[MMO] Rift - Discussion

[Throckmorton]

You're using a midrange CPU from 5 years ago and stumped on how it might be running slow?

What could a MMO possibly be using 4.8ghz of computing power for?

 

[akugami]

Bought the game. Playing a Necromancer/Warlock right now because I want to, not because it is the best class. Just what I wanted to play. Going to add Dominator or Archeon next.

Necro/Chloro/Dominator combo is pretty slick. Good for solo action. Put enough points to get Bloom (heal) in Chloro and the rest put into Necro. Dominator gets a crowd control spell right off the bat which is good for solo. Necros also get different types of pets (tank, dps, mage) which is damned cool.

Rogues are pretty darned cool as well with the ability to go all out dps or be backup healer much like mages. They are great for all players.

Clerics can do ok melee dps but obviously excel at healing. Still not a bad class to play.

Warriors are probably the most uninteresting class in RIFT.

 

[SunnyD]

What could a MMO possibly be using 4.8ghz of computing power for?

4.8ghz.... /facepalm

 

[blurredvision]

I continued on with my cleric last night and before I knew it, I had put in 4-5 hours and still wanted to play. I'm going to consider that as a good sign.

I'm taking my time with the game though and trying to thoroughly enjoy the sights and new game mechanics. I've only just hit level 12 in about 6.5 hours of playtime. I've been working with a druid/justicar/shaman build but I'm finding it a little boring so far. I think that's because I've played nothing but caster classes in WoW, so melee has to grow on me a little. I'm not used to just standing next to the enemy and mashing on a melee attack until they die. When picking up my souls, I started with the druid and branched out to justicar and shaman based on the in-game recommendation that those 3 were good together.

My first death in the game occurred at level 11 last night, when I accidentally pulled too many mobs. I've found that my survivability so far is pretty high as long as my fairie stays alive. I love that the fairie seems fairly smart in when to help attack and when to heal me. The heal isn't much but is pretty nice as passive that I don't typically have to worry about. The shield that the druid has seems way too powerful early on, as it rarely gets completely used before my cd is up. Even then, I don't use it too often because I just don't need to.

I picked up foraging, butchery, and apothecary as my 3 professions. I LOVE having 3 after being used to just 2 in WoW. I didn't like finding out that you have to be near a laboratory (or whatever it's called) to make potions though, but I guess that adds a bit of strategy to make sure you have what you need before you set out, so I can deal.

The quests so far are forgettable but I think that's pretty much expected. It's not a big deal and just a means to an end for me. The one thing that annoyed me was in regards to the main Defiant city. I felt like it was taking way too long for the quests to lead me there. By the time I hit level 12 and still wasn't being directed towards it with a quest, I finally decided to just hoof it so I could check it out. I guess there's not really much there for a low level to use at the moment but I was getting impatient.

I do find the rifts intriguing but I wonder if they are going to get old after a while. I also wonder how it will be when zones get a little barren or if the game loses population. Right now, there are tons of people running around Freemarch on my server and there's never a lack of players to tackle them, but I can't imagine this will always be the case. I do like how they do the participation calculations though, at least from what I can tell. I noticed that as I attacked, the small bar would rise up indicating participation, but once I quit attacking for a couple of seconds it starts to decrease. I guess this is so somebody doesn't just fill their bar and then wait for the next wave, they have to keep attacking.

As far as the invasions go, holy shit. One hit while I was questing and I had no idea what the fuck was going on. I still don't know what was exactly happening. I ended up with some shardstone on my back and followed a guy somewhere who said he'd show me where to take it, at which point it disappeared and I have no idea why because there was fighting going on everywhere. I checked out my map and saw all kinds of crossed swords and rifts and other stuff. Mousing over the swords brought up all kinds of lines on the map.....just completely confusing.

After I somehow dropped off the shardstone (#9 of 200 it said) and ran back to my quest hub, there was a huge elite mob wailing away on people (he easily stood 3 times taller than everyone else). There must've been 30-40 people beating on him and his health bar was barely moving. I'm talking 1% every minute or so. It was complete chaos. There was text continually popping up on-screen telling me about stuff, but I was so confused, it made no sense to me.

