I know it is advertising. . but advertising is to get people hyped up. . so we can't blame them for being disappointed can we?
You can blame yourself only.
I said them . . not me. You didn't read.
Advertising is still used because people believe it. Just because you have learnt your lesson doesn't make it less dishonest.
Can you really "go back to your old haunt and see what has changed"? I don't think so. . their examples are a merchant. . or again a RIFT.
I would say they have only themselves to blame. Which was the reason for the backlash. . which was justified.
Right now this is applicable to dungeons. Once you complete a dungeon you can come back to it at higher levels and you will encounter new monsters, bosses and new areas inside that dungeon will open up.
People have played GW2 and no they don't think it feels like Rift, actually they think GW2 plays better and is more fun.
Who are these people? Are they a collective? They all agreed? Not doubting, just find it odd that everyone would say the same thing.
Wait, I guess I am doubting. I imagine GW2 will be a good game though, It's just that I've heard the whole "innovative" PR campaign before.
The general consesus (of the people's opinions I've read) is it plays great but might need a few tweaks, but even then it still seems finished with the way it looks.
I know it is advertising. . but advertising is to get people hyped up. . so we can't blame them for being disappointed can we?
You can blame yourself only.
I said them . . not me. You didn't read.
Advertising is still used because people believe it. Just because you have learnt your lesson doesn't make it less dishonest.
Can you really "go back to your old haunt and see what has changed"? I don't think so. . their examples are a merchant. . or again a RIFT.
I would say they have only themselves to blame. Which was the reason for the backlash. . which was justified.
Right now this is applicable to dungeons. Once you complete a dungeon you can come back to it at higher levels and you will encounter new monsters, bosses and new areas inside that dungeon will open up.
Sure. . but have the "old" places changed? I just think their calling it dynamic is really just like a random encounter table from the old D&D games. . or having high level content in an old area to come back to. That really isn't dynamic although I see your point.
Anytime a new MMO comes out I expect some core mechanic of a standard MMO to be innovated upon in some non-trivial way. And to be important to the game design, enough so that difference has merit upon scrutiny.
I also expect different arching stories that explain the world and perhaps even cause changes in it, even if they are superficial to the individual player. IE, If I chose not to save the king from assassins, or failed. The king should be gone or replaced, even if it's just to my client.. Although I consider that sloppy, but no other way I can think of to do that besides instancing the zone the "important" npc reside in.
I have not played Rift yet, I've heard that it is very polished and I appreciate that from a new developer. After seeing the state that DCUO is in and planning on releasing in around 20 days...and being under the SOE banner makes me die a little inside. I love the MMO genre, and it irks me to see established MMO developers release blatantly unfinished games. So Rift being in really good shape tells me there might be hope that the game world might see some "break away from the mold" ideas if not on release...in expansions. However I wish they would have put it on the line a little and changed up the formula in some meaningful way, which I can't comment on without playing the game as to what they could have done.
But it remains, there's a reason why people move on from existing MMOs. The story has been consumed, and the formula wears thin after too much of it....you can't even enjoy playing an alt when enough is enough. If Everquest was the end all be all of MMOs, WoW would not be dominating the market. And if the WoW formula is the end all be all, there wouldn't be players looking to leave for other MMO experiences. There's obvious room for change and improvement if people are not happy enough with the current offering to remain loyal. The story, and the gimmicks might keep them for bit, but if your core game is the same core game as WoW...once they add more story..your game is gonna be left behind. Anyway I hope to some day try Rift out, but I no longer pay the box price for MMOs without getting to trial them for a couple weeks in their "real world". So hopefully they don't forget to setup trial accounts for 10-14 days that reside in the true game world before the next big thing comes out. Vanguard setup a little trickster demo zone for trial accounts that gave you no perspective on the "true" game, didn't appreciate that deception at all.
I know it is advertising. . but advertising is to get people hyped up. . so we can't blame them for being disappointed can we?
You can blame yourself only.
I said them . . not me. You didn't read.
Advertising is still used because people believe it. Just because you have learnt your lesson doesn't make it less dishonest.
Can you really "go back to your old haunt and see what has changed"? I don't think so. . their examples are a merchant. . or again a RIFT.
I would say they have only themselves to blame. Which was the reason for the backlash. . which was justified.
Right now this is applicable to dungeons. Once you complete a dungeon you can come back to it at higher levels and you will encounter new monsters, bosses and new areas inside that dungeon will open up.
