Rift

[Mersil]

why is this game not mentioned here anywhere, the only mention of it, i found was by someone that got banned?

this game is an rpg, its a mmo, and its good.. im wondering why there is no one talking about it here.

i came here to find out what cool news, or videos you guys may be sharing from the 6 betas so far.

[JDR13]

I keep seeing television commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLtxJDpogk) for Rift. Although I have no interest in MMOs personally, I have to admit Rift looks quite interesting, and it seems to be getting a fair amount of hype.

[Mersil]

there is no reason one cant play a mmo with the set goals of playing it through as a single player game. you get 30 days frees game time with new sub. and once ya hit max level, you can cancel. or change characters, factions, or explore new content w/other people.. mmo's can be played as casual single player games, and reach max level witout ever having to interact with another person whatso ever. you can turn Off the chat channels, and pretend your in ther alone :)

[DArtagnan]

No reason?

Except they utterly suck as singleplayer games, in the vast majority of cases.

But… to each his own ;)

Rift does look like a very competent WoW clone, with a dose of Warhammer thrown in. I've played up to level 20 in beta - and I was reasonably entertained. That's quite a feat, it should be said - because I'm supremely jaded with MMOs in general.

I'm not sure it can sustain my interest for long, as the Rift mechanic seems quite limited in scope - but maybe they have things up their sleeves

However, I plan to play this with a few friends - and my GF even expressed interest as it was "pretty" ;)

I'm doing what I can to lure her into gaming, so I better jump at this opportunity!

[wolfing]

I've been in since beta 1. It is indeed a WoW clone, popcorn entertainment for a month or two.

[hishadow]

Damn, I accidentally preordered it. Guess I still miss that pre-expansion WoW nostalgia.

[DArtagnan]

If you're looking for that WoW-feeling, Rift certainly won't disappoint :)

But but, let's not be unkind.

It does have a few "innovations" that might just end up being better than one might fear. The multiple soul system probably being the most interesting.

[wolfing]

If you're looking for that WoW-feeling, Rift certainly won't disappoint :)

But but, let's not be unkind.

It does have a few "innovations" that might just end up being better than one might fear. The multiple soul system probably being the most interesting.

To tell you the truth, that's actually something I don't like. I like MMOs where, when I think of 'Joe' I think of 'he's a fire wizard', not a 'he's a fire wizard, or a chloromancer healer, or a necromancer, or an enchanter, or an elemental master, well, depending on his mood'.

[DArtagnan]

To tell you the truth, that's actually something I don't like. I like MMOs where, when I think of 'Joe' I think of 'he's a fire wizard', not a 'he's a fire wizard, or a chloromancer healer, or a necromancer, or an enchanter, or an elemental master, well, depending on his mood'.

Well, you like what you like :)

Personally, I find such a thing incredibly boring and predictable. I love having a flexible system to experiment with, and especially if it's a system that gives me the opportunity to be a unique character in some way. Nothing is more boring to me, than being exactly like everyone else.

But I see your point, and it should be noted that I always play these games with friends - because I don't enjoy depending on strangers. So I don't often have to deal with people not fulfilling their role.

I also really like PvP - and that's where such a soul system has tremendous potential.

However, it all depends on how they approach balance. If they make the mistake of most developers, like Blizzard, and obsessively try to adjust balance at a constant rate - they'll totally kill my enjoyment of the game. Once a game reaches a certain point of complexity - it becomes futile to balance it without a loooooong period of study. That's why I think they should leave balance be for 6 month intervals, or something like that - and focus only on correcting outright bugs with the system. Let players adjust over a long period of time, and then determine what's REALLY unbalanced - instead of scrambling with the nerf/buff bat without the necessary understanding of long-term effects.

[Karmapowered]

I have very mixed feelings about RIFT.

First, the game didn't seem to be friend with my ATI (Radeon 5700 series, 1Go) card, which seemed to be the norm for other ATI uses as well. Introduction videos were very choppy at best, and the chargen screen outright refused to display my character unless AA (anti-alias) was disabled. This, with the latest WHL driver. However, the 2011 eyecandy definitely is there, and once I could settle for some mid-level but stable settings in the video options, I quite enjoyed gawking at the world.