I decided at that point to log and get a quick bite to eat. I hopped back on about 20 minutes later and the invasion was still going on. We were up to around #185 of 200 shardstones returned. Text was still popping up on-screen and after a few more minutes, it was finally over. If anybody wants to explain what that shit was, I'm all ears.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the game looks fantastic. I'm in love with the draw distance and I keep it maxed. The game doesn't run too badly given where I have all of my settings. I run on an aging C2D that was brand new back in late 2006 and a slightly newer GTX275 with 6GB of system RAM. I have AA and AF turned off, I have shadows at the lowest setting where it's not completely off, 1920x1080, and everything else maxed out. This nets me around 20-25fps most of the time, which is doable, but I think I may lower the resolution. During that invasion, my fps took a huge hit, but luckily the game basically throws up a thick fog of war during the event, which I'm assuming cuts out all the background geometry to help handle the influx of mobs and other players that are sure to be present.

So far, I'm loving the game and looking forward to playing some more tonight. I hope they show some strong support for the game in its early stages.

 

[Malladine]

Nice post blurred

couple things:

1. The crossed swords are individual invasion "teams", always one miniboss and a few underlings. The lines from mousing over them mark the direction that particular team is taking and their intended target. If they reach their target they will attempt to destroy the wardstone and replace it with a Foothold of their plane. Footholds spawn more invasions which head out to take over other targets.

2. The shardstones are needed to power eldritch devices which, um, force the main boss to appear basically. Can't remember the lore there.

3. I thought the bar during a rift event marked the next invasion spawn?? might be wrong...

4. The rifts and invasions are spawned dynamically based on the current area population. Therefore if there are no people around I assume no, or very few, invasions would occur!

you picked exactly the same crafting professions as my warrior, up to around 142 alchemy right now @ lvl 33

 

[Rhezuss]

Warriors are probably the most uninteresting class in RIFT.

I must admit Warriors are not that fun to play. It's mostly a semi-click fest with on and off GCD skills here and there. That's mostly for DPS Warriors though IMO.

My highest toon is currently a level 19 Warrior specced Paladin/Reaver/Void Knight. Lots of nice skills like Face Bash which is on a 6 sec cooldown AND off the GCD. Good against casters since it interrupt casting for a couple sec.

But I might try the Mage Calling...I remember having LOTS of fun with my Lock in WoW and would like to see how mages do in Rift.

 

[SunnyD]

I have to say, as far as classes go - and no I haven't played them all - I'm going out on a limb and saying clerics are ridiculous.

Right now, my Justicar/Sentinel/Cabalist fits my play style to a tee. A little history:

(Fisher-Price) My first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot, and I played a midgard healer. I was probably the only tri-spec healer in the game, and what spec line healers couldn't do, I could - which was survive. I watched healers go through all the "fads" in DAOC, pure mending healers, pure aug healers, pure pacification healers, and when it came time to duel, I beat all of them with my tri-spec. I even had some players in pure disbelief, demanding rematch after rematch saying they must have done something wrong. I never lost a duel against another healer. That said, sure I wasn't a top end healer or a top end buffer or a top end controller, but I made up for that with skill and play style. And I was nearly always welcome in any group on my server, because people knew I could and would do everything in my power to keep the group alive.

But when it came to soloing, that's where I was a god. I'd stand there, pulling yellow and orange con mobs that would make any other healer run in fear (most mending or pac spec couldn't pull a green con and survive, few aug spec could survive an orange con let alone red con, which I could if done creatively), and I'd have half the realm standing there in shock, ready to jump in and save the poor healer, only to watch me fell the mob with plenty of HP to spare.

Why does all this matter? Rift clerics are exactly this. I can heal, I can melee, and even better, I can nuke (couldn't do that in DAOC). I'm easily pulling 2 or 3 +1 con mobs at a time and surviving. Hell I even had one pull of 3 mobs and ended up with 2 wanders wailing away on my back before I was half done, and I still walked away no worse for wear. The only death I had was when an invasion elite mob trained right over me and steamrolled me before I could get away.

Rift clerics are awesome. I'm sure the other classes are equally as overpowered too. I like this game, it makes me feel like my character actually is special in the world.

 

[Rhezuss]

Rift is cool but when I think about rerolling a new toon to try a new Calling...it's make me want to cry. I'm only level 19 for now and still in Silverwood and it's already starting to get boring in there.

I'm a Dwarf...I puke on trees...

I'd like to get into the Cleric calling a lot more but the first area is just killing me...