Sure. . but have the "old" places changed? I just think their calling it dynamic is really just like a random encounter table from the old D&D games. . or having high level content in an old area to come back to. That really isn't dynamic although I see your point.
Are you talking about permanent changes? or dynamic changes to landscape which last a bit longer but resets? permanent changes to landscape can't be done without instances. GW2 which is advertising its dynamic events works on the same principles, say you fail to save a village it will burn and occupied by enemies and stay that way until you drive the enemies out of that village. it is same in RIFT.
When invasions happen, if left unchecked rifts changes landscape the creatures of rifts spawn invasions which takes over the cities and settlements. Till you drive them out that city will be their stronghold.
First, I played in the last two beta events. I played at least 20 hours on 5 different builds. I don't consider myself a fanboi or hater. I'll give my own reaction below:
The good:
Overall, I think the game has a lot of polish. I would say similar to Aion. Many games launch now missing this part. Rift feels mostly complete. The UI is clean and functions. You can move each piece around on the screen to fit your needs. It's not like some games that only allow you to move the action bars. Quest tracking works, map works, waypoints works. I think there was a lot of confusion in beta where some people feel the souls are supposed to be individual classes. They wonder why X soul, like the Dominator, can't solo. It's not supposed to solo. Souls are meant to be combined to form your own class. You can mix and match to hearts content. It's fun and it works.
The not as good as I thought:
Dynamic Rifts (not so much) - From what I can tell the Rifts always spawn in the same locations. They have set points in the world and they may randomly jump between those points, but the points don't change. You could tell this early on the first weekend when the newbie Death rfit right outside the first town continuously spawned in the same location, over and over and over. This could be wrong, but from a player perspective it sure seems this way.
Rift mobs (lack of variety/difficulty)- From all the rifts I participated in, even the GM spawned huge ones, the mobs just auto attack. There is nothing special about the Rifts themselves. It always follow the same steps: Stage 1 - kill 8 mobs, Stage 2 - kill 6 slighter harder mobs, Stage 3 - kill mini boss that can be soloed, Stage 4 & 5 (repeat stage 1 & 2), Stage 6 - kill elite boss that has lots of hp and hits really hard with his auto-attack. There you go - that's every rift in a nutshell. Just change the skin of the mobs for the different types. Defiants have tons of death rifts and Guardians have tons of life rifts. They were all over the place. All looked exactly the same.
Phasing - So rifts phase the ground around them. It made me think of WoW using phasing. I expected more out of the technology, but it's not there. All they do is temporarily change the ground texture around the rifts or invasions. I actually like the Phasing WoW has managed to use. After you finish a series of quests the entire world changes around you. In Rift once you complete a series of quests nothing changes. If you and everyone else is putting out fires on catapults, why are they all still on fire? Everyone around you is just repeating the same quests with no visual outcome. They could have used their technology like WoW for more enjoyment.
Combat - reminds me of Warhammer. Just the slightest bit of sluggish feeling to it. Everything seems to be based around the animations and the length of time it takes to use the animations.
Pets everywhere - Each calling has a starter soul with a pet. You don't have to put any points in that soul to get a pet. You can use the trainer to level that base pet up to max level without any points. Sure, there are better pets deeper in the tree, but you get a free interrupt or CC with no investment. This just means everyone will have a third soul that requires no points for the cheese pet. Leveling without a pet just seems ridiculous, which is why you see them everywhere. Put all your points into another dps tree and the pet can still taunt and hold aggro.
Verdict
Not bad, but not good enough to play at launch. The class system is fun to play with for a while, but enough to keep me playing. LOTRO and EQ2 are free and just as good, imho.
I know it is advertising. . but advertising is to get people hyped up. . so we can't blame them for being disappointed can we?
You can blame yourself only.
If people would like to discuss how we are all responsible for our own decisions and reactions when faced with advertising then please do. But please be mindful of how that discussion is presented as it can appear like an insult or personal attack to some.
Are you talking about permanent changes? or dynamic changes to landscape which last a bit longer but resets? permanent changes to landscape can't be done without instances. GW2 which is advertising its dynamic events works on the same principles, say you fail to save a village it will burn and occupied by enemies and stay that way until you drive the enemies out of that village. it is same in RIFT.
When invasions happen, if left unchecked rifts changes landscape the creatures of rifts spawn invasions which takes over the cities and settlements. Till you drive them out that city will be their stronghold.
