RIFT; the result of unoriginal/non creative game developers -- a review from a beta tester

Xasapis

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

...

Its a game in which the publishers are apparently putting more effort into marketing than developing.

...

 

Good lord, how can you say that with a straight face? Yes, I singled this out to show you how off you are with what others than yourself are experiencing. 

Your weather sense is ... lol, forget it.

The_Korrigan

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

...

Its a game in which the publishers are apparently putting more effort into marketing than developing.

...

 

Good lord, how can you say that with a straight face? Yes, I singled this out to show you how off you are with what others than yourself are experiencing. 

Your weather sense is ... lol, forget it.

That's your only arguments? Pretty weak, if you ask me.

 Where are the points were you refute what Rabenwolf is saying, instead of just saying "lol u r wrong"?

Xasapis

This isn't an established IP. True.

This is a game that is specifically targeting WoW's  target audience and playerbase. False. It's targetting WAR, DAoC, Aion and other veterans as well. For the record, I doubt any game can touch the established WoW player base. However, there are tons of people that are ex-WoW player looking for potentially something else. Not necessarily different, just a different take on the same subject perhaps. I for one was looking for the vanilla feeling lost with the expansions.

 Its a game using a dated game engine whose developer went under a month ago. True. The gamebryo developers went under not long ago. This is however an engine that quite a few popular games were made with, both single and MMOs. Some were better than others. Beta keys are there to see if your computer can handle the strain. On the other hand WoW's engine is not exactly brand new and I didn't see any drop in subscriptions due to that.

Its a game in which the publishers are apparently putting more effort into marketing than developing. False, big time. There had been changes from beta event to beta event that other MMOs don't see between expansions. While the game may be considered by most people as nothing new, the developers however are hailed as the most responsive in the market. Remains to be seen of course if this will continue well beyond the launch of the game.

Its a game that uses carbon copies of design choices that are not better designed or executed than the competition. True and false. The UI interface and certain choices that have been standardised over the years can be found here as well. Whatever worked in MMOs prior to Rift, you will probably find it here as well. And it's actually working for a change. Beyond the similarities however, one can spot the differences. If one bothers to look that is.

It's linear. False. The quest part of the game is what you'd expect from pretty much every MMO currently out there. The rifts however spoil the linearity soup big time. Some people like it that rifts interfere with their standard PvE gameplay, others won't touch the game because of it.

It's publisher over hyped the product. False. The only hype is the one generated by the beta testers. The marketing campaign is nothing compared to anything released recently. The only game that probably has a worse campaign is Earthrise.

It already has a lot of people disgusted at it after playing beta. True. And I'm sure these people are really glad that they were given the choice to participate in the beta for free and make an informed decision about whether they liked the game or not.

It obviously has no chance in the eastern market and is only being targeted towards NA and Europe. True. I don't see it go against Tera or other similar games coming out from the east. Very few western developers managed to gain a foothold there though.

It is not visually unique and its IP doesnt really stand out (which is important). Subjective. That's the opposite complain from what TERA is receiving, where the unique look is detrimental for some people. I want to ask a question at this point. If I show you a screenshot, can you or can't you tell whether it's from Rift? I believe the game has it's own unique style.

 Its a high fantasy game (way too many of those). True. On the other hand, the majority of non fantasy games have suffered over the years. There is obviously a bigger market for fantasy games than anything else combined.

Its "hook features" have been done before and done better and even those games went under (tabula rasa). Subjective. Lets say it's true. You have a feature done best in one game, another done in another and so on. Would you play 4-5 games so as to play with all the best features or just play one game that combines them? What's the better game, the one that has one feature that is top of its genre, or one that the overall sum of its parts is not the very best, but the overall experience is better?

The size and scope of the world is smaller than most of the competition. Subjective. What's the competition? WoW. Certainly smaller. WAR? Certainly it doesn't feel empty like that game. The size and scope, as WoW has illustrated so far, is measured in the span of time. This game has a solid foundation on which the developers can build. Whether they will do it or not is something that remains to be seen.

Satisfied?

waveslayer

Well the truth of the matter is- these same ppl that are complaining its to much like WoW, would be complaining that its not enough like WoW if Trion had actually reinvented the wheel in the making of Rift, face it, most these ppl are just WoW fanbois and are going to find any reaason they can to say that WoW is better,regardless of the game made.

BadSpock

Time and time again we have seen that great game play > all.

What kept Star Wars Galaxies, Star Trek Online, and Lord of the Rings Online from having WoW-like subscription numbers, despite being three of the most beloved and popular intellectual properties?

Game play. They just didn't have "it."

Now, "it" can be defined a great many ways, but what it really boils down to is game play. 

 

What made Warcraft 1,2,3 and Starcraft more popular then the Command and Conquer series? Game play. What made Halo obscenely popular versus other FPS titles with arguably more "advanced" features - game play.

WoW is a product of both the Blizzard legacy of great games (Diablo series, Starcraft, Warcraft 2,3) and the original developers idea that you do not have to reinvent the wheel, you simply have to make it better and more fun to drive.

What really made Age of Conan and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning start strong, very strong, and come to a crashing halt, stuttering and wheezing? Game play. Both were/are beloved IPs. Both had very serious game play issues.

