I'm in the beta, I havent played it too much but it seems promising at the moment, just not really playing it because I can't find the time with the other games im playing. I might consider buying it, ill see. It just feels like wow with guild wars graphics (I like the wow part)
It sounded a lot like WoW from the website and Steam store. Mixed feelings on that, at least it doesn't seem to try anything too new and fail. How prevalent is the multi-classing? Does it really allow for much customization?
I've had it pre-ordered for a while now and I've played in every beta since Beta event 2 and I must admit I've been very impressed. I've played WoW since the beginning tried WAR, AoC and Aion since and none of them have come close to the polished feeling of WoW. Now on to Rift, I'm going to admit it's not very original but neither was WoW when it was released, but Rift is rather innovative from what I've seen so far. It's also very very polished. I've never seen a beta run so well and I've yet to see one bug throughout. The instances have an epic feeling to them with decent bosses which aren't just tank and spank. Rifts / Invasions are cool and offer different ways to level instead of just questing. The class system is brilliant, it works so well and is definitely the best selling point of Rift that makes it different from other MMOs, it is truly customisable there is no 'One' way to play your class. You can play it how you want to and it allows you to experiment and try different mixture of souls. You may be the only Mage who wants to burn things to a crisp with giant fireballs and then heal yourself up! Or maybe you want to be a tanking rogue, it's completely how you want to play it. There's an open beta starting on the 14th I believe, I reckon people try it with an open mind and not immediately think "This is a WoW-Clone!" and also get beyond level 10.
I've got the client installed and beta access but I still haven't had a chance to play... might give it a try if I get time or the pull of minecraft isn't too strong
You can multi-class even between the four main groups? For some reason I was under the impression that you couldn't. If so, I am instantly very interested!
How i saw it was you picked a 'foundation' class, of sorts, which you then 'specialized' and later on can 'refine'. All this can lead you to an evasion based rogue tank which can CC or a ranged DPS heavy armour wearer which can heal etc. etc. It is certainly not a wow-clone, closest thing to it in my opinion was Guild Wars. It has the potential but i fear it will get swept under the carpet when Guild Wars 2 and SW:TOR come along.
multi-class is nothing new rift has copied the idea from FFXI and FFXIV which both use a single character, multi-class system.
New MMO's coming should i be fooled again. Played a lot of GW back in the day but nothing much in the way of MMO's before or since gave a go to RFonline [which blew at launch heard some of the suff has been fixed but honestly massive grinde fest], Sword of the new world[which was good but i couldnt bring my self to pay for it], Age of Reconing[which i hated for 15 levels], Age of connan[which i loved for 20 odd levels], EVE, Tabula Risa (something else that i cannot even remember the name of) none of them lasted more than 2.5 months GW on the other hand lasted 3 years. Im looking The old Republic, Rift and Dark Millenium. I held of the urge to get DC online and startrek online which looks to me like a good call. Should I take another launch plunge and get the SWtoR or Dark Millenium. GW2 is coming. Finding the right MMO is so hard and its no like other game types it take an investment that just doesnt happen in other games. Im looking in Rifts direction it actual looks good but will it have the fan base?
If anything it's taking more pages from GW's book. You pick three (rather than GW's 2) classes as your only classes rather than FF's switching system, then get "talents" to unlock abilities and enhance certain aspects of each class that you want.
The beta for the game has been a lot of fun so far and I also pre-ordered. The class system is certainly loads of fun, but my favorite moments playing the game so far have been when a rift forms nearby. Once mobs start invading, lots of players join up and work together to defeat the invasion and close the rift. I think that's where the innovation lies in this game.
nothing original at all, played quite a bit of the beta, Rifts get old fast, and alot of the stuff (interface) is almost copy pasted from WoW.... disappointed
The classes you can pick are from the same Class tree last I checked. i.e. you can't pick Rogue classes and mix them with a Healer class, and a Warrior class.
