finally lots of ppl admited that questing in Rift is not fun at all (why you guys waited until William Murphy posted the article to admit its true?)... After seeing how generic (yet boring) was the questing since beta 1... i smelled this article was coming some day to this forum
finally lots of ppl admited that questing in Rift is not fun at all (why you guys waited until William Murphy posted the article to admit its true?)... After seeing how generic (yet boring) was the questing since beta 1... i smelled this article was coming some day to this forum
IF questing is not fun in a polished triple AAA mmorpg , with a dynamic world events .
What does that say for the rest of the older MMO , like wow , or soon to be released GW2 (which does have minor choices thank god) , TERA ...
We all know that those contains standard FED-EX questing too , is there a cheap way to change that .
Even wow cataclysme rebuild 1-60 wasn´t fun after 2nd play trough .
So in general , what are we missing in this generation , and don´t forget not everybody can afford the price SWTOR does with VO and story choices .
Rift really isn't a PvP game. Its going to be a nightmre trying to "balance" the soul system. They run a serious risk of coming down with a bad case of Ghostcrawler syndrome. ^^ In other words, they may end up focusing so much on their spread sheets and data mining, that they forget whats FUN about a given class. Its NOT fun to have your class endlessly "balanced" because people have been howling and whining on the forums. Either make PvP a separate game, with its own skills, or leave it out entirely.
They pretty much already said they're not even gonna bother trying to balance for pvp. Technically, the only true way to balance is to homogenize, homogenize, homogenize.
The only point with any real foundation is pvp balance isn't great yet because the soul system is so customisable it's hard to balance what different people know how to build and play. The rest of the points are as true or significantly more true of nearly all other MMO's, making this not a critique of Rift but a critique of pretty much ALL MMO's. {mod edit}
I appreciate all the thought going into these posts but the bottom line here is that making questing so interesting that it ISN'T a downside has really yet to happen aside from hybrid MMOFPSs such as Global Agenda. Crafting (In the games I have played: WoW, EVE, Vanguard, Lineage I and II, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Maplestory, Runescape, DC Universe, City of Heroes/Villians/Rogue, Age of Conan, GhostX, Shadowbane, Ace Online, Uncharted Waters, EQ 1/2, WAR and of course RIFT) with the exception of EVE has been stupid item grinding until you DO hit the level cap for your profession. However, I am leveling a character on RIFT (2nd one) while going weaponsmith and armorsmith; it might just because I take my time to soak in the zone but I find myself actually using some of the things I craft from time to time. Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect with crafting but most games can't say much different.
This is for you veterans out there: I have been slaving over an epic quest chain that has tested my very limits of patience and submission to this game. It's just one insane objective after another and it really is EPIC. Some of you might remember the quests leading up to Thunderfury in WoW or Atiesh's staff... During that time (before burning crusade) the game had things in it that were only in reach of those who were insane enough to try, but these days everything is in reach; pugging the lich king, really? Where is the real sense of achievement? The sort of achievement that shows dedication not obsession - I can strut around in my full BiS [Best in slot] set all I want but sure enough I see several other people doing the same damn thing and it really kills my sense of accomplishment.
I'm ranting and raving - yes; I promise there is a point to all this though... I am more of a PvP person than PvE. I still enjoy PvE very much but when it gets down to the nitty gritty I just prefer being able to test my metal against someone else who hasn't been programmed. All the games I have ever played that include PvP suffer from some sort of imbalance. Having said that is it really fair to smack a game down all that hard when it's doing the best it can? We wanted customization and RIFT freaking delievered it! But then reality began to sink in and the imbalance became more obvious as a concequence of that customization (as the OP said).
T.L.D.R - Questing is hard to make interesting: get over it. Crafting has grinding and probably always will have that factor: live with it. PvP will remain imbalanced in any game that has PvP: try to understand that above all else.
