Originally posted by mbd1968

Yes... but they are a Rogue calling and not a Cleric calling.

Bards have always been classified as rogues.. Jack of all trades, master of none is what Bards have always been in fantasy settings...   So, why would they be considered as clerics? Just curious. :)

If you played Vanguard at release, you wouldn't think of playing it now, period...  I played in beta and release until Sony took over and screwed everything up.. They got rid of the item expertise system which I loved and made a lot of the dungeon dropped items BOE or BOP, which I think is ridiculous! They way they had it at launch you could use any item then sell it or give it to a twink whenever you got upgrades.. You could also have a level 50 weapon at level 35 but you had to be smart with what you equipped since you could only have a few higher level items equipped since you'll reach 100% item expertise quicker with higher level items..

Anyway, SOE changed the features to match what they knew and this is when I left.. It had nothing to do with lagspikes, mob warping, and bugged quests. I actually dealt with that simply because the game to me was the true EQ successor with the game mechanics and features.. I knew eventually the kinks would have been worked out, but once when SOE took over and changed everything, I along with many thousands of other fans said, buh bye..

It's a shame because I believe Vanguard could have been the next legendary MMO for me.. To bad SOE screwed over Brad McQuaid and Sigil because they didn't really want any competition to their beloved EQ2...

As for leveling, I got one character from 1-20 and another from 1-40 in a month.. Leveling was difficult, but If you focused on doing dungeon runs, it went faster If you were smart and knew what you were doing... 

Not that I really care, but I also think the Emerald Dream will be the next expansion.. Everyone thought it was gonna be the next expansion before cata was announced..

As for what it would include,,, I'd guess one new regular playable class and a new heroic class.. Blizz has to do something big to keep the millions and millions of fans interested.. There are a few decent MMO's due out this year and next year that will lure wow fans away.. So in order for WOW to stay afloat past 2012, something major needs to be done..  However, Blizzard understands this which is why they are developing a new MMO.. They see WOW wont be on top much longer especially with quality mmo's due out soon... WOW's time is going to quickly come to and end by the end of this year..

Make the game more difficult to level, force more group content, and implement a severe death penalty... This will keep all the fps gamers away and restore the fantasy mmorpg genre back to where it used to be when EQ was in it's glory days..

Originally posted by Cannyone

I will indeed at sub to Rift for least several months.  Seriously, Trion might still mess this up, though I doubt it.  Heck I've even joined a Guild already... And that has been a motivating factor for some games in the past.  Its very possible I'll be having enough fun to overlook SWTOR and GW2, when they release.  We'll see!  :D

      GW 2 will mainly attract the whinny kids plaguing WoW.. SWTOR will attract mainly fans of SCI Fi MMO's like SWG, Anarchy Online, and even EVE..  Which means the real hardcore fans of traditional fantasy MMO's like EQ will be playing Rifts.. This is another reason why Rifts will be successful,, because the community playing it actually loves the game...

I was in all 4 betas and I had to be one of the first people to pre order the CE.. The game is pretty much everything I want in a MMORPG and then some..

I'm not a big fan of pvp oriented MMO's and quite frankly everyone fantasy PVP oriented MMO's failed miserably except for UO.. WAR was horrible, AOC, not much better, Darkfall is ridiculous, and MO isn't even playable.. Those who don't like the game complain because they don't like the PVP. Well, Rifts is not a pvp game,, pvp is thrown in for extra flavoring, nothing more.. I love the PVE dungeons, environments, class system, cities, and of course the Rift invasions are absolutely awesome! Especially when one of the major invasions can come out of nowhere and literally take over your towns and cities.. The only thing that can stop them is players banding together to drive them back and destroy the rift.. This is super next gen awesome! No other MMO had insane events like Rifts where the mobs can literally take over your towns and cities.. It's intense, exciting, and mind blowing fun!  Also the planar rewards you can get are better than dungeon loot!

I hope the game can keep me interested even after I reach the end game,, this is my only worry.. But I'll definitely be subscribed the next 3 months at least.. So, If 90 bucks can keep me entertained for 3 months, I still see it as money well spent...

I'll be playing Rift at least until I've defeated all the content it has to offer.. It's that good..  However, I enjoyed WoW back in late 2004-2005 until the only thing left to do was Raid MC once a week. Then the game got old and stale for me which forced me to quit..

