The past few days have gone by quickly. I’ve spent most of my time PvPing in Rift’s Warfronts and/or open-world confrontations. My Warrior is developing nicely at level 30.5 and I’m trying to figure out just how I want to play him. For tanking I’m fairly certain that I like the Paladin/Warlord/maybe Reaver build but I’ll probably continue tinkering with that. For PvP DPS I’ve gone with a mixture of Riftblade (magical dps) and Paladin (for the survivability/shield utility) and it’s working out nicely. I can drop just enough DPS to kill people and I have survivability to withstand being focus fired for short bursts.
Warfronts are fun, perhaps more fun than most “battlegrounds” have been for me. The issue here is longevity. How long can I queue for the same handful of maps? How long until it feels monotonous? The only monotony I have felt so far stems from the stupidity of my teammates when they fail to grasp the simple formula for victory. I get into a match and winning is as simple as standing at one of two spots but they all just charge at the enemy’s spawn and die or fight mid-field and contribute nothing. Get that 5 times in a row and see if you don’t rage. Luckily we have many guild groups going every day that give us an 80% win ratio.
Open-world PvP has been little more than a case of fighting the enemy when you run into them or finding them doing rifts and harassing them. I have yet to see, at level 30, any real objectives. Occasionally some people will act tough and roll into one of our quest hubs to cause trouble but it doesn’t mean anything. This is where I continue to feel that Rift will fall short in the long run. World PvP needs objectives. I can not stress that enough.
My biggest gripe with the game is still the Global Cooldown (GCD) on my Warrior. It is so freaking long. I’m waiting and waiting to use abilities all the time and even with “full queue” on for abilities (which makes the combat feel like early LotRO) it still makes me almost feel like I’m lagging when I play. I made a Rogue/Bard alt last night and it’s freaking fluid and amazing feeling as though they have no issues with the GCD at all. The Warrior GCD absolutely 100% must be like the Rogue’s; no excuses. I have to throw in a plug for one of Graev’s biggest gripes too: Spell effects being reused everywhere. Between souls within archetypes and even between different archetypes the same effects are seen over and over.
I’m beginning to have doubts about Rift. As much as I want to like it, as much as I want it to be like my beloved classic WoW, I just can’t see it working out for me (especially since none of my friends are playing it and the guild I joined is, at best, lukewarm when it comes to cohesion between players within it.) I died a little inside when I looked in Meridian and found a vendor selling epic gear for tokens that you got from completing heroics.
And this is really quite depressing. I was really pinning my hopes on Rift being good and providing me with a year’s entertainment; now I’m not sure it’ll last a month. The real test will be the day before a sub is due: if I go with it, it’ll be a six-month, discounted founder’s pricing and I’ll be playing it every day.
If I don’t, then I doubt I’ll be returning to Telara.
The worst thing is: I don’t know which universe I’d want to go to next; Middle Earth’s combat makes me wretch, Azeroth doesn’t entice me much anymore, Hyboria’s combat system is woeful and all the rest were never my cup of tea. Considering I’ve spent the last year not playing MMOs very heavily at all, me’s be worried that the genre is dying for me. And that, above all, is a really scary thought.
RE: World PvP objectives – I’ve heard it said you can go to the other faction’s towns and take them over by destroying the ward stone, the same as a PvE invasion can. Is this only the case at level 50? Perhaps the guards prevent you from doing so at level 30 (which is idiotic in the extreme)? Or have you just not found a group doing this?
As for your problems with the warrior, I had the same experience when I played one briefly. It just feels very clunky compared both to other classes in Rift, and warriors in other games. I think part of it is the bland skill design and animation, and part of it is the long GCD and one dimensional resource system.
Total Halibut summed up my feelings towards Rift very succinctly in his WTF is Rift video: “Rift seems solid, but I’m just done with Hotkey MMOs”. Like him, I simply can’t bring myself to play another game whose “combat” wouldn’t be out of place in a 5 or 10 year old game…
I’m enjoying Rift for the time being.
I’m just going with it, doing whatever I want and trying to make my own fun. Worked out well so far.
If you’re burnt out on this type of game, not a lot anyone can do for you. If this type of game is fun for you and your community then whose to say otherwise? 3 months of fun is still fun.
