Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by GeezerGamer
Rift is on an edge right now. They can either fly or plummet. I hope they fly. They have a good chance to make it happen. But I've seen so many "Coulda, Shoulda, Wouldas" recently, I'm not putting any faith in anything until I see it. Nor will I pre order this expansion until I have more info on what it's really like. Not just what everyone thinks it should be like. I like Rift. I am currently subbed to it, But the appearance of "Deep's Depot" is just a bit more than disturbing. There is nothing that is usable on a character in there now, but that's not to say it won't happen in the expansion. The CE edition mounts are already a thorn in my side as it is. A full fledged Cash Shop in a Sub Based game, simply undermines the whole concept of working for something. I boycotted TSW for this reason and I'll not hesitate to drop Rift in a heartbeat for it too. 

just the way of the times it seems.. don't really expect this to go away though in any upcomming games. I'm guessing most will either go GW2 model or stick with P2P with an optional cash shop. honestly can't really see the harm in a CS as long as you have ways to get any item in the CS without real money.

I understand the differing view points concerning cash shops and see the merits of both sides, however, let me say this:

Did the classic MMORPG's have cash shops, such as UO, DAoC, and EQ? They didn't, so you knew that all of your subscription money was going towards the creation of new content. 

When there's a subscription plus a cash shop, I feel that some of my sub money is spent on creating items for that shop that should be included with my sub fee, like in other games. 

Part of playing MMORPG's, IMHO, is the acquiring of assets and the more rare the assets and the harder they are to get, the more proud you are of your achievements. Allow people to obtain them in a CS, and it greatly diminishes the satisfaction of obtaining those things.

I guess a close example I could give in real life terms is the obtaining of a college degree. How much value would you hold your accreditted degree that you spent 4 years earning if there was a way for anyone with enough money to obtain the same  accreditted degree with the swipe of a credit card? Sure, you'll still have the experience of going to college to look fondly on in later years and will have that extra gain in knowledge, but you can't deny that your satisfaction in earning that degree wouldn't be diminished by those who bought their degree.

Originally posted by Nhoj1983

Rift in just over a year has given many more times more than WoW.

 

I don't know how many times it has to be said, but Rift launched with one of the smallest worlds in MMO history -- even down to having only two "cities" that in reality are little more than one building each -- one raid and a half dozen dungeons that were had to do double duty as leveling and engame, thus people were sick of them before they ever saw T2.

Trion launched with a game that couldn't come close to matching WoW Vanilla, let alone where WoW is now, and despite all of the patches the game still is very content light compared to the competition.

They launched with half a game, patching in the second half over a period that saw them hemorage subs because people quickly got bored (some of the most generic and unmemerable lore in gaming history doesn't help, either) isn't nearly as impressive a feat as people make it out to be.

Having launched with a full game and then patching in a ton more content, now that might have been worthy of praise. But as it really was? Not so much.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by GeezerGamer
Rift is on an edge right now. They can either fly or plummet. I hope they fly. They have a good chance to make it happen. But I've seen so many "Coulda, Shoulda, Wouldas" recently, I'm not putting any faith in anything until I see it. Nor will I pre order this expansion until I have more info on what it's really like. Not just what everyone thinks it should be like. I like Rift. I am currently subbed to it, But the appearance of "Deep's Depot" is just a bit more than disturbing. There is nothing that is usable on a character in there now, but that's not to say it won't happen in the expansion. The CE edition mounts are already a thorn in my side as it is. A full fledged Cash Shop in a Sub Based game, simply undermines the whole concept of working for something. I boycotted TSW for this reason and I'll not hesitate to drop Rift in a heartbeat for it too. 

just the way of the times it seems.. don't really expect this to go away though in any upcomming games. I'm guessing most will either go GW2 model or stick with P2P with an optional cash shop. honestly can't really see the harm in a CS as long as you have ways to get any item in the CS without real money.

I understand the differing view points concerning cash shops and see the merits of both sides, however, let me say this:

Did the classic MMORPG's have cash shops, such as UO, DAoC, and EQ? They didn't, so you knew that all of your subscription money was going towards the creation of new content. 