I imagine with all the major Rift invasions happening, the game won't become repetitive like other traditional MMO's..  People who haven't tried Rifts should know when major Rift Invasions happen, the monsters will overtake the NPC controlled cities until you band together to drive the monsters back.. You won't be able to use merchants, class trainers, or anything when the invading NPC monsters take over your beloved city.. You pretty much have to help out so you get your city back before you can use any merchants, quest npc's, etc.. This is what I really love about Rifts.. And some of the planar rewards you get are better than any dungeon loot you'll recieve.. So the loot also makes it worth it :)

Anyway, as for Tera, it looks more action based which is nice, but I want a more traditional MMORPG to play and Rifts definitely = > than Tera for me..  I didn't like Aion to much and hated Lineage, so going on those two games alone, I don't think Tera would be the game for me even though it does look good and sounds nice..

Well, were not entirely sure on how the endgame will be like, but we all suspect it will be similar to current MMO's like EQ, EQ2, and WoW in terms of dungeon raiding for epic loot..  I also expect to see at least a couple end game raids involving MASSIVE Rifts that will take more than 1 raid group of 20 to defeat.. I imagine the hardest content to beat would be this massive Rift that could possibly invade the land and take over the entire zone until people band together to defeat the Rift..

This is what I gathered from the last Beta.. There were massive invasions at the end of Beta where a bunch of monsters kept appearing and took over the city.. There were literally hundreds of people fighting together to push the mobs back.. Then we had to kill this gargantuan Avatar with over 200k hit points.. I, being level 27 at the time fought him for a good 20 minutes until he finally died...

 So, I expect to see your typical dungeon crawling end game raids.. However, I also expect to see a similar end game raiding "invading" event where a bunch of people have to get together to drive back the most powerful of Regulos's invaders..  This is what I can't wait to see..

Next Beta should begin Friday and hopefully the level limit gets raised from 27 to like 35ish at least..  And I'm hoping the level limit will be raised to 50 before beta is over so I, along with other people can properly answer your question. :)

So basically what your trying to tell me is my motherboard is fine for the initial upgrade, but my processor is to obsolete to notice much of a difference??  

I didn't think upgrading the processor meant much at all, and definitely didn't believe It had anything to do with upgrading the graphics card... Normally, back in the day I would buy a cheap Compaq or HP and upgrade the graphics card, ram, and PSU, since the MB and Processor weren't really that important when it came to gaming..

First, I'd like to thank you all for your replies, I appreciate it..  This is the motherboard I have right now..

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16813131013

My PSU is a 550 Watt Antec..

So basically what's the best Nvidia Upgrade from my current 8800 gts?  I dont really have the extra money and time to build a new pc, I'll do that sometime down the road.. I just would like to have the best card possible to run Rifts... I played in all the betas and ran the game on fairly high settings with little lag, just not ultra settings..  So If someone has any good recommedations that would be worth upgrading my 8800 GTS, I'd appreciate the advice :)

Originally posted by gotha
The two just do not seem to mesh well. Instead of making a game around rifts. they just put this really cool dynamic content over a WoW style quest systems. First off rifts are normally group quests. What happens when I am the only level 13 and the level 13 quest hub (which there is only one of) is taken over by rifts? Just seems the two do not correspond well to other.

it is kind of annoying, BUT it forces players to work together to defeqat those rifts..

personally, i love the rift concept.. The rewards can be really good if you get invited to the main raid taking on the major rift invasions..

Going out as a raid hunting rifts gives players another option combined with PVE questing, PVE dungeon crawling, PVPing, and Battleground pvping.. More = a good thing, not something to complain about

You don't need intelligence to play through the first 10 levels or so... But once you hit level 10, things get interesting and you'll have to be more AWARE of your surroundings.. There are constant NPC raids and rifts all over the place and you can't just go afk and not expect to die.. Even when you die, when you get back to your spawn point, there may be a rift invasion right there which means if you rez yourself, you'll die immediately..

Right now I'm level 20 and the game just keeps getting better and better for me. I did a couple HUGE rifts that were 4 stage rifts where I got my first planar blue item :)   Anyway, the huge rifts are actually pretty darn fun to do. It takes a bunch of people to defeat all the stages.. Everything gets really intense and edge of your seat thrilling.. You'll just have to see it for yourself.. It's definitely next gen.. I'm wondering how they will get once you reach end game max levels.. I'm guessing since level 18-20 Major rifts are kick azz, then Imagine how they will be at the end game...

