| Rift - PC Posted: Coming from someone who has been playing all type of MMORPG games from MUD to WoW and all that are in between. RIFT is a great game by its own rights. It's been a long time since the MMO community has a very successful launch. I'm not going to compare features between this game and that game, but here are the good and the bad from my playing experience.
Default UI is a great. Although many of the goodies are turned off by default, you can easily turn them on through the interface setting. No need to go to addon website to install extra stuff. Things like target of target, AoE auto loot, auto sell gray items, etc. The UI layout editor is very easy to use. I'm actually really happy with it out of the box. It's not perfect, but a great starting point.
Public groups. I thought it was dumb when I first saw it, but there's a plus sign above everyone's avatar. You can click this and invite yourself to create an auto-group with the person. This is great when you see someone doing the quest you're looking to do, you can just auto group and you both and help each other. When you're done, just leave and be on your way. You can turn this feature off if you don't like a random stranger joining you. This also works for Public Group when taking down world events, such as RIFTs and Invasions. If there are multiple public groups, it merges them in to one.
Warfronts. Essentially, it's instance battlegrounds. The queues are very quick since its cross-servers. You need to be at least level 10 to do your first Warfront. There are brackets from 10-19, 20-29, and so on. It's pretty much the same old same old here, so nothing exciting about it. The experience gain is enough that you could level from just playing the warfronts if you choose to. I don't recommend it though, it gets boring pretty fast if playing it back to back... to back. Plus, you'll be pretty weak because you can't get gear efficiently if this is all you're doing.
Rifts and Invasions are pretty cool at first. After awhile it's just a zerg fest. I don't mind doing this, but again, in moderation. The blue and purple tokens you get from it are zone specific, so spend those to get yourself stronger. Not a lot of experience from invasions, so you can't level off of it like you can from warfronts. If you farm the invasion currencies you can buy items to make yourself stronger.
Quests are pretty much a straight shot. What is great about them is that you get pretty decent gears from following quests line. It will continually upgrade your gear as you go along. So this is the most effective way to get decent gear if you're playing by yourself or with a friend.
Dungeons are also pretty much like other games, but a lot prettier! It's hard to describe in words. The first instance is the Realm of the Fae, and the winter top mountain is pretty amazing, a must see! I won't spoil it.
This brings me to another point. The graphic and game effects in this game look very nice. Warrior's cleave bring up dust from the ground looks amazing. If your computer can handle ultra setting, the game is very pretty. I enjoy the graphic a lot. The last game I play that I thought was pretty was LotRO, this beats it.
Sound effects is pretty good, nothing that stands out. The script events and voice over is a nice touch, but nothing special. I turn music off when playing so I can't comment on that.
The loot is pretty also straight forward. The nice touch here is that all souls in the class use the same stat no matter what you're doing. For example, all clerics will use WIS gear. So I won't have to haul STR/DEX gear when tanking, WIS when healing, and INT/DEX when trying to DPS. All cleric uses WIS as the main attribute and that gets converted depending on the souls. If I'm tanking as Cleric Justica my WIS converts to STR for tanking. All I have to worry about is if I want to tank with 2H weapon or 1H and shield. Pretty awesome!
The Classes and Souls system is also nice, because it's very flexible. You can also purchase new roles to swap out from Tank to Healer on the fly. Since you're using pretty much the same gear from one role to another, it's painless.
In my opinion, this game doesn't bring anything new or innovative. It takes all the things other games done well and implement them in a nice package. There are a lot of improvements to be made. Like I said, it's not perfect, but it's a great start.
NOTE: If you are looking to buy this game, I recommend getting the Digital Collector's edition for $60. An extra $10 will get you a mount right off the bat (no level restriction) for all new characters that you make. The cheapest mount you can get is about 2.5 plat. I didn't get 2.5 plat until about level 20 from a normal play. I created 3 characters to level 20, and it's pretty much the same pace. Having the mount as soon as you can get to the mailbox is awesome. |
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