is rift the new wow?

[roflstomp]

so i have been in beta for a bit and i enjoy it but is it worth the 60 bucks for each account or is it going to die out like aion did? is rift going to replace wow? also is it more rp based than wow?

[Kicksome]

Rift uses the same engine as DAOC and Warhammer online. The company who made it has between 50-200 employees. The engine was around well before WoW.

At the surface, Rift feels like a copy of Wow, but when you start playing you realize that there are almost no surprises or memorable moments in the game. And although it looks like they have a lot of the same things WoW does, you realize they just have a lot of the easy to program things wow has. like crafting etc... You get to a new area do a combo of collect and kill, and repeat. Go to a rift, kill everything, find the next rift, kill everything etc...

The PvP seems totally unbalanced, it's not like a chess game like in Wow, it's just a zerg. Seems like almost no time went into comps and counter comps. They just made a bunch of skills and threw them on the table.

So it might be fun finding an OP class and playing it. I doubt it's going to even close to a wow killer. It feels more like Aion, but not nearly as well thought out or original. It's a FAR FAR FAR cry from the polish and all the stuff wow has IMHO.

[Duane]

Only you can decide if its worth playing over WoW.

I played the beta and to me the game is very polished. For me WoW has grown stale and I'm tired of them nerfing classes to the ground and taking away player choices and generally dumbing things down.

I plan on playing one Rift account for a few months to find out myself if its worth the extra investment to box.

Good luck with your decision.

[Meeo]

Its really to each his own opinion really, WoW is very stale to me as well, i've been playing wow for to long and its just like other people say the same thing over and over again, Rift can be the same thing over and over again. But then you really have to think about MMOs in general. They are all the same thing over and over again. Grinding, Levels, Abilities, Talents, Alternative method of to power a character, crafting, dungeons, and raids, WoW didn't invent any of it, but they follow the basis of RPGs and other MMOs that came before it.

I personally enjoy Rifts over WoW, PVP still needs some work, balancing still needs some work, but again its highly polished compared to the other games that came out after a beta that still had bugs, ie: WoW, DAoC, WAR, Shadowbane, E&B, EQ2,and really any other game that i have played MMO wise.

You really cant compare the games due to one having been on 6 years and has 6 years more content and work done to it. You can however find the similarities, and there are tons of them. As WoW has been in the foreground for so long, people cant help but compare it. The Rift game's lead designers were part of the EQ1 team, as well as their team has expanded to encompass many other developers from most of the current running MMOs. Albeit they are using an older Engine, they show with updates and their own work that they can increase the capabilities of an engine past its beginnings.

The game will never be a WoW killer, nothing really needs to be a WoW killer, WoW will kill itself in time.

[wyofiddler]

Biggest difference I saw playing the beta sessions - I only got to lvl 15, so it is what it is - was the dynamic content, i.e. Rifts. I like the unpredictable invasions by waves of badguys, and the fact that you still make exp and gain loot rewards from farming rifts as well as traditional questing and dungeons. I like the variety of souls and character builds, but at the same time I'm pretty sure that the strongest specs for whatever role (pvp, tanking, dps, healing) will become the norm in a very short time and make all that variety less significant.

If the Rifts are still cool at lvl 50, I'll be happy to play this game, since all my RL gamer friends dumped WoW years ago because they thought it was too boring (they left, I started boxing lol).

In the end, if you enjoy it then good luck playing, and if you don't care for it then good luck finding something else that you enjoy playing :)

[Lyonheart]

I have played most the popular MMO that has come out since UO ( eq,eq2,daoc,AC,AC2.AO.SWG,WAR,Conan and others), i have beta tested them all. Rift is the ONLY beta since WoWs beta that has got me excited to play. A few others had me spend money on CEs before they went live ( WAR,,CONAN ) But that was more of "high hopes" and that they would fix the bugs before launch. I was let down every time. Rift has been very stable and smooth, way more so than WoW was in beta. While its not breaking any new ground, it is doing things better.

As some people have said, the Rifts are much like public quests in WAR, but Rifts are better in many ways. I wont go into detail on everything, but one HUGE thing about Rift that has sold me is this..I have been in zone invasion raids where there were hundreds of people in the same area, i was 3 boxing and i could function! Things would slow down a tad when there were that many people in the same area, but this is the first game I could BOX and be around hundreds of players in the same area, on my screen, and perform smoothly, with very little lag. That is ground breaking as far as I'm concerned. Some of my best times in MMOs i have played have been during large zone events/raids/sieges. But all those were filled with "OMG, i can hardly move! Its soo laggy!"

