Rift vs. Wow and all haters

[Vacula]

I personally love what RIFT will bring to the MMO world. I also find it hilarious that people call it a WoW rip-off.

MMO's are like candy bars. They all taste a little different, have their own packaging, offer unique experiences, but at the end of the day a candy bar is made of sugar and will make you fat if you ingest too much.

My point is that creating an MMO, as expansive as they can be, is also quite limiting. You need an immense world, strong social aspect, and enough content to keep people sitting on their asses for years on end. If you stray too far from the things that work, you end up with a brown necktie that people can only laugh at.

What does that mean? Everything copies everything. It's all sugar. Do you think Nestle would take over the candy market by introducing a candy bar that tasted like broccoli, walked on two legs, and said "Roadhouse" every 2 minutes? It might get some attention, but people like candy bars because they are candy - not because they are healthy and give sidekicks to the head.

People like MMO's because they are MMO's and not something else. Any smart MMO designer is going to incorporate the core aspects that are proven to work and try their best to introduce something unique. On that note - Yes, RIFT offers two obviously unique things that no other MMO currently on the market can offer:

- Dynamic world affected by rifts
- Extensive class combination choices

Also on that note; RIFT has incorporated everything that is proven to work in other MMO's. There's a reason why it feels like other MMO's in a lot of ways, and there's a reason why WoW, DAoC, AC2, EQ.. etc etc.. all have aspects of eachother. They are all candy bars in the same candy market.

Where that leave me personally with RIFT is along the lines of this:
- It incorporates things that work from other MMO's
- It has several unique identifiers (Dynamic world, Rifts etc..)
- It enhances/improves some core MMO concepts
- Hell yes, I'll play this game.

Once we can all accept that it's an MMO and that it will be similar to other MMO's, I think we'll then be able to chill out and just enjoy it as it stands. You throw 6+ years of dev work on this game and I think we'll have a product that far surpasses the ever famous WoW.

Total random note in regards to the BETA haters - Do you guys remember WoW beta??? LOL. What a POS. Even after launch the game was a total mess. Fortunate for Blizzard that they had years of Lore built up, and no real competition at the time. Fortunate that they also had quick reactions and solid dev/design teams to get it off the ground fairly quickly after the epic fail launch. RIFT is by far the most solid beta I've played for any MMO game to date.

[Fogkin]

So lately I got into Rift beta, and of course everyone talks about WoW, and on this forum especially the "We're not in Azeroth anymore" thread, people seem to hate on Rift. Well i was wondering, what do all of you think Rift is like? Personally, i think it's a better, and similar version of WoW yet different in MANY areas, such as the souls and the immense Rift invasions where you have like 30 people in a particular raid group to kill some very tough bosses (health wise). Also for just a beta version, the number of glitches is incredibly low and smooth gameplay.

I feel it takes the problems of WoW, and improves them (such as numerous talent possibilities, i'm an altoholic in WoW and get tired of the same crap over and over, this is endless possibilities in Rift. Also, the graphics are much nicer (which is obvious, since WoW is 6 years old). Overall i just think it's a better game, without having any experience with end game so far so i can't give an opinion on that. So what do all of you think about both games, what do you hate about rift, or what do you hate about WoW?

So you hate leveling alts cuz you see the same zones... So level in different zones, there are numerous possiblities of zones to level in for WoW since each race has it's own starting zone.. Rift, oh boy, 2 starting zones. That'll get old real quick...

The graphics are nice, but not as nice as Aion's were, and we all know how well that game did. The controls are ok, although I've tried out a few different classes/specs and they feel spammier than my rogue in wow does. Have fun playing, not hating on Rift, but it's not my cup of tea. Game just doesn't have the energy and life that wow has, and that's with doing groups while rifting.

[hotshot237]

[QUOTE=Fogkin;10366531]So you hate leveling alts cuz you see the same zones... So level in different zones, there are numerous possiblities of zones to level in for WoW since each race has it's own starting zone.. Rift, oh boy, 2 starting zones. That'll get old real quick...
QUOTE]
Incase you haven't noticed, WoW basically a set leveling path, at low levels it's now one area then walk to the next zone and quest, very linear (like most mmo's, granted) and it gets ESPECIALLY annoying in outland, northrend, and definately the cata zones. Rift atleast offers diversity in leveling (Rifts, obviously) and it doesn't feel linear to me (for the most part) for the simple fact being I would go to one rift, kill the crap there just for fun and gear, then happen to find some quests right next to the rift while trying to get back to where i was, doing them, and continuing on. Next time i level since rifts pop up in different areas there's a very good chance it won't happen again

[Jazzhands]

I actually decided to quit WoW before I started looking into Rift. A few reasons behind that.

