How's RIFT?

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No, I wouldn't have minded if I thought Rift *improved* on WoW and Warhammer. It's that they took aspects from each and made them more linear, smaller in scale, and I don't like either the PvP or PvE as much. Truly *improve* on what's already out there and I'd be ecstatic.

There was more PvE content for WoW at WoW's launch; there was a HELL of a lot more PvP content for Warhammer at Warhammer's launch. Of course WoW is the older game. I just don't see what Rift is doing better right now. Why play a WoW clone when you can play WoW? (And I'm not really into WoW, either.)

Rifts bore me. Jumping into a random group and zerging a rift - which is how they're handled now - bores me. This is the most "casual" style of game I can think of; I can't believe you suggested that Rift is somehow more hardcore than GW2. Your average 12 year old can hop onto Rift, run towards the tentacles and mash buttons in a random public group. Yeah, real deep gameplay there.

If by "more symmetrical and balanced" you mean "over in 5 minutes like a two pump chump" then, yes, sure. As for class balance - good luck to them, using their current system I bet that's gonna be a lot of fun for Trion.

Actually enjoy Fallen Earth right now, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and yes, waiting to try GW2. I don't see how Rift is "hardcore" in any way, shape, or form. I'd play Darkfall or Xsyon if I wanted hardcore right now - and still may play those games in the future.

As for Rift crafting, it's pretty... slim pickings, yeah. But if I want to get my crafting on I'll go play Fallen Earth which did a pretty damned good job with their crafting system.

I just don't see what Rift does better than anything else - it's a small, linear game with (some think) pretty graphics. The hype for this game will die down in 3-6 months just like it did with Aion and Warhammer Online.

Smaller, because it hasn't been fully developed or iterated on.
I don't care about linearity in leveling since I usually just plow though it once anyway. Or did you mean linearity in some other way?

Barely.
Another things to note is that Rift has level 50 version of every instance in the game and they are much more challenging than what heroics in WoW are.
So max level content for Rift is more than max level content was for WoW at launch. BTW Experts in Rifts are more than just harder versions of the instance, with a new end-boss added for each dungeons and in some cases new gimmicks to the existing ones.

I didn't play Warhammer so I can't comment on that. Probably true, Rift has a lot they can do with PvP.

When you've played WoW for all these years you might want something different. That's basically the main reason why games like AoC and Warhammer and shit even got off to a good start. People want something different. But when the game can't keep up after a month or so, it will die. Rift offers much more event-driven gameplay, i.e. getting together in the open world for PvP and PvE whereas everything in WoW is instanced basically. If they expand on this, I think they might have better success.

To clarify since that other retard I responded to earlier thought I said something before that I didn't; Rift is not hardcore. GW2 isn't out so I can't compare then but from what I've heard they're going for the casuals, just like WoW is. Rift is too, like with the example you gave, but it's at the same time a lot less forgiving in for example end-game PvE than WoW.
Despite the name Rifts aren't really the centerpiece of PvE in the game. However there are Expert and Raid Rifts which essentially work like outdoor dungeos/raids and I wager you didn't try them on your level 20 character in beta.

Well what warfront did you play? There are 4 of them, and at lower levels the brackets are, for example Black Garden, levels 10-19. The team with most higher levels will of course rofl-stomp the opposing team. At 50 the only factor is class balance. Usually the team with most warriors and clerics win because of the PvP strengths they have at the moment. However warriors are getting nerfed, and mages buffed, and with gear it's already starting to balance itself out.

And by symmetrical I mean they are essentially mirrored with each team having the same length to run to objectives and shit. Like Starcraft maps, or arenas in WoW.
In WoW this has been a problem with for example Alterac Valley. Don't know how it is in Cataclysm since there was no incentives to play battlegrounds.

I never said Rift was hardcore. It's more punishing than WoW but that's about it. However it is possible to play "hardcore" in WoW, with training bosses and raiding a lot etc. That's how you get any fun out of it. Same thing for Rift (or it will be, once people are done with the dungeon stuff and gear up).
I don't even know about raiding in GW2, they don't say anything about it so I can only assume it won't be a focus. GW1 didn't have any noteworthy end-game/raiding from what I've heard but that wasn't a real MMORPG anyway.

Well if you only played beta, they added a lot for retail in Rift. The problems I have with crafting is the usability of items from certain professions such as Apothecary, and how the daily workorder system works.

Aion died within 2 weeks actually (at least EU). The hardcore crowd left it early and it always takes+1 month for casuals to get bored as well.
Never played retail Warhammer but could tell it would fail in Beta. Felt very restrictive and zoned-off.

Rift will probably die in a couple of months too, I agree. I'd say it's the best (populated) EQ-style MMORPG out there at the moment though.


I would love to play a more sandbox-like fantasy/medieval MMORPG. Too bad there's only shit on the market, at least for EU players.

That's about where I am now, which is one of the reasons I made the thread about ArcheAge. I can overlook the anime aesthetic if the gameplay is there. I tried Darkfall and couldn't stand it. There was nothing of interest there for me. I like a balance of PVP and PVE and a community that's willing to be immersed in the game world. Somehow, being cannon fodder for some 24/7 playing twit named BitchHustla69 is not my idea of fun.

Guess why Darkfall barely has 5000 subscribers.

Meh. It's a massive gear grind, and no attempts to even disguise it. That being said some of the Expert dungeons can be fun (Konstantin fight comes to mind), but how many times can you run the same dungeon? It loses the novelty after 3 runs and you're looking at more than 10+ runs per dungeon just so you can go do the next set of dungeons the same amount, just to go do the same raid a dozen times. Zzzz. GSB just felt more like work than game, and that's supposed to be the pinnacle of epix gathering.

PvP is the same grind model except you're now fighting no-lifers that can kill you with a cursory smug glance.


