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I think im officially done with 'kill this, collect this, return for reward' MMO's.
After logging into the Rift beta, i reached level 5, and barely into my 7-8 quest i logged out of boredom. I simply find no substance in this same old fantasy quest model of kill X, collect Y, return for reward. I'm just over it. It bores the hell out of me. After 8+ years playing MMO's i actually think i've lost the will to endure this tried and tested method of levelling. I wan't something else.
More MMORPG's need to find a way to disguise this old ass method of levelling, ala TOR. At least WAR (the last MMO i actually enjoyed) let me level from 1 to 50 with pure PvP, which is far more exciting than any PvE quest i can grab.
Rift looks like a solid MMO (which will get it far in this industry) and i'd definitely like to see its mid-end game in full swing, as well as experiencing some Rifts. However, bashing mobs over and over with the same generic sequence of abilities at level 5 (the same generic sequence of buff, debuff, attack, finisher i will probably use all the way to end game) is just too much of a chore for me and the prospect of another 45 levels of this just does not hold my interest.
I could delve deeper into other reasons why Rift isn't really my thing, in a nutshell, it doesn't do anything innovative besides 'Rifts', which are basically PQ's from WAR. It's cool you can mix and match 3 different classes, but that's nothing really new, and seem's more like a clever way to disguise it's generic 'talent' tree.
I imagine Rift will be a successfull MMO and good luck to it, but for now i think im done with these tried and true fantasy MMO formula's. If TOR and Earthrise let me down i think ill be done with MMO's for good.
Comments
Yeah, the starter area is very quest based, but it also is supposed to give you the story and background.
Once you leave the starter area, you can skip all the quests if you want and just do rifts, invasions, footholds and such, and then you get exp in pvp also, and dungeons are good exp.
I am not much of a quester myself, I don't read them for the most part, and I am fine with grinding for exp.
So I would say log back in, you get out of the starter area in a pretty quick time, and try to bypass the quests and see if you like it more.
I read quests and try to get into them as best I can because otherwise what else do these games have to offer. I think the effort people put into the writing and the construction of these quests that are story driven need some time on my part of reading. Of course that does not necessarily translate into an immersion but it helps to read them to get you into some mood to play.
I know that reading and doing quests can be trying and tiresome but honestly if no such thing exists and you just level off killing I would be even more bored. I cannot play a game that has just killing with no quests.
I totally get what the OP means. If the game was not so well made I dont think i would have pre-ordered.
I am willing to go through it though to get to mid and end game, because if the game they have created represents the effort they will put in then its going to be good.
I never gave guild wars a chance at the start because i was to into WOW. But i recently started again, and wowee. The max lvl is 20 and I am now lvl 14. From start to where I am now its been one long story quest, with mini side quest representing the main story.
Not yet have I done one go there and kill 10 of X to get to get Y. Its so refreshing. I'm very much looking forward to making my way to eye of the north.
As for Rift betas im not going to go to mad over them, I dont want to burn myself out for release.
Welcome to the club OP.
Well, just to give you my view...I like some story, but too much is just a overload and distracting. I read enough to get whats going on...I do all aspects, craft, harvest, pvp, pve, dungeons, raid...I land on the sandbox side more than the themepark side.
As crazy as it sounds, I don't mind grinding, putting in time to harvest and try to get ultra rares, harder crafting like VG, some say thats like another job, but I enjoy it.
Rift has a lot of aspects I don't like (would prefer some open dungeons), but I am hoping they pull together some good dungeons/raiding/pvp stuff.
I have to settle, the sandboxs out now seem to be full of hacks/cheats/dupes, poor ui/quality, its a major turnoff.
Rift is a well done game but.. to me it felt too much like a "been there done that" title, so I'll probally not buy it mainly because of that, I want something diffrent not another generic mmorpg like wow, etc. When I get my new pc and they offer a trial i'll give it a shot but I don't honestly expect much.
