Scaling back the Rift hype

Posted on by Nimgimli

So another Beta Event is behind us, or nearly so. I played a bunch Friday and Saturday this time around.

Mostly this beta event just depressed me. The Rift I’ve been hyping is almost totally gone at this point. The actual rifts spawn very infrequently in the periods of time between invasions. Invasions, when they happen, do spawn a lot of rifts but they don’t last very long any more. I’m unsure if that’s because the rifts and invasions are getting easier or if it’s because the players are bored of doing typical PvE questing and so they throw themselves into invasions to see what those systems are like. Whatever the case, if you want to take part in an invasion you better make a beeline when it begins or you’re gonna miss out.

Listen, Rift is still a solid MMORPG and I don’t mean to imply otherwise. But the “old” Rift was, to me, something really special and unique. The current Rift is a polished, good MMORPG but it isn’t that much different than so many other games out there, really. It has been homogenized into a cookie-cutter game. There’s no longer a sense of danger or chaos to the world. I never found myself banding together with a couple of random strangers to try to overcome the odds and drive an invasion force away from a quest hub. The Era of the Zerg Public Group has arrived.

Public Groups do seem to be working a bit better. Or maybe the players are getting smarter. I was the leader of one public group this weekend and I made a point of ejecting people who’d wandered far away from the fight we were in, which freed up space for local players to join. So maybe other public group leaders are doing the same thing?

Anyway now if you play Rift you pretty much have to join a Public Zerg Group if you’re expecting any help from the people around you. You might get lucky outside of one but I found when I stayed solo no one paid any attention to me unless I was fighting the last mob in a wave. Or if the Zerg horde just rolled over the mob I was fighing because I was in its path.

I’m really glad I got into the early beta events; they rekindled my love of MMOs. Now I just need to find a game that scratches that itch the way early-Rift did.

I pre-ordered Rift from Trion and was already charged for it, so I’m going to play at launch. Maybe things get a lot better at higher levels and that sense of fun and chaos and danger will return. I’ve been self-capping at level 20 just to keep some things “fresh” for launch. So maybe I’m being totally unfair to the game. But as of right now I’m very unsure about that 6-month sub I’d been planning to get. The Rift I played last weekend would not hold my attention for that long. Heck, by Sunday I was bored of playing.

I’d like to run 1 character to cap on each side just to experience the Lore though, which I continue to really enjoy. I hope the game is successful enough that it spawns novels based in Telara, in fact. I enjoy it that much. And playing both sides makes it even more enjoyable, when you see characters from one side appear in a different form on the other (thinking of Shyla).

I shudder to think what Open Beta, Beta 7, will be like. Maybe Invasions will pause to ask if you’d like to be attacked because the invasion leader is sensitive to the issue of being inconvenienced by unexpected things happening in an adventure. That seems like the direction they’re headed, at least. (Yes, I exaggerate!)

Can I ask Trion for a “Classic” Rift server yet? A launch with the rules and systems that we say in Betas 2-4? Because I was head-over-heels in love with THAT version of Rift.

36 thoughts on “Scaling back the Rift hype”

  1. I do feel the rifts are weaker, buy it might be because of the massive amounts of people. I did die several time during rift events. I dis fight a giant for about 20 minutes with about 50 or more other people. That was epic fight but very boring. It was pew pew pew pew blah blah fight. Just because it was long doesn’t mean it was fun. I still enjoy the difficulty of the game. It is not set on easy mode at all. That right there adds a bit of fun and requires grouping. Something a lot of MMOs are lacking outside of instances. The Soul system still amazes me. I just hope the rifts get a buff not another nerf

  2. My experience was a bit different. I’ve left this weekend feeling good about the game. Remember, they are stressing servers and dynamic content at this point. Personally, I think it is going well. How will invasions and rifts really work at launch? I would like some clarification on that. We just don’t know.

    I’ve self-capped at level 15, so I don’t know if there is a difference between our 5 levels or not. But Saturday they threw so much at us on the Guardian side that I was begging for it to stop so I could get in some quests. I also had a hell of a time and I loved the loot system. Opening the random loot drops always seems like Christmas.

    Yesterday, I played at the start of a life invasion that lasted nearly 45 minutes as we pushed it back. At one point it all of the sudden just stopped. Either that was a bug, or the devs pulled the plug on it because they wanted to save a little something for us for launch. Again, I wish there was a little more clarification on that.