Next, I really liked the role/souls system. I thought it was well designed and implemented in game, if rather poorly explained in or outside the game. New players might find the amount of skills/talent to choose from rather overwhelming at first. I suspect threads about FOTM ("flavor of the month") builds to monopolize the game forums for quite some time still after launch. However, if this allows for a greater versality, switching between different configurations depending on playstyle (grouping, raiding or hunting solo) or mood, it should be hailed as a welcome feature in my opinion.

Unfortunately, RIFT misses the opportunity to fully exploit this original feature in combat, as the pace during battles is awefully (snail-like) slow : hit… cast… hit… hit… yawn. Thi is aggravated by the fact that once you find a decent combo of useful skills/spells, nothing in the game really motivates you detracting from it. So, from level 4 all the way up to level 20 something, I basically used the same attack sequence (of 3 or 4 skills), for every type of enemy, because it just wasn't efficient to do otherwise. It could have varied depending on the type of encounter, or enemies, for example.

Finally, and above all, despite the quite interesting "rift invasions", getting players to band together to fight off threatening undeads/demons, I found the game extremely… the same than any other MMORGPs out there. A boring (after a while) grindfest, with its inevitable and very classical FEDEX quest system and a pretty limited inventory (which, for a 2011 game, I really hated). Quests items take some of that space too, so watch it not loosing on some nice stuff while hunting.

Anyway, if you enjoyed WoW/WAR, you might just enjoy this game too. Despite the evident graphical enhancements, the crafting (which didn't seem very elaborate to me), the pvp'ing, the dungeons, the levelling, the mounts, will soon seem like familiar acquaintances from the past.

[hishadow]

Did a little beta-testing and 5 hours just went *poof*. I definitely think this will keep me entertained for some months. The art was impressive and the scale and openness of the world felt right. Kinda the game I wish Age of Conan was. Quests and story though is another story.

Skill progression felt a bit fast. Maybe it's was sped up because of beta. I must admit I had a bit trouble keeping pace with the soul tree and abilities. From my brief visit it seemed geared towards players with long WoW experience.

[wolfing]

I canceled my Rift preorder, went into the classic Everquest new server and having the blast of my life. Now, THAT is how you play an MMO! After several hours the first day, I ended up at level 3, with one piece of clothing (not magical of course) and a chunk of wood as a weapon. In most MMOs since WoW, after 1 hour of playing you're probably already level 10, fully geared in magical equipment.
I've been mauled by aggressive roaming giants in starting zones, the griffins have eaten me several times already. In other games, people complain if they see a mob that is 2 levels above the average of the area lol. I love this game!

[hishadow]

Solo challenges have always been pretty easy in WoW, but speaking for myself its not there the game happends. Time spent in towards raids and dungeons by far dwarfs that spent on any kind of leveling. Atleast in pre-expansion WoW this group effort could be extremely difficult to master.

[wolfing]

Solo challenges have always been pretty easy in WoW, but speaking for myself its not there the game happends. Time spent in towards raids and dungeons by far dwarfs that spent on any kind of leveling. Atleast in pre-expansion WoW this group effort could be extremely difficult to master.

See that's where I disagree. The whole raid thing sucks. Everquest's gameplay is the journey, slowly going through the levels, fighting and enjoying every area. I've made more acquaintances in EQ in the 3 days I've played (as in, in the friend list, and looking to group with them as soon as I connect) than what I would in WoW (and clones) in a month.
I don't like raids. They pretty much follow a strict formula, and raid leaders act as if they're playing your character. "Stand right here and don't cast any spells until I say so" then "ok, now cast firebolt twice then stop" (ok I'm exagerating a little bit, but that's the feeling I get).
Eventually the new EQ1 server will turn into that, but at least I know it won't happen for a minimum of 5 months (minimum 3 for Kunark and 2 for Vellious), which is when EQ turns into a raid game. But hey, 5 months is longer than I've played every MMO since WoW came out and (and every MMO turned into a WoW clone)