 

[blurredvision]

My questions in bold:

Nice post blurred

couple things:

1. The crossed swords are individual invasion "teams", always one miniboss and a few underlings. The lines from mousing over them mark the direction that particular team is taking and their intended target. If they reach their target they will attempt to destroy the wardstone and replace it with a Foothold of their plane. Footholds spawn more invasions which head out to take over other targets.

I remember seeing some of that random text talking about wardstones being destroyed and only haven't so many left. Now that I think about it, I believe I remember seeing these wardstones....large vertical red crystal looking things, right?

So what happens if nobody stops the invasion? Is it over when the wardstones are destroyed? Do the invaders take up camp in the zone until they are beaten back? Do they all just despawn when the invasion is over and life goes back to normal?

2. The shardstones are needed to power eldritch devices which, um, force the main boss to appear basically. Can't remember the lore there.

So you basically need an equal amount of people fighting and returning shardstones, right?

3. I thought the bar during a rift event marked the next invasion spawn?? might be wrong...

I'm not sure how it works with invasions (if it's any different), I was just talking about the individual rifts that pop up from time to time. The small circle with the wave #, the backpack and other button (shows statistics I think). The small bar on the left of that goes up and down based on whether I'm attacking or standing still.

you picked exactly the same crafting professions as my warrior, up to around 142 alchemy right now @ lvl 33

I'm up to around 65/75 in foraging but still am not seeing an option to skill up to the next level when I visited the one in Meridian last night. Do you know if you have to visit a specific trainer to train to the next level or can any forager do it?

 

[blurredvision]

Another question. I was looking at the classes here:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/index.php

Is there any reason why the top 3 in each are highlighted gray and the other 5 are highlighted gold? I didn't know if the top 3 were considered the "main" souls or what.

 

[Malladine]

Rift is cool but when I think about rerolling a new toon to try a new Calling...it's make me want to cry. I'm only level 19 for now and still in Silverwood and it's already starting to get boring in there.

I'm a Dwarf...I puke on trees...

I'd like to get into the Cleric calling a lot more but the first area is just killing me...

At 19 you could be well into the 2nd zone....can typically hit that by 18 meaning quests can be obtained etc. At least Stonefield for the Defiant works that way.

Blurred:

1. Right, those are wardstones. The rift creatures will be sucked back into their plane after a certain amount of time in our world, so yeah they despawn after a while. IIRC 10 mins or so

2. Sure, ideally, doesn't matter as long as it's getting done!

3. Interesting will have to try that out. That's what i was talking about (invasions spawn from rifts too)

4. Yes train in Meridian. You need to visit trainer in the main area of the city, sort of a pathway behind pillars which curves around the inside of the main courtyard. You'll find all the collection profession trainers in there.

 

[Malladine]

Another question. I was looking at the classes here:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/index.php

Is there any reason why the top 3 in each are highlighted gray and the other 5 are highlighted gold? I didn't know if the top 3 were considered the "main" souls or what.

Can't get there at work. Which 3 are gray?

 

[Rhezuss]

At 19 you could be well into the 2nd zone....can typically hit that by 18 meaning quests can be obtained etc. At least Stonefield for the Defiant works that way.

Blurred:

1. Right, those are wardstones. The rift creatures will be sucked back into their plane after a certain amount of time in our world, so yeah they despawn after a while. IIRC 10 mins or so

2. Sure, ideally, doesn't matter as long as it's getting done!

3. Interesting will have to try that out. That's what i was talking about (invasions spawn from rifts too)

4. Yes train in Meridian. You need to visit trainer in the main area of the city, sort of a pathway behind pillars which curves around the inside of the main courtyard. You'll find all the collection profession trainers in there.

Sure I could but I like to do everything and I still have over twenty 17-20 quests in my log...

 

[Malladine]

Sure I could but I like to do everything and I still have over twenty 17-20 quests in my log...

You're kinda asking to get bored of an area then imo
They seem to have packed in way more quests than are needed to easily out level a zone.

 

[blurredvision]

Blurred:

1. Right, those are wardstones. The rift creatures will be sucked back into their plane after a certain amount of time in our world, so yeah they despawn after a while. IIRC 10 mins or so

2. Sure, ideally, doesn't matter as long as it's getting done!

3. Interesting will have to try that out. That's what i was talking about (invasions spawn from rifts too)

4. Yes train in Meridian. You need to visit trainer in the main area of the city, sort of a pathway behind pillars which curves around the inside of the main courtyard. You'll find all the collection profession trainers in there.

