|
Rift
Dec 29, 2010 16:55:38 GMT
Post by sheral on Dec 29, 2010 16:55:38 GMT
There are keys available for this one still, if you're around Frithy. I got mine through FilePlanet yesterday and got the invite today.
|
|
Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
|
Rift
Dec 30, 2010 8:51:48 GMT
Post by Kulamata on Dec 30, 2010 8:51:48 GMT
Am all the way to level 6, so clearly time to start pontificating...
Pretty well polished, not perfect; got dropped about once an hour, got credit for one quest merely by being beside someone else who dunnit. Artwork/style above average, not as well defined (I thought) as LotRO or WoW. Nice maps. YMMV.
Major thing I noticed, although it may be a beta thing, and/or different at higher levels, is that you get good class-specific armor and weapons right away. All is balanced, so functionally it's ok, but it just feels nicer to be level 6 and get (made up example due to memory failure) gauntlets that increase armor by ~8-10% with an add to dex, str, and endurance. No starting in tatters, graduating to raggeds, to flimsies, to rusted recycled foil, etc.. I are mighty. And I have something like 15 gold; so I'm rich. Nothing much to spend it on so far, but I see that a role costs 30g. At level one, you're looting 1-3 Silver; no shaved ha'pnies here. You start with a 20 slot bag, and I've already received two more 4 slotters. So it's comfortable, no sweating the small stuff.
XP- the usual rapid tutorial leveling; too soon to really tell, but xp from kills a level or two down is still quite good, so if you want to relax and grind the end of a level by killing a few lower level evils, you can. At least so far. About four hours ingame total. Specials (low bosses) respawn quickly enough that wait time is not bad. I really do prefer this approach; you've been anointed one of the saviors of the universe, so running around in rags and killing diseased rats has always hit a wrong note. BTW, no rat, snake, or snail killing; all awfuls, even if appropriately feeble. Pet's been killed twice, me once, dang adds. Trying Warrior, with a side of Beastmaster and I think Champion souls. So, fun so far, some quests are imaginative.
|
|
|
Rift
Dec 30, 2010 14:25:21 GMT
Post by maddwarf on Dec 30, 2010 14:25:21 GMT
The game doesn't have the polish of WoW ( I wouldn't expect it to). But I didn't into any major issues. I did have some graphics lag when I set the resolution to 1920X 1600 ish. I can possibly see issues down the road when one might be in a large PVP or rift battle, but that remains to be seen.
The UI is a carbon copy of WoW's, which is ok IMO. The game players like warhammer. I wonder if they are using the same engine as Mythic was with warhammer. It feels very similar in that regard.
The soul system looks like it could be an interesting way to multiclass. But I am wondering how practical it would be to take a paladin soul and mix it with a beast master or rift blade soul? They have suggested companion souls when you choose your first. I am looking forward to experimenting with this aspect of the game. I just hope there can be no possibility of gimpage... but you do have the option of retraining... just not sure of you can re choose your souls at any point.
Same style quest system as WoW as well. I will be interested to see how this Rift System works. It will be the one defining feature that makes or breaks this game. So far so good. But they will need to do something quickly and early on in the levels to cater to the 'Im burned out on WoW' crowd.
|
|
|
Rift
Dec 30, 2010 18:36:44 GMT
Post by sheral on Dec 30, 2010 18:36:44 GMT
I started with a beastmaster and by level 8 I had added champion and something else to that (I have totally forgotten what the 3rd one I picked was!) The two-hander champion seems to fit well with the beastmaster, skill wise. The third soul was warlord, I think, without logging in to check. I plan to get a feel of the cleric classes next, then maybe a magey type. Rogue would be bottom of the list for me. I get the Warhammer feel too, in the graphics (slightly more 'realistic' than WoW, with a darker feel). I had no graphics lag at all with mine set to full on everything and a resolution of 1680 x 1050 (anything more usually makes the UI too tiny for me). We killed a couple of rifts, and got some goodies, mostly crafting items from what I could see. It felt a little like Warhammer's public quest only without the chest at the end. I also enjoyed not starting out in tatters with tiny bag space and no money. Recalling vanilla WoW and having to farm mobs just to get my training money (and other games that do that), this certainly seems less like hard work and more like fun I think my hubby is swaying towards getting this when it comes out - barring anything putting him off between now and then. And if he plays, then it's a given that I will.
