As the first Blizzard Annual Pass Holders are closing in on the end of their one-year contract, another pupil in the class of MMO companies steps up their game. The perennial eager beaver takes another lesson from the star pupil’s book and creates its own one-year bundle:

Get all these things for FREE* (*if you give us money)

Wilhelm had the dollar price, but naturally, I wanted to find out what that costs in our money.

That turned out to be harder than expected. I first had to log in. Then realized that, in fact, I could not log in, because I had to “upgrade my security” by replying to a mail, then creating a new password, yadda yadda. Did I miss something? Did Trion also get hacked some time in the last 12 months? Also, can somebody PLEASE tell game companies that so-called “security questions” are bogus, pseudo-security snake oil? Please Trion, go and copy someone on that topic who understands security. Those questions also don’t get better the more obscure they become. Hint: if half of them don’t even apply to me, and the other half is obscure enough that I would have a hard time remembering them myself, don’t be surprised if I find ways to subvert them.

What the…? Yes, of course, my secret stage name is Lassie Main Street. Or something. Who comes up with these questions?

My first reaction: Trion, always copying, sometimes doing things better. Not sure this is one of these occasions.

My second reaction: that’s still quite pricey!

My third reaction: That is still tempting, though. So much money saved! And saving money is good, right?

My fourth reaction: Wait. How much Rift have you played in the last year? Yeah, not so much. How often have you logged in to at least try the 1-20 leveling range? Thought so.

My fifth reaction: Alright then, let’s get down to the hard money. How long would I have to play to get a good deal out of this? This is complicated by the fact that I can’t find hard numbers on the price tag for the expansion in retail. But looking at prices for other games’ expansions, it can’t be more than 40€. That leaves 67.88€ for subscriptions. Let’s have a look at Rift’s current subscription options:

It’s not 100% clear how the gear rewards for longer subscriptions will work with the Storm Chaser offer, whether you will still get them or not. Let’s just ignore them.

So 6 months cost 59.94€, which, even with the assumed expansion price on top, is still cheaper. At 7 months, you get into the area where the offer might be worth it, though depending on the box price, it might take you until month 8 to see profit. This especially if you might buy the expansion a bit after release, after it gets cheaper. And on top, “real” economists would argue that you also lose the interest on the money that you spend today instead of at a later point.

For me, that means it’s probably not worth it. I might play Rift again at a later point, but I don’t have plans for the immediate future. Unless TSW tanks and EVE gets boring, in which case I’d reconsider. But it’s a gamble, and no game has caught me for more than 6 months at a time in the last year or so.

I wonder how this offer will play out for Trion. I heard a lot of people who admitted that, in the end, they lost the Blizzard Annual Pass  gamble. Of course, the situation here is a bit different, in that you get something for the game you play already anyway, instead of a completely different game, and the offer will cover a time where there is a lot of content available (by virtue of the expansion), instead of a year devoid of almost any content updates. So in that respect, it looks like a better offer than the Blizzard one. Still, I wonder whether some people might be more cautious this time around?