Wow (no pun intended) I'm sure Activision Blizzard likes to see this on the front page of mmorpg.com I only played Rift in the beta, so I don't have a whole lot to say about it. But what I will say is that it seems like the reviewer doesn't like MMORPG's.. at least the "classic" version of them. (Maybe he likes something like DCU haha...) And sure, I hate the stale, stagnant, grindy feel of some MMO's too. But it's like cool.. all of the things he pointed out wrong with Rift could apply to WOW; although, I certainly understand the article was about Rift; not World of Warcraft. And he said he doesn't like the themepark aspect of a themepark MMO ir "lifeless" questing that is a part of any MMO. Great... Such a good article...
well hate to break it to you... to a lot of you who keep bringing up WOW as if it were the ONLY MMO out before Rift. It wasnt. Oh and not ALL games were like WOW. Sorry to say WOW made theme park play famous. They didnt invent it. EQ was the inventor. Turbine even though they went against their staple strength in MMOs.. ie. Asherons Call series. they made TREMENDOUS PVE CONTENT that were great PVE quests and they were NOT like WOWs theme park questing system.
I have said it from the start and why like one of the posters above... [kicking my feet up] why i didnt buy this game because i beta'd it and knew its potential problems despite its "NEW FEEL" and funness. I knew all that would die out and others would see the light of day of problems i foresee with this game.
you will always have the fanboy who will disagree. No problem. You love the game we get it. But it doesnt change the fact about the games problems. {mod edit}
its why there is a saying... "LOVE IS BLIND" which states true for LOTS fo things. A love for a game can make a person blind to the true problems. warhammer is perfect example of it. The developers of that game loved their game so much they killed their population fast by not making changes that were desperately needed for over a year. then when they made the changes it was little too late.
not saying rift and trion will be the same. it will be good for them if they arent. But take it as it is. Theme park games no matter how many love these style of MMOs will always face problems with END GAME. they need the carrot on the stick. to drag you around keep you paying. constant "expansions" and pulling out the pocketbook full of cash. Its the WOW model that most modern MMOs have now taken.
its however the model Rift has taken up. while it may differ in gameplay from WOW but they are definitely in the same direction of WOWs business model. or shall i say Blizzards business model.
either way, im not knocking rift. its a fun game. no doubt. but again. Like me and a few others who have beta'd this game. WE foresaw some problems and are now starting to see them as more and more players have reached 50.
I appreciate all the thought going into these posts but the bottom line here is that making questing so interesting that it ISN'T a downside has really yet to happen aside from hybrid MMOFPSs such as Global Agenda. Crafting (In the games I have played: WoW, EVE, Vanguard, Lineage I and II, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Maplestory, Runescape, DC Universe, City of Heroes/Villians/Rogue, Age of Conan, GhostX, Shadowbane, Ace Online, Uncharted Waters, EQ 1/2, WAR and of course RIFT) with the exception of EVE has been stupid item grinding until you DO hit the level cap for your profession. However, I am leveling a character on RIFT (2nd one) while going weaponsmith and armorsmith; it might just because I take my time to soak in the zone but I find myself actually using some of the things I craft from time to time. Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect with crafting but most games can't say much different.
This is for you veterans out there: I have been slaving over an epic quest chain that has tested my very limits of patience and submission to this game. It's just one insane objective after another and it really is EPIC. Some of you might remember the quests leading up to Thunderfury in WoW or Atiesh's staff... During that time (before burning crusade) the game had things in it that were only in reach of those who were insane enough to try, but these days everything is in reach; pugging the lich king, really? Where is the real sense of achievement? The sort of achievement that shows dedication not obsession - I can strut around in my full BiS [Best in slot] set all I want but sure enough I see several other people doing the same damn thing and it really kills my sense of accomplishment.
I'm ranting and raving - yes; I promise there is a point to all this though... I am more of a PvP person than PvE. I still enjoy PvE very much but when it gets down to the nitty gritty I just prefer being able to test my metal against someone else who hasn't been programmed. All the games I have ever played that include PvP suffer from some sort of imbalance. Having said that is it really fair to smack a game down all that hard when it's doing the best it can? We wanted customization and RIFT freaking delievered it! But then reality began to sink in and the imbalance became more obvious as a concequence of that customization (as the OP said).
T.L.D.R - Questing is hard to make interesting: get over it. Crafting has grinding and probably always will have that factor: live with it. PvP will remain imbalanced in any game that has PvP: try to understand that above all else.
Having gotten that out of my system.. Cheers,
Rassy
umm shadowbane didnt have any quests.. it was a pure and simple grind your guy to top level by killing mobs and then PVP. thats it. and all those games you mentioned pretty much were all released after WOW. you mentioned NONE before WOW. So again... there were MMOs before WOW. you should be more enlightened.
