Waiting for GW2 - Or - How I started playing Rift.

So I was looking for something to play while waiting for Guild wars 2 to launch. A few weeks ago, I remembered that I had purchased Rift in a steam sale quite some time ago and never even installed it.

- Skip ahead through obvious events -

I'm actually going to be leaving this account active for a while even after GW2 shows up. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. From the rift events to the complete dungeon queue system and the flexible classes, I'm finding quite a bit to like here.

Dungeon queues are a carbon copy of wow, so they just work. The instant adventures assure that you're always able to play in a group and gain significant progress even while waiting for groups to form up or for that scheduled raid event.

I just find it a little weird that there is basically no talk of this game still on the forums. I know it probably had it's rough period, and they basically cribbed quite a bit from other games. But, I'm tired of playing those games. Apparently, I'm not necessarily tired of the systems themselves.

I have been thinking about going back. I think I am going to wait until the expansion.

The questing and rift events got a little repetitive by the low 20's. But I quit before the instant adventures were implemented. They also have a mentoring system which should boost lower level dungeon queues and instant adventures.

It also had a sense in the 20's of earning most of what you wanted for your class selections. So there was a sense of "now what?" combined with the other stuff that looks interesting being 10-15 levels away.

The expansion is going to add new souls to each of the warrior, cleric, rogue and mage. They have been mum on any info regarding these which is a bit frustrating.

The rift feature is awesome and it has the best class flexibility (until TSW launched). Great game just got tired at level 50 I got like 300 hours out of my purchase so definitely got my money worth!

1-20 is a blast. After that it is boring quests and repeating the same rifts over and over. I want MMORPG makers to realize that I should never have to repeat an area/action in a game until I'm max level. The second I get sent back into the same area to kill the same mobs but this time to click on sparkling chests, I check out.

I still have some great memories from my time in Rift. For me, I quit playing just because the guild I was in started heading toward the hardcore raiding setup where my nights were turning into me sitting in mumble for 3 hours waiting on everyone to show up for a raid, maybe fighting bosses for 15 minutes of those 3 hours and then logging off. When they started having the typical fights over which system of tracking raid participation we were going to use and how we were going to handle bidding for loot, I just dropped out. It was becoming more stressful than work for me. Maybe I'd like it now that I could go back and just jump in dungeon groups. I always enjoyed that part of the game.

I re-upped for a couple of months a while back. I enjoyed it but I think it's mainly a time filler for me, and currently Spelunky and Dungeons of Dredmor are filling that niche. It's also getting harder and harder to stomach a $15/month subscription since I've picked up a couple of semi-expensive hobbies (beer brewing and Warmachine).

But yeah, love Rift.

Ooh, Warmachine, I love the art design for that game! (except for the mech's puny little knees that could never hold up the rest of its body let alone handle the stresses of movement and impact from attacks)

edit: how sweet Planetside in the Warmachine universe would be. [size=7]Make it so![/size]