Since I asked for respondents on this site, I thought I'd post the results!

Over a month ago, I put together a survey to measure the perceived power and quality levels of each Rifts World Book. Within the Palladium fan community, there has long been a discussion over the "power curve", which is generally perceived as having crept up over the course of the line, before settling back down a bit. I also wanted to see just where the

I had hoped for 100 completed responses; I actually got 78. Despite that, I went ahead and looked at the data. I found some pretty neat conclusions, both expected and somewhat less so. I'll just say once more I am NOT a statistician, and I'm not a scientist; this is unofficial, unscientific, and probably will drive some people more inclined towards those fields crazy. I apologize, but I hope you'll still find it interesting.

The Results: Power Rating and Ranking

First off, respondents were asked to rate each World Book on a scale of 1-10 as to where they stood in regards to power level compared to the Rifts Ultimate Edition main book. In this instance, 1 was not powerful at all, and 10 was very powerful. The average rating for this category was 6.45.

1) South America 2 8.40
2) South America 7.82
3) Splynn Dim. Market 7.71
4) Atlantis 7.59
5) Triax Two 7.56
6) Coalition War Campaign 7.31
7) Japan 7.30
8 ) Federation Of Magic 7.18
9) Juicer Uprising 7.05
10) Warlords Russia 7.02
11) China Two 7.00
12) Lemuria 6.90
13) Free Quebec 6.77
14) Psyscape 6.71
15) China One 6.71
16) Triax/NGR 6.70
17) Madhaven 6.56
18) Underseas 6.47
19) Xiticix 6.27
20) Northern Gun 1 6.23
21) Vampire Kingdoms-Expand 6.23
22) Spirit West 6.08
23) Mystic Russia 6.00
24) Arzno 6.00
25) New West 5.98
26) D-Bees of N. America 5.88
27) Lone Star 5.87
28) Africa 5.69
29) Canada 5.40
30) Adv. In Dinosaur Swamp 5.19
31) Dinosaur Swamp 5.16
32) Vampire Kingdoms 5.05
33) England 4.86
34) Australia 4.78

As you can see, the South America books (especially World Book 9: South America 2) easily led the way on this one, which will come as no surprise to long-time Rifts fans. Right behind them are Splynn Dimension Market and Atlantis, two books dealing with some very powerful, alien technology from the Splugorth and their allies. The humans aren't terribly bad off, as Triax Two and Coalition War Campaign are right there, with Japan just a whisker behind.

Now, let's look at this curve chronologically by book release (excepting Vampire Kingdoms 1, since it's sort of a expansion on an existing work):

http://bit.ly/1fNw9QE

We can see a spike on Books 6-11 (South America—Coalition War Campaign), with the exception of Underseas. The rest of the line is very up and down, with power level fluctuating pretty heavily between titles.

The Results: Quality Rating and Ranking

The next questions asked respondents about the quality level of each Rifts World Book, they stood in regards to power level compared to the Rifts Ultimate Edition main book. In this instance, 1 was not powerful at all, and 10 was very powerful. The average rating for this category was 6.22.

1) Atlantis 7.32
2) D-Bees of N. America 7.21
3) Coalition War Campaign 7.17
4) Juicer Uprising 7.13
5) Northern Gun 1 7.11
6) Vampire Kingdoms 6.98
7) Warlords Russia 6.91
8 ) Triax/NGR 6.90
9) Lone Star 6.71
10) Splynn Dim. Market 6.69
11) New West 6.61
12) Federation Of Magic 6.6
13) Triax Two 6.51
14) Vampire Kingdoms-Expand 6.48
15) Japan 6.47
16) Underseas 6.45
17) Lemuria 6.38
18) Mystic Russia 6.35
19) Arzno 6.24
20) Dinosaur Swamp 6.19
21) Psyscape 6.17
22) South America 6.05
23) Canada 6.02
24) Free Quebec 5.94
25) Adv. In Dinosaur Swamp 5.83
26) Madhaven 5.75
27) Xiticix 5.71
28) China Two 5.64
29) South America 2 5.38
30) China One 5.31
31) Australia 5.31
32) Spirit West 5.29
33) England 4.74
34) Africa 4.13

Atlantis was very highly regarded, as was D-Bees of North America, Coalition War Campaign, Juicer Uprising, and Northern Gun 1. It's a nice mix of early, mid, and recent titles all around. On the unfortunate side, Africa and England were notoriously the lowest-ranking books, and the only ones below a 5 rating in this category.

Now let's look at this category again chronologically.

http://bit.ly/1dSUZTU

Combined Scores
Although it doesn't show much, I also did an average ranking, to see who ranked the highest as an average across both categories. The winner was easily Atlantis, with a 2.5 average ranking across Power (4) and Quality (1). Interestingly, you'd have to go all the way down to Triax/NGR in 10th place to find a book that's not in the Top 10 of power level (P16) in this ranking order. South America ties it, despite only being 22nd-ranked in terms of quality, due to a high power level. On the other side, all I can say is poor, unloved England.

So, I thought it might be interesting to see which books have the biggest change between power level and quality. So I took the raw power rating, subtracted the quality rating, and checked the differential. Negative scores have a higher quality rating than power rating; positive ones have a higher power rating than quality rating.

http://bit.ly/1orZmKq

Excel File: http://bit.ly/1dSWscW

D-Bees of North America and Vampire Kingdoms are rated low on power level, but high on quality; their negative scores on this correspond to this. The biggest swing on the other side is easily South America 2, which is rated very high in terms of power level, but quite low, relatively, on quality. Its sister book, South America, isn't quite as bad-off here, but is still pretty dire. Africa is neither particularly powerful or quality in nature, apparently.

Additional Questions

Rifts fans have a reputation for being completists and collectors. Unsurprisingly, 39.34% of respondents own 50 or more Rifts titles:

How Many Rifts Books Do You Own?
50+ 39.34%
31-40 16.39%
21-30 11.48%
11-20 18.03%
1-10 14.75%

Respondents were also asked to name their favorite Rifts World Book. There must have been some confusion here, as several did not answer the questions, several put Heroes Unlimited or Palladium Fantasy titles, and several typed books that do not, to my knowledge, exist. The responses included just about everything you could think of. The only notable responses at 5% or above were:

Atlantis 13%
Juicer Uprising 10%
Coalition War Campaign 10%
Warlords of Russia 8%
Arzno 5%
Vampire Kingdoms 5%

Finally, respondents were asked, "If you could see one area fleshed out as a Rifts World Book that has not already been officially covered, what would it be (list only one, please)?"

Again, this was all over the place, with many people mentioning more than one possible book. However, Chi-Town (mentioned in 20% of responses) and Lazlo (18%) were far and away the winners of this category.

Conclusions
Like I said, I'm no statistician or scientist. I don't want to make any overarching conclusions here, but I do think that the survey shows that:

a) The quality and power level of a book can be very different. Power level =/= quality, and vice versa.
b) There are quality books at the start of the Rifts line, the middle years, and the most recent years. There are books with less regard by fans sprinkled throughout the same periods, as well.
c) Nearly everyone thinks the South America books are crazy powerful.
d) Nearly everyone really loves Atlantis, or at least rates it rather highly.
e) My friend Evan might be the only person who thinks Rifts: Africa is the absolute best.

So, that's it. I have some more charts and such I might post, but those are the basic findings. Have fun with the excel sheet, if you want, and thanks for participating!

As one of the 78, this is neat stuff. Thanks for posting it.

Count me among those not surprised by the power impressions from South America. Two words, anti-monster.

As a big fan of the South America books, I sympathize with your friend Evan and his lonely love of Rifts Africa.

Good work Zachary!