1. I zerged Cata in a few days. Within the first week I was done gearing my main in heroics and was raiding. So I started to level an alt. Sure enough, my pally with probably 3 days played at 85 has a full tank and healing set geared enough for raiding. Sigh.
2. WoW community. It's terrible. The LFG queue is perhaps the worst thing to ever come into existence, ever.
3. Blizzard has been slowing down. They had months of beta and such, and we're 3 months into Cata. Mages are still ahead by quite a bit in pvp, and rets are once more in a terrible place. I mean, seriously? How does it take this long to do some math and apply a patch. Rift beta servers go down like, twice a day for patching.
4. WoW is now a cookie cutter MMO. And thats boring me to death. You're a DPS, a tank, or a healer. The play style is slightly different, but overall theres no reason to be a priest over a shaman in the world Blizz wants. I like that certain classes are better then others at times, like a DK was on Vezax. Rift's class system is the reason I'm playing it. Plus, I only need 4 toons instead of the 9 I use to have in wow.
5. God damn is WoW boring. Theres nothing to do between raids unless I want to fly in circles or beat my head against a wall because people don't understand what defense is. Neither are very fun uses of my time.

Rift fixes most of these problems, for a time being, anyways. I can't say on the community, but generally games like AoC and Aion had a much better one then WoWs, so heres hoping.

The classes are the biggest thing. My rogue is a Tank, A very... interesting DPS class, and a bard. 5 different shadow steps, blink, and warlock portals, an AoE enemy teleport, combine with buff and debuff managing. Its an awesome way to tank. and the great thing about it, is if I get bored of that, all I need to do is press a button and bam, I'm a buffing support class that provides good AoE heals and debuffs, while rockin out on my awesome Lute. Then that gets boring, so I switch to my Saboteur spec, and explode things left and right. I don't need to level another toon or get new gear or anything. Certainly there is more tank oriented then DPS oriented gear, but both will do either job just fine.
When i wanted to tank on my warrior in WoTLK, I had to spend like, a week working through the terrible LFG pugs and dealing with retards just get a decent set. Then half the time I would get "LOL 30k is to lo for heroix kbyethx". Each class in Rift can fill 3 of the 4 roles with no need for another set of gear, and most can be either ranged or melee DPS for that roll.

I like pvp in Rift. You can't even tell what class someone is in Rift except by their moves and armor. And even then, just defining them as Warrior Rogue Cleric or Mage really doesn't help. They could be anything. WoW is like... A warrior. He has druid buff, k. Warrior/Druid combo. Warrior will charge me, hamstring, then probably BS while my partner gets cycloned. Dismantle the BS, blah blah. Its boring.

Theres more planned end game content (lvl50) at release then WoW had after a few patchs, I'll have professions to level, rifts to grind, pvp to be had. WoW was fun once apon a time, but I think it's time in the spotlight is coming to an end. A combo of itself and other MMOs, not just Rift. It will never die, people still play WC3, but eventually it will dwindle.

[xStevooo]

I actually decided to quit WoW before I started looking into Rift. A few reasons behind that.

1. I zerged Cata in a few days. Within the first week I was done gearing my main in heroics and was raiding. So I started to level an alt. Sure enough, my pally with probably 3 days played at 85 has a full tank and healing set geared enough for raiding. Sigh.
2. WoW community. It's terrible. The LFG queue is perhaps the worst thing to ever come into existence, ever.
3. Blizzard has been slowing down. They had months of beta and such, and we're 3 months into Cata. Mages are still ahead by quite a bit in pvp, and rets are once more in a terrible place. I mean, seriously? How does it take this long to do some math and apply a patch. Rift beta servers go down like, twice a day for patching.
4. WoW is now a cookie cutter MMO. And thats boring me to death. You're a DPS, a tank, or a healer. The play style is slightly different, but overall theres no reason to be a priest over a shaman in the world Blizz wants. I like that certain classes are better then others at times, like a DK was on Vezax. Rift's class system is the reason I'm playing it. Plus, I only need 4 toons instead of the 9 I use to have in wow.
5. God damn is WoW boring. Theres nothing to do between raids unless I want to fly in circles or beat my head against a wall because people don't understand what defense is. Neither are very fun uses of my time.