Will Rift kill WoW? Hell no, but I bet it will make a bigger dent than any other MMO. The only unknown at this point is its staying power. What will the end game be like? We will have to wait and see, But i have a feeling it will keep people playing until other potentially great MMOs come out, like SWtOR and GW2, a game called TERA is getting a ton of good buzz as well. So collectively they might make a good size dent in WoWs subs, or worse. All those other games are due out this year or early next. Time will Tell!

[Lyonheart]

Biggest difference I saw playing the beta sessions - I only got to lvl 15, so it is what it is - was the dynamic content, i.e. Rifts. I like the unpredictable invasions by waves of badguys, and the fact that you still make exp and gain loot rewards from farming rifts as well as traditional questing and dungeons. I like the variety of souls and character builds, but at the same time I'm pretty sure that the strongest specs for whatever role (pvp, tanking, dps, healing) will become the norm in a very short time and make all that variety less significant.

If the Rifts are still cool at lvl 50, I'll be happy to play this game, since all my RL gamer friends dumped WoW years ago because they thought it was too boring (they left, I started boxing lol).

In the end, if you enjoy it then good luck playing, and if you don't care for it then good luck finding something else that you enjoy playing :)


i highly recommend going to http://www.riftpodcast.com/category/podcast and go through the last several podcasts. Its full of great discussion with Rifts Head CM ( Abigael on the forums). and some Devs. They talk about stuff you might miss on the forums. Like what rifts will be like end game, and other cool things.

[wyofiddler]

Thanks for the tip on the podcasts, I'll check those out as soon as I can.

Other thing I really really liked about rifts was that I could gain exp from rift mobs without being forced to join the public group first - I tested that a few times and got what seemed about the same exp on my toons simply being in my boxing party vs dropping my group and joining the raid at the rift, even from mobs that were tagged by others. Didn't get the loot from them, since I didn't tag but still getting exp for helping kill those mobs was very nice to see.

[Lyonheart]

Thanks for the tip on the podcasts, I'll check those out as soon as I can.

Other thing I really really liked about rifts was that I could gain exp from rift mobs without being forced to join the public group first - I tested that a few times and got what seemed about the same exp on my toons simply being in my boxing party vs dropping my group and joining the raid at the rift, even from mobs that were tagged by others. Didn't get the loot from them, since I didn't tag but still getting exp for helping kill those mobs was very nice to see.

I noticed this as well, but i liked letting the raids benefit from my bard buff uberness! So i would always drop my group and join the public raid, that is unless my group became the public raid. A lot of the time, I was there first and people joined me as they trickled in.

[wyofiddler]

I noticed this as well, but i liked letting the raids benefit from my bard buff uberness! So i would always drop my group and join the public raid, that is unless my group became the public raid. A lot of the time, I was there first and people joined me as they trickled in.

That comment was meant more as appreciation for characters that contribute to a fight being rewarded for that contribution - I like joining the group when there is one but I did also notice quite a few times that there would be more than one public group at a rift site, so it was nice that it wasn't black and white as far as being involved or cutting you out of the loop :)

[Wadis]

I have played most the popular MMO that has come out since UO ( eq,eq2,daoc,AC,AC2.AO.SWG,WAR,Conan and others), i have beta tested them all. Rift is the ONLY beta since WoWs beta that has got me excited to play. A few others had me spend money on CEs before they went live ( WAR,,CONAN ) But that was more of "high hopes" and that they would fix the bugs before launch. I was let down every time. Rift has been very stable and smooth, way more so than WoW was in beta. While its not breaking any new ground, it is doing things better.

As some people have said, the Rifts are much like public quests in WAR, but Rifts are better in many ways. I wont go into detail on everything, but one HUGE thing about Rift that has sold me is this..I have been in zone invasion raids where there were hundreds of people in the same area, i was 3 boxing and i could function! Things would slow down a tad when there were that many people in the same area, but this is the first game I could BOX and be around hundreds of players in the same area, on my screen, and perform smoothly, with very little lag. That is ground breaking as far as I'm concerned. Some of my best times in MMOs i have played have been during large zone events/raids/sieges. But all those were filled with "OMG, i can hardly move! Its soo laggy!"

Will Rift kill WoW? Hell no, but I bet it will make a bigger dent than any other MMO. The only unknown at this point is its staying power. What will the end game be like? We will have to wait and see, But i have a feeling it will keep people playing until other potentially great MMOs come out, like SWtOR and GW2, a game called TERA is getting a ton of good buzz as well. So collectively they might make a good size dent in WoWs subs, or worse. All those other games are due out this year or early next. Time will Tell!

