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Why does RIFT feel lacking? Could it be you?
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Mass market failure means something pretty specific. Obviously almost no MMORPG gets shut down completely, at least not without hanging on for a long time with a tiny player base or going F2P. I'm sure Rift will stick around for a long while...much the same way WAR, AoC, Aion, and other such games have. SW:TOR will likely end up in the same boat, because although it provides something significantly new, underneath it is the same formulaic and stale MMO, just like Rift. ArcheAge is shooting for a niche audience, and it's quite possible they'll do well in that niche. As for GW2... wait and see.
I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. I'm voicing the majority opinion. Most people didn't like Rift enough to keep playing for more than a month or two. There's a reason for that, and it's not just my opinion. There are objective, measurable, KNOWABLE reasons why they failed to grab the mass market success they were shooting for. Perhaps if more people endeavored to understand these games on more than the most superficial level, we would get less of these niche formulaic games.
Do I think Trion should have listened to the community's constructive criticism and ideas? Yes, I definitely do. It has little to do with me personally (although I did contribute a lot), it's about the fact that the leadership at Trion felt they knew better...felt that they knew the formula for mass-market success and they followed it to the letter. We can clearly see now who was right and who has ever-shrinking subs. *shrug*
Play whatever you want. it's your money. I say this all the time... and I mean it. But don't pretend that a game is good just because you play it. I can, and I have, provided extensive lists in great detail of why I feel Rift isn't a good game. At this point, you can either go back and read my previous posts, or just agree to disagree and recognize the facts of the situation. The game did not become the mass-market hit they were shooting for...its population is continuing to shrink...and it's not the players fault, it's the game.
Oh I see. You talk how a game you dont play is losing subs and yet cannot supply numbers. Thought so.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
No one can supply numbers either way. Trion doesn't have to release them because they don't have stockholders; it's not a publicly traded company. They just have investment capitalists they have to pay back.
In the absence of those, people will use their experience from playing other games to judge how a game is going. They'll look at server activity and closures, auction house sales/movement, tons of people standing around in the capital cities not doing much, and things like recurring discounts for the game. It's never one thing but an accumulation of clues.
If people have been playing mmos for awhile, they can tell pretty much when a game is dying if they were in it or if they'd played it. There is a slow creep that goes over every game that starts to slow down and the same telltale signs are there.
War, Aion, AoC, DCUO, FFXIV, Vanguard, LOTRO, EQ2... they all had that 'creep' after awhile that became more and more prominent while their playerbases constantly told people the game was fine despite what naysayers said. I think Rift is probably around 300k max which is good for anyone at the moment, but no higher.
"TO MICHAEL!"
The one thing Rift has that most of the games didn't is an active dev team that is actually paying attention to what their customers want. If Mythic had half the enthusiasm Trion did for WAR, I don't think it would have fallen so low. At least not as fast as it did.
In the absence of those, people will use their experience from playing other games to judge how a game is going. They'll look at server activity and closures, auction house sales/movement, tons of people standing around in the capital cities not doing much, and things like recurring discounts for the game. It's never one thing but an accumulation of clues.
If people have been playing mmos for awhile, they can tell pretty much when a game is dying if they were in it or if they'd played it. There is a slow creep that goes over every game that starts to slow down and the same telltale signs are there.
War, Aion, AoC, DCUO, FFXIV, Vanguard, LOTRO, EQ2... they all had that 'creep' after awhile that became more and more prominent while their playerbases constantly told people the game was fine despite what naysayers said. I think Rift is probably around 300k max which is good for anyone at the moment, but no higher.
The one thing Rift has that most of the games didn't is an active dev team that is actually paying attention to what their customers want. If Mythic had half the enthusiasm Trion did for WAR, I don't think it would have fallen so low. At least not as fast as it did.
Rift has one of the more "active" dev teams, but that only gets you so far. That doesn't account for how people actually like the game or if they find it stimulating/immersive enough to keep playing.
It's funny you mention WAR because the person in charge of Rift's PvP is the same person who had a big hand in how WAR's balancing was done.
WAR's main problem imo was they had an engine (Gamebryo) that gave them fits that they couldn't work around. It gave too much lag, crashed and was unreliable. I actually think the devs at Mythic did the best they could, for what that's worth. The game just had really crappy leadership from the start so the devs were not focused.
