RIFT - My stance, FYI

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Just as an FYI for y'all on my take, and my intentions for RIFT.

(And my hope).

I'm getting too old and too 'curmudgeony' to be out bouncing around game to game. And I'm looking for a solid game with decent PVP and PVE both that I can settle into from the ground up, and grow with the game and development team / community, and hopefully set an anchor for GWJ also.

I want one I can play, and stay with, and so far I like the vision of what RIFT is, and how it feels to play. So once it goes live, RIFT is going to be where I hang my hat for the foreseeable future.

That gives you guys my stance and how I'm approaching this one.

I have felt pretty strongly the same way which is why I have been attempting to organize the guild. I am looking for a nice strong base Of players that we always get from GWJ and I think this is a great game where even small guilds can be successful. I like DCUO but it is more of a game where I can get my fix for a few short hours or during Rift server unavailability. This game should have great legs, but I don't doubt that it will have challenges.

SpyNavy wrote:

where I can get my fix for a few short hours or during Rift server unavailability.

Speaking of such things, is there any info on how they intend to handle regular maintenance? So far I've only seen two methods in other games; wow style once a week for ? hours, and eve style for 1 hour a day every day, Personally I prefer the eve style as for some reason a good chunk of my time off always seemed to fall during wow's Tuesday maintenance.

I've actually been curious about Rift, but can't ever seem to find a good overview writeup of what the heck the game's focus and systems are. Everything I ever see is piecemeal, so I don't actually have a good idea about the game other than that a lot of people seem excited about it for some reason.

Is there a good overview write-up somewhere that someone can point me to? An in-depth one would be much appreciated.

Farscry wrote:

I've actually been curious about Rift, but can't ever seem to find a good overview writeup of what the heck the game's focus and systems are. Everything I ever see is piecemeal, so I don't actually have a good idea about the game other than that a lot of people seem excited about it for some reason.

Is there a good overview write-up somewhere that someone can point me to? An in-depth one would be much appreciated.

Here's a bit of my beta experience if you want to take a look:

http://www.riftjunkies.com/2011/01/0...

I think Rift has a solid foundation, and I can only say positive things about the development staff. They're out to make a game fun without a lot of the give a little take something else I've seen in a lot of other games.

What Alexicacon (or Cicc as I know him) says is really exactly how I feel about Rift. Could it be better in a few areas? Sure, but unlike WAR or AoC, or even VG, games I really thought were going to be good. This one built a solid base that works and from there they can add the layers that should help keep the game vital for a long time.

Trion isn't going to have to go back and fix things before they move forward. That's done. They just need to add the layers to make the game stay fun after you've dinged 50. That's a head start those other games I mentioned didn't have.

Well, I ended up reading through a lot of the site, and unfortunately it didn't really give me a good sense of what sets Rift apart from the standard fantasy-ish MMO's in the same vein as Everquest, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer, etc. I know there's something different about it or I wouldn't be hearing so much excitement over the game, but I'm not seeing what sets it apart from the mmo's I've played in the past.

I'll keep looking, but any help on a good overview of the game, along with what unique aspects it's offering (other than the souls thing, I've read about that but it's not really all that substantial a difference to me other than providing more flexibility than most mmo's do for character building), would be welcome.

How that plays into the game is outposts can be over-run, one faction or another, or some extra-planar faction may assume ownership of basically anywhere on the map, including outposts and towns ...

You may log off in a village, and log back on a couple hours later and the village is destroyed and now it belongs to fire-demons.

The biggest thing I like about RIFT at this point is the potential I see for the game. The engine is VERY dynamic and supports a lot of features and capabilities that I see could be used to do some amazing things. I can't go into it, but from the game's concept, to the game engine, to the character and class system - the game has some very good things going for it.

Yes, it's got a lot of room to grow and add content, but hell, content is just data entry. The core of the game with the design and the engine are very dynamic and robust, and I see a lot of promise to the overall game, provided Trion continues to follow through on what they've proven they can so far. And from what I've seen of the Dev team, I see no reason to doubt they will continue to progress the game in a very positive manner.

