RIFT Head-Start Begins Today

[Rob Williams]

For me, the fall tends to be the best time of year for game releases, but given how 2011 has kicked off so far, I think the springtime is going to be just as good. In the past month alone, I've been inundated with different game releases, and I'm having a hard time clearing through them all. Today, that list just got one game longer, with the help of Trion Worlds' "RIFT".

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Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[killem2]

I did the beta on this a couple times. The first few times I left disgusted because of the blatant rip off of wow, but I gave it a chance on the third run and powered through the questing to get to level 13. I would play this game if I knew I could get the majority of my home town friends on it but with out people I know its just a glorified wow that does the classes way way better. It feels more D&D ish to me which I really enjoy. If that makes sense.

I'm still holding out for SWTOR

 

[Rob Williams]

It's a major WoW rip-off, but so far this game has captured me, and WoW never could. Jamie and I are both addicted, I think ;-)

Will report more on my thoughts later.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

I've never played WoW, talked to people who have, but never bothered to try it out. With Rift, I've got up to Level 17 and I must say this multi class system is very well done. They give you the choice, but you are still better off concentrating on a single class - at least to begin with. Some of the later abilities I've seen don't seem so useful, but we'll see.

You really do need a mount in this game, there's just so much running to do it's a sin.

The one thing keeping me busy atm is finding and closing rifts as well as killing off invaders. There seems to be a wave every hour or so. Public party killing sprees against multi stage incursions - quite entertaining.

Death is more an inconvenience than anything else. You can spawn on the spot once an hour - otherwise you're ported back to the graveyard - then you have to run back to your body, which can be quite far away. You can get a new body at the graveyard, but you suffer a debuff of -50% on all stats for 5 mins.

There are the usual spawning problems. One mob you need to kill 3 of, problem is only 4 spawn every 5 mins... quite silly. Same can be said for crafting. If you want to mine, the nodes spawn all over the place every few mins or so, but are so far apart and surrounded by mobs that there's a good chance you'll miss them (someone will usually beat you to it). Gathering is the same, but even more dispersed. Butchering has it easy, most monster (non-humanoid) can be skinned, so there's ample supply. Still experimenting with the system, but so far, you won't be making any money out of it...

Need lots of carrier bags as well... 20 slots + 4 bags of 8... still not enough.

Rift has my attention, but we'll see how it handles over the next week and when it goes Live (rather than headstart). For a first attempt at an MMO from Trion Worlds and to hit over 1 million accounts - this is very impressive.... especially since this hasn't even officially gone Live.

 

[Rob Williams]

I agree with Jamie on all points made. Traveling in the game is a bit slow at times, and I feel bad for anyone who doesn't have the pre-order mount, because that increases your speed by 60%, and makes an enormous difference. Running everywhere can take forever. Is there ever going to be a way to portal from one town to the next, to speed things up?

That spawn issue was ridiculous, but so far I've experienced it only once, and given there are three boats there, I think you are meant to kill one on each. It's just that with launch, people are EVERYWHERE, so the spawns are taken immediately.

I like the skill progression for the game so far... it allows you to make the character YOU want to make, and put focus where you deem it best. I'm a Pyromancer/Elementalist/Archon and it's quite fun so far. I love playing with fire, so this character is best-suited for my playstyle. Unfortunately, being a mage I end up getting eaten alive most often. During rifts some bigger bosses can literally strike me down in two hits. If I have two or more decently powerful mobs chasing me, I'm essentially done for.

I agree on the storage issue as well, haha. We need some sort of banking system or something, because once crafting supplies are brought into things, it leaves none. I have two bags full basically of spell-casting stuff, like potions and other scrolls, then another for quest items, and the rest basically holds whatever I loot until I get an to an NPC to sell it off.

WHY do quest items go right in your main pack? There should be a separate non-useable quest pack where all that stuff gets stored... it really shouldn't clog up your main packs when space is so limited as is.

Like Jamie, I am digging the game so far. I'll know a lot more about my thoughts on it once I hit around level 30 or so, because at a lower-level it's kind of hard to gain perspective of the entire game. Most quests focus around the bland "go and kill 10 of these" methodologies, but so far it hasn't bothered me. Simply exploriing around adds to the fun-factor.

Here are some shots:

 

[Rob Williams]

So, I'm still enjoying the game quite a bit. I'm level 25.5, and have no plans of slowing down the leveling... would be nice to be level 30 by next week, but we'll see (work comes first!). I still like the game for the reasons mentioned earlier, but as I've played a fair bit now, there are a couple of downsides I'm starting to notice.

First is the fact that overall, the world feels rather small. I might be spoilt by other MMOs I've played in the past, but I don't know anyone who could deny the fact that this world is small. Depending on your faction, there is pretty much a set cluster of space on the map for people up to level 20 (two different sections for each faction), and after that, it's pretty much a free-for-all... you go where it's most level-appropriate.

Unlike some MMOs where you have a good choice of where to go at a certain level, RIFT essentially locks you into one single area. If you are level 25, you go to northern Stonefield. 35? You go to Droughtlands. There might be some exceptions to this rule, but I don't quite see them yet. If you are a certain level, you are going to be in a certain area for a while, completing a ton of quests.

Now that I've completed so many quests, I can also begin to see limitations there. There are some areas where there just seem to be an endless number of quests, and for the most part, these stick to the same ideas. Go out and kill this number of mobs... and loot this number of items. It's super-repetitive, especially when you're forced to stick around the same exact area. Plus, you end up going back and forth a LOT, and given that travel isn't exactly super-fast in this game, that becomes kind of tedious.

Still, nothing bothers me ot such a great extent that I am being turned off from the game. To break up the tedium I do things like rifts, explore where I probably shouldn't be or grind for some crafting goods.

I think I will give it a couple more weeks before I consider writing a review though, because there is still a ton more to see and do, and I don't want to review the game without having a little taste of the higher-end portions of the game. Am I still addicted, despite all the issues? Oh yeah.........

 

[killem2]

I never got high enough to really try other areas but it did seem like it was on rails for questing maybe that will change? I loved being able to take my tauren and go do undercity quests or my gnome and do elf quests and so on. was just a nice change. This is on world of warcraft of course.