Rift fixes most of these problems, for a time being, anyways. I can't say on the community, but generally games like AoC and Aion had a much better one then WoWs, so heres hoping.

The classes are the biggest thing. My rogue is a Tank, A very... interesting DPS class, and a bard. 5 different shadow steps, blink, and warlock portals, an AoE enemy teleport, combine with buff and debuff managing. Its an awesome way to tank. and the great thing about it, is if I get bored of that, all I need to do is press a button and bam, I'm a buffing support class that provides good AoE heals and debuffs, while rockin out on my awesome Lute. Then that gets boring, so I switch to my Saboteur spec, and explode things left and right. I don't need to level another toon or get new gear or anything. Certainly there is more tank oriented then DPS oriented gear, but both will do either job just fine.
When i wanted to tank on my warrior in WoTLK, I had to spend like, a week working through the terrible LFG pugs and dealing with retards just get a decent set. Then half the time I would get "LOL 30k is to lo for heroix kbyethx". Each class in Rift can fill 3 of the 4 roles with no need for another set of gear, and most can be either ranged or melee DPS for that roll.

I like pvp in Rift. You can't even tell what class someone is in Rift except by their moves and armor. And even then, just defining them as Warrior Rogue Cleric or Mage really doesn't help. They could be anything. WoW is like... A warrior. He has druid buff, k. Warrior/Druid combo. Warrior will charge me, hamstring, then probably BS while my partner gets cycloned. Dismantle the BS, blah blah. Its boring.

Theres more planned end game content (lvl50) at release then WoW had after a few patchs, I'll have professions to level, rifts to grind, pvp to be had. WoW was fun once apon a time, but I think it's time in the spotlight is coming to an end. A combo of itself and other MMOs, not just Rift. It will never die, people still play WC3, but eventually it will dwindle.

Totally agree, I hate the way WoW has headed, no challenge what-so-ever, the game has been dumbed down beyond a monkey's level and there is absolutely ZERO customization available to the player, other than going into a barber shop :L

[Fogkin]

Incase you haven't noticed, WoW basically a set leveling path, at low levels it's now one area then walk to the next zone and quest, very linear (like most mmo's, granted) and it gets ESPECIALLY annoying in outland, northrend, and definately the cata zones. Rift atleast offers diversity in leveling (Rifts, obviously) and it doesn't feel linear to me (for the most part) for the simple fact being I would go to one rift, kill the crap there just for fun and gear, then happen to find some quests right next to the rift while trying to get back to where i was, doing them, and continuing on. Next time i level since rifts pop up in different areas there's a very good chance it won't happen again

Um, yeah, each race has it's starting zone, then you move to the next zone, except there are like 3 zones to choose from. Just because it tells you to go to Northern Barrens doesn't mean you couldn't say, go over to Silverpine forest and level instead. Or for alliance, I hate leveling in darkshore, so I go and level in westfall or some place over there. There are a lot more options as far as zones to level in. Plus after playing 3 Rift betas i found it rather annoying to be in the middle of trying to knock out a few quests to have a rift open on top of me and get sucked into that. It felt like I was jumping all over the zones in rift, wasn't really into it.

One thing I really like about rift is the crafting system though. So I wasn't bagging on Rift saying it sucked. I just don't like the way that the quests flow in the game. And what's wrong with quests being linear? It helps to move the storyline along. I actually think Blizzard did an awesome job when they redid most of the vanilla quest lines. I'm actually enjoying leveling alts again. I went through rifts starting zone 8 times, one for each class on each faction. By the end of the starting zones i was like ok, yeah yeah yeah, I know what happens already. Then when I'd get to the next zone I'd be like screw this, and get back on my level 30 warrior.