“Hotkey MMOs” are what I want to play, personally. I don’t want to position, block, counter or any of that active combat stuff. There are games that do that and I don’t play them. I don’t want or need innovation in this area – a row of hotkeys that I control with my mouse-pointer is exactly right for me.
As for people not following the objectives in Warfronts, I think there are lots and lots of players who just don’t care whether they win or lose. They just go into warfronts (or battlegrounds in any game) for a bit of a runaround to let off steam. I think of instanced pvp battlegrounds like the playground at recess – we’ve done a couple of hours work crafting or questing and now we need to run about shouting for fifteen minutes before we settle down again.
Of course in Rift there are, well, Rifts to serve that purpose, so you might think Warfronts would attract a higher proportion of people who want to do them to win. Apparently this is not the case, though!
Rift has been a lot of fun so far, the questing is quite fun & so are the rifts. My PVP experience is mixed so far, I don’t like the first battleground you can run. Rift is the first game in years that didn’t make me want to just reroll in WOW or LOTRO.
I’m probably not going to pony up for a sub. I might even uninstall it today. It’s a very nice traditional MMO. But I’m done with conventional questing. The rifts are hit or miss. If there’s not a group don’t bother. I think they’ll be deserted like WAR’s PQ’s in time. The Warfront for pre-20’s reminded me of Mourkain Temple from WAR. It’s pretty good. But there aren’t enough Warfronts.
But instanced PvP isn’t my thing, really. I need PvP in a big persistent world with objectives. Interrupting someone’s PvE quest hub is a good idea. But it’s not enough.
I’m going to continue playing WAR into its sunset, until something more suitable for me PvP wise comes along.
Im already sick of the instanced Warfronts.
They’re just WAR scenarios with less class diversity.
I will continue playing it as a PvE game to experience all the zones and dungeons at least once then i guess that will be it.
Since there’s still 3k players on the new single server of Daoc, im thinking of giving it a last go, if only to spend some time in the Battlegrounds.
Thidranki, my love.
For me it seems that you are just nitpicking with anything to give up on Rift.
The GCD on the Warrior is the same than the Warrior classe in WoW was and is the same as any other class in Rift except the Rogues.
IMO you should send that feedback about the GCD to the Trion devs since they seem to be very responsive to feedback.
As for the spell effects the matter of fact is that to launch a game of this scope so fluidly and perfectly they had to cut corners somewhere. If the animations are well done (and they usually are) I can’t see any problem between them recycling animations.
I think some of you are forgeting that with this being an MMO it is bound to receive long-term improvements.
So one of the things that I would love to see them introducing is world PvP objectives but at the same time I can see why it could be difficult with the differences in rulesets between the PvE and PvP servers. WAR showed us that segregating world PvP to self-contained lakes doesn’t work very well and makes the game bland. So what PvP objectives should they make on the game world and what impact would that have on PvE servers?
But then again, I think they should introduce housing, a couple more gathering and crafting professions, etc.
Keen’s experience now mirrors mine from beta onwards: the classes/combat feel dull and clunky unless you play a Rogue. My Mage (Necromancer) got very interesting eventually but only after many levels of mediocre gaming forcing me to completely respec from Elementalist/Stormcaller to get anywhere.
Warriors can’t drop to a 1s GCD they just need more Autoattacks that animate or; enemies that REACT to being hit and some parry animations. More importantly I guess they need more “reactives abilites” or other non-GCD attacks but alas the game’s in theory been tuned around the cooldowns as they are. They need an Heroic Strike to fill the void!
My Rogue’s now 32 and I am loving it: questing, Dungeons, Warfronts and open-world PvP are still going strong for me.
I’m using the same tanking spec Keen, Paladin / Warlord / Reaver. For DPS though I’m Paragon / Champion / Vindicator.
~Skryre
Since I am a noob can someone telll me how I can buy the other specs to fill in the new roles?
I thought that I had 4 roles but had to fill them with my 3 initial choices. 😛
Paragon is a great Warrior DPS spec : )
I am pretty disgusted with the Warfronts, as the overall design shows very little, well, intelligent design. Black Garden is a essentially played out in a flat rectangular arena with nothing to break visual range of every enemy (although the little spikes in the center break LOS). The Codex has the same issue with you being able to see all enemy movement from the center of the map – WTF!! Also you have to jump over rock gaps to get to the Statue control point from the Defiant side, which makes holding it that much easier for the defending side. There is 1 logical way to each control point, meaning its a boring tactical-less map, with no real choke points or multiple paths to CPs.
