The class system had a lot of potential but as many people knew, and everyone knows, you can't balance that many classes like that. You just can't. It's terrible that they took a promising system and lost the beauty of it. Game companies never learn but here's an important lesson: Don't promise balance and flavor if you haven't actually achieved it, you just make enemies.
The rift/invasion system - the core point of the game - didn't do that. People played and viciously attacked anyone who had anything bad to say about RIFT but watch this forum and people are signing off. Serious PVPers were the first to go. People hitting 50 and finding it just as stale as other game's endgame, but with less content (so repeating less things more often) were the second to go...
Trion had said all along that the classes would NOT be balanced. They didn't promise balance. Also, the said the game would be PVE centered NOT PVP centered. That PVPers are leaving (if they are) should not surpise anyone considering Trion's position about the game; classes won't be balanced and its a PVE-centered game. I believe there is actually more"end-game" instances than most other MMOs and at least as many riads as other MMOs. Additionally, the next "patch" is adding more raid options.
blah blah blah...Trion needs to put out more content, pvp and more dungeons.
My argument with all of that is that they haven't gotten any of that right yet.
Dungeons - Feel more like hand holding elite mob killing than an actual living breathing dungeon. They are all very static and have no real immersion to them. They are terribly constructed and seem as though they were all built in the witching hour prior to release.
PVP - With 32 (I think) souls it would be IMPOSSIBLE to balance classes enough for viable pvp....throw that out the window.
Content - Again, just like the dungeons...very static. Even the combat is bland and dull. It's overly generic. Hit this button for a DoT and 1-2 point towards finisher. Hit this button until you get 3-4 for more points toward finisher. Now hit finisher....rinse and repeat. It's awfully, dreadfully, dull. Trion doesnt even try to hide the grind that questing holds within it...The quests are very similar to quests in Aion (dare I say Aion's are better).
If you like this game, Im glad, but please dont say that it's the most complete game ever launched. You can have all the bells and whistles you want, but if they dont work properly or make a sound that you really dont want to hear, then what's the use of having everything. In the end you end up with nothing.
I'd say it's ONE of the most complete MMO's launched.. And the dungeons are actually done rather well.. Sure some of them are a little static (cough FC cough) but the bosses usually take some kind of tactic to beat and ROTF will stand out for me way more then wailing caverns did.. Honestly from what i've seen the dungeons are way more of a challange then those i played in WoW.. I mean, there was a dungeon in WoW that had a graveyard (forgot name) that took litterally 10mins to complete and dropped almost 2-3 purple gear each time.. Maybe i'am just used to challanging long dungeons as the majority of my time spent has been on AION's instances, but even then they are long, tedious, and few and far between.
WoW has by far much better instances, when you ommit the Wrath blunder. Your making a comparison of the worst instance xpac and something that is no longer relevant. BC was my favorite xpac instance wise by far and Cata was a reverting back to the BC model. Wrath was a snooze fest in difficulty. The immersion, mechanics, enviroment I found much better and higher quality in WoW than Rift. Rift is good enough quality but to me it's no different than WoW which after the amount of time invested in WoW, I'd rather stick out with WoW if I'm to play an MMO and wait for a real innovative MMO come out to swap to like SWTOR, GW2, or TSW(hopefully this game delivers).
The class system had a lot of potential but as many people knew, and everyone knows, you can't balance that many classes like that. You just can't. It's terrible that they took a promising system and lost the beauty of it. Game companies never learn but here's an important lesson: Don't promise balance and flavor if you haven't actually achieved it, you just make enemies.
The rift/invasion system - the core point of the game - didn't do that. People played and viciously attacked anyone who had anything bad to say about RIFT but watch this forum and people are signing off. Serious PVPers were the first to go. People hitting 50 and finding it just as stale as other game's endgame, but with less content (so repeating less things more often) were the second to go...
Trion had said all along that the classes would NOT be balanced. They didn't promise balance. Also, the said the game would be PVE centered NOT PVP centered. That PVPers are leaving (if they are) should not surpise anyone considering Trion's position about the game; classes won't be balanced and its a PVE-centered game. I believe there is actually more"end-game" instances than most other MMOs and at least as many riads as other MMOs. Additionally, the next "patch" is adding more raid options.
That will be a giant blunder on their part. PvP is the most thrilling experience as PvE is scripted and the encounter will always be on the same mechanics. People will get bored with PvE content and PvP allows for an alternative, omitting that feature will hurt them in the end.
But yeah their statement on PvP balance is one of the main reasons why I held my doubts about the game. The lack of PvP balance will directly relate to PvE balance and people will get frustrated and quite when their concerns of balancing go unheard of.