[hishadow]

It sound like you entered WoW alone? If so our experiences might be completely different. A lot of my playtime was done on LAN with friends. We had a large national guild which consisted of groups of friends from across the country. Raiding was fairly casual and people didn't need to commit to a full-time job like more hardcore guilds required. You had to be able to take some orders though when it involved 40 people duking it out with difficult encounters, but it usually wasn't anything beyond explaning tactics, positioning and telling when to be ready. The rest was handled by the different class leaders who's task was more like mentoring. Most grievances that was put forward wasn't about the raid leaders, but of the frequent problem of players disappearing mid-battle for various reasons like eating dinner or going out. :) There were lot of drama too, but that's just part of the fun. Without the people it's a pretty hollow game.

[Drithius]

I spent all of 30 minutes playing before I got bored. Maybe the shallow story and immediate emphasis on combat put me off, maybe it was the WoWisized gameplay, or perhaps it was the fact that I've played this style of mmo too many times before. Whatever it was, I'm again on the lookout for something fresh to make use of my time.

I got that invitation for the new EQ progression server and I immediately dismissed it; having already played EQ for five years, I have absolutely no desire to return to a 12 year old game to relive the past. I'm just jaded I guess… biding my time until GW2.

…Oh, and it's not mentioned here (Rift) because, I imagine, it hasn't officially launched yet.

[DArtagnan]

EverQuest seemed like a huge grind at release. I shudder to think of what it would seem like now :)

[wolfing]

EverQuest seemed like a huge grind at release. I shudder to think of what it would seem like now :)

Well, depends on your definition of grind. Is having sex a grind? yes, but it's enjoyable. My definition of 'grind' is having to do something over and over that you don't enjoy so you get to something you enjoy. Since to me, the journey is everything, and I enjoy fighting in a group, with someone pulling, with aggro mobs roaming around, when someone could train a bunch of mobs on your group when they're trying to escape, to me that is highly fun, and levels just come as a consequence of the fun, not as the goal.

In all the MMOs since WoW (Rift included), to me, it is much more of a grind. You do the same 2000 quests of the 'go there, kill 6 rats' or 'go there and click on a glowie', that are not enjoyable, as almost with no exception every mob you find at every level is pretty much different graphics for a bag of stats. You don't have to use any strategy, just use the same 3 or 4 abilities regardless of the enemy, until you get to the 'fun' parts at high level (dungeons and raids).

[SAGO]

why is this game not mentioned here anywhere, the only mention of it, i found was by someone that got banned?

this game is an rpg, its a mmo, and its good.. im wondering why there is no one talking about it here.

i came here to find out what cool news, or videos you guys may be sharing from the 6 betas so far.

its gunna be a second job you pay for, just like wow, just like all mmos.

[wolfing]

its gunna be a second job you pay for, just like wow, just like all mmos.

just like all hobbies?

[hishadow]

I'm playing in early release now and it seems to be a well made game. On release day it was overcrowded but this problem has improved over the days as people spread out. I like how easy they've made it for people to cooperate in quests and rifts, and from what I've gathered you can help out when guilds start the larger rift raid encounters too. The game music also seemed somewhat familiar. It was done by two musicians responsible for the Heroes Of Might And Magic tunes.

[Drithius]

So, 1-2 weeks later, what's the verdict on this one, guys? I played the beta, couldn't stand it, but I'm morbidly curious: Will Rift be a threat to WoW, will it slowly fade into nothingness as so many MMO's before it due to tedium and unoriginality?

[Damian Mahadevan]

Its actually pretty good. However some classes are op imo like the cleric. It will b eup to devs if they balance it correctly if it is good.

[DArtagnan]

I bought it in my desperate and ongoing search for an MMO that would entertain me until one of the greats come out.

It worked…. For about a week.

I'm level 27 or something now, and I stopped playing.

It's just not a very interesting game - and though it's extremely impressive in terms of a launch that just works - it's not enough.

It's like going back in time and playing WoW again, but with an inferior combat system, an inferior world, and inferior PvP POTENTIAL. It's pretty obvious it'll never be an open world PvP game - at least I don't see that happening.

