I'm a big fan of veteran rewards in games. The comments on the Massively article about it are a fun read. MMORPG has discussion on it too, but the comments are nearly as fun to read. The main controversy here is over "when" you get your rewards. With these rewards it's at the time of subscription. A multi-month subscription will earn you all your veteran rewards up front.
I don't mind that since Rift is a subscription model. In fact, that seems to make sense to me that you'd get your rewards up front so you can enjoy them during your subscription. Heck, some of the veteran rewards for Everquest were so nice that I bet you would have had people buying multi-year subscriptions (if that were possible) just to have access to them. ;p
F2P is different. I like how Guild Wars gives you a birthday present of a new pet every year since your account creation. That's pretty awesome in fact. That alone makes me log in at least once a year just to see what new pet I have.
In the end, these veteran rewards are mostly cosmetic, which is cool for the creative community--I'm sure videos with matching outfits will be incoming . . . but your own personal mailbox and vendor are going to be pretty handy.
What do you think?
Happy dueling!