They can survive with what they have. If they want to thrive they need to redesign large portions of the game, not just add content. As for the content itself I'd do more with Rifts since they are the unique draw.
Depends on how you define "Survive" I suppose. For me personally, in order for Rift to survive they need to do a lot of things. Bring back the feeling of the world by getting rid of insta ports to dungeons and LFG tools. Make me fight my way into dungeons again. Require me to "key" for dungeons again. Give me unique drops off bosses instead of tokens. Enough with the daily quests and quest trackers/helpers. Increase the difficulty of all mobs in the game. Give me a sense of fear. Fear of death. Fear of the world. Make me scared to travel from the friendly confines of Sanctum to wherever it is I might be going. Quit assuming I am some half-wit that can't figure out how to play the game without a tutorial holding my hand for the first 10 levels. Treat me like an adult. The list could go on forever. They do those things and they survive with me.
To survive with the masses? Keep doing what they are doing. Add everything that WOW has added that has made that game a joke and do nothing on the list above and they will be just fine. LFG tools, token systems, insta-ports, nerf old content when new content comes out, easymode/hardmode bosses, brain dead crafting system, quest helpers etc etc.
Good luck Rift. Maybe I am just bored to death with current-gen themepark mmo's but I couldn't stomach more than 2 weeks of Rifts questing on rails, "what do you mean I CAN'T turn this quest helper off" BS.
blah blah blah...Trion needs to put out more content, pvp and more dungeons.
My argument with all of that is that they haven't gotten any of that right yet.
Dungeons - Feel more like hand holding elite mob killing than an actual living breathing dungeon. They are all very static and have no real immersion to them. They are terribly constructed and seem as though they were all built in the witching hour prior to release.
PVP - With 32 (I think) souls it would be IMPOSSIBLE to balance classes enough for viable pvp....throw that out the window.
Content - Again, just like the dungeons...very static. Even the combat is bland and dull. It's overly generic. Hit this button for a DoT and 1-2 point towards finisher. Hit this button until you get 3-4 for more points toward finisher. Now hit finisher....rinse and repeat. It's awfully, dreadfully, dull. Trion doesnt even try to hide the grind that questing holds within it...The quests are very similar to quests in Aion (dare I say Aion's are better).
If you like this game, Im glad, but please dont say that it's the most complete game ever launched. You can have all the bells and whistles you want, but if they dont work properly or make a sound that you really dont want to hear, then what's the use of having everything. In the end you end up with nothing.
I'd say it's ONE of the most complete MMO's launched.. And the dungeons are actually done rather well.. Sure some of them are a little static (cough FC cough) but the bosses usually take some kind of tactic to beat and ROTF will stand out for me way more then wailing caverns did.. Honestly from what i've seen the dungeons are way more of a challange then those i played in WoW.. I mean, there was a dungeon in WoW that had a graveyard (forgot name) that took litterally 10mins to complete and dropped almost 2-3 purple gear each time.. Maybe i'am just used to challanging long dungeons as the majority of my time spent has been on AION's instances, but even then they are long, tedious, and few and far between.
WoW has by far much better instances, when you ommit the Wrath blunder. Your making a comparison of the worst instance xpac and something that is no longer relevant. BC was my favorite xpac instance wise by far and Cata was a reverting back to the BC model. Wrath was a snooze fest in difficulty. The immersion, mechanics, enviroment I found much better and higher quality in WoW than Rift. Rift is good enough quality but to me it's no different than WoW which after the amount of time invested in WoW, I'd rather stick out with WoW if I'm to play an MMO and wait for a real innovative MMO come out to swap to like SWTOR, GW2, or TSW(hopefully this game delivers).
Well you're opinions are complete oppisite of mine.. And i think it's fair to compare WoW's launching instances with Rifts launching instances as thats what they are, the instances at launch.. If you're comparing game from launch to launch i think it'd be easy to say Rift launched way more complete then WoW did.. Again, just an opinion i know many don't share.
Currently Playing: Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I like Rift, even with all its genericness, but I personally can't see it surviving unless they:
1. Double the content by early next year (new land masses, alternate dimensions, etc.)
2. Raise level cap to 70+ by early next year
3. Add more souls and races by early next year
4. Create a better PvP experience (open world pvp, objection warfronts, better balance, etc.)
5. Add way more dungeons, at least doubling them
6. Have way more meaningful quests (less grindy)
Sooner than later would be nice, but when the big boy competition comes, they better be ready or there will be a mass exodus of the game. What do you Rift fans think?
I don't think adding more of the same will save Rift, it's just a boring MMO.... maybe for someone who hasn't tried MMO's and Rift was there 1st one, those type of people might enjoy it more.... but for veterans it offers nothing new, just a bit more polish....
