[MMO] Rift - Discussion

[smackababy]

I want innovation. FFXI rocked (Hell I'm considering Resubbing right now), SWG rocked, EVE is still awesome and they didn't copy WoW to do it. No WoW clone has actually succeeded.

If I'm considering an MMO and its a rehash of WoW with one or 2 cool new features than theres no point in playing it when I can play WoW and KNOW the game will be there in 6 months.

Blizzard came up with a winning formula yes but someone else can come up with another.

I played SWG for almost 3 years and it did nothing similar to "rocking". FFXI was the same. EVE is even more of a terrible concept. No matter how much I play I can never be as good as someone who started before me? Um what? SWG was even more terrible, especially when it first game out.

Plenty of non WoW clones fail, and usually harder than WoW clones. APB? That was a huge success... Star Trek online? That still has like a whopping 15 subscribers?



The beta system for this game is retarded. Entering a beta key allows you to be entered into a selection process for the beta? WTF?

 

[zokudu]

I played SWG for almost 3 years and it did nothing similar to "rocking". FFXI was the same. EVE is even more of a terrible concept. No matter how much I play I can never be as good as someone who started before me? Um what? SWG was even more terrible, especially when it first game out.

Plenty of non WoW clones fail, and usually harder than WoW clones. APB? That was a huge success... Star Trek online? That still has like a whopping 15 subscribers?



The beta system for this game is retarded. Entering a beta key allows you to be entered into a selection process for the beta? WTF?

You may not have enjoyed them but EvE and FFXI still have large playerbases. SWG only died when they revamped the game to be a WoW clone.

APB died because the Devs didn't fix anything. The game was broken in so many ways but they never fixed it. It sold like hotcakes when it released however. Theres a market for a new MMO and if devs stopped remaking WoW they could be successful.

 

[smackababy]

You may not have enjoyed them but EvE and FFXI still have large playerbases. SWG only died when they revamped the game to be a WoW clone.

APB died because the Devs didn't fix anything. The game was broken in so many ways but they never fixed it. It sold like hotcakes when it released however. Theres a market for a new MMO and if devs stopped remaking WoW they could be successful.

FFIX at most has 650k subscribers (less than 6% of WoW). Can't find the numbers of Eve online, but I'm sure they are lower. The game caters to people who want to alt tab to something else...

As far as APB? They didn't make enough money to support their servers for more than a 3 months. The game has a 58% on metacritic... I doubt it sold "like hotcakes".

And finally, SWG was broken when it released, revamped with a game changing patch, and still was terrible. If it wasn't a Star Wars based game, I would have not touched it. There are classes where you log in and have people line up so you can buff them? So, you get off work, log in, and start another job?

 

[zokudu]

Well lets put this into perspective the only other MMO over 700000 subscribers ever was Lineages 1 and 2 and Runescape (I don't know if this includes F2P members for Runescape). FFXI has plateued at ~600000 since '03. EQ in its heyday averaged 450000 subscribers. EvE has ~300000 subscribers as of 2008.

Looking at it from other successful MMOs than WoW blows them all out of the water and yes you can say only 500000 but thats a lot considering outside of WoW very few MMos reached that. I would call EVE and FFXI very successful.

SWG sat at about 200000 until WoW released and they redid the NGE to mimic WoW style gameplay and their subscribers jumped ship.

 

[smackababy]

The point I was trying to make was wasn't whether or not they were "successful" but what a company would rather go after? If rollerblades are the big thing, why reinvent the skateboard?

 

[zokudu]

Probably because no ones making skateboards and only 1 company has successfully made roller blades and no one wants to buy another companies roller blades because they already have their pair.

 

[smackababy]

But if said company is only making one color of rollerblades, why not make a different color to match whatever the next big thing in t shirts is?

 

[Drift3r]

I played SWG for almost 3 years and it did nothing similar to "rocking". FFXI was the same. EVE is even more of a terrible concept. No matter how much I play I can never be as good as someone who started before me? Um what? SWG was even more terrible, especially when it first game out.

Plenty of non WoW clones fail, and usually harder than WoW clones. APB? That was a huge success... Star Trek online? That still has like a whopping 15 subscribers?



The beta system for this game is retarded. Entering a beta key allows you to be entered into a selection process for the beta? WTF?

You don't know what the hell you are talking about in regards to EVE Online. EVE is all about specialization. Older characters are only better in that they have more options to take on varying different roles then new players. That 5 year character who can fly a Titan but is in a t2 frigate can only benefit from his frigates related skills and thus a 6 month character with specialized t2 frigate skills can easily pop his ship and pod him if that new player has any sort of skill at space combat. Skill points in EVE and ISK (currency) is not the end all or be all of the game in terms of what you can and cannot do in game. Role/Ship specialization and having a good grasp of your role in a fleet, gang and of your ship's capabilities is vastly superior to having a whole mess of SP.