Been playing since beta 3 and with the amount of bugs/issues I've reported I should be getting paid to test it out. I feel pretty though, since they've even implemented a few of my suggestions let alone fixed dozens of bugs I've reported.


We'll see how GW2 goes, we had a healthy Codex group going for the first one.

Pfft, he doesn't play 24/7 -- otherwise he wouldn't have time to hustle bitches.

There's this trial weekend going on, current subscribes should have codes in their email.

Anyone wanna share?

How big is the client download?

So, tried out Rift during the weekend on the free invitation thing. Went with Guardians first and man, do their quests feel banal, shit and boring or what.

Did get to see the first major storyline invasion test though, and it was quite interesting - 41 million HP bosses spawning in what is somewhat of a starter zone was amusing, so was the raid that gathered and slashed at it for half an hour until a L50 came and kited the thing into capital city guards.

Still, the Guardian faction is a pile of boredom. If you haven't tried the game but intend to and want a good first impression, just avoid the fuckers and their Warhammer-"inspired" generic fantasy crap.

The Defiant, on the other hand, are actually pretty cool - the quest design, the background of the faction, the capital city design, all these are leagues ahead of Guardians. I mean, the premise of your character is that you're a clone of some dead dude that's been infused with magic through some steampunk device in the post-apoc future, and must travel back through time to help shape the somewhat Marxist society of the Defiant to the bright future where they can save the world. Yeah I'll take that over "Gods made us immortal now we are UBER" background.

Curious to hear people didnt seem to like it, I've been playing it increasingly more and I'm loving it. Perhaps even more than wow back when I played it.

i am playing it.

and i like it a lot.

managed to make a "better" version of the hunter from wow

ranger > marks > sab

although from what i hear for end-game i should go marks > sab > ranger

and mostly just use ranger for the tanking pet.

The only reason why anyone should play Rift is if WOW isn't linear enough for them.

It is basically the same game with a slight face lift and more complex balancing issues.

Yeah, that's fairly accurate. I'd say wanderlust would also be one factor since most WoW players would've seen the entire WoW content (save for perhaps endgame and opposite faction quests) at least once.

It had the potential to deliver some dynamic content with world events and rifts, but that failed hard. I have about a months subscription time left but I canceled after the world event.

I'd love to see true dynamic content in a commercial MMORPG. Stuff that you might have see in roguelikes and shit.
Examples:
Speak with some random NPC in the world and the game will tailor a randomized quest.
Come across a random spawn in the world and kill it and loot its head or some shit and turn it in for a reward (actually both WoW and Rift did this, but quite limited and with too much hand-holding).
Get lucky with crafting an item, creating a superfancy item that you can either turn in for exp and shit or keep for yourself.
Player-made PvP quest, put bounty on enemy faction guild members or specific characters.

Rift is getting a surge now because it is extremely similar to WoW as far as mechanics go but it offers new story/content for people who are weary of WoW's six+ month patch cycles. They'll all go back to WoW when they've played through all of Rift's content and realize their patch cycles probably aren't any shorter.

Huh. I actually was playing the trial weekend on the day they launched the test event and I have to say that it was one of the highlights for me. It wasn't done well by any means, and the server-client lag was insane, but it definitely did break the otherwise fairly predictable routine.

Then again, getting rid of bosses by kiting them into city guards (because they had 41 million HPs each - the bosses I mean, what, and three would spawn per zone) was a bit indicative of the event quality. That, and I wasn't expecting anything so I thought it was something that usually happened and was slightly impressed, you, I recall, were actually looking forward to this addition and I totally can see how this would be a deal-breaker.

Also, I'm guessing that the invasion was the same everywhere and not just in the starter zone? And I've not seen the next phase that was killing the knights or something, what was that about/like? Just another tank/spank/zerg?

Guess they're offering a short free trial: http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/mmo-free-trial/

I guess I'll give it a go, see how it is.

Well it's the smoothest, most polished WoW clone I've seen. BUT with elemental invasions that constantly interrupt your questing.

Well to its credit you can generally avoid the most heavy fights if you want to, and even on the (afaik) gimped rogue Trial character I was able to painlessly solo most of the on-level minor rifts.

Did they manage to balance out the Invasions yet, and fix the horrible server-side lag during the major invasion events?

Dunno. I was merrily questing and enjoying my riftlord/champion/paladin (class system seems pretty neat) when a TIDELORD INVASION happened, with elementals zerging everything and killing quest NPCs. I found myself in a raid with a bunch of lvl 50 and just followed them around. We killed the boss so I figured it'd be over, but the elementals (deffo not soloable) were still camping quest hubs and nobody else in sight so I decided to give it a rest for the night.

Hm, I guess it's part of the invasions they were polishing at the time. That does sound rather annoying - to be honest one thing I thought they got wrong with invasions was that they were not of corresponding difficulty compared to zone levels. Those Oceanlords and the likes have millions upon millions of hitpoints and really cannot be repelled unless there's a bunch of 50ies around, which is pretty silly in an area that is a starter zone. A 2-mil boss that awards minor rewards? Cool. A 32-mil boss that rewards level-scaled rewards? Not cool.

Their helper throngs were also pretty sick, I have to hand it that, but to be honest I kinda liked the idea of a massive invasion army screwing things up for players so they'd have to either go away or band together and take out their source and the armies, too.

Yeah, I guess. It would be pretty pointless if you could just outright ignore the events. Might just take getting used to rioters in my theme park. I'll certainly give it another go tonight; it wasn't boring at least.

Yeah, played a war to level 10 yesterday. My impression is that its WoW all over again. I guess I'm tired of MMO's or something, cause it bored me. No clue what it's like at max level though, as WoW changes quite a bit in the end game.