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To Prime or not to Prime?
That is the question!
First, though, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Yeah, you know what I am talking about, that ugly as sin title screen we have to suffer through every time we load the game. What on Earth were they thinking? Even as hyped up as I was to start playing again, my heart sank when I saw that monstrosity:
That is perhaps the worst game art I have ever seen and totally unrepresentative of the wonderful dark aesthetic that permeates the game. The music in the character creation screen is similarly vomit inducing, but thankfully I have only had to endure that once (I don't think I could take it again).
I just can't understand it: the game itself has wonderful cohesive art direction, but these two elements are amateur hour in the extreme. How hard would it be to put some decent music on the character creator that matches the mood of the game and a nice screen shot of a rift or something instead of that, that ... thing...
Anyway, to Prime or not to Prime?
Well, let me blow your minds lovers of subscription mmos!
After the initial rush of excitement and nostalgia, I started to notice something: my hour to hour playing experience on Prime was really no different than it was on Live! It was still the same old great game, with the same old good and bad points.
The main differences for me was that there were more people playing at low levels and I couldn't buy the advanced souls with cash: I had to grind planarite for them. The first point is awesome, its great to play in such a well populated world; but the second point actually has made the Prime experience worse for me than Live because it changed my focus from having fun to grinding.
Once I noticed that the gameplay really felt no different whatsoever to the f2p version, I started asking other people in game what they thought. Interestingly, no one could give a compelling reason why Prime was any better than live. There was a lot of prejudice against f2p, but no concrete reasoning behind it. Many people just seemed to believe that f2p was bad without having thought about what was really different.
For me Prime was always about reliving that Rift launch experience and giving me an excuse to wander back into Rift's world. I have had a wonderful time, but can't see myself subbing for more than a month. The live server is as good if not better, imo.
What are your thoughts? Do you have any rationale about why Prime trumps live? Will you switch over to live when Prime ends? Is it just blind prejudice that keeps people away from Rift's f2p, when they would otherwise consider it a great game?
First, though, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Yeah, you know what I am talking about, that ugly as sin title screen we have to suffer through every time we load the game. What on Earth were they thinking? Even as hyped up as I was to start playing again, my heart sank when I saw that monstrosity:
That is perhaps the worst game art I have ever seen and totally unrepresentative of the wonderful dark aesthetic that permeates the game. The music in the character creation screen is similarly vomit inducing, but thankfully I have only had to endure that once (I don't think I could take it again).
I just can't understand it: the game itself has wonderful cohesive art direction, but these two elements are amateur hour in the extreme. How hard would it be to put some decent music on the character creator that matches the mood of the game and a nice screen shot of a rift or something instead of that, that ... thing...
Anyway, to Prime or not to Prime?
Well, let me blow your minds lovers of subscription mmos!
After the initial rush of excitement and nostalgia, I started to notice something: my hour to hour playing experience on Prime was really no different than it was on Live! It was still the same old great game, with the same old good and bad points.
The main differences for me was that there were more people playing at low levels and I couldn't buy the advanced souls with cash: I had to grind planarite for them. The first point is awesome, its great to play in such a well populated world; but the second point actually has made the Prime experience worse for me than Live because it changed my focus from having fun to grinding.
Once I noticed that the gameplay really felt no different whatsoever to the f2p version, I started asking other people in game what they thought. Interestingly, no one could give a compelling reason why Prime was any better than live. There was a lot of prejudice against f2p, but no concrete reasoning behind it. Many people just seemed to believe that f2p was bad without having thought about what was really different.
For me Prime was always about reliving that Rift launch experience and giving me an excuse to wander back into Rift's world. I have had a wonderful time, but can't see myself subbing for more than a month. The live server is as good if not better, imo.
What are your thoughts? Do you have any rationale about why Prime trumps live? Will you switch over to live when Prime ends? Is it just blind prejudice that keeps people away from Rift's f2p, when they would otherwise consider it a great game?
....
Comments
This isn't what I was expecting. I thought it was the original game from when rift first opened with maybe fixes, but it's not. It's still enjoyable, but I won't play on the f2p server at all. That is just me though. I would rather know that everyone else earned what they had than bought their way to the end which you can do on the F2P servers from what I'm told.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
They don't belong in an mmorpg.
- I don't really like the easer game play but that's standard anymore. At least it's not as easy as most..... At least you can notice the difference from one ability to the next, and that's a step in the right direction.
- I have to admit I have a little RPG burnout, been hitting single player games pretty hard.
- I'm waiting for Pillars of Eternity to release (about a month and a half away), and at some point FarCry 5 I'll be playing.
But yah, I've been enjoying Rift Prime.
I guess some players enjoy the quest/storyline etc, but for me Rift has always been about the dynamic events. Prime is somewhat disappointing in that sense as well: invasions remain easily dealt with and have no major impact on the gameworld.
Prime could have been an opportunity to push the bounds of Rift's distinguishing gameplay mechanic, but in the end its just the same old game except you have to pay more for it to get less.
And that title screen, omg ...
When Rift went free to play the devs didn't seem to care as much. They didn't have that feeling of losing money and subscribers anymore I guess so they seem to constantly cut back development or bring in quality changes.
i am currently logged in rift and just finished a lvl 50 dungeon on expert. lvl 50 content which is supposed to be expert its easier than normal, which are way way tougher.
it took me 3 weeks to lvl to 50 which was long and fun. i did lvl 10-30 full pvp in warfronts, lvl 30-40 mix of pve and pvp. at lvl 40+ in pvp the healing is 2 much and 3-4 dps players cant kill 1 healer, 3 healers can keep 1 raid up. Imagine 40 players sitting and throwing spells and skills and no death after 15 mins.
With an average of 1 high end bis item at lvl 50 per day you will be geared in less than a week without much trouble. Thats it. Thats prime. While i am writing this post there is no lvl 50 content for raid. I am geared for raid for 1 week. Already canceled subscription but i still have 2 days left or so, so i will stick around
The most op classes/specs are Mystic Archer Mage and Saboteur Rogue, they have 3 classes and they do usually 2-3x more dmg than Warrior and Clerics. Their ballance class team is so dumb they nerfed Clerics 2 specs, Runeshaper and Defiler because they were doing 2 much dmg in bracket 10-19 in pvp, so they gimped the lvl 50 specs.
On prime time EU/NA (that means half a day) the lag is so bad that you have 2-5s animation cast on skills and everyhting. Thats so bad in dungeons.
Its a 7 years old game but they keep making the same mistakes over and over and over and over...again. also check their forums about bugs and class balances.
http://forums.riftgame.com/search.php?searchid=15386182
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Aloha Mr Hand !
The point of a store game is to give players items that they might buy. Content is added to get people to spend more at the store and not really as decent content that players are interested in.
That all being said, since they still have the item store, a portion of any money earned will go towards the development of new cash shop crap. Oh and as a last note since Trion actively silences PvP players that don't like the direction the game is giong in if you like to PvP you might want to stay away from Rift.
I healed Mistwraith and all I got was this stupid tee-shirt!
Check out what you’ve been missing with a FREE 14-day trial for RIFT Prime access.
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