Thinking about giving Rift a go, a couple quick questions.

[Puremallace]

I just purchased it yesterday and I should be receiving my copy in the mail tomorrow or the next day as well (since I didn't feel like downloading 10 gigs since my connection isn't the fastest), I'm definitely looking forward to it after reading various posts and peoples thoughts on it! Lemme know if ya need a leveling partner

Just to warn you in about 9 days the "streaming client" thing is going live and that is a 9+ gig download, but you can play the game while it downloads.

[BurningSkies2018]

Thanks pure! My connection is decently fast, but I do multiple things with my connection and my fiance uses the connection for college work so I don't like to just let downloads run wild. Thanks for the heads up however!

[Fencers]

Well that answer is easy. It has questing, so they use the word grind because they do not have a wide vocabulary. SO they grind and people think "Aion" and it is beyond the opposite. They should be more accurate and say "less varied" or mostly quest based.

What they leave out is if you rush and just do dungeons you can hit 50 in 4 days....lol huge grind AMIRIGHT? What people seem to obviously forget is in Rift you are rewarded for exploring. So just go off the path a climb a mountain and you might find a zone puzzle, artifact, or hidden treasure chest.

They need to introduce fishing faster, so it gives people more of a reason to leave the beaten path. They are so brainwashed by WoW and TOR version of a completely dead world that the shit literally makes no sense to them.

To be fair, there is a lot of opportunity for wandering in World of Warcraft too. The overall questing structure in World of Warcraft is a lot less linear than Rift. I do agree Rift leveling is super fast. Also that it has slightly more variation than World of Warcraft.

Not really fair to dog Warcraft's structure which is 90% of Rift's directed questing minus rifts/DE.

[Pharidan]

To be honest, if not for the fact that my guild mates (whom I've known well prior to WoW) didn't still play WoW, I'd still be playing Rift. No matter how good the game is that's my main priority.

Having said that, Rift is very well done. The devs are shockingly attentive and respond very quickly if there are issues. By far the best response I've ever seen.

Not sure that anyone answered your original question regarding customization. Yes, absolutely. Far more so than WoW offers.

I second the Cleric suggestion. If you want a 'Oh. My. God. This. Must. Be. Cheating.' experience, do some research on a 'Duracell Cleric' build. It's just disgusting, and by 'disgusting' I mean so fun it should get you banned. Basically it's an AoE damage monster that also heals you, so you can kill huge groups with no downtime aside from what it takes you to loot. If you try to use the spec in raids you will likely get kicked out as there are much better options for that, but for grinding or farming it can't be beat.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Think of questing as one of many options for leveling up.

You can quest, you can grind, level through BGs, rifts and zone events, dungeons, or miscellaneous little things. The questing itself isn't a grind per se, it's simply closer to the Burning Crusade era of questing, without having to kill 30 of each sort of mob.

I've played through the first 30 levels on both Guardians and Defiant, and I much preferred the Guardian questing due to the atmosphere of the zones. By level 30 both factions use the same zones, but there's a definite difference between the leveling path for the first 28 or so levels. I only mention this because the 'personality' of the zones can add or detract from your enthusiasm for questing. Guardians have the better early zones, the Defiant have the more interesting faction...IMHO.

[Pharidan]

I'd never tried Guardian. Interesting that it's such a different experience.

One thing I forgot to mention before - When you hit max level here (or what was max when I played) you're rewarded with something that makes you feel very special. I don't wish to spoil the surprise, but I was (forgive the pun) wowed.

[Tonystark]

Also, don't flip out about the learning curve. There is a bunch of lingo that I still don't understand. The planar attunement is quiet a bit to swallow when you hit 50. It's truely a grind if you dwell upon it.

[Pharidan]

The planar attunement is quiet a bit to swallow when you hit 50. It's truely a grind if you dwell upon it.

I understand where you're coming from, but I appreciated the ability to still advance, even after hitting the level cap.

[Deleted]

Speaking to someone here who was in your situation last month.

I Downloaded and installed rift, i made a mage
I loved the levelling, only found 43-45 dragging cause i just did Fall of the Lantern Hook 20x with some mates late at night cause i couldnt be bothered to quest.