Actually, that isn't entirely correct. WoW using phasing to permanetly change the environment. A friend and I can be standing in the exact same spot. However, he might see 3 NPCs and I might not see any at all because he is farther along in the quest line. The world looks completely different to us. Once I complete the quests the world will change for me. I was hoping for more ouf this technology from Rifts, but they don't use it. Super Elite mobs that have lots of hp and hard hitting auto-attacks will kill NPCs in a town. The ground texture will change to match the Rift type, that is all. I didn't see any burning buildings in Rifts. Just the ground changed. And you can still respawn at the shrine in town. So what do people do if you don't have a large group? Just keeping respawning and slowly killing the elites til they are gone. Once you kill them all the ground changes back and the NPCs respawn within seconds.
I don't care if RIFT copied WoW or not. The soul system is a great concept, but isnt done well. you have 3 souls, but you cant master them all, and it feels gimped "as far as iv seen" . I have benefited from going fully into a single soul. The abilites need to feel different between the classes. they need to distingush them, So many pet classes, and no diversity at all, almost everyone takes a pet tree, and they all look the freakin same. I didnt feel connected to the lore, only perhaps the starter zone, and thats it. in general it dosent feel very unique, its like no special touch to it. anyhow, im waiting for PVP testing. if thats fun then ill join, until the next "Big disappointing game"
Are you talking about permanent changes? or dynamic changes to landscape which last a bit longer but resets? permanent changes to landscape can't be done without instances. GW2 which is advertising its dynamic events works on the same principles, say you fail to save a village it will burn and occupied by enemies and stay that way until you drive the enemies out of that village. it is same in RIFT.
When invasions happen, if left unchecked rifts changes landscape the creatures of rifts spawn invasions which takes over the cities and settlements. Till you drive them out that city will be their stronghold.
Actually, that isn't entirely correct. WoW using phasing to permanetly change the environment. A friend and I can be standing in the exact same spot. However, he might see 3 NPCs and I might not see any at all because he is farther along in the quest line. The world looks completely different to us. Once I complete the quests the world will change for me. I was hoping for more ouf this technology from Rifts, but they don't use it. Super Elite mobs that have lots of hp and hard hitting auto-attacks will kill NPCs in a town. The ground texture will change to match the Rift type, that is all. I didn't see any burning buildings in Rifts. Just the ground changed. And you can still respawn at the shrine in town. So what do people do if you don't have a large group? Just keeping respawning and slowly killing the elites til they are gone. Once you kill them all the ground changes back and the NPCs respawn within seconds.
Phasing seperates you from other players, so it is more or less like an instance. i could see people just appearing and disappearing in front of my eyes when i was in Worgen starting area. it is cool but i prefer open world and presistent dynamic changes even though they are bound to reset after a while.
Also all the invasions scale accoring to number of players, so if you are all alone to defend a settlement it will scale accordingly. Even GW2 is not using phasing and i am sure still it will have some amazing dynamic events.
First, I played in the last two beta events. I played at least 20 hours on 5 different builds. I don't consider myself a fanboi or hater. I'll give my own reaction below:
The good:
Overall, I think the game has a lot of polish. I would say similar to Aion. Many games launch now missing this part. Rift feels mostly complete. The UI is clean and functions. You can move each piece around on the screen to fit your needs. It's not like some games that only allow you to move the action bars. Quest tracking works, map works, waypoints works. I think there was a lot of confusion in beta where some people feel the souls are supposed to be individual classes. They wonder why X soul, like the Dominator, can't solo. It's not supposed to solo. Souls are meant to be combined to form your own class. You can mix and match to hearts content. It's fun and it works.
The not as good as I thought:
Dynamic Rifts (not so much) - From what I can tell the Rifts always spawn in the same locations. They have set points in the world and they may randomly jump between those points, but the points don't change. You could tell this early on the first weekend when the newbie Death rfit right outside the first town continuously spawned in the same location, over and over and over. This could be wrong, but from a player perspective it sure seems this way.
Rift mobs (lack of variety/difficulty)- From all the rifts I participated in, even the GM spawned huge ones, the mobs just auto attack. There is nothing special about the Rifts themselves. It always follow the same steps: Stage 1 - kill 8 mobs, Stage 2 - kill 6 slighter harder mobs, Stage 3 - kill mini boss that can be soloed, Stage 4 & 5 (repeat stage 1 & 2), Stage 6 - kill elite boss that has lots of hp and hits really hard with his auto-attack. There you go - that's every rift in a nutshell. Just change the skin of the mobs for the different types. Defiants have tons of death rifts and Guardians have tons of life rifts. They were all over the place. All looked exactly the same.