I had hopes for WoW originally, but they went and completely ruined it.

So, Rift is already pretty dead to me.

[wolfing]

I've been in since beta 1. It is indeed a WoW clone, popcorn entertainment for a month or two.

I hate to say it, but .... told ya! :)

[DArtagnan]

I hate to say it, but …. told ya! :)

EverQuest is not a good compensation, though :)

For the moment, there's only one single MMO that I know about, which seems to be doing the kind of thing I would consider a REAL step forward:

ArcheAge.

If that game is half of what they promise, it'll be the real next-gen MMO I've been waiting for since Ultima Online.

[Drithius]

I picked up Everquest II for the first time about 3 weeks back. I'm really enjoying it; there's a lot of depth to the game and some dungeons are just wickedly cool in terms of lore. Very casual-friendly too, which is kind of strange for an "Everquest" game.

[Damian Mahadevan]

I bought it in my desperate and ongoing search for an MMO that would entertain me until one of the greats come out.

It worked…. For about a week.

I'm level 27 or something now, and I stopped playing.

It's just not a very interesting game - and though it's extremely impressive in terms of a launch that just works - it's not enough.

It's like going back in time and playing WoW again, but with an inferior combat system, an inferior world, and inferior PvP POTENTIAL. It's pretty obvious it'll never be an open world PvP game - at least I don't see that happening.

I had hopes for WoW originally, but they went and completely ruined it.

So, Rift is already pretty dead to me.

I dunno. I agree it is an inferior world though i always skip the story. Might i ask what class you were?

[DArtagnan]

I dunno. I agree it is an inferior world though i always skip the story. Might i ask what class you were?

I was a rogue, focusing on the Saboteur class - which is a novelty. It's like a demolition class, with grenades and charges.

Quite entertaining, and I absolutely dominated every single "Warfront" I was in - but the combat system is quite stale compared to the best, like Age of Conan and World of Warcraft.

It's much more like Warhammer in that it's somewhat slow and clunky in terms of the visceral feel and response to key-presses.

When I said world, I wasn't talking about story - but about the sensation of exploration. Rift's world was VERY linear, and the areas were WAY too compact in terms of monster density. Just didn't feel like an actual world.

I will say that the atmosphere is pretty strong, especially in Gloamwood. Very well done.

[DArtagnan]

I picked up Everquest II for the first time about 3 weeks back. I'm really enjoying it; there's a lot of depth to the game and some dungeons are just wickedly cool in terms of lore. Very casual-friendly too, which is kind of strange for an "Everquest" game.

I recently re-tried it, and would have played it now - if only there had been a european PvP server.

The engine is absolutely abysmal as well, which is pretty sad.

But it's one of the most content-rich MMOs out there.

[hishadow]

I also found the game a bit boring around level 25. The world seemed to get more dense and smaller as I progressed, so I would have prefered much larger zones and no barriers for the whole continent. Leveling is a bit fast for me and the mobs also got easier and easier as I progressed, so a bit of tuning in that regard would be nice. Questing got very boring around level 20 but that I had already assumed that before I started the game. No comments on PVP since I find it pretty boring, though I like getting ganked on PVP-servers and carrying a grude for months on end.

Other than that I think it's as good as it gets at launch for an MMO in this genre. It'll be interesting to see how much effort Trion Worlds will put into the game post-launch. Some good points about the game is it's story-quests, the roaming mobs, and rifts. I didn't play a lot of dungeons but what I saw seemed pretty decent. The soul system is refreshing and I like how easy it enables different roles.

Atleast it's not a half-baked game as Conan was, where Funcom even gutted half its team right after launch to work on an expansion.

As for my MMO saviour, my hope lies with Carbine Studios' generic fantasy MMO.

[Damian Mahadevan]

I also found the game a bit boring around level 25. The world seemed to get more dense and smaller as I progressed, so I would have prefered much larger zones and no barriers for the whole continent. Leveling is a bit fast for me and the mobs also got easier and easier as I progressed, so a bit of tuning in that regard would be nice. Questing got very boring around level 20 but that I had already assumed that before I started the game. No comments on PVP since I find it pretty boring, though I like getting ganked on PVP-servers and carrying a grude for months on end.