Thanks for the response. I actually found the following link and was reading through it:

http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Rift

I guess since there are so many people in the main starting zone that footholds don't really have much of a chance these days. But at least if I head towards a quest hub and see nothing but enemies, I'll know what's up.

I'm just curious how all of this world PvE content will work out when there's nobody there to do it. As in, if the game lasts and everybody gets to be really high level, what if one guy buys Rift and is questing through Freemarch all by his lonesome and nobody is there to help him do this stuff.

Can't get there at work. Which 3 are gray?

Warrior's is Champion/Reaver/Paladin, Cerlic is Purifier/Inquisitor/Sentinel, Rogue is Nightblade/Ranger/Blade Dancer, and Mage is Elementalist, Warlock, Pyromancer. The rest of the souls for each of those has a gold highlight.

 

[Throckmorton]

4.8ghz.... /facepalm

I said 4.8ghz of computing power. You see there are two 2.4ghz processors. That is equivalent to a single 4.8ghz processor with the same clock per clock performance. Are you really that stupid that you don't get it?

 

[pontifex]

Thanks for the response. I actually found the following link and was reading through it:

http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Rift

I guess since there are so many people in the main starting zone that footholds don't really have much of a chance these days. But at least if I head towards a quest hub and see nothing but enemies, I'll know what's up.

I'm just curious how all of this world PvE content will work out when there's nobody there to do it. As in, if the game lasts and everybody gets to be really high level, what if one guy buys Rift and is questing through Freemarch all by his lonesome and nobody is there to help him do this stuff.



Warrior's is Champion/Reaver/Paladin, Cerlic is Purifier/Inquisitor/Sentinel, Rogue is Nightblade/Ranger/Blade Dancer, and Mage is Elementalist, Warlock, Pyromancer. The rest of the souls for each of those has a gold highlight.

I don't see any reason for them to be highlighted differently.

 

[Throckmorton]

Another question. I was looking at the classes here:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/index.php

Is there any reason why the top 3 in each are highlighted gray and the other 5 are highlighted gold? I didn't know if the top 3 were considered the "main" souls or what.

They don't explain the class system well at all. I think if anything makes the game fail, it will be the classes. Since you choose 3, there is too much overlap and not enough distinction. It's more akin to a classless RPG than one with distinct classes... and those are never really fun. It SOUNDS good in press releases to talk about how you create your own class blah blah blah, but good games have distinct classes that are unique to play. Remember Asheron's Call? No classes, everything controlled by skills and attributes. But the end result was 2 classes- melee and mage.


I'm playing a "druid" and so far it's pretty fun. I like how the fairy heals you.

 

[brandonb]

I said 4.8ghz of computing power. You see there are two 2.4ghz processors. That is equivalent to a single 4.8ghz processor with the same clock per clock performance. Are you really that stupid that you don't get it?

Only if the program is multithreaded using both cores 100% with no overhead. Chances are, it's not, especially since it's DirectX9 which is not multithreaded. Two 2.4ghz processors do not equal one 4.8ghz processor. Are you really that stupid that you don't get it?

 

[Throckmorton]

Only if the program is multithreaded using both cores 100% with no overhead. Chances are, it's not, especially since it's DirectX9 which is not multithreaded. Two 2.4ghz processors do not equal one 4.8ghz processor. Are you really that stupid that you don't get it?

The game is clearly multithreaded, and using both cores, because my CPU usage is pegged at 100%.... So to the game, the 2.4ghz dual core is effectively the same as a single 4.8ghz-- it doesn't care. Otherwise CPU usage would be somewhere below 100%.
That's the whole point of my post. OK so maybe there's a little extra overhead and it's equivalent to 4.7ghz. How does that change anything materially? The game uses a lot of computing power, for no apparent reason. The only explanation is they took the Warhammer Online engine and added some big inefficiencies.

 

[Throckmorton]

The game has 4 "main threads"

http://forums.riftgame.com/archive/index.php/t-32658.html?

 

[brandonb]

The game is clearly multithreaded, and using both cores, because my CPU usage is pegged at 100%.... So to the game, the 2.4ghz dual core is effectively the same as a single 4.8ghz-- it doesn't care.
That's the whole point of my post. OK so maybe there's a little extra overhead and it's equivalent to 4.7ghz. How does that change anything materially? The game uses a lot of computing power, for no apparent reason. The only explanation is they took the Warhammer Online engine and added some big inefficiencies.

