if you hit 50 in two weeks you havo no idea what you saw or done cause you obviously missed the entire point of the game not to mention over half the content. You probably never even read a word of in game text. people playing new games like they are playing WoW simply has to stop or there isn't any new game ever gonna satisfy these people. The WoW mindset must stop!
I was waiting for the inevitable discredit of the OP's opinion/review due to time played. It's a pretty typical response for a review when someone disagrees but can't be arsed to point out why. Either you didn't play it enough, or played it too fast to properly grasp the game.
I've played the game, and I got to say I was completely blind by all of the short comings of Rift.
1. Guardian specific trinkets that are being used in end game pvp, making them god mode
2. The macro exploits allowing some player to not even face a target to hit them in pvp.
3. Pyromance is a new one, in the Scion war front he Pyro dished out over 1 million damage
4. THe classes are cookiecutter, and the whole notion of ever soul is vialable in all of the content, is lie
5. Expert dungeos are class specific, meaning if you like to play an unpopular class, you won't get invited tot he groups at end game
5. THe lack of land, the smalles game I've ever payed 60 dollars for.
6 Know exploits from beta , where not efixed until I bought the game 2 weeks ago. Weapon staking was the biggest rpoblem
7. the over speed of lveling, was simply laughable. The only other game that had just as fast leveling was AoC , but AoC had way more content.
8. Dugeons, laughably small, almost to the point of why bother. They tried to pawn off the "expert" and t2 llike it was omething special, but it was just higher hp mobs who hit harder and forced certain souls out of the end game group content.
9. open world pvp, uselss, ther eis not a single thing that you get out of it at end game.
10. Itemization of mitigation. Focus and other items unatanable without being grind core in the xpert dungeons which you cant get iinto if you like to play an unpopular class.
11. Mitigation in general against element damage, they numebr are printed out, but they do nothing. I stacked over 100+ fire resit, and a pyro still maxed a 3.1k crit and 800dmg dot.
The list could go on and on, the bottom line, I supported the game cause I thought it was going to be the anti wow hardcore pvp shadowbane esqu game, it is not. It is a Clone of everything done up to this point .
LotrO 5 mans vlow Rift away, Aoc Dungeons also are amazing compared to rift, I really son't see how tiering up dungeosn was even a possibility in the development cycle, it is assinine and lazy.
Make me sad something so pretty is gutted by the lack of vision for world content and poor balancing in pvp
1. True
2. This was added in a recent update because melee/instant casters had the advantage in PvP. If you ran behind someone that was casting the spell wouldn't go through.
3. Pyromancer is a little overpowered, however that's what Assassins are for. I've killed many pyros on my assassin before they could even move (yay paralyzing strike!)
4. Each soul has it's advantages and disadvantages. Some are more usuable in a wider array of situations. Take Void Knight, for instance, In a raid we had our tank switch over for mobs with Mana (casters), and it was so easy to heal him, easier than paladin vs physical damage.
5. I never noticed this myself. There seems to be plenty of places to run around and go sightseeing.
6. As you said, this was fixed. (The last 20 MMOs released have had worse problems with bugs from beta)
7. Unfortunately true, however, today's MMOs cannot be like thier elders. If it took people a year to level up to max, everyone would end up quitting. The real world is now all about instant gratification, so virtual worlds just have to try to keep up.
8. Dungeons are about 30-45 minutes in length. I actually prefer this to other games, where you'll spend 2-6 hours in a dungeon (WoW)
9. This is actually coming out. There will be quests/rewards for going and attacking Meridian/Sanctum and other towns
10. Endgame gear is hard to obtain, but that's how it is in every other MMO I've ever played for the last almost 20 years. There are certain classes that get a party easier than others, this also is the same as in every other MMO (except sandboxes). As stated in 4, there are certain bosses/fights that a Soul will be very good at, but will be poor in others, that's why you can change your Role with the click of a button.
11. This does seem true. The resistances should be reworked/buffed. Can't argue that.
No offesne but I would never trust a review of a game where someone rushed and grinded to the max level in 2 weeks. Sure it can be done but from my experiences with Rift, you may have played the game but I doubt seriously that you experienced the game.
Rift is clearly not the game for you if you want to rush to the end. To me, Rift was designed for the journey and not the destination.
To me, reading your review is the same as reading a synopsis of a movie or book on wikipedia and saying you saw the movie or read the book.
And just for the record, I quit Rift just prior to the 30 days....not by choice either but due to finances and time.
You've made an interesting statement here.
What exactly is it about RIFT that makes you believe that it was designed for the journey, and not the destination? What activities and events are so enjoyable to experience that it makes a player desire to linger as they level to prolong the journey? What experiences make it different from other games, in your opinion?
