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Rift
Jan 7, 2011 18:29:43 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 7, 2011 18:29:43 GMT
I only disagree with the idea that FPS has to "Shoot guns". To me, shooting magic is just as viable an "FPS" . Thinking of the Hexen and Heretic series of games here. They were definitely fantasy FPS. Nothing RPG or PVP about them. It was Doom with a fantasy setting, and you were a magic shooter and not a gun shooter. So I greatly disagree with that particular distinction. =) RPG doesn't have to have levels I agree, but there is a "process" in an RPG game of somehow improving/picking/choosing aspects of your character. Wether that's skills or traits or spending points in specs/abilities or what-have-you. Whereas FPS, regardless of wether they shoot guns, don't have any of that (if one is a pure FPS I mean, not the mixes). You don't develop your character, hell most of the time you don't even have a real inventory. You have weapons, ammo - a character that changes in no way at all - who's sole purpose is to run around a mapped out zone killing everything in sight. No "quests" other than "kill all and get to the end of the game" . That to me is the major distinction even when things get "cloudy" - if its got distributable points and your character "grows" in some way then its more "RPG Flavor" (I.e. actionRPG, or something). If its a set character model that doesn't really improve in any way, then its more "FPS Flavor". That's how I view those on say a continum scale .
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Rift
Jan 7, 2011 19:56:21 GMT
Post by raeshlavik on Jan 7, 2011 19:56:21 GMT
Agreed Kulma... That's always been the problem (or a big one, to me) between Devs/gamers and Investors - the gulf between those "in the code" wanting to do things differently/innovatively - knowing the psyche of their customer and knowing what could be a great money maker; and those HOLDING the money to do it - who may not understand the consumer of the product but do understand "if it ain't broke..." mentality. Time and time again I've seen great concepts and possible great alpha-state games, with entirely different ways of playing, go the way of the dodo simply because they couldn't get investors to align with the idea that "different can be better!" Very sad. True, but you can go too far with innovation and turn off the player base. Look at Chronicles of Spellborn (who?) - lots and lots of innovation, and no one played it because it was too different and therefor hard to grasp. Oh, and "Hi" - Frith pointed me in this direction, so it's all their fault...
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Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
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Rift
Jan 8, 2011 23:29:56 GMT
Post by Kulamata on Jan 8, 2011 23:29:56 GMT
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Rift
Jan 9, 2011 5:54:40 GMT
Post by raeshlavik on Jan 9, 2011 5:54:40 GMT
Against my better judgement, I'm actually having fun with the Rift beta... And apparently things are going well enough they're adding 2 servers - for the beta.
Not seen that before...
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Rift
Jan 9, 2011 11:51:01 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Jan 9, 2011 11:51:01 GMT
Same here... I'm very jaded at this point in my MMO career, but Rift seems to draw me in again. I just "like" the random crap I get thrown into when playing the game. Just spend an hour fighting off invasions and footholds in the quest hub i was working at with 2 other players. Finally beat them down with some luck and alot of deaths. Maybe some people would just throw up thier hands and say, fuck this shit, but I enjoyed the effort, and obviously the other 2 strangers did too. Weren't even grouped, just worked towards the same goal, without even a Hello. Just an unspoken fun vow to free the quest hub for us all even if it took an hour to accomplish. LOL
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Rift
Jan 9, 2011 15:42:07 GMT
Post by raeshlavik on Jan 9, 2011 15:42:07 GMT
Yes, random crap for the win! ;D
Functionally, the two things that have impressed me the most are the speed that Trion can roll out fixes and the GM staff.
It took Trion less than 5 minutes to spin up two more servers, get them synced up with the other eight, and added to the login server. And game balance fixes happen pretty much on the fly... They were down for a half an hour yesterday to roll out a major patch.
Obviously the back end was built to be worked on.
And the GM staff is made out of liquid awesome. Live events so far have been the norm and I've learned a lot about the game's lore just by watching two GM's driving powerful NPCs yell at each other, in character and unscripted, across battle lines.
Obviously the GM systems were built to support live interaction.
I think Trion really has a chance with this. I've been saying for years that concept art and a 200 man art team does not a game make. Trion really seems to have invested a huge amount of effort into the 'system' that runs the show.
All I know is this is the most jazzed I've been about an MMO in a very, very long time... I mean, I've not stayed up 'til 4am for a game since Shadowbane launched.
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Rift
Jan 10, 2011 15:10:06 GMT
Post by Algenon on Jan 10, 2011 15:10:06 GMT
Annoyingly i didn't get a chance to play the latest beta at all. The two times i managed to log in this weekend I had so much lag i couldn't play (no idea why - was not much of a problem last time - could've been at my end I guess), and otherwise I was busy.
I am giving it more time because of you lot, and seeing as I didn't have to redo the 10 levels I'd done in the first attempt. I can see the world (instead of a road) rolling out in front of me, so we'll see. Well, if i get invited to the next bit and can cast more than a spell a minute.
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Rift
Jan 10, 2011 19:38:41 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 10, 2011 19:38:41 GMT
Honestly I don't feel CoS took the dive bomb because it had too much innovation - I think when the Dev company screwed themselves through the publishing idea they were using, and then launched in Europe with the US launch months away - that and the game was NOT even remotely "finished" past the starter areas...
Yea..THAT more than their innovative fighting mechanics, screwed the pooch on it. Which I figured it would once they announced their publish/release intentions (and the game changed hands), I pulled out of following it anymore as I saw where it was going.