Other than that I think it's as good as it gets at launch for an MMO in this genre. It'll be interesting to see how much effort Trion Worlds will put into the game post-launch. Some good points about the game is it's story-quests, the roaming mobs, and rifts. I didn't play a lot of dungeons but what I saw seemed pretty decent. The soul system is refreshing and I like how easy it enables different roles.

Atleast it's not a half-baked game as Conan was, where Funcom even gutted half its team right after launch to work on an expansion.

As for my MMO saviour, my hope lies with Carbine Studios' generic fantasy MMO.

Yes carbine studios MMO with Tim Cain should be good.

[Damian Mahadevan]

I was a rogue, focusing on the Saboteur class - which is a novelty. It's like a demolition class, with grenades and charges.

Quite entertaining, and I absolutely dominated every single "Warfront" I was in - but the combat system is quite stale compared to the best, like Age of Conan and World of Warcraft.

It's much more like Warhammer in that it's somewhat slow and clunky in terms of the visceral feel and response to key-presses.

When I said world, I wasn't talking about story - but about the sensation of exploration. Rift's world was VERY linear, and the areas were WAY too compact in terms of monster density. Just didn't feel like an actual world.

I will say that the atmosphere is pretty strong, especially in Gloamwood. Very well done.

I like the fact that it is linear. I hated WoW's levelling in the sense once you finish in one area you either grind or go to another area where the quests are low level and you are forced to max out your quest log. Very annoying in WoW. As for being too compact i agree. Nothign pisses me off more in the game than completign a quest and having to run through hordes.

[pox67]

I picked up Everquest II for the first time about 3 weeks back. I'm really enjoying it; there's a lot of depth to the game and some dungeons are just wickedly cool in terms of lore. Very casual-friendly too, which is kind of strange for an "Everquest" game.

I am on a MMO kick at the moment. Tried Runes of Magic and Lord of the Rings Online, I would be playing EQ2 right now if I hadn't already played for a couple of years. It was the best MMO I have played. It has some great quest arcs very close to single player stuff.

So far Rift doesn't have that and it might take a zone re-imaging to get there. The quests just don't make me want to read them. I still try though the lore is a bit junk.

I tend to dual or multi-box MMO's now or I get bored. It started as my play times are erratic and I couldn't commit to a group let alone a raid.
I found multi-boxing quite easy and is just like a large open world party based RPG. Often I have to make the story up in my head though which is fine with me.
Currently running a Warrior, Cleric, Rogue in Rift and having a great time. I can see the lore isn't going to hold me but the character system is interesting, combat is fun and the world is beautiful.

I use ISBoxer for the multi-clienting and it helps a lot.

[Drithius]

So far Rift doesn't have that and it might take a zone re-imaging to get there. The quests just don't make me want to read them. I still try though the lore is a bit junk.


That's exactly the same vibe I got when I briefly beta tested it. The setting and quests had no impact on me - I wasn't interested at all. Then I kept reading all these glowing reviews about how well the game ran and I kept thinking to myself, "so what?"

I am really having a terrific time in EQ2 though - there is just SO much content, it's a bit crazy. And the quests interest you to the degree that you feel you've missed something if you delete an old quest from your quest journal.

[DArtagnan]

That's exactly the same vibe I got when I briefly beta tested it. The setting and quests had no impact on me - I wasn't interested at all. Then I kept reading all these glowing reviews about how well the game ran and I kept thinking to myself, "so what?"

I am really having a terrific time in EQ2 though - there is just SO much content, it's a bit crazy. And the quests interest you to the degree that you feel you've missed something if you delete an old quest from your quest journal.

I'm really tempted to resub to EQ2… It really does seem like the only meaty MMO with halfway decent support these days.

I could never get the engine to run right, and there are a ton of glitches and performance issues. But the content is fantastic for the most part.

If only they could give me my european PvP server.

[Damian Mahadevan]

I tried to get into EQ but the interface and old style interaction is hard to get used to.

