Category: Rift

The Rift Beta Tweet

In what really should be a tweet, I present to you my feelings on the upcoming Rift MMO. I would really like to experience more, but need a VIP key to do so (hint hint to Trion). Without further ado:

Rift MMO feels like a polished Warhammer Online with more dynamic public quests. I am going to get it.

Okay, I will shortly expand, but for a better impressions check out Syp’s. First off, the graphics, engine, and art style feel very Warhammer Online like. This is not a bad thing. In fact the game looks pretty good all around. There are a few issues like global cooldown and quest ganking, which is being looked at with a hard eye… but the dynamic content is the centerpiece for Rift.

Sadly, I did not experience enough of it to lay down The Wørd, but the little that I saw disappointed me. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because of the Rift system itself, which is quite awesome. It’s the old world mob tagging and grouping systems that seem to undercut this new world dynamic content.

Why do I have to be grouped to share in kills? Why is grouping not as easy as Warhammer Online? Why do I have to be grouped to even be able to participate in most of the dynamic content?  I believe these questions need a hard lookin’ at by Trion because I feel if they kowtow to the old ways too much it’s going to put some tarnish on their shiny.

–Ravious
(c) Kevin Siembieda

Rift Away

First off, congratulations to all the beta holders for Rift. I hope you guys have a lot of fun and help make Rift a better game. Remember that even if the mob in beta forums does not respond to your beautiful, constructive feedback, it will have much more impact on the development team than some “lol fire is so OP, this game sucks”-flamebait. Sadly, I will not be joining many of you golden ticket holders.

Continue reading Rift Away

MMO Overload in 2011

With the announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released sometime after April 2011…I’m thinking, “Ut oh.  Here we go again!”  Instead of a somewhat steady stream of major titles being released the last couple years, it looks like they’ll all be released within months of each other in 2011.  You might have your favorites and be able to pick one.  But for me, it’s going to be overwhelming and expensive.  And I’m looking forward to it…

Continue reading MMO Overload in 2011

Hope, Hype, and Expectations

It takes me six months to forget exactly how bad hot dogs taste. I occasionally have a good one, but mostly it is a process of thinking, “it cannot be as bad as I remember, even if I said that six months ago.” It is like Hofstadter’s Rule, only for lower quality rather than longer time.

I look forward to games on two-year cycle. Maybe that is how long it takes me get over the last disappointment. When did Warhammer Online come out? How disappointing was that? Hey, the 2011 MMO crop looks promising.

It is easier to meet expectations if you do not set them too high. After everyone tells you to read/play/watch something, it has a lot to live up to, whereas “so bad it’s good” can be enjoyable under that expectation. Perhaps my greatest disappointments have been cases where I thought I had lowered my expectations enough, but people told me that it was okay as long as you went in with low expectations, so I unconsciously raised my expectations about how well it would go. “It’s not as bad as you’ve heard” is dangerous.

Which is to say, look forward to some really bitter posting next year, even though I explicitly know better! My mental hardware is made of meat; I may truly be unable to help myself.

: Zubon

PQ 2.0

Randomessa has a good account of Warhammer Online’s pre-release comments on public quests, which were entirely borne out. The public quests are more or less as advertised. You might dispute design decisions like the quick resets and having influence bars to fill (is that grind or rewarding repeatability?), but most PQ issues came from how other systems interacted with them. The main problem was population-based: you could not get past the first stage once the population lump moved past you, nor in PQs off the beaten path.

But does anyone really think that public quests are not good? When conditions are right for them to work, they work well. When conditions are not right, they limp along better than much non-instanced solo MMO content. They encourage socialization and teamwork. If you did not like particular PQs, fine. If you think the whole game is broken, fine, but this part works.

Steal this feature. Champions Online slots a PQ into the tutorial zone. If Guild Wars 2 and Rift are offering PQ 2.0, that will be an improvement from the current quest hub model (conditional on successful implementation). Are we just trying to rein in expectations about how awesome or revolutionary this is going to be, back to “good”?

Even if it is just putting sprinkles on ice cream, I like both sprinkles and ice cream, and that other place does not have ice cream on its dessert menu.

: Zubon