    All in all, Rift has given me that old MMO spark again, too. I will definitely be playing it at launch. Not sure how long it will keep my interest, but I haven’t had as much fun playing an MMO in a long time.

  3. I was thinking of you this weekend, because I was totally getting steamrolled at the rifts 😀

    Last night I was playing my 17 warrior, Defiant, on WB. I exited Meridian and was staring at 3 full blown rifts in front of me, plus one to my left, and one over the hill on the right. There were 4 invasions crossing the landscape too. Problem was, there was NO ONE THERE. I couldn’t do jack with them, because there were no players anywhere around these rifts.

    I headed into one that was converting to an invasion, and got curb-stomped. Twice. I had to run back to Meridian because there wasn’t a healer nearby (that’s something that needs to be remedied). I then took off to the OTHER rift to the north. Again, I got crushed, but there was support this time. When I resurrected nearby, there was a pain-train invasion rolling through, and I died…AGAIN.

    Not all of this was due to a lack of support. I was hitting up some minerals when a rift spawned on top of me. There were people nearby who jumped in (Dusty and Stargrace were watching my Livestream at this point), and we TCB’d it.

    It’s weird, because some times I want to complete the quests, but when I see a rift, group or invasion nearby, if I decide to jump on board then it’s all over; I have to keep rifting. It’s not the rewards — I could really care less. It’s still got that feeling of urgency to see if you can get to the next rift early on enough to get a good grade, or just to be part of a pack rushing to defend the land. When everything has been taken care of, I take a breath and roll back to questing…until the next uprising.

    But I was really feeling the heat this weekend. I died tons of times, some because I waded in when I really knew not to, but some times because in the mess I drew too much aggro. Questing difficulty was — pretty much non-existent. My rogue was downing stuff quickly, thanks to the rapid-fire nature and point buildup. I stopped calling the pet because it was basically worthless (In both quest and rift, IMO). The warrior was different, though. I wasn’t building points as quickly, even though there’s only three levels. I’d say that playing a warrior is a VASTLY different level of difficulty then the rogue, and not just mechanic-wise. I can’t speak to the magic users, because I haven’t gotten into those.

    Overall, I’m still pleased. I like being able to switch between questing and rifting, and in juggling the souls. The Guardian side was growing on me just as Faeblight crashed and forced me back to WB. I’m staying out of OB, though. I don’t want to mix with the absolute unwashed before they decide not to play.

  4. During the big stress test on Saturday the chat on my server was a constant “When does the event start?” followed by “It’s going on now.” LOL In fact the devs, at the end, said “Yes, it was as boring for us as it was for you, but that’s a good thing.” I think having so many people online definitely contributed to the short duration of invasions.

    I was on Faeblight/Guardian and we did have one big battle at Silver…something College (me and names…we don’t get along) but there were so many people there it just felt like part of a random horde. I spammed 1 damage spell and 1 healing spell over and over until everything was dead. I rarely had time to hit a target twice before it dies, aside from the big boss which was, as Scary said, just pew pew pew pew until it finally died.

    Maybe launch will come and everything will be fine and you can all throw rotten fruit at me and say “We told you so!” but I won’t care because I’ll be smiling ear-to-ear at having the game I so enjoyed back.

    Makkaio you’re feeling what I was feeling in early betas and I want that feeling back! LOL

  5. @Scopique – Cross-posted with you…sorry you got moderated, not sure why.

    So it seems there’s a definite random element to things. Seriously every rift I fought I joined a public group that either was a raid or quickly became one. Not always a full 4 groups, but at least two groups.

    It sounds like I should’ve been playing on your server, but it was always tagged FULL when I logged in.

    Now I *was* playing a Cleric on Faeblight and I do think they’re the easiest archetype to play, or at least to survive as (for obvious reasons). I was doing a melee cleric while running around then switching to a full healing build when I grouped.

  6. So I forced myself to take a work break Sunday, and deciding what to do with myself while the superbowl pregame show went, I logged in an played quite a few hours. Then after the big game logged in and played some more. Up until now, my reaction to Rift has been pretty much strictly ‘meh’. I’m not a fan of the multi-talent tree “omg I have no idea what kind of rogue-type-thingy you are” soul system, and the rifts have never really appealed to me much, as they all seemed very repetitive. But the game’s world started to pull me in, and it does scratch the one itch that I really enjoy with a good MMO, which is there is always [i]plenty to do[/i]. You can quest, or craft, or gather, or do some rift closing if it suits your fancy.