Regarding patching or any sort of maintenance schedule. I think it's a little too early to tell that right now.

My thoughts on it -- and remember, several of us here are still not able to really talk about it much in-depth.

Regarding the game system, here's what I will go into based on what's available in videos and the betas - which have had their NDA lifted.

The class system in RIFT is about the most flexible and dynamic I've ever seen, in any MMO I've played. And, more than that, it's darned fun and enjoyable. The flexibility is really a breath of fresh air. And for folks like me, who absolutely DETEST (with a passion) the leveling "grind/treadmill" whatever you want to call it, with RIFT, you really only need to do that once for each basic achetype you want to play. Once you get a warrior to 50, that warrior has something like 8! / 3! (eight-factoral divided by three-factoral) class possibilities available to him, and each one of those possibilities has various speccable talent trees, so even within the factoral combinations, there's all sorts of individual spec choices to make.

Sure, they have 4 basic archetypes, but those explode geometrically into what you can actually do with a character in-game.

Questing - it is what it is. It's an MMO after all. You still have the same basic escort Timmy to the well to get a pail of water, oh look, Timmy's ambushed by Shumwidgets (tm) on the way to the well. That or go kill 20 rabid wombats and bring me their left eyebrow for a turn-in ...

Really all of that is the same as any other MMO where quests are concerned. And frankly, I see that stuff as neither good nor bad. Now, I will also add that there are rumors (and rumors of rumors) that there may be more immersive type quests than the stuff I just mentioned, but I won't mention any of it other than to say it's unmentionable.

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The overall "theme" of the game is this - (and I guess the beta client has the login video where you get the whole "spiel" from both sides as you log in) ...

... (and some of this is gonna be tongue-in-cheek , because I prefer the defiants so far) ...

There's 2 sides, the "Guardians" - pure, beautiful, and favorites, chosen of the Gods ,,, and the "Defiants" - the God's cast-off "red-headed stepchildren" if you will, that are basically ignored by the Gods and certainly uncared for by them.

The Guardians get everything handed to them on a silver platter. The Gods love them. The Gods favor them. The Gods watch over and protect them. The Gods love them.

The Defiants don't get any of that. If they want something they have to do it on their own, because they sure as hell aren't getting any special favors from on high.

And it all stems from a little misunderstanding somewhere back in the past where the Defiants basically defied the will of the Gods and opened the "first rift" into --somewhere-- and brought forth the dragons upon Telara, and the Dragons basically shattered the world, and that first rift destabilized the whole world and "broke" the plane of reality, and so now the planet is in dire peril and there are rifts in reality and creation that get torn into the world at random spots all over the place and minions from the various outer planes pour across to wage war on Guardians and Defiants alike, and on one another as they run into each other.

To paraphrase - the world's a total clusterf*** , and the Guardians (and the Gods) -- blame the Defiants.

The Defiants meanwhile are incredibly techno-savvy, with a high degree of technomancy type magic/techno ability to design and build machinery the likes of which has never been seen. (Think "Forge" from Marvel Comics X-Men) ...

So, while the Defiants are relatively apologetic for breaking the world, letting in the dragons, destabilizing reality, and generally opening portals to Gods knows where with extra-planar beings rampaging the land ... the Defiants also feel the answer to fix the situation is the judicial use of more, and "cooler" machines to address the problem.

Meanwhile, the Guardians and the Gods, take the stance that the Defiants have done "PLENTY" already with their machines, and it's probably best if they just leave the situation the *(&@ alone at this point and go sit quietly in the corner while the Guardians and Gods work to fix the problem and heal the rifts.

The Defiants have taken that personally, and REALLY want to help and fix the problem they caused, so NO, they are not content to sit back and let the little Goody too Shoes pampered baby Guardians pray for a solution when they know good and well that another half-twist on the ol' cog over there may fix the problem entirely.