Needless to say, it proves that WAR did one thing really well – the actual map design of scenarios made for really enjoyable Battleground style combat.
A lot of flaws many are leveling at Rift are really shotgun opinions of the Diku mmo genre – not Rift specifically. Okay we get it, you’re tired of traditional MMO’s, you’re burned out, come back when someone has the balls and cash to cause a paradigm shift and develop your dream game.
I admit that I prefer more active combat systems like Vindictus or Mount & Blade, for example, but Rift is an excellent game that’s polished, nearly bug free, and best of all fun. We would all like to see world PVP objectives implemented but the reality is, WAR and DAOC have RVR, and look how well that worked out for them …
@Ludo: How well that worked out for them? For DAOC is was revolutionary and the game is heralded as having the best PvP of any game -ever-. Yeah, I’d say that worked out for them. Rift is also not “Diku” it’s “themepark” like LotRO, WAR, Aion, etc. “Diku” can be reserved for EverQuest.
@Pedro: I played a Warrior in WoW and this does not feel the same. Nitpicking? Sure, but there are a lot of nits.
@Lyram: Amen to the persistent pvp world.
@Brise BonBons: Clunky is a very accurate term for Warrior combat.
@Ludo if there was a way to actually get the numbers I would bet a house that DAOC ROI over 2-3 year time frame was 2-3 times what Rift will get (if not more).
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be all “man, RIFT sucks! The combat is so last decade” – though I know I came off that way.
I was simply expressing my own personal boredom with “hotkey MMOs”. I think it’s still an interesting model, and if allowed to evolve and grow it could remain truly enjoyable and fun – though that said, I’m not certain RIFT did everything it could to innovate in that regard, but it wasn’t really trying to – it’s solid and easy for people to pick up, which was exactly the goal they were going for. It’s just not my cup of tea.
The main reason I harp on this fact is because I’m mighty tempted by some of the cool things RIFT is doing, and I need to keep reminding myself that if I buy it I’ll just wind up quickly frustrated… Just trying to save money for things I’ll enjoy fully. 🙂
As a side note, I think the statement that RIFT’s warrior needs some sort of heroic strike is spot on. Some more reactive instant attacks would have certainly improved my low level experience.
Also, no one else has heard that you can attack the other faction’s quest hubs and take them over? Did I just imagine that?
Brise Bonbons, I’m pretty sure you can attack the other faction’s quest hubs, but I’m not sure about taking them over.
When an invasion captures a quest hub, it destroys the owning faction’s wardstone and creates one of their own.
After destroying the owning faction’s wardstone, can you create one of your own in its place?
Just some mentioned about clunkyness.
I’ve rolled up each of the 4 archtypes [due to the flexibilty with the role/soul system, 4 chars is all you will ever need). So rogue has a nice smooth 1s global cooldown, which works nicely. The rest have very long GCDs but based on what you actually play this can be a major nuisance.
On Warrior, if you’re not playing the right “soul” , you are going to feel it. There’s -alot- of abilities that are called “Do NOT trigger Global Cooldown” . There are warrior souls that have a TON of these abilities….look for them. If you can work out the rotation of mixing abilities that trigger GCD and abilities that does not, your “waiting” will disappear . Couple this with abilities that trigger based on you blocking/parrying and you’re too busy to notice the GCD :).
That said, i’ve noticed Cleric Melee does not have all these fancy abilities [or not as many] like the Warrior does , primarily because they get a mana pool [large, but slow regen] and not an energy pool [small, but fast regen] . So playing a Justicar [cleric tank/self-healing] and then a Paladin [warrior tank] is like night and day, despite them feeling similar in theory. Justicar feels like they can go on forever, but oh my goodness are they sllllooooww.
