[SilverSmoke]

Funcom doesn't say much about how much people are playing the game but 20.000 active acounts could be correct.

I never saw an adventurer with rifles, the point is, adventurers get buffs for pistols and 1 hand edged weapons and has a profession bonus on those. you will seriously gimp yourself going for rifles. Pistols can do good damage if you know where to get the better ones, especially when you dual wield them.

Also , there are some awesome 1 hand edged melee weapons available from the Inner Sanctium dungeon, not something you have to worry about for now tho, you can enter that dungeon at lvl 120 if I am right.