You cannot give a black mark to game because of the engine they are using. How many bad games have been made with the Unreal engine at it's core? It's a framework, not a color-by-numbers.

Westernized MMOs from our friends in the East like Aion have never been able to translate as successfully in the West. Just like most Western MMOs that are Easternized do not perform well over seas either. 

 

Also, you cannot make a valid argument when only looking at the outliers. If you define your parameters by the extremes to either side, namely the 800lb gorilla WoW and say something like Tabula Rasa which is now shut down, your polarized reporting largely glosses over the vast majority of the genre somewhere firmly in the middle of the spectrum.

A game does not have to be a black and white success meter. You are not either WoW-like or shut down your studio. There are dozens of games that remain profitable and well supported and loved by their customers.

 

Will RIFT likely start out very strong and fizzle a bit? Probably. MMO gamers are fickle these days. With games like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 coming out within the next year (most likely) every established MMO including WoW is going to see their subs drop when a new hot item hits the shelves.

What really tests a games staying power is whether or not players come back after the buzz of a new game dies down.

There are many factors that contribute to this. 

-Having established characters is a big return point. Already having high level or maxed out toons to come back to is a big one.

-Having established social networks is a big return point. If your friends are still playing game X or go back to that game, you are more likely to follow.

-Burn out is a big factor. Many will try a new hype game, love it to death, then go back to their old game for some comfort only to be bored and looking for the next big hype game. 

-WoW is six years old. That's a big factor. The burn out many experience on WoW is really setting in. Many have left and come back to WoW enough times where each time you come back you like it a little less. The game has also changed a lot in six years. They don't even try anymore to hide the fact that the end-game is a gear treadmill. 

The other really big factor in how well a game does initially is polish. Polish killed Vanguard, polish killed Age of Conan, polish to some extent killed Warhammer Online.

Replay value is probably the #1 factor in a games staying power. 

Rolling alts, raiding, more difficult dungeons, respecs, alternate server types, and PvP are all huge. So are achievement systems and character customization. 

Another huge factor is how aggressive and responsive the post launch patching is, as well as post-launch content additions.

Psychologically, players like new stuff. I do not understand why more developers do not intentionally hold more back on release. Instead of giving players 3 months of content on release, give them 1 month of content and then after a month patch in another month and call it new, then after another month patch in another new month of content and call it new.

Same thing in the end, but received much better by the player base at large.

All of this being said...

I see a lot of potential in Rift. Potential I did not see in Age of Conan, Warhammer, or any of the other releases of the past few years.

As was said earlier, I do see the patterns and trends and I see a game here with the potential to break the cycle. It all really depends on the responsiveness and aggressiveness of Trion post-launch.

From what I have seen and experienced in Beta, Trion is more then ready and willing. 

VirusDancer

To an extent, one has to admit that on a certain level... that RIFT is what might have happened to WoW if Blizzard listened instead of just doing their own thing while sniffing each other's farts around the office.

BadSpock

Originally posted by VirusDancer

To an extent, one has to admit that on a certain level... that RIFT is what might have happened to WoW if Blizzard listened instead of just doing their own thing while sniffing each other's farts around the office.

WoW is almost completely unique in the MMO market, or really in the gaming market in general, that they are ridiculously aggressive in making changes to attract new players despite how alienating it makes things for their long-time subscribers.

The turn over rate for WoW must be appalling. How many Vanilla veterans still play post-Cataclysm? How many new players were added in Wrath? 

It's kind of like the SWG effect, but in this case it actually worked instead of driving off the old players and failing to bring in new ones.

 

Most other MMOs that have had decent success are quite the opposite. They add new features and content for the established player base and occasionally throw a bone to new players.

I mean, you take WoW a few months post-release and put it side by side with Cataclysm and you are really looking at two nearly completely different games.

Where as games like FFXI, EvE, EQ2, etc. all maintain a strong resemblance to their original selves, with loads of additions and expansions to the original themes.

I mean seriously, WoW redid levels 1-60 in Cataclysm and only gave us 5 new levels of end-game you could complete in literally 24 hours of in-game time or less. How much more proof do you need that I'm right?

The_Korrigan

Originally posted by Xasapis

This isn't an established IP. True.

This is a game that is specifically targeting WoW's  target audience and playerbase. False. It's targetting WAR, DAoC, Aion and other veterans as well. For the record, I doubt any game can touch the established WoW player base. However, there are tons of people that are ex-WoW player looking for potentially something else. Not necessarily different, just a different take on the same subject perhaps. I for one was looking for the vanilla feeling lost with the expansions.

Don't be in denial. It's obvious what audience they are targetting. It's not the audience of long time dead games.

 Its a game using a dated game engine whose developer went under a month ago. True. The gamebryo developers went under not long ago. This is however an engine that quite a few popular games were made with, both single and MMOs. Some were better than others. Beta keys are there to see if your computer can handle the strain. On the other hand WoW's engine is not exactly brand new and I didn't see any drop in subscriptions due to that.

Its a game in which the publishers are apparently putting more effort into marketing than developing. False, big time. There had been changes from beta event to beta event that other MMOs don't see between expansions. While the game may be considered by most people as nothing new, the developers however are hailed as the most responsive in the market. Remains to be seen of course if this will continue well beyond the launch of the game.

