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Rift: Staff Impressions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
We wrap up our Rift Weekly today. As we did with DC Universe Online, we are offering a couple of MMORPG.com Staff Impressions of Trion Worlds' Rift. This time, Community Manager Mike Bitton and News Editor Suzie Ford throw out their thoughts about Rift. Keep your eye on this space next Thursday when we begin a new game weekly column.
Now that the game’s released, we’ll be cycling out our weekly Rift column for a new game (one that has the words Secret and World in its title). But that doesn’t mean we’re done talking about Trion’s newly released game. There’s sure to be plenty of interviews, previews of content, and of course our official review at the end of the month. Much like we did with DC Universe Online, we figured the last weekly column would be a great place to let the rest of the staff in on the discussion to share their own opinions on Rift. So I’ll take the back seat this week as Suzie Ford and Mike Bitton lay down their thoughts on Trion’s flagship title. Read on, adventurer.
Read more Rift: Staff Impressions.
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Comments
Can't wait for the Secret World info to start coming. Gimme please.
Oh yeah, Rift. Playing it, enjoying it, but looking forward to other games too.
Good write ups. It mirrors how I feel about the game.
Really Rift isn't doing anything particularly new, but they are taking a lot from various predecessors and just doing those things a heck of a lot better.
I seem to recall a certain MMO doing the same thing and originally being labeled as an EQ clone...
MMORPG articles are almost always positive about AAA titles. Same things were written about DCU: Great game, easy to get into, casual bla bla bla.
And only after a month it is bleeding subscribers (dropped like fifty places in XFire). Rift will follow the same route, probably take a while longer as it does seem to have a wee bit more content thant DCU but 2-3 months and its downward spiral will start.
Fast Food MMOGs these should be called. Nice to eat on the go but not really something you would stick to in the long run (unless you want to become fat and unhealthy but that is where the analogue does not fit
).
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But seriously, isnt there ANYONE on the MMORPG.COM staff that likes sandbox titles with a little bit of depth?
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Not to get off topic here, but I love and started my MMO gaming in sandbox games.
That doesn't mean I can't appreciate many other types of games in the genre. Ultimately I love MMOs, if it's a good one I don't care what sub-genre it falls into.
Actually, my thought would be that most of our staff indeed does love sandbox. I'm more outside the 'norm' here at MMORPG.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I thought everyone here loved EVE
Well there are quite alot of veteran MMORPG players that are sick and tired of themeparks and want a good solid, AAA, sandbox title. Would be nice if you had someone on your staff representing us, like you have for F2P MMORPGs with that Aioshi (spelling?) guy.
For example I stumbled, just by chance, on Uncharted Waters Online which seems like a good sandbox but I cant tell because of the lack of attention it is getting from you guys. Why dont you write a review or even an opinion piece of that game?
Or maybe some article that is written which looks into what sandbox titles are on the horizon?
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It is old news, and space based, FFA PvP which makes it quite of a nische game (even more so than for just sandbox).
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I'm often comparing english, german and french articles about mmorpg. While I find that the french at jeuxvideo.com generally lack of expertize, german articles on mmorpg are too harsh. (at least the ones i read)
On the other hand, mmorpg.com articles are completely unreliable. They always seem to try to promote sells of games over players interests. When I see that Lego Universe received a 7.5 mark, I loose my faith in the reviewers of this site.
If that is the case then why are you giving so much attention to upcoming themeparks like GW 2, SW:TOR, TERA etc etc
I know they seem to be good games but they are all themeparks, some attention to sandbox titles would be nice.
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@Divlas Let's keep in mind that this is NOT a review, merely the game experiences of a couple players. The review will be issued in a month or so.
For those who want more coverage of sandbox titles: There is a box on the right side of your screen that says "know something we don't" that allows you to submit news tips.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My argument is that we haven't seen a sandbox title with a bit of depth since EVE.
Yamota, we very much appreciate your feedback and I'm sure you raise a good point here but would you mind re-posting this in Site Suggestions? I really would like this thread to stay on topic (it is a thread about Rift after all!).