Sucked too, I alpha and beta tested that game for years - if they had had their heads on straighter I think it would have had a solid player base.
- on Rift related news - looks like if you preorder you can pretty much play in beta from now until launch in March! heh.
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Rift
Jan 11, 2011 6:15:54 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Jan 11, 2011 6:15:54 GMT
Yeah, I'm just not a pre-orderer of games, been burned too many times lol. Its really looking solid though.. level cap was 27 this time around too, and new zones opened up for testing.. hopefully they continue this every single time and get level 50 testing well in advance of release. I played alot of warfronts this time around.. nothing new at all there, pretty much right from wow/war in terms of setup/mechanics, with the Rift feel in terms of the layout of the zones. Was enjoyable enough, and I kept queuing for them if that says anything. Rolled a cleric this time around, thought I'd try it out. They're pretty solid, and with all the various souls, a bunch of them being more offensive than healing/buffing, you can customize how you play an awful lot. I tried Warden/Cabalist/druid for a while, and then finally settled on Warden/Sentinal/druid. Warden is more healing, and water based and I just love the look of the spells lol. Cabalist was a death based dps class, which I liked in PvP to dish out some damage and also in boss fights. Druid is a dps class too, but I didnt spend any points on it to try out, as it was more a melee/pet based class which didnt fit well with my Warden, so I just took it for the free healing pet. Sentinal was a healing class as well, and it seemed to mix with the Warden pretty well. Both had mostly insta cast dps and heals, and i got lots of bonuses to instas in the warden tree that crossed over nicely, so I settled on that combo in the end. Hit 23 with it by the end of the weekend, and the new defiant zone, stonemarch, was ok. Really mountainous and more earth based mobs/theme. The trolls looked really awesome, and the different clans would even fight each other on top of players and other rift mob types that wandered in during invasions and such. Freemarch, the starter defiant zone, was more death based so undead and cultists and such. Also saw a new zone wide invasion type, this one being water based, which was quite different than the other... it centered more around stoping them from establishing too many footholds, which we failed at, so I can't say out it would have turned out. lol Raids got formed pretty quick to deal with it, but that may have been a problem.. in this case I'm pretty sure that if groups formed and spread out a bit more to take on more than 2 footholds at a time, we may have beat it. hard to say though, as the footholds had quite a few HPs, maybe too many. Overall, a rather fun weekend of Rift.
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Rift
Jan 11, 2011 15:47:08 GMT
Post by sheral on Jan 11, 2011 15:47:08 GMT
I've stopped playing now (didn't get beyond 10) because I burned myself out for LoTRO exactly the same way. I was in the LoTRO closed beta for a several months before playing and by the time the game rolled out I was too familiar with quite a bit of it. I like what I've seen of Rift so far, but I'm afraid that I will burn out too quickly if I continue. I'm already familiar with getting to level 10 on both sides now and while I know that doesn't take much, it's already something I'm not going to find shiny and new when I do play.
So, I'm relying on those people (including you lot) I know who ARE playing to help me decide. Well, I've already decided I probably am going to play; at this point only some really horrible feedback on stuff later in the game is going to put me off.
I know what I'm like. Shiny newness is all part of the fun for me, so taking that away will just make me bored sooner.
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Rift
Jan 11, 2011 16:53:31 GMT
Post by raeshlavik on Jan 11, 2011 16:53:31 GMT
I've stopped playing now (didn't get beyond 10) because I burned myself out for LoTRO exactly the same way. I know what I'm like. Shiny newness is all part of the fun for me, so taking that away will just make me bored sooner. Same here. Beta4 was enough for me to decide that, sure, I'll spend the money on the box and add it to my shelf of infamy... It'll sit along side nearly every western MMO made since UO. From here on out I'll just be tuned into what folks are saying about Rift - not actually playing it. Which is sort of counter to what a Beta is for, which is getting as many eyes as possible looking for issues - but any more it's just a sales tool and I'm happy to play along for the free sample. ;D
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Rift
Jan 11, 2011 21:40:46 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Jan 11, 2011 21:40:46 GMT
Not sure that I'll burn out doing it but who knows. That is one reason though that I'm only playing one side in beta. Of course I might not get invited to any of the other beta events.
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Rift
Jan 12, 2011 18:22:49 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 12, 2011 18:22:49 GMT
Yea I have to limit my alpha/beta play myself. I usually will hold my play down tot he bottom levels and just test the CRAP out of those levels. I also don't beta test TEST stuff for games I'm already playing (like the Blight sever for Hz, or the PTR/Beta test servers for WoW), due to burnout. I dont like playing through stuff more than once outside of raiding with friends - so when I find I'm enjoying a beta I really limit how far I will play the game before rerolling another character and starting over again. Otherwise if I play "all" the game in beta I'll be done before launch, with no interest to continue. So I really focus on early-game/character creation bug testing, and leave the higher level bug testing for others. I totally get where you're coming from Sheral .
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Rift
Jan 12, 2011 20:00:51 GMT
Post by raeshlavik on Jan 12, 2011 20:00:51 GMT
As an FYI for those avoiding Rift betas...
-“Battle of the Ascendants” event five: 1/25-1/27 -“Planar War” event six: 2/4-2/7 -“Telara the Merciless” event seven: 2/15-2/22
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Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
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Rift
Jan 13, 2011 2:12:34 GMT
Post by Kulamata on Jan 13, 2011 2:12:34 GMT
For those who'll be giving it a try- Any guild thoughts?
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