I could agree with that. They put enough effort in developing to have created the smoothest "EQ/WoW" clone made since WoW of course, and since LOTRO. That already makes Rift better than any of the failures of the recent years like Warhammer, Conan, etc...

Its a game that uses carbon copies of design choices that are not better designed or executed than the competition. True and false. The UI interface and certain choices that have been standardised over the years can be found here as well. Whatever worked in MMOs prior to Rift, you will probably find it here as well. And it's actually working for a change. Beyond the similarities however, one can spot the differences. If one bothers to look that is.

It would be stupid not to use an UI model that is proved to work, and that the gamers are used to. Copying successful designs is NOT a flaw, but rather a positive point in my book.

It's linear. False. The quest part of the game is what you'd expect from pretty much every MMO currently out there. The rifts however spoil the linearity soup big time. Some people like it that rifts interfere with their standard PvE gameplay, others won't touch the game because of it.

This is where you lost credibility for me. Either you lack experience in MMORPGs, which I don't believe, or you are just "pretending" not to see the obvious. This game is as linear, if not more, than Warhammer. It's polished, sure, but very, very linear. Having random mob generators spawning doesn't cancel the linearity of the game. This can only be ameliorated by adding more leveling paths, more landmass to the game.

It's publisher over hyped the product. False. The only hype is the one generated by the beta testers. The marketing campaign is nothing compared to anything released recently. The only game that probably has a worse campaign is Earthrise.

True. The game is over hyped, but not by the publisher. It's over hyped by the future players, some of whom even never participated in the beta. But that's not typical to Rift, all the past failures we had these last years were also over hyped and defended by rabid fanbois.

It already has a lot of people disgusted at it after playing beta. True. And I'm sure these people are really glad that they were given the choice to participate in the beta for free and make an informed decision about whether they liked the game or not.

It obviously has no chance in the eastern market and is only being targeted towards NA and Europe. True. I don't see it go against Tera or other similar games coming out from the east. Very few western developers managed to gain a foothold there though.

I don't see why Rift couldn't work in the Asian market. It's linear and repetitive, Asiatic players love that.

It is not visually unique and its IP doesnt really stand out (which is important). Subjective. That's the opposite complain from what TERA is receiving, where the unique look is detrimental for some people. I want to ask a question at this point. If I show you a screenshot, can you or can't you tell whether it's from Rift? I believe the game has it's own unique style.

The IP doesn't stand out, and neither does the lore nor the story when you play. Games like LOTRO, and hell, even WoW, have many story lines rolling out when you play and level. Rift's progression is quite bland and lacks imagination in comparison. The global scheme and story is not focused on enough. Hopefully this comes with the hypothetical "end game" content nobody has seen yet...

 Its a high fantasy game (way too many of those). True. On the other hand, the majority of non fantasy games have suffered over the years. There is obviously a bigger market for fantasy games than anything else combined.

Agreed. That's why SW:TOR has already achieved half the way to success just from being a Sci-Fi game.

Its "hook features" have been done before and done better and even those games went under (tabula rasa). Subjective. Lets say it's true. You have a feature done best in one game, another done in another and so on. Would you play 4-5 games so as to play with all the best features or just play one game that combines them? What's the better game, the one that has one feature that is top of its genre, or one that the overall sum of its parts is not the very best, but the overall experience is better?

Most things I've seen redone in Rift where indeed done better in other games.

The size and scope of the world is smaller than most of the competition. Subjective. What's the competition? WoW. Certainly smaller. WAR? Certainly it doesn't feel empty like that game. The size and scope, as WoW has illustrated so far, is measured in the span of time. This game has a solid foundation on which the developers can build. Whether they will do it or not is something that remains to be seen.

Wrong, this is not subjective. This is not opinion. This is FACT. The world in Rift is both small and very linear for now, and as I already said, no random mob generator will change that - the only thing we can hope is that the developers are ready to expand the landmass quickly, before most players fully explored it and got bored of it.

Satisfied?

Way better than just "no your wrong!", not to mention you actually agreed with him partially

nightowl79a

How are they enhanced if most everybody see's them as wow's UI? They done feel enhanced to me, rather they feel the same with slightly differnt looks.

Xasapis

Well, the bottom line is that Trion doesn't seem to me like it's trying to pull a Cryptic. Quite the opposite, I think they know that they are facing a very competitive front not many months away from their own launch and they are very responsive in their development due to that.

 

As for the linear part. The quest system plays in exactly the same way EQ2 or LOTRO or WoW pre Cataclysm/LK did. The difference of course is that rifts are there to divert you from just running from one quest hub to the next.

If you want to see a truly linear quest game, you'll only have to play the Cataclysm 80-85 content. One monorail huge quest line for each zone that you can't deviate at all. Which is my fear about SW:TOR, I fear that Blizzard has already copied the story driven questing of SW:TOR with Cataclysm.

tsukts

Originally posted by nightowl79a

How are they enhanced if most everybody see's them as wow's UI? They done feel enhanced to me, rather they feel the same with slightly differnt looks.

it has the standard UI for a MMORPG, they all look the same, just diff skin..

Tullyxox

Originally posted by Ezhae

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Its up to you, but take just consider my feedback on this.

