I agree with the OP. Immersion is for some people irrelevant. For others it's crucial. One way that can improve the feeling of immersion is when you play your character for a long time, see it slowly evolve, know it's ins and outs. Respeccing the char in any way kills immersion. Your char suddenly vast amounts of knowledge and skills and then gains other stuff in exchange. It makes no sense, because it's a huge effect from outside the world on the character.
And what is also important for me is the open world. When I played AOC I could find no immersion with the character, because I, the mighty barbarian, was constantly stopped in my path by a lousy rickety fence, a hip-high rock I can't cross or whatever. It makes no sense in the world and just makes me snap out of it.
I think EQ2 and even EQ1 are the most immerse games I've ever played. We all have different preferences. My favorite part of mmo's, is getting together with a bunch friends to take on some good challenging raid content. Something that we can not beat the first try and takes practice and team work. That's something that can't happen with strangers. It is an experience that tops all other mmo experiences for me. Of course the game that caters to the raider will suck for the solo'er and when they try to please both, both types of game play will suffer.
Rift is just another jack of all trades mmo trying to please everyone by combining all the different play styles. Just imagine how captive and complex you could make PvE if you didn't have to worry about PvP balancing, and how balanced you could make PvP if you didn't have to worry about PvE content. But I'm sure that looking at it from a financial point of view, it's would be hard to not go for all the different types of players in one production. As long as you can make some money before they move on to the next thing.
It's great that game developers are listening to everyone and trying to give them what they want, but I think there's just to many different types of gamers who's idea of what's good, conflict. We all think we know what we want, but when we get it, we end up screwing something else up. Fore this is the game that developers have to play.
So far i am enjoying the game after about a month of paly
ok deleted the part about SW and GW. Now tell how you would feel about the game if those hype machines were not in the back of your head.
People wonder what Rifts biggest problem are. There you go. Everything you are doing you are basing on youtube clips you have seen about those two games and what they promise to bring.
Instead you should be comparing it to what you have avaiable now..WoW/DAoC/Aion/EQ/DarkFall
And it still falls horribly short in the immersion category. That was the OP's point. Rift is a solid, but unspectacular game. And it has ZERO immersion. The quests are uninspiring, the dungeons and raids are you typical run of the mill stuff, and the underlying story is pretty bland. Games like EQ, WoW, and Lotro have great immersion, even if they fall short in other aspects.
I agree - Rift really didn't feel immersive to me.
Switching roles all the time was also a negative to me re immersion. I tended to play my main as a chloromancer as much as I could, but even that paled, as the instances were ones I'd managed to do many times, and one invasion began to feel much like another.
The world itself didn't grab me, even though some of the ideas behind the game lore-wise are kinda innovative.
In essence, I pretty much agree with all of your points.
Unlike you, however, I'm no longer finding it entertaining. I think my 6-month founders sub still has a few more weeks to run but, after that, I'm out of Rift (TBH, haven't even played it for a month now).
So far i am enjoying the game after about a month of paly... i'll probably will keep subbed till SW or GW arives.
But somehow this very beautifull game has no immersion to me....
-The Quests and background stories don't inmvite me to read them... they feel a little lackluster.
This is the one problem I have with the game. I simply cannot get into the lore at all. It doesn't garner my interest in the least. I also think the PvP side of the equation is a bit lackluster although to be fair they do seem to be improving on this. Which is more than I can say for a lot of other games that launched. Most seem to throw PvP by the wayside while Trion at least seems to be making an effort to improve theirs.
Still, I think i'm going to start playing it as my main least for a while. Need a break from LotR and this game always was on my radar since I beta tested it. I am rather impressed with what they have been doing with their content updates. Said it before and I'll say it again that I see a lot of potential with this game.
