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Originally posted by Malkosha
My preferred style of play in MMORPG's is solo-play. I simply hate to rush through group quests at someone else's speed. There is no socializing ... just mindless zerging and you miss half the game that way. As a solo-player I can play at my own speed, socialize when I want and participate in the community without the interruptions of "Colonel Klink" types who spend most of their time trying to control other players.

True, I don't get all of the good stuff that way but when I want that I can always join a group/raid and go from there. I delay this as much as possible. I guess I just don't find raids all that social.

I've searched and whenever this subject is brought up all I hear is "Go play a single player game" complete with the old school EQ mindset and all (yes that ancient mindset still exist to this very day). Sometimes in those types of non-answers I can gleam some info but never anything decisive.

I can't seem to get a solid answer as to just how solo friendly this game really is. You would think that with all of the options in the soul system, you could create a very powerful solo char. Even if you can, is their anything there for a solo player to do? In WoW I can do many many things before I commit a char to the raiding grind. What about Rift?

Anyone know?

Thanks!

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To say it's solo friendly would be an understatement. I played 4 betas and I'm in the headstart and the only time I've grouped is for Rifts.

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Originally posted by markt50

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Originally posted by Copeland
 

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Originally posted by Loktofeit

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Originally posted by RiftFan

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Originally posted by Copeland

When anyone can go buy the game and log in it's called a RELEASE.
Thank you. that is all.

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It is called headstart because it is techincally free. The counter for the first free month
does not start until March 1st.

They took a lesson from the WoW launch here. When WoW launched they ended up having to do
lots of partial refunds. It is quite ingenius to do it this way. You have 7 days to sort out
bugs or que issues before subs time even starts.
 

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Exactly. And the type of player ingame right now - the one that preorders AND plays before release - is a lot more forgiving of first-week issues than the rest of the purchasers will be.
Seems well planned so far. The server count has me really interested - are they repeating mistakes of the past or do they really have numbers to indicate this will be in  or above the AOC/LOTRO/EVE range?

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Isn't that supposed to be called.. OPEN BETA? Used to be :P

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 Yeah, but does it really matter ?
It is a way for the company to unofficially 'Launch' the game, but they give themselves a bit of a margin for if things go a bit wrong (As they tend to during a 'launch'). It's kind of a win win all round, your avid fans get to play a bit for free, the company get to use the excuse of 'Well we haven't actually launched yet' if it all goes tits up.

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How is having the game available for sale and instant access not a launch? Okay so they may not charge a subscription for the first 4 days. That's not a headstart. That's deferred billing.

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Originally posted by Loktofeit

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Originally posted by RiftFan

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Originally posted by Copeland

When anyone can go buy the game and log in it's called a RELEASE.
Thank you. that is all.

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It is called headstart because it is techincally free. The counter for the first free month
does not start until March 1st.

They took a lesson from the WoW launch here. When WoW launched they ended up having to do
lots of partial refunds. It is quite ingenius to do it this way. You have 7 days to sort out
bugs or que issues before subs time even starts.
 

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Exactly. And the type of player ingame right now - the one that preorders AND plays before release - is a lot more forgiving of first-week issues than the rest of the purchasers will be.
Seems well planned so far. The server count has me really interested - are they repeating mistakes of the past or do they really have numbers to indicate this will be in  or above the AOC/LOTRO/EVE range?

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Isn't that supposed to be called.. OPEN BETA? Used to be :P

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Originally posted by Solude
Nit picking but guys please do notice Feb doesn't have 30 days in it =P  Not the first time I see Feb 24 to Mar 1 = 7 days /facepalm

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LOL.

I rolled a Mage defiant. Played for 3 hours last night made it to level 12 mainly questing.

I found in PQ's err sorry Rifts that if I use my instadots and just spam them while I tab target I do alright :P. At this level the mobs don't have enough HP to actually cast a spell and hit one. Even the big boss at the end.

Yesterday there must have been 70 people at the one Rift I did.

Crazy. Fun game though. Hopefully it can hold my interest for longer than a month. Something only EQ and EVE have ever been able to do.

When anyone can go buy the game and log in it's called a RELEASE.

Thank you. that is all.

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Originally posted by odelldanielj
Yeah, EQOA still says they have 100k registered accounts too.  Registered accounts don't mean squat.

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EQ still has a healthy population of about 100k. It does have a loyal following.

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Originally posted by lizardbones

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Originally posted by Copeland
They know how many people have bought the game.

With that in mind, they know how many servers they will need to accomodate that number of people.

I believe they're up to 31 servers now?

31 x 50k = 1.5 million.

It would seem that they've sold about a million boxes at this point.

While some people say this game will suffer like WAR and drop subs. I place it more in the category of WoW and believe it will blow up just like WoW did over the next year.

Trion has a great team of devs and we all know that speaks volumes as to the success of games in this genre. If devs listen, we win, they win. If devs don't listen, everyone loses. Trion has proven 1 thing above all else. They really care what their community thinks. They listen to feedback and if appropriate apply that to their game. What more could you want?

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50k people per server? There is no way they are packing each server with 50k people. Even 10k is possible, but I was thinking more along the lines of 5k per server. I think they want the servers packed with people, and then they'll open more servers as needed.

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SOE could do 5k on their old EQ servers. The new blade technology is quite a bit more powerful. It can accomodate 50-75k per server.

They know how many people have bought the game.

With that in mind, they know how many servers they will need to accomodate that number of people.

I believe they're up to 31 servers now?

31 x 50k = 1.5 million.

It would seem that they've sold about a million boxes at this point.

While some people say this game will suffer like WAR and drop subs. I place it more in the category of WoW and believe it will blow up just like WoW did over the next year.