For me the whole Rift thing was cool at first but in the end is just a gimmick that becomes boring quickly, doesn't help all there end game content revolves around even more Rift's with the same game mechanics as the lower level ones.. The soul system just makes players jack of all trades and master of none.... Way to many skills to memorize when you try and play 3-4 different roles....
Rift will have its niche player base to keep going, but any ideas of competing with WOW or even GW2 and SWTOR is just a dream...
I like Rift, even with all its genericness, but I personally can't see it surviving unless they:
1. Double the content by early next year (new land masses, alternate dimensions, etc.)
2. Raise level cap to 70+ by early next year
3. Add more souls and races by early next year
4. Create a better PvP experience (open world pvp, objection warfronts, better balance, etc.)
5. Add way more dungeons, at least doubling them
6. Have way more meaningful quests (less grindy)
Sooner than later would be nice, but when the big boy competition comes, they better be ready or there will be a mass exodus of the game. What do you Rift fans think?
I don't think adding more of the same will save Rift, it's just a boring MMO.... maybe for someone who hasn't tried MMO's and Rift was there 1st one, those type of people might enjoy it more.... but for veterans it offers nothing new, just a bit more polish....
For me the whole Rift thing was cool at first but in the end is just a gimmick that becomes boring quickly, doesn't help all there end game content revolves around even more Rift's with the same game mechanics as the lower level ones.. The soul system just makes players jack of all trades and master of none.... Way to many skills to memorize when you try and play 3-4 different roles....
Rift will have its niche player base to keep going, but any ideas of competing with WOW or even GW2 and SWTOR is just a dream...
Yes they will always have an niche following. After soe took their servers down I got a 7 day trial for me and the wife. It offers nothing new. There is only so much polish you can put on something, eventually folks will figure out its crap.
blah blah blah...Trion needs to put out more content, pvp and more dungeons.
My argument with all of that is that they haven't gotten any of that right yet.
Dungeons - Feel more like hand holding elite mob killing than an actual living breathing dungeon. They are all very static and have no real immersion to them. They are terribly constructed and seem as though they were all built in the witching hour prior to release.
PVP - With 32 (I think) souls it would be IMPOSSIBLE to balance classes enough for viable pvp....throw that out the window.
Content - Again, just like the dungeons...very static. Even the combat is bland and dull. It's overly generic. Hit this button for a DoT and 1-2 point towards finisher. Hit this button until you get 3-4 for more points toward finisher. Now hit finisher....rinse and repeat. It's awfully, dreadfully, dull. Trion doesnt even try to hide the grind that questing holds within it...The quests are very similar to quests in Aion (dare I say Aion's are better).
If you like this game, Im glad, but please dont say that it's the most complete game ever launched. You can have all the bells and whistles you want, but if they dont work properly or make a sound that you really dont want to hear, then what's the use of having everything. In the end you end up with nothing.
I'd say it's ONE of the most complete MMO's launched.. And the dungeons are actually done rather well.. Sure some of them are a little static (cough FC cough) but the bosses usually take some kind of tactic to beat and ROTF will stand out for me way more then wailing caverns did.. Honestly from what i've seen the dungeons are way more of a challange then those i played in WoW.. I mean, there was a dungeon in WoW that had a graveyard (forgot name) that took litterally 10mins to complete and dropped almost 2-3 purple gear each time.. Maybe i'am just used to challanging long dungeons as the majority of my time spent has been on AION's instances, but even then they are long, tedious, and few and far between.
WoW has by far much better instances, when you ommit the Wrath blunder. Your making a comparison of the worst instance xpac and something that is no longer relevant. BC was my favorite xpac instance wise by far and Cata was a reverting back to the BC model. Wrath was a snooze fest in difficulty. The immersion, mechanics, enviroment I found much better and higher quality in WoW than Rift. Rift is good enough quality but to me it's no different than WoW which after the amount of time invested in WoW, I'd rather stick out with WoW if I'm to play an MMO and wait for a real innovative MMO come out to swap to like SWTOR, GW2, or TSW(hopefully this game delivers).
Well you're opinions are complete oppisite of mine.. And i think it's fair to compare WoW's launching instances with Rifts launching instances as thats what they are, the instances at launch.. If you're comparing game from launch to launch i think it'd be easy to say Rift launched way more complete then WoW did.. Again, just an opinion i know many don't share.
HAHAHA! Are you kidding me? UBRS, LBRS, Scholo...Deadmines, Gnomers and many others are way more complex, much less static and require ten times the teamwork (vanilla wow) than anything Rift could possibly offer. Don't start with Raids either, because the Raids in vanilla WOW were some of the hardest to date.
