A Review: Broad Early Rift Review (Beta Events 1 & 2)

Cik_Asalin

In the spirit of reviews or previews,  I'm inclined to share my experiences.   If you can stick it out and read my thoughts, bravo.  If I wasn’t so interested in Rift, I wouldn’t be so serious about my impressions.

 

In a past interview with Trion CEO, Lars Buttler, the question was asked:

 

BP: Do you expect that Rift’s dynamic server activity will feel radically different to gamers acclimated to more passive persistent state MMO sessions?

…and Lars responds…

LB: There are some older, achievement-based, true MMORPGs we liked to play, such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, and  Ultima Online.  Many of the best experiences we enjoyed in those games are the basis for Rift.

 

 

Well, that aint necessarily the case, from my ‘early’ experience.  My intention is to get down to some early-experience pre-release nuts and bolts.

 

 

Basing a game on level 20 content gives some insight into game-play experience, on a game that is promoted as an evolution.   Early game should scale into later game, so there better be a catapult of extreme dynamic, organic open-world, community-centric, massively-multiplayer entertainment, with purpose and tangible consequences, post level 20, otherwise I’m staring at a carton of homogenized milk. 

 

 

The early game-play should be about the journey, and I feel as though someone handed me a rail-pass while pointing out all the sights along a claustrophobic trail while I stay in my seat munching on a bag of Doritos.

 

 

I “think” that there is more I don’t know about this game than I do, because there are so many holes, but the unknowns are so contributory and important to sustainable and everlasting game-play, that it concerns me about not knowing; not being told by the developers on their site about at least the ‘direction’ of in-process mechanics.

 

 

So all I’m left to do is review my experiences and compare to generalities that every other mmo has, but which isn’t always a bad thing, and does peak my “early” interest. 

 

 

Because if Trion is really serious about providing a rich breadth and depth of game-play platform that is being designed to appeal to enthusiasts of the UO and EQ of old, and current WoW fans, as the CEO puts it, “[Ultima Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft]. . .Many of the best experiences we enjoyed in those games are the basis for Rift.”  . . .  then Trion has a bit more work to do.

 

 

Character Creation:  6/10  Character creation, modeling and design options are horribly basic and limiting.  Let’s hope that we’re not going to look essentially exactly alike with horribly little to no variation in girth, fat, facial, hair, color, and over-all look from one to the next. But that’s the case now.

 

 

Graphics: 8/10   I agree that the graphics were solid, within their own style, all the way around.  They conform to current standards and are sharp.

 

 

Music: Not rated  I don’t care for being distracted by music when I game, so I turn it off.

 

 

Performance: 8/10  I had one crash and a few lag spikes that lasted several seconds.  Nothing that can’t be overcome, I’m sure with launch servers.

 

 

Quests: 5/10  It’s a Rail System throughout a themepark with little to no redeeming qualities over the other AAA mmo’s since WoW and over the last 6 years. 

 

 

They will satisfy the hardcore role-players and hardcore PvE whack-a-molers, but why buy a new gym membership and change your gym subscription when the existing gym offers the same treadmill?

 

 

So, a better definition for ‘Quests’ in this game, as in other PvE centric games, is “Chores”.  Your following an arrow to an ‘x’ on the map, killing 5 of these, picking up 6 of those, talking to this guy with a “!” to click an “accept”, and do it all over again. If it weren’t for the dynamic Rifts, this alone would be considered stupid, adolescent and insulting to consider this childish mechanic anything remotely equivalent to fun or entertaining.

 

 

The dynamic invasions and Rifts do nicely break this treadmill up, but we don’t fully understand or have experienced the significance of participating just yet; maybe it’s too early and only feels as though it (current Rift appearances during quests) amounts to more grinding to get rid of it (the Rift/Invasion) so you can complete your Quest/Chore.

 

 

Again, early-on experience, but nothing genre-moving or next-gen yet, as the dev’s might ‘lead’ one to believe in press and interview, but traditional (circa 2004+) pve-quest/chore-driven multiplayer game.

 

 

Combat: 6/10   I played a few characters, mage to melee and found combat to be extremely routine and casual.  I found myself having to monitor cool-downs, having very vague identification of which mob Im actually targeted on during a Rift/Invasion encounter since they are so close and to each other. Nothing remarkable, but there is remarkable class diversity which might make up for the ‘routine’ feeling of combat.

 

 

So no next-gen combat appeal here, yet.  Though early stage assessment, as it relates to pvevp-involved combat, I see a very traditional button-grind with an annoying global cool-down.  Ohhh…and that cool-down mechanic also applies to crafted Alchemy items; really!  Yea, I craft a Molotov Cocktail that is pretty much a dot bomb, and lead my combat encounter by throwing it a mob, and my health pot and mana pot are now unavailable to me for a minute or 2….are you serious?  Way to completely fail on tying non-synergistic craftables to each other, on the same cool-down timer.

 

 

Class system: 8/10One of the best parts of the game.  We need, however, more access to descriptions of souls early-on and skill descriptions before choosing, to help with distinguishing value of the path we want to take. So yea, it would be nice to see soul trees before picking your souls. 

 

 

In addition, having 51 points is just fine.  It preserves specialties and distinguishes each player that is able to take minor routes up a skill-tree that is personal to their style, and that’s a good thing to do without homogenizing or demeaning character-builds in game-play.  

 

 

More points might just lead to a homogenization of classes where distinguish or specialization is meaningless.

 

Dynamic content: 6/10   I really enjoyed it and it made me more alert while grinding through quests/chores.  But again, the community really needs better dev communication about the overall purpose and personal meaning and rewards for participating.