[pox67]

I am really having a terrific time in EQ2 though - there is just SO much content, it's a bit crazy. And the quests interest you to the degree that you feel you've missed something if you delete an old quest from your quest journal.

My favourite quest lines were in Zek. That is level 30 to 40. Well worth it once you get there to take your time and read the quests.


I could never get the engine to run right, and there are a ton of glitches and performance issues. But the content is fantastic for the most part.


The way I heard it they designed EQ2 for high frequency single core processors as that is the way the CPUs looked to be heading at the time. Not long after it came out dual core CPUs took off. They patched in multi core support (from memory) but it never worked properly in my experience.

[DArtagnan]

The way I heard it they designed EQ2 for high frequency single core processors as that is the way the CPUs looked to be heading at the time. Not long after it came out dual core CPUs took off. They patched in multi core support (from memory) but it never worked properly in my experience.

Yup, that's true.

Their biggest mistake, in that way, was to make it all heavily CPU dependent, rather than offloading work to the GPU.

The game would have been much smoother if they'd done more work to accomplish that.

They did do it partially - and recently with Shader 3.0 support and GPU shadows. But it's really buggy and messy.

Too bad, because the core game is strong.

[Drithius]

The EQ2 engine runs ok on my computer. Since I've only recently begun playing the game, I don't know how much of that (if any) is tweaks they've recently made to the engine and how much of it is my Phenom CPU running at 3.4ghz. Still, it took me a while to get it to run to my satisfaction and I'm happy with 40-60fps in many places.

If any of you guys wants a recruit-a-friend code for a 14 day trial lemme know. There's also the EQ2 "Extended free to play" game, but it's completely separate from the other EQ2 servers... and, oddly enough, more expensive should you choose to get all the privileges of normal servers.

[hishadow]

Here's a jaded video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55F9IKW2T2M&feature=channel_video_title) which I think sums it up quite nicely.

[Drithius]

I'll bash Rift as much as the next guy for lack of creativity, but that reviewer is sorta delusional. He plays variants of sword & sorcery mmo's then complains that they're all similar? Well… no duh? that's the genre ~.~

There *are* different styles of MMO's out there: CoH, Eve, Fallen Earth, and even Anarchy Online. The problem is that people, by and large, aren't as comfortable playing these simply because they're not used to the varying dynamics.

We live in an era of short attention spans (gaming and otherwise); developers know this fact. It's a HUGE risk to ask your target market to devote a portion of the time they'd usually spend deciding if a game is worthwhile to instead learn new systems of combat mechanics, classes, party roles, etc..

It's a catch-22 situation. The masses want innovation. But said masses aren't comfortable with innovation.

[hishadow]

I just picked up on his comment on mmo-players who quickly get over-saturated in new games. The "effect" seems to wear off much quicker when you carry over the experience from other mmos. Our guild certainly flatlined around level 20, that's for sure.

I'd also like to note that it's a well-crafted game, so I don't discourage anyone from giving it a try. You'll get plenty of hours with fun gameplay out of it, so it's not like you're getting robbed or anything.

[hishadow]

It's now one month since release and recurring subscriptions has kicked in. It'll be interesting to see how many subscribers they kept. I'm pretty certain it won't end up as Age Of Conan which took some heavy beating. It's far too polished for that. They should have plenty of breathing space until SW:TOR is released later this year.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Here it is sold in huge numbers - but I have not the slightest idea of how many people actually buy it ?

It's just so that I see a LOT of their boxes in the shops ...

[Lecari]

I am just downloading this now. A friend has started playing it so I thought I would give it a try. I'll let you know what I think, once the 2gb patch has finished downloading...!

[joxer]

2GB patch? A patch? Man, that's whole one game for god's sakes...

[Lecari]

I then ended up having to download 8GB of updates!!

However, so far it isn't too bad. The storyline is fairly engaging and I like that there is such variety and choice in character creation / professions (you can have one primary and 2 secondaries, which allows you to make your character pretty unique). I've gotten to the main town after about a week of play (just playing evenings after work) and I am level 15 (out of 50 levels). It seems quite busy, but I've never felt like it was TOO crammed (I don't use the 'recommended' shards, though). I haven't played WoW so I can't really compare it to that, but I think a lot of the controls and ideas are very similar, from what I can gather.