But, the game I play is Age of Conan and trust me, Funcom was the first to make an instanced dungeon (see Anarchy Online) and IMHO is the best at it. Nothing offers more of a challenge and is more beautiful than a well built Funcom dungeon. Say what you want about "Failcom" they definitely know how to build dungeons better than anyone. Not only that, but with AoC you have solo dungeons (that are just as great as the group ones...see pyramids), group dungeons that offer a much bigger challenge than most games could think to offer.
On top of that the combat is more dynamic than anything other games could possibly try to offer....at least for melee.
I played Rift for a good month and a half though and I considered it a bad waste of a month and a half....the game has 0 to offer and pales in comparison to most AAA games. It just looks pretty and has lots of "stuff", but that amounts to nothing when it's not put together all that well.
More classes ?, u have two chars and your highest is lvl 26 !
How can u possibly know if the game need more classes.
Rift has way to many classes if u ask me, atleast for a new game.
How can you personally know anything about rift at all ? and especially its end game content ?
To ansker the original question how Rift should survive:
It is a tricky one, the pvp and the pve is actually really well done in alot of cases, the lateast pvp balance now in patch 1.2 is working out very well. Though in the long run ppl will get tired of 4 small warfronts plus a couple of dungeons.
By a few week most players who played the game from day one will have full pvp gear or if they are pve'r, full pve gear.
1. So for me who enjoy the pvp, a reason to go out into the world, 1 castle to seige in every end game zone, some open world pvp quests, a super hard and super long anoying epic quest chain to obtain a good weapon would be awsome.
2. More crafting and making it really really worth the trouble.
3. Rated bg's would be really fun.
4. One more larger warfront who have more than one objective.
I like Rift, even with all its genericness, but I personally can't see it surviving unless they:
1. Double the content by early next year (new land masses, alternate dimensions, etc.)
2. Raise level cap to 70+ by early next year
3. Add more souls and races by early next year
4. Create a better PvP experience (open world pvp, objection warfronts, better balance, etc.)
5. Add way more dungeons, at least doubling them
6. Have way more meaningful quests (less grindy)
Sooner than later would be nice, but when the big boy competition comes, they better be ready or there will be a mass exodus of the game. What do you Rift fans think?
Look, when it takes 2-3 weeks to reach level 50 you understand that chances to create enough content to retain players for months is pretty slim.
When developers will understand that the faster they allow player to level, the faster they will cancel their subscription, then the MMO industry would have learnt an important lesson (It looks so obvious to me)
Originally posted by ste2000 Look, when it takes 2-3 weeks to reach level 50 you understand that chances to create enough content to retain players for months is pretty slim. When developers will understand that the faster they allow player to level, the faster they will cancel their subscription, then the MMO industry would have learnt an important lesson (It looks so obvious to me)
One leveling path per faction really didnt help either.
Yeah, you get a couple options past level 35 but getting there is just terrible. Scarlet Gorge is a fine example of horrible zone design.
So, if Trion adds new zones in the future hopefully they add some new low to mid level zones and not just new zones to get you to the new level cap.
Also, yeah, all the typical new stuff(races, classes, zones, dungeons, etc) in an expansion and fast.
Well unfortunately, no game stands much of a chance with the population that is playing nowadays. Too many Gen X & Y tools out there chasing people off; long term survivability is a long shot. Interesting research papers have been written on the psychology of current day gamers which makes one wonder how many jobs they will need to hold down to survive.
It's going to have to completely change the way their game works. Currently, there's no reason to play. Everything it does has been done before, usually better. It's multiclass system is an old old idea that almost all MMOs used to have, and while that's a nice step on the path to making MMOs as good as they used to be, the rest of the game falls short. You can't make a WoW clone and expect it to do well for very long.
Look, when it takes 2-3 weeks to reach level 50 you understand that chances to create enough content to retain players for months is pretty slim.
When developers will understand that the faster they allow player to level, the faster they will cancel their subscription, then the MMO industry would have learnt an important lesson (It looks so obvious to me)
One leveling path per faction really didnt help either.
Yeah, you get a couple options past level 35 but getting there is just terrible. Scarlet Gorge is a fine example of horrible zone design.
So, if Trion adds new zones in the future hopefully they add some new low to mid level zones and not just new zones to get you to the new level cap.
Also, yeah, all the typical new stuff(races, classes, zones, dungeons, etc) in an expansion and fast.
Trions zones lack an imaginative quality with a bunch of vast empty space, it all feels very bland. They need to definitely have better laying out of their zones with some terrific art direction, that's one thing I love about AoC, the expac zones were gorgeous and Tarantia is by far my favorite city design of any game. Vastness without purpose=empty space, there should be no empty space in zone design. This also doesn't mean toss thousands of mobs to fill up huge fields of nothingness, mobs need to interact with their environment, run in packs, hunt, do something other than just sit there waiting for some wayward adventurer to come hack them away.