    For the most part, I’ve been largely ignoring the rifts whenever I could – I’d much rather quest, and try to immerse myself in the world at least a little bit. But when my quest givers were all getting killed or running around fighting off invasion forces, I was forced to join an invasion fighting raid, and ended up battling in the zerg fest, chasing rifts all over Freemarch and trying to figure out just exactly what the hell “return shardstone to powerup warp transcoil enducer-thingy” meant.

    I didn’t find Rift zerging all that fun — but just exactly like grinding custom AE missions in CoH and Battlegrounds in WAR, the rewards and xp gain rate so completely blow away anything else, unless drastic balance changes are made before launch, rift zerging will be the de-facto way of leveling your toon. After just about 1.5 hours “rifting”, I’d gained 2 levels, and had enough currency for a ph4t epic purple set of pants for my rogue.

    I too was on WB, and probably played with Chris without either of us knowign it, I couldn’t see his name in the livestream, but I logged on while he was playing, lol.

    I think the game needs some changes, unless they want Rifting to be the defacto activity in the game while you level. But over time, the game is slowly making a fan of me. So I’m actually lookign forward to leveling up my weaponsmithing, and trying out some dungeons if I can next time I can play.. 🙂

    Dusty

  7. I went back and read my comment and saw that I didn’t clearly get my thought across that while you have been losing your excitment, I’ve been gaining mine. But that could be for a number of reasons. I think my biggest reason is I finally found the build I’m most happy with and really enjoy just playing instead of fighting with the game. So I can’t wait to roll up on launch.

    I can definitely see your point regarding big player groups, especially during this weekend. But it’s just a matter of taste and opinion on whether we feel like one in a thousdand, or wow this is freakin’ awesome! I agree…populations could be leveled out a bit. But I also don’t want to see in Rift what happened in WAR where earlier PQ’s were unplayable because the player pool dried up. I really don’t know what they are doing to address that. They are making a mistake not putting a server system in place like GW or CO. But we’ll see how it goes!

  8. I enjoyed beta 6 almost as much as beta 5. I missed my unique active racials and do morn the loss of those characteristics and abilities.

    I ran a lot of rifts. Completed 2 full zone wide events with bosses as both healer and a tank. Did numerous individual rifts, foot holds and invasion groups in Silverwood. My friend and I had a lot of fun.

    The rift mob levels appear to be very dynamic. I had one change the level of the mobs between waves based upon how many people were near it (not the release of an invasion wave). Not sure if you have seen that type of scaling behavior or if it was a bug.

    I saw the number of rifts vary by zone population, and the level of the rifts vary by the number of nearby players as well as the zone area. I also observed the “enhanced” abilities of some of the rift mobs this time. Knockbacks, enhanced aoe dps helpers, dot spells cast by several mobs which also appear to be new from Beta 5. While i have read posts decrying the simplicity of some of the larger rift event bosses (ie. Aelfware Vindicators) i still found them challenging. Sometimes in the chaos things can get lost. I watched one of these wipe two 40 person groups repeatedly over a 30 min period. I would not have called the encounter simplistic that may come later when the level of the mob 20 elite is countered by level 50’s but for the 8-30 crowd that was there, it was a significant event.

    Overall, I like the behavior of the dungeon and rift bosses. They can be quite challenging with various group compositions. If found even the first basic dungeon (Realm of the Fae) more interesting than initial zones in other major mmo’s. The questing is standard stuff and safe. They could add some more story quests or puzzles but to be honest, I don’t want to have to travel to 6 different zones and do 10 major steps to complete a heritage quest a la Eq2. So somewhere in between would be good 🙂

    I’ve somewhat given up any thoughts that what we are seeing at this point is the final game and maybe i’m being naive. The only substantive changes that I saw over Beta 5 were the racials and the talents in the various souls. Everything else seem to be changes to test something or to improve the encounter dynamics. So I’m not getting bummed out by what I’m seeing and I’m still happy with my decision to preorder and sub for 6 months.

