Rift

[scarbunny]

Has anyone else been following this game?

 

I was in the last weekend beta, and am invited to the next one starting tomorrow and its pretty good. You can still sign up for the beta.

 

Info link

 

http://www.riftgame.com/en/

 

The world seems more dynamic than WoW, with "Rifts" opening up at random that need to be grouped to close, not sure what happens if the Rifts aren't closed but from an early preview there were plans to change the world based on the amount of active rifts which sounded pretty appealing.

 

Got it on pre-order, and they are offering reduced subscription costs to early adopters, I hope its a game that lasts as it has some interesting ideas to build on.

[Jools]

I've not been following it yet, but a friend of mine sent me a vip beta code for this week's beta, so I'm currently waiting for the update to finish to see if its as good as I'm led to believe. Given the disaster that was Final Fantasy XIV though I'm not shelling out a penny until I've tried the game in these next 3 beta tests.

[bopalula]

Played beta 1 and 2 but that was enough for me. There's limited challenge in what I experienced and it's very linear. I enjoy crafting in MMOs and the crafting system in Rift is one click to make multiple pointless items.

 

I've not tried WoW but many of the people I game with have said it could well appeal to WoW players.

 

There was a lot of chat about Rift and touted by many as the next big MMO, but for me it's falling well short and should be condemned to the list of other MMOs that have fallen short over the last 5 years or so.

 

On the plus side, the betas I took part in were very smoothly done.

 

ETA: I've got a vip key that's good for 25 uses in all remaining beta events. If anyone wants one PM me.

[scarbunny]

I'm finding it hard to get back into the current beta, although I think that is more a product of it being run mid week and I have very little time at the minute.

 

One of the main problems the game seems to have, and this is a problem all MMOs have, is that it isn't WoW, it hasn't been going for 6 years so it doesn't have 6 years of development on top of the years prior to release, it doesn't already have an established fan base and world built up over 3 games jammed full of Lore and story.

 

The crafting and gathering is very similar to WoW, as is the combat.

 

The world as it is seems to lack a sense of size, I spent 100 odd hours solo questing in WoW up to level 55 on my first character and I think I only saw 60-70% of one continent and it always felt like being in a massive world. Rift on the other hand feels a little like there is nothing beyond your current zone, at least it does to me, this could be down to running it in low settings on a low spec macbook though.

 

The game seems to be quite focused on the endgame, from what I can tell from the first 20ish levels, so there is a linearity to the quests, you are moved from one hub to the next relatively swiftly and I never seemed to have more than 3 quest on the go at once, and all were linked into one hub so.

 

I think the character development may be were this game hopes to shine though, the ability to from 4 "callings" warrior, cleric, mage and rouge, and then select 3 "souls" from a pool of 7 per calling means there is a lot of scope for diversification, how well this works long term remains to be seen.