Home › Game Forums › Rift
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Rift grows on you ...
I am someone who was lucky enough to participate in the 4 beta fases with a normal key.
While the game at first kind of put me off (War feeling, low fps, been there done that, etc ...) the game slowly but gradually grew on me. With each fase the Rift identity slowly took over and pushed the WAR identity away. By fase 4 I was in a new world with its own right to exist.
I can't quite put my finger on what caused this ... excellent actions from the devs on player feedback (each beta fase got better), community, the world, ... I don't know.
What do you think about this?
Was it instant love or hate ... or did it have to grow on you to?
Comments
I didn't get in until beta event 4, but I had read a lot of the lore and was already intrigued by the game. I found that it delivered what I expected it to, and was a lot of fun. I liked it right away, and continued to enjoy it all weekend. I do think that the actions of Trion in dealing with issues and feedback is a major strong suit of the game.
As soon as I got the quest that told me to capture squirells that were running around on fire, I was in love. Yea they are squirells.. not zombies or giant skeletons, but you see plenty of those as well.. and it only took about 60 seconds. I heard there are dye tubs or something, a way to dye your armor / clothes eventually ? that would be awesome. The game makes me want to buy a 1 Gig video card just to see how cool it can look, but my 512 worked fine on ultra so we'll see.
--Chris
I have been in the last two betas and I am just loving it. I have had no problems at all FPS-wise or graphic wise and think the game is pretty. But the thing that is the most fun for me is how you can make your character perfect for your style of play with the different types of souls. So, yeah, I am hooked on the game and can't wait until release. I cannot play anything else while I wait and to get my Rift-kick I visit the forums, watch videos and studies the different souls.
Ok ive read enough of these that i have to speak up at some point. I dont see what the huge appeal is to this game. Its wow plain and simple except with more skill trees. The combat is the same, click auto attack BS.
People go on and on about the rifts. You are running to Sanctum you see a fire rift and you close it. You get to sanctum pick up some quests and then run back and pass a fire rift... in the exact same spot... with the exact same mobs. From what ive seen they are not random... they spawn in the same places and they are always the same type. And if you do nothing about them all it means is that you might get bumrushed by a group of random mobs when you are out questing... thats it. Its friggin boring and its even more linear than the wow that everone hates so much. You dont even have a choice were to go when you level. Just follow the road.
"Don't mistake a fun game for a good game... Checkers is fun to play but its not exactly the highest point of gaming design... and definatly not worth $60 plus $15 a month"
Furthermore the souls arnt even that well done. If you go with a 2hander type warrior you get an ability that does x amount of physical damage with y amount of cooldown. If you go with riftblade you get an ability that does the exact same amount of damage on the exact same cooldown but its fire damage instead.... woopty friggin do. Also most of the souls arnt viable to one another... that why they have "recommended" soul pairing. I.e. shaman + justicar+ druid. AKA if you dont use these three together anyother soul you pick to go with them will be completely useless.
"Don't mistake a fun game for a good game... Checkers is fun to play but its not exactly the highest point of gaming design... and definatly not worth $60 plus $15 a month"
So I guess for you it was Hate at first sight.
No problem, hope you experience a love at first sight soon in another world.
You pick up the other souls for the 0 point ability more than anything. At least in beta so far. It's not necessary to follow the recommended soul pairing at all.
I thought that it would be better to pick the recommended souls at first but quickly realized that it didn't matter. I just ended up picking the ones with the 0 point ability I liked best.
Stick to the road and u will go into an invasion that was going to attack Sanctum =P
It's true rifts aren't really random atm ( we're still in beta ) but is certainly a good point to start. If u just don't care about them the invasions will starts their march to kill everything, so u can't just skip the rifts. They are really one of the most important thing in the game and prolly they can start something like the old 'server pride' of DaoC: to take down a giant event of Rift, like a dragon or an hell boar that is rolfpwning every camp to go to Sanctum people we'll need to cooperate and to work/play togheter no matter what.
Is rift anything really original ? Not really
Is fun to play ? I think yes, but every player has his tastes.
Prolly just the time will tell us if the Rifts are a real DE that can keep people playing or not
I'd been following the game for literally years, since it was Heroes of Telara. I was active in the community and really looking forward to playing. Decisions were made along the way that made me say 'Hmm, that's an odd choice...' one after another, but there was still enough that had me interested.
Then I logged in for the 1st time, beta 1, and was disgusted and disappointed. It was (it's been adressed since then) too easy, too linear, and just a mish mash of everything I'd played before. But I 'toughed it out' as I wanted to make it to 16-20 to try the instances. I tried beta 2 to see what effect that massive list of changes had, and was soon back for beta 3...