And so, as if it wasn't bad enough that every plane of existence is hemmoraging planars into the prime realm, the two sides have taken to some pretty serious bickering over the issue amongst themeselves and how to resolve it, and that whole mess has degenerated into a nasty war over how to fix it, and by whom.

Seems the two sides just can't get along.

Meanwhile, yet OTHER factions have decided they really want to see the world BURN - and are doing all they can to open more rifts, keep them open, and drag in whatever they can to just destroy crap royally, all with the express interest of Gonzo the demon-lord granting THEM unprecedented power when Gonzo's demon posse' takes over the whole world and gains dominion over Telara.

There, how's that for a synopsis.

**EDIT**:

Forgot a couple things. Both sides died and lost. Already. The war was finished, all the heroes died. Everyone.

Among the Guardians, some select heroes were raised from the grave by the Gods in their benevolence and grace, to be the last-ditch hope for the world. They were saved, and the Gods have granted those select heroes the ability to channel (or absorb) the souls of their fallen comrades from the battlefield to harness that knowledge and continue the fight. (That is where souls come from, and how you can take on and change souls with the dynamic soul system.)

The Defiants did not receive such divine providence from the Gods, and spent until the end of time perfecting a machine to reconstruct the souls of fallen heroes and bring life back to the fallen defiants. It sucks because it's the end of time and the Defiants only learn to do this just as the dragon-God Regulos is actively destroying the entire world.

Ok ... there endith the lesson.

So sort of a mash-up of general fantasy MMO conventions, only with more random events and conquest game-stuff that gives world permanence more meaning? I'd say that's worth giving a good look.

It doesn't really sound very different, other than in aesthetic ways (which, frankly, don't matter all that much to me; I play freaking ASCII-text roguelikes and love 'em). The gameplay is what I'm interested in, and while the class flexibility stuff sounds cool, I want more than just Graphical DikuMUD #58 with a new skin.

The gameplay is what I'm interested in,

The gameplay is very smooth. It functions and plays intuitively if you've had experience with other games of the genre.

WASD movement, space to jump, hotbars, main hotkey buttons from 1 - = ... stuff like that. Pretty standard faire.

The UI is well made, hotbars and options are right where you'd want them, and customizeable if you want to move stuff on the UI around.

Some mobs are solo-able, some aren't, but you'll pick up on that soon enough in-game.

Most of all that stuff I can't go into detail on, but gameplay is very fun.

It is difficult to talk about the game in generalities and give a good impression at the same time.

But to answer Farscry as honestly as I can, I can only say from my experience. "what sets Rift apart from the standard fantasy-ish MMO's in the same vein as Everquest, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer, etc?" is it's really not different form all of those games. It's borrowed a little from each of them. But in doing so it has also added its own flavor.

The Rifts and invasions are grouping without feeling like grinding.

The Soul System and NPC attacks on towns and quests hubs add a bit of cool to the game for me. You can solo in Rift and I have a lot. But I think if you start out in a good guild with cool people it will be the group content that will make Rift fun for a lot of folks.

But the game will feel familiar to you. But I think in a good way.

If you're on the fence wait till everyone is done with the free month and see where the game is at. It doesn't take long to catch up in the game and there will be enough people playing from release that if you do get a late start you'll have a lot of good advice to lean on if you do decide to take the plunge.

I have to admit that I have been a game drifter for a long time, but RIFTS has sparked something that I think was missing for a while. The game does feel like a bit like WoW in places, but that is ok also in my book. The crafting system, something that I always look for is spot on and in the Beta you get to see that starting out of the gate the gear you craft is useful and better than the quest turn in stuff in places.

Plus in this new world, my wife will be making a return to gaming and is very excited about it, which to me makes all the difference in the world. Also Cicc is my RL brother and getting to have a guild family composed of real family doesn't get any better than that.

It's only inevitable that I'll try Rift eventually; I'm a ridiculous MMO junkie and I've tried most of the major releases at some point or another.