The lifeless crafting is true. Why copying the stupid mindless wow system, when the EQ2 or VG systems are so great?
I agree, EQ2, VG and LOTRO all have much better crafting system and Rift should have copied those instead of the crap WoW system.
Save me some research please =D.
How does crafting get better than Rift/WoW? I'm not at all saying it's good in these games--all the goods get d/e'd or thrown away up until current expansion crafting.
So what can be done better? FFXI's crafting was very different but far far worse. Far far worse. You had a reasonable chance of failing at a synthesis and losing some/all of the materials especially (and I'm not kidding) if you did it on the wrong game day/facing the wrong direction. It did have the neat thing where occasionally an item would be HQ, "+1" and if it was an endgame item, it would sell for disgusting amounts.
It would certainly help if people would be more specific about what they like. Do they like way materials are collected? Do they enjoy the process of crafting? Do they enjoy the items they can make? Do they enjoy the social aspects the crafting system facilitates?
I for one cannot stand the current incarnation of EQ2 crafting system because if the process of crafting. The process was okay to me when you could die when messing up the wack-a-mole (random event icons show up during crafting and proper response skill must be hit) mini-game and having a party was helpful for heals and buffs.
Ahh refreshing, someone after my own heart in the desire for consequences. I think if I "plunk" the word Consequences down enough someone will see it and look it up in the dictionary.
Consequences? Please....EQ2's system is overly complicated when you start...then...it gets routine as you figure out the 3 buttons you need to spam......repeatedly. To give it credit, EQ2 does have some useful and fun crafting paths. WoW's system? Gimme a break....have been playing it since vanilla Open Beta....and..well...while it's an "easy" system....it's basically useless. You can make very few useful items (imho), and what you can make barely keeps up with your level. I like in Rift that you can actually make all the items you need and learn more items that you can use as you level up. Yes...the items you can get from instances/questing are better (usually, and yes I agree they should be), but it's nice to have a system that let's you make useful, relevant items. Oh yeah...back to consequences....why do you need "consequences" if you fail to make an item? There are enough consequences out there while questing.
Trying to balance for pvp in the first place is whats wrong not lack of balance.
For crafting, there are too many equipment streams (dungeons, pvp, questing, various grinds). They wanted lots of options and useless crafting is a consequence. A better example than VG and EQ2 would be a game like fallen earth where crafting is more essential. I am pretty sure people who say VG crafting was good are saying that from a theoretical point and haven't grinded hours and hours of work orders till they went postal.
Lack of levelling paths was a good point but saying quests and soloing are bleh is kind of ubiquitous.
Think its funny "The 5 things Rift does Right" article is posted with just a pick to barely grab anyones attention, but the 5 things they did wrong is titled it gigantic white cap. letters
OP says stale solo play in comparison to group play and I say that is a good thing. Playing as a group SHOULD be what players rather do in an MMO after all.
That's your opinion.
My opinion is that players should do what they want (solo play or not), when they want.
Oh yeah, well my opinion is that everyone shouldn't want to play alone as it defeats the purpose. Give up now!?
Only thing to do now is wait and see if Trion hears articles and ideas like this to make Rift a more well rounded experiance. Dynamic questing as well as the rifts and invasions would be fantastic.
Gotta go with 9ineven on this one. They pay, should play the way they want (imho of course....my views do not reflect the opion of anybody else....yeah...disclaimer complete)
Hard to disagree on those 5 things other then nit picking pvp balance .
PvP balance is a ongoing debate , it doesn´t matter if it simplified like Blizzard is doing and they gotten 6 years time to balance it .
Basically what one consider PvP balance another consider no fun .
This is the basic argument that plague PvP balance , Now I have seen only one type of real balance that is all level 1 and just smack it out , even then somebody would complain .
why does mine take 2 hit to kill somebody , and the rest kills with 1 hit .
I do not know how in this age people will balance out PvP , simply put by nerfing and buffing it always seem to backfire , maybe by saying ok what is considered balanced class in PvP .
Then raising all classes to be within that balance , and nerfing all classes to that balance.
But many gamers will cry foul and murder either way , too much nerd rage , but then all cry foul and murder if other classes are OP .
One of the main reasons , I really do not particepate in PvP anymore .