When there's a subscription plus a cash shop, I feel that some of my sub money is spent on creating items for that shop that should be included with my sub fee, like in other games. 

Part of playing MMORPG's, IMHO, is the acquiring of assets and the more rare the assets and the harder they are to get, the more proud you are of your achievements. Allow people to obtain them in a CS, and it greatly diminishes the satisfaction of obtaining those things.

I guess a close example I could give in real life terms is the obtaining of a college degree. How much value would you hold your accreditted degree that you spent 4 years earning if there was a way for anyone with enough money to obtain the same  accreditted degree with the swipe of a credit card? Sure, you'll still have the experience of going to college to look fondly on in later years and will have that extra gain in knowledge, but you can't deny that your satisfaction in earning that degree wouldn't be diminished by those who bought their degree.

I beleive that it all stems from GW2's Cash Shop. Fans just don't want to admit that Cash Shops are bad anymore. "Now it's time to embrace them".  Well, I disagree. Sure GW2's Cash Shop is not P2W. ANET has stayed true to their word about selling unfair advantage and that's very commendable. But I don't think GW2's Cash Shop was ever about selling items. They were in it for the gem/Gold conversions. And just look at what that has done to the game's economy. GW2 has one of the worst MMO economies I've ever seen in any MMO much less a AAA title. To Me GW2 is another shining example of how Cash Shops ruin MMOs. Not to mention one of the worst botting problems in a AAA MMO I've ever seen. And I also think that is related to gem/gold selling. It's my personal opinion, but I still contend that any MMO with an item store is vastly diminished by it.

Originally posted by MMOGamer71

Originally posted by Tamanous
Comparing two similar and mundane games does little to help those wanting much more out of their mmorpg. Trion could have been a great company with an original product instead of a great company with an intentional mmo clone.

WoW is a clone, being 41 years old I would have figured you could see that.  Also WoW is such a clone that tons of NPC's are real world people with reversed names, i.e. Harris Pilton. 

How's that for original?

 

 

 

Wish I had $1 for everytime someone eludes to WoW being original and all other MMO's a clone.

I'd have to say that WoW is an original game. Pre-WoW, I knew of DAoC, EQ, UO, SWG, and Shadowbane. I know there were more, but I don't need more to make my point.

All of those games were pretty different from each other, much the same way WoW was pretty different than all of those games. Before WoW, there weren't quest hubs and quest hub grinding. You went out into the world, formed a group, and grinding mobs for hours to level up. I also don't remember there being any instanced dungeons spread out across the entire level range before WoW. I know DAoC introduced instances with Catacombs after WoW released, but they weren't WoW-like dungeons. 

What else?

1. Flight paths, mounts, and flying mounts. In DAoC, we road a horse for 20 min to get somewhere. There wasn't any flying at all until after WoW released. Hell, they didn't even add mounts until after WoW released. 

I'm not saying WoW is a great game or better than the classics, but I think WoW deserves to be considered as an original game. THE orignal themepark IMHO (downfall of the genre if you ask me...). WoW filled a niche that wasn't already being filled. It catered to those who liked doing quests and soloing the majority of the time.

UO filled the FFA PvP sandbox fantasy niche.

EQ filled the PvE and Raider niche.

DAoC filled the RvR niche for those who didn't like FFA PvP.

SWG filled the sci-fi sandbox niche with limited PvP.

Every MMO was different enough than all MMO's prior to it fill a niche. When WoW came out, it was different enough than all other MMO's to form its own niche. Unfortunately, WoW's niche was so big it became mainstream and halted all forward progress the classic MMORPG's were heading towards (virtual worlds with more and more features as the years went buy).

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by GeezerGamer
Rift is on an edge right now. They can either fly or plummet. I hope they fly. They have a good chance to make it happen. But I've seen so many "Coulda, Shoulda, Wouldas" recently, I'm not putting any faith in anything until I see it. Nor will I pre order this expansion until I have more info on what it's really like. Not just what everyone thinks it should be like. I like Rift. I am currently subbed to it, But the appearance of "Deep's Depot" is just a bit more than disturbing. There is nothing that is usable on a character in there now, but that's not to say it won't happen in the expansion. The CE edition mounts are already a thorn in my side as it is. A full fledged Cash Shop in a Sub Based game, simply undermines the whole concept of working for something. I boycotted TSW for this reason and I'll not hesitate to drop Rift in a heartbeat for it too. 

just the way of the times it seems.. don't really expect this to go away though in any upcomming games. I'm guessing most will either go GW2 model or stick with P2P with an optional cash shop. honestly can't really see the harm in a CS as long as you have ways to get any item in the CS without real money.