These mmorpg devs need to learn that now a days people want a diffrent experence and not the same crap we been playing for the last 5-8 years in a diffrent wrapper.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words."
-Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
Im totally with you dude. You say you are sick of kill x, gather y quest type MMOs and put your faith in TOR and Earthrise. Earthrise sure. It may be decent. Its a sandbox and could be really cool. But TOR? Really? TOR is a 100% generic been there done that MMO. But anyway, Guildwars 2 is what you need to be looking at. 100% quest free and pure awesome.
In what way, because I watched those hours long gameplay vids and I saw a fair few quests, actually all I saw was quests in pretty much the same way as every other mmo I've played.
As for the OP not being funny mate but unless you go with something along the lines of eve or planetside you may just be burnt out. It always becomes aparent in beta, there no ties so the effect is amplified.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Not really, i believe TOR will do very well at 'disguising' the levelling process with its cinematic story telling. I'm hoping it will suck me in enough that i won't care i have to kill X and collect Y, i'll feel like im part of a bigger picture, my own movie epic, it will all make sense. Not to mention the combat looks more entertaining, while it holds similar aspects to most MMORPG's, it looks very cinematic/animated. Plus im a huge Star Wars fan so that helps. Bioware isn't claiming to do anything hugely innovative, it's been quite up front with what TOR's main attraction is. An excellent story, fully voiced and cinematic. I admire their honesty and thus have greater faith in their product.
I'm with the OP as the impression I am getting is that Rift is a polished version of a WoW-Clone. There is nothing wrong with that but I won't be picking this one up (at launch anyway). Will keep tabs on it though.
Also, for the quoted poster, unless I'm looking at gameplay vids that isn't GW2 there seems to be a fair number of quests that are 'Go here and kill X'.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I agree. The only MMO i look forward to even remotely is guild wars 2, because it actively tries to evolve several aspects of the genre. Those claiming otherwise obviously don't know enough about the game (a seemingly brash statement, but one that is ultimately true), there's an hour long presentation on dynamic events at GDC 2010 such players should go and watch as an example of how arenanet had to remake their game from the ground up to support dynamic systems, so hardly any MMO staples could be used, in fact they've had to add some familiar npc's in (like a scout with a symbol above his head pointing the more conditioned players to certain areas so they end up by events and learn to play the game) to help newbies conditioned for 'zomg quest symbol, zomg 10 rats, zomg kill' break such conditioning.
There are no traditional quests in guild wars 2, and any events with aspects similar (npc with icon above head) are there to help the conditioned, brainwashed masses feel comfortable. However you never need to talk to an NPC in a dynamic event, ever, as all of the context of the event will be spoken (or shouted most likely, as they're getting annoyed at the bunny rabbits nomming their cabbages, or hysterically running screaming around town about how a drake broodmother is trying to eat someone) by the NPC's (oh yeah, gw2 has more voice acting than TOR) and the event itself should be fairly obvious to see, as it's been designed to be visual. Personal storylines can involve talking to npc's, but they're all fully voiced too.
Rift didn't impress me. It was the same as everything i've played. It's standard MMO + rifts, and rifts are just badly implemented dynamic events. It's not a bad game however, and many players will love it, just like many fps players will love cod 9: attack of the gaming clone.
The quest grinding has become extremely stale, and I tire of getting a reward or new piece of gear on damn near every one. An example, shortly after leaving the starter area on the Defiant side, I had two quests near each other and they both rewarded a new weapon, same stats just different look...why? And just 10min before those I was already given a new wep...blah
I keep saying to myself, its the new shiney and everyone is gonna be playing, might as well join in, but really for what. Nobody ever wants to group, its all solo quest grinding once again, heck thus far you don't even have to team up for 5sec on named mobs for quests, just be nearby and wait for someone ahead of u to kill and u get credit, and can even siphon off the corpse and move along.
