Kill Ten Rats

As I am planning on playing when the game goes live, I have purposely avoided taking my character out of the first area, so as to have as much new as possible. As I’ve ground up a rogue, mage, cleric, and warrior to mid-20’s or higher, and done almost every tradeskill skill to at least 100, that means what I have left to sample is the PvP game in Rift. In a surprising twist, I’ve found that I am amazingly good at it, although I know I am bad at it. It’s just so many people have not realized that Rift is not the same as WoW, despite the familiar feel. In the past, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid the direct comparison, but after several days of playing, I cannot figure out a better way to do so.

I’ve played a lot of Black Garden, Rift’s “Capture the Flag” variant, and Valley of the Codex, which is Rift’s resource capture variant. These are both similar to WoW’s versions, but still distinctly different, which makes it very depressing when someone uses WoW’s tactics on them. Because you will lose. Badly. I was going to go into a detailed explanation of the zones, but that makes for a boring and possibly ranty post. Instead, I’m going to briefly talk about raiding the other side which is crazy fun.
Continue reading Rift PvP: You’re Not in…Oh You Know

Trion Worlds has a fantastic game going into early access launch this Thursday (1 EST), but they still have a lot of work cut out for them. Likely the biggest issue is going to be massaging souls (classes) to get them where they work. I am not worried about balance for each soul, but I expect that Trion will work out a strong niche for each calling. I’ve been reading balance issues all over the board, but then again even the longer-toothed World of Warcraft is still fiddling with classes.

The one challenge I hope Rift can make work is the contribution system for the dynamic content. Right now, quite frankly, it sucks.

Continue reading [Rift] A Spam Contribution

Time to eat crow.

See, I wasn’t going to play Rift. Note the past tense. Just looking at it from a distance it looked like it had nothing to offer other than its two major key points, namely the Rifts themselves and the class system. The rest was just your usual spaghetti sauce of modern MMO, adjusted for flavor here and there. Enough? For some people it was, but for me it wasn’t. I just wasn’t interested in the least bit to learn about its details.

Then, of course, I just had to go ahead and try the beta. I never learn. So, basically, FU Trion. For getting me hooked.

Recap? Briefly? Okay: This game has no right being as fun as it is. Why? Because once you take out the rifts and the class system, we’ve played this game before. Some of us for years on end. We’ve done this before. Let that sink in. So, if we did, why is it still utterly fun?

Musings about that last point: It’s still fun because you really can’t take the rifts and the class system out. Sure, you might choose never ever ever to join a PQ and do a single rift, cross your heart and hope to die. That’s fine. But it still alters your gameplay as you go along. And of course, you can’t take the class system out. It’s still fun because it works, and it works great at what it does, which is offering a condensed can of modern, post-WoW MMO, with all that people love and hate about it. It’s fun because the combat feels meaty and punchy, and at least to me, never got old with any of the soul combinations I tried. It’s fun because it’s exceptionally pretty new ground to cover and muck about in. It’s fun because it’s polished and you can tell a lot of love went into it.

So, if you’re like I was up until a few days ago, thinking that you’re gonna give it a miss because there’s nothing in it of note other than the Rifts – which you won’t care about – and the class system – which might be nice, but whatever – here’s my impressions from playing the beta for just a few days: You’re wrong.

My wife says I lack speeds between 0 and 60.

If Rift offered a lifetime subscription plan, I would most likely take it. If it used a carnival model, so I would not need to pay to revisit characters after a break, I would most likely be there. The monthly subscription model instead puts me in the unfortunate place of having repeated psychic costs every unit time, along with the feeling that I need to “get my money’s worth” (which should take all of one night, relative to other entertainment costs) and the game structures that make it difficult to meaningfully play more than one at once. MMOs tend to promote serial monogamy over polygamy, so if I have one, moving to a new one is a lot like abandoning the old. You can revisit your exes, but again, psychic costs.

I am interested, and it looks high quality, but I am not over the cost of switching and starting over. Guild Wars 2, however, seems like a gimme, what with box cost only.

: Zubon