|
|
|
Rift
Dec 30, 2010 18:48:45 GMT
Post by maddwarf on Dec 30, 2010 18:48:45 GMT
Yes we will be playing it as well. Though the game may not have the same retention factor if Rifts turn out to be a bust.
I went with Beastmaster/Champion/Riftblade... nice DPS.
I also just read that you can have multiple roles? Sounds like you could be a cleric with a couple of different soul combination's. Apparently its a cast skill to change roles...
Will investigate that later.
|
|
|
Rift
Dec 30, 2010 21:21:48 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Dec 30, 2010 21:21:48 GMT
Seems really fun so far. The rifts I agree seem to be like public quests, just much more cool. Invasions are also neat, they spawn off and march on other rifts/footholds/towns and kill everything in thier path. Eventually they establish a foothold which spawns other mobs near it.. or the invasions come from the footholds, i havne't figurd that out yet lol. Anyway, much fun so far. It really isnt anything too new, but its more like it has tried to take everything that was fun in other games and put it into this game. So multiclassing (within limits), class switching (within a role), public quests (bumped up lots of notches, they get more cool as you go up in level), collections from EQ2, plus your standard quests, ect.
I went Defiant and its nice to see a steam punk kinda take on things, without it being wow corny. I really enjoy the atmosphere of the game so far. Level 12, went warlock/chloromancer/archon. Warlock is your basic lifetappy type caster, chloromancer is awesome, with dps spells that often have healing side effects to your party and you can even buy healing spells for it higher in the tree.. prolly be a valid off healer of party healer perhaps if you really speced in it, and the Archon is very cool too. Most of its damage spells also debuff the target and buff you in turn... then later on you can get spells that transfer some of your stats to your group mates. Really neat idea there.
So far the invasions and such are fun, but aren't quite as intensive as I expected, at least for the footholds/invasions. usually its just a group of elites that you have to kill to stop them (although the rift that spawned them will continue spawning them I have heard, but havne't seen).
I did find a tear once, and opened it up into a full death rift myself, which was neat. The terrain changing is just really cool, with both the water and death rifts that I've seen so far. Really gets me into it. I find that I just go right for them.. I mgiht be doing quests but when I see one open in the distance, I beeline for it, or for an invasion/foothold, as they all show on the map and you can see the rights open in the distance. So if they wanted the rifts to be the center of attention, then I think its working pretty well.
So from what I can tell its not the end all/be all of MMOs, but its a really nice addition, that any current MMO player can jump right into and fit right in. At least at low levels, will have to wait and see how it goes at higher levels in the future.
|
|
|
Rift
Dec 31, 2010 7:18:03 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Dec 31, 2010 7:18:03 GMT
Went through an epic invasion tonight in Rift. The other invasions I was talking about was like a group of elites wandering around looking for trouble. For this one, it was zone wide, with a zone wide quest to go with it. Rifts spawned across the whole map. Everyone had to kill rift bosses to collect source stone for the machanical device the defiant was going to use to lure the Epic boss out. Once that was done, it was turned on, and it spawed him across the zone. Ran there and everyone took him down together. Totally rocked. There was no groups, I didnt know anyone except the friend of mien who is playing with me, and yet everyone worked together well and towards the common goal. Really reminded me of the old school DAOC relic raid fights.. There were groups then but no such thing as raid groups. There are in rift, but we just tagged along and did our part and it was really fun. After the final boss died, everyone who participated got a purple thingy which can be used to turn in for epic gear. That's the nice thing about Rifts vs PQs in WAR, everyone gets loot. There's no silly roll at the end to see who gets something, everyone does. If you do more, then you get more, but its not a bitch fest (that i've noticed) about not getting anything from it. Anyway, the event was awesome. After the boss died, everyone ran around together and cleared up the remaining rifts until the last one fell. Fun Fun. Best part about it? Noticed zero lag, none. Was at least 100+ players on my screen, with spell effects flying everywhere and no lag at all. Was extremely chaotic of course, with that may players and monsters around but it ran smooth as silk. Here's the event as happened on another server. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQTIk7xS3K8&feature=youtu.be
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 1, 2011 4:59:59 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 1, 2011 4:59:59 GMT
Sounds neato - and yea that epic invasion sounds a lot like world event invasions for WoW expansions - don't have to be in a group or raid, there's usually quests, everyone participates together.
