Rift is one of those games that takes the main MMO strength and weakness to heart.  The game becomes increasingly more fun the longer you play it as new aspects of the game and new challenges present themselves.  This is true with most if not all MMO titles.  It was enough to hook me after beta 4 and keep me playing regularily through beta 6, as well as give me the impression that the game was worth my subscription.

     What they should have focused more on though is the early game content.  This is something that WoW the supergiant of the mmo world has flat out admitted was their main downfall with the design of their product.  They went back and remade all of this content on the last expansion and having played it as well as introducing my girlfriend to WoW at that time, they were right on the money.  Many people will go into a game, especially during a trial or a beta version and unless there is that almost instant baseball bat of fun to the face, they very quickly grow bored and label the product as a failure. 

     There isn't anything wrong with this from a player point of view, looking at all the new media and game options we are faced with on a month to month basis, developers really have to step up to the plate and focus on building their customer base early and not depending on people "sticking it out" as there's plenty of games out there that will give you the same exact entry level experience.  Right now Trion is attracting a section of the current MMO market who are used to this dynamic and have the expectation of wading through sub-par content to get to the heart of the game.  The focus of development needs to be as much on obtaining players from outside the genre and reeling them in.

     It is most likely too late for Trion to go back and re-invent their early game content for launch, however hopefully there is enough feedback and suggestions put forth from the community to make them realize that this is a weak point in their design and as much as I hope it doesn't happen, this could potentially be the aspect that breaks the game if anything will. 

Edited in an attempt to make text more readable.

ok

You might be right, I would actually have to ask a new player trying it out to be sure.

My impression is that Trion could have made a better story and more interesting quests myself. You can always avoid the rifts even though it is annnoying when a invasion runs into you while you are focusing on something else.

For me the story is this games weakest point, the quests you do are kinda generic and not so interesting,

If you ask me they need to just remove the initial lvl grind from MMO's. People are too impatient for long lvl grinds, they hate being stuck in linear quest chains, and they don't like being separated from other players based on lvl. The low end content is basically unused shortly after release anyway. Just forget levels and let people start out working on gaining factions, pvp points, and gear grinding. That is what every game ends up being after 2 weeks so stop wasting development time on content that people just breeze through anyway.

Originally posted by skeptical

If you ask me they need to just remove the initial lvl grind from MMO's. People are too impatient for long lvl grinds, they hate being stuck in linear quest chains, and they don't like being separated from other players based on lvl. The low end content is basically unused shortly after release anyway. Just forget levels and let people start out working on gaining factions, pvp points, and gear grinding. That is what every game ends up being after 2 weeks so stop wasting development time on content that people just breeze through anyway.

It is not a sandbox.  It is not an open world.  There is a story.  Things happen for a reason.  It is a form of MMORPG that many enjoy.  Sure, many do not enjoy it - but no game suits all players.

The 1-10 experience is pretty weak, but thinking back to games like WAR and WoW that had multiple different starter zones, I'm realizing that I didn't give a shit about them and it added very little to my enjoyment of those games. So I'm cool with it.

Originally posted by skeptical

If you ask me they need to just remove the initial lvl grind from MMO's. People are too impatient for long lvl grinds, they hate being stuck in linear quest chains, and they don't like being separated from other players based on lvl. The low end content is basically unused shortly after release anyway. Just forget levels and let people start out working on gaining factions, pvp points, and gear grinding. That is what every game ends up being after 2 weeks so stop wasting development time on content that people just breeze through anyway.

When you say "people" you mean "you" and the minority group you are a part of. You don't speak for me, or the millions of others playing MMOs, with "long" leveling grinds and linear quest lines.

I think it's important to regain some perspective and be realistic about your own role in the big scheme of things.

I've long been a proponent of a MMO without any leveling grind or skill gaining grind etc.

You simply log in, and play.

Any advancement would be social, any experience gain would be the experience YOU as a player gain from playing the game.

No gear advancement. No treadmills. No carrot on a stick.

Content advancement for the sake of content advancement and fun. Story for the sake of story, not a pretty mask to cover up a grind.

However, I am not niave enough to believe this approach would be for everyone. 

If anything, I would have to disagree and say that Trion does very well in setting up the game very early on with the Rifts and invasions in the opening zones. If the Rifts/Invasions didn't start until after level 20 or so I could see your point, but the fact you can get involved in your first Rifts at the end of the tutorial (in essence) proves that, to me, they designed the game well.

The first 10 or so levels really fly by and the game opens up a lot after that. For a MMO veteran, it can be a little boring and unoriginal at first, but I can get through those 10 early levels in a few hours and then when the game does open up, it is a very refreshing experience to have options besides just grinding through stale quests. 