As for Warfront, they feel alot more like WAR scenarios than WOW Battlegrounds , but yes, we can do with more maps. Currently there’s only 1 map every 10 levels [so i assume there are only 4 maps in total] . That said, people are actually doing them -while they are leveling- , something you don’t see in WoW too often [well not in the past]. The thing of note is, the Warfronts are simple, it’s not overcomplicated like that Tol Bawhatsitsname thing in WoW. Sometimes plain and simple “capture the flag” is all people need, just change the location….all these AV/defend multiple castles/coordinated 40-man group raids simply do not work in a PUG situation.
I’m just glad Trion figured out how to do the Warfronts CROSS-SERVER . Why on earth Warhammer couldn’t figure this out is beyond me. So there’s no issue with “warfront queue times” or “population balance” .
@ Stratagerm
Yes, you can. In fact the ancient wardstones pop faction NPCs offering daily quests. If it is Defiant controlled you can down the wardstone and pop your own using your planar charge so that Gaurdian NPC quest givers spawn.
Keen heres a what if for you. If Allods Online was not free to play and a subscription model. Which game would you be playing allods, or Rift?
Do you know how much damage a warrior would do if he was able to spam as much as a Rogue? There’s a reason for the longer cooldown. Granted, it does need to be a bit shorter. But definitely not as fast as a rogue. Rogues are only so fast because their damage is all about ramp up. You need fast combo points to get off your burst.
I mean, it does feel slow.. but warriors have NEVER felt fast to me. Even in WoW. I think what you’re noticing most about Rogues is the energy change. Rogues were much slower before that.
@Jay P: whilst I’m not Keen, I’ll give my take on it.
Allods.
@Jay P: That’s tough because it’s like saying: “If Allods were not Allods”. Honestly… I’d probably choose Rift but, since we’re talking about games that aren’t themselves, I would say Rift with some sort of PvP objectives or system ala Allods air ships or DAOC’s keep sieges.
Already found out how to get new souls. 😛
I’m having a blast. The Rifts are awesome, and even though they don’t give much XP the rewards one can get more than make up for it (plus there’s quests related to them)
The variety of stuff to do is enormous and doesn’t let monotony settle in. Crafting, PvPing, rifting, questing and dungeons.
I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next months.
Rift is better than Allods, comparing the Beta games.
But Allods has some neat things that Rift lacks and vice-versa.
I wish I could pre-charge a spell with character in Rift and use tab to highlight interactable objects.
I am playing a bard/rogue and I am having a lot of fun. The different souls keep everything fresh and are very entertaining. I keep switching things around and trying new things and it is a lot of fun.
I feel the same about warfronts as you right now. They can actually be fun and I have been enjoying them – but that is because they are now and alternative to leveling. While the exp isnt great, it is a fun alternative to leveling. At 50, once you eliminate the leveling aspect, it is a different story. Then it will be between choosing to do open world PVP and warfronts and that choice is crystal clear but if there is no open world PVP because of warfronts (as I would suspect if they do not address this) then this game will lose a lot of its fun factor…very fast.
I agree with you that objectives are important but I think it is much more important to add a proper and meaningful open world PVP reward system that is independent from the warfronts. If you have a good reward system first and then add objectives – I think the game will survive (for me) but if you add in objectives without the proper reward system then it will just be a slower death in the long run.
@Phandy
“Yes, you can. In fact the ancient wardstones pop faction NPCs offering daily quests. If it is Defiant controlled you can down the wardstone and pop your own using your planar charge so that Gaurdian NPC quest givers spawn.”
That’s what I thought. Very cool to hear it confirmed though.
I mean, that sounds like a pretty good implementation of world PvP to me – being able to evict the other guy’s quest givers entirely and bring in your own? Obviously it’d be better if there were also DaoC style faction-wide buffs to be had by taking certain areas, but it’s a good start.
A little alph, i mean birdie told me that they are increasing the experiance gained from Rifts back to how it was in beta.
@Argorius: Getting open-world independent from Warfronts is indeed very important. Warhammer and WoW show what happens when they’re not.
Overall I would say so far my guilds experience with Rift has been positive. The most players we have had in an MMO in a long time. I am playing a Warrior and have not noticed the long GCD but maybe that is just me. Quite a few of my guild mates have went for the 6 month Founders sub including me.
My experience has, so far, been mostly positive as well despite being critical of a few blatant issues. However, I’d like to stipulate that mostly positive is more like a notch or two towards positive from “average” since I still can’t shake the feeling that Trion is choosing to take Rift down path of extreme generic-ism.
