I am wondering is rift worth playing? or is it just another biliant wow clone, with solo rush to cap, then pointless raiding where the raid gear has no real purpose? Purpose to me is maybe some faction vs faction land control-based pvp and NO seperate pvp gear, so everyone has to raid if they want the best pve & pvp gear.

I am pretty bored with most mmo's since wow, and looking for something that might be worth playing,

Here are some things I look for.

1: Does the game have raiding worth doing? as in, is raid gear the best gear for pvp? if yes, thats a major plus, because it gives a purpose to raiding where mmo's like world of warcraft there really is no point to raiding due to a lack of stuff to do with the gear.

2: Is Rift yet another mostly or all solo to cap then start to raid mmo? or are groups actually needed outside of instances/dungeons/raids?

3: Is crafting worthwhile? or is it like most mmo's where drops you get from mobs are pretty much always better than anything you can craft.

4: How is the pvp and what kind of pvp modes does the game have? plain stuff like death match do not interest me, I am more interested in team based pvp, whether it be Capture the flag, or land control that grants your faction bonuses.

5: Classes that actually feel a tad diffrent insted of just copy and pasted from 1 mmo to the next.. I beta tested rift way back, and unless it changed since beta it fails number 5, because the classes were pretty much copy and pasted from world of warcraft.

Any replies be apprecated.

It's a good, solid game about getting stuff. It's about raiding at endgame, but there are other things to do if you don't need the very best gear. While you can play this game solo, it is boring and tedious that way. It's a lot more fun with other players. Fortunately, the general community is much better than that in WoW, from my experience, so it's not hard to find a good guild and find some people to play with.

I'm not criticizing everyone who plays WoW, mind you, because I know there are some good guilds there too. It's just that the general population of Rift is much better, from my experience.

So Rift is a WoW-type game in many respects, but with a totally different art style that you may or may not like. It also has personal housing, which is a very cool thing WoW does not have. 

If you want a good solid themepark with a good community, then Rift is worth playing. There's a free trial, so find out for yourself.

The most LINEAR quest game i have ever played along with Wiz 101.

No variation in game play,no choices to level in different areas,you follow those  linear quests and that is your whole gaming experience.The crafting,idk why but it didn't feel like crafting,it felt more like i was doing more quests AGAIN .../sigh.

The RIfts/invasions are a good idea on paper,but become generic and repeating and not so fun after only a day or two.The Rifts really are the only way to feel like you are in a MMO world and not playing a run of single player quests.I cannot imagine how easy questing would be if i were in a group,they are definitely designed to solo.

After having played the master of the Hybrid [sub class] system in FFXI,all other games seem to do it real cheap,like just a bunch of choices thrown out there with no real design into the game.

Example having a choice of FIRE atrtacks means nothing,it is not like the creatures/mobs have elemental weaknesses,the game is just simply put shallow for depth.

I gave it three tries,first time,i figured maybe i didn't give it a fair shake.So a second try was warranted,got bored after day 3 and stopped playing.After several months ,i again tried for a third try and again got bored after day 3,i doubt i will ever try it again.

It´s a really well made WoW clone with a few new features.

I would only reccommend it to someone who wants to play "The WoW model" without playing WoW cause they´re tired of the same old Azeroth.

But yes, it is linear like it´s nobody´s business.

Originally posted by Siveria

I am wondering is rift worth playing? or is it just another biliant wow clone, with solo rush to cap, then pointless raiding where the raid gear has no real purpose? Purpose to me is maybe some faction vs faction land control-based pvp and NO seperate pvp gear, so everyone has to raid if they want the best pve & pvp gear.

I am pretty bored with most mmo's since wow, and looking for something that might be worth playing,

Here are some things I look for.

1: Does the game have raiding worth doing? as in, is raid gear the best gear for pvp? if yes, thats a major plus, because it gives a purpose to raiding where mmo's like world of warcraft there really is no point to raiding due to a lack of stuff to do with the gear.

2: Is Rift yet another mostly or all solo to cap then start to raid mmo? or are groups actually needed outside of instances/dungeons/raids?

3: Is crafting worthwhile? or is it like most mmo's where drops you get from mobs are pretty much always better than anything you can craft.

4: How is the pvp and what kind of pvp modes does the game have? plain stuff like death match do not interest me, I am more interested in team based pvp, whether it be Capture the flag, or land control that grants your faction bonuses.

5: Classes that actually feel a tad diffrent insted of just copy and pasted from 1 mmo to the next.. I beta tested rift way back, and unless it changed since beta it fails number 5, because the classes were pretty much copy and pasted from world of warcraft.

Any replies be apprecated.