Oh, another thing, I try to participate in the rift events, but by the time I get one of 2 or 2.5sec spells off the mobs are dead, I still get credit for just standing in the area, having done nothing but charge up spells only to have them fizzle...lol
I am 100% with you OP.
The opening and even music reminded me 100% of WAR but with character models and animations more similar to Aion. I'm just running around hitting the same generic mobs with the same generic 1-2-3 combo doing the same 2 quests over and over. There is just nothing interesting happenning at all. If you've played WAR or Aion, you've played this.
AoC at least had voice acting, better graphics, a different meele combat system and an interesting starting area. WAR had rvr lakes and scenarios. Vindictus has incredible combat and graphics. While these games have their own flaws they at least had something interesting to grab you from the start.
Aion and Rift seem like carbon copies to me. The gameplay has no identifiable difference except a slightly different skin. I can see rifts being semi fun for a bit, but its still the same old boring pve 1-2-3 combat.
This formula of forcing the player to spend hours and hours of monotonous grinding to get to any of the semi-interesting content has simply crushed my will to log in anymore.
Guess I need to stick with League of Legends or something until GW2 comes out.
First of all I want to say that I am really looking forward to Guild Wars 2 but I dont know why people keep saying that the game is quest free. There are so many videos of the character going to locations doing these so called Dynamic Events ( Active Quest ).
The difference is that these 'quests' are immediate and always group based. In a standard MMO you go talk to stationary pillock #674534 and they give you a quest to go kill the floaty black ghost thingies because they're eating people or something similar.
You walk out and find the ghosts floating about doing jack shit. Yawn. Kill a few, return, get reward, next pillock. Rinse and repeat for 5 years or until suicide. Want to play with a friend? oh sorry, he/she doesn't have that quest. back to solo town for you. See that other player, is that an ally to your fight against these evil ghosts? no, he's just a killstealing noob. Wait... isn't this an MMO, shouldn't i be happy to see other players?
In guild wars 2, that stuff is happening, you don't need pillock #25345 telling you it's happening, it just is. Also note that there's never a need to do a specific event other than the fact you like it too. You don't get 'uber 1337 gear' for doing a specific quest, you get karma, gold and experience for all events you partake in, so you can do what you like, and less of what you don't. (don't like extermination style events? don't do them and focus on defence style events, or seige esque events, or bar brawls, or feeding cows). The point is that the whole of guild wars 2 is designed to be fun. Which is why compared to established (and bad) MMO's there's not as much of a huge focus on the level 80 content (although there's a fair bit), because you can do any event in the game whenever at level 80 (of which there are around 1500), so there's a huge amount of world to explore. In other MMO's you'd never dream of seriously questing in starter zones at level 80, but in gw2 you can and most importantly, it's fun.
basically, i dare anyone to find out about guild wars 2 seriously and not think it's going to be a huge new step in MMO gaming. The only people against guild wars 2 so far seem to not know much or are fanboys of other games (and therefore delusional) thus far.
Oh, and it's B2P, so you don't even have to stop playing your other MMORPG.
Rift is absolutely mind-numbingly boring. It's one of the most thinly disguised rehashes of already worn-out ideas and themes that I have ever seen, and I have been around since UO. It's existence underlines the lack of innovation in this area of gaming, and the public's willingness to accept it. If you are going to simply remake another game, then you have to do more than change the names. This is nothing more than an attempt at milking a few ignorant people out of their cash. Nothing more to see here.
It is very easy to carried away i guess
Essentially though, for me, guild wars 2 is either good or i'm never playing MMORPG's again, because they bore me to tears, like rift does. Plus, even if it underdelivers on every aspect it'll still be twice as good as every other MMO that relies on 'kill x, collect y' stationary pillocks. Also there is a definite trust you can have in arenanet that you just can't have with other devs (like crytek). After playing gw1 and knowing how they handle things it's very hard not to get excited for gw2, since you know they're saying it how it is (especially after the demo). Still, yes, when release day comes we'll know for sure
You only need to watch their released vids to see your talking utter ass, yes DE are there (yay solo group play) but from whats shown standard quest seemed the mainstay.