I understand the differing view points concerning cash shops and see the merits of both sides, however, let me say this:

Did the classic MMORPG's have cash shops, such as UO, DAoC, and EQ? They didn't, so you knew that all of your subscription money was going towards the creation of new content. 

When there's a subscription plus a cash shop, I feel that some of my sub money is spent on creating items for that shop that should be included with my sub fee, like in other games. 

Part of playing MMORPG's, IMHO, is the acquiring of assets and the more rare the assets and the harder they are to get, the more proud you are of your achievements. Allow people to obtain them in a CS, and it greatly diminishes the satisfaction of obtaining those things.

I guess a close example I could give in real life terms is the obtaining of a college degree. How much value would you hold your accreditted degree that you spent 4 years earning if there was a way for anyone with enough money to obtain the same  accreditted degree with the swipe of a credit card? Sure, you'll still have the experience of going to college to look fondly on in later years and will have that extra gain in knowledge, but you can't deny that your satisfaction in earning that degree wouldn't be diminished by those who bought their degree.

I beleive that it all stems from GW2's Cash Shop. Fans just don't want to admit that Cash Shops are bad anymore. "Now it's time to embrace them".  Well, I disagree. Sure GW2's Cash Shop is not P2W. ANET has stayed true to their word about selling unfair advantage and that's very commendable. But I don't think GW2's Cash Shop was ever about selling items. They were in it for the gem/Gold conversions. And just look at what that has done to the game's economy. GW2 has one of the worst MMO economies I've ever seen in any MMO much less a AAA title. To Me GW2 is another shining example of how Cash Shops ruin MMOs. Not to mention one of the worst botting problems in a AAA MMO I've ever seen. And I also think that is related to gem/gold selling. It's my personal opinion, but I still contend that any MMO with an item store is vastly diminished by it.

It doesn't bother me that GW2 has a CS since they're not charging a subscription.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by GeezerGamer
Rift is on an edge right now. They can either fly or plummet. I hope they fly. They have a good chance to make it happen. But I've seen so many "Coulda, Shoulda, Wouldas" recently, I'm not putting any faith in anything until I see it. Nor will I pre order this expansion until I have more info on what it's really like. Not just what everyone thinks it should be like. I like Rift. I am currently subbed to it, But the appearance of "Deep's Depot" is just a bit more than disturbing. There is nothing that is usable on a character in there now, but that's not to say it won't happen in the expansion. The CE edition mounts are already a thorn in my side as it is. A full fledged Cash Shop in a Sub Based game, simply undermines the whole concept of working for something. I boycotted TSW for this reason and I'll not hesitate to drop Rift in a heartbeat for it too. 

just the way of the times it seems.. don't really expect this to go away though in any upcomming games. I'm guessing most will either go GW2 model or stick with P2P with an optional cash shop. honestly can't really see the harm in a CS as long as you have ways to get any item in the CS without real money.

I understand the differing view points concerning cash shops and see the merits of both sides, however, let me say this:

Did the classic MMORPG's have cash shops, such as UO, DAoC, and EQ? They didn't, so you knew that all of your subscription money was going towards the creation of new content. 

When there's a subscription plus a cash shop, I feel that some of my sub money is spent on creating items for that shop that should be included with my sub fee, like in other games. 

Part of playing MMORPG's, IMHO, is the acquiring of assets and the more rare the assets and the harder they are to get, the more proud you are of your achievements. Allow people to obtain them in a CS, and it greatly diminishes the satisfaction of obtaining those things.