People who've leveled quickly are often told that they were "doing it wrong" - that it's about the journey. What is it about Rift's design that makes it a game that's all about the journey, moreso than other similar games?
No offesne but I would never trust a review of a game where someone rushed and grinded to the max level in 2 weeks. Sure it can be done but from my experiences with Rift, you may have played the game but I doubt seriously that you experienced the game.
Rift is clearly not the game for you if you want to rush to the end. To me, Rift was designed for the journey and not the destination.
To me, reading your review is the same as reading a synopsis of a movie or book on wikipedia and saying you saw the movie or read the book.
And just for the record, I quit Rift just prior to the 30 days....not by choice either but due to finances and time.
I can honestly say, my pace ofor playing the game was my LotRO 1.5 year to max level pace. I did nothing to rush through the content. I read some quests, but the fed ex stuff, who really cares why someone needs 10 of something.
I even tried to slow down when I hit 30 , but it just doesn't happened when so much experience is given in so many ways.
I wouldn't take it personally, it's pretty common when it comes to even partially negative reviews.
Either you didn't take your time and "properly play the game" or you didn't play it long enough.
Without going back and reading your OP, I think only one of your complaints was actually about the journey to cap, the rest of the concerns being about content at cap.
I would not agree with this. When I first bought the game, The server was packed to the gill, in a small amount of time, the server lost atleast 3/4's of the player base. Almost all shards are running at Mediium now, and only 2 are running at max. I would say this game is on an AoC pace for the number of subscriptions lost in the oprning months.
I would go as far to say that it is "exactly" like AoC drop off .
We simply don't know. Trion never released subscription numbers, nor they released server capacity. However, I doubt that Rift is in the same situation AoC was when it launched, unless the MMO crowd had changed their behavior radically. The thing is, once you hit max level in AoC, there was nothing there to do besides PvP (between players, the objectives were not working). This is hardly the case in Rift, where you have a fully functional game with dozen of dungeons, expert and raid rifts, and one raid (soon to be two).
This is by the way the reason I avoid that other thread about "drop already visible" where everybody in there is pulling "facts" out of their rear.
We simply don't know. Trion never released subscription numbers, nor they released server capacity. However, I doubt that Rift is in the same situation AoC was when it launched, unless the MMO crowd had changed their behavior radically. The thing is, once you hit max level in AoC, there was nothing there to do besides PvP (between players, the objectives were not working). This is hardly the case in Rift, where you have a fully functional game with dozen of dungeons, expert and raid rifts, and one raid (soon to be two).
This is by the way the reason I avoid that other thread about "drop already visible" where everybody in there is pulling "facts" out of their rear.
I don't know, I lasted a lot longer with AOC's endgame than I did with Rift. In AOC I could always find world PVP when I wanted it, I had fort raids and defense to participate in (when they worked), fort contruction, elite instances, and a couple of dungeons. But yeah, mainly world PVP and fighting guilds over leveling spots, mobs etc. The warfronts were also enjoyable, as they were just 'mini' games and done for fun, not like Rift where they are the primary form of PVP, and PVP advancement (read:endless grind).
Really, most of the problems come back to lack of content and small world size. It shapes every other design decision. You could take most of the core game, place it is a world three times bigger, with three times the number of zones and redundancy in leveling path, tune it to that level of content and have a pretty good game.
That sadly goes for almost all MMOs that released the last few years.
AoC and WAR didn't do so badly just because they were buggy, they were both very small. TCoS was an excellent game but had almost no content whatsoever.. and the list goes on.
The problem here is that MMOs becomes smaller all the time but still have to compete with games like Wow and EQ2 that spent 7 years adding content, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that this makes life a lot harder for the newer games and people tend to stay in the old ones.
The big thing actually speaking in favor of GW2 and TOR wwhile against Rift is that those 2 games seems to be a lot larger. GW2 have 5 starting areas, I am not sure about TOR. I guess a large world takes a massive funding today and companies like Trion and Funcom can't put sums like that into their games.
I'll try to boil down why I gave up on Rift, after a month of having fun:
World is way too small and far too few zones.
Soul System is no longer about real freedom, just the illusion of freedom. Play your Calling like the class would be played in every other Fantasy MMORPG, or GTFO? No thank you.
Not enough content and no redundancy of content = short journey to level cap and little replay value for alts.
Rep grinds for each zone and pseudo-rep grind Rift Rewards tuned to make it impossible to reap rewards during the level span where the rewards are useful.
Rifts are a gimmick. Invasion event is a gimmick. Soul System is a Gimmick. Free Weekends are a gimmick. Rift? 50% gimmick, 50% actual game.