I think that's Rift's strongest asset, Scott Hartmann whereas WAR had Mark Jacobs running that.
"TO MICHAEL!"
True. But the point still stand that it will at least pro-long the game, as compared to a game without one.
O.o Had no idea on that. I'm a little scared of pvp balancing now lol. Considering how long Bright Wizzies went un nerfed, and how they literally made order over powered to compensate for a lower population. And then never changing it back to balanced when pop balanced out. =(
Their engine definitely didn't help. They worked as best they could to minimize the lag, but they did it using cheater ways later on. It's kinda depressing (engine and they had to cheat)
I think WAR's largest assest was Paul Barnett. He was the hype team, and that was all they needed to hype better than most games. He was a god among men at hyping. I loved his preview videos so much, he was so hilarious, and had so much passion.
Not sure if anyone bothered to make this comment... but I will either way.
No, i will not use my imagination. I'm paying someone to do that for me. If you want to use your imagination they have games like Minecraft, or toys like LEGOS to play with.
The developers are supposed to be providing a story and gameplay that I enjoy and should not require me to use my imagination and take a pile of crap and make it into something fun.
RIFT is lacking a lot. They have used every single staple MMO concept that WoW has perfected since day one. Instances are a grind for tokens you use to buy gear (with a chance to get gear inside the instances). GEAR ends up being an icon on a character sheet with X number of stats that go up or down based on the difficulty to get said item. New content? New content is great, but the actual reason to play said new content is EPIC fail like all others. I do not enjoy grinding out new content so i can get +10 to each of the stats on my item... WoW was one of the first to add phasing which makes your questing actually change the world you see and play in. THIS was awesome at first.... But they use it very rarely and in the end it doesn't make a huge difference.
We need more games where your actions actually change the world. Phase players so each can enjoy those changes and only players on equal progress can interact if you must.
This is a out dated opinion btw...maybe like 4 patches ago. So many consequences of that last sentence that people just ignore would be a train wreck in a MMORPG
Guild wars 2 dynamic events yo! Except it's a worldwide thing and it changes for everyone.
You may have had me up untill MMOs are Bigger "lol" Rift is the smallest world size MMO released in 10 years , 9 playable zone is laughable
Well in your OP you were laying the "blame" for people not enjoying Rift as being something that was their fault, and perhaps the point my response was trying ot make is that it's not really a matter of blame, Rift isn't designed for me (or those who share my similar game preferences) and therein lies why we don't care for it.
EQ2 vs Rift isn't even a fair comparison since EQ2 has a 6 year head start, I probably would not have cared for EQ2 at launch as much either.
In fact, going forward, I think I'm going to hold off on trying new titles for 3-6 months post launch, that way I'll see them after they've improved a bit and most titles I stayed with for a longer haul (6 mo or more) were ones that I joined in later rather than at launch. (WOW being the sole exception)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
For my play style, it was Rift and not my lack of smelling the roses. As someone who doesn't enjoy end-game tiered progression, there just was nothing else for me to do there. Even with my limited play time, I leveled ridiculously fast as their goal is to get everyone to the end. Usually when I hit the end I start an alt, but considering I'd be playing through the same exact zones, there just was no point.
I'm more an EQ2/LotRO type player, where there actually is plenty of room to stop and smell the roses without hearing the trumpets blaring signaling yet another invasion with waves of mobs trampling over those roses. I do think Trion is doing a great job with continual updates and events. And obviously they are doing well and many players enjoy end game progression. I'm just not one of them.
While I agree with you OP, and I found Rift to be a good game, I opted for EQ2 instead. There's just so much more to do and see in EQ2, and not all of it is combat or crafting based.
There are things I find that Trion did very well. I liked their achievements and I liked the collections. The puzzles were fun as well and a step in the right direction. Mixing and matching soul combos was fun as was allotting points in them for different builds. I thought the stories were well-done and cool and yes, I am one of those who stops and smells the roses.
However, the reason why I opted for EQ2 is not just that I get a chance to have a house and decorate it (which is admittedly quite cool). It's because there is a certain degree of uniformity in Rift that I found made it lacklustre in comparison. The areas all seem very similar one to the other. After a point, I found it hard to differentiate between the zones. The mobs used are very much the same between zones and it seems like I was fighting against the same set of mobs overall from one area to the next.
