My Beta 5 feedback...

Now that was an excellent time! This Beta event went smoother, and felt more polished, than most games do at launch, and some even months after launch!

So first thing's first, Kudos to Trion and the dev-team for making Rift into something to look forward to already, at least for me!

Let me say, I tried everything but the dungeons and PvP (this being my first Rift beta event, I didn't even reach lvl 20 before end), and I only had one problem. I got stuck between two rocks, on my way back to my body. I jumped wrong or something, and landed perfectly in between two rocks and was completely stuck. I had to "Return to Graveyard". I ran every quest I was given, helped out with every Rift I could get to in time, played around with soul stones (those little things you equip? maybe not stones?). You name it. And only the stuck-between-2-rocks problem happened to me.

I did not experience any crash-to-desktop, no problems with lag (except for one water Rift that easily had 50+ people helping out), only a couple disconnects (no way to determine if it was server-side or my ISP though, so...). Like I said, polished... Very polished for a Beta event.

And now.... Dum dum dum dum.... The list...

Just a few items I personally would like to see done differently. Not a game-breaker for me though.

- Slight more freedom when designing your character. I'd like to be able to be a big fattie, or a stickpole, if I feel like. The facial customizations were pretty good, but besides height selections there was no way to make your character's body your own

- Do-away with the must-target-to-attack. I feel target-lock is important for things such as spells, ranged attacks, and so you don't lose focus of your intended target. However, when you're engaged you can't fight back until you target-lock.

If you're being hit by multiple attackers sometimes you don't always get the target you intend to on the first try, or even the second try. Also, you already have the requirement of "face your enemy".

I think better, would be, if you're in range, and facing your enemy then you should be able to land a hit. Especially if you've got 2 or 3 enemies in front of you. There's no way that if you swing a sword or an axe, in the direction of three foes standing right in front of you that you can't land a hit on more than one.

Especially when you're in a huge foothold defense, or Rift event, and there's like 50 baddies surrounding you and your group. Maybe it's just me, but seriously, you can't accurately target the baddie you want in that type of situation.

And even more importantly, in PvP situations. There's going to be times that you'll be engaged by multiple attackers. If your attack is within range, and you're facing in the right direction you'll be pretty upset if you can't land a hit fast enough to defend yourself just because you hit [TAB] one too many times in the excitement of it all.

It makes the combat system a lot more open feeling, and not so single-threaded, and adds a bit of realism, even if it's just a touch.

- Some clothing accessories, such as backpacks. I mean, I'm a big ol' stomping warrior, carrying all this stuff in these invisible bags? At least give my model a backpack,

- A "Styles" or "Wardrobe" tab. The equipment is nice enough to look at, and all. But sometimes I'll keep a piece of equipment over another just because I like the way it looks. Maybe it's just me being an RP geek, but I like to tweak my character's appearance and a Styles tab, that allows you to "wear" anything you've got the ability to "equip", would allow you to show-to-the world the appearance you prefer, while still using-in-battle the equipment that will help you the most.

- Lower requirement for mounts... I'm on the fence about this... I mean, at level 20 you've instantly got access to two different types of mounts. The cheap ones, and the pricey ones. Why not make the cheap ones usable to say level 10's or 12's, and then the pricier ones at level 20? Again, it's me being an RP geek. It's not like mounts make travel that much quicker, but they help. But the more important part is the role-playing aspect, I think.

- Maybe this is already in the game, but I couldn't figure it out. The ability to create little scripts or macros. Nothing you can loop endlessly of course, that's where you get the botters. But having the ability to string a handful of commands together, opens up more RP capabilities.
Something like a Greet macro "/wave ; /clap ; /say Hello! Haven't seen you in ages, my friend!"
Or maybe a Taunt macro "/shakefist $TARGET ; /yell You'll not defeat us, you vile beast! ; /yell ATTACK!"

Yes, I know... I'm an RP geek... I can't help it... Have been for decades... But trust me, it's fun! And with little capabilities such as being able to write simple macros like that, it makes RP alot more fun,

- Maybe there just wasn't enough for a proper judgment, but how about some sexier physiques... For both male and female characters. And how about some nice hair-styles, especially for the ladies. I heard a few female characters complain about hair-styles.

- Player housing, player cities even? Okay.. This is always a hot topic. First, you don't want your in-game world to start lagging (aka SWG of yesteryear) just because your players setup housing. But you also don't want each house an individual instance, because then there's no sense of community (LoTRO has the absolute worst implementation of player housing, in my opinion).

There's got to be a happy medium someplace. Maybe small, reserved areas in the open-world? Maybe an instanced area for neighborhoods? Maybe an entirely separate shard for _just_ player communities? I'm not sure what it is, but then again I'm not a game developer, . I know I'd love to be able to log off one night, sitting in my home, only to find a Rift event right outside my door the next day when I log back in. That would just be an RPers dream,

Well, that's about all I can think of for now... I'll update this post as I think of more to comment/suggest/talk about.

Again, kudos Trion for making Beta 5 so enjoyable to this RIFT-newcomer!