I have a total of 3days played now on my mage.
I joined in my first raids last night and today (full GSB, and DH) and managed to snatch myself the relic staff off Greenscale :P

Let me tell you, there is never a "grinding feeling" unless you are determined to make 50million exp asap.... Everything is enjoyable, difficult, you get to play specs you love and you get to join in a community which is nice, theres only a few elitist idiots about, and they quickly shut up when they realise your out dpsing them.

So dont worry about not enjoying it, its really fun
Dont worry about asshats, because they are always there
Dont worry about grinding, you do whatever you like, theres hella loads to do
Dont worry about being bored, the devs update constantly and give you new things all the time

And dont worry about clearing all bosses in 1 night, you wont get into a HK guild until you are serious about it and geared for it

[Weiland]

1. From what I have found in order to upgrade from a trial to a full version of the game it's only $4.99 (and $14.99/mo subscription), is this correct?

2. What's the community like in Rift? It seems like the WoW community has gone to crap during Cataclysm, I've noticed a lot more immature people trolling and just acting like asshats in general.

3. A few people I've talked to say that leveling is a huge grind. Understandably, every MMO is going to feel like a grind when leveling, but is there anything cool that might stand out in Rift that might make the grind a little more entertaining?

4. How is the end-game in Rift (raiding?)? Lately I have been getting insanely bored with raiding in WoW (pretty much everything post t11 Cataclysm).

5. What's your favorite class that you have played in Rift?

Thanks in advance for all the info

Just going to skip the 1st question a move along to the more meatier parts of the post.

2.
The community is on the most part pretty cool it has the 1.0 - TBC atmosphere, tho there are some trolls here and there which can easily be reported/ignored all in the same click of the mouse.

3.
Leveling is a bit of a task, but you already knew that. Trion has not, nor do i hope they increase the rate @ which one levels. There are plenty of things to do on your way to 50. Rifting, crafting, artifact hunting, instances, zone events, and the gratuitious~ (gra-too-it-iss) violence that is PVP.

If you were to sub up for 3mos, you would have a few Xp pots to help you along the way. Took me about 9days of played time to reach 50 w/o Xp pots and spent a great deal of time in Sanctum just standing around and guildless.

4.
If you have never raided in rift there is plenty of content most of which is on farm status for most progression guilds so getting your self geared up for Infernal dawn won't take too long.

Rift raids are a different kind of fun, but can get boring quickly as you tend to need to farm them for various resistance lessers for content, then it gets old and fast.

With 1.8 in view it could not have come sooner as it has been cleared by the top end guilds for 5-6 months already. My guild cleared it back in Mid January, and as a guild we could not be happier to see new 20 man content.

With 1.7 the addition of the weekly raid quest still gives you a reason to go back unless your PA capped and have all the BiS gear out there.

5
Rogue .. everybody loves mah bard buffs

But tbh its the only class i've leveled to 50

[Tonystark]

Don't save "all" the XP pots until level 45 as I did. One XP pot last for two hours and you can ding a level in about an hour. I used two pots at level 45 and have three more remaining. Instant Adventure + XP pots + level 45 = 50

[Deleted]

oh i used my pots from 30-45, cus IA goes so quickly, and you need IA's anyways so its pointless using them there, itgives you a nice boost for starting out with currency, and only takes around 4hours from 45-50, dont waste pots there! IMHO

[Tarien]

ITT: So many people without the guts to grind multiple L50s

As soon as this dissertation is over I'm getting three more L50's sorted for a total of five!

EDIT: Ofc, I have 25 XP pots per char, and another five 50% pots

[Weiland]

ITT: So many people without the guts to grind multiple L50s

Y bother when I still have soo much left to do on my main. Fishing/Survival ID Conq., grinding to R40 in pvp (currently R13)

I do have a few lowbie alts but after 5years of w0w i wanna pace myself on leveling toons .. i may need something to do during a content dry spell.

[Fencers]

ITT: So many people without the guts to grind multiple L50s

I had six 50s before XP pots were even in the game. Smooches.

[Kezotar]

1. From what I have found in order to upgrade from a trial to a full version of the game it's only $4.99 (and $14.99/mo subscription), is this correct?
Yes, you buy the game for 4.99 but your account will be with no time unless you actually have the trial stil up. If your trial is over, and you decide to upgrade you will have to pay 14.99 extra for the month, so around 20 dollars. That is the total fee for the upgrade to the full game and 1 month game time

2. What's the community like in Rift? It seems like the WoW community has gone to crap during Cataclysm, I've noticed a lot more immature people trolling and just acting like asshats in general. Trolls, they are all over the place but rift is more like a OLD SCHOOL MMO. Idiots and a""holes are always there but much less than wow.