The obscene task that is "balancing" classes is why I've come to appreciate games without PVP. Or FFXI for instance, if you PVP'd, you accepted that some classes were stupid OP. A black mage could one shot you if they caught you defenseless, and whether they were subbing /whm, /rdm, /sch or even /nin, they had the spells (Sneak and Invisible) to sneak up on you.
I know a lot of people like PVP and play the game for that reason and that's awesome but it gets so tiring to see the raging of PVP'ers because companies promise things they just can't figure out how to back up.
Even if it came from the same minds, I'd really much pvp and PVE in separate games so everyone got what they wanted
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Quest grind: Well, I enjoy questing so this wasn't much of an issue from my point of view. I suppose that they could have kept the number of quests smaller and have them create a bigger story like impact. Regardless, for me it's a minor issue, since all MMOs up to this point are pretty much designed this way. It could be worse I suppose. It could be Cataclysm style (aka you don't have access to the zone proper until you finish the gigantic one linear style quest chain).
Solo play: I again don't see the issue there. Maybe for the OP it was an underlying issue of actual immersion to the game world that he couldn't identify?
Checklist crafting: Again not a real issue. There are two approaches to crafting. You can make a mini game out of crafting, the way other games have done it or you can be totally objective driven with it and give more focus to the result than the actual method of producing stuff.
PvP balance: Again a non issue in the context that this was to be expected for a fresh MMO, especially one that gives so much freedom to the players. The more balanced MMOs are those who strip away such freedom from the players and even they don't do a very good job sometimes. It makes you wonder how much of a balance you can find in a game like 'The Secret World', where you don't have any kind of limitations.
Two levelling paths: True, but for four archetypes. If the archetypes were 8 or 12 I could see the issue with people loving alts.
Now here's my own list:
Open world PvP: It is there but you need to get through a hoop called warfrants to gain your prestige and gear before you engage properly in it. Bottom line, two months of instanced PvP in order to be battle ready for the open world encounters. I would also like to see the ancient stones expanded into something bigger. The rewards they provide are not big enough for the sides to contest over them.
Too many armor requirements: So you're a cleric, which means that you can dps, tank or heal. The thing is, you'll be needing three types of armor to be effective in the following activities, tanking (you need the toughness in expert dungeons and beyond), healing (you need non toughness gear) and PvP (the valor mitigation is a huge boost in survivability in PvP).
Non useful crafting professions: I don't have issue with how you craft stuff. However, for some items the material requirements are inappropriate to the end result. The biggest offender is apothecary, where you get potions that boost stuff for 30 seconds while you can give the rare materials to build armor with them. Who's on his right mind will craft those potions?
Rifts: they are great, the invasions are great. The footholds are not that good though. When we're talking about foothold we should be talking about mobs taking over an area and altering it. Perhaps building defensive structures, perhaps building hatcheries. Perhaps altering the way the whole zone is played. Right now we have defiant, guardian or contested areas. In the end game zones (I can see how this idea would be bad early on), the foothold would mean a certain element could literaly hold a part of the map. Bottom line, some real footholds, not these one turret things we have now please. I would also like to have the reset timers removed from the end game zones.
Guild bank: It may seem like a small thing but a place where socialising individuals can pool their resources is a must in my opinion. One can live with the extra hustle of advertising in general channels for a group. However, how can you share with your guild mates without having to use the guild leader and his officers as pack mules?
Armor: Ok, they are not five but this last one is a bit trivial so I'll put it here. It seems that due to some prude people pressure, some of the armor sets, especially at the very top were removed and were replaced with what I would call as placeholder armor. In other words, armor that looks ok, but not high level, armor designs that were used in earlier levels and were modified slightly to be adjusted for such fast a change. I understand that there are people out there who are horrified by a nipple slip, but don't give a second though to somebody's brains splattered over the pavement. Unfortunately those people have again affected yet another game with the end result of having generic type of end game armor. Not a big loss I suppose in the larger sceme of things, but it does show how some people can effectively dictate how the world should be viewed by the rest of us.
Making crafting a minigame like in EQ2 is the worst thing you can do. I like EQ2 crafting overall but they might as well delete the mini-game and do it like in other MMOs. The minigame is not that hard really. Push 3 buttons and you're fine. But other than that EQ2 is awesome. It's not about the process of crafting but about how many options, professions you have and how useful/amusing etc. are the items you can craft.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
“Often times I only have enough time to hop in and do a quest or two and then log off. “
Well you are not going to get much grouping done are you? If you are not keen on soloing then the game will seem more stale. I fell the same, grouping is better, it is in any MMO.