I’m still unsure why Trion is choosing to keep Rift in the realm of what we already know very well instead of branching out at all. This game IS WAR. IS WoW. IS LotRO. What’s holding them back from making a statement? They’ve nailed most of the important stuff. Diversify! Become the game that bridged WoW with DAOC or AC or the game that we look back on five years later and remember for starting something new. That is, unless they’re happy chugging along at what they know is safe just to make money. I would be more about making the best game possible.
Speaking of allods. Have you heard? They coming out of beta and removing the death penalty bs. Well they are not charging for it anymore.
Personally, I won’t play it because I can’t trust them. The game is very laggy too.
@ Keen
It could also be argued that the diverse games were complete and utter failures.
I realize that many of these games launched with game breaking design flaws and bugs, but can we be so sure that these games, even with many of their issues were fixed, would’ve been a success?
I’m not necessarily sure.
Furthermore, I feel that Trion has an opportunity to bring out more a diverse personality as they move forward beyond the launch period.
While I like RvR as much as the next PvP junkie, there’s one thing that’s quite evident to me.
A PvP focused game, post DAOC, is doomed to failure. You have to nail the PvE first, bottom line, or it won’t be a commercial success. Trion did what they set out to do @ launch. Create a game that’s polished, that appeals to many, and that just works and has a content rich launch. I don’t think anyone can argue that they haven’t done that.
We’ll see where they take the game from here, but I like what i’m seeing so far.
@Crackbone: You make a very good point. PvE must be solid. Rift took the quest route and many, not all, will agree with me that the questing is one of the worst aspects of the game yet unchangeable (which is why I don’t rail on it too much). They could easily add a frontier for PvP that is separate from the PvE game as DAOC did.
@ Keen
Which is why I appreciate the Rift mechanic. I’m not a big quester either. I prefer PvP, Dungeons, and encounters. That’s my game, and @ least for once, a game has provided some alternative ways to progress your character(s).
WAR definitely had it on the PvP side, but the PvE was god awful. There wasn’t a reason for it, whatsoever, it provided nothing to the game.
A PvP game runs too hot and cold. WAR provided me with some of the best moments in recent history for MMO PvP. The only problem was @ 6 AM, waiting to go to work, i’d log on, and Keep Swap. That’s all that was going on. The populations were too low @ that point of the day to do anything but that, or PvE, which provided you nothing.
If you weren’t running @ prime time, the game was a dog.
I think the designers have a pretty good handle on what they are doing. I wouldn’t doubt seeing a solid PvP experience as we move forward. Also, after the World PvP we had this weekend, (fighting over invasion bosses with the opposing factions) I’d argue if you make the rewards great enough(Rift events, etc) the PvP will happen, objectives or not.
I am only level 21 atm and friends are only around 33 but I believe that I have seen videos of world PvP objectives that may or may not pan out very well.
The one I do remember seeing was a different type of wardstone in the latter areas that could be destroyed by one faction and then using Planarite powers a player could erect a wardstone of their faction in its place. With the wardstone came NPCs, guards, tents and several daily or normal quests to complete.
This type of world PvP may be good in the short run but bad in the long run. Rift is a immensely fun game right now, the question is, will it have any sort of longevity? I am leaning towards no. As the biggest things it has going for it are 1) New Car Smell and 2)Exploration. Once the shine is off the car and there is nothing left to explore in the game world, what then?
Well the game started with a solid foundation Keen: decent questing system, the Rifts, the Warfronts, the crafting and collecting.
The world PvP will surely be something they can iterate in the future as well other stuff such as housing.
I bet my soul (pun?) that they will never add housing. I think we’ll be very lucky if they address the world pvp at all.
I totally agree that we need world PvP objectives and some good reasons for RvR fights (beside the fun factor that we all know is not enough to bring people).
Other than that i’m enjoying the game, playing only a little as i continue to play EVE. The big issue for me is definitively the fact that there is nothing knew in Rift and i know i will get bored pretty fast. Rifts and invasions are nice, but still nothing else than mobs to kill.
Everytime i think about PvE i end up thinking about Vanguard. A real crafting game, the diplomacy, the housing… Will we ever see another game with that much content in a huge, beautiful world ?
