Rift

[Harkonis]

...Everything I read and experienced in Beta 4 pointed to same server only for Warfronts.

Pretty sure when you see a player in a warfont with a name like Elmo@Byriel it is telling you their server.  No need for that unless they are cross server.

you are correct.


I played a Warden for one Warfront.  Sad that I got caught on video  Kato and I were little fish in the pond for that tier and I think the tiers are a bit wide in Rift.  5 level tiers would probably be better for balance, but then you'd have bigger pop issues.

edit:  watched the video, a bit confusing, but that's not my warden, but rather my rogue with the title Warden .  Now to find Kato in there, because where there is one, there is the other.

[Elmo]

Agree ten levels is a lot without some kind of bolstering like in WAR.

[Harkonis]

I was quite surprised that there wasn't the hp/stat boost when entering so that abilities were the only difference.  I think that was definitely the next step in battleground evolution and worked well in WAR.

[jersoc]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

[Lockdown]

Hark:  Have you played enough of a dps warrior to know how well the melee rogue compares in damage overall?

[Harkonis]

At the moment melee rogue dps is as far down on the chain as it gets sadly.  The devs have admitted there is a problem and that they have some proposed fixes to test starting with the next beta. 

As of Beta 4, all the other classes have comparable or better burst and better sustained dps as melee rogues.  Ranged rogues are between good and overpowered on the dps scale.

The need to either raise actual damage numbers by a lot, or change energy usage.  I fear if they do both then melee rogue dps might be overpowered.

Keep in mind that on 1-2 mob pulls you'd be hard pressed to find any calling or soul combo that doesn't do just fine.  My assassin spec'd melee rogue did just fine if I got the stealth opener, but the problem is that it almost never happened due to the way stealth works.  Then there is the added problem of the xp per minute or having to stealth and single pull. 

I'll wait and see what they do with it this next test.  At least they seem to understand the problem.  Oddly one of the best tanking calling/soul combos is the rogue one.  So that's pretty funny to me.  Warrior does melee dps better, rogue does tank better. lmao

[Lockdown]

Yep.  That's what I'm hearing as well.  I played a melee rogue almost exclusively in my limited time with beta, so I had nothing to compare it to.  I'm excited to see what they come up with, because the class is too fun to not play.

[Harkonis]

you can notice in the pvp video above that I'm standing at range attacking.  I switched to Bard as my primary source of damage with assassin for when they get close.

[Blackadar]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

It should.  Many of the PvP developers for Rift came from WAR.

[Wargus]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

It should.  Many of the PvP developers for Rift came from WAR.

Did the other half come from WOW? 

Don't get me wrong, the game is really fun (I'm pre-ordered already), but chunks of it are blatantly copied.  The interface is almost exactly the same, death is exactly the same, the rogue mechanic is exactly the same. One one hand I'm sitting here rooting for the new game, and on the other I'm sitting here saying, dude, really?

[MythicalMino]

well...they did add something a little different to "death"...I forget exactly what it is called (soul walk or something like that). It has an hour cooldown, but you can "rez" nearly immediately. Unless that is something only for the beta?

[Harkonis]

Soulwalk, it's like a free death once an hour.

I'd rather them copy stuff and do it right, then not copy stuff and end up like STO, CO, DC or any of the others that are very much not 'floating my boat' so to speak.

[Razgon]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

It should.  Many of the PvP developers for Rift came from WAR.

Did the other half come from WOW? 

Don't get me wrong, the game is really fun (I'm pre-ordered already), but chunks of it are blatantly copied.  The interface is almost exactly the same, death is exactly the same, the rogue mechanic is exactly the same. One one hand I'm sitting here rooting for the new game, and on the other I'm sitting here saying, dude, really?

aye, some of the windows, names, buttons, all come from WoW and other games, directly copied - And the death itself with the white world? wow - rip-off...

[Elmo]

New podcast:

http://www.riftpodcast.com/podcast/2011/01/17/podcast-27-pvp-openworld-warfronts-and-longevity.html

[Blackadar]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

It should.  Many of the PvP developers for Rift came from WAR.

Did the other half come from WOW? 

Don't get me wrong, the game is really fun (I'm pre-ordered already), but chunks of it are blatantly copied.  The interface is almost exactly the same, death is exactly the same, the rogue mechanic is exactly the same. One one hand I'm sitting here rooting for the new game, and on the other I'm sitting here saying, dude, really?