Anyway, for whatever reason, I have played every event since and even taken time off to do so. It grew on me as well.
The problem I see them having is that the 1-15 game does a horrible job conveying what the 20+ game can be. Those zone events (like the Hag event in Glaom Wood) are simply the most fun I've had in an MMO since EQ GM event days, and I think a lot of people are never going to make it that far since the early game is such a bland & tedious mish mash.
Since they've essentially removed barriers to entry by making the UI and gameplay so universally familiar, I think they can afford to introduce the more advanced concepts earlier without confusing anyone.
The combat just doesn't work early on and isn't at all exciting *until* you an get deep enough in the trees to form interesting combinations of abilities with really nice synergy.
I think they need to re-evaluate the 1-15 game or many people won't even bother going as far as 10, and as much as I've grown to love Rift (went from disgust & disappointment to pre-order CE with Founder sub), I don't at all blame the people that drop off early.
What the game becomes is SO much better than that pathetic linear task grind we see 1-10, I don't know why they didn't/don't focus on incorporating some of those concepts from the start, just scaled down a bit.
I had the luck to be in the last 2 beta's and I have to say I am suprised in a very good way.
Very sceptical at first as I read all the comments on the game being to much like WoW. To me Rift is a very nice mix between WoW, Aion, WAR and some other games, everything I loved about these games is there, a lot of the things I hate are replaced.
When I started Beta I thought: Oh no this looks to much like WAR (the style I hated) but getting in the game the comparisson grew thinner and thinner. Then the first rift appeared and getting there with a lot of people just trying to shut it was just epic.
So from very sceptical and not wanting to buy the game I went to pre-ordering the game
Oh and BTW I never saw an mmo with a beta as polished as this!
I agree that, especially in the low levels, a lot of abilities are the same from one tree to the next. This actually helps prevent the issue of needing to pick a certain combination, since many share similar starting skills. As you move up the tree, and unlock more skills, I found more variety. And all of this is talking about the 'roots' of the tree, not the upper region of bonuses and such where points are actually applied. For me, I chose souls largely based on how those bonuses fit how I wanted to play.
Here's an example: Ranger has some ranged attacks, a pet, and gets some buffs later. The Marksman also gets ranged attacks. In the first few levels, there isn't a big difference between the range combat skills. As you get into the trees, however, the Marksman skills are simply better than the Ranger's ranged attacks. If you take both(which I did on two different characters), you completely ignore the Ranger attacks, and use the Marksman skills. Unlike a Marksman without the Ranger soul, you have that put and those buffs, and also the bonuses from the upper portion of the Ranger tree(I think there were some max health and crit bonuses early on, both useful to any character). For one toon, I threw in Saboteur, picking up some cool aoe attacks, and more bonuses not found in the other trees(although many of those were focuses on Saboteur skils). I now had a character who could attack single targets for good damage from long range(35m), hit groups with aoe damage from nearly the same range(30m), had a pet to help absorb enemy attacks, and some pretty decent buffs.
Yeah they should do something about those early levels. People don't tend to stick it out if they don't get captured immediately.
Well the first 5-6 level are doom cause they're the tutorial for people that never played an MMO
I agree that from level 7/8 to 15 the exp is too linear ( also if u can get some rifts in the way ). If they adds some more quests ( cools one would me awesome =P ) so u can skip some of them and do not stick to : get all the q in a zone ---> done ---> change zone I think that these level can be more enjoyable. From 15 or aroun 20ish u've more option like dungeons and warfronts and zones that are still a mistery I heard about a open pvp zone ...
So in other words: if you play this game long enough, it will eventually grow on you? Isn't it how it is with pretty much anything? You do anything long enough and it will grow on you. It's a defeatist attitude: "the game sucks but since there is nothing else out there, I eventually grew to like it."
I'm glad that you guys are enjoying the game but I'm not in the same camp. My belief is that if the developers want me to spend my money on their game, they have to make me like it from the get go. Not having the game "grow" on me after playing for 2 or 3 beta tests. Besides, you guys haven't even tested the higher levels nor the end game. How can you be so sure about the game when there is no feedback on some of the most important features?
Rift is a "been there done that" MMO. What they've done is simplify the more cumbersome elements of previous MMOs. For e.g., queue for BGs anywhere in the game, use quest items directly from the quest log, etc.
The most redeeming quality of the game however, is the soul-tree. Players choose 1 of 4 classes (warrior, mage, cleric, rogue), and within each class, you can choose 3 sub-classes out of 8-9 and swap your roles at any time.