    While I plan on rolling Defiant at launch, I am going to miss the Guardians as I’ve had a lot of fun in Silverwood and beyond. I know I will return there in the future.

  9. @Pete

    Yeah, I think the whole clusterball of people in the rift circumference is a real pain. I focused almost entirely on the upper left corner of the screen: If I had a target, it was 1,2,3,4,5, TAB, 1,2,3,4,5, TAB, and so on. There was no real critical strategy, just blasting the hell out of whatever you happened to TAB to. Still, I was trying hard to get up on the ladder. For some reason, I was using THAT as my main motivator for sticking it out.

    In the back of my mind, I can see how a proper raid group in Rift could be like a proper PvP warband in WAR. If you’re in a guild group or something, where the parties are well balanced and are working together, then I bet you can be a really well oiled machine. At that point, you may switch from just Tab N Blast to a sense of accomplishment for actually working together…that’s something I don’t think we get from a lot of MMOs these days.

  10. As someone who got a char to 50 (a long, long time ago, mind you) what lured me in and keeps me there is the world itself. Some of the art in the later zones is SO awesome (Gloamwood is my fave, followed by Stillmoor).

    I stopped playing when beta hit because … I don’t feel like betas really allow testers to change all that much. There are definitely some things that have changed, but I remember doing a 5 man group quest solo on my Sentinel and speaking with Scott Hartsman directly for a good amount of time explaining how I did it and what happened, the gear I had, etc … and he was like “OK yea that shouldn’t be possible.” Next build, everything was fixed and I couldn’t do it anymore. It was really cool.

    However, I did log in this past weekend to see the changes made the to the starting areas and was thoroughly impressed. Like completely blown away. My level 50 had like, half her gear gone (fixed or removed due to crafting changes) and my shield no longer had 1080 armor on it 🙁 (it’s 180 like it should be now heh heh), so I just made a new char since all the skills / talent trees had been redone like a billion times too.

    I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that difficulty / immersion in a game is becoming less and less of a selling point so … waiting for a game to incorporate those is a waste of time.

  11. Dusty said, “I think the game needs some changes, unless they want Rifting to be the defacto activity in the game while you level. But over time, the game is slowly making a fan of me. So I�m actually lookign forward to leveling up my weaponsmithing, and trying out some dungeons if I can next time I can play..”

    I think this will be exactly the way they want to go because Rifts and raids are the bread and butter of the game. The problem with WAR is there was so much going on, there wasn’t a strict focus on the game’s core. I mean…who would have known that battlegrounds and not overland PvP areas would have been what players wanted in WAR?

    I always said that public quests were great ideas. But you can’t have PvE along side it unless you draw entire PvE areas into the mix. That’s exactly what they are doing in Rift. The more activities you give a player base, the more you thin out that player base. So you need a focus. I think Rift is doing an okay job at that.

  12. @Wiqd — One of the things I’m missing is the fear. Tell me if it was ever like this for you in alpha?

    In early betas just crossing a zone to turn in a quest felt really dangerous, what with all the invasions wandering about. At the time I couldn’t go overland because the mobs were too high level, but the roads weren’t safe either. Now part of that fear is gone because of my level and the fact that the off-road mobs aren’t scary. But the invasions no longer seem scary either.

    The best way to describe how I felt about early betas was that it had that sense of tension and ‘danger’ you get from an open PvP game, without the ganker attitude you get from actual human PvPers. 🙂 The invasion mobs might’ve been calling me a nub but if they did it was in machine language that I didn’t understand!

  13. Not sure if you played EQ, Pete, but I remember a place called Kithicor Woods which scared the hell out of me until I was around the 40s. It was a plain low-level zone during the day, but at night it turned into a hellish zone with undead monsters around 45-50. If you got caught traversing that at night at a low level … Gods help you 😛

    And yes, there were a few places in Rift that I remember feeling like that A: because the art in the zone was truly frightening (more along the lines of the giddy “this is so cool!” frightening) and the fact that I knew things would kill me instantly. I was out just discovering, picking up the lore books to read along the way and really had no business being in some of the zones, but I found myself hiding and shimmying through some areas to keep away from mobs. Haven’t done that in a long time. The Rifts were also pretty challenging. I had to pick and choose based on size (until I was level 50 and OPed as a Sent / Inquis / Puri 😛 If I chose poorly, I wouldn’t even get past the 2nd wave. I do remember making huge detours if a Rift happened to spawn on the road. Invasions were barely in when I played and weren’t tough at all. I could solo all the mobs that moved, but it was an interesting concept.