I think the game is just a bit too linear and predictable. This is true for the areas but also for the souls and the rifts as well. The crafing is also not very good. It's not just bland, it's deeply uninteresting and I hate the grinding for plaques and the crafting dailies. That's the thing I disliked... all of the little grinds here and there with world events that require x currencies for y pet. And every zone had a faction one had to grind, Argh!
Adding new pathways, new zones could help that.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
EQ2 was fun at release actually. It was a much larger game than Rift.
It was harder for one in the sense that classes weren't quite as soloable as they are now, or at least some were less soloable than others. Plus, starting out you didn't have your end class. You started out as a generic fighter, mage, whatever and had to go through some questlines in order to earn your second and then your specialized class. I actually enjoyed those quests because they were immersive.
There were also citizenship quests. You had to do certain things to make your city happy enough with you that you could earn the right to stay there and learn the call to home spell. Since the story was that some cataclysm hit Norrath post-EQ1, your character started out as a slave on a ship, if I remember correctly, that got wrecked. Your character got washed up onto the starter island where the second part of the player tutorial started. You could leave there and go to either Freeport or Qeynos which had their own starter areas and low level quests as well.
There was no quest helper and the old quests were more involved than the quests in Rift. Quite often they required cooperation, not necessarily due just to difficulty, but because quite often they asked for a rare-ish mob or having to hunt for things that randomly popped. People grouped up a lot back in those days. There were a lot more ^^ and ^^^ mobs, and people didn't have mastercrafted gear or master level spells/combat abilities...
It's true that post level 10 you had only two real pathways to go, but the areas were much more open and larger. Just look at Antonica, Thundering Steppes, etc. for example.
Dying left a shard that you had to go back and retrieve on top of causing xp debt.
Crafting was heavily involved with many different reagents and the danger of being able to kill yourself.
There were more low level areas too for players to choose from, most of them in the cities of Freeport and Qeynos.
It was very much an RPG... elements that make a lot of players these days groan (and probably why they've been removed by SOE), but EQ2 at release was way more immersive and evolved than Rift was.
The only downside EQ2 really had was that it was very laggy on the computers especially of those days.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
No one can supply numbers either way. Trion doesn't have to release them because they don't have stockholders; it's not a publicly traded company. They just have investment capitalists they have to pay back.
In the absence of those, people will use their experience from playing other games to judge how a game is going. They'll look at server activity and closures, auction house sales/movement, tons of people standing around in the capital cities not doing much, and things like recurring discounts for the game. It's never one thing but an accumulation of clues.
If people have been playing mmos for awhile, they can tell pretty much when a game is dying if they were in it or if they'd played it. There is a slow creep that goes over every game that starts to slow down and the same telltale signs are there.
War, Aion, AoC, DCUO, FFXIV, Vanguard, LOTRO, EQ2... they all had that 'creep' after awhile that became more and more prominent while their playerbases constantly told people the game was fine despite what naysayers said. I think Rift is probably around 300k max which is good for anyone at the moment, but no higher.
The one thing Rift has that most of the games didn't is an active dev team that is actually paying attention to what their customers want. If Mythic had half the enthusiasm Trion did for WAR, I don't think it would have fallen so low. At least not as fast as it did.
Rift has one of the more "active" dev teams, but that only gets you so far. That doesn't account for how people actually like the game or if they find it stimulating/immersive enough to keep playing.
It's funny you mention WAR because the person in charge of Rift's PvP is the same person who had a big hand in how WAR's balancing was done.
WAR's main problem imo was they had an engine (Gamebryo) that gave them fits that they couldn't work around. It gave too much lag, crashed and was unreliable. I actually think the devs at Mythic did the best they could, for what that's worth. The game just had really crappy leadership from the start so the devs were not focused.
I think that's Rift's strongest asset, Scott Hartmann whereas WAR had Mark Jacobs running that.
True. But the point still stand that it will at least pro-long the game, as compared to a game without one.
