics department.

I mean, you all know this happens.. businesses watching other businesses. But, some people like to see the evidence for themselves. Hopefully people won't use this information and blow it out of proportion though (e.g. "Blizzard is running scared!"). I'm pretty confident they're not worried at all. =]

Various gaming news sites have already started stating that RIFT has hit 1 million subscribers. I'm sure you'll see more news articles about this over the next few days too.

But just like Blizzard, the truth is in the details. =]

Here is Trion's official announcement:

RIFT™ HEAD START KICKS-OFF TODAY AS TRION ECLIPSES
ONE MILLION REGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Names of Rift public servers revealed on the game’s official forums

Trion Worlds announced today that more than one million accounts have been created to date, signaling a high level of interest for the company’s first massively multiplayer online game, Rift™, which is scheduled to launch March 1st in North America, March 3rd in pan-European countries, and March 4th in the UK. The news hits just as the game’s Head Start period begins, giving pre-order customers advance playtime before servers officially open on launch day.

Launching with 33 Head Start servers, Rift will feature dedicated realms for PvP, PvE, and role-playing players. Servers are live today, coinciding with the game’s Head Start period, which lasts until the game launches next week. Find the official server list on Rift’s official forums at: http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea...48#post1198848

One million accounts have been created to date. That includes the hundreds of thousands of open/closed beta testers over the past several months. It might even include players who created new accounts on their forums, as anyone is able to create a new account to post on their forums even if they can't play the game (for now anyways.) Here are the beta key numbers that I am aware of: MMORPG.COM passed out 175,000 beta keys (7000 VIPs), WarCry gave out 2,000 keys, MMOHUT gave out 5,000 keys, GameZone.com gave out 25,000 (1000 VIPs), Gamestar.de gave out 125,000 (5000 VIPs), and ZAM "burned through" 125,000 beta keys (5000 VIPs).

You know.. it's funny because I'm saying "it's just like what Blizzard does" but as a negative connotation. Usually that doesn't happen.. users often claim that games will copy good ideas from Blizzard ("oh, just another WoW clone", "same spell name"), but when have you ever heard someone claim that they copied something _bad_ from Blizzard? (e.g. "I can't believe they're doing the same thing as Blizzard, it's going to be a mess.. an even bigger screw up.") I don't think it happens very often.

Not sure if you've read older posts, but way back in September of 2010 I had said that the ZG mounts would be making a comeback. I couldn't find any other posts to the contrary.. all of the news and WoW sites were all saying that the mounts were gone for good.

I had heard something else though. =]

Glad to see that everything I wrote about so long ago has finally come to fruition - the mounts, the Insane title, and the Qiraji Battle Tank available for more players and outside of the instance.

In regards to new Cataclysm realms, it appears that everything was all setup internally for new realm deployments too. But, the "Cataclysm experiment" failed to meet Blizzard's expectations and it looks like it has actually resulted in a reverse flow of subscriptions unfortunately. =[

This is good news for their next expansion pack however (or even content patches between now and then.) It means that they'll really have to do something awesome to bring players back. I'm hoping for a couple new Hero classes, a new crafting profession (create relics/wands/bows/fletching or elemental poisons for rogues), class-specific quests (like a Rogue's Den that issues daily assassination quests that require cunning), and/or maybe a third faction (with all brand new classes/races "from another dimension" to adjust the lore.) Paid class changes, larger backpack, more character slots, or progression servers might be interesting too.