Rift

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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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 ...
 
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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...!
 
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2GB patch? A patch? Man, that's whole one game for god's sakes...
 
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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').
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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Thought this was interesting: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/...-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.
 
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