I guess a close example I could give in real life terms is the obtaining of a college degree. How much value would you hold your accreditted degree that you spent 4 years earning if there was a way for anyone with enough money to obtain the same  accreditted degree with the swipe of a credit card? Sure, you'll still have the experience of going to college to look fondly on in later years and will have that extra gain in knowledge, but you can't deny that your satisfaction in earning that degree wouldn't be diminished by those who bought their degree.

I beleive that it all stems from GW2's Cash Shop. Fans just don't want to admit that Cash Shops are bad anymore. "Now it's time to embrace them".  Well, I disagree. Sure GW2's Cash Shop is not P2W. ANET has stayed true to their word about selling unfair advantage and that's very commendable. But I don't think GW2's Cash Shop was ever about selling items. They were in it for the gem/Gold conversions. And just look at what that has done to the game's economy. GW2 has one of the worst MMO economies I've ever seen in any MMO much less a AAA title. To Me GW2 is another shining example of how Cash Shops ruin MMOs. Not to mention one of the worst botting problems in a AAA MMO I've ever seen. And I also think that is related to gem/gold selling. It's my personal opinion, but I still contend that any MMO with an item store is vastly diminished by it.

It doesn't bother me that GW2 has a CS since they're not charging a subscription.

True. And I admit thye need to make money. Overall, I can accept it from GW2 for this reason. But I'm not a fan of B2P. The models is walking a balance beam and could fall into F2P with one slip. It also doesn't change the fact that GW2's economy is borked. I'll still hold my opinion that the pure Sub model is still the best. And that Sub models that adopt a Cash Shop are the worst. Which I admit is a dying breed and thus, so is the TRUE MMORPG.

Originally posted by MMOGamer71

WoW is #1 (subjective) because:

1)  Right place, right time.

2)  There are players that actually think WoW is/was the first/only MMO.

 

 

Ironic the main issues with WoW is server disconnects and 132 errors.........see the official forums.

Yeah because no MMO launched same time as WoW, oh wait there was EQ2, CoH, Ryzom and Matrix Online. All big names, all flopped. All this shit about WoW been right place, right time is such a bullshit. And Bill can hype Rift as much as any fanboy can, it still won't make it better game than WoW.

I just read that article and shook my head.  I will try to be as nice as possible.

Somebody is in la la land on this article.  Rift better than wow,  yea right.

I tried rift in beta,  I got one toon to level 8 before quiting beta,  I was given the game as a gift, I went back and tried again,  no mass got to level 7 and quit.  I was given a fee 30days time via raptor as a reward.  I got to level 5 on the new character before I yet again gave up.

If I wanted wow and or war-hammer I would be playing those games.   Rift is a joke, we had several folks leave eq2 to go play rift, and well they all came back to guild save two of them and those 2 went to league of legends.

Just going to shake my head and walk away from this article and laugh.

Rift has its weak points,

latency,

Character Customization,

Less than Dynamic- Dynamic events

and then:

WoW has had it fair share of weak points,

Catering to the Gimmee Generation and dumbing the game down,

Poor character customization as game continues,

Still running on WC3 engine

Poor Management decisions (selling to Activision, Giving control to CEO/COO's that have no interest in gaming only profit.) oh and screw Kotick.. but thats another story...

In a nut shell WoW was built off the Warcraft Franchise with assistance from Diablo 2 and Starcraft.  Battlenet was a boon for Blizzard and they milked it. Few remember the early days and fewer still want to remember how it all got srewed by bad developer and management decisions.

Blizzard has pretty much been the single most powerful driving force in the last decade to influence millions of players. They could have done the right thing and maintained WoW as a stable hard hitting, challenging MMO that ruled the MMO industry solidly for 4 years.

Instead they Dumbed down the game to cater to the kids of the gimmee generation and what Player now have is a game that is a pale shadow of what it once was. Cookie Cutter characters, quests that have been so blateny taken from prior expansions and lack of real content is whats handed to us now. MoP was a waste if you were looking for a sweet xpac for content.. now if you are one of the Gimmee Generation and all you care about is what you can get for freee with no effort then the cross account mounts and achieves should be good for ya.

WoW was lost at Wrath, Rifts hasnt done alot for me, so in the end I will continue to wait and when CoS is in Beta I will pray it is the one that brings the world of MMOs back to the way it should be, a fight for survival in a world that doesnt want you.