Rift wont have enough content and its design wont keep the majority of initial buyers playing for long. My prediction is that they will take a huge hit subscriber wise at the dreaded 3rd month mark, and continue to dwindle to the 6th month mark, where after that they will have only the small niche of hardcore fans sticking with the game. This pattern repeats itself way too many times, Rift shows no signs of being any different. Mmorpgs generally want their numbers to increase over time, not spike and then drop. Rift is clearly a spike and dropper.

Hmm. You see i had the luxury of being in beta of pretty much every major MMO release since WoW beta. Sure, they are were alike, from UI to core gameplay mechanics, but what actually does make Rift stand out from pretty much all of them is the level of polish at this stage. 

 

Most MMOs released in previous years were rushed out, lacking core features that were parts of advertising campaigns, there was lack of both end game and leveling content, they were filled with bugs and obviously not working features. Their failures didnt come from the fact they were 'too similar' to WoW. Their failure was in fact they were bad at what they did. 

 

So far my trust, limited, but still trust, in Rift comes form what i've seen over the betas. The fact they they actually do have several instances, with hardmodes and 2 raids at release. The fact that those instances do have some more advanced encounter mechanics going beyond simple tank and spank. The rifts are working pretty well, the classes feel natural and fun and i havent ran into any game breaking bugs so far. 

I'd dar e to say Rift is at similar if not better position that WoW was back in 2004 at its release if not the fact that the market grew by a lot. It certainly has bette routlook for launch than WoW had back then and that for me counts a s a plus. Previous MMO releases were lacking even WoW vanilla content, while Rift has it, in quite a polished state. 

 

If the devs will continue to work on the content and keep an eye on what community as a whole (not just loud minority) thinks about the games progress they might get past the 3 as well 6 months marks with still decent playerbase. Sure it won't be WoW numbers, but compared to my experience with games like WAR, AoC, Aion or even DCUO they are at much better starting position. 

 I agree with your reply to the abbove statement.  My fear is if he is right about the 3 - 6 months.  Are we seeing the end to MMO's like this.  I have been waiting on a good game for sometime.  I really hope RIFT nails it. 

Xasapis

Originally posted by tsukts

Originally posted by nightowl79a

How are they enhanced if most everybody see's them as wow's UI? They done feel enhanced to me, rather they feel the same with slightly differnt looks.

it has the standard UI for a MMORPG, they all look the same, just diff skin..

It's actually an evolution of Ascheron's Call's 2 UI, copied by almost everyone after them. If you put the UIs side by side, it has a lot more visual similarities with Aion than any other game.

Jimmy562

Originally posted by Xasapis

Well, the bottom line is that Trion doesn't seem to me like it's trying to pull a Cryptic. Quite the opposite, I think they know that they are facing a very competitive front not many months away from their own launch and they are very responsive in their development due to that.

 

As for the linear part. The quest system plays in exactly the same way EQ2 or LOTRO or WoW pre Cataclysm/LK did. The difference of course is that rifts are there to divert you from just running from one quest hub to the next.

If you want to see a truly linear quest game, you'll only have to play the Cataclysm 80-85 content. One monorail huge quest line for each zone that you can't deviate at all. Which is my fear about SW:TOR, I fear that Blizzard has already copied the story driven questing of SW:TOR with Cataclysm.

Don't worry about that, Blizzard couldn't get anywhere near the story telling Bioware can. Blizzard maybe good dev's but RPG wise Bioware is in a different league. Remember TOR isn't linear, you have choices which totally change how something plays out.

BadSpock

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Don't be in denial. It's obvious what audience they are targetting. It's not the audience of long time dead games.

Agreed but only partially. Sure they want WoW players, but they also want players who were let down by WAR and AoC and other recent releases.

I could agree with that. They put enough effort in developing to have created the smoothest "EQ/WoW" clone made since WoW of course, and since LOTRO. That already makes Rift better than any of the failures of the recent years like Warhammer, Conan, etc...

Though I vehemently hate the term "WoW clone" with a burning passion, as I find no game to truly ever by a clone except for the recent Call of Duty: Black Ops... I agree that their level of polish is far beyond any recent release.

It would be stupid not to use an UI model that is proved to work, and that the gamers are used to. Copying successful designs is NOT a flaw, but rather a positive point in my book.

Which I why I question your above statement about a WoW clone yet you appear here to defend the practice as successful design, which I would agree with.

This is where you lost credibility for me. Either you lack experience in MMORPGs, which I don't believe, or you are just "pretending" not to see the obvious. This game is as linear, if not more, than Warhammer. It's polished, sure, but very, very linear. Having random mob generators spawning doesn't cancel the linearity of the game. This can only be ameliorated by adding more leveling paths, more landmass to the game.

False. Adding more leveling paths and landmass just creates additional linear paths of progression. SW:ToR is going to have this problem in spades. Going from point A to point B with no deviation is exactly the same as going from point A1 to point B1 with no deviation. Leveling in Rift while skipping most if not all the quests is not only a proven fact that it is available and fully supported by Trion, it is a truly fresh breath of air. If you have played Rift enough to experience massive multi-rift events and invasions, it would be hard to argue against their impact on the linearity of Rift.

True. The game is over hyped, but not by the publisher. It's over hyped by the future players, some of whom even never participated in the beta. But that's not typical to Rift, all the past failures we had these last years were also over hyped and defended by rabid fanbois.

This is always true, I agree.