Really, most of the problems come back to lack of content and small world size. It shapes every other design decision. You could take most of the core game, place it is a world three times bigger, with three times the number of zones and redundancy in leveling path, tune it to that level of content and have a pretty good game.
MMORPG developers seem to finally have learned not to launch a game that isn't polished enough for launch. However, they still continue to ignore the lesson that if you can't launch with at least as much world and content as WoW had at launch, don't bother.
BTW, RE:WoW, don't forget that when WoW launched it actually took a good chunk of time to hit the level 60 cap. Blizzard has retuned everything to make it much, much easier to get to level cap, but it didn't used to be that way. We can debate whether or not Blizzard's tuning of the game has been beneficial in the context of keeping an aging title successful, but if Vanilla WoW had had as quick a path to 60 as exists in WoW now, the game would never have succeeded.
The world is of decent size for a start. The illusion of the world being small is exagerated by the insta-travelling. Consider not having this feature and having to ride from say Meridian to Stilmoor. If Trion does not include additional zones in future content releases, I will agree with you that the game is too small.
You seem to parrot the same argument about the soul system not giving freedom. This is however the polar opposite of my own experience. Prior to patch 1.1 the only class who (talking about PvP) excibited some variation was the cleric. Rogues were only sabos, warriors were only champion/paragons and mages were either warlock/chloro or pyromancers. After the patch you can find rogues of all varieties (I fear that when the mage ground of strength is reworked they will become the FOTM class, they have a massive caster killing ability very few people are utilising), warriors using a variation of souls (finally with some utility as well, not just the one rolfstomping build) and mages while you see the bad or lazy players play pyros, you will see a good number of stormcalles, dominators and an even bigger number of warlock/something else variations. Chloromancers are rarer, but that was to be expected in the era of damage mages.
Overall, the variety is bigger after the patch, while before two classes were basically using one FOTM build each. I don't understand why you think that the patch had the opposite effect, honestly.
I remember having bought all the reputation rewards from the rare planar vendors as I was levelling. I can see however how a fresh player may have a problem finding invasions in a top heavy server.
Make me sad something so pretty is gutted by the lack of vision for world content and poor balancing in pvp
yepp. Graphic design 105/100, gameplay design 10/100. Its almost as if they are clueless or just dont care.
Any game is a bit unfinsihed at engame short after release. But with patch 1.1 they gave a clear sign of Rifts future. And it has nothing to do with "endless" possibilities regarding soul builds.
I don't really understand why people keep saying Rift has great graphics. It doesn't. I played it with everything maxed and it was the most visually dull and uninspired MMO I've played in the last 5 years. I guess it looks good compared to WoW and Runescape, and it runs smoothly, but that's not enough to justify the price tag. It's sad that "polished" is considered a feature now days.
No offesne but I would never trust a review of a game where someone rushed and grinded to the max level in 2 weeks. Sure it can be done but from my experiences with Rift, you may have played the game but I doubt seriously that you experienced the game.
Rift is clearly not the game for you if you want to rush to the end. To me, Rift was designed for the journey and not the destination.
To me, reading your review is the same as reading a synopsis of a movie or book on wikipedia and saying you saw the movie or read the book.
And just for the record, I quit Rift just prior to the 30 days....not by choice either but due to finances and time.
An experience is just that, somebody's recollection of how he spent his time. As long as he clearly communicates that, I have no problem with that.
I'll try to boil down why I gave up on Rift, after a month of having fun:
World is way too small and far too few zones.
Soul System is no longer about real freedom, just the illusion of freedom. Play your Calling like the class would be played in every other Fantasy MMORPG, or GTFO? No thank you.
Not enough content and no redundancy of content = short journey to level cap and little replay value for alts.
Rep grinds for each zone and pseudo-rep grind Rift Rewards tuned to make it impossible to reap rewards during the level span where the rewards are useful.
Rifts are a gimmick. Invasion event is a gimmick. Soul System is a Gimmick. Free Weekends are a gimmick. Rift? 50% gimmick, 50% actual game.
Really, most of the problems come back to lack of content and small world size. It shapes every other design decision. You could take most of the core game, place it is a world three times bigger, with three times the number of zones and redundancy in leveling path, tune it to that level of content and have a pretty good game.
MMORPG developers seem to finally have learned not to launch a game that isn't polished enough for launch. However, they still continue to ignore the lesson that if you can't launch with at least as much world and content as WoW had at launch, don't bother.
BTW, RE:WoW, don't forget that when WoW launched it actually took a good chunk of time to hit the level 60 cap. Blizzard has retuned everything to make it much, much easier to get to level cap, but it didn't used to be that way. We can debate whether or not Blizzard's tuning of the game has been beneficial in the context of keeping an aging title successful, but if Vanilla WoW had had as quick a path to 60 as exists in WoW now, the game would never have succeeded.