They will not solve the PvP inbalance as every player thinks their class is the weakest.
I take the point on the one path, all the more reason to play with friends.
very nice and polished game , i am having a blast but they copy pasted some wrong stuffs too like battle groups, its among dead servers and que takes like 5-6 hours sometime to get in BGs.
Tbh Pve Dungeons were the only Thing that really got me in this Game! Especially because I started on Defiant-Side. Totally boring with the Fea-Instance on Guardian.
Originally posted by haratu
What about no guild bank?
Oh yeah sure "No Guild-Bank" next to the Fact that Questing, PvP and mostly PvE is boring. Not that essential don't you think ;-)
Originally posted by alancode
What is there to play thats harder, and more intresting than rift then?
Nothing, sadly. But that doesn't mean: Keep playing Rift. There will come others. Personally I'm focusing on Singleplayer atm till a better MMO-Future is announced.
I DO hope Rift-Developers read this and Trion learns from it and creates better Titles in the near Future. Rift was an "ok" first MMO. But nothing special. I guess we all agree on that.
Crafting as a activity is not so bad. I had a blast messing around with it for a time. My only issue is that its worthless as far as providing viable options for gear upgrades when green drops are better. In the end it made more sence to rift / pvp grind to get something decent from the vendor.
Honestly I am having a great time in Rift. What is wrong with the quest system? It is basically what mmo games are made of. Do this, get that go to the yellow marker. At least it is not some mindless grinding with pretty bad RNG drop. I actually liked the quest system because quests dont just open up. You have to do them to get to the next chain of quests. If you read theres also some interesting storylines.
What I dont like about it is the craft system. It is too shallow and it should require a bit more exploration and getting more mats to get the best gear. But Im not really a crafter. So i dont care much about it.
What im enjoying most of them game is the exploration and the pvp. Sure it is imbalaced. The devs already know that. But it gave me the enjoyment that I was having in the early Warhammer Online days. I even met some ex warhammer and aion players in my server. If you dont like questing, take a break. Complete the collection and explore the map, get those artifacts. Theres so much more to do than quest.
Give the game a time to mature. Im sure theyll be tweaking it to a positive direction.
very nice and polished game , i am having a blast but they copy pasted some wrong stuffs too like battle groups, its among dead servers and que takes like 5-6 hours sometime to get in BGs.
If you drop the queue and Queue again, you will get a pop up easily. I dont need to wait for hours usually it is only 1-5 mins and i get a pop up. You just need to reset the queue timer.
Comments
finally lots of ppl admited that questing in Rift is not fun at all (why you guys waited until William Murphy posted the article to admit its true?)... After seeing how generic (yet boring) was the questing since beta 1... i smelled this article was coming some day to this forum
While I do agree with some of these points, keep in mind that's a fairly new game. Don't sell yourself short too quickly.
IF questing is not fun in a polished triple AAA mmorpg , with a dynamic world events .
What does that say for the rest of the older MMO , like wow , or soon to be released GW2 (which does have minor choices thank god) , TERA ...
We all know that those contains standard FED-EX questing too , is there a cheap way to change that .
Even wow cataclysme rebuild 1-60 wasn´t fun after 2nd play trough .
So in general , what are we missing in this generation , and don´t forget not everybody can afford the price SWTOR does with VO and story choices .
Rift really isn't a PvP game. Its going to be a nightmre trying to "balance" the soul system. They run a serious risk of coming down with a bad case of Ghostcrawler syndrome. ^^ In other words, they may end up focusing so much on their spread sheets and data mining, that they forget whats FUN about a given class. Its NOT fun to have your class endlessly "balanced" because people have been howling and whining on the forums. Either make PvP a separate game, with its own skills, or leave it out entirely.
They pretty much already said they're not even gonna bother trying to balance for pvp. Technically, the only true way to balance is to homogenize, homogenize, homogenize.
