Brief review after 10 hours of gameplay...

dannydeuce

Character creation:

I love how the character models look in regards to realism.  They have emotions and feelings imbued into their design.  The triangle character maker thingy is ok...it is somewhat limiting since most parts of the triangle look like freakish aliens while a few spots look decent.  Enough options to be unique, but not enough to not see your clone after a while.  B+

Questing:

Very linear.  Most x and y quests with very few variations.  Granted I only played about 10-11 hours, but they all were fairly easy to complete.  Nothing broken about them but nothing new.  C

Classes/Races:

I actually really like the diversity of classes and the way in which they allow for an insane amount of options.  This is probably my favorite part of the game.  I made a rogue type focused on marksman/ranger with a few night blade skills for melee.  I loved the way in which you gain skills buy purchasing upgrades, leveling certain skills, gaining new skills by leveling said skills...it just makes a million options that are great for a player.  The races also feel unique enough and all belong in the world.  I like the eths and the dwarves personally (hate elves/dark elves/high elves/kelari/etc in all games).  A

Combat: 

The combat feels almost identical to me as WAR did.  Very button smashing oriented combat and somewhat dull.  It had it's moments during rifts and group play, but the general monster killing of a soloer lacks.  It just never felt very complex or I never felt the need to execute a certain spell in order to kill something.  It felt smooth and the animations were decent, but they lacked that "umph" feeling when using them.  The energy system was kind of of let down since it almost promoted spam spam spam wait spam spam spam.  C-

Immersion/World/Lore:

I found myself immersed enough to read the quests and feel like I achieved something while doing many things in Rift.  The lore seemed cool and a world torn apart and everything about it was pretty interesting.  The world was shallow to me, but it did kind of flow well with the lore and how your character enters into the battles and such.  I think you could say alot of pro's and con's to each side and another more in depth review could help with this.  I'll just say I like the Lore and I am not that fond of the World in which the game persists in.  It's a little to linear for my tastes, but I understand why they did it this way.  B-

Overall:

Overall I'd give this game a B-/B or so granted it is pretty new but does offer some fun with an mmo.  I understand I have only played about 10 hours, but I feel I got a strong enough grasp of how the game will be come release.  I didn't delve into every aspect of the game such as crafting, pvp, raiding, etc etc but got the basics down.  With a little time I may end up purchasing this game if it continues to head in the right direction because the foundations are indeed there.  Not a pre-order for me, but a definite watcher with wide-opened eyes.

Thank you for reading!

Takiton

agree for the most part.  

I imagine sub lvl 20 skills and combo complexity is and should be less than at max level, right?  Also, I think the game looks visually very appealing and runs exceptionally well with 30+ ppl doing very detailed spell animations en masse at Rift's.

 

Fun game and worth playing.  

Note, I don't live for MMO's like some of the more hardcore here.  I look at them more like an actual game. (i.e. like any other  game.  Similar to how i buy the most recent shooter or strategy game ill play for the next 3-9 months.)  IMO: newest/best MMO on the market today and my buddies and I having fun with it....  and it doesn't need to be the magic/innovative/life changing/meta-reality thats supposed to make me happy