I don't see why Rift couldn't work in the Asian market. It's linear and repetitive, Asiatic players love that.

I don't see why it couldn't work in the Asian market either, but not because it's linear and repetitive. 

The IP doesn't stand out, and neither does the lore nor the story when you play. Games like LOTRO, and hell, even WoW, have many story lines rolling out when you play and level. Rift's progression is quite bland and lacks imagination in comparison. The global scheme and story is not focused on enough. Hopefully this comes with the hypothetical "end game" content nobody has seen yet...

Apples to oranges. Playing both the Defiant and Guardians you can easily see the difference in ideology and tone that defines these two factions and their history. Personally I am all for simplified story in a MMO as it makes it feel less linear and on rails to be making your own story in the backdrop of a well written lore. I don't need the game's story to hold my hand and tell me exactly what is happening around me, but with enough background and solid lore I can understand the events around me through the eyes of my character and through myself, the player, wish I find to me a more engrossing experience then being led around like a child during story time, pausing to look at the pictures on each page...

Agreed. That's why SW:TOR has already achieved half the way to success just from being a Sci-Fi game.

Hard to predict, but SW:ToR is not a sci-fi games, it's a Star Wars games. Though Star Wars may be a popular sci-fi universe, calling a SW game simply sci-fi is a gross misrepresentation. 

Most things I've seen redone in Rift where indeed done better in other games.

Subjective. A MMO is the sum of it's parts. Many of the things I have seen are much better done in Rifts, while others I have not yet experienced and thusly cannot accurately judge. 

Wrong, this is not subjective. This is not opinion. This is FACT. The world in Rift is both small and very linear for now, and as I already said, no random mob generator will change that - the only thing we can hope is that the developers are ready to expand the landmass quickly, before most players fully explored it and got bored of it.

That is in fact entirely subjective and an opinion. 

Why do people play millions of hours of Call of Duty or Halo online when there are only like 8 maps to choose from? Because the game play within those maps is varied and different every time.

Dynamic events and repeatable content with wide degrees of variation are what gives a game longevity. 

Simply adding more stuff, it is impossible to keep up with the consumption rate of players. That is fact. So you have to design content that has massive replay value. And while that content is being replayed, you create new content which itself will be replayed while you create new content.. etc. etc.

Xasapis

Originally posted by Tullyxox

...

 I agree with your reply to the abbove statement.  My fear is if he is right about the 3 - 6 months.  Are we seeing the end to MMO's like this.  I have been waiting on a good game for sometime.  I really hope RIFT nails it. 

Well, from beta 5 to beta 6 they added both a user controlled and attackable quest center in the contested areas and a non instanced boss in the same area. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't any work done prior to the week that passed in between those betas, but it's also a clear sign that they work fast and hard on adding stuff into the game.

The_Korrigan

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by tsukts

Originally posted by nightowl79a

How are they enhanced if most everybody see's them as wow's UI? They done feel enhanced to me, rather they feel the same with slightly differnt looks.

it has the standard UI for a MMORPG, they all look the same, just diff skin..

It's actually an evolution of Ascheron's Call's 2 UI, copied by almost everyone after them. If you put the UIs side by side, it has a lot more visual similarities with Aion than any other game.

Aye, that type of UI for "EQ clone" type games was definitely "invented" by Turbine in AC2.

Using an UI model that "works", and then enhancing it with game specific stuff and other systems like e.g. skinning and addons, has a huge advantage for player too... you don't spend several hours getting used to the UI when you enter a new game, you can immediately play with best efficiency.

Vesavius

Originally posted by Zookz1

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Rift wont have enough content and its design wont keep the majority of initial buyers playing for long. My prediction is that they will take a huge hit subscriber wise at the dreaded 3rd month mark, and continue to dwindle to the 6th month mark, where after that they will have only the small niche of hardcore fans sticking with the game. This pattern repeats itself way too many times, Rift shows no signs of being any different. Mmorpgs generally want their numbers to increase over time, not spike and then drop. Rift is clearly a spike and dropper.

IIRC there's two raids already in the game

2 raids...

three warfronts

3 maps...

numerous expert level dungeons

10 retooled and slightly expanded instances that you have already played...

a spawnable world boss

1 boss...

and invasions/Rifts at 50 that we have no idea about yet.

more rifts...

 for release I think the level of content is fine.

really? I think it looks like even super casual players will be done in 3 months.

 

what you list here, for me, is 1-3 months play (1 month to consume the themepark levelling path content, which is all a non raider will be doing, and then the following 1-2 grinding gear to get set up for next raid tier in order to... grind gear).

This is why people are saying this game has a 3 months life span as it stands, because the non raiders will be done with it very fast and the raiders wont last much longer

people have actually bought 6 month subs for this..? kinda crazy imo. I hope for their sake Trion have a ton of new content o drop in very fast after launch.

DataDay

Originally posted by Xasapis

This isn't an established IP. True.

This is a game that is specifically targeting WoW's  target audience and playerbase. False. It's targetting WAR, DAoC, Aion and other veterans as well. For the record, I doubt any game can touch the established WoW player base. However, there are tons of people that are ex-WoW player looking for potentially something else. Not necessarily different, just a different take on the same subject perhaps. I for one was looking for the vanilla feeling lost with the expansions.