I'm just trying to find what makes Rift different from the competition. So far, it sounds like polish (a la Blizzard), flexible character builds (similar to that of action rpg's like Din's Curse or Titan Quest), and the Rift invasions are the main things. Let me know if I'm missing something, obviously I'm interested enough to ask questions.

There's more to it than that ... an intrigue factor maybe.

The game is just fun ... it's hard to really pin it down in more detail than that.

Farscry I have played in all the betas and I haven't had this much fun in a long time. I am also an MMO junkie, but really hadn't played much recently. The soul system is what really intrigued me. The idea of mixing and matching "powers" to create a unique character or vision. There will be some cookie cutter, everyone wants to play classes, but there will also be some unique builds. There is an incredible amount of strategy and options to cater to all play styles and the ability to have roles for certain situations ia very cool. The one drawback is that you'll want to create alts in all the archetypes just to play with the unique powers and skills. This is the first new mmo that I have really been instantly impressed with.

I like pretty much everything about Rift that wasn't directly ripped out of WoW (I'm looking at you, night elves). Be that as it may, I've had the opposite reaction to Alexiacon. The game isn't any fun to me. I've played in Alpha and Beta and as much as I want it to be fun, it's not.

Farscry wrote:

while the class flexibility stuff sounds cool, I want more than just Graphical DikuMUD #58 with a new skin. :D

Honestly it is a very typical MMO, though fairly well done. While the rift system adds some variety and the class flexibility is really cool, the basic gameplay is pretty much exactly what you are doing in WoW or LotrO or any number of similar games.

the basic gameplay is pretty much exactly what you are doing in WoW or LotrO or any number of similar games

I don't think that is entirely fair because the classes/souls play a large part in that. And while there are many more familiar souls like the necro, ranger, and sentinel, there are some souls that play much differently. The saboteur, cabalist, chloromancer and justicar are far from cookie cutter.

Farscry, don't discount the dynamic content of rifts, footholds and invasions. Rifts can be in various sizes and levels of complexity. There are minor rifts which are essentially simplistic public quests but with the caveat that they are not fixed in location or number. The largest size supposedly is a full scale raid rift.

Rifts can open up on top of quest hubs where you will see planar minions duking it out with merchants, quest givers, nearby monsters and minions from other planes. I have personally seen something to this effect: A water rift spawns near some monsters near a quest hub. The monsters are losing but a death rift opens up on top of the quest hub and its minions start fighting and drawing out the hub npcs. Drawing them out has aggroed the monsters and water minions. A further away water rift has spawned an invasion that charges the quest hub but encounters the death rift fighting the quest hub along the way.

So it sums up like this: A water invasion forces runs into a death rift that is fighting hub npcs and monsters who are fighting a water rift. This is all happening outside of your influence and you can choose to participate in any way you see fit.

Footholds are fixed capture points near quest hubs. Yes, a rift can spawn nearby or an invasion can target these capture points and take them over. NPCs will be battling to reclaim the capture points but they will need your help to do so them.

So in the least, you won't experience the same quest grind over and over and you can certainly opt to rift hunt rather than ride the themepark quest train. (not that I mind the quests at all)

Personally, I don't see intuitive controls and gameplay as a bad thing. It let's one sit down and basically feel familiar and comfortable with rift very quickly, giving players the opportunity to focus their learning curve issues on souls, soul interactions, and the nuances of the rift mechanic without having to release, or reinvent the wheel.

fangblackbone wrote:

I don't think that is entirely fair

The classes are interesting and the way you can mix their abilities does add variety. But I think my statement is fair - at the end of the day the gameplay is the same. While you have a larger variety of abilities to choose from than your average MMO, the combat is the same. The structure of the game is the same. Questing, gear, mounts, crafting, optional pvp, it's all there. Like all other similar MMO's it has its quirks - but really the structure and style of play is the same as many other games - now this may not be a bad thing depending on your tastes of course, heck I still play FPS games that basically play the same as games I played years ago - but I got the impression from Farscry that he is looking for a core difference that Rift doesn't really deliver.