Difference is yours is throughout the game and WoW's is just pre-expansion.
Course if it continues to be the same thing (I hope not..) then I imagine soon you'll have the same fall-out of nonparticipation that other games world events can get to where everyone follows the script, its over pretty quickly - and eventually they stop running them at all.
But I hope that doesn't happen!
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 1, 2011 8:43:03 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Jan 1, 2011 8:43:03 GMT
well I know the same event happened a few times this round of beta. First time I'm sure everyone was new to it and just figuring it out, by the end (they had it again just before server shut down today), alot of folks knew what to do and organized into loose raid groups to run it easier and it was much more smooth. lol
I assume they'll have multiple events ready to go for end game on release (this was just for level 15-20 basically), and they'll get cycled through enough that people will know what to expect. However, that's inevitable for any game that you repeat over and over, just like doing a dungeon 50 times, it becomes old hat, but you still do it.
I wonder if there is a consequence for failure if no one bothers doing it. I dunno. I do know that for the duration, all quest givers in the zone wont accept hand outs or ins, so questing is out of the question (not to mention the whole zone gets overrun with elite mobs. Not sure if instances get locked out too. So you sort of "have" to do it, or wait it out at the least if you don't want to participate.
Its certainly not a game for people who can't take anyone pissing in their cornflakes. If you just want a game where you log in, and the universe leaves you alone to do your own shit by yourself, then Rift isn't gonna be the game for you.
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 2, 2011 1:44:24 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 2, 2011 1:44:24 GMT
oh good point - if noone can really do much in the zone until the Rift is beaten back..well then that will at least avoid the "I've done 6 this month I don't want anymore..." even if they may still feel it they'll have to help out to do anything else..heh. For good or for bad anyway .
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 2, 2011 11:53:49 GMT
Post by Algenon on Jan 2, 2011 11:53:49 GMT
Hate to be the one to sound a sour note on this one... but seriously, you all seem to be celebrating more of the same? I don't get it. Really.
I played the steam punk side and was at first pleasantly surprised. Very few bugs, good graphics, very stable (I was only kicked twice, I think, in about 6-8 hours of game play) with a few nasty lag spikes (expected in beta). I liked that incidental enemy fire was doing me damage too, even at low level - made me feel like a war was going on around me.
However, at level 10 I still felt like I was in a tutorial, being forced along a boring linear road (quite literally) doing three fed ex quests per location/level. Dull dull dull.
Yes, the rift bits were quite cool - very cool the first time, less so the second, little the third. I don't think there is much staying appeal in them.
In the end, like WoW, it felt like the levelling path was just to get you to the end game - why give me a more than a level an hour when there are only 50, unless you're A) aiming at kiddies; B) aiming at endgame; C) both. I'm expecting its both.
Why have levels at all? I think a lot of people would pay for an MMORPG that skips all that and goes straight to end game, shooter style - its essentially what WoW does now anyway, bar the details. And that's fine - just don't insult my intelligence on the way by pretending there's a game en route (oooh, goody - its the same spell I had at level 1, and 11, and 21, but now it does even more damage!).