Like i said though, I'm not saying rift sucks, but it's not some savior of an MMO like a lot of people are making it out to be. It needs some work itself(it is still in beta after all).

[thewallofsleep]

So this is generic to you? Show me in WoW where I can find this. Also you are embarrassing me as an American by your pure lazy approach

As an American, I feel dwarfed by your obviously superior intellect...STFU man.

moving on...

I was getting super excited about Rift around October through December, but personally I wasn't very inspired during Beta. Graphics were nice, customization options seemed cool as well. However, I think the races are VERY bland and the story didn't really grab me. I didn't have a ton of time to play it, as it was a weekend Beta running through Monday morning, and I don't start gaming until late afternoon on Sundays. I grinded out a good 15 levels (think max for that beta was 20), but it didn't really capture my imagination.
The quests were quite boring, and while I imagine they may get better down the line, it didn't help that I wanted to race to max level so I didn't have to do quests anymore. I also did not find the world to be a place I couldn't wait to explore, which was the case with WoW and EQ when I first got into them. That said, I don't have a lot of time for raiding anymore, so if the world isn't exciting to me and the leveling experience is weak (I know, it's still Beta), I don't know why I'd want to play it. WoW has a ton of levels to go through, true, but I don't think it's that bad of a grind honestly.

WoW's graphics aren't nearly as good, true, but I think the art style works for them and gives it a lot of personality. I didn't feel like Rift had a clearly defined identity. Seemed a bit stale. This could change as both the game goes on of course, but it didn't blow my mind. I've been invited to all other Betas but haven't bothered. If I hear lots of good things about it after launch I may buy it and sub, but I'm really just waiting to try SWTOR.

[Cairm]

Poor devs of Rifts..

More like : Oh hey, i got bored with a game, time to try something else or just quit gaming. Highest bidder will get my money, and atm theres is not a whole lot of decent offering.

[Lord Kristivas]

Did you lean over my shoulder when you wrote this? That pretty much sums up my exact issue with WoW and why Rift has drawn my eye (same goes for SWTOR, but not GW2)

Great minds.. :P

5. God damn is WoW boring. Theres nothing to do between raids unless I want to fly in circles or beat my head against a wall because people don't understand what defense is. Neither are very fun uses of my time.

This really stood out to me because I'm in a unique position. I still do like WoW. I've got 5 years+ invested in my Hunter. When I type /played, I get 364 days, 12 hours, 26 mins as of when I wrote this post. That's nearly a year of my life advancing this character. (Getting into how sad that is.. well, that's for another thread.) This doesn't count the time I spent on alts.

Had Cata been better, I would likely have regarded Rift as I did Warhammer, Age of Conan, Champions, or any other number of games that have been released over the past few years. Warhammer had some good ideas in PvP and with Public Quests. Age of Conan had big-ass naked titties. Neither got my attention for long. I only played most of those other MMOs for my real life friends who dislike WoW. Still, at the end of the day, I'd always be logged in for raids. I'd always come on to achievement-whore.

I think if Blizz had done a better job with Cata, given us more to do, that I'd be looking at Rift like I had all those other games. Instead, when I log on, I'm smashing my face into a wall due to frustration and anticipating March 1st (Rift's release date). Here's to hoping 4.1 brings a lot more awesomeness. Rift can't kill WoW, but Blizzard easily can.

[emonose]

Played RIFT the last couple of days concluding the final stages of the closed beta and here's what I thought.

First of all, I began with a rogue on the Defiant side. Not really knowing what to do I chose 3 random souls who I thought sounded cool and went with them. As it turned out, they really didn't go together well at all, so I ended up with a level 6 hodgepodge character who wasn't good for anything and had trouble killing things. Frustrated, I put it down and went back to grinding heroics on my resto shammy.

Later on in the day I decided to try again. This time I rolled a cleric on the Guardian side. With a little experience on my side now I found the game substantially more enjoyable. Whereas on my rogue I really had no clue what in god's name was going on, this second try I had a much better idea of what was happening. I chose 3 souls which meshed well together (using the built in soul recommendations). I found numerous key binding options and even my favorite from WoW, auto walk. I found ways to adjust, scale and edit my UI, just like in WoW. In general, I had a great time. By the time the beta closed this Morning at 10 PST I had a Lvl 16 Cleric and a newly made Lvl 12 Rogue (which was not the same as the rogue I started off with but a new one which turned out much better).