3. A few people I've talked to say that leveling is a huge grind. Understandably, every MMO is going to feel like a grind when leveling, but is there anything cool that might stand out in Rift that might make the grind a little more entertaining? As I know there's always events going on, such as rifts. You can farm them with other people for loads of exp, you can do quests, dungeons or even BGs to level up and all of them goes fast. Why some people may say it's grinding is because you do the same riftst over and over again, monsters do change and difiiculty aswell depending on the rifts level. (There can also spawn Raid Rifts that can drop good currency for leveling or saving for max level. )

4. How is the end-game in Rift (raiding?)? Lately I have been getting insanely bored with raiding in WoW (pretty much everything post t11 Cataclysm).
Not tried raiding but as for dungeons they're much harder than in WoW for sure.
5. What's your favorite class that you have played in Rift?

[Tarien]

I had six 50s before XP pots were even in the game. Smooches.

Frikkin no lifer

[seraphius]

1. From what I have found in order to upgrade from a trial to a full version of the game it's only $4.99 (and $14.99/mo subscription), is this correct?

2. What's the community like in Rift? It seems like the WoW community has gone to crap during Cataclysm, I've noticed a lot more immature people trolling and just acting like asshats in general.

3. A few people I've talked to say that leveling is a huge grind. Understandably, every MMO is going to feel like a grind when leveling, but is there anything cool that might stand out in Rift that might make the grind a little more entertaining?

4. How is the end-game in Rift (raiding?)? Lately I have been getting insanely bored with raiding in WoW (pretty much everything post t11 Cataclysm).

5. What's your favorite class that you have played in Rift?

Thanks in advance for all the info

1: yes

2: better than wow and star wars, but need to find yourself a decent server, not all of the lost sheep (wow players and swotor players) have come to their senses yet and returned so there is only a few servers with good pop.

and most of the chitt chatt in this game (atleast on my server) takes place in guild chat or lv 50 chat.

3. A huge grind .. no. not even close.
if i compare it to wow i would say less grind and more fun.

in wow you level with killing x and deliver y or pvp.
in rift you do the same but suddenly you find yourself in a zone event or a rift and forget what you where doing. you do the event/rift and then you have half a bar or more before you remember what you where doing.

also you level with pvp ofc. i just gt from 10 -50 with my new rouge through pvp and a few rifts only. same stuff as wow, but trion is cool and gives you a few nice vials of xp drinks (aka you gain 100% more xp from killing mobs and players)


4.
End game is much like wow, kill this boss and mvoe from the red shit on the ground etc etc.
and to this point the tacs where a bit... easy. but it is all a matter of time and how long trion has been doing it.
we see improvements all the time and 1.8 will prolly have some of the best design both graphics and tacks we have seen in rift or wow.

but endgame is more than raid bosses in rift. you got special rifts that is only (mostly) avalible at lv 50.

Pvp rifts
crafting rifts
raid rifts
expert rifts etc etc

and then you have Instant adventure (from lv 45). takes you through a series of objectives with kill y and x with a nice bunch of rewards and xp )and you still need xp after you hit 50 for planar attunment) witch i think i alot of fun.

5.
I have one of each but cleric. i found that leveling with warrior and mage was alot of fun at later levels, but mage was to .... moist for me and warrior to slow after a while.

i then got my rogue, and got him speced marksman/riftstalker witch game me amazing mobility and utility and was fun from lv 1 through 50.

But, since each class has 8 trees to choose from and a myriad of specs i`d say play the one that makes you feel all fuzzy down below ^^

)can say that my wow main for almost 5 years was a arms/fury warrior that had marshal, good rank in arenas and i had done everything wow could offer in pve. My rouge gives me he feel of the same style, but more moist .

[Primalthirst]

2 50s and 2 30-somethings.
All exp/prestige pots left on all characters.

No-one is beating me if there's a level cap increase.

[Deleted]

Don't save "all" the XP pots until level 45 as I did. One XP pot last for two hours and you can ding a level in about an hour. I used two pots at level 45 and have three more remaining. Instant Adventure + XP pots + level 45 = 50

Lol made the same mistake.
Had 15x exp pots at level 45, dunno what I was thinking. :P