To everyone else, let's please stay on topic and focus on the content of the article, Rift, etc. We're not going to spend every comment thread for every article posted on MMORPG.com discussing the general theme of the site's editorial content. As I stated in my response to Yamota, if you have suggestions for the direction of our editorial content or any other feedback feel free to post it in our Site Suggestions forum.
Further off-topic posts will be removed. Thanks guys!
Mike B's Comment "Rift: Planes of Telara to me is World of Warcraft all over again, and I mean that as a compliment."
I have to agree on this one. I, to be honest, never saw it coming. I had written off this game but they kept sending me beta invites. Finally I gave it more than 15 minutes on the open beta. I rolled my character, chugged through the starting area, then got into the open world ... then it happened. I was lost. The family room I was sitting in vanished...I was in Telara. 4 1/2 hours was gone in what seemed like a minute or two. I didn't want to keep playing after that since it was beta...I didn't want to spoil anything!
Sorry....this wasn't up when I was writing my post...
The thing with Rift is I honestly DON'T see what it does better or WHY I should play it over WoW or especially upcoming titles like Guild Wars 2, TERA, and SW:TOR.
Of course, I never understood why WoW was such a big deal until close to five years after its release, so if Rift retains a great portion of its launch success, it may grow on me.
While everyone has their own opinion and are entitled to it, I myself don't see the point of having the same game over and over again.
While I enjoyed Rift till about lv 30, and not as my prefered Necromancer class unfortunately, I found it a bit underwhelming. It has alot of potential and I'd actually love to see what kind of content patches they wil begin releasing to see how the game evolves, but honestly I still prefer WoW.
It was a great break and refreshing in a familiar way, but I feel like it's too redudant. What's the point of this game if there are 10 more nearly exactly like it, with 2 or 3 that are better?
But like I said, to each his own, and that's just my two cents.
I wish there was a simple answer to your question. You're not alone with the whole 'wait and see' mindset. I think there are alot of folks waiting to see if the endgame is viable, which is valid. Rift is replete with hype at the moment so after things calm down, some folks get a little more honest with RIFT's warts...it will be easier to make a decision.
For me, the switch was easy. I was bored playing WoW, I'm not bored playing RIFT. I'm not exactly sure why
This isn't the case for everybody, just me.
As far as this article is concerned, the writers weren't afraid to heap compliments on the game that is worthy of compliment. Ironically, the first impression wasn't RIFT's strong point to me. I had to give it a good look before it started to shine for me. Perhaps some folks will give RIFT a closer look.
Or just play it until GW2 comes out. That's probably what I'll do.
On topic: I enjoyed the article. What might be nice, as an alternative, is to have two staff impressions that were opposed to each other - one for, one against. That would be interesting.
Loving Rift at the moment. It has at launch about 95% of what 6 year old MMORPGs have. That's pretty amazing and makes me wonder what they have in store for content patches and expansions.
I have to say. What the two staffers wrote? I wholeheartedly agree with. This is strictly my opinion. This is why I like the game.
"Rift: Planes of Telara to me is World of Warcraft all over again, and I mean that as a compliment."
That line from Mike Britton, the only thing I would add to that would be "...when it first lauched." That would be it for me.
I like the fact that I can log into Rift, play for an hour or two, enjoy the asthetically pleasing graphics, which truly is very easy on the eyes. The spell effects don't blind the bajeepers out of you and send you into siezures. The really cool animations for "Quest Complete" or "Quest Aquired". The idle movements to me are funny. My Kelari doing stretches like going to kill enemies is just excercise with Richard Simmons.
The quests are easy to do. Very self explanitory. No need to go digging around the web for answers.
The Soul Trees are very well thought out.
Customization is very good. I'm not going to say excellent only because it does follow the standard of customization. But in this game that's ok.
The music is soft and pleasant. From what I've heard and seen of the zones. It fits well. The character select music is like..."ooooooh...scary. This is gonna be good." At least that's what I thought.
