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A WoW Players Guide to Rift
Char Creation:
Better than WoW, you can make a pretty unique looking toon.
Interface:
Can be configured to your liking, currently no Add-on support, or skinning support but it works really well and is really very customizable. Only thing I missed was a dps meter but there is a DPS/Healing Parser available, may turn out to be a blessing to be able to see the stats AFTER the fight ^^ Add on Support will be added but the devs want to make a decent API.
Races:
6 Total 3 per Faction, no Race/Class restrictions, some races have some very cool racials, like the High Elves who can spawn little angel wings and fly-charge to a location you click. Races are not as easily recognizable as WoW's
Classes/Calling:
4, yes 4. Before you go OMG fail remeber that each calling will have 10 souls.
Warrior, Cleric. Rogue, Mage
Char Customization and Spec / Souls
Souls in Rift are... awsome, you can damn near tailor make a char. I was playing a mage and ended up healing a instance with 2 direct heals, a AOE heal and abilities that convert dmg-healing. Some fit better together than others and when raiding starts im sure there will be some cookie cuting but it is very novel and I love it. Downside is that because of the amount of combinations a lot of Noobs are going to make you pull your hair out when you see their spec :P
WoW has duel Spec, Rift has 4 Specs you can save and easily switch too called "roles"
Graphics:
Not as optimized as WoW, but a lot of times I stopped questing just to look around, very nicely done.
Combat:
Better than WAR/AOC not as flowing as WoW's yet.
Dungeons:
5 Player standard setup 1T 1H 3Dps, dungeons are BIG, and have some very cool mechanics.
Edit (Added) As stated by Jimmydean a extra support class will be very valuable in 5 mans.
PVP:
Warfronts = Battlegrounds
You get a boost if your low level to make you competitive
You gain XP, get Items and gold from PVPIng
Not sure if there is Arena yet
There are PVP items and Specs
Resilience is basicly just renamed to Valor
There is open PVP and when you add Rifts into the mix it can get pretty crazy
Crafting:
Enchanting is Runecrafting
You can Skin/Herb/Mine etc
You can customize items a bit by adding stats too it
Potions, Armour, Weapons all there
You can destroy your items to get some mats back (Thank the Lord)
You can have 3 Prof and everyone can collect artifacts
There is a AH, Bank etc.
Endgame:
There is 5,10 and 20 player content, Tier Raids are 20 man only atm.
I am not sure of the exact count but there is a large amount of endgame content good to go.
Rifts:
From tiny little rifts too full on invasions they keep you on your toes, and are a ton of fun. Will they still be fun in 4 months ? Dont know. But if they continue to grow in complexity as they have then they very well could be, compared to WAR public quests a lot but much better.
Edit (Added) Achievements:
For all the Achievement whores there are lots achievements, including some for messing up in dungeons
Edit (Added) Artifacts:
If you play EQ2 this will be very familiar, you collect them from mobs, pick them up off the ground, and get them from Rifts. Once you complete a set you hand them in and get a bag with some random pots, coin etc. and a Lucky Coin.
Lucky Coins can be exchanged at a merchant for some cool fluff items like pets.
Personal:
Rift is like WoW and it is not, hard to explain, but it is refreshing, and it is diffrent no matter how many WoW-Clone
Jabs its going to eat. WoW has a good interface, shocking I know so to copy it is no diffrent than a FPS using 1,2,3,4 etc to choose a weapon, it aint broke so why fix it ?
Am I going to quit WoW, leave my Guild Leaderless and forget about my 85 Lock that is 1 Wand away from Full Epic ?
No,
but I am playing Rift for Sure, 3 Nights Raiding in WoW, 3 in Rift and 1 Day to couch potato playing Xbox and watching crap I downloaded. Yes I am a nerd, no I'm not ashamed and no I am not unemployed, I do have a job and work 42 hours+ a week.
Sorry for the WOT and the endless spelling mistakes, act I take that back, I will spell any way I want, deal with it :P
Comments
A correction, each calling has 9 souls in total. 8 of them are obtainable via PvE and 1 via PvP.
The character creator is nothing to get excited about.
The damage meter is not part of the default WoW interface.
There are no arenas (and hopefully will not be added). However, the game promotes open world PvP.
The 10man instances were cancelled.
Regarding crafting, the majority of crafting professions will need two gathering ones.
One thing you missed is that the group setup in Rift will be a bit different than the 1Tank + 1Healer + 3DPS that you stated. At the higher level dungeons, the setup will require some sort of support class too, so it will be 1Tank + 1Healer + 1 Support + 2 DPS. This gives us support players a for sure spot in groups, as Trion has already stated some instances will be near impossible to do without a support player.
Luckily it will still be incredibly easy to create groups, because of the flexibility in the soul system and people having multiple roles.
A fixated WoW player will probably have an aunerism in a group where one rogue tanks, the other sings/supports, the cleric with the warrior does damage and the mage heals.
Well, right now and during launch the souls available will be 9. Nothing of course prevents Trion from adding more.
Arenas mean balancing with 2v2 or so combinations in mind. With so many soul combinations such a small scale balancing will probably be hard.
If I'm not mistaken, with 4 alts (all callings) you can basically cover every profession in the game.
As for the addons, that's what you should have probably mention. Ie, that one game supports them, while the other does not for now. Rift doesn't support skinning either. On the other hand, Rift's UI element position has build in position customisation.
Edit: Also, since you mentioned achievements, you may want to mention artifacts collection.
It is clear that you didn't read the stickied thread located here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/306250/READ-The-Rift-World-of-Warcraft-Comparison-Thread.html
Please keep these sorts of posts to that thread. Locking this.
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