IThe b2p is the best bit about the game and I'll definately try it just because of that, but cheap doesn't mean good or different
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Some will be, naturally, but i'm pretty sure that was covered under 'making things familiar to newbies' section, the starting areas do have far more of such simple quests for obvious reasons (some wurms taken over a field, help by reducing their numbers, standard stuff, but at least it's group based). The charr quests were more varied for example (even the extension of the basic kill quest in the charr homelands is a 3 quest link of force out harpies, defend the ogres collecting water and escort them back to home), even if many of the more complicated ones were locked for time reasons (so as to not distract the players so the miss the the shatterer ect.).
Do remember that the demo was designed for 50 minutes, and they've said that it takes the average player 40 minutes to even understand what's really going on when they've used player testers. So they couldn't burden them with overcomplicated event chains from the off. Most of those used were the nice, simpler ones (in the charr zone obviously, the starter area will probably remain nice and simple)
Of course, you don't have to do the quests you don't like, but if you actually look at the quests you can easily see even the most basic is as good a the very best in standard MMO's. Still, it'll all be proved hopefully this year, so no more of me having to relay what has been said in games developer conferences, knowing about the more interesting event chains and various interviews :P
P.S. Expensive also doesn't mean good. £10 a month for rift or wow is no better than a f2p game like runes of magic. All are dull as dishwater.
Blizzard entertainment pulled its might resources together before Cataclysm to do a test. The juggernaught used its mighty cash flows to see when a MMO player quit and how to keep people playing. Over 90% of players would decide if its worth playing or to quit within the first hour of gameplay. Dont underestimate that first hour of gameplay. Blizzard didnt and I love the 1-10 zones now I can see how these could really get a new player into their game.
Sure its a demo but still when people talk of the first 1-2 hours of gameplay dont chide them for not playing more, cause this first part of the game is cruical for sucsess.
People are already whining about the first 20 levels of Rift. Not a good sign.
Play mortal online..
you can max out in 1 day. (stat wise) skills (1-2 weeks) depends if you grind or just read books (reading books get skill up really slowly depending on skill, like sometimes a week.
its like obivion with people, but its full loot and in quite a hostile enviorment.
I use be all for reading, but then I remember this is a video game not a book. They should be able to show me whats going on through gameplay, actions, and cynamatic like WoW currently does.
Yeh the demo is just a demo.
Yet still with the thoughts on games which people have played (that arent demos :P) they will quit and shout their opinion after the 1st 20 levels or so like they have done already during this beta process. The average gamer doesnt care for depth of analysis. If it doesnt grab em by level 10 or 15 then they are outta here.
That's fair enough, but what are people supposed to base their opinions on? You're inferring that we should ignore the 'actual gameplay' vids and instead rely on the hopes and wishes that people have for the game? That makes no sense, if they are going to release gameplay vids then they are doing that for a reason, to show their game and how it will play. I'm going to take my reference from that than how you think or hope the game might play.
Also there is a lot more than just the single 50 minute vid and they all show the same stuff. But there are undoubtedly people who want that and that's fine. And I agree that the vids are not going to give you a gameplay experience but it's all we have atm.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I'm on the mindset of having paid to play this game, I would put more than 10-15 lvl's into it. Are you guys say'n that there are people out there that would drop money on a game, put about 5 hours into it and then quit when they haven't experienced more than just the start of a game.
As I write this, I just realized that most games for consoles are around that long (5-7 hours). So I guess nevermind, that doesn't seem to be to crazy. I love games that take more than a day of game time to get into, anyone remember those rpg's that took ov 40 hours to complete, sometimes longer if you wanted to get everything... I do and I miss them.