Rift

[mommie]

I have 25 beta keys for this game http://www.riftgame.com/en/ send me a pm if you want to try it. The beta starts Jan25 till Jan28.

[Xiuhcoatl]

I was not too impressed with this game until I experienced the Beta 4 event. According to the Beta 5 patch notes there have been a number of improvements made to this already, nicely polished game. The 25 beta keys mommie is offering are good for the last 3 beta events including the one that starts today. I encourage others to try the game.

[LennyLen]

I was going to participate until the updater told me it needed to download 7.45Gb of files. I only have 2Gb worth of traffic to last the rest of the month.

[mommie]

http://www.livestream.com/sh_rift/

[Frag]

The 6th event is about to go up. Anyone know if there's a central server for us Lurkers?

[LochnarITB]

The 6th event is about to go up. Anyone know if there's a central server for us Lurkers?

I'm on Silkweb as Lochnar but no idea where anyone else might be.

[Ashock]

Waste of time.

I was looking for a game to tie me over till SWTOR and played the last Beta event for 2 evenings.

I'm still looking.

This is a slightly updated version of Warhammer. Same, albeit updated engine. Same listless feel. Same purposeless questing. Same linear gameplay. Same lackluster combat. Same horrid group PVE. Same generic character models.
Character class development is potentially intriguing.... but that is the game's only bright spot.

Is it polished? Yes. However, if you polish tin, it still won't look like gold. This game has a feel as though the developers read a "How to develop an MMO" manual, and went with that... and nothing else. No soul, no character. Nothing aweful, but nothing real good. In 3-4 months from release, they will be combining servers. In 8-9 months tops, this game will be a ghostland.

Nextgen MMO?

Closer to nextgen MOOOOOO.

[kandrathe]

This game has a feel as though the developers read a "How to develop an MMO" manual, and went with that... and nothing else.

That's not a bad start actually... Considering that many other MMO developers never read that manual. Most MMO's begin at horrible, and then work their way up, or die in a miasma of miserable disappointment for all involved.

I too am hopeful that "Game Developers" in general remember to add enough innovative game play and brilliance into the flash and graphics pizazz to keep it interesting. I'm taking for granted the basics, like not crashing every hour.

[Frag]

Had a decent time this weekend. The game doesn't have anything that makes me go WOW!, but really, it's the most polished beta I've been in, their netcode is good, the server stability was fantastic, and they didn't seem to have too many glaring problems. It seems they sat down and said, "O.k., what blew us away about... Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Warhammer: Online, and Asheron's Call?", and then proceeded to make a list out of that for what to use ingame. Also, someone at the design table was very obviously a Dungeons & Dragons 3ed player, and did probably one of the better character specialization systems to date. It's flexible and customizable w/o really allowing you to make a terrible character like alot of the other archtype systems deployed.

It's not incredible, but it's the first AAA game I've seen about to release in the past 4 years that doesn't have obvious, glaring issues. That alone will be enough that people will cling to it, imo.

Probably not playing, but not because it wouldn't be enjoyable, I just don't see enough of my friends going to it to really have a community to play with, though Old Timers Guild and The Basin seemed to have strong groups there and OTC said they'd be happy to have me.

Cheers,
~Frag

Edit: Was using all four cores pretty much equally, and seemed to be rather GPU dependant, as a FYI for anyone thinking of trying the betas that are left. Open begins on the 15th.

[LochnarITB]

I really shouldn't be paying one subscription, let alone two, and Rift won't be taking that one away from WoW. I can see fun being had, and would buy it, but only if the servers were free. I've only played Guild Wars (if that even falls into the same category) and WoW and saw nothing really new to those other than the rifts themselves. While the soul system seemed more flexible than WoW's trees, I felt it forcing me in ways I didn't want to go. Given, my character was young, but even with the points of a much higher level toon, I couldn't see a path that wouldn't make him mediocre at many things and master of none. I also see the rifts, their selling point, kicking them in the head, even if the system dials them way back. People are going to get bored with them. They will get in the way of questing. In low population areas, their level will have to be cranked way down or they will never get sealed. In well populated areas, they might even give rise to folks logging off with a case of the let-someone-else-do-its. There will also be complaining about loot rules and tagging and fair distribution. Rifts will not carry the game for very long.

[Frag]

Just a note that unless it's an invasion, someone has to open the rift for it to go active. That's what the Planar Focus ability toons get at lvl 7 is for.

Cheers,
~Frag

[LochnarITB]

Just a note that unless it's an invasion, someone has to open the rift for it to go active.

