RIFT

Well, I was feeling a little unenthusiastic, so I went to check how much longer I had on my subscription.
Upon checking I discovered it had expired a week prior, as apparently I made some error on my billing.
Which implied I hadn't logged on in a week ..
I verified that I was indeed, locked out, and presumably had been for a week. I took that as validation of my unenthusiasm.

Overall, RIFT runs very well on my system in the stock High graphics option. This is a big change for the better from beta. Lag is either much less prevalent in this game than most, or much better disguised. I'm guessing the latter. Either way, it's a minor issue.

For comparison, my 3 year old system is an Intel i7-920, 6 GB of triple channel 1333 MHz RAM, an ATI HD4870 1 GB GDDR5, and. 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA2 HDD. Near cutting edge at the time, but pretty middle of the road now.

Aside from DDO, I think RIFT is the best MMO out there right now, at least at low level.  The graphics and interface are truly excellent, best of breed, and there is always something fun to do which benefits your character, your guild, or both.  Performance issues from beta have been largely cleaned up and RIFT handles large groups of players on screen at once better than any other MMO I've ever seen.  World PvP like, the Siege of Xanten we all recall from Shadowbane, should be eminently playable rather than the canonical slide show;  a must for a PvP based MMO of this sort.  Also something no other game has ever delivered.

If the next 20 levels are anywhere near as good as the first 20, they have a very good game.

All that said, it's still an MMO.  Without the Warfronts and world PvP, it's still a treadmill.  It lacks the city building and sense of something to protect that made Shadowbane stand out.  I'm really looking forward to finding out if the world PvP holds up to comparison with DAoC, but I haven't seen it yet.  The things make make DDO unique, hand crafted dungeons and active combat, still make it a better game IMO.

Even absent my particular issues with WoW however, given a choice between it and RIFT, I'd go with RIFT in a heartbeat.  It's simply a better game.  If anything, my assessment must be considered through the lens of chemo induced exhaustion.  It's probably better than I give it credit for.

This was a fun, pretty basic dungeon, with art and graphics that were breathtaking.  For the most part, only the first boss was a challenge for us as we learned to play, the other three were pretty straight-forward, although I suspect without AOE healing the final boss would be much trickier.

Bottom line: the game is good looking, but there was nothing revolutionary in the mechanics, strategy, or design of the adventure.  Some nice plot development and voice acting made the dungeon (and Rift) one of the more immersive MMO experiences I've had.

Remember how Blizzard made you grind a kazillion kobolds for one lousy green item at low level, and when you put it on you looked, instead of like a naked diseased leper, like a poorly clothed diseased leper?  None of that here.  Between Warfronts, Rifts, Quests, Crafting, and Dungeons there are many ways to gear and improve your character, both cosmetically and practically.  I heartily approve.

If Trion continues developing the game as they have to this point (and I see no reason to believe they won't), it will be an enourmous success.

I'd love to get back into a fairly regular play group with everyone over here, but I don't think this is it. I'm still enjoying LotRO more than any MMO to date (except maybe SWG), and with SWTOR on the horizon for late spring or early summer, it doesn't seem a good time to try something else. I put too much money into AoC to invest again in a game that doesn't sound interesting before I play it. Besides, if I want some extensive playtime when SWTOR launches, I have to get a this dissertation done.

So, why so much yammering over RIFT (and DCUO) the last few weeks?  Why am I, a self professed MMO burnout now excited about a pair of games not named DDO, especially given the similarities between RIFT and WoW?  Basically, both of these games are a lot of fun and bring things to the table other games fail to provide.  It's my hope that one or the other might entice us into a more active weekly play group than we've had for awhile.  I'll leave off about DCUO... basically it's just fun all the way around, technical (chat) warts included.  However, it's group size is too small for us anyway.  I recommend it to anyone who even vaguely liked CoH.  It's hands down better.  'Nuff said.