Originally posted by erictlewis

I just read that article and shook my head.  I will try to be as nice as possible.

Somebody is in la la land on this article.  Rift better than wow,  yea right.

I tried rift in beta,  I got one toon to level 8 before quiting beta,  I was given the game as a gift, I went back and tried again,  no mass got to level 7 and quit.  I was given a fee 30days time via raptor as a reward.  I got to level 5 on the new character before I yet again gave up.

If I wanted wow and or war-hammer I would be playing those games.   Rift is a joke, we had several folks leave eq2 to go play rift, and well they all came back to guild save two of them and those 2 went to league of legends.

Just going to shake my head and walk away from this article and laugh.

Why bother reading the article if you so dislike the game?  Sorry you don't like the game, but that doesn't make it the joke, it makes you the joke.  Rift is a good game.  WOW is a good game, or at least was at one time. Hell, Aion is a decent game.  You want to hate on something you didn't play long enough to figure out what it was all about, that's fine, but to talk about the game later from ignorance is the wrong thing to do.  Play it to max level, or don't talk about it.

Originally posted by Myria

Originally posted by Nhoj1983

Rift in just over a year has given many more times more than WoW.

 

I don't know how many times it has to be said, but Rift launched with one of the smallest worlds in MMO history -- even down to having only two "cities" that in reality are little more than one building each -- one raid and a half dozen dungeons that were had to do double duty as leveling and engame, thus people were sick of them before they ever saw T2.

Trion launched with a game that couldn't come close to matching WoW Vanilla, let alone where WoW is now, and despite all of the patches the game still is very content light compared to the competition.

They launched with half a game, patching in the second half over a period that saw them hemorage subs because people quickly got bored (some of the most generic and unmemerable lore in gaming history doesn't help, either) isn't nearly as impressive a feat as people make it out to be.

Having launched with a full game and then patching in a ton more content, now that might have been worthy of praise. But as it really was? Not so much.

 

How soon people forget how screwed up and unpolished WOW Vanilla was.

Played WoW for four years and it was a great game. (could still be for new mmo players).  That being said, Trion is doing a great job.  I beleive the continuios nerfing of WoW (stupid things like changing the hunter mechanics and talent tree removal, etc) coupled with Trions dedication to giving the players what they want will slowly drive a change towards Rift.  Just about the only thing WoW has going for it, is it's length of time people have been playing it.  

After fours years of WoW, I have many friends that play.  Most dont want to change to any other game because they have friends that play or because they have to much invested (these are the reasons I'm given).  I have gottom many to come to Rift and I'd say about half decide to stay.  The other half ends up going back either because they have more friends on WoW or because they are not use to getting their butts handed to them via NPCs (they are use to face rolling to win...lol)  You know, place face on keyboard and win.

imo ;o)

Originally posted by erictlewis

I just read that article and shook my head.  I will try to be as nice as possible.

Somebody is in la la land on this article.  Rift better than wow,  yea right.

I tried rift in beta,  I got one toon to level 8 before quiting beta,  I was given the game as a gift, I went back and tried again,  no mass got to level 7 and quit.  I was given a fee 30days time via raptor as a reward.  I got to level 5 on the new character before I yet again gave up.

If I wanted wow and or war-hammer I would be playing those games.   Rift is a joke, we had several folks leave eq2 to go play rift, and well they all came back to guild save two of them and those 2 went to league of legends.

Just going to shake my head and walk away from this article and laugh.

 

You clearly put the game through it's paces and gave it a fair chance. Level 8 in beta. Shaking my head and laughing as well.

Originally posted by nate1980

I played RIFT when it first released. My first impressions were good. Questing was smooth, dungeons were fun and challenging, and I liked the soul system. However, the game didn't capture me past the first month and here's why:

1. I'm an altoholic that hates rerunning the same quest content. I also only liked one of their factions. So when I finally figured out that I didn't like the souls I had and wanted to try something different, I was faced with rerunning the same zones over and over again while I was figuring out which souls I liked best.

2. While at launch, rifts were fun and people participated. After a couple of weeks it got repetitive and people were hardly participating in them.