{mod edit}
The only point with any real foundation is pvp balance isn't great yet because the soul system is so customisable it's hard to balance what different people know how to build and play. The rest of the points are as true or significantly more true of nearly all other MMO's, making this not a critique of Rift but a critique of pretty much ALL MMO's. {mod edit}
I appreciate all the thought going into these posts but the bottom line here is that making questing so interesting that it ISN'T a downside has really yet to happen aside from hybrid MMOFPSs such as Global Agenda. Crafting (In the games I have played: WoW, EVE, Vanguard, Lineage I and II, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Maplestory, Runescape, DC Universe, City of Heroes/Villians/Rogue, Age of Conan, GhostX, Shadowbane, Ace Online, Uncharted Waters, EQ 1/2, WAR and of course RIFT) with the exception of EVE has been stupid item grinding until you DO hit the level cap for your profession. However, I am leveling a character on RIFT (2nd one) while going weaponsmith and armorsmith; it might just because I take my time to soak in the zone but I find myself actually using some of the things I craft from time to time. Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect with crafting but most games can't say much different.
This is for you veterans out there: I have been slaving over an epic quest chain that has tested my very limits of patience and submission to this game. It's just one insane objective after another and it really is EPIC. Some of you might remember the quests leading up to Thunderfury in WoW or Atiesh's staff... During that time (before burning crusade) the game had things in it that were only in reach of those who were insane enough to try, but these days everything is in reach; pugging the lich king, really? Where is the real sense of achievement? The sort of achievement that shows dedication not obsession - I can strut around in my full BiS [Best in slot] set all I want but sure enough I see several other people doing the same damn thing and it really kills my sense of accomplishment.
I'm ranting and raving - yes; I promise there is a point to all this though... I am more of a PvP person than PvE. I still enjoy PvE very much but when it gets down to the nitty gritty I just prefer being able to test my metal against someone else who hasn't been programmed. All the games I have ever played that include PvP suffer from some sort of imbalance. Having said that is it really fair to smack a game down all that hard when it's doing the best it can? We wanted customization and RIFT freaking delievered it! But then reality began to sink in and the imbalance became more obvious as a concequence of that customization (as the OP said).
T.L.D.R - Questing is hard to make interesting: get over it. Crafting has grinding and probably always will have that factor: live with it. PvP will remain imbalanced in any game that has PvP: try to understand that above all else.
Having gotten that out of my system.. Cheers,
Rassy
well hate to break it to you... to a lot of you who keep bringing up WOW as if it were the ONLY MMO out before Rift. It wasnt. Oh and not ALL games were like WOW. Sorry to say WOW made theme park play famous. They didnt invent it. EQ was the inventor. Turbine even though they went against their staple strength in MMOs.. ie. Asherons Call series. they made TREMENDOUS PVE CONTENT that were great PVE quests and they were NOT like WOWs theme park questing system.
I have said it from the start and why like one of the posters above... [kicking my feet up] why i didnt buy this game because i beta'd it and knew its potential problems despite its "NEW FEEL" and funness. I knew all that would die out and others would see the light of day of problems i foresee with this game.
you will always have the fanboy who will disagree. No problem. You love the game we get it. But it doesnt change the fact about the games problems. {mod edit}
its why there is a saying... "LOVE IS BLIND" which states true for LOTS fo things. A love for a game can make a person blind to the true problems. warhammer is perfect example of it. The developers of that game loved their game so much they killed their population fast by not making changes that were desperately needed for over a year. then when they made the changes it was little too late.
not saying rift and trion will be the same. it will be good for them if they arent. But take it as it is. Theme park games no matter how many love these style of MMOs will always face problems with END GAME. they need the carrot on the stick. to drag you around keep you paying. constant "expansions" and pulling out the pocketbook full of cash. Its the WOW model that most modern MMOs have now taken.
its however the model Rift has taken up. while it may differ in gameplay from WOW but they are definitely in the same direction of WOWs business model. or shall i say Blizzards business model.
either way, im not knocking rift. its a fun game. no doubt. but again. Like me and a few others who have beta'd this game. WE foresaw some problems and are now starting to see them as more and more players have reached 50.
umm shadowbane didnt have any quests.. it was a pure and simple grind your guy to top level by killing mobs and then PVP. thats it. and all those games you mentioned pretty much were all released after WOW. you mentioned NONE before WOW. So again... there were MMOs before WOW. you should be more enlightened.