I wrote a review of Rift some time ago, and expresses the same kind of of issues. The game continues to improve - absolutely love the changes to underwater atmosphere, it's drop dead gorgeous. PvP is the most fun I've had in a while, and its the first MMO where I find myself doing PVP more then PVE. Unfortunately story and lore wise the game fails pretty hard. The sad part is, there really is a pretty good plot buried in there, but the bland, somewhat ameturish way in which it's presented and the sore lack of cinematics makes you feel disconnected from the game world. Thankfully Trion are working on this, and I really like their dedication and constant improvement of the game.
to previous poster yes there is lore.check me i am stuck at the beastmaster quest in realm of fae.if i dont do that i cant continue the prince pal achievement wich give a nice title. sure would like to know the trick about that one.it only say success when i blow the flute but the mob dont spawn .shame cause aso far this is an epic quest line,it detail pretty much what happened in that area.and most of those are elite quest that cant be soloed.that is at low level , i bert those are avail from first map to last.but i wonder how hard these are at end game,must be epic lol!if i can get past the beastmaster quest ill be fine.
Comments
I agree with the OP. Immersion is for some people irrelevant. For others it's crucial. One way that can improve the feeling of immersion is when you play your character for a long time, see it slowly evolve, know it's ins and outs. Respeccing the char in any way kills immersion. Your char suddenly vast amounts of knowledge and skills and then gains other stuff in exchange. It makes no sense, because it's a huge effect from outside the world on the character.
And what is also important for me is the open world. When I played AOC I could find no immersion with the character, because I, the mighty barbarian, was constantly stopped in my path by a lousy rickety fence, a hip-high rock I can't cross or whatever. It makes no sense in the world and just makes me snap out of it.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I think EQ2 and even EQ1 are the most immerse games I've ever played. We all have different preferences. My favorite part of mmo's, is getting together with a bunch friends to take on some good challenging raid content. Something that we can not beat the first try and takes practice and team work. That's something that can't happen with strangers. It is an experience that tops all other mmo experiences for me. Of course the game that caters to the raider will suck for the solo'er and when they try to please both, both types of game play will suffer.
Rift is just another jack of all trades mmo trying to please everyone by combining all the different play styles. Just imagine how captive and complex you could make PvE if you didn't have to worry about PvP balancing, and how balanced you could make PvP if you didn't have to worry about PvE content. But I'm sure that looking at it from a financial point of view, it's would be hard to not go for all the different types of players in one production. As long as you can make some money before they move on to the next thing.
It's great that game developers are listening to everyone and trying to give them what they want, but I think there's just to many different types of gamers who's idea of what's good, conflict. We all think we know what we want, but when we get it, we end up screwing something else up. Fore this is the game that developers have to play.
And it still falls horribly short in the immersion category. That was the OP's point. Rift is a solid, but unspectacular game. And it has ZERO immersion. The quests are uninspiring, the dungeons and raids are you typical run of the mill stuff, and the underlying story is pretty bland. Games like EQ, WoW, and Lotro have great immersion, even if they fall short in other aspects.
I agree - Rift really didn't feel immersive to me.
Switching roles all the time was also a negative to me re immersion. I tended to play my main as a chloromancer as much as I could, but even that paled, as the instances were ones I'd managed to do many times, and one invasion began to feel much like another.
The world itself didn't grab me, even though some of the ideas behind the game lore-wise are kinda innovative.
In essence, I pretty much agree with all of your points.
Unlike you, however, I'm no longer finding it entertaining. I think my 6-month founders sub still has a few more weeks to run but, after that, I'm out of Rift (TBH, haven't even played it for a month now).
I wrote a review of Rift some time ago, and expresses the same kind of of issues. The game continues to improve - absolutely love the changes to underwater atmosphere, it's drop dead gorgeous. PvP is the most fun I've had in a while, and its the first MMO where I find myself doing PVP more then PVE. Unfortunately story and lore wise the game fails pretty hard. The sad part is, there really is a pretty good plot buried in there, but the bland, somewhat ameturish way in which it's presented and the sore lack of cinematics makes you feel disconnected from the game world. Thankfully Trion are working on this, and I really like their dedication and constant improvement of the game.
to previous poster yes there is lore.check me i am stuck at the beastmaster quest in realm of fae.if i dont do that i cant continue the prince pal achievement wich give a nice title.
sure would like to know the trick about that one.it only say success when i blow the flute but the mob dont spawn .shame cause aso far this is an epic quest line,it detail pretty much what happened in that area.and most of those are elite quest that cant be soloed.that is at low level , i bert those are avail from first map to last.but i wonder how hard these are at end game,must be epic lol!if i can get past the beastmaster quest ill be fine.