    Now, to be fair, much of the “holy crap I don’t want to go there because I might die” in EQ had to do with death penalty, which NO game uses a harsh one anymore. So … there’s always that. But yea, when I was leveling in alpha, there were some zones that freaked me out: mainly Gloamwood and Stillmoor.

    It’s funny because as I went through I could tell the similarities of the zone design and art, which prompted me to ask Missdoomcookie if the same teams worked on multiple zones and sure enough, the same team worked on all the zones I liked heh heh.

  14. Oh hell yeah, I remember Kithicor Woods!!

    I remember being scared in a lot of EQ actually, and you’re right a lot of it had to do with the death penalty.

    Maybe I’m ruining Rift for myself by playing and replaying the same zones due to my self-imposed cap. I’ve never set foot in Gloamwood and maybe if I did that sense of tension would return. I’m so familiar with Silverwood now that maybe I just ‘naturally’ dodge the tough bits.

    Invasions were really tough in earlier betas. They were bands of Elites that were linked. Now they’ve toned them down and de-linked them so you can pick them apart. Makes them less scary but in some ways more fun if you do happen to be alone.

  15. See I always loved being able to use mechanics to single pull mobs in EQ. I love that things aren’t linked or that some things are social and some aren’t. That makes it fun 😀 And yea, I wouldn’t play the starting areas over and over again simply because that’s where you’re going to have to start when you play the game when it comes out and if you’re in a mindset of “Damnit, I don’t want to do this again!” then the game won’t be fun. If you’ve never been to Gloamwood though … man … try to get into it in the open beta. One of the best zones I’ve ever been in. That is, of course, my own opinion 😀

    What sucks though is that I’m not sure the Defiant get to do Gloamwood. When I played there were zones specifically for each side and sometimes you’d have to share zones, like Scarwood Reach. I may have to go Guardian JUST so I get to do Gloamwood 😛

  16. Gloamwood is a great zone. Dark most of the time and spooky as it should be. The Rifts have a different character as there are not as many people in the zone. Its significantly harder than the even the upper levels of silverwood. Also the deep gullies and mountains make overland travel more difficult. You have a much higher chance of running into either a Defiant or Rift invasion group on the roads or at a quest hub. While there are npc security squads near the main town, I’ve seen rift invasion groups easily clear them in a moment and move on.

  17. I spent time this weekend on Guardian side on Faeblight as well. We were probably fighting in the same zerg at the Silverwood College. You can definitely powerlevel via Rifts and Invasions. One day, at Sanctum Watch, it was just wave after wave of invasions until all the footholds were cleared. I went from level 16 to 19 in about an hour. However, I did die several times. I was playing as Justicar/Shaman/Inquisitor and manna seems to be a problem, especially since I couldn’t get out of combat long enough to drink.

    One thing to consider I think is that once the initial release period is over, there won’t be so many people in one place at any given time. They really opened up the flood gates for this “beta” (seems more like stress testing to me, although they obviously have been making some changes) events. So, you may find that Rifting challenge that you desire once the initial crush of people have moved on.

    One of the things that has made Rift start to appeal to me is the exploration of the world. I just made it to Gloamwood before I quit playing this weekend. It brought back that “wow” factor for me, just exploring the game world. And searching for artifacts for collections just enhances that.

  18. Pingback: Rift: Stale Before Launch? | Ardwulf's Lair

  19. I’ve been playing on Faeblight, mostly Guardian side, but this weekend I rolled over on Keenblade instead to check out the mage calling. I have a level 11 elf mage on Faeblight too, but decided to start over. The major event going on Friday night/Saturday morning was decentish, got lots of xp doing it, anyway. Still have 3 shard thingies to drop off at some point if the same event starts up in beta 7. . . except I plan to be trying out more cleric stuff in that beta.

    I’m liking it more as time goes by myself. I didn’t even think about logging in to EQ2 or EVE this past weekend. Rift kinda consumed me. . . .

  20. I got two paragraphs into your post and then got annoyed.

    You’re patently WRONG. Everything that you described that didn’t happen for you, happened for me. It’s there if you look for it instead of being a whiney bitch.