The world is of decent size for a start. The illusion of the world being small is exagerated by the insta-travelling. Consider not having this feature and having to ride from say Meridian to Stilmoor. If Trion does not include additional zones in future content releases, I will agree with you that the game is too small.
You seem to parrot the same argument about the soul system not giving freedom. This is however the polar opposite of my own experience. Prior to patch 1.1 the only class who (talking about PvP) excibited some variation was the cleric. Rogues were only sabos, warriors were only champion/paragons and mages were either warlock/chloro or pyromancers. After the patch you can find rogues of all varieties (I fear that when the mage ground of strength is reworked they will become the FOTM class, they have a massive caster killing ability very few people are utilising), warriors using a variation of souls (finally with some utility as well, not just the one rolfstomping build) and mages while you see the bad or lazy players play pyros, you will see a good number of stormcalles, dominators and an even bigger number of warlock/something else variations. Chloromancers are rarer, but that was to be expected in the era of damage mages.
Overall, the variety is bigger after the patch, while before two classes were basically using one FOTM build each. I don't understand why you think that the patch had the opposite effect, honestly.
I remember having bought all the reputation rewards from the rare planar vendors as I was levelling. I can see however how a fresh player may have a problem finding invasions in a top heavy server.
Rift etc. is a gimmick, what does this mean?
Its a one trick pony. Fun the first few times, but after that its just repetitive.
I don't really understand why people keep saying Rift has great graphics. It doesn't. I played it with everything maxed and it was the most visually dull and uninspired MMO I've played in the last 5 years. I guess it looks good compared to WoW and Runescape, and it runs smoothly, but that's not enough to justify the price tag. It's sad that "polished" is considered a feature now days.
Here's a link to my growing collection of screenshots. Let me know if you still think that the game doesn't have great graphics. You may also want to add what other game you're comparing Rift with.
Its a one trick pony. Fun the first few times, but after that its just repetitive.
You just described 95% of all MMOs out there. No, actually you just described 99% of all games out there. Congratulations.
Please next time add something to the argument besides placing a one liner below a massive quote wall.
I was simply clarifying what the other poster meant by gimmick since you didn't understand what he meant. If you took offense from that then you should chill out.
I don't really understand why people keep saying Rift has great graphics. It doesn't. I played it with everything maxed and it was the most visually dull and uninspired MMO I've played in the last 5 years. I guess it looks good compared to WoW and Runescape, and it runs smoothly, but that's not enough to justify the price tag. It's sad that "polished" is considered a feature now days.
Here's a link to my growing collection of screenshots. Let me know if you still think that the game doesn't have great graphics. You may also want to add what other game you're comparing Rift with.
Its a one trick pony. Fun the first few times, but after that its just repetitive.
You just described 95% of all MMOs out there. No, actually you just described 99% of all games out there. Congratulations.
Please next time add something to the argument besides placing a one liner below a massive quote wall.
I was simply clarifying what the other poster meant by gimmick since you didn't understand what he meant. If you took offense from that then you should chill out.
I'm sorry if you felt that I took offence, I just didn't understand your explanation. By your explanation pretty much all themepark MMOs are gimmicks and so are a good portion of sandboxes. Was that what you were trying to say?
I still dont understand how the word gimmick fits in the MMO context.
I still think the game has average-good graphics, average armor, and poor animations.
And yeah, I was playing the game on Max (5ghz i7 2600k with cf 6970).
As for class diversity, when I quit 50% of WF's were Pyro's, hell... one WF it was a pre-made of Pyro's, one guess how that turned out!
Average compared to what?
Regarding class diversity, I agree, a good portion of the unskilled mages are playing pyros at the moment. Just as a good portion of the unskilled warriors and rogues were playing the respective FOTM builds prior to patch. That does not negate the fact that warriors and rogues are more balanced and diverse post patch and once mages see more balance, we will also see more diversity there.
You should see what stormcallers are doing, by the way. Or some other variation of very hard to kill mages (not pyro turrets), who incidentally are a lot more durable than the tank build healers.
Its a one trick pony. Fun the first few times, but after that its just repetitive.
You just described 95% of all MMOs out there. No, actually you just described 99% of all games out there. Congratulations.
Please next time add something to the argument besides placing a one liner below a massive quote wall.
I was simply clarifying what the other poster meant by gimmick since you didn't understand what he meant. If you took offense from that then you should chill out.
I'm sorry if you felt that I took offence, I just didn't understand your explanation. By your explanation pretty much all themepark MMOs are gimmicks and so are a good portion of sandboxes. Was that what you were trying to say?
I still dont understand how the word gimmick fits in the MMO context.
