So, whats the verdict on RIFT?

[TheBigBB]

Some of you guys are dumping the game too quickly. I hope no one is writing it off completely because of something they didn't like in the first month. I believe most of the complaints people have are being addressed. I won't go into that in specifics, but I am excited to see what they have in store.

Rift's class system is good because it lets you have 4 different specs, so you can have one for PVP, Raid DPS, Soloing and Tanking/Healing. There is also a lot of room for alternate builds. Balance is not something I'm worried about because as we've seen countless times in every other MMO, things get fixed with classes more often than anyone even asks for.

The invasions can get boring. I'd like to see a few more objectives to do in Rifts. I'm not sure if I have any good suggestions for what exactly, but I do think they get very predictable. Maybe some semi-scripted town-invasion rift events or something like that would be fun. On that note, it is amazing that your quest hub can and will be taken over by invasions.

There are fewer zones in Rift than WoW, but there's more content in the world itself. Every zone has artifact hunting, zone-wide events major boss events, rifts, invasion forces, quests, daily quests, tons of outposts, wardstone events (most zones) and a grouping system that easily lets you join with others without worrying about missing out. If the game didn't sort of funnel most people into the same zones, it wouldn't work out too well with all these events. I think the alternative leveling comes from doing PVP and dungeons. PVP seems like a pretty reasonable way to level as long as you still do some quests here and there for gear. Yeah you don't have as much variety in zones in Rift, but you don't get to the point where you leveled out of a town and you never visit it again. You may pass through later and save the town from an invasion as you help your friends, head to a dungeon, hunt for artifacts or materials, whatever.

For a young MMO Rift seems pretty good. If it doesn't add more good content I won't be staying past 6 months, but I think it has a good chance.