Phasing - So rifts phase the ground around them. It made me think of WoW using phasing. I expected more out of the technology, but it's not there. All they do is temporarily change the ground texture around the rifts or invasions. I actually like the Phasing WoW has managed to use. After you finish a series of quests the entire world changes around you. In Rift once you complete a series of quests nothing changes. If you and everyone else is putting out fires on catapults, why are they all still on fire? Everyone around you is just repeating the same quests with no visual outcome. They could have used their technology like WoW for more enjoyment.
Combat - reminds me of Warhammer. Just the slightest bit of sluggish feeling to it. Everything seems to be based around the animations and the length of time it takes to use the animations.
Pets everywhere - Each calling has a starter soul with a pet. You don't have to put any points in that soul to get a pet. You can use the trainer to level that base pet up to max level without any points. Sure, there are better pets deeper in the tree, but you get a free interrupt or CC with no investment. This just means everyone will have a third soul that requires no points for the cheese pet. Leveling without a pet just seems ridiculous, which is why you see them everywhere. Put all your points into another dps tree and the pet can still taunt and hold aggro.
Verdict
Not bad, but not good enough to play at launch. The class system is fun to play with for a while, but enough to keep me playing. LOTRO and EQ2 are free and just as good, imho.
I have also played the first 2 Beta's and have to agree with this post.
SO far i do like the game and can see that there is alot of potential, but it still needs work. That being said, we have only been able to play to lvl 20 and no PvP. The game has had ALOT of people running around trying eveything that they can and the "rifts" have not had any time to develope or do much of anything.
Overall i say let the following Beta's play out. I think Trion is doing a good job and with any luck when the game is ready for release the game will be in a good state to play.
The dynamism doesn't come from permanent landscape change. The dynamism come from the fact mob factions spawns randomly in the world, send invasion teams deep inside that can conquer some hot spot of the map. Nothing less, nothing more. It give the "sensation" the world is changing, its nothing spectacular like having the map radically change, the town burning to dust or anything like this. Its just random spawn, pathways and batttling over hotspot. But it's till is a lot more dynamic than go kill 10 orc in that feild and come back. In fack the go kill 10 orc are still there, but the rift is on top of it. So ye its definitly more dynamic, it might be pittyfull for some, but still better without a doubt.
I think GW2 is more taking the route to have the all village change with "permanent" instance, but its a lot more work, thats why they talk about dynamic event, and not spawn or whatever.
Just to point this out....Notice I didn't say "the good" and the "the bad." I just said "not as good as I thought." Perhaps my expectations for Rifts were too high, or perhaps with all the players they didn't have enough time to mature. Just my opinion. The game is by no means bad. It is fun and I'll keep playing in all the beta events. I just don't think it is worth my money at this point.
The dynamism doesn't come from permanent landscape change. The dynamism come from the fact mob factions spawns randomly in the world, send invasion teams deep inside that can conquer some hot spot of the map. Nothing less, nothing more. It give the "sensation" the world is changing, its nothing spectacular like having the map radically change, the town burning to dust or anything like this. Its just random spawn, pathways and batttling over hotspot. But it's till is a lot more dynamic than go kill 10 orc in that feild and come back. In fack the go kill 10 orc are still there, but the rift is on top of it. So ye its definitly more dynamic, it might be pittyfull for some, but still better without a doubt.
I think GW2 is more taking the route to have the all village change with "permanent" instance, but its a lot more work, thats why they talk about dynamic event, and not spawn or whatever.
I thought that RIfts once they happened could take over towns etc until they were defeated?
THe landscape does change to what ever the invading rift is, fire/water/death etc. But again as we have had such a small area to play in I have not seen anything like this happen yet
The dynamism come from the fact mob factions spawns randomly in the world,
I didn't find this to be the case. First beta weekend, by the time I got to level 7 and out of the (starter area in the future), you saw the same death rift spawn in the same location over and over. In the mining area there were two death rifts that would spawn. One on the north side of the mine and one on the south. They just kept respawning in those exact two locations. The only dynamic part was the time inbetween respawns. It was never a different type of rift either. Just a death rift in the same location. So it seems that the world may have set spawns for particular rifts and they just randomly open in these spots. Not terrible....just not what I originally thought was going to happen. You will never see a Life Rift spawn in that Defiant mining area, only death rifts.