Starter zones are always for "new" players, both new to this specific game and/or new to the genre. It's a cliche that I guess is still needed, though I'm sure the % of first-time MMO players whose first MMO experience is Rift is going to be small. More then likely, most by a large % will be converts/immigrants from other establised MMO titles, and as such, I could stand the "newbie" stuff to be a little shorter.

My main problem with rift is that the earlier betas were better than the later betas. 

1) The earlier zones were better -- gloamwood puts scarlet reach to shame.  Even the artifacts are laid out better.

2) They trashed the racials to balance things.  I prefer things a little bit unbalanced and the racials helped.  By removing things like the 30% heal, you reduce the options of the characters and make the races very vanilla.

3) They trashed hybridism to balance things.  My beta character was a Paladin/Champion/Beastmaster.  They worked really well together until they made it so the champion talents would not work if you had a shield out.  In essence what they did was bolster the ends of the spectrum while curtaililing the middle.  Before you could have a Tank, a Hybrid, or a DPS.  Now you can only really hover on both ends.  I actually heard that originally (before beta) that you could take souls from any archetype and mix and match.  Yes I know things like that make it hard to balance but it also makes it unique.  They threw the baby out with the bathwater here.

4) Inflexibility with regard to the rift/warfont contributions.  It requires gold to get anything good from a minor or major rift.  And gold has always been heads and shoulders above silver in every way of contribution -- but each patch there are haves and have nots as some classes can easily hit gold every time and others cant hit gold no matter what they do.  It also encourages people to "game the system" in rifts instead of playing normally.  Given the choice of getting no rewards and playing correctly or doing half the damage and getting rewarded for it -- most people will choose the latter.

5) Inflexibility with regard to autoface/approach.  A lot of people wanted it.  A lot of people would have settled for a 5 foot step where if you were barely out of range it would move you a tiny bit when you did an attack.  As it stands they catered towards the bunny hop // run through you to hit you in the back crowd.  When you can walk through someone and pivot and act, it is not a good thing.  When you can be 1 foot out of melee range and not know where to go to hit a monster it can also be quite bad. 

6) Constant monster rebalances.  They were fine when they were somewhat easy for the non-optimized.  Now they take simply too long to die.  Part of this is them removing the viability of being a hybrid but as a tank it now takes forever to take down a monster.  (sometimes literally if it is a healing one).

---------------

In essence they should have left well enough alone on nerfing the racials, and restricting the hybriding, backed off on rewards in rifts(everyone silver+ should get similar rewards), and either had some form of autoapproach OR expanded melee range a bit, lowered ranged minimum distance a bit, and made characters unable to run through each other.  They should also have put more time into the middle level zones.

This is not to say rift is not a good game -- it is -- but it could have been a lot better game.

Agree with the OP.  This is true, particularly in regards to people that are new to MMO's, and those that are tired of the old MMO's.  The opening isn't bad, but there isn't much on display to make players pick it over other MMO's.  ANNND for newcomers you need an experience that competes with single player games.  The cutscenes help, but the gameplay itself isn't particularly special.

I agree with you and I myself lament the two starting areas and the dearth of any other. I am also very happy not to open another why Rift is going to fail thread. Kudos to you for a well thought out thread.

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

I love the game, but have to agree 100%. The Guardian and Defiant starting areas are pretty lame...and in no way indicative of the experience at later levels.

Originally posted by kamenwati

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

He is saying that he didn't like/enjoy the starter area.That being said,your reply doesn't make sense.

Originally posted by kamenwati

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

You should at least read the OP before responding.  You're in all likelihood flaming a future subscriber.  The whole point of the OP is, if you don't make the first few levels of the game as compelling as possible, many people will never GET to the point where the game comes into its own.  The first 15 minutes of a game is by far the most crucial, particularly, once you start doing free trials. 

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by kamenwati

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

You should at least read the OP before responding.  You're in all likelihood flaming a future subscriber.  The whole point of the OP is, if you don't make the first few levels of the game as compelling as possible, many people will never GET to the point where the game comes into its own.  The first 15 minutes of a game is by far the most crucial, particularly, once you start doing free trials. 

There is something to be said about that.

I uninstalled Spellborn just after the tutorial and right in the first 30 seconds of gameplay. Unfair? yes.

But the tutorial, for me, was abysmal. On top of that, my very first quest was to gather guard reports from several towers. I remember just staring at the screen and thinking "no, I don't want to do that". And I uninstalled.

Now I know perfectly well that one quest does not a game make, but everyone has their tilting point when they just come to a decision.

Developers do have to realize that the first few minutes of their game is the time to really wow players. (no pun intended).