Looking at the above scene you can see there is a vastness about the landscape, accentuated by the wide fields and large mountains, there is also a focal point of the landscape, the buildings in the center of the image. One game that did the vastness without blankness well was Red Dead Redemption--that was just extremely well done. Creating memorable objects that add grandeur is very important to any truly beautiful landscape, and because videogames transcend reality (even the ones that aim to be realistic) you have to make the landscapes transcend reality by making them more grand. MMOs are wrought with bad zone design, I only have a handful of zones I somewhat like in MMOs really. If Rift could have more zones with better design, that would help a lot.
Another thing the game needs is some sort of narrative to move the player along, yeah sure there is something going on in the quests, I read them and they don't grab my attention. I'm not reading a novel, I'm playing a video game, and some sort of spoken dialogue and in-game cinematics would be nice to enhance my interest beyong the base nature of communing with friends. Rift is a good game but doesn't catch my interest because the package, although nice, isn't astounding, there's nothing about it that truly intrigues me.
The often forgotten Myst series would be a good refference point in creating unique meaningful zone and story design as well. Although there is a Myst MMO (Myst Uru) it fails to meet the other games quality because...it's an mmo for one, and myst, although beautiful, is not the kind of game that should EVER be an MMO. Myst has qualities I would like to see in an MMO, it's art direction for zones, unique story, rich history, great narrative (even if it uses real people, blurgh those old adventure games).
Sorry I like to use pictures a lot.... This image is from Myst 4, it's one of my favorite ages, it's a very small little village where the story family lived/lives in the game, it's really quite beautiful.
I dunno, this may seem off topic but it's not! Haha I swear. I'm just trying to add refferences to what I would like to see in a game, and also show how rift's zone design is lacking. Anyways that was just another example, can't find many pictures of these games, but their zone design is quite terrific. Developers like Trion focus SO MUCH on the game's mechanics that they utterly forget to add the things that intrigue gamers originally. Proper use of space, color, focal points, contrasts, and about every other art principle is required in making interesting zones, and people think god had it easy! Pshaw!
Four archetypes with 8 souls each using up to 3 at a time. Each archetype can have 56 combinations. 4*56=224 and that is not including various different point allocations. this game does not need more classes.
4. Create a better PvP experience (open world pvp, objection warfronts, better balance, etc.)
there is open world PvP, called a PvP server. Balance is always needed in every MMO, but I agree more PvP balance would be nice.
5. Add way more dungeons, at least doubling them
right now I have access to 12 group dungeons. Not across all levels but 12 level 50 instance group dungeons. This isn't counting summonable rift group content and open world rift content in general and raid content. I seriously doubt you have played and gotten everything you could want as a progressing character from these.
6. Have way more meaningful quests (less grindy)
Sooner than later would be nice, but when the big boy competition comes, they better be ready or there will be a mass exodus of the game. What do you Rift fans think?
This game was developed to be played at level 50. If your bombing around taking your time at level 30 or something, while its perfectly possible to play the game at that level, it is ill advised. Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea or that it should be improved so it is a good idea.
Four archetypes with 8 souls each using up to 3 at a time. Each archetype can have 56 combinations. 4*56=224 and that is not including various different point allocations. this game does not need more classes.
4. Create a better PvP experience (open world pvp, objection warfronts, better balance, etc.)
there is open world PvP, called a PvP server. Balance is always needed in every MMO, but I agree more PvP balance would be nice.
5. Add way more dungeons, at least doubling them
right now I have access to 12 group dungeons. Not across all levels but 12 level 50 instance group dungeons. This isn't counting summonable rift group content and open world rift content in general and raid content. I seriously doubt you have played and gotten everything you could want as a progressing character from these.
6. Have way more meaningful quests (less grindy)
Sooner than later would be nice, but when the big boy competition comes, they better be ready or there will be a mass exodus of the game. What do you Rift fans think?
This game was developed to be played at level 50. If your bombing around taking your time at level 30 or something, while its perfectly possible to play the game at that level, it is ill advised. Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea or that it should be improved so it is a good idea.
And that is the reason this game isn't going to stand much of a chance against SWTOR & GW2.
lol, really? Because it was the bland and shallow redundantness at level 50 of having nothing to do but grinding the same dungeon over and over and grinding the same warfront over and over, in pursuit of a dumb purple item, that sent me to the cancel button.
But that's me. If GW2 and SWTOR ends up being the same type sigle-player mundane lobby-system game, the same hunt for the cancel button will follow, though GW2 is buy-to-play Actually, Rift would be better if it were buy-to-play also.
To be honest I dont see Rift being a true threat on the market past SWTOR and GW2. Those games just look so much better then Rift and dont just out right copy WoW. I see Rift being dead in the water once those games come out. Rift just has nothing new.