I stand corrected, since I never looked at my core usage while playing...

 

[SunnyD]

The game is clearly multithreaded, and using both cores, because my CPU usage is pegged at 100%.... So to the game, the 2.4ghz dual core is effectively the same as a single 4.8ghz-- it doesn't care. Otherwise CPU usage would be somewhere below 100%.
That's the whole point of my post. OK so maybe there's a little extra overhead and it's equivalent to 4.7ghz. How does that change anything materially? The game uses a lot of computing power, for no apparent reason. The only explanation is they took the Warhammer Online engine and added some big inefficiencies.

Not... remotely.

I won't get into the details, but thread weight, regardless of clock speed, does not equate 2 cores "pegged" @ 2.4GHz the same as a single 4.8GHz core. Not even in the slightest.

You know what... go post that comment in the CPU subforum. Make sure you bring your asbestos underwear.

Needless to say, you need a new platform to game on.

 

[Throckmorton]

Not... remotely.

I won't get into the details, but thread weight, regardless of clock speed, does not equate 2 cores "pegged" @ 2.4GHz the same as a single 4.8GHz core. Not even in the slightest.

You know what... go post that comment in the CPU subforum. Make sure you bring your asbestos underwear.

Needless to say, you need a new platform to game on.

I said the GAME IS USING 100%, not that both cores are pegged at 2.4ghz.

Aside from OS overhead etc, THE GAME is using virtually 100% of both 2.4ghz cores, and that adds up to an effective 4.8ghz. The game would run the same on a single core at 4.8ghz.

You sound like a guy who just took a computer science class and learned that a 2.4ghz processor runs at 2.4ghz and are trying really hard to impress everybody with your "expert knowledge". Yes, I know that the actual processor clock is 2.4ghz. Everybody knows a dual core 2.4ghz CPU runs at 2.4ghz. I get it, you have Asperger's and feel the need to be a "little expert".

The fact is, this is a game on ye olde Warhammer Online engine, it doesn't need to run AI locally, and it doesn't seem to be doing any magical advanced physics calculations. So why does it need that much processing power? Why is it that other MMOs like WoW don't need that much horsepower?

 

[Genx87]

I have to say, as far as classes go - and no I haven't played them all - I'm going out on a limb and saying clerics are ridiculous.

Right now, my Justicar/Sentinel/Cabalist fits my play style to a tee. A little history:

(Fisher-Price) My first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot, and I played a midgard healer. I was probably the only tri-spec healer in the game, and what spec line healers couldn't do, I could - which was survive. I watched healers go through all the "fads" in DAOC, pure mending healers, pure aug healers, pure pacification healers, and when it came time to duel, I beat all of them with my tri-spec. I even had some players in pure disbelief, demanding rematch after rematch saying they must have done something wrong. I never lost a duel against another healer. That said, sure I wasn't a top end healer or a top end buffer or a top end controller, but I made up for that with skill and play style. And I was nearly always welcome in any group on my server, because people knew I could and would do everything in my power to keep the group alive.

But when it came to soloing, that's where I was a god. I'd stand there, pulling yellow and orange con mobs that would make any other healer run in fear (most mending or pac spec couldn't pull a green con and survive, few aug spec could survive an orange con let alone red con, which I could if done creatively), and I'd have half the realm standing there in shock, ready to jump in and save the poor healer, only to watch me fell the mob with plenty of HP to spare.

Why does all this matter? Rift clerics are exactly this. I can heal, I can melee, and even better, I can nuke (couldn't do that in DAOC). I'm easily pulling 2 or 3 +1 con mobs at a time and surviving. Hell I even had one pull of 3 mobs and ended up with 2 wanders wailing away on my back before I was half done, and I still walked away no worse for wear. The only death I had was when an invasion elite mob trained right over me and steamrolled me before I could get away.

Rift clerics are awesome. I'm sure the other classes are equally as overpowered too. I like this game, it makes me feel like my character actually is special in the world.

The funny thing about healers were they were the best duelists in midgard. Once a melee character ran out of endo, and used his endo pot he was a slightly better hitting healer that couldnt heal himself. I lost to a healer in our guild on my warrior. It took over 15 mins but he finally killed me lol I was out of endo within 35 seconds and had him down to about 15% health. Then the pain started for me as he killed me with 10000 cuts.