RIFT only really has 2 things that set it apart from WoW. The rifts and the soul system. The rifts are fun at first but then after a while its shown that they are merely the same thing over and over again. Randomly appearing mob spawns. The soul system is basically WoW's talent trees in reverse. Instead of several classes with a couple of trees you get a few classes with several trees. It gives the illusion of variety but also kills replayability. Rift is also gear dependent and only has 2 starting zones that have only 2 real quest chains. What this does is just turn Rift into another "the real game is at the endgame" MMO.
Why did I use WoW for my comparisons you might ask? Simple. Its the game that I see that Rift has the most similarities to and also because WoW is one of the few MMOs I've actually spent a large amount of time in.
Regarding class diversity, I agree, a good portion of the unskilled mages are playing pyros at the moment. Just as a good portion of the unskilled warriors and rogues were playing the respective FOTM builds prior to patch. That does not negate the fact that warriors and rogues are more balanced and diverse post patch and once mages see more balance, we will also see more diversity there.
You should see what stormcallers are doing, by the way. Or some other variation of very hard to kill mages (not pyro turrets), who incidentally are a lot more durable than the tank build healers.
Hmm... compared to AOC, Aion, and even Vanguard to an extent (landscapes, open world). But the thing that really lets Rift down is it's lack of armor variety and colours, and animations. This is all IMO.
Looking at class dps passes post patch rogues are doing less sustained DPS than even clerics, so the reason they are more diverse is they no longer have a competitive spec (which sab supplied pre-patch, albeit overboard). And there still isn't too much variety for rogues, rangers and MM are jokes, and there are only certain melee spec's that are viable (pvp).
If trion spent a little more time fixing broken classes instead of going way overboard with nerfs, then maybe rogues wouldn't be leaving the game in droves.
I agree, certain warlock spec's make even Pyro's look underpowered, so even if they do see the light and nerf pyros (which will be a long shot - with the warhammer brightwizard dev in charge of balance and all), the age of mages will still continue.
But even if the game was perfectly balanced, warfront grinds being 'endgame pvp' is laughable.
I don't really understand why people keep saying Rift has great graphics. It doesn't. I played it with everything maxed and it was the most visually dull and uninspired MMO I've played in the last 5 years. I guess it looks good compared to WoW and Runescape, and it runs smoothly, but that's not enough to justify the price tag. It's sad that "polished" is considered a feature now days.
Here's a link to my growing collection of screenshots. Let me know if you still think that the game doesn't have great graphics. You may also want to add what other game you're comparing Rift with.
RIFT only really has 2 things that set it apart from WoW. The rifts and the soul system. The rifts are fun at first but then after a while its shown that they are merely the same thing over and over again. Randomly appearing mob spawns. The soul system is basically WoW's talent trees in reverse. Instead of several classes with a couple of trees you get a few classes with several trees. It gives the illusion of variety but also kills replayability. Rift is also gear dependent and only has 2 starting zones that have only 2 real quest chains. What this does is just turn Rift into another "the real game is at the endgame" MMO.
Why did I use WoW for my comparisons you might ask? Simple. Its the game that I see that Rift has the most similarities to and also because WoW is one of the few MMOs I've actually spent a large amount of time in.
Out of curiocity, have you seen an expert or raid rift? In the end those too become repetitive once your group/raid learns the tactics, but that's the same with pretty much every dungeon boss introduced in any MMO. By the way, adding extra bosses and making the dungeons bigger in level 50 expert mode was a very nice touch, up to the point where those same dungeons don't really feel the same as they were played in normal mode while levelling (I keep thinking about the one manticore in normal and two in expert).
The difference with current WoW design is that the game pretty much limits you to a very specific tree. The freedom you have in Rift to diverse gameplay according to what you're trying to tackle is real. It's also a pain to balance for PvP of course. I'm eagerly looking forward to "The Secret World" even more open system. On the other hand, in my eyes the you can be everything at once at all times in Darkfall is not a good system.
Gear playing "some" part in the character progression is what the MMO community wants, if AoC early gear design and the subsequent adjustments were any indication.
Regarding the starting zones, it's actually one per side, so I wouldn't really count them as two. I'm not an altaholic though, so this kind of MMO design where you can pretty much have just one character to do everything fits me perfectly. This is the same reason I liked EVE, Fallen Earth and so on.
I have no problem with WoW comparison, I also played and enjoyed that game for a long time. Which incidentally is the reason I enjoy Rift as well, it so much reminds me of WoW's early steps and feeling.
Now those are what I consider good graphics. Rift's graphics are average at best.
LOTRO DX10 and DX11 vistas are indeed more impressive overall than Rift's. On the other hand, LOTRO's character models are atrocious, you can't create a beautiful woman in there no matter what.