Then again you sound like someone who is better off playing WoW with your mindset which cannot grasp differences between games like WoW and EVE Online.

 

[coloumb]

Back on topic....

Played a bit today as a cleric to about lvl 8. Until I could "multi-class" - boring as hell like most other MMO's - slow combat, one or 2 specialized attacks, etc. However, once I managed to take on another "class", then combat became more interesting, and finally picked up the 3rd "class", combat became very cool [especially when I picked up self-healing/disease removal]. Cleric role reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons Online - plate wearing badass with nice buffs/heals.

- Game mechanics are pretty much a copy of WoW - combat, harvesting, etc. A lot of people in chat commented they were going to try and get their guild to play as they'd definitely leave WoW for this game.
- Graphics - remind me of EQ2. Initially I thought I was going to be disappointed by the portraits in the 1st character selection screen - I thought "Oh great...ANOTHER MMO with Final Fantasy looking characters - bleh". I was happy to see this was not the case during the character creation part of the process [face, hair, etc].
- I'm constantly reminded how the character movement and pve combat is very similar to Tabula Rasa. Character movement is stiff/rigid and there's always havoc and mayhem going on around you.

I like the public quest system - no need to look for a group, just join the public group and you're automatically in the "raid group".

Won't subscribe though - already having my fill of "fantasy based" MMO by playing WoW until SWTOR MMO is released.

 

[pontifex]

Started a mage today. Mages are definitely stronger in this game than other games I've played - as in can take more damage. Went Elementalist/Warlock/Pyromancer.

It's not bad. Not sure I'll sub to it though. I played on the Defiant side and I have to say it kills my eyes because everything seems to dark. Is it that way on the other side? Everythign is like in shadows so it';s hard to actually see stuff and it's hard on my eyes.

graphics aren't anything special imo. The rift events remind me a lot of the special events that would happen in Warhammer Online.

I agree that this is mostly a direct copy of WoW plus some other games, like Warhammer, as I mentioned.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Any chance someone could help me get into the beta? I have experience testing other games and am an active player & communicator.

 

[smackababy]

So I put in some time on this last night and got to like level 14 on a "hunter" (rogue using marks/ranger/sab). Debating going bard instead of sab though. After playing a hunter for years in WoW, I have to say this is a direct clone of that. Most of the talents are downright copies.

The Rifts remind me of the champion spawns in UO, but on a much smaller scale (at least in the lowbie area). Also, people take a lot of offense in this beta when you compare anything to WoW or even mention WoW. And people get annoyed when you tell them to go to Undercity to get that item they were asking about.


All and all, it is really enjoyable. I am not reading the quests or following the story though. The first dungeon isn't until like level 16+ though, which is kind of lame. I haven't put in for a preorder yet (I don't even know the release date for the game). Going to spend a little more time with it before I commit to a purchase. Oh and there are apparently 6 end game instances and people seem to think there is no best spec for classes; I've been told numerous times you can just put points in whatever and you're good for endgame... I have a feeling there will be just as many bad players here as there are in WoW, at least ratio wise.

 

[pontifex]

So I put in some time on this last night and got to like level 14 on a "hunter" (rogue using marks/ranger/sab). Debating going bard instead of sab though. After playing a hunter for years in WoW, I have to say this is a direct clone of that. Most of the talents are downright copies.

The Rifts remind me of the champion spawns in UO, but on a much smaller scale (at least in the lowbie area). Also, people take a lot of offense in this beta when you compare anything to WoW or even mention WoW. And people get annoyed when you tell them to go to Undercity to get that item they were asking about.


All and all, it is really enjoyable. I am not reading the quests or following the story though. The first dungeon isn't until like level 16+ though, which is kind of lame. I haven't put in for a preorder yet (I don't even know the release date for the game). Going to spend a little more time with it before I commit to a purchase. Oh and there are apparently 6 end game instances and people seem to think there is no best spec for classes; I've been told numerous times you can just put points in whatever and you're good for endgame... I have a feeling there will be just as many bad players here as there are in WoW, at least ratio wise.

i'd probably be annoyed too if every jackhole and his brother did that too. saw a lot of that in the chat when i played last night.

 

[Avogadro]

Good news! Beta 5 extended for 24 hours, until 10AM Pacific time Saturday morning.

Latest impressions/thoughts:

I'm up to L27 on my Defiant-side warrior, and finding the game gets more and more interesting as I level up. In retrospect, the game started getting good around L17/18, so it does reward persistance but also needs a stronger "hook" to keep a new player going.

The biggest change in the high 20s is that your class builds get more defined and your decisions on how to spec matter a lot more. There's a huge difference between my "tank" build and my "DPS" build, to the point where it's like playing two separate characters. The differences were much less in the mid teens.