A friend of mine has played the beta and loves it, they're quitting WoW to play. Kinda reminds me of what happened with Age of Conan though, everyone looking for something different but then just going back to WoW after a couple months. The interface looks very, very similar to WoW, so it's not hard to see the kinda people they're catering for
Will that last, though? In the early days of WoW and in lower levels (before they dumbed the whole talent system down in 4.x) you could get away with any old spec and playstyle, but the game is so picked-apart by theorycrafters now that if you aren't playing the 'optimal' way you're not welcome in most group content. I think that's symptomatic of the MMO genre and the playerbase's eagerness to do the most dps, the most healing, the best tanking, etc. I can't see any MMORPG lasting for long in that regard before the theorycrafters turn it into a game of numbers and elitist playstyles; so I wouldn't want to sell a game on that premise.
From my own experience, it depends on which route you're going. PvE will always have that factor, it's always the same roles and always against the same enemies. Rift may make it a little harder to find the optimal spec since you have to compare every combo, but with enough time it'll probably break down. You'll get the highest dps, best tank, best healer, optical raid composition, etc once end-game content starts getting into full swing. That's why PvP's better, imo. Much more emphasis on how well you can play your build, rather than the build itself and also much harder to say exactly what's "best". 10% increased chance to apply poison or 10% increased crit chance on an ability? It may be cut and dry for doing pure damage (let's say the crit does more) but perhaps in PvP you like to use a poison that slows cast times and the poison talent gives you an advantage which is much harder to quantify. Even a mature game like WoW still has some freedom in builds when it come to PvP, my resto shaman was the only one I'd seen with that exact build since it was tailored to my unique 3v3 team (frost mage, combat rogue, resto shaman). Though, in theory, every talent should be balanced and serve a specific and potentially useful purpose. A gamer can dream, right?
I agree completely - It's how I get my fun out of WoW and that kind of freedom is what I love about PvP. I've spent the past few years playing unorthodox specs in PvP for my own enjoyment, and to a lesser extent in PvE; but I've never been interested in hardcore raiding for a number of reasons. This may be a stupid question, but I haven't looked into Rift much - Does it actually have PvP?
It does! Couldn't tell you as much about it as those who've been in the betas, but from an outside perspective it seems to resemble Warhammer: Age of Reckoning on the PvP side. A friend of mine actually called the game WoWAR at first because it seems to be a mix of the two (hopefully the best parts). Looks there'll be battleground type PvP things along with pretty heavy emphasis on open world PvP. One of the videos on the Steam store also talked about various quests which will have PvP related impacts, a way to let those who are in it for the PvE fight for their faction. It also mentions PvP levels, likely similar to those in WAR. The open world bit is what's got me the most excited, it's hard to get good lively combat going and hopefully they'll pull it off.
I'm just about to have a go at the seventh and final beta, I watched some videos of the previous betas and have just been reminded why I hate MMOs so much. It's that rubbish storytelling, where every characters name is picked out of a hat probably labeled 'Fantasy Prefixes & Fantasy Suffixes' I mean the baddies name is Regulos..... And again with most MMO that reassurance that I AM important, I AM THE HERO, despite the fact i'm just another person hitting boring regenerating models of beasts until the number beside my name increases by one and I am awarded some other numbers to change. Still going to give it a chance though. edit: Uninstalled, what a pile of ****.
Gameplay wise I'm pretty pleased. It's very smooth for a beta and the game mechanics are fun enough. It's very familiar to most other MMOs so it's pretty easy to jump into. Combat is kept pretty exciting, all the classes seem to have something to do at all times. That non-stop action holds true for the entire game with the rifts spawning and constant invasions, if you don't feel like questing (and there are a ton of quests) you can always join a raid and go rift hunting. Haven't tried the "battlegrounds" yet, but poked around with a few duels. PvP feels like it has some good potential, each class looks to have PvP in mind to some degree and I can see this being a big factor later in the game. The story... yeah, it's pretty trash. Like Canon said, it makes the same old mistake of trying to make the character seem like the sole hero, when the entire point of an MMO is to not be the sole hero and rely on allies. It's also hard to really pay attention because everything's new, it's not based on existing lore like WoW. Personally, I want the same thing from MMOs as from FPSs: good gameplay mechanics and multiplayer, not to listen to a story. Some of my favorite games such as BFBC2 have trash stories (imo), as long as they're fun to play. But, if story's big for you look elsewhere.