No, it is not false. Trion is specifically going after WoWs wide and established target audience. They even pushed a "You are not in azeroth anymore" promotional video. I mean you cannot get any clearer than that. When you design a game, you create what is called a game design document, the exact type of audience you are going for is part of that document. Rift, its marketing and design, clearly wants the piece of the pie that WoW current holds. WoW holds the largest piece of the pie, they are not interested in WARs tiny audience and Aion's population is mostly made up of Korean subs. Nice try though. Why is it so hard to agree that they want WoW's audience.

 Its a game using a dated game engine whose developer went under a month ago. True. The gamebryo developers went under not long ago. This is however an engine that quite a few popular games were made with, both single and MMOs. Some were better than others. Beta keys are there to see if your computer can handle the strain. On the other hand WoW's engine is not exactly brand new and I didn't see any drop in subscriptions due to that.

Everyone is ditching ship when it comes to Gamebryo. You really cannot defend it.  Abigale stated that the beta keys were for promotion and marketing. Nice try though.

Its a game in which the publishers are apparently putting more effort into marketing than developing. False, big time. There had been changes from beta event to beta event that other MMOs don't see between expansions. While the game may be considered by most people as nothing new, the developers however are hailed as the most responsive in the market. Remains to be seen of course if this will continue well beyond the launch of the game.

Examples of these changes? You mean like changing a few values here and there? Uh that happens in beta. Furthermore, every game has a live team. They are dedicated to that game. Usually once a game goes live, the other developers are put on other projects or ...fired. Since they work via salary or contract job, I doubt you can make the argument they are magically spending more money on the same people they already have employed. Fact is, if they put more money into development, better middleware would be used, possible outsourcing, better technology and game engines. More hires! No, their budget is obviously minimal and the publisher is clearly pumping tons of money into the marketing side. Most likely they hired a third party marketing firm to help bring brand awareness and demand.

So not false "big time".

Its a game that uses carbon copies of design choices that are not better designed or executed than the competition. True and false. The UI interface and certain choices that have been standardised over the years can be found here as well. Whatever worked in MMOs prior to Rift, you will probably find it here as well. And it's actually working for a change. Beyond the similarities however, one can spot the differences. If one bothers to look that is.

The differences?

The class system isnt a multiclss system you know that right? Smoke and mirrors, designers use it all the time when underdeveloping something. Rift is made up of 4 classes. Each class has multiple trees. WoW for example has 10 classes but only 3 skill trees per class. All the developers did at Trion was cut out the classes and divide the trees amongst 4 primary classes. The trees often overlap in their mode of play and skills, leaving a less than desirable contrast between tree combinations.

Rifts are mob spawners. Tabula Rasa has done this and quite well I might add. Mob spawners are even found in WoW. Each rift goes through spawn phase, those that leave the rift follow on way points. Again, even WoW used this.  What trion is doing is giving this illusion that its some magical dynamic system, when its just a series of spawn points which generate npcs which run on tracks and if they clash they fight, if not they keep going until the conditions are met. Players in a zone are checked by whats called in programming terms an update function which then gives a variable a value which then tells the rifts to spawn more frequently or less and probably tweaks the number of spawns. Again, been done before.

Perhaps you mean the crafting system..... sigh...

Look maybe its just because I know whats going on under the hood because its part of my skill sets, and thus the illusion is easily ruined, but on the other hand, I can see what is impressive and what is not. Rift is mostly a subaverage carbon copy of WoW with some smokes and mirrors thrown in to suggest some radical new innovative changes, when in fact...like the cake, its a lie. Clever but not clever enough.

It's linear. False. The quest part of the game is what you'd expect from pretty much every MMO currently out there. The rifts however spoil the linearity soup big time. Some people like it that rifts interfere with their standard PvE gameplay, others won't touch the game because of it.

... Woah. Rift defines linearity. Quests are linear, yes, even the progression of where you get them is linear. So...where are quest paths located? In zones! Zones are linear too, because within each zone is a leveling path with its quest hubs that lead to what? the next linear zone. You cant just go romping off to whatever zone you like because its full of what? Mobs that are beyond your level range. Why? Because its layed out in a linear fashion.  Each side is broken up into two ends of the map. Linear flow.

Rifts break the linearity? No they dont. They run down the same way point path every single time. Oh theres a rift in the corner of the map. What will it do? Oh run towards the road and then up into the town. EVERY SINGLE TIME. What its an elite mob, wonder where he will go...Oh yeah those darned way points again. Rifts lack the emotional response people want for any long period of time for anyone to care about them. I have yet to see or hear of a level 40 rift appearing outside of a level 40 zone. LINEARITY!

It's publisher over hyped the product. False. The only hype is the one generated by the beta testers. The marketing campaign is nothing compared to anything released recently. The only game that probably has a worse campaign is Earthrise.

One of the craziest most expensive booths seen at E3. Huge push on face book, twitter, and other social media websites. Thousands upon thousands of beta keys given away revealing they were not actually beta keys but lottery tickets. Tons of videos being pumped out pushing everything from WoW references to flying people in to do a video promoting Rift. How about the rediculous number of contests, banner adds, and entire fansite creation campaign?

So along with all of that and the many podcasts promising everything from AAA PREMIUM NEXT GEN gaming to truly random rift locations (which was proven false btw) to fictional tales of how the game will play out in a "truly amazing dynamic way" in which no one has ever seen before. I mean, cmon, the game is relying on hype and it has to in a way. No one knew who Trion was and Rift was pulled out of their back pocket with no established IP.