AoC DX10 is also better, but we'll need to consider the differences between zone based worlds and limitations against open based worlds and limitations. For this reason I think LOTRO score more points, despite having slightly less impressive vistas than AoC.
Aion is worse than Rift, both in zone open design, textures and vistas. The character models are comparable in visual quality, but Aion wins with more character creation customisation options.
DCUO I've never played so no comment. Isn't it a zone based game though?
Hmm... compared to AOC, Aion, and even Vanguard to an extent (landscapes, open world). But the thing that really lets Rift down is it's lack of armor variety and colours, and animations. This is all IMO.
I agree with AoC, I don't agree with Aion (well, things may change once they implement the graphics improvements if they haven't already) and I've never played Vanguard due to zero support, development and subsequently future.
Looking at class dps passes post patch rogues are doing less sustained DPS than even clerics, so the reason they are more diverse is they no longer have a competitive spec (which sab supplied pre-patch, albeit overboard). And there still isn't too much variety for rogues, rangers and MM are jokes, and there are only certain melee spec's that are viable (pvp).
I would wager on the future of rogues considering what they can do right now. You are talking sustained DPS and it is true that is needed for PvE content. For PvP however where rogues trully shine is disables and heal debuffs. Once ground of strength is reworked, the next massive whining on the forums will be due to rogues destroying casters. Especially if they up their damage. I can outheal pyro damage thrown at most people with some decent gears, I can outheal two of them hitting me as long as noone stuns/silences me even for a second. I'm helpless vs the rogue I mentioned if I'm cornered it's a losing battle fast. I've seen MMs kitting warriors and other melees indefenitely in some warfronts, so I don't see them being able to dish damage comparable to pyros any time soon.
If trion spent a little more time fixing broken classes instead of going way overboard with nerfs, then maybe rogues wouldn't be leaving the game in droves.
I think the changes were needed. I also think that they are not enough. Overall PvP needs to last longer than 5 seconds and people need to become more durable. Whether that will come from damage nerfs or healing buffs remains to be seen.
I agree, certain warlock spec's make even Pyro's look underpowered, so even if they do see the light and nerf pyros (which will be a long shot - with the warhammer brightwizard dev in charge of balance and all), the age of mages will still continue.
But even if the game was perfectly balanced, warfront grinds being 'endgame pvp' is laughable.
I also agree about warfronts. They reproduce the same problems WAR had with theirs. It's sustainable over time gain in prestige and favor, something you can't find in the open world unless there is some massive invasion or a world event happening. Basically the warfronts remove people from the open world and have them grind in there until they get all pvp rewards. If by the time this is over they are not tired of PvP, then those people can vitalise world PvP again, since there is nothing else to be gained form warfronts. The thing is, unlike the fast level gain, favor gain is slow, so it will take months for the prestige 6 people to get all their gear and move in the open world.
Comments
I was waiting for the inevitable discredit of the OP's opinion/review due to time played. It's a pretty typical response for a review when someone disagrees but can't be arsed to point out why. Either you didn't play it enough, or played it too fast to properly grasp the game.
.. But in a good way.
1. True
2. This was added in a recent update because melee/instant casters had the advantage in PvP. If you ran behind someone that was casting the spell wouldn't go through.
3. Pyromancer is a little overpowered, however that's what Assassins are for. I've killed many pyros on my assassin before they could even move (yay paralyzing strike!)
4. Each soul has it's advantages and disadvantages. Some are more usuable in a wider array of situations. Take Void Knight, for instance, In a raid we had our tank switch over for mobs with Mana (casters), and it was so easy to heal him, easier than paladin vs physical damage.
5. I never noticed this myself. There seems to be plenty of places to run around and go sightseeing.
6. As you said, this was fixed. (The last 20 MMOs released have had worse problems with bugs from beta)
7. Unfortunately true, however, today's MMOs cannot be like thier elders. If it took people a year to level up to max, everyone would end up quitting. The real world is now all about instant gratification, so virtual worlds just have to try to keep up.
8. Dungeons are about 30-45 minutes in length. I actually prefer this to other games, where you'll spend 2-6 hours in a dungeon (WoW)
9. This is actually coming out. There will be quests/rewards for going and attacking Meridian/Sanctum and other towns
10. Endgame gear is hard to obtain, but that's how it is in every other MMO I've ever played for the last almost 20 years. There are certain classes that get a party easier than others, this also is the same as in every other MMO (except sandboxes). As stated in 4, there are certain bosses/fights that a Soul will be very good at, but will be poor in others, that's why you can change your Role with the click of a button.
11. This does seem true. The resistances should be reworked/buffed. Can't argue that.
You've made an interesting statement here.
