Hi guys,
I beg to be excused if I'm not posting in the right place, I just couldn't find the Rift subforum.
If so, please move or merge my topic as appropriate, but don't delete it, because I feel it can give answers to many players, that I was searching for but couldn't find anywhere.
The aim of this topic is not to compare Rift and WoW directly, say which one is better, or express hate against one game or the other.
I think it will be useful and interesting for many people who hesitate whether to try Rift or not, to read the honest and as much as possible unbiased impressions of a long time WoW player who just tried Rift.
I love WoW, it was (and hopefully will once again be) a great adventure for me. However I decided it was time for me to take a break from the game for a while because of a lot of reasons:
- not much to do at level 85 for a casual player, the expansion didn't change anything for me
- having many alts at max level already
- dislike for daily quests grinding
- flying mounts and LFG tool making all players gather at hubs and nowhere else in the world.
- the new talent trees offering no customization since you spend points in all but 2-3 talents in the main tree, and 5 talents in another one, making all characters basically with absolutely identical builds.
I was very nostalgic for vanilla and TBC, I visited the old zones often...
So I thought: I want to experience vanilla again, let's play from level 1.
But when i tried, I was shocked - leveling was so easy and fast that it offered no challenge at all. I could kill many mobs without downtime, I had almost no risk of dying even if I overpulled, low level dungeons were farmed by players with heirlooms, my spells were so good even at low level, i could 2 shot every quest mob. Then I realized this game had changed too much and I could never have the Vanilla feeling again. Plus, I knew almost every class too well so I had nothing to experiment with and discover.
That's why after much contemplation I decided to try Rift, almost sure I would be disappointed, but I felt I had nothing better to do.
Well, I couldn't have been more wrong, and for one very good reason. Rift seems to offer what Vanilla WoW made me so excited about a couple of years ago:
- A whole new and completely unknown world to discover
- No flying mounts and there are players everywhere
- I risk death when I pull more than 2 mobs, rifts spawn often and make the area dangerous, which makes leveling very fun and rewarding, for me at least.
- The talent trees (souls) have so many choices and combinations that it's very hard to find someone else with a similar build. When you progress up a tree usually you've filled half of it and the other half is blank, meaning you had to make choices.
- There is no LFG (but unfortunately they will make one in the next major patch) so poeple can't afford to be so rude in groups and try to communicate more.
- PVP philosophy is radically different: Trion say they will never try to balance all classes for 3v3 / 5v5 as other games have done, but rather have the classes (souls) work on a rock/paper/scissors system, which means that if a player counters you completely, you should be able to find a soul combination to beat him, unless he does the same and counter your counter spec, etc... It's balanced for large scale PVP overall.
- The class abilities are very creative and some of them are things I dreamt to have in WoW for years
Examples for some "hunter" skills:
1)a shot that pushes back the enemy like typhoon and thunderstorm
2)ability to use ranged attacks in melee for 15 sec
3)a shot which increases movement speed by 5% per application stacking 5 times
4)a shot which makes the enemy bleed when he moves
5)a "blink" ability for hunters if you spec into the tanking rogue subtree
6)interesting synergy between you and your pet in the ranger tree
I'm waiting forward to experiencing Rift endgame, which I know almost nothing about yet. I might love it, or be disappointed and go back to WoW - time will tell.
But one thing is for sure - I'm experiencing Vanilla again in all its glory. For a casual like me it will take months if not a year to explore all classes and all possible talent combinations in depth. I just hope the game goes well as it started and everything should be great. And I still have WoW, and I can continue my subscription any time.
For the moment, the Rift experience is too powerful and I have the feeling that for the first time the fuss and excitement about a MMO other than WoW comes from the players themselves and not from ads and marketing. I hope it stays this way!