The problem with a lot of what people say is missing is… complexity. There are very few people (relatively) who enjoy all the complex systems. Most of the people who play aren’t going to want to have to do diplomacy, aren’t going to want to have a hugely complex crafting system, etc. Yes there are those who do want it, but there are more who don’t. Which is why it’s unlikely Rift will ever implement anything like that.
Also, for world PvP, I know there are a lot of people who don’t want to fight against the defiant to take back a quest hub, etc. It’s already rare for me to see anyone attacking the wardstones of the other faction at lvl 35.
Another thing about world PvP… if the objectives were quest hubs, is it could end up with one siding holding it most of the time, which breaks the game in it’s own way.
Now, yes, at the moment it seems like a normal MMO with a few twists, but there are many things they can do to keep it fresh with content patches. WoW at launch was much more boring than Rift is now, yet it’s the constant addition of content (WITHOUT Expansions – part of EQ 2’s failure IMO) that kept it alive for so long. Is WoW the greatest game ever? Not by a long shot, but it’s simplicity and ease of play in addition to free content and constant balance changes are what’s kept it alive for so long, and have so many people playing it.
This is why, while I hope RIFT does bring some new ideas into the genre, I also hope they take note and do it carefully. Because if these new ideas aren’t implemented properly and without quick response to any unforseen and unwanted consequences, they can quickly ruin the game.
Also, I would just like to point out, that personally, I am really enjoying the dungeons so far. I’m not sure why, I hated the WoW ones, but I love the ones in RIFT. None of them are very hard (yet) but they feel like there’s a purpose to them other than go here and kill everything, at least to me, they seem to mesh well with the story which helps. For me at least.
And lastly, for and what I hope, is that it does take one thing from WoW, and that is that, only half the game is leveling to 50, and you still have half the game to experience after that in many aspects. It has had a great launch, fairly bug free. Yes, I have seen a few but they are far between and far from game breaking. The worst was the runebreaking bug, and look how fast they fixed it. Which I think speaks good things for how quickly they will also bring it new content.
Re: “The Warrior GCD absolutely 100% must be like the Rogue’s; no excuses.”
let me point you to one of your own posts which seems to be right on point: https://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=4805 Replace the word Race/Racial in the last few paragraphs with the word class and you have made my point for me.
@Koal: I don’t understand. Classes can be different without a clunky GCD, unless the GCD is what differentiates them for you?
@Drathmar: I’ve noticed a common theme.
“Hopefully”
“In the future”
“Maybe”
“They can do…”
“Perhaps they will…”
“At the moment it’s this way but”
(You didn’t use all of these)
A lot of people, myself included, are banking on the future of Rift. Maybe they’ll implement this. Hopefully they’ll develop or expand that. In the future maybe we’ll see this. At the moment we don’t have that…
That’s a lot of faith.
Keen, isn’t it that way with all MMOs?
Tell me how long WoW took to implement certain features. Tell me how long WAR took to adress some of the glaring issues it had, tell me how long AoC took to get in shape.
For me it seems that you want them to include everything you want to in less than 3 months. Is it possible?
Maybe. Will they do it? No, because you are not the lead developer of Rift. 😛
But nevertheless they are already preparing content to introduce in the next patch so they at least are planning on doing their best to keep players busy.
http://www.riftjunkies.com/dev-tracker/?id=1518898
“We’re already hard at work on Rift’s first major update and soon we will need your help! We will be temporarily opening the Alpha test shard for all players with an active subscription very soon, here you will be able to have a firsthand look at all the new content and improvements we have in the wings.
Alpha will only be open during certain periods so be sure to check it out and give your feedback when you can! Of course, being a test shard means that at times things will not go as planned – expect bugs, bumps, and frequent maintenance.
While you can’t copy your characters, those who played on Alpha before headstart will find their characters are still available. Lastly, try to avoid sharing spoilers across the forums; many players enjoy learning and discovering the game on their own, we appreciate your understanding.
Thanks for your help and feedback, we’re making Rift better together – have fun!
Start patching today – Download the Alpha Client
If you still have your client installed from pre-headstart Alpha testing, don’t re-download the game. Simply launch your Alpha patcher and patch up!
You’ll find the Patch Notes in the patcher!”