Are you sure? Wasn't that ability new in beta 6 and did the tear behavior change with it? I knew that the players could open them, and I opened a couple. But, I was also under the impression that the tears eventually opened themselves into rifts and Telarapedia agrees with that here.

If left alone, tears will open into rifts on their own

------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm, this isn't good. I'm sitting here wanting to play and explore further. I assume a month of sub is included so I might have to buy it and see what comes of it. Darn it!!

[Frag]

Are you sure?

No, I'm not. I hung around a couple tears to see what would happen, and either someone came by and started it up (I was on the highest pop server in the lowbie zones, so people were everywhere) or I would get distracted or wander off or somehow miss if someone had started it or if it turned into a rift on it's own.

~Frag

[Xiuhcoatl]

Rift's claim to be a "next gen MMO" is full of crap, but I never took that claim seriously. It does (or did) have potential and although I did not enjoy Beta 6 as much as 4 & 5, I will give Beta 7 (the open beta) a chance to improve my opinion of the game.

Beta 5 introduced public grouping (to accommodate healers) and IMO it is ruining the game by encouraging zergfests. The default for grouping is set at "join public groups" which means that every time a rift raid group is within range you will automatically join it. Changing the party setting to "private" fixes this, but that is not the only issue I have with grouping.

Planar tears can either be opened or closed by players (abilities are now listed in the Ascended powers window and additional powers can be purchased from planar vendors), and if left alone will form a rift. I don't remember which beta introduced the timed rifts (self-closing) but it is still in the game and something rift runners do not appreciate. From what I've observed, the occurrence of rifts and invasions are based on shard population.

Quests are horribly linear, especially on the Defiant side, but I dislike quests so questing will never be a selling point for games I play. The nice thing about Rift is you do not have to do them. In fact, rift runners will level faster and have more fun than those who concentrate on questing (although the fun was significantly diminshed when rift running became zergfests). The only reason I did the quests during the beta was to get an idea of how the factions were balanced in terms of game play (they aren't).

* Xiuhcoatl is laughing at Ashock for wasting his time questing.

The dungeons* offer a change of scenery from rifting, as does treasure hunting (there are lots of puzzles and Easter eggs to reward the explorer types). It is possible to do the dungeons in the opposing faction's zones but the journey might not be worth it to the less adventurous.

The world size seems very small to me and that is one of my concerns. The third zone, Scarlet Gorge, (as are all zones that follow it) is shared by both factions which might compromise questing speed during peak hours. I did not encounter any hangups but I was questing mostly during off hours. The thing that bothered me most about the shared zones were rift related (I don't like to share my rifts ).

There is also the option to level and gear up via PvP (Warfronts). For each class there is a PvP soul to unlock. I didn't do any PvP'ing so I won't comment.

Other Observations:
-Crafting was dull and unrewarding, but I wasn't expecting anything spectacular since Trion is targeting WoW subscribers.
-The 10-man dungeon raids have been pulled from the game, but the 10-man rift raids are still in. AFAIK the L50 heroic dungeons and rifts and the 20-man raids are also still in.
-My main gripe with Rift and every other game of this genre is the lack of inventory space. Apparently Trion is working hard to remedy this but so far their efforts have been lackluster at best.

I will give Trion one more chance to sell me their game, which is more than I have given most games.

If you want to hook up, send me a PM.

*I have been to 4 dungeons and enjoyed them all. There have been quite a few complaints regarding the difficulty of some boss fights but I liked them just the way they are.

[Ashock]

* Xiuhcoatl is laughing at Ashock for wasting his time questing.

Quiet, woman!

Now, as far as wasting my time... better than wasting my time AND money, like I did with $60 purchase + 2 months of subs for Warhammer. For this, I am grateful to Rift, b/c of the free beta.

TOR, baby. TOR.

Oh and D3, whenever that comes out. 'Till then, garbage in, garbage out. Fast.

Hope you are well.

[Xiuhcoatl]

Now, as far as wasting my time... better than wasting my time AND money, like I did with $60 purchase + 2 months of subs for Warhammer.

* Xiuhcoatl continues to laugh at Ashock

The Warhammer trailers were amusing but they weren't good enough to interest me even in a free trial. I will give you an opportunity to laugh back at me: Although it had/has some glaring flaws, Vanguard was/is the next gen MMO. I wish more games would do combat and crafting like VG did.

Oh, and my other half and I are fine, thanks. Hope you and yours are well too.