The dynamism doesn't come from permanent landscape change. The dynamism come from the fact mob factions spawns randomly in the world, send invasion teams deep inside that can conquer some hot spot of the map. Nothing less, nothing more. It give the "sensation" the world is changing, its nothing spectacular like having the map radically change, the town burning to dust or anything like this. Its just random spawn, pathways and batttling over hotspot. But it's till is a lot more dynamic than go kill 10 orc in that feild and come back. In fack the go kill 10 orc are still there, but the rift is on top of it. So ye its definitly more dynamic, it might be pittyfull for some, but still better without a doubt.
I think GW2 is more taking the route to have the all village change with "permanent" instance, but its a lot more work, thats why they talk about dynamic event, and not spawn or whatever.
Using the word dynamic for random spawns like rifts and invasions are too much for me. The only thing that possibly could be dynamic about it is that the rift scales depending on the players close to it.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
I've been beta testing games since 1983 and Rift is the most polished one I've seen in that time. Not perfect by any means, but certainly the most polished and run by the most professional team of developers I've come across in that time. The speed with which they hotfix reported issues is amazing, and I have yet to witness a single server crash or other technical issue with no performance problems on my machine either. They're also running more servers than in most betas, including localised French and German ones which I suspect is unprecedented.
As for the game itself, I wouldn't begin to compare it directly to WoW, rather it is 99% WAR and 1% Tabula Rasa. One could claim that those titles were themselves based to some extent on WoW but then that would ignore the fact that WoW wasn't an original MMORPG in the first place.
The genre is what it is, and Rift takes its place among all the other games of similar basic design with its own individual style. Much of its success will depend on how the rifts operate when the initial burst of players has moved through the game and new players arrive in an empty world.
Comments
Right now this is applicable to dungeons. Once you complete a dungeon you can come back to it at higher levels and you will encounter new monsters, bosses and new areas inside that dungeon will open up.
The general consesus (of the people's opinions I've read) is it plays great but might need a few tweaks, but even then it still seems finished with the way it looks.
This is not a game.
Sure. . but have the "old" places changed? I just think their calling it dynamic is really just like a random encounter table from the old D&D games. . or having high level content in an old area to come back to. That really isn't dynamic although I see your point.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I've seen worst backlashes..
Anytime a new MMO comes out I expect some core mechanic of a standard MMO to be innovated upon in some non-trivial way. And to be important to the game design, enough so that difference has merit upon scrutiny.
I also expect different arching stories that explain the world and perhaps even cause changes in it, even if they are superficial to the individual player. IE, If I chose not to save the king from assassins, or failed. The king should be gone or replaced, even if it's just to my client.. Although I consider that sloppy, but no other way I can think of to do that besides instancing the zone the "important" npc reside in.
I have not played Rift yet, I've heard that it is very polished and I appreciate that from a new developer. After seeing the state that DCUO is in and planning on releasing in around 20 days...and being under the SOE banner makes me die a little inside. I love the MMO genre, and it irks me to see established MMO developers release blatantly unfinished games. So Rift being in really good shape tells me there might be hope that the game world might see some "break away from the mold" ideas if not on release...in expansions. However I wish they would have put it on the line a little and changed up the formula in some meaningful way, which I can't comment on without playing the game as to what they could have done.
But it remains, there's a reason why people move on from existing MMOs. The story has been consumed, and the formula wears thin after too much of it....you can't even enjoy playing an alt when enough is enough. If Everquest was the end all be all of MMOs, WoW would not be dominating the market. And if the WoW formula is the end all be all, there wouldn't be players looking to leave for other MMO experiences. There's obvious room for change and improvement if people are not happy enough with the current offering to remain loyal. The story, and the gimmicks might keep them for bit, but if your core game is the same core game as WoW...once they add more story..your game is gonna be left behind. Anyway I hope to some day try Rift out, but I no longer pay the box price for MMOs without getting to trial them for a couple weeks in their "real world". So hopefully they don't forget to setup trial accounts for 10-14 days that reside in the true game world before the next big thing comes out. Vanguard setup a little trickster demo zone for trial accounts that gave you no perspective on the "true" game, didn't appreciate that deception at all.
Are you talking about permanent changes? or dynamic changes to landscape which last a bit longer but resets? permanent changes to landscape can't be done without instances. GW2 which is advertising its dynamic events works on the same principles, say you fail to save a village it will burn and occupied by enemies and stay that way until you drive the enemies out of that village. it is same in RIFT.