Totally agree with this couldnt have said it better.
I'm planning on leveling a toon to 50 and doing some raids to see if it has staying power. Will be boxing from there if it has.

[Khatovar]

I'll say Rift is the new Not WoW. I'm guessing once the new wears off it'll be a lot like Aion and Warhammer. The more I played Rift, the more I felt like I was playing Vanguard.

[Flight]

Rift uses the same engine as DAOC and Warhammer online. The company who made it has between 50-200 employees. The engine was around well before WoW.

At the surface, Rift feels like a copy of Wow, but when you start playing you realize that there are almost no surprises or memorable moments in the game. And although it looks like they have a lot of the same things WoW does, you realize they just have a lot of the easy to program things wow has. like crafting etc... You get to a new area do a combo of collect and kill, and repeat. Go to a rift, kill everything, find the next rift, kill everything etc...

The PvP seems totally unbalanced, it's not like a chess game like in Wow, it's just a zerg. Seems like almost no time went into comps and counter comps. They just made a bunch of skills and threw them on the table.

So it might be fun finding an OP class and playing it. I doubt it's going to even close to a wow killer. It feels more like Aion, but not nearly as well thought out or original. It's a FAR FAR FAR cry from the polish and all the stuff wow has IMHO.



In my opinion this post is totally unbalanced :


1. Trion have always made clear they will not balance PvE characters for PvP reasons.

Also every character gets access to a PvP soul (bought with 2500) PvP points with a full tree of talents designed specifically for PvP, which enhances their skills and counters other classes abilities.


2. Rift is all about the end game. The lead dev said last week they flat out don't care how quickly people get to maximum level because that's when the game really starts. This isn't DaoC, Warhammer, WoW or any other MMO. The end game has been in testing for months on the Alpha servers.

[Lyonheart]

I'll say Rift is the new Not WoW. I'm guessing once the new wears off it'll be a lot like Aion and Warhammer. The more I played Rift, the more I felt like I was playing Vanguard.

I never felt anything in Rift was like Vanguard. I am aware that most of the devs, and the lead CM were from Vanguard. VG was one of the first mmos to let me down. I followed VG for all the years it was under development with very high hopes. I mean it took Sony taking it over and years of dev time AFTER launch to get the game even close to tolerable for most players. The good news is, what little improvements were made to VG were made by the guys who are now at Trion, they took a very broken game and made it playable.

The more i played Rift, the more it grew on me. Like i said, its noting new with the exception of being able to participate in large scale zone events/raids and not lag out. The large invasions are both fun, and rewarding. And the only unknown atm is end game, and from what I have researched, its looking like it will be a blast as well. So I am hopeful, but not 100% sure it will keep me long term either. I defiantly am needing something new though, so this might be another case of high hopes.

I am also looking forward to SWtOR, so maybe Rift will keep me occupied until then!

[Zappy]

I'm still up in the air on it. My wow accounts are all expiring over this next month with two of them expiring today. I haven't played much wow in the past couple weeks, and I must say, it's been nice to explore some other games. I think more than anything, my time with wow is over. I've been playing it since release with no breaks, so seeing the accounts expire has been a shock to my wife.

/ranton

The introduction of flying mounts and the LFD tool have destroyed world pvp. Battlegrounds were a great idea when they were first introduced, but now it's turned into a complete grind fest. I don't like to be stuck on one toon at level cap, and with the current state of the game, it seems you need to grind nearly 4-5 hours for each piece of gear only to get weaker gear unless you do arenas, and we all know the state of arenas these days. Add that and the horrible game economy due to gold being so abundant, and it's another reason the game has lost its luster. The best thing wow ever did IMO was BC and the isle -- even with flying mounts, you'll still have loads of fun pvp doing dailys for Skettis and the other camp in blades edge.

/rantoff

Now as far as Rift goes, I don't see it as a wow killer, but I do see it making enough of a dent to where blizzard will realize that they have lost a sizable portion of their user base to it. I haven't been fully captured by it yet, but I am having fun in it. I played a rogue up to level 30, and learning the soul system has been quite fun. I learned every soul including the pvp soul, and I must say that his system blows away wows cookie cutter talent system. I started off as a ranger, then went marksmanship, tried assassination, and finally ended up as a nightblade for my main soul. After doing a few bgs, i realized i need a new spec for a bard for those bgs where we don't have enough healers. I was pleasantly suprised that you can change specs on the fly - even in bgs.