What exactly is it about RIFT that makes you believe that it was designed for the journey, and not the destination? What activities and events are so enjoyable to experience that it makes a player desire to linger as they level to prolong the journey? What experiences make it different from other games, in your opinion?
People who've leveled quickly are often told that they were "doing it wrong" - that it's about the journey. What is it about Rift's design that makes it a game that's all about the journey, moreso than other similar games?
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
I wouldn't take it personally, it's pretty common when it comes to even partially negative reviews.
Either you didn't take your time and "properly play the game" or you didn't play it long enough.
Without going back and reading your OP, I think only one of your complaints was actually about the journey to cap, the rest of the concerns being about content at cap.
.. But in a good way.
We simply don't know. Trion never released subscription numbers, nor they released server capacity. However, I doubt that Rift is in the same situation AoC was when it launched, unless the MMO crowd had changed their behavior radically. The thing is, once you hit max level in AoC, there was nothing there to do besides PvP (between players, the objectives were not working). This is hardly the case in Rift, where you have a fully functional game with dozen of dungeons, expert and raid rifts, and one raid (soon to be two).
This is by the way the reason I avoid that other thread about "drop already visible" where everybody in there is pulling "facts" out of their rear.
I don't know, I lasted a lot longer with AOC's endgame than I did with Rift. In AOC I could always find world PVP when I wanted it, I had fort raids and defense to participate in (when they worked), fort contruction, elite instances, and a couple of dungeons. But yeah, mainly world PVP and fighting guilds over leveling spots, mobs etc. The warfronts were also enjoyable, as they were just 'mini' games and done for fun, not like Rift where they are the primary form of PVP, and PVP advancement (read:endless grind).
But that's just my opinion
Nice review
That sadly goes for almost all MMOs that released the last few years.
AoC and WAR didn't do so badly just because they were buggy, they were both very small. TCoS was an excellent game but had almost no content whatsoever.. and the list goes on.
The problem here is that MMOs becomes smaller all the time but still have to compete with games like Wow and EQ2 that spent 7 years adding content, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that this makes life a lot harder for the newer games and people tend to stay in the old ones.
The big thing actually speaking in favor of GW2 and TOR wwhile against Rift is that those 2 games seems to be a lot larger. GW2 have 5 starting areas, I am not sure about TOR. I guess a large world takes a massive funding today and companies like Trion and Funcom can't put sums like that into their games.
The world is of decent size for a start. The illusion of the world being small is exagerated by the insta-travelling. Consider not having this feature and having to ride from say Meridian to Stilmoor. If Trion does not include additional zones in future content releases, I will agree with you that the game is too small.
You seem to parrot the same argument about the soul system not giving freedom. This is however the polar opposite of my own experience. Prior to patch 1.1 the only class who (talking about PvP) excibited some variation was the cleric. Rogues were only sabos, warriors were only champion/paragons and mages were either warlock/chloro or pyromancers. After the patch you can find rogues of all varieties (I fear that when the mage ground of strength is reworked they will become the FOTM class, they have a massive caster killing ability very few people are utilising), warriors using a variation of souls (finally with some utility as well, not just the one rolfstomping build) and mages while you see the bad or lazy players play pyros, you will see a good number of stormcalles, dominators and an even bigger number of warlock/something else variations. Chloromancers are rarer, but that was to be expected in the era of damage mages.
Overall, the variety is bigger after the patch, while before two classes were basically using one FOTM build each. I don't understand why you think that the patch had the opposite effect, honestly.
I remember having bought all the reputation rewards from the rare planar vendors as I was levelling. I can see however how a fresh player may have a problem finding invasions in a top heavy server.
Rift etc. is a gimmick, what does this mean?
I don't really understand why people keep saying Rift has great graphics. It doesn't. I played it with everything maxed and it was the most visually dull and uninspired MMO I've played in the last 5 years. I guess it looks good compared to WoW and Runescape, and it runs smoothly, but that's not enough to justify the price tag. It's sad that "polished" is considered a feature now days.
An experience is just that, somebody's recollection of how he spent his time. As long as he clearly communicates that, I have no problem with that.
Its a one trick pony. Fun the first few times, but after that its just repetitive.
Here's a link to my growing collection of screenshots. Let me know if you still think that the game doesn't have great graphics. You may also want to add what other game you're comparing Rift with.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197967310227/screenshots/
You just described 95% of all MMOs out there. No, actually you just described 99% of all games out there. Congratulations.
Please next time add something to the argument besides placing a one liner below a massive quote wall.
I was simply clarifying what the other poster meant by gimmick since you didn't understand what he meant. If you took offense from that then you should chill out.
I still think the game has average-good graphics, average armor, and poor animations.