Trion has a great team of devs and we all know that speaks volumes as to the success of games in this genre. If devs listen, we win, they win. If devs don't listen, everyone loses. Trion has proven 1 thing above all else. They really care what their community thinks. They listen to feedback and if appropriate apply that to their game. What more could you want?

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Originally posted by Dethnoble
Isn't this f'n swell... it is going to take me 3+ days to download due to crappy DSL and Direct2Drive hasn't sent out headstart keys.... should I simply demand a refund?

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What is a head start key?

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Originally posted by Mardy

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Originally posted by kuhronusu
19.95 is quite expensive for a 10years old game o.O

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11 year old...supported game, getting expansions once a year, monthly patches, 16 servers, etc..  Don't let the age fool you heh.  If graphics is the only thing people care about, EQ wouldn't be alive today.  But then if graphics is the only thing people care about, then all the new games released in the past 5 years should've been smashing success.  Of course we all know tons of games released in the past 5 years have been failures heh.
 
Anyways, didn't realize you were from Brazil, so I have no idea where you can get it from then.  Sorry :(

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Steam has it.

I tried out the new progression server. Too bad it's nothing like EQ circa 1999. Guess I'll stick to the 1999 emulator server. Sad SOE can't pull their heads out of their asses long enough to give people what they want.

I ordered from Steam and got 2 shiney new weapons for Team Fortress 2 :P

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Originally posted by Rockgod99

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Originally posted by Copeland
 

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Originally posted by Meowhead
I haven't played Rift... just busy lately, and weekends are bad for me... but I just wanted to say I feel really bad for you Rockgod99, your star rating has just dropped constantly ever since you decided to support Rift. :(

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Star ratings are based on how actively you post. That is all.

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Heh... So i post too much so my stars went down? I have over 4 thousand posts in a year and change.
Anyway Rift rocks. And i cant wait for beta 7!

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Short posts bring down your rating. Long posts up it. Dunno if they have a character coutner or what. And your rating didn't go down. You are now a spotlight poster. I believe that's 1 up over elite.

I grabbed a beta key a few betas ago as a lark. I really didn't plan on liking the game. I really don't like WoW, War or AoC so i figured this would go about as well.

I've preordered with a 6 month founder sub. It's not exactly what I like but it is quite entertaining. It doesn't have the bad WoW graphics, the zones are a bit bigger than War and AoC and it's polished.

The real selling point to me was the soul/role feature.

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Originally posted by Meowhead
I haven't played Rift... just busy lately, and weekends are bad for me... but I just wanted to say I feel really bad for you Rockgod99, your star rating has just dropped constantly ever since you decided to support Rift. :(

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Star ratings are based on how actively you post. That is all.

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Originally posted by BarCrow
At this point I consider my  PC as less than mid-range with I7 920 2.6ghz..4gb ddr3...gtx 275..7500rpm 8mb cache HD and it runs at around 35-60fps. My monitor usually only allows for 60fps max even with verticle sync off .(Lotro seems to get over 100fps at times..but it is the only game that does). It looks pretty good most times..even with an arseload of players and mobs on the screen it may dip to just below 20 fps...and occassionally just above 10 fps..but oddly enough it never seemed to noticably stagger. This is at  default "Ultra " settings which look really good.

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I can't believe my 2 year old Q6600 is getting better results. check your drivers?

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Originally posted by infofront
It's an all-around half-hearted effort, and a semi-polished, poorly implemented, poorly coded, vanilla-WoW clone.
 
Bonus Sentence: If it was coded well enough to run well on mid-range hardware, this game might've been considered good in 2004.

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I'm playing on a 2 year old set up. It's mid range now. Q6600 with a HD4870 video card. I can run this game on max without any issues.

Dunno what you're doing wrong.

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Originally posted by Sovrath

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Originally posted by Robsolf

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Originally posted by Copeland

um.. 9.99 US is not 20 canadian.

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True, but the OP isn't saying that.  He's saying that 12.99 canadian converts to about $20 a month.

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It converts to:

12.99 USD

=

12.8352 CAD

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Yep the US dollar is weaker than the Canadian dollar. Has been for about 8 years.

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Originally posted by fiontar
You know, like many, I really, really want a new MMO that will keep me happy for a year+. It's nice to be able to invenst in an MMO long term, be in a good guild, make friends, etc...
However, I'm beginning to realize that if an MMO keeps me busy for 2 to 3 months, that's ok too. I buy a good console game, get maybe 20 hours out of it. Had fun, maybe play it again, maybe not. Done. I get a lot more bang for the buck from a decent MMO, even if I don't play more than a couple months.
The key for me, though, is the question "is the game likely to keep me well occupied for at least the first month"? An MMO becomes a very bad deal if you buy it, play it ten hours, hate it and uninstall.
Some games are just so bad, technically and design wise, that it becomes pretty obvious that it will be a dud for most people. Even with those games, you may find a small group who like it and play it for a year+, but most people will have a bad impression and leave in under 10 hours.
When a game IS that bad, it's a good thing to warn prospective buyers. However, too many people today will take a subjectively negative opinion of a technically solid title and trash it, because they have a need for other people to validate their opinions. (Or for other reasons).
Rift is a technically solid game that shows some nice creativity, gives players freedom over their character build and offers something new with rifts. It's not a perfect game, by far. I'll be surprised if I play it more than two or three months, but it's a game that is worth a shot for people looking for a new game.
For me, I'm pretty sure I'll get at least that full first month out of it, so I pre-ordered and will give it a real shot.

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I feel the same way. I went a step further and got the 6 month sub for 9.99 a month.