I bought the collectors edition on the 6 month founders plan, and decided I'm going to play solo for a while and we'll see where it goes from there. I definitely need to roll on the server with the other boxers, as I could see myself deciding to multibox this as well in the short future.

I find quite a few things that annoy me in the game:

* No addon support yet. At least give us an option to choose 1 big inventory bag vs all the small bags.
* Looting!!! How come when I loot the item appears in a random place in my bags? This makes it hell trying to keep it organized. Perhaps some functionality to sort it.
* Combat sounds. I expect this to get refined over time, but what I've seen (or heard) are sounds that don't lend any clues about their direction or distance from where they are being cast. Some of the noises are very annoying. I can't see myself playing a bard for this one reason alone.
* Animations. While they aren't horrible, they are still in their infancy compared to wow. Anybody with a mount already knows this as the mounts appear to run in slow motion.
* DX9 (or lack of DX10/11 support). I finally added a 3rd 580GTX, and with everything set to ultra @ 2560x1600, my framerate still drops under 35 at times. Without MSAA, it's mostly at 60, so not a huge drawback as the differences are very minor.
* You can chat with opposite faction. This is a bit awkward after a level 37 killed me four times in a row (i was 29), then proeeded to call me a noob. haha

Things I like:
* World pvp is alive and well. From 25-30, I got plenty of action.
* Rifts - at times became boring, but at higher levels, starting seeing some cool rewards
* Instances - Different, but fun
* BGs - Black Garden was refreshing to play. At first I thought it was capture the flag, but with a new innovative idea for it, I found it freshing to play.
* World graphics. After exploring the new areas, I want to see more.
* Artifacts - while silly and mostly meaningless, I don't know why, but I enjoy making these collections.

Looking forward to Thursday, now I just have to decide what class I'm going to start.

[Meeo]

* Artifacts - while silly and mostly meaningless, I don't know why, but I enjoy making these collections.


Artifacts will eventually have a purpose. Your supposedly being able to turn them in for something, that has yet to be seen or revealed, but it was stated in a dev podcast a month or so ago. Im interested in check it out down the road myself.

[Lyonheart]

You could turn them in during beta. I completed a few. You get a lucky coin ( used to by novelty items..ie mounts..pets etc,,) And a loot bag/item with random loots inside it. From what i understand, some of these shinnies on the ground start "puzzle quests". Completing a puzzle quest rewards a level appropriate item. Rumor is you can do low level area puzzle quest when your high level and get a rare or epic item thats is your level.

[Littleburst]

I played rift beta a couple of weeks ago. Seemed fun and all, but for me it's to much the same as WoW. But I'm aware that's probably the case with every MMORPG. For example, I'm playing EVE atm and liking that a lot better, mainly because it's a whole new game. The details can vary a lot from game to game, but the basics will probably always be the same.

I think one of the main reasons I'll probably stick to wow for a while is because of the social aspect. I know a lot of people by now. Starting a new game means you have to build that up again aswell. But I'm asuming that's a non issue for most boxers :P

[Meeo]

I played rift beta a couple of weeks ago. Seemed fun and all, but for me it's to much the same as WoW. But I'm aware that's probably the case with every MMORPG. For example, I'm playing EVE atm and liking that a lot better, mainly because it's a whole new game. The details can vary a lot from game to game, but the basics will probably always be the same.

I think one of the main reasons I'll probably stick to wow for a while is because of the social aspect. I know a lot of people by now. Starting a new game means you have to build that up again aswell. But I'm asuming that's a non issue for most boxers :P


I generally go into new games with people, ie: this MB community or RL friends or even other friends who are tired of the games we are currently playing. as of right now im going into rifts with several of my members in my EVE Corp and old friends from WoW, who i kept in touch with. Its always fun to move onto a new game with others you know.

[Zappy]

You could turn them in during beta. I completed a few. You get a lucky coin ( used to by novelty items..ie mounts..pets etc,,) And a loot bag/item with random loots inside it. From what i understand, some of these shinnies on the ground start "puzzle quests". Completing a puzzle quest rewards a level appropriate item. Rumor is you can do low level area puzzle quest when your high level and get a rare or epic item thats is your level.

That's why I say mostly meaningless. I turned in a few here and there. I also didn't notice, but they are BOE, so expect to make some cash in auction house on your duplicates.