But back on topic.. Levels 1-10 are super easy and 4 year old can with downsyndrome can reach it easily.. 11-15 gets a little tougher. 16-20 is a bit more difficult and this is really where you start to feel that sense of awesomness within the game.. Things come together more and you can finally go to the first dungeon starting at around 16ish..

Anyone considering buying the game, I'd recommend at least playing to level 20. If you don't like it by then, well then you probably won't like the game period.. And as for Intelligence question, ya you can't be an idiot by the time you reach your mid teens. If your a whinner, complainer, and expect not to die from rifts and or complain like a little school boy each time you get killed by invasion, raids, etc, then you should go back to whatever ez mode game you came from, period..

Rifts gets hardcore as you level up.. I'd recommend if you played and enjoyed EQ and Vanguard, you'll like Rifts..

Really, I have no idea how Rifts can be compared to Warhammer other than the Rifts are kinda similar to PQ's, but not really.. PQ's were staged events and Rifts can come out of anywhere,, its' not staged.. Other than that, there is absolutely no comparison to WAR whatsoever!  The graphics, setting, atmosphere, terrain, classes, monsters, etc are NOTHING like WAR, AT ALL, lol. WAR looks like WOW 2.0.. Rifts is NOT WAR 2.0 and those who think it is really need their head examined...

Rifts looks and feels more similar to the legendary EQ and Vanguard more than any other game, period..  One of it's creator's, Scott Hartsman, worked on the original EQ.

So all this talk about it being Warhammer 2.0 is like saying EQ is Ultima Online 2.0 or something ridiculous lol..

Greetings,

Well, I believe it's finally time for me to replace my Nvidia 8800 GTS card.. I got this bad boy back in March of 2007 and it's been the best card I've ever had.. In some ways, I'm sad to depart from it, *wipes tear*

With that said, I've been checking out this card from Newegg and thinking of buying it.. Here's the Link.     It's a Nvidia EVGA GTX 470

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130550

I'm wondering If it will run on my current Rig... Here are my specs..

AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4600, 2.41 GHz, 4 GIGS OF RAM.

ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe 570 SLI AMD Motherboard..

The motherboard is what I'm worried about.. I'm not sure If the GTX 470 will run on it since the MB is like 4 years old. It has PCI x2 16 so I'm thinking maybe it will run on it, but not 100% sure.. If anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it.. Thank you

I played all 3 Betas and played through all 4 archtypes. I was blown away with the graphics first and foremost and the terrain and environments look absolutely stunning. The combat was ok, pretty much similar to other MMo's on the market, but hopefully the spell and combat animations get a boost before release because I felt that was the only downfall of the game so far..

Since it's new and fresh, and reminds me of EQ in many ways, I already preordered the collector's edition.. If I enjoy the level 1-20 content, then there's a good chance the higher level content can be better.. However, it does bother me a little bit that we have only been able to level to 20.. Hopefully we don't have another Vanguard on our hands where once you got pas level 38ish, content is broken and barely nonexistant.. That would be the nail in the coffin for me. But I'm thinking positively and believe the game will keep me interested for months and maybe years to come.

Greetings,



After I read George Martin's ASOIAF series, I was literally blown away.. This is the type of fantasy series I've been looking for all my life. There is NO main character, no protagonist vs antagonist hold you by the hand young adult disney theme.. After reading book 4, you still don't know who the main character is because there really is none. The main characters are several different POV characters involved with the overall story being told.. This is what I like! And after reading this, I've been going crazy trying to find something similar..

I searched many different sites trying to find "official" reviews and ratings over every epic fantasy novel/series ever written. After reading up on the top 25 fantasy series based on one particular site, I went out and purchased a nice handful of novels hoping to find a series that is as captivating, realistic, thrilling, and magnificent as ASOIAF.. Here's what I've purchased in the past couple months.. The numbers represents the order which I plan on reading the series based on the first chapter I've read from each. (Some of the books I actually read more than one chapter, cuz it was either pretty good or I just wanted to see what happened next) [img]http://www.bestfantasybooks.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif[/img]

1) Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson)
2) The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)
3) The Briar King (Greg Keyes)
4) The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)
5) Caverns of Black Ice (J.V. Jones)
6) Lamentation (Ken Scholes)
7) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher)
8) Shadowmarch (Tad Williams)
9) Acacia (David Anthony Durham)

So far, out of these 9 novels, I look forward in reading them all except for Acacia and Shadowmarch. Acacia put me to sleep after page 5, and Shadowmarch didn't do much better.. It's a shame to because I've read these two novels are "similar" to GRRM's ASOIAF.. Hmmm, those two shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as ASOIAF....