When invasions happen, if left unchecked rifts changes landscape the creatures of rifts spawn invasions which takes over the cities and settlements. Till you drive them out that city will be their stronghold.
First, I played in the last two beta events. I played at least 20 hours on 5 different builds. I don't consider myself a fanboi or hater. I'll give my own reaction below:
The good:
Overall, I think the game has a lot of polish. I would say similar to Aion. Many games launch now missing this part. Rift feels mostly complete. The UI is clean and functions. You can move each piece around on the screen to fit your needs. It's not like some games that only allow you to move the action bars. Quest tracking works, map works, waypoints works. I think there was a lot of confusion in beta where some people feel the souls are supposed to be individual classes. They wonder why X soul, like the Dominator, can't solo. It's not supposed to solo. Souls are meant to be combined to form your own class. You can mix and match to hearts content. It's fun and it works.
The not as good as I thought:
Dynamic Rifts (not so much) - From what I can tell the Rifts always spawn in the same locations. They have set points in the world and they may randomly jump between those points, but the points don't change. You could tell this early on the first weekend when the newbie Death rfit right outside the first town continuously spawned in the same location, over and over and over. This could be wrong, but from a player perspective it sure seems this way.
Rift mobs (lack of variety/difficulty)- From all the rifts I participated in, even the GM spawned huge ones, the mobs just auto attack. There is nothing special about the Rifts themselves. It always follow the same steps: Stage 1 - kill 8 mobs, Stage 2 - kill 6 slighter harder mobs, Stage 3 - kill mini boss that can be soloed, Stage 4 & 5 (repeat stage 1 & 2), Stage 6 - kill elite boss that has lots of hp and hits really hard with his auto-attack. There you go - that's every rift in a nutshell. Just change the skin of the mobs for the different types. Defiants have tons of death rifts and Guardians have tons of life rifts. They were all over the place. All looked exactly the same.
Phasing - So rifts phase the ground around them. It made me think of WoW using phasing. I expected more out of the technology, but it's not there. All they do is temporarily change the ground texture around the rifts or invasions. I actually like the Phasing WoW has managed to use. After you finish a series of quests the entire world changes around you. In Rift once you complete a series of quests nothing changes. If you and everyone else is putting out fires on catapults, why are they all still on fire? Everyone around you is just repeating the same quests with no visual outcome. They could have used their technology like WoW for more enjoyment.
Combat - reminds me of Warhammer. Just the slightest bit of sluggish feeling to it. Everything seems to be based around the animations and the length of time it takes to use the animations.
Pets everywhere - Each calling has a starter soul with a pet. You don't have to put any points in that soul to get a pet. You can use the trainer to level that base pet up to max level without any points. Sure, there are better pets deeper in the tree, but you get a free interrupt or CC with no investment. This just means everyone will have a third soul that requires no points for the cheese pet. Leveling without a pet just seems ridiculous, which is why you see them everywhere. Put all your points into another dps tree and the pet can still taunt and hold aggro.
Verdict
Not bad, but not good enough to play at launch. The class system is fun to play with for a while, but enough to keep me playing. LOTRO and EQ2 are free and just as good, imho.
If people would like to discuss how we are all responsible for our own decisions and reactions when faced with advertising then please do. But please be mindful of how that discussion is presented as it can appear like an insult or personal attack to some.
Actually, that isn't entirely correct. WoW using phasing to permanetly change the environment. A friend and I can be standing in the exact same spot. However, he might see 3 NPCs and I might not see any at all because he is farther along in the quest line. The world looks completely different to us. Once I complete the quests the world will change for me. I was hoping for more ouf this technology from Rifts, but they don't use it. Super Elite mobs that have lots of hp and hard hitting auto-attacks will kill NPCs in a town. The ground texture will change to match the Rift type, that is all. I didn't see any burning buildings in Rifts. Just the ground changed. And you can still respawn at the shrine in town. So what do people do if you don't have a large group? Just keeping respawning and slowly killing the elites til they are gone. Once you kill them all the ground changes back and the NPCs respawn within seconds.