And yeah, I was playing the game on Max (5ghz i7 2600k with cf 6970).
As for class diversity, when I quit 50% of WF's were Pyro's, hell... one WF it was a pre-made of Pyro's, one guess how that turned out!
I'm sorry if you felt that I took offence, I just didn't understand your explanation. By your explanation pretty much all themepark MMOs are gimmicks and so are a good portion of sandboxes. Was that what you were trying to say?
I still dont understand how the word gimmick fits in the MMO context.
Average compared to what?
Regarding class diversity, I agree, a good portion of the unskilled mages are playing pyros at the moment. Just as a good portion of the unskilled warriors and rogues were playing the respective FOTM builds prior to patch. That does not negate the fact that warriors and rogues are more balanced and diverse post patch and once mages see more balance, we will also see more diversity there.
You should see what stormcallers are doing, by the way. Or some other variation of very hard to kill mages (not pyro turrets), who incidentally are a lot more durable than the tank build healers.
RIFT only really has 2 things that set it apart from WoW. The rifts and the soul system. The rifts are fun at first but then after a while its shown that they are merely the same thing over and over again. Randomly appearing mob spawns. The soul system is basically WoW's talent trees in reverse. Instead of several classes with a couple of trees you get a few classes with several trees. It gives the illusion of variety but also kills replayability. Rift is also gear dependent and only has 2 starting zones that have only 2 real quest chains. What this does is just turn Rift into another "the real game is at the endgame" MMO.
Why did I use WoW for my comparisons you might ask? Simple. Its the game that I see that Rift has the most similarities to and also because WoW is one of the few MMOs I've actually spent a large amount of time in.
Hmm... compared to AOC, Aion, and even Vanguard to an extent (landscapes, open world). But the thing that really lets Rift down is it's lack of armor variety and colours, and animations. This is all IMO.
Looking at class dps passes post patch rogues are doing less sustained DPS than even clerics, so the reason they are more diverse is they no longer have a competitive spec (which sab supplied pre-patch, albeit overboard). And there still isn't too much variety for rogues, rangers and MM are jokes, and there are only certain melee spec's that are viable (pvp).
If trion spent a little more time fixing broken classes instead of going way overboard with nerfs, then maybe rogues wouldn't be leaving the game in droves.
I agree, certain warlock spec's make even Pyro's look underpowered, so even if they do see the light and nerf pyros (which will be a long shot - with the warhammer brightwizard dev in charge of balance and all), the age of mages will still continue.
But even if the game was perfectly balanced, warfront grinds being 'endgame pvp' is laughable.
Graphics of the last 4 MMOs I've played. Some of them are considerably older than Rift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV2wiHlonxk&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPy0y6-jwzk&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjTAdGTe9U0&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_DctOeLxE&hd=1
Now those are what I consider good graphics. Rift's graphics are average at best.
Out of curiocity, have you seen an expert or raid rift? In the end those too become repetitive once your group/raid learns the tactics, but that's the same with pretty much every dungeon boss introduced in any MMO. By the way, adding extra bosses and making the dungeons bigger in level 50 expert mode was a very nice touch, up to the point where those same dungeons don't really feel the same as they were played in normal mode while levelling (I keep thinking about the one manticore in normal and two in expert).
The difference with current WoW design is that the game pretty much limits you to a very specific tree. The freedom you have in Rift to diverse gameplay according to what you're trying to tackle is real. It's also a pain to balance for PvP of course. I'm eagerly looking forward to "The Secret World" even more open system. On the other hand, in my eyes the you can be everything at once at all times in Darkfall is not a good system.
Gear playing "some" part in the character progression is what the MMO community wants, if AoC early gear design and the subsequent adjustments were any indication.
Regarding the starting zones, it's actually one per side, so I wouldn't really count them as two. I'm not an altaholic though, so this kind of MMO design where you can pretty much have just one character to do everything fits me perfectly. This is the same reason I liked EVE, Fallen Earth and so on.
I have no problem with WoW comparison, I also played and enjoyed that game for a long time. Which incidentally is the reason I enjoy Rift as well, it so much reminds me of WoW's early steps and feeling.
LOTRO DX10 and DX11 vistas are indeed more impressive overall than Rift's. On the other hand, LOTRO's character models are atrocious, you can't create a beautiful woman in there no matter what.
AoC DX10 is also better, but we'll need to consider the differences between zone based worlds and limitations against open based worlds and limitations. For this reason I think LOTRO score more points, despite having slightly less impressive vistas than AoC.
Aion is worse than Rift, both in zone open design, textures and vistas. The character models are comparable in visual quality, but Aion wins with more character creation customisation options.
DCUO I've never played so no comment. Isn't it a zone based game though?