I think this is awesome, but I agree 100% with smacka about bad players. If you can't think through a logical plan for a character build, or don't think it makes any difference, you can really gimp yourself. Example: I joined an instance group with a cleric healer at L24 (!) who *did not have a rez spell.* I was shocked that it was even possible, but there ya go. The bottom line is that there will be a very sharp distinction drawn between the capable and the clueless as people level up into the 20s (below 20 it really doesn't matter much, which might actually make the situation worse!), at least until the theorycrafters tell everyone exactly how to spec.

I'm not too worried about that, though. I saw the same things go on in WoW once dual-spec went in, and players dealt with it. The smart, adaptable players will always find each other and form guilds, which pretty much ends the worries about grouping up with scrubs.

 

[zokudu]

I don't think there will be an end all be all of speccing there seems to be a lot of variation and as long as you have a vision of what your character should be it comes out fine. My cleric tank is doing very well at level 24 with dungeons but if I wanted to tank on a warrior there looks like a ton of variation available. Hell in the cleric builds theres some variation with your third soul. The issue is when people don't want to specialize and at that point in a dungeon the specialist will always get chosen and perform better.

I think the games alright. I'm not buying it though and I think I'm done with Beta.

 

[smackababy]

There will be the end call be all of spec. There is always something that does more damage per second, more heals per second, more threat per second or mitigates the most damage. There will be a min/max that will take time to figure out. Theorycrafting will happen once the endgame is achieved. Until then, it doesn't take a lot of common sense to understand that you can't be a dps tank that heals.

 

[zokudu]

Well I don't think there will be want to know why?

On warrior for tank specs theres - Paladin, Void Knight, Warlord, and Reaver. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. Void Knight is very good at mitigating magic damage the warlord has large armor bonuses, the paladin has blocking talents. Each has its pros and cons. Same with the healers.

Yes there may be one thats better than the other but again equate it to WoW no high end guild is stacking Hunters and Unholys DKs because they're ahead of other specs. A balanced raid group will always be preferred. Outside of some absolutely inviable specs you bring what your raid needs.

I could see a warrior warlord/void knight/reaver tanking alongside a justicar cleric even though Paladin may mitigate more damage because none of the tank specs are horridly inviable. The only time high end guilds stack anything is to cheese a mechanic like the 11 druid H Neferion.

 

[coloumb]

Every "ground based fantasy" MMO I've beta'd always has chatter of either "This is much better than WoW" or "this MMO steals a lot from WoW" or "I pre-ordered - this game is awesome!".

The "triple" spec is interesting - but I agree - eventually "best specs" [tank, healer, dps] will be determined. WoW sort of has the same "tri-spec" from the talent trees - Cataclysm restricted it so you had to choose a major "spec" [ie: Pally Tank, DPS, or Heal].

What I did find relatively annoying during testing yesterday - someone was already spamming to sell loot drops in the level 7-9ish area [just after you enter the rift]. I wonder how long it will take for the gold sellers to start spamming...

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I wish these games would just auto-mute spammers or disable their chat for awhile.

 

[Phobic9]

I wonder how long it will take for the gold sellers to start spamming...

The game comes out on 1 March right? I'd say we'll start seeing spam about 2 hours after the server opens.

 

[Wordplay]

Any chance someone could help me get into the beta? I have experience testing other games and am an active player & communicator.

Go to curse.com or just fill out the app. It's not hard to get in as I signed up the evening before Beta5 got going.

My experience:

This game is to boring for me to get past level 15. Nothing really grabs my attention and gives me a reason as why I should pay $15 a month to play this game.

The fight animations are not exciting, same sound effects for damn near every swing. The game graphics look nice but the fighting is dull IMO.

The Rifts were fun the first few times but then got to be a chore. Going from one rift on the far east side of the map to a rift far west was a pain in the ass. By the time I fought my way through the mobs to get to the other rift it was over. Doing the zone wide rift events it felt to chaotic.

Voice acting would of been a major welcome to this game along with better guidance. Even if it wasn't fully voice at least parts of the game should have it, like during rifts.

Overall I am not impressed. It's a mix of past MMOs all rolled into one. I'll finish up Beta5 but after that I won't pick up this game.

 

[HunterDT]

The MMO gods are telling me something!!!

http://i.imgur.com/sbPuz.jpg

 

[zokudu]

They are marketing the crap out of this game. Its literally everywhere people discuss video games.

 

[Patterner]

dammit, i thought it was "rifts"

I was the same way when I first heard about this. That would be a pretty cool game, and would translate fairly well to the MMO genre, I think, though they would need to address some of the class imbalance issues (which most people house rule anyway).

 

[pontifex]

man this game just kills my eyes...everything is so dark and small.


raising gamma really helped. this is one game that I really liked the mage class.