3. I hate macroing and the game promotes it.

 

While WoW doesn't hold my attention for long periods of time, it does offer several different zones to level up and I like races from both factions, which gives me even more fresh paths to level up through. So I can or could, if I chose, level up through 3-4 different sets of zones the majority of the time. So rolling alts isn't so painful. 

WoW offers a plethora of dungeons to level up through as well. So if I ran 1 of the 6 or more dungeons available to me at my level per day, a different one each day I might add, combined with a different zone for the level my characters are at for their respective level, I have even more variety for leveling up. Variety is king!

Lastly, I don't have to or feel the need to macro my skills, nor is there a way to as far as I know.

So RIFT beats WoW, no contest, with the soul system, quality and challenge of dungeons. Yet, WoW beats RIFT with the variety of content you can do while leveling up alts so you're not repeating the same content untill your 5th or 6th alt.

 

All true, but WOW is 8 years old and Rift much less.  So what you like about WOW stems from longevity.  It's not a fair comparison.  While I have 9 lvl 85 WOW toons, and a 90, here's why I dislike WOW and won't ever have a second 90.

Carebear.  Leveled the 85 to 90 without one death.  MOBs are so spread out it is difficult to agro more than one at a time.

Limited dungeon access.  During the 85 to 90 run I only had a few new dungeons to run, a few more becoming available as I leveled.  Forget about lvl 1 to 85 dungeons, if you've leveled a toon lately you'll have noticed that there are few players leveling anymore.  It not like a few years ago.

Scenarios.  Useless for leveling as they are only available at lvl 90.

Endgame.  Nothing new.  Dailys that are overrun by players, same few dungeons to run through until you can do them blindfolded. Anyone actually raid? Other than the dedicated 2%?

Characters.  Same old, antiquated facial designs, women with man's backs and linebacker legs, and usually no eyeballs.

Character animation.  Virtually non-existant. My mage throws her arms out, balls of light form, then fly out. For pretty much every spell she does. Lame.

Riding animation. Looks like doll glued to a small dog.

Character quirks, spontaneous actions. Virtually non-existant.

Gear.  Boring fuzzy skins with no depth. Cartoonish weapons.

Graphics.  Fuzzy, bland, 1960's cartoon style.  Only good thing Bliz has done graphically is footprints and water effects.

NPC talk.  If I hear "take it easy" one more time I'm going to scream!

Bland questing.

Lost vision. The alliance prince is being escorted around Pandaria by a Horde?  WTH?

What has WOW done well? 

Voice acting. Best I've heard so far in games. 

Relaxing dungeons with no instant death tactics.

An Auction House in which stuff actually sells.

Success in creating hate between Alliance and Horde, at least until Pandaria showed up.

Good music.

Supposedly good lore, but I'm not into that so I'll take people's word on that.

What has Rift done poorly.  Voice acting.  Worst I've heard so far.

Poor ratio of harvesting to crafting needs.  Hard to sell anything because it's so easy to harvest what you need.

No sucess in creating animosity between factions.

Limited character customization, limited character designs. Far better than WOW, but not even close to Aion.

Poor jumping animation.

Limited character spontaneous animation.  Better than WOW, but no where close to Aion.

Poor battleground management, pitting David versus Goliath in terms of gear levels.

Originally posted by Myria

 

 I don't know how many times it has to be said, but Rift launched with one of the smallest worlds in MMO history -- even down to having only two "cities" that in reality are little more than one building each -- one raid and a half dozen dungeons that were had to do double duty as leveling and engame, thus people were sick of them before they ever saw T2.

the crazy thing about Rift is you don't just sit in the main city (SW/Org) waiting for your queue for all content.. crazy right?!?

Originally posted by RolleZ
Would be nice if Trion hired some ace coders. But no, they just keep adding crap to the game engine without checking if anyone can run it above 30 fps in crowded areas.

AS much as I like Rift, this is one of my top 3 complaints.

Along with the lazy PVP "fix" they copied when WoW introduced Resilience after raiders started dominating BGs late in Vanilla. 

And the Crown Jewl of Rift. The Soul System. Still boils down to Cookie cutter specs at level cap.

That said, It's still my favorite MMO released Post TBC.