The rifts have actually started to get a little annoying - I will be in the middle of a quest, and a rift will open (always in the same places) and I will have to stop what I am doing to go and fight it and the various monsters.

Not sure I will pay the monthly subscription but it's not too bad. Average, I guess. It depends what you want from a game - I personally don't really enjoy grinding very much, and I think you have to do a lot of it in this game (most of the quests are 'kill y number of x monster').

[hishadow]

The game is fairly engaging from the start. It's exactly like WoW, which is generally refered to as an Everquest-style mmo. I'd be interested hear your opinion as you progress further.

[wolfgrimdark]

RIFT is my current game I am playing for an MMO. I will say I really like and have been having a lot of fun - I find it different from WoW in some regards, the same in others. I am casual and don't raid or do end-game content but I enjoy that I can do my own thing easily enough and still experience much of the game. For the record I am not one of those casuals who wants things handed to them (far from it) nor do I care that I won't see a lot of end-game content. As I said in another thread you get out of a game what you put into it. To me things only hold value if they take some effort.

But one reason I enjoy RIFT so much is the public groups and "Rifting". Unlike WoW, where if I joined a PUG I could expect numerous comments about my lack of gear, that my specs were not the "min/max cookie-cutter" of the week, etc., I can just join up a public group and have a blast. Its a free for all over-all and I love that aspect.

It fits my time schedule perfectly so I don't have to commit to hours of play time. Its solo friendly for general content while also providing a fair amount of group/raid conent (based on what my guild tells me as we have a fair amount of raiders in the guild, which is very large).

I like the lore, the theme, the graphics are awesome, the environment is well done, and it is very polished. However it isn't new or innovative - just a nice collection of ideas and well implemented from other games.

The soul building is my second favorite part. I can spend hours every night redoing all my soul builds - so much flexibility! I love trying out new things.

All that being said I don't know how long the game will last. You level VERY fast which is a bad thing in my mind. The developers made the mistake (IMO) of listening to people saying they just want to make 50 so they can do end-game content. We had people at 50 in a month and in less then 6 months many guild members have multiple 50's. They then complain about boredom from no more content. The only saving grace is that they do a fair amount of world events and there is a fair amount to do.

Still I am unsure how long they will be able to hold people once the first year is done. For now, at least, I am really enjoying it. Once I get bored I will go back to single games or look for another MMO.

[wolfgrimdark]

Thought this was interesting: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/431/feature/5409/Rift-The-Future-of-Rift-A-QA-With-Scott-Hartsman.html

Some highlights:

Today I had the good fortune to sit in on a telephone press conference with Executive Producer Scott Hartsman and the fine folks at Trion about the future of their flagship title: Rift. There’s a producer’s letter from Scott that's going to be posted on the official forums, which addresses this summer’s major plans for Rift. Already well on its way towards being one of the most prolific MMORPGs in terms of post-launch content, the team doesn’t have any thoughts of slowing down.

- solo and duo content in the form of Chronicles of Telara Instances.
- endgame character advancement so that you can keep growing and earning experience and character skills after level 50 (Alternative Advancement!)
- We’re going to be focusing on enhancing world PvP through PVP Rifts mostly and warfronts as well.

Not sure what to make of the new instant adventure events:

They’re really interesting. The idea behind them is simple. Rift is at its best when people get to take part in the over-world events, but they’re dependent on being on at the right time and in the right place. So how do we let people create critical mass on their own and do it with less people? With these instant adventure events, you can come online, tell the game you want to do something, and you’ll be put together in rapidly escalating encounters, invasions, and other dynamic content. Basically it’s going to be massive fun on demand.

This sounds good to me since I don't do raid content:

Will the Instant Adventures and Chronicle Instances be more story driven or action driven?
The underlying idea is story-driven, letting smaller groups get access to more story that’s usually reserved for our large raid group content.