Hello, 
 
 Long time reader first time poster. I know allot of people on these forums have played allot of games so i was hoping for some advice. I played WoW for a long time but I think I'm just done with the game its just to easy to get gear and raid progression has come to a halt. 
 
 I now am deciding to move on to Rift or Swtor but I don't know what one I should play. I honestly mainly just want a friendly community more than anything and fun endgame events/pvp/pve. Was hoping some of you guys could give me some information you have with these games or suggest another game.

Well Rift has that perma free thing to 20, so there is that and TOR just dropped a 7 day trial thing. I would say Rift because it has more, but TOR will debate the other way. Try both.

That's a tough choice. They're both pretty good. Try both.

Tor has more story and arguably a funner level 1-50 process.  Both have super fast leveling 30-70 hours to reach level 50.  Tor has less replayability, less content, many more bugs and is quite unfinished.  Tor's endgame is unifinished, buggy and poorly done.  Rift has good endgame content and very good raiding.  It is a gear progresion game.  It has additional non raiding content but what it does best is raiding.  Both games have poor pvp. 

ToR is presently leaking subscriptions at a very large rate.  It will likely  be  going through massive server merges and many fo them before things settle down.  Rift has had a substantial increase in population since the new year which has slowed the last two weeks.

Tor has potential but it will likely take at leasta year to fix the game and make it worth playing more than a month or two.  The question is will many people be left by then.

Combat wise Rift is much superior. IMO Tor is to twitchy and action orientated.  Classes are not well developed and need a lot of work.  Rift's class system is very good with mixing 3 souls.  It allows amazing flexibility and playability.

If you go to Rift and your looking for a friendly community I would recomend Faeblight as its much nicer. mature and more welcoming than most other servers.  Faeblight. Wolfsbane,Greybriar and Deepwood are the 4 highest pop servers.  You may occasionaly see queues from server being full on those 4 servers occassionaly but it has subsided in the last few weeks.  But they are all good long term servers.  But keep in mind you can transfer free between any server once a week if your character is level 15 or above.

Rift also has free play up to level 20.

From a customer service standpoint Rift is much superior.  The devs at rift stay in good communication with the players andthey listen and treat players with respect.  Which is so rare in a MMO.  ToRreally its to early to tell.  They are so swamped with fixing leaking holes on their ship I would imagine customer service is something that willnot be a priority for quite awhile.  But their communication in beta nd the way they treated the beta playerbase was extremeley poor even for a MMO.  They have not improved upon that with release.

Originally posted by Zippy

Tor has more story and arguably a funner level 1-50 process.  Both have super fast leveling 30-70 hours to reach level 50.  Tor has less replayability, less content, many more bugs and is quite unfinished.  Tor's endgame is unifinished, buggy and poorly done.  Rift has good endgame content and very good raiding.  It is a gear progresion game.  It has additional non raiding content but what it does best is raiding.  Both games have poor pvp. 

ToR is presently leaking subscriptions at a very large rate.  It will like mly eing going through massive server merges and many fo them before things settle down.  Rift has had a substantial increase in population since the new year which has slowed the last two weeks.

If you go to Rift and your looking for a friendly community I would recomend Faeblight as its much nicer. mature and more welcoming than most other servers.  Faeblight. Wolfsbane,Greybriar and Deepwood are the 4 highest pop servers.  You may occasionaly see queues from server being full on those 4 servers occassionaly but it has subsided in the last few weeks.  But they are all good long term servers.  But keep in mind you can transfer free between any server once a week if your character is level 15 or above.

This ^.

If you're looking for a fun experience for a couple months, TOR would work, but it's endgame is borderline non-existant. Rift doesn't have the same story progression that TOR does, and doesn't really captivate you in the story the same way. However, the content is really fun and the class dynamics in rift are pretty awesome as well.

If you're looking for a temp game you don't plan on playing for a while, I'd go with TOR. If you're looking to play a game for more than a couple months, I'd go with Rift.

Of course, there are some games coming on the horizon that may also be valid candidates, so keep that in mind as well.

Biased towards rift... just to be up front with that unlike most will be.

To me, ToR Is just... way way way to genric in how everything is done. Even its 'story' focus is done using their generic format from single player games with far less effect on gameplay. Combat looks nice but its pretty quick to tell its very generick and just not to interesting once you get over the glow sticks. Personally to me I started to get bored of the story at about lvl 8 and it just never took off, was lack luster.  Still, it might be good if you enjoy going from 1-50 and like the story aspect it might be good for you.

Rift by far is the end game experience. If your looking for raiding, in my opinion rift raiding stands far above the competition in how its done. Combat is better to me in this game then ToR and relies more on using complex rotations or priority depending on classes. A lot of the content is well done and the Planar attunement system will keep you busy for some time.

I suggest Rift by leaps and bounds, but keep in mind I am bias towards it. Still on a subjective look, I just can't see ToR being considered anything great. Its not terrible but I wouldn't call it good... its Meh.

I would suggest TOr first, then Rift. TOR fans and Rift fans have been at each others throats for months. In my view TOR is a downgrade from Rift. If you ask me Rift will make you question every single excuse you have ever seen Blizzard give.

The WoW you are playing currently is not the same thing it was say pre 2009 or 2008. It is a sad deformed version of what it used to be and has had the soul sucked out of it. The other issue Mist of Pandaland is easily another 4+ months off from open beta testing, then another 3 maybe for realease, then you have to pay for a expansion to get new content. Blizzard really does make me sick honestly.