It already has a lot of people disgusted at it after playing beta. True. And I'm sure these people are really glad that they were given the choice to participate in the beta for free and make an informed decision about whether they liked the game or not.

Except for those who pre-ordered from Trion and were not allowed to cancel the preorder after seeing what it was like in Beta. Yes people are informed and know rift is not for them, its great, but then they see these other people faslely advertising the game, almost as if trying to trick people into purchasing it. So understandably dialog and debate follows.

It obviously has no chance in the eastern market and is only being targeted towards NA and Europe. True. I don't see it go against Tera or other similar games coming out from the east. Very few western developers managed to gain a foothold there though.

The irony is the only real innovation and next gen gaming seems to be coming from the East, which was originally the opposite. They are building upon the past generations, not under them.

It is not visually unique and its IP doesnt really stand out (which is important). Subjective. That's the opposite complain from what TERA is receiving, where the unique look is detrimental for some people. I want to ask a question at this point. If I show you a screenshot, can you or can't you tell whether it's from Rift? I believe the game has it's own unique style.

It is a generic fantasy title with no unique visual art direction and style. I am sorry but at this point, its closer to factual than subjective.  I dont think you are understanding what art direction and visual style means to new IPs competing with an oversaturated market.

 Its a high fantasy game (way too many of those). True. On the other hand, the majority of non fantasy games have suffered over the years. There is obviously a bigger market for fantasy games than anything else combined.

Bigger market, also more saturated and just as easy to fail.

Its "hook features" have been done before and done better and even those games went under (tabula rasa). Subjective. Lets say it's true. You have a feature done best in one game, another done in another and so on. Would you play 4-5 games so as to play with all the best features or just play one game that combines them? What's the better game, the one that has one feature that is top of its genre, or one that the overall sum of its parts is not the very best, but the overall experience is better?

Rift doesnt combine them all and very well though. The point is that Rift is a sub average game. A combination of the mediocre doesnt change the fact its mediocre. Mix mediocre and under designed features, which are less in number than the main competition, a linear flow and small underwhelming world (which was clearly scaled smaller than it should have been) and you have a very under average product which is relying on a few "gimmicky" hooks to sell it. The hooks cannot carry the game in my opinion.

The size and scope of the world is smaller than most of the competition. Subjective. What's the competition? WoW. Certainly smaller. WAR? Certainly it doesn't feel empty like that game. The size and scope, as WoW has illustrated so far, is measured in the span of time. This game has a solid foundation on which the developers can build. Whether they will do it or not is something that remains to be seen.

No, its actually not subjective. A city is a few huts and a handful of npcs. A quest hub is a house thats so small and ilproportioned that one couldnt even open the door without hitting the opposite wall, there would be no room for a staircase for that second story that clearly is the size of a mount. Everything is tiny and scaled down. Competition? Every theme park game since WoW and including WoW. Even WAR did better with the size and scope of the design. Environment art and conceptual design, the world is underwhelmingly small. They even make an obvious attempt to slow travel by littering the landscape with enemies every few steps. Poor design choice, lazy and weak.

Satisfied?

Are you?

In Blue!

The_Korrigan

Pretending that saying that the game world is small is "subjective" is quite hillarious, since it's an easily quantifiable quantity, by simply running through the areas in game and comparing it to other games.

It's a bit like pretending a 5 meter long piece of string is 10 meter long... it's nonsense. Facts are facts, they aren't "subjective" or opinions.

After that, you indeed make up your subjective opinion based on the facts. You can e.g. say that the small world is still good enough for you. But you can't pretend a small world is big - that's not opinion, that's nonsense.

Rockgod99

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Pretending that saying that the game world is small is "subjective" is quite hillarious, since it's an easily quantifiable quantity, by simply running through the areas in game and comparing it to other games.
It's a bit like pretending a 5 meter long piece of string is 10 meter long... it's nonsense. Facts are facts, they aren't "subjective" or opinions.
After that, you indeed make up your subjective opinion based on the facts. You can e.g. say that the small world is still good enough for you. But you can't pretend a small world is big - that's not opinion, that's nonsense.

 

Rifts world is not small. I've been playing mmos for a while and the size of freemarch alone annoyed me. It took forever to run from one side to the other. Sure it's not vanguard or Darkfall size but damn dude if someone like me is actually getting pissed that it's taking too long to get anywhere the world is anything but small. Also these guys are right with the whole subjective thing. If someone considers darkfalls map average size then I guess rift is small, but if they consider Wow average rift is large. I van take any three wow zones and fit it into freemarch alone... It's crazy.

BadSpock

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Pretending that saying that the game world is small is "subjective" is quite hillarious, since it's an easily quantifiable quantity, by simply running through the areas in game and comparing it to other games.

It's a bit like pretending a 5 meter long piece of string is 10 meter long... it's nonsense. Facts are facts, they aren't "subjective" or opinions.

After that, you indeed make up your subjective opinion based on the facts. You can e.g. say that the small world is still good enough for you. But you can't pretend a small world is big - that's not opinion, that's nonsense.

SWG had some of the largest worlds/zones in any game... and they had a lot of them at release.