I agree, I think I am just splitting a hair or two. I'm a little sensitive from all the official forum posters who's sole two cents is,"This game is WoW".

It has somewhat similar feel to WoW to me, but the best designed MMO in my opinion to date has been warhammer, (barring all of warhammer's engine issues with the bugs).

To me, rift feels like a harmonious blend of wow and war, and I really like that. It has a lot of the best elements of warhammer and the rifts give the feel (and playfeel) of PQs in war, which is great, and without the glaring stuck and world bug issues all over war.

Couple that with what seems to be an involved and attentive dev team, and it matches what I'm looking for.

AcidCat wrote:

I got the impression from Farscry that he is looking for a core difference that Rift doesn't really deliver.

Well, yes and no.

I still enjoy mmos that use the DikuMUD core gameplay, but I hadn't seen anything that really separated Rift from simply being a reskin of the same fantasy MMO's we keep seeing. It's why Warhammer and Aion just didn't stick for me; I tried both but neither one offered anything significantly different from what's been done before and currently (at the time), aside from some of the new systems each tried that really didn't deliver on changing the gameplay experience much (public quests in Warhammer were great when there was still a player population doing them, but that didn't last long. Same with the regional PVP.)

Simply having different class/character options isn't enough difference to matter much to me right now. Nor is simply reskinning the Diku gameplay with flavor text or new graphics (let's face it, in the big scheme of things, story doesn't matter to a significant degree in MMO's if it's just in the form of quest-grinding). However, the invasion/foothold stuff described earlier might be the significant kind of thing I want to see, if it really does play out in a way that matters with helping give world persistence more meaning.

I'd also really love to see an mmo that also gets back more to some of the depth that Everquest had in its rat race versus the modern model of "quest at hub A until complete, then quest at hub B, then hub C, etc." One of the entertaining aspects of EQ to me was the sheer quantity of goodies and unique mobs out in the world to be found. If it weren't for the enjoyment of raiding with my community, I probably would be just about done with WoW right now. Once you're through with the questlines, all that's really left to do is daily quests and dungeons over and over to pursue a small set of items to improve your character's gear. In EQ (at least in the old days of Kunark and Velious) at any given point there was a fairly broad swathe of gear, regions, and dungeons to explore and improve your character. At the level cap, you could still pursue Alternate Advancement points while also having a wide variety of content to play through with a wide variety of rewards to acquire.

I haven't run into a new MMO that has managed to recapture that aspect of EQ while also providing more polished and modern presentation and gameplay/controls.

Farscry wrote:

I haven't run into a new MMO that has managed to recapture that aspect of EQ while also providing more polished and modern presentation and gameplay/controls.

EQ2?

I've only played Alpha so can't say much about the game. I've played almost all MMOs to date and as much as Rift is similar to modern mmos it does one thing different, its loads of fun. Another thing about Rift is the alpha seems more polished than most MMOs that have been out a year. Most mmos will spend the initial year fixing and polishing where I suspect Rift will be mostly deving.

I’m excited to get in on day one with GWJ and watch the game develop. Rather than joining the party late and everything already be built.

Is this game a subscription model game?

There is a subscription, and I think the subscription details are outlined now to the public at www.riftgame.com on the pre-order link. It's a monthly sub with reduced rates for 3 or 6 month renewal packages.

Somewhere I heard a completely unsubstantiated rumor that preordering the game or preordering the CE will lock in a $9.99 a month rate as long as its uninterrupted.

fangblackbone wrote:

Somewhere I heard a completely unsubstantiated rumor that preordering the game or preordering the CE will lock in a $9.99 a month rate as long as its uninterrupted.

I've also heard the same rumor so I scoured Trion site with no luck of any proof for that to be true.

I enjoyed it so much I would lifetime sub in a heartbeat. I put more hours into this game than I have anything else and that's just beta and still don't have a character past 17. I do however have a lot of characters.

I generally don't get excited about mmo's that much anymore, but I am very close to opening a rift myself and reaching through to some alternate dimension where this game has already been released.

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