My problems and experiances, and the little things

hellshanks

So, I played RIFT very briefly, I leveled to 50, and quit, Steam claims I've played about 80 hours. 

Disclaimer, I'll get flamed for this: I'm making WoW referances. Why? Because WoW is one of the longest running MMOs, and Rift is clearly a clone, no matter how you look at it. I'll definately get flamed for that, but it's true. 

So, I'll start with it's most basic of things: the first thing you see, the graphics. It's clearly an upgrade to WoW, in thatit's prettier. Something I think every game, and I mean very close to every game lack, that WoW has, is vibrancy. The colors in WoW, no matter how bad the geometry, makes is look very pretty. Rift seems too dark, in comparrison. A lot of games do. It's not a huge problem, but I think it just looks better in general if games have a little more color, even if it robs a little. 

Next, the background, this is more personal, as most people just want a game to play, but the lore in WoW, as copy-cat as it is, with egyptian referances, old gods copied from cultures, ect ect, makes the game feel more purposeful. Rift, while it has a fairly immersive opening, seems bland, in these terms. There is no real conflict, or reason. Just some invisible preception that the enemy is the enemy. Noone ready quest text (lol) so if there is, noone got it.

The UI is nice, in that you can customize it, quite a lot, but it still lacks the addons. Some people HATE addons, because they eneble a mage to call everyone a noob, even though he pulled the 5 mobs with his AOEs, and every CD going off at once, only caring about his DPS. The thing is, some people use them right. no addons, no theory crafting, no maximizing. Some addons can really help you maximize. So, obviously, there are good sides to it. 

Class system, I gues it's cool. I usually like stuff like this, but it seems like in another month it'll all be a cookie cutter tree. Trust me, always happens. The whole RPG system needs to re-vamp this system, save a fw games who do it right. 

The grind time to max out sucked. It was short, and depthless. I didn't feel like I'd done much. 

Basically, I choose WoW>Rift. I'm sure there will be a huge decline for rift.

NeVeRLiFt

Before my 30days was up I had reached level 50 and geared out in full tier 1 gear with four pieces of tier 2.

Did every quest, had most of my rep in a good place, ran all the dungeons on heroic several times, and raided 4 times.

 

There was nothing to do end-game.... all you had was run dungeons/raid and chase the gear or grind rep with the factions.

 

Some of the zones felt small and cramped, really dislike as it takes away from the game world feeling like a huge world you can explore.

 

Needless to say I don't play Rift anymore and will not being going back to it.

Rift has no end-game except chasing gear.

Xerith

My girlfriend and I just unsubbed today due to the lack of end game content. In nearly full T2, and almost rank 3 in PvP we both became completely bored with doing the same thing over and over every time we logged in. The complete lack of world PvP, only 4 warfronts, and overly boring rep grind, there just isnt any incentive to keep subbing at this point. 

Quasimojo

Originally posted by hellshanks

The grind time to max out sucked. It was short, and depthless. I didn't feel like I'd done much. 

And there you have what no MMORPG developer these days is able to wrap their mind around.  You can't just give us buttons to push.  There *has* to be elements that require some level of commitment to reach goals worth reaching.  If a game isn't worth committing to, it isn't worth paying to play.

Matt_UK

Originally posted by hellshanks

So, I played RIFT very briefly, I leveled to 50, and quit, Steam claims I've played about 80 hours. 

Disclaimer, I'll get flamed for this: I'm making WoW referances. Why? Because WoW is one of the longest running MMOs, and Rift is clearly a clone, no matter how you look at it. I'll definately get flamed for that, but it's true. 

So, I'll start with it's most basic of things: the first thing you see, the graphics. It's clearly an upgrade to WoW, in thatit's prettier. Something I think every game, and I mean very close to every game lack, that WoW has, is vibrancy. The colors in WoW, no matter how bad the geometry, makes is look very pretty. Rift seems too dark, in comparrison. A lot of games do. It's not a huge problem, but I think it just looks better in general if games have a little more color, even if it robs a little. 