But they were all empty and contained vast amounts of open-nothingness.

Size isn't everything.

WoW has some pretty small zones but they are jam packed with content, almost too much so I'd say that there is no exploration or open-space to make a world feel like an actual place, not a ride. WAR suffered from this greatly as well with their story Chapters. 

I have no idea how open and expansive the 20+ zones in Rift are. I have not been in them. I will go today and find out for you. But Freemarch, the sub-20 Defiant zone is quite large and expansive. At least it feels that way to me. From what others in Beta have told me, the game opens up even more post level 20. Which is why Trion allows you to buy mounts starting at level 20.

In WoW, you could originally get mounts at level 40, but the 40+ zones weren't any bigger or smaller then the sub 40 zones. It was just a convenience/laziness thing, not a practical need. 

In most MMOs, once you out level an area you generally don't go back often unless you are rolling an alt or helping a friend. 

So that theory would lend itself to the design that you'd want to make the end-game zones as big and expansive as possible since players will end up spending most of their time in them. 

Trion appears to be doing this. 

Xasapis

Time to leave work and return home. Soon enough the beta will start. You can keep arguing over semantics, or you can play the game (this game, or any other game). If you don't like the game, fine. We're individuals with our own likes and dislikes. 

But proclaiming the game will be a failure before it actually launches and we see some actually subscription numbers and later on some retention numbers, is just dump.

The game will do just fine, if the betas are any indication of it. There is a bigger possibility that it will be crashed by SW:TOR, Tera or GW2, than it'll die from its own shortcomings. Because, simply put, Trion made few things wrong. What remains to be seen is whether they will continue to make things right well beyond launch and the first 3 months of subscriptions.

 

And on a last note for tonight (and possibly all the weekend). How long is the retention rate of WoW? 3 months? 6 months? The population of people that have at one time played wow and left is multiple times bigger than the current subscription base for certain.

hanshotfirst

Originally posted by fhjais

In this most recent beta 5, I played extensively trying to go through as many different aspects as possible. After all those hours, I've realized this: RIFT tries so hard to be WoW and tries to capitalize on its few mistakes. Even things that seem illogically placed, or seem to bear no function, or just seem to not work are undoubtedly there because WoW had it. Consider:





Tangible/irrefutable/undeniable FACTS:



- RIFT's user interface is a twin/siamese brother (/or even a conjoined fetus) of World of Warcrafts UI. Floating numbers, group window, target's target windows, casting bars, health/mana/energy bars, bar colors, character portraits, maps, minimaps, loot boxes, loot icons, mouse over icons, icon placement, text color, text font, font size, etc etc. I've mentioned this to other players and the response is usually "WoW did not invent these things." My rebuttal is please point to a game pre exisiting WoW that has a UI as similar.



- Various mechanics are identical to WoW. Rogues use a 100 point energy system. The regen rate might be exactly identical to that of WoWs, idk. A combo point system is also in place (with those little shiny bubbles building up, looking exactly the same, ho ho!)



- There is global cooldown system (What reasonable argument is there to have this in place, other than WoW has it? What reason is there when there already exists weapon speed and casting speed?)



- There is renown / honor (though named differently, to exercise originality!), and you can buy gear with this form of currency.



- Warfronts, ala battlegrounds with leaderboards...

 

You're not simply naive but outright ignorant if you think Blizzard innovated all those features.

But that's neither here nor there. You're right, much (if not most) of Rift is derivative of just about every traditional MMO that preceded it (including WoW). That's in no small part why I'd rather play DCUO.

Regardless, Rift *is* a highly polished, well-designed game. And the developers/community reps at Trion are some of the nicest, most responsive and player-friendly guys/gals I've ever seen. Though it might not be my cup of tea, I can honestly say I'd recommend this title to anyone looking for great, AAA, themepark-style entertainment. If you're not obsessed with sandboxes or burned out on MMOs in general (like me) there's simply too much here to like.

DataDay

Originally posted by Rockgod99

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Pretending that saying that the game world is small is "subjective" is quite hillarious, since it's an easily quantifiable quantity, by simply running through the areas in game and comparing it to other games.

It's a bit like pretending a 5 meter long piece of string is 10 meter long... it's nonsense. Facts are facts, they aren't "subjective" or opinions.

After that, you indeed make up your subjective opinion based on the facts. You can e.g. say that the small world is still good enough for you. But you can't pretend a small world is big - that's not opinion, that's nonsense.

 

Rifts world is not small. I've been playing mmos for a while and the size of freemarch alone annoyed me. It took forever to run from one side to the other. Sure it's not vanguard or Darkfall size but damn dude if someone like me is actually getting pissed that it's taking too long to get anywhere the world is anything but small. Also these guys are right with the whole subjective thing. If someone considers darkfalls map average size then I guess rift is small, but if they consider Wow average rift is large. I van take any three wow zones and fit it into freemarch alone... It's crazy.

 

...  Freemarch

 

You are calling this tiny zone which makes up a good 20% of your entire leveling process... BIG? My goodness man, it takes a minute just to get from the bridge to Meridian if you avoid the mobs. Get a mount and its even quicker. The reason you think it feels so slow to travel is because they intentionally covered every walking space with mobs that will attack you on sight. This is a strategy to slow character progression, it helps cover up how small it is.

 

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