I don't care if RIFT copied WoW or not. The soul system is a great concept, but isnt done well. you have 3 souls, but you cant master them all, and it feels gimped "as far as iv seen" . I have benefited from going fully into a single soul. The abilites need to feel different between the classes. they need to distingush them, So many pet classes, and no diversity at all, almost everyone takes a pet tree, and they all look the freakin same. I didnt feel connected to the lore, only perhaps the starter zone, and thats it. in general it dosent feel very unique, its like no special touch to it. anyhow, im waiting for PVP testing. if thats fun then ill join, until the next "Big disappointing game"
Phasing seperates you from other players, so it is more or less like an instance. i could see people just appearing and disappearing in front of my eyes when i was in Worgen starting area. it is cool but i prefer open world and presistent dynamic changes even though they are bound to reset after a while.
Also all the invasions scale accoring to number of players, so if you are all alone to defend a settlement it will scale accordingly. Even GW2 is not using phasing and i am sure still it will have some amazing dynamic events.
I have also played the first 2 Beta's and have to agree with this post.
SO far i do like the game and can see that there is alot of potential, but it still needs work. That being said, we have only been able to play to lvl 20 and no PvP. The game has had ALOT of people running around trying eveything that they can and the "rifts" have not had any time to develope or do much of anything.
Overall i say let the following Beta's play out. I think Trion is doing a good job and with any luck when the game is ready for release the game will be in a good state to play.
The dynamism doesn't come from permanent landscape change. The dynamism come from the fact mob factions spawns randomly in the world, send invasion teams deep inside that can conquer some hot spot of the map. Nothing less, nothing more. It give the "sensation" the world is changing, its nothing spectacular like having the map radically change, the town burning to dust or anything like this. Its just random spawn, pathways and batttling over hotspot. But it's till is a lot more dynamic than go kill 10 orc in that feild and come back. In fack the go kill 10 orc are still there, but the rift is on top of it. So ye its definitly more dynamic, it might be pittyfull for some, but still better without a doubt.
I think GW2 is more taking the route to have the all village change with "permanent" instance, but its a lot more work, thats why they talk about dynamic event, and not spawn or whatever.
Just to point this out....Notice I didn't say "the good" and the "the bad." I just said "not as good as I thought." Perhaps my expectations for Rifts were too high, or perhaps with all the players they didn't have enough time to mature. Just my opinion. The game is by no means bad. It is fun and I'll keep playing in all the beta events. I just don't think it is worth my money at this point.
I thought that RIfts once they happened could take over towns etc until they were defeated?
THe landscape does change to what ever the invading rift is, fire/water/death etc. But again as we have had such a small area to play in I have not seen anything like this happen yet
I didn't find this to be the case. First beta weekend, by the time I got to level 7 and out of the (starter area in the future), you saw the same death rift spawn in the same location over and over. In the mining area there were two death rifts that would spawn. One on the north side of the mine and one on the south. They just kept respawning in those exact two locations. The only dynamic part was the time inbetween respawns. It was never a different type of rift either. Just a death rift in the same location. So it seems that the world may have set spawns for particular rifts and they just randomly open in these spots. Not terrible....just not what I originally thought was going to happen. You will never see a Life Rift spawn in that Defiant mining area, only death rifts.
Using the word dynamic for random spawns like rifts and invasions are too much for me. The only thing that possibly could be dynamic about it is that the rift scales depending on the players close to it.
I'm so tired of people building their expectations up to a point that nothing can ever live up to. You people do this shit all the time, and you can bet after GW2 goes live you'll do the same crap with that game as well.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
AMEN!!
Wait till you read 'GW2 SUCKS" posts. Going to be hilarious.
Why would you say amen to an annoying thing?
This is not a game.
Because the guy speaks the truth.
Then you say "true that" not "amen".
This is not a game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen
Case dismissed!
This is not a game.
I've been beta testing games since 1983 and Rift is the most polished one I've seen in that time. Not perfect by any means, but certainly the most polished and run by the most professional team of developers I've come across in that time. The speed with which they hotfix reported issues is amazing, and I have yet to witness a single server crash or other technical issue with no performance problems on my machine either. They're also running more servers than in most betas, including localised French and German ones which I suspect is unprecedented.
As for the game itself, I wouldn't begin to compare it directly to WoW, rather it is 99% WAR and 1% Tabula Rasa. One could claim that those titles were themselves based to some extent on WoW but then that would ignore the fact that WoW wasn't an original MMORPG in the first place.
The genre is what it is, and Rift takes its place among all the other games of similar basic design with its own individual style. Much of its success will depend on how the rifts operate when the initial burst of players has moved through the game and new players arrive in an empty world.