In my opinion, and yes I know this is the second time I've said this. I just feel I have to to keep from being labelled as fanboi or whatever its called nowadays. Trion has taken the next step in the MMO industry. They've learned, adapted and implemented all of today's AAA titles strongest points and put them into Rift. Conversely there are weaknesses to these strengths. And we'll see how Trion does to counter those weaknesses. And no I don't know what the weaknesses are as I'm taking my time in Rift. But to every strength there's to be a weakness.
I hope Trion succeedes in their endeavor called Rift.
I didn't pay much attention to RIFT. I simply lumped it in with all the other cruddy games I've played over the years. After all, if Mark Jacobs and Mythic can let me down so badly, and WoW bored me to tears, what could I expect out of some company I've never heard of?
I came to the conclusion awhile back that MMO's really haven't changed all that much, that it was just me as a jaded gamer that has changed over the years. I decided to try RIFT out the other day just because I was intrigued by the fact that I wasn't bombarded with "Epic Fail" threads.
I was shocked by the fact that even at 1am the servers were full. I know its release and the population is bloated right now, but still, it was nice. I started playing and the first thing that annoyed me was the soul system. Funny thing is, most of what I hate about games now is that they treat you like you are a retard and do everything for you...threat meters, cool down timers, simplistic leveling that makes you not have to think until at least level 20. I thought about that and delved back in, even rerolling my first toon for a second attempt. Once I got the hang of it I LOVE it!
The quests are pretty bland, common MMO stock, but man...they got the RIFT thing down. The last time I played a game where I could be quietly farming my quest mobs, then suddenly have an invasion literally spawn around me and have me running for my life looking for others so I could come back and defend my turf......man, I haven't seen anything like that since Playing an old MUD called Gemstone. The Rifts are fun, and I got sucked into the story to the point that I actually felt guilty, like I was abandoning my duty to my team for passing one up to finish a quest and sell my drops.
So, I am actually enjoying this game a LOT, which surprised the hell out of me, I've hated pretty much everything that has released since WoW....and I never liked WoW since I beta tested it, even though I got suckered into playing with friends once in awhile, mostly because there was nothing better out.
For longevity...I guess we'll have to see what they add in the long run. Obviously release content won't hold people very long. I hope they develop the PvP game into something better than WoW's vanilla boring PvP was.
WoW PvP hasn't been fun since the old Tauren Mills fights back in the day.
Edit: This post is a bit rambling, since I'm at work right now and had to hurry up to try and put my thoughts down. Simply, put; the verdict for now is that it is fun to play, something that is lacking in so many releases in the last few years. I started MMO's with DAOC, and loved the RvR. I think the War fronts will be fun for a minute, but they will get boring soon enough, and they tend to break immersion and remind you that you are playing a game, rather than having an adventure. I hope open world pvp is at least interesting. Depending on what they do with that will probably determine my longevity in RIFT more than anything else.
There's going to be enough info on The Secret World to actually do a column on it?-Great!
Rift seems like a really good summation of Fantasy MMOs. I'm telling people that it's a great game to start with if you're new to the genre-and fun even if you're not. The rifts are just fun -when was the last time I thought that about something.
A lot of people compare it to WOW, but one thing I seldom see mentioned is that Rift seems to take it's self more seriously than WOW. I was turned off by the cartoonish characters and little jokes, goofy gnomes, funny goblins etc. It's just my own opinion but I want my MMORPG experience to be similiar to reading a great Fantasy novel or playing D&D back in the day and Rift does that well.
I'm playing now and forcing myself out of that solo-mentality i've eased into after some of the horrible PUGs over the years. A cleric and mage in my guild have made me their go-to tank the past two nights and it's been awesome running around doing quests with them in record time. The Rifts have some sweet gear so I am running around trying those out, learning new dungeons and generally having the best time I've had since EQ in a game. Some of that is RIFT's and some of that is me finally realizing that solo,solo,solo path I had crossed over to. RIFT might be a themepark but it's encouraging an old gamer to group again and socialize and try new things so maybe it's more "Sandboxy" than we thought? I do hope to see a world that doesn't spoonfeed you quests for 1-50 one day and has a more open less linear feel but this is a quality game and has some fun things that give me a little of that Old School feel for what it's worth.