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not expecting everything at launch. I’m a realist, though, and I know what we can expect from developers as well as anyone out there.
We rarely get what we’re promised. We rarely get what we expect will be added in the future.
Bottom line? Unless it’s in at launch it takes faith to see it added. It would be nice if a game launched with features we want where we’re not holding our breath.
Where the “look how long it took WoW to do it” logic breaks down is here: How many games last as long as WoW before you stop playing?
@Keen: I agree, but as Pedro said, a lot of MMO’s are that way. And I do have a lot of hope for Rift in this regard because of how quickly they have been to address issues, such as the runebreaking exploit.
Anyway, with the game being this new, it is all we can do to hope at this point. But so far Trion’s record seems pretty solid on both listening to its customer base as well as being quick with updates and bug fixes. The first major content patch I think will give us an idea of what we can expect though, and any final reservations on the game should be held until after that, Imo. Unless it takes a long time to come out, in which case they already failed.
Onto my thoughts on the game however. I am enjoying it so far, though I think runecrafting is too easy to level up. It uses mats you can get from lvl 1, all the way up to 300 (by combining lower level mats). In fact because of t his I hit 300 runecrafting last night on my 35 rogue. Cost me most of the money I had made in the game so far but still, was pretty easy.
Combat wise, on my rogue, I have enjoyed it a lot, I have main soul’d everything but nightblade, which I’m trying tonight, and probably have spent 10 plat just respeccing. Combat seems to go fairly smooth until you go through one full rotation, at which point I find myself waiting for energy, but that’s not really a problem. This is where I actually think the warrior is a bit smoother overall for me. With the longer GCD, I never seem to find myself waiting on power to do a move on my warrior. For some reason I’ve never experienced the clunkiness a few others have. I have yet to play a mage or cleric past the intro so can’t weigh in on them.
Quest wise, it seems similar to other MMO’s, though they have a nice natural progression to move you through the zone, and multiple quest hubs spread throughout the zone (Unlike some of WoWs, that had one quest hub per zone), which seems to eliminate some of the long bouts of running. Some of the quests are also pretty cool if you read them.
Dungeon wise, I like it so far. As I mentioned they seem to flow and have reason within the game to be there. Going from participating in the Aelfwar Grand Crusade to doing RotF, you get a feeling they are connected. However, one thing I think they should implement with that one in particular, is once you beat that great idol, it would be nice if that became a quest hub… until the next invasion by Aelfwar forces. Back to dungeons though, the boss fights so far, while not drastically different, have actually kept my parties on their toes the first time they did them. I like how they are more “events” than just straight up boss fights. Like Twyl… you have to beat his final minions, before you fight him. In Darkening Deeps, you have to beat the goblins minions then him, you have to keep the werewolf out of the moonlight, you have the spider (which I admit that one seems a rehash of a certain WoW boss), and you have to fight 3 on 1 at the end. My point is, none of them have been you against a single boss with nothing to do but beat it down. Which I think is a good thing, and makes me want to see the endgame, and raiding.
Rifts and Invasions. So far they go from being fun, to annoying, depending on if I am in the mood to do them or in the mood to quest. Overall I do like them, and I like that the minor rifts and invasions can be solo’d (not easily but it is possible). Me and a paladin actually 2-manned about 5 invasion forces at once. His shield healing seem’d to be a bit overpowered though. One thing though, I think the faction rewards for rifts should be increased.
Finally, PvP. Warfronts, (not having played Warhammer) are a lot better than the battlegrounds in WoW. Even the first one (which is more than just a rectangle as someone said… there’s wall and rocks everywhere to break line of site, just got move out of the middle). The take and hold points one is ok, it’s my least favorite of them because it is so similar to the WoW one. The CTF one though seems nice, with a good sized map. Overall they seem to be ok, but nothing special. I think this is the part of the game that needs the most work. PvP (Warfront’s) and World PvP, as you mentioned. I do agree there. They just need to implement it in a way (World PvP) that won’t drive away those who just want to PvE. Anyway, my thoughts on it, aside from the hopeful for the future part.
@Keen Sorry to double post, wanted to respond to you thing about how long games last.