 

 

I want to know that my participation in a massively-multiplayer rift or town invasion event matters. . .how is community participation impacting my factions strong-hold and territory…are they, the towns, considered control points that if lost, is detrimental to my quest story-line that gives me a big bonus or reward at the end of it. . .so how do we know?  The current answer is we don’t. 

 

 

I want to realize rewards for game-play entertainment effort, risk and participation . . .where are the rewards and what is the detriment to losing territory/town control.  We haven’t experienced that yet in Beta 1 or 2 Events.

 

 

Also, If your solo, the rift location should provide an option to “Auto-Group” or “Auto-Raid” you so you’re effortlessly pulled into supporting the community.  Have a switch to turn it off if you want, but I’d think that most want to be socially involved in game-play events even if their soloing an area, but come upon an immense Rift of invaders that is threatening your territory; this level of ‘dynamic’ does “not” exist, and it’s a shame.

 

 

Overall Game-play and Fun: 6/10  I found the overall game fun and casual, and that’s by comparing it to every other mainstream mmo on the market; there is a degree of fun in all of them, but sustainable fun with Rift; yet to be seen.  Quests can be improved to where there are dynamic easter-egg bonuses and quests found during open-world exploration that are realizably better than your garden-variety quests and garden-variety rewards from standard quests.  Yes, there are tombs and such to find that completes an inventory or “special” or rarities, but I haven’t gotten that deep into the finds to realize the value yet.

 

 

So more non-mainstream quests as opposed to having a repetitive same-ol railed journey that we’ve already done in other products over the last 5-years. Rifts can also, or should, provide better rewards than just mundane ones, but overall, we need to know what the game-play impact of the Rifts are.  We haven’t experienced their impact to overall game-play, such as why “I” am meaningful to rift or invasion participation, and is that meaning enough to motivate me without it just being considered a transient, short-term fun event that has no purpose; no realizable consequences; no loss no gain.

 

 

Just thinking back to WAR; it too was designed to be “casual” and look where it got that game; near 1million copies sold on its pve and instanced redundant scenarios, which lead to a plummet of consistently sustained subscribership of below 200,000 4-6 months post launch; but I digress, ever-so briefly.

 

 

On the death-penalty side, it’s easy.  Your rewarded by dying, by being given life without much consequences.  You can soul walk once an hour, which lets you run away from your dead corpse and avoid the death penalty. If you die and you already used your soul walk you will lose a portion of your hit points and power bars. There are special foods that can remove the death penalty.

 

I do not think that losing in a massively-multiplayer game should mean that you can’t re-build without a lot of pain, but consequences should not be over-looked, which I think it is in Rift.  Death penalties are contributory to community and trades that are involved with getting you back on your feet, which again doesn’t exist in Rift.  I was hoping for more of:



- Experience loss that scales with how frequently you actively want to play a ‘suicide bomber’ role.

- Item durability loss than can be regained with a player-crafted repair module.

- Substantial power and stat loss for a period, that can be overcome with player-crafted food and potions.

- A tombstone that can be recovered that gives back the power-loss and experience loss if you can make it back.

 

 

It is clear that that some aspects of the game, that should enrich community involvement and participation, will not be part of the program or taken seriously.

 

 

So, Rift just might appeal to more of the same PvE centric and casual game-play crowd that haven’t been playing much of the other games anyway over the last 6-years, and Rift won't appeal to others.

 

 

But if you enjoyed WoW and are looking for an alternative, or tried WAR but was looking for something more robust, this might be that alternative since it is so PvE heavy based on early experience. However, if it’s an injection of massively-multiplayer experience from UO or EQ days with player cooperative and competitive community-driven and influenced content, that the CEO of Trion said is there, well, it actually might not be found in Rift.

 

 

Again, early experience on a PvP server without any massively-multiplayer PvP/Rift-Driven and community-pulled into content yet.

 

 

Final Score: 6.5  That can easily rise to a 9 “if” the game becomes very alive with player-driven dynamic and organic influences along with the Rifts that draw on community participation of good vs evil in a dual-faction massively-multiplayer game.

MMO.Maverick

Good, solid beta review. I disagree with a number of points, but that doesn't matter, you presented your impressions very clear.

 

But this is the part what I just don't get:

"They will satisfy the hardcore role-players and hardcore PvE whack-a-molers, but why buy a new gym membership and change your gym subscription when the existing gym offers the same treadmill?"

 

To reply with a counter question:

why watch the same tv show or read the same book series over and over again, to the exclusion of other shows and books?

 

Why would people only want to play one MMORPG for years and years, and no others? Outside of the MMORPG genre, there's not a single game that I've played for years and years to the exclusion of other games. I would find doing such a thing extremely boring and even mindnumbing.

People say "it's much of the same as what we've experienced before", eh, hello? Then why are you playing that  same MMORPG you've been playing for more than a year to years, and of which you'd already know every boring detail of it? That is even more the same as watching the same tv show over and over again, or eating in the same restaurant every single time for years after years

I'd think that people would like something else, another MMORPG than the one they've been playing to death for years, whether that's a WoW, a LotrO, EQ2, whatever.

Cik_Asalin

Originally posted by cyphers

Good, solid beta review. I disagree with a number of points, but that doesn't matter, you presented your impressions very clear.

cyphers, thanks and I agree with you as well.  There needs to be a midddle-ground, a bit more balance away from pve-heavy, but about pushing the dynamic, non-scripted, pvevp community-centric envelope, I think is my emphasis.  That, aside from the little nit-picky things I delved into and seasoned with more, more, more massively-multiplayer community dynamics, and those 6's turn into 8+'s.

 

Again, my caveat is that this is based upon 2 Beta Events on a PvP server, where player-centricity, community push for rallying against the opposing faction and involvement, with game-play recognizable actions, is something that just wasn't possible during those 2 events.