O.o Had no idea on that. I'm a little scared of pvp balancing now lol. Considering how long Bright Wizzies went un nerfed, and how they literally made order over powered to compensate for a lower population. And then never changing it back to balanced when pop balanced out. =(
Their engine definitely didn't help. They worked as best they could to minimize the lag, but they did it using cheater ways later on. It's kinda depressing (engine and they had to cheat)
I think WAR's largest assest was Paul Barnett. He was the hype team, and that was all they needed to hype better than most games. He was a god among men at hyping. I loved his preview videos so much, he was so hilarious, and had so much passion.
Heh, I think you and I agree on something. Paul Barnett was definitely the best part of Warhammer. Because I wasn't a WAR junkie as far as lore, it was just another game to me but watching him sell it to fans was classic. He reminded me of those pitch guys from the 70s on late night television. He was the only one I think at Mythic that actually deserved every penny they got because his job apparently was to hype the game.
I'll disagree with you on Rift in the sense that I think their most important assets so far has been:
1. Scott H
2. PR Department
3. Devs
Without the PR dept's media blitz on WoW, this game would still be unheard of. No one heard of it barely before it got launched. Once it did, all you saw on television were WoW focused ads for about two straight months. That's unheard of in this business and it helped to pull in a lot of customers. Then you have all their promo deals they still run today, the slick trailers they keep pushing out... that's how Rift is still getting subs.
By all rights, Rift is an average game imo, but the sales team really draws people in to try it, but they have a problem retaining longterm subs for the most part. The longterm subs they get are the people who sign up, play for two weeks then think that what they see at low levels is the game and change their subs to three months or six months. Once you are locked in and paid, you can't get a refund so that pretty much guarantees hostages of sorts who have no choice but to try and like what they've already paid for.
I think many think the game is okay, but probably wouldn't have paid for the six months once they look back at around Month 3 or Month 4.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Paul Barnett was the best. I was slightly excited for WAR, but he made me want to drop everything for it because he made it seem so fun and interesting.
I don't follow names too much (so I have no clue on 1), but I'll agree with 2 and 3.
I remember their ads around launch were everywhere about, "We're not in Azeroth anymore!" and whatnot. Actually, to be honest, I would not have known about the game, if my friend wasn't in the beta. He was in the beta when the NDA was around still, and couldn't really say anything. But we were all in vent, and he took some videos with his camera phone, and talked about it. My friends and I were all hooked and pre-ordered.
But yeah, I had no idea about the game until then, and I didn't really see any ads until right before launch, and after launch (which there were plenty of at that time)
I think it's ok-pretty good. I really like the art style as well. Only time will tell how the game will keep doing. It could flop hardore like WAR, it could keep a nice median, or it could start building steam back up with constant new updates. Who knows. (I'll tell you, the future knows =p)
I think that at the same point of its life cycle, WAR was already showing some big problems with its population and there were lots and lots of whines on any WAR forum one could read. I think Rift seems to be healthier in that sense. Unless Trion really makes a big booboo, I don't see Rift going the way of WAR.
They might lose players though over to Star Wars when it comes out, but then there is always turn around, especially when new games come out and especially at Christmas time. I think Rift will overall have a pretty stable population though it might not ever be stellar like WoW's.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
IMO
and I hate to be childish about it, I thought rift was amazing, but had little bling... Where is my firey sword? and all the armor kind of looked the same at endgame, Most everything was pretty smooth other than that for me.
As much as i liked the instances in rifts i have to say they felt lacking in their abbility to convey story changes as well as anwsers. For me an instance should be where you get mst of the loose ends that occur as you quest in a zone resolved, yet allso where more or deeper plots as well as lore comes into play as a form of story/zne progression. Why this is lacking is that their instances were not feeling to me atleast as a form of closure as well as bridge thru their leveling. Also even though it was stated that they wanted to lvl people to max level quickly the game loses alot of it's immersion, as well as value the faster you progress thru it, atleast for me and it seems alot fo people.
