Originally posted by Tamanous

Originally posted by Purutzil

Originally posted by Tamanous 

2. They do not develop much with original thought. The content they pump out is either based on a model they already perfected (small updates of themed Rift-tech invasions) or an expansion filled with ideas from tech already well tested in other mmos.

Think your thinking of WoW there. 

Granted we can admit they did take ideas they found from other games (face it, its a good practice, WoW is created solely after this taking from EQ1 with virutally all features taken from other gmae) they have added quite a bit of original stuff into the game (as far as I know). The concept of Instant adventure was a new concept that took emphasis in the game, and they have added other little components that weren't used much in MMos, the defense points/turrets taking some inspiration from Tower Defense of sorts not done in other MMos (that I've seen). Much of their other content was expanded upon greatly from other games, such as the Zone Event (Improving upon the Warhammer idea that wasn't really fleshed out to well). Leader board itself was a concept never really handled in MMos that much and was expanded greatly in Rift to make it stand out being different. 

They have A LOT of original thought when it comes to the game, though we can admit a good deal comes from expanding on older concepts or retuning them to fit the game in their own brand. If we are going for complete originality, your not going to find a single game that exists out there that has that. Everything has already been done, we can only hope to change it up or expand upon it more to make it new and exciting.

If I was thinking of Wow I would have said Wow. 

 

You are trying to defend Rift's originality by using the most abused gaming arguments on the internet: the "blame everything on Wow" and the "but all games are a copy if you look far enough back" argument. Sorry but you have completely discredited yourself from any further discussion on this matter.

No MMO is completely original. That said, Rift does go a good distance toward at least separating itself from the rest, in a number of ways - your personal opinion or dismissal of those differences notwithstanding.

There's a reason the game is doing well and receiving a healty amount of content updates, nevermind having a huge expansion coming out soon.  And it's doing this with a subscription model. You know.. that revenue model that so many people love to claim "no one will ever play because MMOs aren't worth it and developers can't justify the sub fee"?

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Myrdynn

(in an ERA where there were still pay by the hour games) but you got monthly patches, every month.

To my knowledge, no MMO ever used hourly billing.  Did I miss Turbine using collection agencies and post-use billing?

MMOs never ran on AOL/GEnie/Compuserve--where the last of the hourly-rate games lived--before they moved to the web, circa 1994-1997.  Those were Kesmai, Gemstone...pre-MMO games, MUDs, poker and bridge, chess, etc.

AC didn't even open until late '99, right?

I use to have $300 a month bills playing pay by the hour neverwinter  on AOL. Meridian 59 was also pay by the hour but I never got into that one.

When UO released with a flat monthly fee was amazing that a company could do a better game so cheaply made no sense.

Originally posted by ste2000

They learnt from SoE, since Hartsman was basically EQ2 producer for 4-5 years.

SoE has been always good in releasing content with their yearly expansions.

I remember that the first couple of years EQ2 had expansions every 6 months and even a quarterly mini expansion called "adventures".

They stopped doing so, probably because the subscription base collapsed, and wasn't worth it anymore, but it is doable.

Probably Rift subscription numbers are still worth the regular updates.

Seems like you haven't played eq2 in a while, you get more content now then you did then, oh and Hartsman was only exec producer for 2 years (was with SoE for a long time thou).