Consequences? Please....EQ2's system is overly complicated when you start...then...it gets routine as you figure out the 3 buttons you need to spam......repeatedly. To give it credit, EQ2 does have some useful and fun crafting paths. WoW's system? Gimme a break....have been playing it since vanilla Open Beta....and..well...while it's an "easy" system....it's basically useless. You can make very few useful items (imho), and what you can make barely keeps up with your level. I like in Rift that you can actually make all the items you need and learn more items that you can use as you level up. Yes...the items you can get from instances/questing are better (usually, and yes I agree they should be), but it's nice to have a system that let's you make useful, relevant items. Oh yeah...back to consequences....why do you need "consequences" if you fail to make an item? There are enough consequences out there while questing.
Trying to balance for pvp in the first place is whats wrong not lack of balance.
For crafting, there are too many equipment streams (dungeons, pvp, questing, various grinds). They wanted lots of options and useless crafting is a consequence. A better example than VG and EQ2 would be a game like fallen earth where crafting is more essential. I am pretty sure people who say VG crafting was good are saying that from a theoretical point and haven't grinded hours and hours of work orders till they went postal.
Lack of levelling paths was a good point but saying quests and soloing are bleh is kind of ubiquitous.
Think its funny "The 5 things Rift does Right" article is posted with just a pick to barely grab anyones attention, but the 5 things they did wrong is titled it gigantic white cap. letters
Hear Hear!!! (Whoops....forgot to quote what I was Hear Hearing.....damn)
Gotta go with 9ineven on this one. They pay, should play the way they want (imho of course....my views do not reflect the opion of anybody else....yeah...disclaimer complete)
The obscene task that is "balancing" classes is why I've come to appreciate games without PVP. Or FFXI for instance, if you PVP'd, you accepted that some classes were stupid OP. A black mage could one shot you if they caught you defenseless, and whether they were subbing /whm, /rdm, /sch or even /nin, they had the spells (Sneak and Invisible) to sneak up on you.
I know a lot of people like PVP and play the game for that reason and that's awesome but it gets so tiring to see the raging of PVP'ers because companies promise things they just can't figure out how to back up.
Even if it came from the same minds, I'd really much pvp and PVE in separate games so everyone got what they wanted
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Quest grind: Well, I enjoy questing so this wasn't much of an issue from my point of view. I suppose that they could have kept the number of quests smaller and have them create a bigger story like impact. Regardless, for me it's a minor issue, since all MMOs up to this point are pretty much designed this way. It could be worse I suppose. It could be Cataclysm style (aka you don't have access to the zone proper until you finish the gigantic one linear style quest chain).
Solo play: I again don't see the issue there. Maybe for the OP it was an underlying issue of actual immersion to the game world that he couldn't identify?
Checklist crafting: Again not a real issue. There are two approaches to crafting. You can make a mini game out of crafting, the way other games have done it or you can be totally objective driven with it and give more focus to the result than the actual method of producing stuff.
PvP balance: Again a non issue in the context that this was to be expected for a fresh MMO, especially one that gives so much freedom to the players. The more balanced MMOs are those who strip away such freedom from the players and even they don't do a very good job sometimes. It makes you wonder how much of a balance you can find in a game like 'The Secret World', where you don't have any kind of limitations.
Two levelling paths: True, but for four archetypes. If the archetypes were 8 or 12 I could see the issue with people loving alts.
Now here's my own list:
Open world PvP: It is there but you need to get through a hoop called warfrants to gain your prestige and gear before you engage properly in it. Bottom line, two months of instanced PvP in order to be battle ready for the open world encounters. I would also like to see the ancient stones expanded into something bigger. The rewards they provide are not big enough for the sides to contest over them.
Too many armor requirements: So you're a cleric, which means that you can dps, tank or heal. The thing is, you'll be needing three types of armor to be effective in the following activities, tanking (you need the toughness in expert dungeons and beyond), healing (you need non toughness gear) and PvP (the valor mitigation is a huge boost in survivability in PvP).
Non useful crafting professions: I don't have issue with how you craft stuff. However, for some items the material requirements are inappropriate to the end result. The biggest offender is apothecary, where you get potions that boost stuff for 30 seconds while you can give the rare materials to build armor with them. Who's on his right mind will craft those potions?