    I’m unsubscribing from this blog. Everything you write is a horrible whine from a bad player.

  22. @Jennifer
    OUCH.

    But, I do get the drift. This post sounds like a jaded gamer who has been playing for years, and it is still beta.
    MMO’s at this point are proving one thing…do players like this style of gameplay or not? And if the player is jaded, should they go ahead and change their gaming style?

    I would be hard put myself to find any FPS being that much different from another FPS mechanically speaking, but they do continue to sell to that specific audience that enjoys that style of game.
    MMO’s I think are the same kind of beast now. And if a player is jaded when the game has not even launched, maybe they need to step back and see if they want to play this genre of game anymore.

    Cheers

  24. It’s a beta. There is change with every new version. Even vanilla WoW isn’t vanilla any more. I’m sure the next beta will be different still, so prejudging a game before release is always a bad thing. Wait till it’s actually out before you say no.

  25. @elementalisty And because that’s the way the market looks, then one should stop expressing opinions? While I have hardly played Rift yet, this feels like a pretty balanced post to be. Many “I might be unfair” and “things might change” etc. I haven’t gone back to read comments on Pete’s earlier posts on Rift, but did we get as many “don’t prejudge the game based on beta” on them? Also, it’s funny coming from you considering your total hate for LotRO. Perhaps you should consider dropping MMOs, if you should judge the entire genre based on one game?

    Seriously, y’all need to chill. Why not go for the rabid fanboys, that clearly are totally biased (for or against), instead of jumping on someone expressing their various opinions, carefully explaining why he didn’t enjoy Beta 6 as much as Beta 2-4?

    Once again, I’m in shock about how rude the MMO community can be to each other.

  26. I’m not surprised by Jennifer’s comment and I’ll actually cop to a certain amount of whining. Her calling someone a “bad player” is like another person calling someone an asshat. It’s just her go-to insult.

    I mean, how do you call someone who is whining about a game becoming too easy a bad player, unless you’re saying bad players are more effective than good players.

    But I guess I’m wrong about what beta is for. I thought it was about testing a game and giving feedback. Apparently it’s supposed to be about playing a game and shutting up about it?

    @Oakstout, really? I should just shut up, play the beta as a free trial and then complain when it launches?

    I’m just 1 person and maybe I’m totally the odd man out. That’s fine. But I’ve played every beta and I’ve been in the alpha for a couple weeks (but under NDA there), and there’s a marked change over time. Beta 1 was even too hardcore for me. You’d look up and there’d be literally dozens of rift mobs coming over a hill like a plague of locusts. I think at the time they either goofed or they were stressing the system.

    Beta 2 was awesome in that it hearkened back to a time where MMOs weren’t totally structured. I loved it, some people really didn’t. Very few places were really safe. If you wanted to get up to get a drink or a bio break you’d have to really think hard about where to go AFK or log out. Rifts caused a LOT of chaos and commotion and getting from Point A to Point B could become its own adventure.

    Since then, every beta has moved away from that “old school” feel to some extent. In my opinion.

    @OpenEdge – You may be surprised to hear that I actually agree with you. If Rift is going to be toned down and overly-structured so that it plays just like WoW or EQ2 or LOTRO then yeah, I’m not that interested in it… I’m tired of those games. It didn’t used to be one of those games but in trying to morph the game into something very marketable I feel like they’re diluting what made it special.

    I feel (and again, it’s just my opinion) that the Rift of Beta 2 would’ve had a mid-sized, very dedicated population of players. The more generic Rift of the recent betas will go the Warhammer route; it’ll have a great surge at launch but soon after people will realize that Rifts just collapse on their own now, invasions despawn, and they’ll take the path of least resistance and play it like a typical PvE Questing game, and after a month or two they’ll have seen everything, get bored and go back to whatever game they came from.

    That’s my opinion and I’m going to keep shouting it until launch in the hopes that Trion hears me. If enough people who loved the dangerous Beta 2 Rift game shouted, maybe they’d rethink the constant reduction in the severity of rifts and additions of convenience features that make the game feel very generic.

    Thanks very much to those of you who’re interested in a discussion, whether you agree with me or not.

