So, whats the verdict on RIFT?

[Lokked]

I'm dropping all Subs. I have spare time, but I've been spending more and more of it programming/developing, rather than playing Rift. That, and I'm spending more hours at the office these days.

I'll rejoin once I'm burnt out of my current project. I'm putting together a vision I had of MMO combat, and seeing if it's possible with current technology.

[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.

[Lokked]

Rift is a solid game. I quit because I'm generally tired of traditional MMOs, and have other interests which leave me with no desire to log on.

For me, the idea of selecting a target in 3D space, and then pressing keys in a homogenous way to produce an effect just isn't doing it for me anymore.

These games are targetted at a 13-30 audience, because the concept is still new to them, and not generalized. With time, your mind begins to generalize, as is the human learning experience. When generalized enough, you aren't learning anything new, so you get bored.

This is why some people say "XX game is the same exact thing as YY game," while some would find XX completely different than YY. One group has generalized and the other hasn't.

Anyways.... Good Game. I'm just burnt out on MMOs

[Nisch]

I'm still playing it, in fact just started boxing it.

I run a single toon when playing with the wife, and box it when she's not on.

I still find it quite a lot of fun.

[Oatboat]

I'm enjoying boxing this game. Even without all the luxuries of the addons wow provided... its still a very solid game.

Combat system is a wow clone... so no problems there. (not broke dont fix it)

Story line is pretty interesting. Rifts and Lore im not that familiar with

Pvp is pretty one sided for a couple of classes atm but that will change.

Pve is a mix of dungeons, rifts, quests, grinding... its pretty enjoyable.

Crafting is pretty nice. You make items to develop skill and then can salvage those items to retrieve some mats to make more.... not just disenchanting... but if you salvage leather you get leather back and so on.

If you are looking for a change of pace, change of scenery come try it out.

Overall i give it an 8 out of 10.

[Gomotron]

What is fun and frustrating about the game is the new class system. I like to plan stuff out and trying to min/max without knowing really what the hell I am doing is equal parts fun and frustrating, particularly when I realize I just selected the wrong secondary class and have the reroll, ha!

I am having fun with it for now, we'll see how it goes in later levels, Still a noob.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I suspect a lot of it is, as some have already noted, that folks are sorta burned out on the WoW-like MMO scene for a bit. A lot of us have taken breaks (even from WoW itself) and come back fresh after a few months. I look forward to playing it one day myself, though I figure I'll wait until the game stabilizes and they've been through their first few rounds of buffs/nerfs/etc.

[pox67]

I am really enjoying Rift. I haven't played an MMO since EQ2 years ago and never played WoW so some of this is quite new to me. I do see quite a bit of resemblance to EQ2 in Rift though.

At the moment Rift is an amazingly polished release game. They rightly focused on the core elements and got them working very well for release. What Rift is missing though are the options that the older MMOS have like more dungeon experiences and cosmetic clothing. Those are just 2 examples but you get the idea.

What I'll likely do is take my current trio up to a high level then take a break and wait for a few major updates or an expansion to bring in the fluff that fills out the mmo world.

[Berserker]

Funny thing about Rift is that everyone sees a lot of what ever was the last MMO they played in it I have a good friend that swears it is a Warhammer clone

[Ualaa]

Most successful new games, will take whatever flavor and mechanics of previous games that worked in those games and integrate it into their own.

Same for any industry really.
If one car manufacturer had a model which took 97.3% of the market for its category, you can be sure each of the competition will come out with their own model that is very similar.