Originally posted by Loke666

You might be right, I would actually have to ask a new player trying it out to be sure.

My impression is that Trion could have made a better story and more interesting quests myself. You can always avoid the rifts even though it is annnoying when a invasion runs into you while you are focusing on something else.

For me the story is this games weakest point, the quests you do are kinda generic and not so interesting,

I thought story was very well done in the game. Not only quest text, you know. Most NPCs you talk to have an optional conversation, something about the current world or other lore, which further fill out the story and introduce you to the reality your character exists in. I like that this detail is spread out in little tidbits that you can collect as you go.

Originally posted by kamenwati

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

I reached and played level 42 quite a bit on beta, and as was suggested before I have bought the game and fully intend to stay subscribed for a long time as long as the game remains a consistantly enjoyale experience.  As much as I enjoy the game though, I think to people like my girlfriend, where the starting experience on Rift would be all the opportunity the game recieved as there are many other titles to choose from. 

Also, developers perpetuating this model only recycles the existing mmo market, the goal should be to bring more people into that market as there will certainly be individuals who will not leave the product they are used to and enjoy, no matter how many new features you pack into a product.  I think the overwhelming negative response to Rift from a portion of the World of Warcraft subscribers shows that people often take personal ownership of what they consider to be their game and dislike when another product tries to surpass theirs. 

You don't see this kind of customer loyalty in any other industry that I'm aware of, and if developers just keep dividing the existing market indefinately then you'll end up with such small subscriber bases across a multitude of games that investors will take their money elsewhere.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by kamenwati

How many dungeons did you check out? What about getting past the first zone and engaging in world pvp? Ever form up your own group for a warfront?

I'm sorry the first 10 levels weren't epic enough for you, but it doesn't sound like you've seen very much of the game.

You should at least read the OP before responding.  You're in all likelihood flaming a future subscriber.  The whole point of the OP is, if you don't make the first few levels of the game as compelling as possible, many people will never GET to the point where the game comes into its own.  The first 15 minutes of a game is by far the most crucial, particularly, once you start doing free trials. 

There is something to be said about that.

I uninstalled Spellborn just after the tutorial and right in the first 30 seconds of gameplay. Unfair? yes.

But the tutorial, for me, was abysmal. On top of that, my very first quest was to gather guard reports from several towers. I remember just staring at the screen and thinking "no, I don't want to do that". And I uninstalled.

Now I know perfectly well that one quest does not a game make, but everyone has their tilting point when they just come to a decision.

Developers do have to realize that the first few minutes of their game is the time to really wow players. (no pun intended).

People in general have such low attention spans today and little patience for things to develop.

I agree that the starting 10 levels could have been much better. I also wish each Race had it's own starting experience.

I'm glad I was patient enough to get further into the game, because I liked it more after each day of playing. I'm also glad I experimented with character builds, because some combos were much more fun and better suited to my playstyle than others. People who try one character and quit because they didn't like the experience will also be giving up too early. Another flaw of the early game experience, but I appreciate the freedom the soul system gives for long term play of the game.

Open Beta is over. People new to the game from this point on will have purchased the titles. To all those people, I would stress that they should give the game a really in depth shot before making a final decision on the title. The game world will likely grow on you and trying different builds to find something that suits you can really pay off. Also, don't assume that you can predict what builds you will like based on experiences in other MMOs. Some combos that looked my style in theory left me flat. Other combos I passed on early, ended up providing me the best play experience when I gave them a shot.

I thought the beginning was fine for both factions. Seperate starting areas for each race would be nice, but no biggy. While the quest themselves are less than inspired, the pacing of getting souls and abilities felt right. I felt compelled to continue on as there was something new to unlock just a few quests away.

The idea of starting at max and just grinding rep/gear would kill the game for me. I like developing as I play.  I find the trend towards faster leveling in MMOs unfortunate. It truncates the experience dramatically. Having your toon grow in ability as you work your way through new areas is a major reason I enjoy these games. I think that there are plenty of new players that will find it just as compelling.

DCUO takes the fast leveling approach. Its a very fun game, but within a week you are basically standind in a lobby waiting to rerun content or queue for PvP. Not a bad thing I guess, but not enough to make it a goto game for me.

I like games that encourage going new places and improving my charactor in more ways then simple stat increases. I'd love to see an AA system in the future maybe, but gear/faction grinding holds little appeal outside of a deeper charactor progression.

At the end its all subjective, but to suggest there is something wrong with a game that takes a particular approach that differs from your personal tastes is silly. It'd be better to judge a game based on how well the developers have implented their vision for the game. Based on my experience in the betas, I think Rift executes very well and will be around for a long time.