With that said, I'd love to find out more info on good reliable fantasy book sites.. I've searched and searched but mostly I only find "fanboy" sites with one person giving his so called expert opinion on all the novels and series he's read.. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate some of these sites and what some of the people have to say about each series he or she's read.. However, I'd love to find a site where there are professional fantasy book reviewers that go in detail describing what the series is about, then give their professional rating on the series by breaking the books down into categories. For example, video games have categories like Graphics, gameplay, storymode, etc.

Reviewers give a rating on each category, then an official rating for the game.. I have yet to see any sites of fantasy novels that do this same particular rating system.. Most of the system is just highly opinionated reviews.. Well, one person's views and perception is different than someone else's. For example, Bob states he didn't think the battle scenes of such and such book were detailed and epic enough. But John states the battle scenes were awesome since it mainly featured 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 scenes and not large boring army battles.. You have a difference of opinion there, correct? Well a professional reviewer can say something like, the battle scenes were riveting, intense, and very well choreographed. However, If your expecting large scale military battles, this may not be for you.. Something to that effect so the potential reader knows pretty much the kind of book he or she is buying..

I may have gotten carried away there a little bit, lol. It's just, I spent to much of my little free time on these sites and at Borders trying to find the next great epic series similar to ASOIAF and so far I haven't really found anything close except for Garden's of the Moon.. Now, I plan on reading that, but I'm wondering If there's anything out there that's,,, better and doesn't involve Gods running around in mortal bodies.. I kinda think that's stupid, but whatever.. Going to Borders and reading the back of countless books doesn't really help much. I got lucky with ASOIAF 7 years ago after reading the back and saying, ehh I'll give it a shot..

Anyway, If anyone can list some helpful links of professional fantasy series sites that have many people reviewing the books, I'd be very grateful.. And If there's a series you would recommend me to read, please feel free to list it here..

Here's what I'm searching for..

A fantasy series for adults where the story doesn't revolve around one or two characters, but a bunch of characters that get tied together in a epic storyline.. Something that is not predictable, and filled with clever twists, intrigue, betrayal, love, action, and lifelike memorable characters.. I really don't like any young adult novels that are so straight edged you can predict the outcome within the first chapter.. I like unpredictable epic novels where the characters evolve and the heroes and villains die. I also enjoy novels where there isn't really a "main character" persay.. I really hate those traditional typical main protagonist vs antagonist novels. It's stupid and childish to me.

Thanks to those in advance..

darkfall could be a fun game but it's filled with bored vets that have nothing better to do than grief new people to the game, causing them to quit, lol..

Mortal Online was a joke of a game. It has to be the greatest talked about game that was anything but an actual game. U ran around for miles and never found anything to fight. The game looked as If it was in pre pre Alpha stage,, like the only thing existed was the terrain and environment.. That's not a game, it's just an idea..

Strongly NO

Why? Because first person games aren't meant to be MMORPG's, period.. Now, don't get me wrong. There's times I enjoy being in first person mode,, when exploring.. But not having a 3rd person view is an automatic NO for me..

How do you people really think this is a WAR clone or WoW copy???  First off, the game looks 20x better than both WAR and WoW.. The only comparison of WAR is the Rifts are similar to WAR's PQ's.. As for WoW, maybe you can say the talent trees are similar, but that's only because WoW created a brilliant talent tree system 5 years ago.. EQ 1 started it with their AA's, but WoW perfected it..  Honestly, most games nowadays should use a similar system since it's the best you'll see in a class based game..

In all honesty, Rifts reminds me more of old school EQ.. Nothing really like WoW or WAR at all comes to mind, thank god! WAR was garbage, absolute garbage. The player models looked dumb, the concept was retarded, and mechanics were so dumb I can't believe I was fooled into buying that pile of bleh!

Please don't compare Rifts with,,,,, that game ever again.. The only similarities are the rifts, that's it and even that's not much of a similarity since PQ's were staged every 7 minutes! Rifts come out of nowhere!