1. Rift's raiding and PvP is very much like WoW.  If you thought WoW's raiding was pointless you will think the same here

2. Solo to cap.  Vanguard and FFXI are the only two I can think of that arent that way now.  Even EQ1 you can solo into your  60s easily

3. A slghtly better WoW crafting system.  Slightly better because you can at least influence stats a little, but its still harvest, click, combine.  Gear is slightly more useful than WoW, but not much

4. Again, think WoW.  They also have a 3 team battleground, conquest

5.  the new souls are a little bit better, but its tough to be unique these days.

Originally posted by IfrianMMO

It´s a really well made WoW clone with a few new features.

I would only reccommend it to someone who wants to play "The WoW model" without playing WoW cause they´re tired of the same old Azeroth.

But yes, it is linear like it´s nobody´s business.

It is also a brilliant first MMO, and being linear is an advantge with new players.

But if you played Wow or any other themepark a lot you wont find much new in this game even if the specc system and rifts/invasions are new.Very well made but it just felt like I played it before a lot.

Still worth a trial for anyone unsure.

Absolutely!

1: Yes, the raiding gives you the best PvE gear! It also requires you to obtain each piece of the anterior gear set. I say PvE gear because there are amazing PvP gear as well.

2: You can solo all the way to the top. Although, you can choose to group for PvP, dungeon, zone events.

3: In many ways it is worth it. Especial apothicary (alchemy). I cant say for sure about armor and weapon smithing (i just dont know)

4: I do not know much about world PvP other than killing the enemy faction while out and about (PvP server). But there are plenty of warfronts that require a bunch of different team based actions.

5: The class system is something I really like about this game. If you can think of a way to fight there is a soul to go with it. Pets, squishy dps, squishy AoE, tank, tanky AoE, healer AoE, healer ST, healer with shield. The combinations are endless.

Its a great looking MMO but nothing new.

If you like "tons of things to do" there is a lot, especially tied to the Achievments.  A lot of non-combat pets, titles, and nifty little trinkets to turn you into things.

It is NOT optimized so prepare to turn graphics down or have a top end computer (I run an old Q9550 with SLI 560's and my frames range from 19 to 80+.  Yes, its that eratic. Thats with High settings minus shadows).

The Rift community is HORRIBLE.  I have played "ALL" the MMOs out there and I have never seen such a hate filled game.  My wife says that I am getting older and this is "how kids act now".  Seriously, when did being known as a troll get you into the end game guilds?  There is also a large amount of CSM favortism, a lot like the Vanilla WoW, where guilds of CSMs use their powers to secure most all of the "server first" type achievments.

If you can get into a good guild, or join the game with 5+ of your friends, you will love it.  It looks beautiful and there is a lot of Theme Park to see.  If your starting from lvl 1, plan on a good year of things to do and most likely loving every bit of it.

If you plan on soloing, stick to a game where your already established, you wont miss anyhting here.

I just logged into Rift after a month hiatus and asked simply "Where should I start leveling".  I was called every name in the book and told "go back to wow carebear".

I logged out and will check back when its F2P.

Yeah, it's worth playing.  You can try it free to 20.

The game play has elements from EQ2 and WoW, but with their own twist on it.

To answer your questions:

1.  The raids are about as good as any others out there.  I enjoyed them up to a point.  Yes, the best gear is locked behind raiding as are some achievements and shinies.

2.  You can solo or group.  Most people either solo to cap or to public grouping and events to level.  There are a lot of leveling opportunities.  There are no new lowbie areas so you'll see more of the same when re-leveling or leveling alts.

3.  Crafting is mostly worthwhile as a supplement to instance and barter gear.  Some crafted consumables are nice.

4.  There are warfronts and zergball instances called conquests.  Conquests are currently capped characters only and consist of 3 artificial factions zerging each other.  Warfronts are are small team based battles with different maps and objectives.  PvP gear is for pvp mostly.

5.  The classes and subsouls are mostly copies of EQ2 or WoW classes, but you can mix and merge them and have different builds.  So you can fill multiple roles with one class.  You can sort of customize, but outside of overland play people in raids and pvp expect certain builds or you will be a liability to the team.

If you like subscription themepark raid-centric games then this is the one I would recommend.  As I've said it's free with restrictions up until level 20.

The good part is there are a lot of different types of activities to engage in including fishing and housing (Dimensions).  The not so good part is that the game is raid centric and Trion does cater to the raiding guilds but that can be mostly ignored.

I play Rift and think its a great game for what it does. That said, the amount of fail information  in some of the replies in this thread astound me. Those who have played the game can easily spot out which people may have only spent a couple hours in the original beta and are replying as if they are long time vetarans of the game.

Based on what you are looking for, I would not reccomend this game for you. Have you looked into Aion? That sounds like it may be more to your liking.