This creates alot of different skill combinations and synergies, and provides alot of versatility for players. For e.g, these are some of the possible roles for each class (not exhaustive):
- Warrior: tank, melee dps
- Rogue: tank, melee dps, ranged dps, support
- Mage: ranged dps, support, healer
- Cleric: tank, melee dps, ranged dps, support, healer
Lastly, the game is really pretty, and the dungeons are pretty challenging.
To me Rift isn't nothing really new as I said, but the Soul system is the thing that I ike most togheter with the rifts. Since these 2 were in the betas I can say that going up with the levels I will enjoys that more, cause Soul system will give me more choices beetween the souls, rifts will still be there in any zone ( and we'll have 2 raid at the very end game ) and if u like pvp and if u play on a pvp server this can lead to interesting situation
EDIT: I meant we'll have 2 rifts raid
Couldn't really get into it myself, good for those of you that did.
I'm really just looking for something more radically different right now, and Rift is not that.
I have actually found the opposite to be true, with things getting old over time. In fact, isn't that the point of your second paragraph, that by end game it will be boring? I think that the basic game is, indeed, standard MMO fare, and the the souls(and staggering number of combinations possible) will keep the game interesting for some time to come.
No it isn't like that at all.
There are other games I tried to stick out but from the beginning I felt like "hmm, this is not going to work".
Something happens and I'm still like, "hmm not that exciting" ...
And after a few disappointments you quit.
Rift was more like, "hmm I don't know, lets see what happens". But immediately the next new thing you encounter makes you say "hey, thats kinda cool, lets see what happens next ..."
You see the difference?
Not really, as there has to be enough there initially to keep you interested. I certainly wouldn't carry on playing something that didn't appeal to me, and I doubt just anything could grow on you.
I think it's more a case of Rift not distinguishing itself from other games at all in the early levels, and only those curious or inclined enough will push on past that to see the elements that are distinctly Rift. That's what needs to be adressed, becuase it does evolve into an experience you can't find in any one other game at the moment. With, in my opinion, some depth that's not available in many of the games it borrows from.
And no, it's not the most glowing endorsement to say it grows on you (although that may not be as apt as saying: if you make it through the same-same to the parts in which Rift does evolve into it's very own experience, you'll find a pretty new MMO experience that many of us are enjoying and you may too).
But I'm not here to sell Rift, I don't think people happy with their current game should really look to this if you're getting what you need elsewhere. I think it will appeal to a portion, and be an appealing option for those that aren't really sucked into anything else at the moment.
It's nothing new on the surface, just a mish mash of other games, but as you progress you see that all of those various systems (which are implemented near flawlessly) come together in a very nice way to provide an experience that's pretty different than what you can get elsewhere.
Three things that that caught my eye 2 years ago when i found Trion Worlds.
1. They are NOT a public company (free to do what they want)
2. There main investors are Time Warner and NBC
3. The hiring of Scott Hartsman
I played WAR and loved the PvP and had a great time for about a year but with no working End Game content WAR folded like a wet noodle. So i decided to follow the guild to a new game called Aion and played that for about 6 months but with no working End Game content, well you know that story.
So i started to read up on Heroes of Telara a little bit more and found out that Trion's main goal was to launch a completely polished game with full on working End Game game content from launch i was sold..
My first beta experience with Rift was in beta1 on the Defiants side, when i first logged in i thought to myself this looks just like Allods Online (another F2P game in between others). Then when i got out of the noob zone into Freemarch the world reminded me of Warhammer Online, when running around doing some quests i found a bunch of shineys which reminded me of EQ2. Long story short i loved it and Rift reminded me of a lot of really fun games i've played in the past, and after entering Gloamwood in beta4 i was stunned at how amazing and open the world of Telara felt, and the Warfronts are a great little mini-game in between everything else.
Love at first sight no... Love at beta4 yes...
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes
People have seen the End Game content and they said it was Amazing, this is comeing from Hardcore End Game raiders from EQ and other various MMO's, I'm willing to believe them when they say "Rift has End Game and it's awsome".
To each there own i hope you find a game you really enjoy and challenges you...
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes
I have been logging every beta and I have a 20 champion, 15 ranger, 15 shaman and 13 blade dancer...Nope, not working..maybe I should try a more complex class sometime, a warden, a justicar or a mage..straight physical dps seem pretty boring tho.
Ranger/Marksmen/PvP soul is a lot of fun!!!
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes
Amazing? Seriously? You won't blame me if I won't take your word for it. If you pick any recent MMO which failed and look at the posts made during beta, you'll find a lot of "amazings" flying around, and yet the games still failed... hard.