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Massively's 'This is not WoWHammer' article
MMO.Maverick
Member CommonPosts: 7,619
Massively posted an interesting article about the topic that keeps emerging in discussions about Rift features, namely how much they have in common with former themepark MMO's to the point that it feels - to some - like a copy, and others disagreeing strongly with it, and so on.
Here's some pieces of the article where they discuss such comparisons:
'If you've participated in RIFT's beta events at all, you're probably wishing you had a nickel for every time you heard a player claim that RIFT is just like World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online -- WAR because of the comparison of rifts to public quests, and WoW mainly because it's the gold standard of MMOs today. But while RIFT does have several familiar features, it manages in several ways to set itself apart from the pack.'
'These aren't your grandmother's public quests.
In the low-level areas, you'll often hear players compare rift invasions to Warhammer Online's system of public quests. Interestingly enough, you don't hear that comparison made at the higher levels, because players realize that rifts are a totally different breed of content. The map is seeded with so many invasion points that it's impossible to know when or where they will show up. You don't see players milling around in one spot waiting for a ring event to reset, because rifts are much more fluid. They're also much more varied than public quests. A rift invasion can start out as a simple minor event, and depending on how well players are doing, it can suddenly increase in difficulty, with bonus objectives and stronger groups of invaders that slip through and charge up the road to a nearby town or hub. And now you really have your hands full because, unlike in other MMOs, you're forced to choose whether to forego the unsafe roads for the even more treacherous overland areas.'
'This is not just another "quest on rails" game.
During beta one, this statement would probably be true, but over time, Trion has made questing a completely independent path to leveling. You can level up, gear up, attain additional souls, and progress through the world without having to bounce from quest hub to quest hub doing menial tasks. In RIFT, there is more than one road to take. Yes, you can quest, but you can also level by running rifts or grouping up for dungeons. And as my guildmate Raislek has discovered, it even pays to explore. As he was crossing Scarlet Gorge, he came across a puzzle in a hard-to-find location, and when he completed it, he got a very nice piece of gear. As it turns out, there are secret puzzles and treasure stashes hidden throughout the world of Telara, stashes that can award players some great level-appropriate upgrades.'
For the full article, read here.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
Dungeons and Public Quests, as well as PvP scenarios, was also another means of leveling in games such as WAR, WoW etc. So I am not seeing how different Rift is in that regard.
Rifts are different yes but from what I understand they are just gimmicks. They cannot actually alter the world, they spawn and then depending on the people around it, grow in size but eventually, either by players or other AI mobs, they close.
The world, and I use that term losely, in itself is not threatened by these Rifts as the hype would have you believe. At the very most what could happen is that they temporarily shut down some quest hubs.
So this game IS a WoW/WAR clone with some slight differences and additions. I would say this game is WAR version 2.
My gaming blog
I like the article and agree with it. I think some people may have logged into this game and didn't even bother to get out of the starter area or lvl 10 + and assume the rest of the game will be like this, but not true. Just like the reviewer has stated in this article rift is a whole different breed when it comes to invasions, Rifts popping up out of nowhere, and soul system. These things really do set it apart, and if you are saying otherwise you clearly did not get out of the starter area on to freemarch, or you are just trying to discredit this game for what it is and offers. That's just my opinion.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
I'm not sure that's exactly true.
It is feasible that an invasion (unless the devs change this which I hope they do not) can march right up to a city area or outpost and essentially take it over.
In which case, unless the players can drive them out that area is "held".
I've also seen rifts spawn invasions which then take off from the rift area and make a foothold thus taking over another area.
I mean, it's not doing a Cataclysm where it rewrites the world but it does force players to take action.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This is true. The area IS held until players take it back. The monsters don't despawn. They'll stay there until ousted out. Also, in WAR you couldn't just level off of PQ's (@Yamota). You'd be horribly undergeared and it wasn't that great of XP. Plus, they were the exact same thing over and over, in the exact same location.
I'll leave this "boring" Rift picture here at the end of Beta 3:
He who keeps his cool best wins.
By the reasoning of too many, any MMORPG would fit the criteria of "WoW Clone" and any future game that was different enough to not fit the label, probably would no longer be an MMORPG!
It's just such a completely empty way to try to disparage a title.
Is it possible to have an MMORPG where “WoW clone” would actually be an appropriate label? Sure. A game could duplicate the art style, world design, classes, races, armors, weapons and game systems to the degree that it could almost pass as an expansion for WoW if you were playing it.
I think there have been a couple poor attempts at doing just that, but the label is just silly when applied to most other MMORPGs and most definitely does not apply to Rift!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I can't remember the last thign Massively posted that I actually agreed on.
The nature of their organisation makes it too easy for the shills to have a voice.
Didn't like the article myself. I felt that it tried too hard to defend Rift, rather than focus on specifics why the author didn't feel that Rift wasn't WoWHammer. Detail goes a long way in stating your case and many on these forums and others have done better in explaining that.
Article seems more like one fan's viewpoint and doesn't contain much of the information that I've seen other folks post here on the forums. I suppose the actual truth lies somewhere in the middle.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I would say the truth lies with the person behind the keyboard that has played the game (albeit in beta atm). If you are entertained then play on, if not switch the channel.
Given the absurdly lose criteria people are using to apply the "clone" title, specifics wouldn't matter. Any MMORPG would still meet the criteria, no matter how different they looked, felt and played; if they still met the conditions of being an MMORPG, some people would use the term.