Playing: PO, EVE Waiting for: WoD Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
To be honest I dont see Rift being a true threat on the market past SWTOR and GW2. Those games just look so much better then Rift and dont just out right copy WoW. I see Rift being dead in the water once those games come out. Rift just has nothing new.
Well, SWTOR seems to be outright copying WoW on most of its features too, but at least it has its own flavor to bring (singleplayer storyline mostly) and its scifi so..
Just adding more content isn't going to fix Rift. You can't make a WoW clone, have people get bored of it, and keep them playing by giving them even MORE of the content they're already sick of.
It always makes me laugh when people cry about balance. The ONLY way to get a game with truely balanced characters is to have every character exactly the same casting/using the exact same abilities in the exact same order...then both die at the same time...NOW THAT sounds pretty boring ot me. There is absolutely no way to balance MMOs, so be quiet about balance already.
People cried about Pyro being too strong. My assassin owns pyros before they even get to cast a spell...
People cried about assassin being too strong. Beastmaster owns assassins...
and so on...
Each soul has a weakness and an advantages. You aren't going to win every single battle. Heck my cleric has 0, YES 0, killing blows, so that must make cleric the worst at pvp right? wrong! Clerics in pvp should be healing not attacking! Play your class to it's best ability. I don't go after warriors with my assassin, I go after squishy mages. I don't go after rogues with my mage, I go after warriors. I don't go after mages with my warrior, I go after Mages. I figured after all these years of MMOs, people would've figured out the basic "circle of death" that just about every single MMO has when it comes to pvp.
Comments
Trion had said all along that the classes would NOT be balanced. They didn't promise balance. Also, the said the game would be PVE centered NOT PVP centered. That PVPers are leaving (if they are) should not surpise anyone considering Trion's position about the game; classes won't be balanced and its a PVE-centered game. I believe there is actually more"end-game" instances than most other MMOs and at least as many riads as other MMOs. Additionally, the next "patch" is adding more raid options.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
WoW has by far much better instances, when you ommit the Wrath blunder. Your making a comparison of the worst instance xpac and something that is no longer relevant. BC was my favorite xpac instance wise by far and Cata was a reverting back to the BC model. Wrath was a snooze fest in difficulty. The immersion, mechanics, enviroment I found much better and higher quality in WoW than Rift. Rift is good enough quality but to me it's no different than WoW which after the amount of time invested in WoW, I'd rather stick out with WoW if I'm to play an MMO and wait for a real innovative MMO come out to swap to like SWTOR, GW2, or TSW(hopefully this game delivers).
That will be a giant blunder on their part. PvP is the most thrilling experience as PvE is scripted and the encounter will always be on the same mechanics. People will get bored with PvE content and PvP allows for an alternative, omitting that feature will hurt them in the end.
But yeah their statement on PvP balance is one of the main reasons why I held my doubts about the game. The lack of PvP balance will directly relate to PvE balance and people will get frustrated and quite when their concerns of balancing go unheard of.
Gaia Online is that way --------->
They can survive with what they have. If they want to thrive they need to redesign large portions of the game, not just add content. As for the content itself I'd do more with Rifts since they are the unique draw.
Depends on how you define "Survive" I suppose. For me personally, in order for Rift to survive they need to do a lot of things. Bring back the feeling of the world by getting rid of insta ports to dungeons and LFG tools. Make me fight my way into dungeons again. Require me to "key" for dungeons again. Give me unique drops off bosses instead of tokens. Enough with the daily quests and quest trackers/helpers. Increase the difficulty of all mobs in the game. Give me a sense of fear. Fear of death. Fear of the world. Make me scared to travel from the friendly confines of Sanctum to wherever it is I might be going. Quit assuming I am some half-wit that can't figure out how to play the game without a tutorial holding my hand for the first 10 levels. Treat me like an adult. The list could go on forever. They do those things and they survive with me.
To survive with the masses? Keep doing what they are doing. Add everything that WOW has added that has made that game a joke and do nothing on the list above and they will be just fine. LFG tools, token systems, insta-ports, nerf old content when new content comes out, easymode/hardmode bosses, brain dead crafting system, quest helpers etc etc.
Good luck Rift. Maybe I am just bored to death with current-gen themepark mmo's but I couldn't stomach more than 2 weeks of Rifts questing on rails, "what do you mean I CAN'T turn this quest helper off" BS.
Well you're opinions are complete oppisite of mine.. And i think it's fair to compare WoW's launching instances with Rifts launching instances as thats what they are, the instances at launch.. If you're comparing game from launch to launch i think it'd be easy to say Rift launched way more complete then WoW did.. Again, just an opinion i know many don't share.