While i loved the idea of the soul/archetype system I felt that it was too generalized over all between the soul, which makes most of them feel much like each other with vary little change over thier damage types as well as what machanic they use. I always thought that they should have had the few tiers be about general perpose talents for the other souls, but that after those tiers you get into talents that buff as well as change up yoru play styles into a unique style that is all it's own. Aso the two big problems with the soul/archetype system is how weak the claric and also support souls were in game overall that one calling got basically labeled as the healer calling. The claric calling had the most healing souls off all the callings yet also had more dps souls then it did have healing souls, but was the weakest dps (even fully using three dps soul forgoing using either the Justicar or helaing souls for support healing while dpsing.) that you were piggeoned holed into the tank or support/healing role. Now you look at support souls the forth of the four roles you can play in rifts, they were largely worthless pretty fast in the game outside of raiding, and some other activities, which is sad since i liked most of the support roles in the game.
Another big issue is that the content gets ooutdated far too fast for it's own good, with invasions, zone events, raids and raid rifts becoming harder and harfder to find. Why you would want to make it so that you are being chased as a dev team by yoru players being merely steps behind you in content, when you could have slowed down their progressionn to where you would have time to both create as well as test content better. The slowler you have your subs level as well as progress the more time they spend subbed to yoru game, meaning increased profits as well as playing for the player. THey could also add afew more leveling zones to the game to enhance the lving/replay ability of the game as well.
@ OP: No, it's not us, OR Rift. It's BOTH. As we've seen in this thread and elsewhere ad nauseum, it's SUBJECTIVE. There are plenty of gamers who simply will not like or enjoy Rift for any one of a thousand reasons. Rift is what it is. I enjoy it, and for the most part I have enjoyed it since beta. But I have my reasons for that. So your original post is pointless.
The only thing I sometimes get angry about are those who claim they knew from the beginning that Rift was a failed, doomed MMO and "quietly smiled" when Rift got its comeuppance and headed down the path of self destruction. If only us poor, stupid bumpkins had listened to the more enlightened professional gamers, Rift would have simply shutdown and rid the gaming world of its presence.
I would say, Rift can feel lacking for the same reasons ANYTHING can feel lacking. It's almost always subjective. In some cases, something is so god awful that clearly, it's a failure for 99% of gamers or human beings for that matter. I would not put Rift in that category, but maybe some would.
In the end, threads like this one are just entertainment, flame wars or both. I intend to play both Rift and GW2 since I can. I enjoy Rift for what it is and what it may become. Isn't that more important than blaming Trion for the Great Gaming Deception or players for just being human?
That's accordign to:
" an analyst at Sterne Agee "
The guess of a guy that doesn't work for Blizzard, or have any first hand information. In otherwords he guessed.
The only people that know what Titan is are the people working on it, other then that no one knows anything. The only thing we know is that it won't be like WoWl, that could mean anything. It could be based on earth. Maybe it's a space MMO. Perhaps it's a sandbox. Anyone of those guesses is just as valid as your source. That guy has no idea if it's going to be causual or not, and only based that guess off the fact that Blizzards games tend to be marketted towards the causual gamer. For all we know it could be a hardcore MMO, in an effort to expand their market; leaving WoW as the MMO for causual play.
Skip to bottom for the TL;DR version.
I've been playing the free trial for Rifts the last couple of days. I've only been disapointed with two things.
The trial only lets you get to lvl 20. I didn't see anything about that and was a little taken back by it.
I'm on a PvP server, and in 20 levels I hadn't experienced any world PvP.
However, what I did experience was suprisingly good. People calling it a WoW clone, or saying it has no depth, really didn't look pas the surface. When I started I did see similarities with WoW, but the more I got into it the more I saw it actually had stuff there to set it apart.
Character development is actually very well done. On par with EQ2, probably even better. You actually have a lot of variation in classes, and most of the stuff I've read and seen people talking about points seems to show me that there aren't just a few FoTM buids. I saw people repeatedly asking in chat what was the best class for so and so, and the responces I always saw was, "depends on your playstyle." That says a lot. Even on forums dedicated to class builds, I saw a LOT of diversity within a single class, and no unanymous FoTM builds.
Quests weren't just NPC's that stood around with markers over their heads, even though they were. Each quest hub unfolded a story. It wasn't just 10 guys standing there with markers. It was a couple, you get those quests then someone esle hads something to offer, or you wouldn't get a quest from another guy until you completed another guys quests. I never really knew who was going to hand out quests. While on the surface that's no dif. then just grabbing all the quests at once and doing them, it did provide a little more immersion, as you were unfolding the story.
