Rift impressions
I took some time to write up my thoughts on Rift after playing this weekend, so I wanted to share them with you guys here (they're also at the Rifts beta forums, with
more specific feedback):
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So I played Rift this weekend. It's enjoyable for what it is, and it's innovative within it's paradigm.
I liked the rifts system. At any given time there are usually *some* rifts open somewhere. Sometimes an all-on assault happens from one of the planes and you have mobs from all over the map just marchine to (and through) major towns. Places you sell off in; places you train in; places you spawn might spawn in. Opening up the (M)ap, you can see the location of the parties, their plane affiliation (death, life, guardian, etc), and possibly their level and/or named mobs. If you get near enough to one of these roving bands, an ad-hoc quest will pop up and give you directions on how to kill it. You can close the rifts as well by dealing with the problem at the source.
Of course, it's unlikely you'll be able to do so alone. This is where their innovative public grouping system comes in. It's more like a "public defensive raid" system, since oftentimes, even in beta, there were 10-20 people involved in sealing a rift. It is possible to clear one by yourself, sometimes.
The class sytem in Rift is pretty cool too. You choose one of 4 base classes (warrior, rogue, cleric, mage), and within that archtype you get to choose 3 sub-classes for your character. None of these classes is weighted more than another. In fact, you can respec your point distribution within them on the cheap at your trainers, so you can freely experiment and change how you want to play. Not only that, but you can also gain a second role as well, allowing you to keep a configuration for grouping seperate and easily switchable from your solo configuration. You can do this up to 4 times, though while the first one costs 30 gold, the second costs over 3 plat (my character never had more than 2.5p at level 17).
It's definitely a "running game". There's no quick travel on the maps, though you can get mounts that increase your run speed.
The questing system is definitely a dual-edged sword. On one hand it allows you to level more quickly than aimlessly killing mobs, provides you will currency and item rewards, and gives you a direction. On the other hand, because it's more effecient than grouping up and killing stuff, people tend to quest by themselves instead of grouping up. This makes it more of a solo game than I've experienced in the past.
Healeritis is definitely in effect when in dungeon-land, too. If you're up against any kind of serious challenge in a small group, you're going to want a healer or you're going to get eaten (at least, that's what my first dungeon experience was like). Our tank couldn't stand up against a single mob 2 levels above him in the dungeon, even with my geomancer heals (a decent heal, but on a 10 second timer). He just got chewed up and spit out before the mob was even at 80%. And this was a roamer near the start of the instanced dungeon!
A lot of people in game were comparing it to WoW. "This game stole from WoW!" was a consistent refrain on the open channels. It was, of course, retorted all the way back to MUDs. It's the evolution of a genre, with innovation sprinkled in. The game world is more persistent because of the effects of the rifts.
Death was nothing. No real loss; just a bit of coin, a little inconvenience. You spawn back up at the nearest shrine, and have to pay the piper (I mean "healer") after a certain number of deaths. Once I got blown off the edge of a cliff fighting a rift, and died. Trying to get my corpse, I couldn't get back up to the top, so I just drown myself (which took a while) rather than try and find my way back (I'd been down there before in previous explorations and wasn't inclined to do it again). I'd say there are only two death penalties that make any sense: item loss, and experience loss. It's a mistake to give any way to soften those blows if your game gives them, because then you have people begging for/demanding a rez. Dying in Rift is not a risky proposition. I suppose you *can* thank WoW for that. The death penalty in Guild Wars is kind of a happy middle ground: % power loss until you retreat from the instance, which will slowly regenerate (and stack, should you die again).
Lots of people had pets. I think there's a class in each archtype (except perhaps warrior?) that has one. My dom/chloro/warlock didn't have a pet. I was able to solo fairly effectively as each of those classes (though my dom was 1/3 chloro, and not maxed dom). As a Dominator I never had mana problems. Warlock and Chloromancer did have issues with running out of mana.
I suppose at this point I'm not really interested in a "must have healer" game. I've played a healer in DAoC and GW, and you mostly spend your time looking at those little green bars. That's your game: filling up those bars. No situational awareness like CC, no real regard for what's around you: just filling up those bars. It's not a bad minigame, and you're certainly appreciated/required, and you can allow a group to do things (especially if you're skilled) that they would have no chance of doing otherwise. So you get some appreciation factor as well.
There was a main questline for the Defiant faction, but it wasn't like what you'd find in Guild Wars or DDO Online. No cutscenes, spoken word, or driven story. More like a golden-colored questline you're free to just click-through on and do whatever "kill or collect" quest they set you about. Speaking of collections, they have sparkling items on the ground similar to what you'd find in EQ2. You pick them up and can put them in some kind of collection, which you'll get some kind of subsequent benefit from once it's complete. No control over what you get though: what's the point? Completely driven by luck of the draw.
I wasn't walking into Rift with any expectations (I thought it looked cool and heard some cool things about it, so I signed up for the beta and got an email), so I'm not disappointed in it. No hopes dashed or anything. I'm still looking forward to Guild Wars 2 and Firefall though; both of those seem to have promise.
It will be a few hours before our guild is up and running...