In terms of graphics, I'm using a crap-shop computer from 2001. While the ultra setting graphics threaten to melt my computer down to a liquidy mess, the low level graphics allowed me to run with little to no lag while still retaining the general feel they were trying to give and not looking cheap or bad in the least.

So, the run down: In my opinion, RIFT is a great game. During the 3 days that I was able to play it, the game was quick-patched multiple times, fixing many of the problems I and my fellow players had reported. This speed in terms of fixes for issues was truly outstanding. The graphics engine was high-end, yet lowered enough to run perfectly fine on my low-end computer. The character customization was brilliant, as was the constantly changing environment which kept me on my toes throughout the leveling experience. The quests were fairly simple to follow, yet just as interesting, if not more when compared to WoW's quests. Finally, the placement of nodes for gathering professions was very well done, allowing you to easily level a gathering profession while leveling, without having to take out time from questing. Crafting professions allowed me to craft gear that was better then gear I was using at the time, allowing me to upgrade my gear, quite unlike in WoW. Now, what I didn't like. There were quite a few tooltips which I found rather confusing or just plain misleading. The one dungeon which I had time to do was less than thrilling. It wasn't terrible, but it was not as good as I had expected, especially when compared to WoW. Like I said, I only had time to test the lowest level dungeon so don't take this as a blanket statement for all dungeons. WoW has colorful factions and groups to gain reputation with. From what I saw, the main person for me to gain reputation with was a bland "college" with very little information or back story. Finally, I found the lore very boring and uninteresting when compared to WoW's rich and exciting story.

This was just my opinion and my experiences with RIFT. The RIFT open beta begins February 15 and I encourage everyone to give it a try with an open mind.

Happy WoWing/RIFTing!

"Bloodsail Admiral" Rockhørn
Resto/Ele Shaman
Mal'ganis (US)

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Meh. Bored of wall of texts, haters and pro-lovers. You guys need to try the game to have an opinion to it and by try, I don't mean level 1-6. Get up to level 20, do BGs and hunt rifts, do a dungeon and buy a mount along with exploring the 2 first area of gloomwood/silverwood completely and try more than one combination of class.

Only then you'll be able to give us your appreciation. Until then, don't even bother posting.

--- On my side, I like it so far and eager to try the huge endgame content that was posted on their website ---

[emonose]

Meh. Bored of wall of texts, haters and pro-lovers. You guys need to try the game to have an opinion to it and by try, I don't mean level 1-6. Get up to level 20, do BGs and hunt rifts, do a dungeon and buy a mount along with exploring the 2 first area of gloomwood/silverwood completely and try more than one combination of class.

Oh, but my wall of text was so beautiful :3

[EqualWin]

Remember Aion? Lineage II? AoC? WAR? Rift?
Oh yeah...all "WoW killers"...

in few months

^^^^^^

[Zadiell]

I liked Rift beta, but to me its not differant enough than WOW for me to play it, I can see myself playing Rift, but I think I am getting burnt out on MMOs, having played them since EQ Kunark. So at this point im not sure if it's me or the games, that make me not want to invest in a new MMO.

If anything I think Rift will get alot of players from other MMOs , and probaly alot from WOW, but see EQ2 and other games suffering the most.

[History]

Trion nor Blizzard send paychecks to anyone in this thread, but people sure seem to act like they are. Who cares if you think one is better than the other? Go play your game and enjoy it, it's prolly better off 90% of you don't play together otherwise this shit would occur nonstop.

[mordale]

this one too boub.

[Auralian]

I did all the Rift Betas, Truthfully it was fun but I don't see it having a big Endgame but we will see after the release. I preordered and payed for 6 months just to have something new to do in between WoW raids, Rifts was fun but it isn't something I would quit WoW for at this time.

[Hakto]

WoW fanboys.... give me something WoW has that Rift does not?

10 million subscribers

[Zadiell]

this is like arguing whats better Pepsi or Coke. opinions are personal, with no real facts that can be argued.

[dysphoric4life]

this is like arguing whats better Pepsi or Coke. opinions are personal, with no real facts that can be argued.

Pepsi Blue. Oh how I miss you.