And that would be different from most any other MMO released in the last few years how?  The WoW interface is the de-facto standard in MMOs and you'd be nuts as a developer to stray too far from that.  It'd be like straying from the WASD mechanic in a shooter - it really is just that prevalent.  The death penalty is also pretty standard too.  The combo points mechanic is prevalent throughout the game and you'll find something very similar with warriors too.  The good ones borrow, the great ones steal.   

If you noticed on my past posts, I've said the game was pretty derivative.  Now you know what I'm talking about. 

[Elmo]

Agree.  And Rift as a whole is much greater than the sum of the borrowed parts.

[Aganazer]

that bg looks really neat. reminds me a lot of war's.

It should.  Many of the PvP developers for Rift came from WAR.

Did the other half come from WOW? 

Don't get me wrong, the game is really fun (I'm pre-ordered already), but chunks of it are blatantly copied.  The interface is almost exactly the same, death is exactly the same, the rogue mechanic is exactly the same. One one hand I'm sitting here rooting for the new game, and on the other I'm sitting here saying, dude, really?

aye, some of the windows, names, buttons, all come from WoW and other games, directly copied - And the death itself with the white world? wow - rip-off...

Wait, wasn't that ripped off from UO?

[Blackadar]

Agree.  And Rift as a whole is much greater than the sum of the borrowed parts.

On this I'm not yet convinced, even though I've preordered the game.  I think it will be at higher levels, with the bigger Rift invasions, more PvP warfronts, more open PvP, supposedly some great PvE instances and so forth.  But I've not yet seen it.  I've seen enough to be encouraged and that's it.

Wait, wasn't that ripped off from UO?

Well, WoW's is tinged blue and not just black and white.  

[Harkonis]

I put in 30 hours in a 3 days period.  I'm definitely feeling it.

[Blackadar]

One thing I'm encouraged about...no mods or add-ons (or so it appears).  While I don't mind UI add-ons in WoW, I tend to dislike things like Omen, DBM and the like.  They've made the game too easy.  Instead of learning the encounters, DBM tells you exactly what's coming and sometimes what you need to do.  Instead of developing a 6th sense regarding aggro, now every lousy tank and priest knows when they're about to pull aggro. 

It was areas like these were good players tended to distinguish themselves.  A great tank or priest innately knew when they were about to lose/grab aggro and took steps accordingly.  Now, it's more about gear and less about the skill or instance knowledge, especially in 5 man instances.  I thought they were great at first, but over time I've come to despise most mods.

[Harkonis]

I like visual mods for the UI, but I agree that most other mods seem to take away from player responsibility.  I do wish there was a 'sell all grey loot' mod for Rift already though...

[Wargus]

Agree.  And Rift as a whole is much greater than the sum of the borrowed parts.

Which is why I've pre-ordered it.  I love Shakespeare's works and he stole heavily from others, I have no moral qualms loving Rift too      I just find it funny they didn't disguise the borrowed aspects a bit more, don't the guardians even have a floaty ghost to bring you back to life in the graveyards?

That said, I'd rather a game borrow, beg, or steal what works and focus their brainpower on a few new things than create an entire new engine that sucks. 

[rittchard]

Agree.  And Rift as a whole is much greater than the sum of the borrowed parts.

On this I'm not yet convinced, even though I've preordered the game.  I think it will be at higher levels, with the bigger Rift invasions, more PvP warfronts, more open PvP, supposedly some great PvE instances and so forth.  But I've not yet seen it.  I've seen enough to be encouraged and that's it.

Speaking as a casual gamer who was only able to get a few hours in during the beta, I found Rift much more engaging (particularly the character system) and the world much more immersive than the majority of MMORPGs I've tried in the past few years.  And I have tried A LOT of them.  I like the way they've blended a lot of the elements from various games, but I also think they managed to have their own very unique feel.  As I might have mentioned earlier, I really liked the way that just in the moment I started feeling like the game might be too traditional grind/quest, a rift opened literally at my feet and suddenly it was like a different game.  It looked like the game systems were all blended very well (traditional solo questing, rift fights, PvP, dungeons) to always give you options on what you wanted to do.

[Blackadar]

Agree.  And Rift as a whole is much greater than the sum of the borrowed parts.

On this I'm not yet convinced, even though I've preordered the game.  I think it will be at higher levels, with the bigger Rift invasions, more PvP warfronts, more open PvP, supposedly some great PvE instances and so forth.  But I've not yet seen it.  I've seen enough to be encouraged and that's it.