The truth is, if duplicating the basics of an MMORPG made a successful game, every MMORPG would be as successful as WoW. You also can't say that the reason no MMO is as big as WoW, is because they are too much like WoW. A true WoW clone, with the same level of content and polish that duplicated almost every element, while giving players a new world and fresh start, would probably be a huge hit. games have borrowed from other MMORPGs, including WoW, but if someone had duplicated WoW, it would be almost as successful as WoW.
Fun, depth, look, feel; quality and quantity of content; time = reward. These are important. How much like/unlike WoW a title is doesn't matter one iota, it's what the game delivers, not how it does it.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
The article is downright silly.
Doing other things than questing to gain exp and levels, isn't unique to Rift - most games have those options. And the puzzles? Afaik, there's a single one in most zones. I did that one in the keep in the middle of Silverwood. An annoying teleport-labyrint thingy, with short loadscreens every time you select a direction. And the reward? A blue lvl 20 item, of lower quality compared to what i already had. Btw, these won't stay secret/hidden - players will look them up on web sites and do them, since they're part of an achievement. I found this out simply by browsing the achievement list in-game.
And the rifts? They are far from "much more varied than public quests", actually they are all just about the same, meaning LESS varied. Size/difficulty varies, that's true, but there's not much more to it.
Well stated.
Rift plays exactly like Warhammer and WoW.
UI, Global cooldown, Quests, Abilities, Soul System - WoW specs, Warhammer publ quests - Rifts, same professions as WoW, similar death penalty as WoW, ghost run to corpse, no pulling classes, similar dungeons, similar icons for abilities even.
Lying is not going to help Rift, bad site and bad writer who tries to deceive players. Maybe Trion employee? I wonder.
In my mind, Rift has taken many of the good things that worked and are fun from other MMO's and made them a tad better. While I really like the soul system and this is kind of a new spin on "talent trees", many of the features that are in Rift aren't exactly "new". Invasions/rifts function very similarly to WAR's public quest system, but to me there are no way near as boring as many of the pq's in WAR. One of the most glaring similarities to me is the collections. They are almost an exact carbon copy of EQ2's system. They even look the same on the ground. Now, I am not some guy who leveled to 10 and said "omg this is a clone". I have played Betas 3,4,5 (did not bother with 6, waiting for release) and I have a level 30 cleric and a level 22 necromancer and a 22 assasin. I have done the dungeons as well. No matter what anyone says to me, the game is pretty linear in my eyes, there is no open-ended play. Sure you at least have options in how you want to level, but I have always been heavily into sandbox games, so when I play Rift, it just feels like I am on a rail.
With that said, I will still probably be playing the game at release. If I get bored in three months and never return to the game, no big deal, three months of entertainment is worth it to me.
Funny, ive played in 3 betas and WoWHammer is EXACTLY what this game is. There actually isnt a better and easier description to explain the game imho.
LOL, that's cute.
Doesnt matter if it doesnt look like MMORPG ,doesnt matter if it doesnt feel like MMORPG ,doesnt matter if you cant play like MMORPG,if they still met the conditions of being an MMORPG,which are ?
Generation P
thanks
What the heck are you talking about?
You are saying that no game that has things in common with WoW is worth playing, just because of that commonality. Hate to break it to you, but all MMORPGs have more in common with WoW than they don't. Why are you even here, on an MMO site, if you hate MMOs for being MMOs?
Good luck finding an MMO that can't be just as easily dismissed with your "logic".
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I don't know why people get upset. It plays like WOW and the concept of rifts is from the public quests from Warhammer. Many warhammer developers are working for Rift.
If you can't see how much alike it is to WoW then great too, I don't think it's important for the fans. But if you want something different than WoW, maybe Rift isn't the game for you you know.
Why she makes an article going against everyone who said it was a clone, is weird. Why would she try to do this unless she being paid, weird, that's all.
And where did bastionix say such games wasn't worth playing? Keep to the facts, not selfmade fiction.
When you click on the name of the author in that article (or go here) you'll see the list of articles that she has written, which is quite an extensive one regarding a diversity of topics.
While I don't agree with everything she writes, accusing someone of being a shill or Trion employee just because people disagree with her viewpoint goes too far. Come on people, let's be reasonable in our discussions, shall we? We can (or should be able to) just recognize and talk about viewpoints we don't agree with without resorting to belittling others just because we don't like their viewpoint, now, can we?
There'll always be similarities and differences between MMORPG's, some people just tend to see/focus on the resemblances while others tend to see/focus on the differences.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Rift is similar in many respects to WoW and War.
There is one key element that is vastly different in my mind between Rift and it's predecessors:
The feeling that you, as a player, actually have an impact on the game world.
As similar as much of the gameplay may pan out, I felt far more immersed in rift than I have in 6 years of WoW. Simply put, WoW and War are mostly static content. Rift pulls ahead by actually giving players the ability to defend the breadth of the gameworld from invasions, where if they fail, the invaders set up footholds and take over quest hubs and even towns, and they don't leave until you make them leave.
I especially liked this from the article (section that talks about WoW and it not being the driving force behind decisions): "a go-cart and a Lamborghini might both have four wheels and a steering wheel, but they offer two completely different driving experiences." LOL. Yeah, right.
If I had not gotten the opportunity to beta test Rift for such a long time, I might have considered dropping the cash in March to pick this one up after reading that article. What a load!
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
You are overreacting. Speculating isn't accusing. And I agree with bastionix, it sure could look like there was a hidden agenda there.