Rifts: they are great, the invasions are great. The footholds are not that good though. When we're talking about foothold we should be talking about mobs taking over an area and altering it. Perhaps building defensive structures, perhaps building hatcheries. Perhaps altering the way the whole zone is played. Right now we have defiant, guardian or contested areas. In the end game zones (I can see how this idea would be bad early on), the foothold would mean a certain element could literaly hold a part of the map. Bottom line, some real footholds, not these one turret things we have now please. I would also like to have the reset timers removed from the end game zones.
Guild bank: It may seem like a small thing but a place where socialising individuals can pool their resources is a must in my opinion. One can live with the extra hustle of advertising in general channels for a group. However, how can you share with your guild mates without having to use the guild leader and his officers as pack mules?
Armor: Ok, they are not five but this last one is a bit trivial so I'll put it here. It seems that due to some prude people pressure, some of the armor sets, especially at the very top were removed and were replaced with what I would call as placeholder armor. In other words, armor that looks ok, but not high level, armor designs that were used in earlier levels and were modified slightly to be adjusted for such fast a change. I understand that there are people out there who are horrified by a nipple slip, but don't give a second though to somebody's brains splattered over the pavement. Unfortunately those people have again affected yet another game with the end result of having generic type of end game armor. Not a big loss I suppose in the larger sceme of things, but it does show how some people can effectively dictate how the world should be viewed by the rest of us.
Too many quest la...but overoll not bad~
Making crafting a minigame like in EQ2 is the worst thing you can do. I like EQ2 crafting overall but they might as well delete the mini-game and do it like in other MMOs. The minigame is not that hard really. Push 3 buttons and you're fine. But other than that EQ2 is awesome. It's not about the process of crafting but about how many options, professions you have and how useful/amusing etc. are the items you can craft.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
“Often times I only have enough time to hop in and do a quest or two and then log off. “
Well you are not going to get much grouping done are you? If you are not keen on soloing then the game will seem more stale. I fell the same, grouping is better, it is in any MMO.
They will not solve the PvP inbalance as every player thinks their class is the weakest.
I take the point on the one path, all the more reason to play with friends.
I so agree.. Or end up like WoW were all the classes are always nerf.. or boosed as bad as fashion shows.
very nice and polished game , i am having a blast but they copy pasted some wrong stuffs too like battle groups, its among dead servers and que takes like 5-6 hours sometime to get in BGs.
Tbh Pve Dungeons were the only Thing that really got me in this Game! Especially because I started on Defiant-Side. Totally boring with the Fea-Instance on Guardian.
Oh yeah sure "No Guild-Bank" next to the Fact that Questing, PvP and mostly PvE is boring. Not that essential don't you think ;-)
Nothing, sadly. But that doesn't mean: Keep playing Rift. There will come others. Personally I'm focusing on Singleplayer atm till a better MMO-Future is announced.
I DO hope Rift-Developers read this and Trion learns from it and creates better Titles in the near Future. Rift was an "ok" first MMO. But nothing special. I guess we all agree on that.
Cheers!
This is a fair list. I had the same thought.
The rift alone is not enough to keep my intrest.
Crafting as a activity is not so bad. I had a blast messing around with it for a time. My only issue is that its worthless as far as providing viable options for gear upgrades when green drops are better. In the end it made more sence to rift / pvp grind to get something decent from the vendor.
Honestly I am having a great time in Rift. What is wrong with the quest system? It is basically what mmo games are made of. Do this, get that go to the yellow marker. At least it is not some mindless grinding with pretty bad RNG drop. I actually liked the quest system because quests dont just open up. You have to do them to get to the next chain of quests. If you read theres also some interesting storylines.
What I dont like about it is the craft system. It is too shallow and it should require a bit more exploration and getting more mats to get the best gear. But Im not really a crafter. So i dont care much about it.
What im enjoying most of them game is the exploration and the pvp. Sure it is imbalaced. The devs already know that. But it gave me the enjoyment that I was having in the early Warhammer Online days. I even met some ex warhammer and aion players in my server. If you dont like questing, take a break. Complete the collection and explore the map, get those artifacts. Theres so much more to do than quest.
Give the game a time to mature. Im sure theyll be tweaking it to a positive direction.
If you drop the queue and Queue again, you will get a pop up easily. I dont need to wait for hours usually it is only 1-5 mins and i get a pop up. You just need to reset the queue timer.