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I don't think adding more of the same will save Rift, it's just a boring MMO.... maybe for someone who hasn't tried MMO's and Rift was there 1st one, those type of people might enjoy it more.... but for veterans it offers nothing new, just a bit more polish....
For me the whole Rift thing was cool at first but in the end is just a gimmick that becomes boring quickly, doesn't help all there end game content revolves around even more Rift's with the same game mechanics as the lower level ones.. The soul system just makes players jack of all trades and master of none.... Way to many skills to memorize when you try and play 3-4 different roles....
Rift will have its niche player base to keep going, but any ideas of competing with WOW or even GW2 and SWTOR is just a dream...
It is really not interesting enough to survive. I doubt anything can change that.
Chins
Yes they will always have an niche following. After soe took their servers down I got a 7 day trial for me and the wife. It offers nothing new. There is only so much polish you can put on something, eventually folks will figure out its crap.
HAHAHA! Are you kidding me? UBRS, LBRS, Scholo...Deadmines, Gnomers and many others are way more complex, much less static and require ten times the teamwork (vanilla wow) than anything Rift could possibly offer. Don't start with Raids either, because the Raids in vanilla WOW were some of the hardest to date.
But, the game I play is Age of Conan and trust me, Funcom was the first to make an instanced dungeon (see Anarchy Online) and IMHO is the best at it. Nothing offers more of a challenge and is more beautiful than a well built Funcom dungeon. Say what you want about "Failcom" they definitely know how to build dungeons better than anyone. Not only that, but with AoC you have solo dungeons (that are just as great as the group ones...see pyramids), group dungeons that offer a much bigger challenge than most games could think to offer.
On top of that the combat is more dynamic than anything other games could possibly try to offer....at least for melee.
I played Rift for a good month and a half though and I considered it a bad waste of a month and a half....the game has 0 to offer and pales in comparison to most AAA games. It just looks pretty and has lots of "stuff", but that amounts to nothing when it's not put together all that well.
More classes ?, u have two chars and your highest is lvl 26 !
How can u possibly know if the game need more classes.
Rift has way to many classes if u ask me, atleast for a new game.
How can you personally know anything about rift at all ? and especially its end game content ?
To ansker the original question how Rift should survive:
It is a tricky one, the pvp and the pve is actually really well done in alot of cases, the lateast pvp balance now in patch 1.2 is working out very well. Though in the long run ppl will get tired of 4 small warfronts plus a couple of dungeons.
By a few week most players who played the game from day one will have full pvp gear or if they are pve'r, full pve gear.
1. So for me who enjoy the pvp, a reason to go out into the world, 1 castle to seige in every end game zone, some open world pvp quests, a super hard and super long anoying epic quest chain to obtain a good weapon would be awsome.
2. More crafting and making it really really worth the trouble.
3. Rated bg's would be really fun.
4. One more larger warfront who have more than one objective.
Look, when it takes 2-3 weeks to reach level 50 you understand that chances to create enough content to retain players for months is pretty slim.
When developers will understand that the faster they allow player to level, the faster they will cancel their subscription, then the MMO industry would have learnt an important lesson (It looks so obvious to me)
wowsa...a month and a half in Rift 'was' a waste of time, but a month and a half in AoC 'wasn't'? Alrighty-then.
Yeah, you get a couple options past level 35 but getting there is just terrible. Scarlet Gorge is a fine example of horrible zone design.
So, if Trion adds new zones in the future hopefully they add some new low to mid level zones and not just new zones to get you to the new level cap.
Also, yeah, all the typical new stuff(races, classes, zones, dungeons, etc) in an expansion and fast.
They can't, it's simple. They chose to create a traditional MMO. They created a piss poor story and world, so uninspired I wanted to barf all over it.
Now apart from that, it's polished, it worked, it was playable, it's was sort of fun in the early levels too.
But they are in the exact same market as WoW they need to do better, and they need to have more content.
Flashy graphics and a slightly different skill tree won't save them.
So the simple answer to Rifts survival is, be better than WoW. Seeing as they can't be by being different.
Well unfortunately, no game stands much of a chance with the population that is playing nowadays. Too many Gen X & Y tools out there chasing people off; long term survivability is a long shot. Interesting research papers have been written on the psychology of current day gamers which makes one wonder how many jobs they will need to hold down to survive.
It's going to have to completely change the way their game works. Currently, there's no reason to play. Everything it does has been done before, usually better. It's multiclass system is an old old idea that almost all MMOs used to have, and while that's a nice step on the path to making MMOs as good as they used to be, the rest of the game falls short. You can't make a WoW clone and expect it to do well for very long.
Darkfall Travelogues!