As for RIFT, the random events with public groups, PvP/RvR focus, gorgeous graphics, robust engine, polished UI, heavy convenience features, and seemingly very well thought out character build system make it have something for everyone.  Rick and I had a blast in the rift events we took part in, despite our marginal effectiveness in some of them.  The questing is straight forward and all too WoW-like.  More recent WoW-like rather than the old gather this that and the other thing, though that's here too.  Dungeons are supposedly quite cool and Runes of Magic hard.  I really don't know anything about PvP yet, other than that they're going to have some issues with too many people playing the Defiant faction, and too many people playing Archers and long range Mages.  What else is new.  Overall, it reminds me of an updated DAoC, with far more color and interesting content.

It's easily the most fun I've had in a fantasy MMORPG since the sub-20th levels of AoC (which were awesome.)  I know that went badly, and this could too, but it feels to me like a game we all might enjoy playing.  I hope we can get a least a solid 5 man play group and join a PST/CST casual guild in game.  There will be at least one more beta event before launch.  Use the keys I sent out (from Rick) and give it a try.  IMO, this is a very fun game right now, with the potential to be much better as we get into RvR and dungeons.

5 person maximum group size.  I posted a thread on the forums requesting input on the impact of raid groups on XP and quest advancement.  Staying *FAR* away from any class discussions.

I'm a bit more pessimistic than Rick (as usual), but I see a lot to like in this game.  I am similarly positive to it as I was to Age of Conan, and we all know that ended badly.  That said, my first impressions were all confirmed and the game generally got better as I progressed through the newbie arc.  Lot's of fun, some very pretty images, cool storyline, and some very nice convenience features.

Though the inventory system appears to be just like WoW's, the rest of the UI is as good as I've seen in any game.  Possibly best of breed.

Quests are very basic and short, much like WoW, but the object and color that goes with them is much better.  The lore is not quite Shadowbane quality, but it's much better than most other games.

The character build system forces you to stick with combining 3 of 8 different subclasses within the main class (Fighter, Rogue, Mage, Cleric) you choose.  Rick is correct that you may be best of choosing to focus everything in one class, in which case every "Pure Fighter" would be pretty much like every other.  That doesn't appear to be the way of things to this point, however, and if you're patient it seems to offer very nice ways to differentiate yourself.  I haven't respec'd yet, but they'd best have a robust system for it since the opportunity to gimp yourself is almost DDO class.  Bottom line, I like all the detail.

My one Rift experience was scripted, but it was quite cool.  I'm really looking forward to seeing a dungeon, but if it's true that you don't get to see one until 20th level, I likely won't see one in beta.  I don't really care to wear all the new off the game if I plan to buy it.  Right now, that looks very likely.

Good game.  The question is, can we get enough others to have interest that we could have a functional guild?

If you want to try this out, e-mail me and I'll send you Rick's VIP beta key (with his permission.)

On first glance, RIFT is promising.  The combat is WAY too much like WoW, IMO.  Quests too.   Most people don't mind that as much as I do.  So far, no gathering grapes or fighting rats.  Initially, the character building looks really cool.  The graphics are gorgeous.  Seems as though inventory management is minimal.  The interface is very slick and well done.

The downside is performance.  They just introduced AA in Beta 5, but it looks like folks with cutting edge systems are lucky to hit 30 fps peak, and 15-20 fps average.  Mins was closer to 5-15 fps with a 1GB Radeon HD4870.  Really poor.  I'll try the Low Quality Renderer and turning off AA and Anisotropic filtering when the servers come back up.  Looks like even with heavy tuning, performance is going to require a lot more H/W firepower than I have.

EDIT: The Low Quality Render setting made the game quite playable, at the expense of a lot of eye candy.  I made 5th level and now have Druid and Justicar Souls, opening up both power trees to my character.  I get one more, eventually, and can theoretically have even more, but only three are active at a time.  My character is melee focussed, with a healing fairy pet and spells that make his melee attacks more powerful, as well as healing himself and his allies.  The Druid class causes his melee attacks to benefit from his mana stats, as opposed to just physical stats.  I have no healing "spells" at this point.  Inventory and equipment is very much like WoW.  No repairs necessary, AFAIK.  The interface is even slicker and more polished than I thought.

Seems like a game I might enjoy playing.  Need to check out grouping and dungeons before I could commit, but it's looking pretty solid.