[Redbeard]

Im dropping 5 wow subs to play 2 of this game. I figure even if my impressions of the beta are wrong and it ends up blowing, im only out 50 bucks or whatever more than i wouldve spent anyways on next months wow stuff. And wow is just done for me.

It does feel a lot like wow but with a different skin on it. And the soul system is fun, I know im not the only one who was disappointed when they pared down the trees for CATA.

Donno.

Not a huge deal, its just money =)

[Bloodcloud]

Im dropping 5 wow subs to play 2 of this game. I figure even if my impressions of the beta are wrong and it ends up blowing, im only out 50 bucks or whatever more than i wouldve spent anyways on next months wow stuff. And wow is just done for me.

It does feel a lot like wow but with a different skin on it. And the soul system is fun, I know im not the only one who was disappointed when they pared down the trees for CATA.

Donno.

Not a huge deal, its just money =)


same here. After playing for a while in headstart I decided to stop my monthly wow subs (at least for a while) I can always go back :)

I wouldn't say it is a wow-killer but it is refreshingly different :)
(When you cancel you subs RIFT is not even in the list of MMOs :)

[jinkobi]

To me yes it is indeed a WOW clone. What is bad though is it is a clone of WOW from the TBC era. Lots of the modern innovations WOW has made with questing aren't in Rift. Almost all the quests are kill X # of mobs or loot X item from ground or corpse.

I've been trying to do a series for Rift but finding 'interesting' things to show has been extremely difficult. Like someone mentioned earlier. There really hasn't been one memorable moment yet where I was like "Man that was so frigging awesome I'll never forget that." Long quest chains ending in very anti climatic scenes.

Now don't get me wrong. Rift is a pretty cool game. But once the newness wears off. People will be clamoring back to WOW because it is just more interesting and better developed. The questing is just too boring in Rift right now to hold an audience. Couldn't even really imagine re-leveling through the content it's just too mind numbing.

[JamieW]

I'm looking at RIFT for long-term potential, and for the lower "price of admission".

I never got heavily into WOW, although I tried it a couple of times before the first expansion came out. Now, the thought of starting up from scratch in a game that established is pretty daunting.

With the RIFT, I expect that there will be a lack of polish compared to a game that has been around for 5+ years. However, I also look at my experiences in games past where a patch or expansion comes around and the playability for a specific class or spec has gotten heavily nerfed. What do you do then? You generally have to re-roll and level up a new character/set of characters. With the RIFT, I can level up 4 teams and have pretty well unlimited flexibility to adapt to any future patches that change the current classes/abilities. Coming from a game like DAOC, where to get that level of flexibility, you'd have to level up 10+ characters / account just for a single realm, this is a huge selling point for me.

Do I have concerns about the long-term viability of the game? Sure, but that's going to come with just about any new game. And nothing new is going to come out that has the same level of depth and polish as WOW purely from the maturity of the game itself, and the continual re-investment of the operating budget. But, in my case, that's also a drawback.

[Herc130]

I don't know how it compares to WoW, I only played WoW in open beta. However, Rift feels like it has very little depth to it. Buildings with doors that don't open, because they are nothing more then scenery. No real feeling towns where common folks live. "Quest" that are more like chores then an adventure with great rewards. It'd be fine if some quest were like that, but it looks so far that all their "quest" is a varient of kill X 8 times and from reading higher level people.....it changes to kill x 15 times...20 times and so on.

It is fun to play. How long I will think that, I am not sure. I did get 5 CE accounts and paid for 3 months, so have 4 months of play x5 already paid for. $489 for 4 months (1 CE was a retail box). Really, I am waiting for Everquest 3 to come out.

[Zappy]

I'm almost level 30 now and am starting to learn more of the mechanics of the game play, gear progression etc, and I must say that I'm becoming quickly hooked.

The invasions are absolutely awesome. In my first big invasion in Gloamwood, I got lucky and got a cursed scourgestone (the epic one), so I've been doing every invasion to try to get the second one so I can buy my first epic.

The gear path is very interesting to say the least - if you mix it up, you can actually gear up your character pretty quick and through a variety of methods - pvp vendors, faction vendors for bgs, quartermaster for zones, and from rift rewards. I didn't even realize there were quartermasters in each zone until last night and I got some nice weapons upgrades.

With all the paths for gearing up, i like the fact that there isn't specific pvp gear (aka resilience gear), so at level cap, I'm assuming you can mix it all up and still get some nice gear with plenty of options.

But for now, I thrive on those invasions and look forward to every time one occurs to see what type of raid boss we'll end up fighting.