  27. I love how people feel insulted when someone has a differing opinion about the game they like. I don’t recall anywhere in Pete’s post where he said, “Anyone who doesn’t see things the way I do can go Rift themselves.” It’s an OPINION. And from what I read, a pretty well thought out opinion. I just don’t totally agree with it. And holy crap, I even read the whole post…and you know what…it made me realize more why I really like the game. Because I see things a little differently than Pete does. That’s how discussion goes. And maybe, just maybe, well thought out opinions to the contrary may make Pete see the game another way.

    But then again…a troll could always come along and make us question the player base. LOL

  28. Sorry everyone, but I need make a question for one commneter here.

    Wiqd aparently is an alpha tester.

    Wiqd, the alpha NDA was lifted?

  29. My understand is Wiqd is a past alpha tester, not the one currently in progress. He was alpha tester of the now beta. That is how I think of it. I could be wrong tho.

  30. I read Jennifer’s post earlier this morning, thought “troll much?” and just ignored it. I’ve followed this blog for quite a while and while I don’t always agree with Pete’s opinions, I do respect them.

    Overall, I’ve always enjoyed the dialog here.

  31. Small sidebar…

    Peter dear, just to be clear, that Jennifer isn’t this Jennifer. 🙂

    /sidebar

    On the Rift topic, I couldn’t get past the newbie area. I wanted to, but I was sooooo bored in that “been there, done that” way, I just haven’t been able to bring myself to log in and keep going. So chalk me up as one that is bored with the genre in general (I also let my WoW account lapse) and Rift, at least in the starter areas where one should get hooked, isn’t different enough to suck me in. I expect after a few months break, I’ll re-engage and maybe Rift will be where I go for another year of happy MMOG goodness. Everything was beautiful and interesting so I totally don’t fault the game, the ennui is all mine to own.

  32. Oh, believe me I knew that wasn’t you!! That other Jennifer is this often-angry person I used to talk to on Twitter. Long since blocked; I have no idea why she was here but I’m glad she’s gone.

    I am sorry Rift didn’t grab you though. What doesn’t (it seems) come through in my posts is that even though my enthusiasm is flagging, it just means I’ve gone from “OMG this is the game I’ve been waiting my whole life for!” to “Huh, well this seems like it’ll be a decent game.”

    They do have the challenge of getting people over that hump of the first 10 or so levels feeling pretty ordinary; I know people have faulted the devs for that, saying that a game should expose you to everything it has to offer in the first hour. But while I agree with that in theory I don’t know how they’d do it here. The ‘wow’ factor really requires you to be comfortable in your in-game skin before they throw it at you.

    Anyway maybe after a break you can give it another go. 🙂

  33. Pingback: Postcards From Telara: On The Other Hand… « MMO Gamer Chick

  34. @Jo�o Carlos

    I was an alpha tester before the betas were released, back when there was only alpha. I still have access to the alpha shard and my characters are still there, though once the beta came out I scaled WAY back on my testing.

    I don’t like betas due to what they’ve become in the mainstream MMOs. In alpha I could submit a bug report and something would be fixed in like a day or two. It was really neat to be able to go through and feel like I’m helping to shape the game. Betas don’t do that, for me at least, so I leave that to the people who wish to try out the game for free. It may not be the right way to look at it, but it’s my way 😉

    Yes the NDA is still in effect on the Alpha shard; it even tells you right when you log in 😛 And to tell you the truth, I think my account is ONLY flagged for alpha.

  35. Ah, the internet. It just loves to turn people into jackasses. Or perhaps it just gives them avenue to express their true colors. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Agree or disagree, it’s an opinion, neither right nor wrong. I’ve never really understood the undying loyalty people can feel towards a game, especially one that isn’t even released yet. Don’t insult the precious! It burns! :p

  36. There’s no right or wrong in this. I can say I felt much of the same as you Pete, as I went back to the earlier zones to help my husband level a bit by doing some rifts. On the other hand, going back to the level 30 area, I was able to get those tough times with rifts again. I asked you earlier today what level you got to out of curiosity because the biggest factor, I think, is the population difference between the saturated starting area and the more sparsely populated later areas, which is one of the points I contemplated in my last Rift post. I hope it and that first screenshot of mine can give you some hope that Rift can still be a dangerous place to be 😀 Still, this gets me thinking this game is going to be ultra population sensitive, which is going bring its own set of obstacles.

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