Next, the background, this is more personal, as most people just want a game to play, but the lore in WoW, as copy-cat as it is, with egyptian referances, old gods copied from cultures, ect ect, makes the game feel more purposeful. Rift, while it has a fairly immersive opening, seems bland, in these terms. There is no real conflict, or reason. Just some invisible preception that the enemy is the enemy. Noone ready quest text (lol) so if there is, noone got it.

The UI is nice, in that you can customize it, quite a lot, but it still lacks the addons. Some people HATE addons, because they eneble a mage to call everyone a noob, even though he pulled the 5 mobs with his AOEs, and every CD going off at once, only caring about his DPS. The thing is, some people use them right. no addons, no theory crafting, no maximizing. Some addons can really help you maximize. So, obviously, there are good sides to it. 

Class system, I gues it's cool. I usually like stuff like this, but it seems like in another month it'll all be a cookie cutter tree. Trust me, always happens. The whole RPG system needs to re-vamp this system, save a fw games who do it right. 

The grind time to max out sucked. It was short, and depthless. I didn't feel like I'd done much. 

Basically, I choose WoW>Rift. I'm sure there will be a huge decline for rift.

 

The grind to max out sucked? So you wasted 80 hours of your life and you knew it was a waste of time while you were doing it and you didn't enjoy it? That's the most bizarre thing i've ever read, why did you carry on playing? Either you were enjoying the actual time you played, if so why moan, or you are some kind of gaming masochist.

 

Haven't read anything here that will stop me playing Rift. Next...

Dmyankee

Look,

For those of us who started with UO or Everquest 1 ... the game was very open and new, not limited to starting factions ... everyone had thier own factions and it was possible to gain faction wtih each area ... pvp was open pvp anyone could kill anyone with out a duel ... talk to priest of discord .. but here is the trick, if there was a four level difference between players ... you could not harm them.

I enjoyed and i mean thoroughly enjoyed the eq1 experience till they started making it more like world of warcraft ... I hope that EQ next embraces the elments of eq1 ...

But Rift is a good sub, it is more in the line of a blend of EQ2 and Wow. Standard 2 faction system and trying to balance pvp which affects PVE.

PVE games are on a decline and that is what i am missing ... eq 1 pure pve development vanguard pure pve environment. make it a world where multiple factions if you want pvp, not just 2. Sadly EQ1 did it right on the pvp aspect and they were not trying.

popinjay

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Originally posted by Dmyankee

PVE games are on a decline and that is what i am missing ... eq 1 pure pve development vanguard pure pve environment. make it a world where multiple factions if you want pvp, not just 2. Sadly EQ1 did it right on the pvp aspect and they were not trying.

---

There's still a pretty big demand for an all PvE game, simply because there are so many other games where people can PvP (consoles, rts, even cellphones) but not many pure PvE ones.

The ones that failed (Vanguard, FFXIV so far) didn't fail because no one wanted to play them, they failed because of the technical and coding problems they had. As much as people wanted to play it, they were at times largely unplayable due to bugs.

Now all the companies are hedging their bets like Trion is doing. Trion basically built a PvE game, but threw PvP in there to get that subscription money too. They put a short leveling curve because PvPer's don't like grinds. Now they are paying for it as the PvP people are highly upset about balance and the PvEers' are upset about how short the game is.

One of these days, a company may make a full PvE game ala FFXI where they only concern themselves with party grouping and longer leveling times to max accompanied by greater emphasis on lore and exploration.

The only question is can they code it right and resist trying to snatch up the PvP crowd as well?

Amana

While opinion threads are fine, this is pretty much just a straight comparison with WoW, and we have a thread for game comparisons already here: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/431/view/forums/thread/306250/READ-The-Rift-World-of-WarcraftWarhammerEtc-Comparison-Thread.html