[Lokked]

With all the paths for gearing up, i like the fact that there isn't specific pvp gear (aka resilience gear), so at level cap, I'm assuming you can mix it all up and still get some nice gear with plenty of options.

This resilience you speak of is called Valor on gear, and it only appears (afaik) on the Favour-purchasable gear, and gear looted from Player corpses.

[katsurahama]

I would like to try it but im not going to since it would require buying a new computer to multibox it. Also, i prefer the cartoony graphics of wow. I think when rpgs or mmos try to look 'real' they quickly become dated and goofy looking. Wow didnt try that and so you dont have to look past wooden 'realistic' graphics down the road. Asherons call took the same cartoon route.

Although i havent played it either, i think lotro looks good graphics wise and i wouldnt need a server to multibox it. At least from what i see on the front page of this site, rift looks silly and must be using an old engine if its a resource pig and looks like those screenshots.

[Lyonheart]

I would like to try it but im not going to since it would require buying a new computer to multibox it. Also, i prefer the cartoony graphics of wow. I think when rpgs or mmos try to look 'real' they quickly become dated and goofy looking. Wow didnt try that and so you dont have to look past wooden 'realistic' graphics down the road. Asherons call took the same cartoon route.

Although i havent played it either, i think lotro looks good graphics wise and i wouldnt need a server to multibox it. At least from what i see on the front page of this site, rift looks silly and must be using an old engine if its a resource pig and looks like those screenshots.

Those screen shots are at very low settings. The game looks amazing on ultra setting. Ill try to get some good screen shots on max settings and maybe some fraps. I cant do boxing though. But solo I can crank it up!

[wyofiddler]

I would like to try it but im not going to since it would require buying a new computer to multibox it. Also, i prefer the cartoony graphics of wow. I think when rpgs or mmos try to look 'real' they quickly become dated and goofy looking. Wow didnt try that and so you dont have to look past wooden 'realistic' graphics down the road. Asherons call took the same cartoon route.

Although i havent played it either, i think lotro looks good graphics wise and i wouldnt need a server to multibox it. At least from what i see on the front page of this site, rift looks silly and must be using an old engine if its a resource pig and looks like those screenshots.

Its funny you said that, my wife got into wow after I started boxing, and she was turned of by Rift characters being to realistic.

I'll second Lyons thoughts on how good this game looks, and I'm sad that my WoW 5-boxing computer can only run 2 Rift accounts. In a big rift fight I'll drop to 10-15 fps at min graphics settings.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'll second Lyons thoughts on how good this game looks, and I'm sad that my WoW 5-boxing computer can only run 2 Rift accounts. In a big rift fight I'll drop to 10-15 fps at min graphics settings.

Ouch. Hopefully some client optimization is inbound soon.

[Zappy]

I would like to try it but im not going to since it would require buying a new computer to multibox it. Also, i prefer the cartoony graphics of wow. I think when rpgs or mmos try to look 'real' they quickly become dated and goofy looking. Wow didnt try that and so you dont have to look past wooden 'realistic' graphics down the road. Asherons call took the same cartoon route.

Although i havent played it either, i think lotro looks good graphics wise and i wouldnt need a server to multibox it. At least from what i see on the front page of this site, rift looks silly and must be using an old engine if its a resource pig and looks like those screenshots.

I'm only playing solo right now, but i'm loving it with my current hardware -- Core i7 extreme, 12gigs ram, SSD, and 3x580GTXs on a 30" monitor.

With everything cranked, I see ~35-60FPS and it runs mostly smooth, but not 100% - still choppy here and there - that's everything maxed to the gills @ 2560x1600. By simply turning down their AA and going to Edge Smoothing, It's a solid 55+FPS everywhere.

The game is based on a heavily modified version of the gamebryo DX9 engine and currently only supports supersampling for AA. The fact is that all modern cards can do multisampling AA. This is the only thing in the game I hate.

That being said, I'll post up some screenshots and show you the difference - it's very minor and the game still looks awesome with the graphics cranked.

While this won't change your opinion of the cartoonish graphics, it will give you a better idea of what this game looks like maxed out.


Edited for screenshot thread:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?p=318579

[Redbeard]

Im not sure what the comparison fascination is.. anyways, my friend asked me about it the other day and I told him.. If you're into WoW right now I dont see any reason to move over.

However, if youre like me where you dont really have any problem with WoW, but its just old / done for you, then rift is a decent change. The classes are a bit more open etc but for the most part gameplay / the interface feel just like WOW so its very easy to transition. I think they did a smart thing there.

Anyways.