Warfronts were actually really good. I liked the map layouts, for the two I was able to do, better then WoW or WAR's battleground maps. Terrain seemed to be taken into consideration, both maps had places that ranged characters could get overhead position on the enemy, and line of site played a big part in the fights. 5 years of WoW and I never saw the terain used strategically in a battleground.
Crafting has a lot of depth to it. I would put it on par with EQ2. Crating quest are always nice, it's better then crafting junk just to level your proffesion. There's certianly better MMO's for crafting, but from what I've seen Rift does a pretty good job with it. It's still pretty mindlessl, but at least they give you some little purpose to make it feel slightly less mindless.
Rifts themselves aren't anymore repetetive then anything else you do in an MMO. They're a part of the overal story, and done rather well for what they are. Especially the big invasions, seeing one of them for the first time was impressive. Rifts are also more then just for getting gear apparently. I stumbled on a vendor who was selling some egg thing, I purchased one out of curiousity, and apparently I can incubate the egg with drops from the earth and fire rifts. I've also constantly got quests involving the rifts, and the ability to start a rifts even if I want. I found it no more repetetive then dungeons in any MMO, better then public quests in WAR, and a lot of fun when lots of people got involved. It was nice playing solo and then suddenly spending the next hour or more in a raid of 20 to 30 people, running around killing giant bosses.
They took what was fun in WoW, WAR, and EQ2, polished it up a bit, and then put their own little twist on it. Playing Rifts the last few days has felt the same as when I first started CoH, Lineage 2, and WoW.
I've put almost 40 hours into it in the last 3 days. They're doing something right; no other MMO in the last few years has grabbed me that much. I hope to buy it in the next couple of days, and with a little luck I can convince my brother and a friend to play as well.
Lacking is deffinetly not a world I would use to describe the game. At least not as far as depth goes, there's more to it then there is to WoW. They go tthat same formula that made WoW a success, simple to learn, hard to master.
Obviously it's not going to be everyones cup of tea. If you're playing WoW or EQ2 with friends, unless they decide to make the switch as well, you're probably not going to, but if you enjoyed WoW and are just looking for something with a little more to it, then Rifts is probably right up your ally.
TL;DR: It's not a bad game. If you liked WoW, and just want something else, try it. If you hate the way WoW or EQ2 plays, then look at another game, this isn't for you. Definetly not lacking, unless you're just tired of the WoW/ EQ gameplay.
I think it really is us(well not you but most of us here), because we already done everything in the game except the very repetetive DEs before in other games many times. Well, that and speccing.
For a player new to MMOs Rift is an excellent game, pretty and well made. But for most of us vets it is just soemthing we done before. I played it through the betas and every single quest was a slight variety to ones I done hundreds of times.
I do think Trion will have to improve the story and write better quests for the expansion, it is very linear right now. That was of course also true for vanilla Wow so hopefully will they learn their lesson, but beside that I see no actual faults with the game.
But still, after just a few hours played it just felt like I already spent years in the game and that just isn't good enough for me anymore after 15 years of MMOs, I need something which feels at least slightly different.
Yesterday you lectured me on reading comprehension. Guess you need to use your own advice since you took 'imagination of kid' completely out of context. Paying 15 bucks a month got nothing to do with enjoying a game with enthusiasm and excitement of a kid. that is what OPis trying to say.
I just had to laugh at this part of the OP. Guess he never saw EQ1 or WoW's size at launch
I guess (know) you are wrong. First I said MMOs are bigger and better then ever before. Did I once say RIFT was a bigger world? Nope. Actually I did see both Wow and EQ1 at launch and RIFT while not huge is not as small as people like to make out. I started EQ first day of launch and I was a closed beta tester for WoW. WoW at launch was not to big in fact if you were there then you know that was one of the complaints of WoW. Vanguard, EQ2, LOTRO were bigger then WoW at launch.
The ignorant often laugh at things they do not understand. I have 15 years of MMO experience and if you read my list I have played all the major MMOS and put real time into them. You may disagree with me but I do know what I am talking about when it comes to gameplay and world size. Many disagree with the games I like such as RIFT or EQ2 but my experience, knowledge, and dedication to MMOs should not be underestimated.