Someone wise once said (some old EQ developer, I think) that making WoW clones is essentially a guarantee of failure - unless you have a monster franchise, you will fail, and even if you do you'll only make a dent. Rift is just another one for people to play in the gaps between WoW expansions, when they get bored.
Don't get me wrong, I thought it was fine. Dull, repetitive and 98% copied, but fine. But gods, please let someone out there be working on something INTERESTING. When you're holding out for Dawntide to come together into a playable game, you know something is wrong...
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 2, 2011 20:35:58 GMT
Post by Darkwater on Jan 2, 2011 20:35:58 GMT
That magical game doesn't exist. All these games play the same pretty much, with a few rare exceptions maybe like EVE, if you get more into the player made content side of the game, but other than that they're all the same game with various twists. Doesn't mean they can't be fun though. I've played dozens of FPS over the years, and they all play the same more or less, and yet most of em are still fun and enjoyable.
Personally I've stoped looking at MMOs as long term hobbies.. they're just any other game to be played and then put down when you're finished with them or want to try something else. I've come to terms with that fact and am fine with it.
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 2, 2011 23:04:56 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 2, 2011 23:04:56 GMT
But even WoW was 90% copied from those that came before it *shrugs* Straight to end game/shootser style isn't an MMORPG its an MMOFPS - and guess what, Blizz is going to blow that out of the water when theirs comes out too..lol ;P (Titan, their next MMO is supposedly an MMOFPS, I don't plan to play it I'm not into that type of MMO but hey just saying). Don't want levels - go play Eve. But no, that magical game isn't going to exist. ALL Games build majorly on what has been done and come before. If you are LUCKY one game every few years puts something actually "innovative" (as opposed to being called and described innovatively but getting in game adn finding out its the same thing...) and different. But no, the vast majority are the same. I don't see anyone "singing praises" like this is the next big thing. Noone is claiming WoW comparisons (and again I don't see that happening ever again anyway, Perfect Storm and all that). Its a game. Its fun for them to play. That's all anyone should expect. You played it. Not fun for you. Move on. I say the same about most games out there. Most bore me within a month or two, and I dont just mean MMOs I mean ALL OF THEM (video games ing eneral). You play the ones you have fun with, have fun, and move on. If a new one comes out that renews your fun - awesome! And I'd argue WoW is not about going straight to end game (but that's that other thread , if it was then 90% of the people I know who roll up 3-4-5 alts (who never raid with them) woudln't do so, and they wouldn't have a number of quests that rivals "Everquest" itself *shrugs* But go ahead and rain on the mythical parade, I certainly pointed out some future faults I see with the design but I hope for the game and devs and playres sake - that that doesnt' happen. You'll never see me heralding or calling for the shutdown of anything- no matter how crappy. If someoen finds it fun then good for them. I'm not about to say someone else's fun should be taken away. I just don't operate that way. Bad Karma and all...
|
|
Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
|
Rift
Jan 3, 2011 9:56:51 GMT
Post by Kulamata on Jan 3, 2011 9:56:51 GMT
For some reason, no doubt having something to do with recondite reward ratios over time, the game is fun. I don't play design theories or concepts, I play games, so that and innovative artwork is about all I ask.
RL intruded big time, so I only got to level 10; however from what I've read, the progression on rails starts to loosen up above level 10. The reason you felt that you were still in the tutorial is because you were still in the tutorial. And most of the quests were not fedexes; as usual these days, the fedexes are a mechanic to move you along, and weren't blatant time sinks. Some of the others were mildly imaginative, and none were irritating.
These things cost a fortune to make; $25 Mil seems to be about the minimum for an ambitious MMO, with much, much higher figures rumored for the most ambitious. Nobody is going to raise that kind of money on a truly novel sort of game; investors simply need more reassurance than a radically new game concept can provide. The only really new idea that I can think of was a tweak to the business model for f2p or some hybrid variant of f2p. And that is something investors can understand...
|
|
|
Rift
Jan 3, 2011 18:45:58 GMT
Post by FrithRae on Jan 3, 2011 18:45:58 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.
|
|