Speaking as a casual gamer who was only able to get a few hours in during the beta, I found Rift much more engaging (particularly the character system) and the world much more immersive than the majority of MMORPGs I've tried in the past few years.  And I have tried A LOT of them.  I like the way they've blended a lot of the elements from various games, but I also think they managed to have their own very unique feel.  As I might have mentioned earlier, I really liked the way that just in the moment I started feeling like the game might be too traditional grind/quest, a rift opened literally at my feet and suddenly it was like a different game.  It looked like the game systems were all blended very well (traditional solo questing, rift fights, PvP, dungeons) to always give you options on what you wanted to do.

I tend to agree this is the case.  I haven't preordered a MMO since Warhammer Online...that's what, almost 2 1/2 years ago?  So that says something positive about Rift.  But I'm not going head over heels on this one.  The last couple of MMOs I've played have made me a bit jaded.  There's a lot to like in Rift.  But whether it offers enough of a change in gameplay so that I don't get a "been there, done that" feeling and quit around level 35 remains to be seen.  I think it will, or I wouldn't buy it.  But we'll find out somewhere around mid March/early April.

Funny, I also had a rift form right in front of me while questing.  It taught me to get the hell out of there and wait for reinforcements. 

[Elmo]

Have not had that happen but I've had several "oh shit" moments when I looked around and saw an invasion group coming right at me.  Usually got out of the way in time but not always.  That and logging in at a camp in the middle of a foothold.  Yikes.   

[CeeKay]

All this talk about the rifts and footholds is making me miss Tabula Rasa. There was nothing like logging in to find the base you were in had fallen while you were offline.

[Blackadar]

All this talk about the rifts and footholds is making me miss Tabula Rasa. There was nothing like logging in to find the base you were in had fallen while you were offline.

Well, you're going to get that in Rift.  Along with a MMO that actually works. 

[Lockdown]

All this talk about the rifts and footholds is making me miss Tabula Rasa. There was nothing like logging in to find the base you were in had fallen while you were offline.

Me too CK.  But honestly.... it is implemented better in Rift.

[Wargus]

As opposed to Tabula Rasa, everything is better implemented in Rift.

[Harkonis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnSk68-2fcI&feature=player_embedded

entertaining video of a melee rogue.  He seems to think he's hot shit from his posts on the forums, but keep in mind that all of his opponents are either unresponsive at the beginning, play very poorly, or are outlevelled by him.  Some of them did all of the above.  All I was able to deduce from the video is that if you are good at the game, and your opponent is bad at the game, your tools don't have to be great to win. 

[skystride]

well...they did add something a little different to "death"...I forget exactly what it is called (soul walk or something like that). It has an hour cooldown, but you can "rez" nearly immediately. Unless that is something only for the beta?

Sorry but I think LOTRO works exactly like this 

[MythicalMino]

does it? I don't remember it being like that when I played....but, I could be wrong.

[skystride]

does it? I don't remember it being like that when I played....but, I could be wrong.

I'm playing it right now.  You get the option to rez on the the spot but if you choose that option, then you can't do it again until it resets.

[Blackadar]

does it? I don't remember it being like that when I played....but, I could be wrong.

They changed it some time back to include that option.  It wasn't in the game on release.

[MythicalMino]

ah, I see...I haven't played LotRO in quite some time.

[Cragmyre]

does it? I don't remember it being like that when I played....but, I could be wrong.

I'm playing it right now.  You get the option to rez on the the spot but if you choose that option, then you can't do it again until it resets.

Some instances don't allow the rez on the spot - also, now with the F2P, you can buy another rez immediately if you want.  This is about LotRO, right?  If not, umm, oops. 

[Teggy]

does it? I don't remember it being like that when I played....but, I could be wrong.

I'm playing it right now.  You get the option to rez on the the spot but if you choose that option, then you can't do it again until it resets.

Some instances don't allow the rez on the spot - also, now with the F2P, you can buy another rez immediately if you want.  This is about LotRO, right?  If not, umm, oops. 

Really? Wow, how much do they charge for a res? Do you put a quarter in the side of your computer?

[Elmo]

Server Maintenance 1/19
Hi, All-

Our platform servers will be undergoing maintenance tomorrow, Jan 19, from 12:00 Noon CST until 2:00pm CST. During this time the forums will be down and all account management (new account, purchase options, EULA, etc) will be unavailable.

Thanks for your patience!

Cindy Bowens
Sr. Community Manager
Rift

[Soulchilde]

Just got my beta codes from Amazon.  Guess I will try this to see if it will draw me in

[ericb]

Just got my beta codes from Amazon.  Guess I will try this to see if it will draw me in

In six more days anyway