Either game you are better off then you are now.

I just got done with playing TOR for 3 months and have been playing around with Rift Lite.

They remind me of a Christmas way back when I was twelve. I asked my parents for a balsa wood RC plane, like adult hobbyists fly. Instead I got a plastic toy plane on a wire that would "fly" as one swung it around one's head, with a switch for a propellar that was purely cosmetic.

(I know, I know ... "cool story, brah")

Some people would say, "Hey, a plane is a plane," and could have had a lot of fun with that little toy. Others would say, "A toy airplane =/= balsa wood RC plane" and thrown the thing away before two weeks were up.

For me TOR is like that plastic toy airplane, while Rift is the balsa wood RC one. If you're a "a plane is a plane" type of person, then the things TOR does well will appeal to you and the things it does poorly won't matter.  Meanwhile Rift offers more "control" of the game in terms of features and sophistication ... it feels more like a "gamer's game" if that makes any sense.

My one hang-up with Rift (and one of my biggest concerns for other upcoming games) is the lack of a hook -- it's hook is its endgame gameplay apparently -- whereas TOR obviously has Star Wars, lightsabers, starships, etc., which has a tendency to pull people in right from the beginning.  Not that there's not interesting stuff going on in Rift's world and story -- I thought the Defiant beginning was fairly epic -- just that my impression is that you don't play Rift to explore/experience the setting the way you might TOR up to level 50.

And as has been said above.  Don't play TOR for the endgame.  It may evolve to become something worth playing for eventually, but it still needs a lot of work.  For the time being the game is oriented toward trying out the leveling experience on several different characters.

Rift handsdown. at least the game engine works

Vanilla or strawberry.

oh , that was easy.

You want a REAL mmo and maybe you are fond of old school mmos? Go rift.

You want a cooperative game with a lot of cut-scenes and scarce mmo feeling? Go swtor.

Seriously, give Entropia Universe a try.  Best MMO I've played since DAOC and EVE!

Originally posted by pappadees

Hello, 
 
 Long time reader first time poster. I know allot of people on these forums have played allot of games so i was hoping for some advice. I played WoW for a long time but I think I'm just done with the game its just to easy to get gear and raid progression has come to a halt. 
 
 I now am deciding to move on to Rift or Swtor but I don't know what one I should play. I honestly mainly just want a friendly community more than anything and fun endgame events/pvp/pve. Was hoping some of you guys could give me some information you have with these games or suggest another game.

I played both.  SWTOR is just crap -- PvP is broken, endgame is a joke and by the time you get to Level 50 most of your guildmates may have left because they'll have literally done everytihng.    Also, the much touted stories are not really very good.  Lots of problems with the writing and the voice acting.   Just having scripts being read to you may work for a lot of people, but sitting there listening to wooden actor after wooden actor drone on and on and on an on...    The spacebar became my best friend...  

Rift was better.   I liked it.   I can't think of a single thing that screamed 'this is amature hour' or was terribly broken, not-fun.   And the world was lush and alive and lots of players and tons of things to do...    It was just, ultimately, wasn't my cup of tea. 

Right now, even though I was never really a comic-boof fan and especially a DC comics fan, I'm really enjoying DCUO.   I'm really surpised.   I never thought I'd like it.   Not in a million years.   And since it's got a F2P model, you don't have to throw away $60 or more dollars to see if you like it.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
They both have poor pvp (as does wow) with swtor been marginally less poor than rift
Rift has the better pve, the dungeons are good (like wow quality), and it has rifts which are more fun way to level than questing if you choose, also it feels more like a real world with it being all 1 landmarks and with ambience through nature / weather / time of day / rift build up. Swtor feels very plastic, your constantly in corridors, the mobs just stand there, their is no ambiance.

 Dude, that's bs.   I have an ATI 5950 over-clocked to as fast as an ATI 7950.   PvP in any 8v8 or higher situation was a slide show.   Plus everybody has a knock-back, the classes are horribly imbalaned within and across factions. 

I don't think Rift is the be-all, end-all of MMO PvP.  But I have never playd an MMO with as badly implemented PvP as SWTOR in 14-years of MMO playing.   The engine is just plain old broken.

Originally posted by pappadees

Hello, 
 
 Long time reader first time poster. I know allot of people on these forums have played allot of games so i was hoping for some advice. I played WoW for a long time but I think I'm just done with the game its just to easy to get gear and raid progression has come to a halt. 
 
 I now am deciding to move on to Rift or Swtor but I don't know what one I should play. I honestly mainly just want a friendly community more than anything and fun endgame events/pvp/pve. Was hoping some of you guys could give me some information you have with these games or suggest another game.

I would try Rift first.  It is free to play up to level 20.  If at the point you just aren't into the game give SW:TOR a try.

Rift does everything better than TOR minus the questing.

1-cap in swtor is far better then  rift.  the new rift 50+11111111zones look really cool and better then anything Swtor has.

Originally posted by Alders

Rift does everything better than TOR minus the questing.

Except having classes that arent boring. Its the main reason I cant stand Rift, all the classes feel generic and dull.

Right now Rift has over one year of adding content over SWTOR, so surely it would be best to go with Rift as it has lot more to do.