Trions zones lack an imaginative quality with a bunch of vast empty space, it all feels very bland. They need to definitely have better laying out of their zones with some terrific art direction, that's one thing I love about AoC, the expac zones were gorgeous and Tarantia is by far my favorite city design of any game. Vastness without purpose=empty space, there should be no empty space in zone design. This also doesn't mean toss thousands of mobs to fill up huge fields of nothingness, mobs need to interact with their environment, run in packs, hunt, do something other than just sit there waiting for some wayward adventurer to come hack them away.
Looking at the above scene you can see there is a vastness about the landscape, accentuated by the wide fields and large mountains, there is also a focal point of the landscape, the buildings in the center of the image. One game that did the vastness without blankness well was Red Dead Redemption--that was just extremely well done. Creating memorable objects that add grandeur is very important to any truly beautiful landscape, and because videogames transcend reality (even the ones that aim to be realistic) you have to make the landscapes transcend reality by making them more grand. MMOs are wrought with bad zone design, I only have a handful of zones I somewhat like in MMOs really. If Rift could have more zones with better design, that would help a lot.
Another thing the game needs is some sort of narrative to move the player along, yeah sure there is something going on in the quests, I read them and they don't grab my attention. I'm not reading a novel, I'm playing a video game, and some sort of spoken dialogue and in-game cinematics would be nice to enhance my interest beyong the base nature of communing with friends. Rift is a good game but doesn't catch my interest because the package, although nice, isn't astounding, there's nothing about it that truly intrigues me.
The often forgotten Myst series would be a good refference point in creating unique meaningful zone and story design as well. Although there is a Myst MMO (Myst Uru) it fails to meet the other games quality because...it's an mmo for one, and myst, although beautiful, is not the kind of game that should EVER be an MMO. Myst has qualities I would like to see in an MMO, it's art direction for zones, unique story, rich history, great narrative (even if it uses real people, blurgh those old adventure games).
Sorry I like to use pictures a lot....
This image is from Myst 4, it's one of my favorite ages, it's a very small little village where the story family lived/lives in the game, it's really quite beautiful.
I dunno, this may seem off topic but it's not! Haha I swear. I'm just trying to add refferences to what I would like to see in a game, and also show how rift's zone design is lacking. Anyways that was just another example, can't find many pictures of these games, but their zone design is quite terrific. Developers like Trion focus SO MUCH on the game's mechanics that they utterly forget to add the things that intrigue gamers originally. Proper use of space, color, focal points, contrasts, and about every other art principle is required in making interesting zones, and people think god had it easy! Pshaw!
This game was developed to be played at level 50. If your bombing around taking your time at level 30 or something, while its perfectly possible to play the game at that level, it is ill advised. Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea or that it should be improved so it is a good idea.
And that is the reason this game isn't going to stand much of a chance against SWTOR & GW2.
lol, really? Because it was the bland and shallow redundantness at level 50 of having nothing to do but grinding the same dungeon over and over and grinding the same warfront over and over, in pursuit of a dumb purple item, that sent me to the cancel button.
But that's me. If GW2 and SWTOR ends up being the same type sigle-player mundane lobby-system game, the same hunt for the cancel button will follow, though GW2 is buy-to-play
Actually, Rift would be better if it were buy-to-play also.
To be honest I dont see Rift being a true threat on the market past SWTOR and GW2. Those games just look so much better then Rift and dont just out right copy WoW. I see Rift being dead in the water once those games come out. Rift just has nothing new.
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Well, SWTOR seems to be outright copying WoW on most of its features too, but at least it has its own flavor to bring (singleplayer storyline mostly) and its scifi so..
Just adding more content isn't going to fix Rift. You can't make a WoW clone, have people get bored of it, and keep them playing by giving them even MORE of the content they're already sick of.
Darkfall Travelogues!
It always makes me laugh when people cry about balance. The ONLY way to get a game with truely balanced characters is to have every character exactly the same casting/using the exact same abilities in the exact same order...then both die at the same time...NOW THAT sounds pretty boring ot me. There is absolutely no way to balance MMOs, so be quiet about balance already.
People cried about Pyro being too strong. My assassin owns pyros before they even get to cast a spell...
People cried about assassin being too strong. Beastmaster owns assassins...
and so on...
Each soul has a weakness and an advantages. You aren't going to win every single battle. Heck my cleric has 0, YES 0, killing blows, so that must make cleric the worst at pvp right? wrong! Clerics in pvp should be healing not attacking! Play your class to it's best ability. I don't go after warriors with my assassin, I go after squishy mages. I don't go after rogues with my mage, I go after warriors. I don't go after mages with my warrior, I go after Mages. I figured after all these years of MMOs, people would've figured out the basic "circle of death" that just about every single MMO has when it comes to pvp.