Most don’t lat long it’s true, but on the flip side, Rift already has more active subs than all but 3 MMO’s… WoW, Lineage, and Lineage II. And Lineage (launched in ’98) had an update in 2010… which is pretty good. Rift already has 1.4 Million active subs, and most MMO’s don’t even reach a million. While this isn’t everything, it does seem to bode well for the longevity of the game, at the moment. I actually think they might have the most Subs at launch of any MMO, WoW took a few months to break the 1 million mark, though they broke 6 million in a year. At least from what I researched, and it could be wrong, but from my knowledge.
Just some food for thought about the chances of it being long lived.
Where is that 1.4 million subs number coming from? The only thing I have seen was from Trion stating they had a million registered accounts. Which is not the same thing as subs. I am a registered account and even tried a little of beta yet I have zero interest in buying RIFT.
Another redeeming feature of Rift so far (at least on Sunrest) and I know I need to be very careful but it seems that the community is actually pleasant. I am also seeing familiar faces in the warfronts – sometimes even from other servers (not the douche that afks in every warfront but real people)
@ Drathmar – how can you say that Rift has 1.4 million active subs when the 30-days of free play hasn’t ended and paid subscriptions haven’t begun?
Rift doesn’t have 1.4 million accounts. You’re just making that stuff up. They said that they had one million registered accountsand that’s different from subscriptions, because anyone can (or could) register in the website.
The most reliable estimates point torwards them starting with around 200/300k subs by some math based on the number of servers and the servers capacity on the forums.
Keen, they do need to improve the PvP and I think that will be something they’ll do later. But don’t expect them to be DAoC 2. Their main focus will be on PvE.
However, I would like to see a PvP expansion…
It’s funny how a great deal of vocal support for PVP in this game tends to come from Warriors and Rogues. I challenge you to play a mage (mine is now 42) in the WFs and see how enjoyable it is. The damage output on some of the warrior and rogue souls at the moment is bordering on rediculous.
Just wanted to point that I didn’t get the 1.4 million players (sorry the website I looked it up at had it as players, not subs) from the rift forums and their statement of 1 million registered accounts. It was from a third party website that reported it, and ya they might have gone by that.
Considering the fact that they have more than doubled their servers since the start of the headstart though, (started with 30, added 20 within a few hours, and added 30 more on official launch day) it really doesn’t seem that far fetched.
@Jason S: I have played a mage in WF’s and while it is a different experience, and why they do need work, they are not useless. I have seen mages top the damage down, kills, kb’s in warfronts as well. I’m not sure what spec they are using, I haven’t been able to do it, I usually do mediocre with my mage, but I have seen that it is possible to dominate with a mage.
@ JasonS
Go try a Pyro @ level 50 and then get back to me.
They can burn a warrior down before he even gets his bullrush off.
I play a mage but i’m a lowbie so i can’t comment on the higher levels but it seems thhat mages have less viable builds than other souls.
@Pedro: They might have builds yes, especially DPS builds, but they are the only class with a full CC build, plus they have a healing build (only other class aside from cleric that can main heal), a support build, and at least 3 different viable dps builds I have seen.
About the GCD on Warriors its all about the soul combo honestly. I play a champ/paragon/riftblade and combat is extremely fastpaced even using the highest dmg slowest 2h I can equip. I get 4+ self buffs, extremely high crit chance/dmg, 4+ attacks the don’t go off the GCD and aoe’s that hit 5-8 mobs. Half the time I cant click non-GCD attacks fast enough before more pop. I understand that im only lvl 32 and havent experienced the highest lvl content but I see 0 indication that things will drastically drop off anytime soon. Warrior DPS combat clunky??? not if played well
What I had said in previous comments revealed to be true for me. My highest char is 40+, and I have a hard time logging back in Rift lately. The world is boring and uninspired, lacks of lore, and just the thought of having to go through more of it makes me stop at the login screen and close it, and then proceed to do something else… which includes playing WoW, yes, because if I have to do monster bashing, I may as well do it is a well designed huge world with good combat mechanics and decent lore, instead of a bland world with clunky combat mechanics.
I really hope that SW:TOR, which will focus on story telling and lore, will do for me what Rift totally failed to. It may be another theme park, I don’t mind. But I want to have more in a MMORPG than just being send to bash 5 more wolves to collect 10 crunchy wolf testicles, I want to be told lore and stories.