is rift the new wow?

[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.