Hardcore Casual

It’s hard to describe Rift in a few sentences.

I mean, if I say it’s like WoW but better that’s pretty subjective (read: correct) and depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking to pay $15 a month for a single player RPG with amazing 2004 graphics, WoW is still the better game. If you are looking for a more traditional themepark MMO that acknowledges you are not just a line item on a DPS meter, Rift delivers.

If I say it does a lot of what WAR and other games tried but actually succeeds, that’s not telling you a whole lot either. Succeeds at what, and why? And how is fixing feature X important enough to make me care/switch?

If you ask for 3-4 things that make it ‘special’, the list would not do a great job of pointing out why the game is as much fun as it is.

And at the end of the day, the above is really only a problem when talking about Rift, because playing it is pretty damn good fun. Now maybe if you are coming off their 12^th straight themepark it’s not as fun. Maybe if you have been playing nothing but themeparks since 2004 you don’t find it as enjoyable. Maybe if you are taking a break from WoW to ‘try something new’ Rift is not doing it for you. All fair. Of course, if you are complaining that the PvP is bland and you wish it was more worldly, all while ignoring Darkfall, well, it’s not the genre that’s failing you. If you wish for something more complex without playing EVE, again, it’s you. And if you hate all of the above, keeping waiting for that jesus MMO, it’s coming “soon”.

For me though, Rift arrives at the perfect time. I’ve been away from the themepark space for a bit, and I still have a ‘serious’ PvP MMO that is always available in Darkfall.

Now that I’m half a bar away from level 30, I think I’ve seen enough of the game to offer some additional thoughts.

As has been repeated often but can’t be stated enough, Rift does most if not all of the basics well. If you feel something should be in a themepark MMO, odds are good that Rift has it. The lack of a guild bank stands out as much as it does in part because, well, basically everything else IS there. Guild quests, puzzles, explorer caches, solo/3-man/group quests, solid instances, achievements, collections, a currency tab, pets, mounts, zone-wide events, customizable UI, etc etc etc. Name a themepark feature you would expect a game to have, and Rift probably has it and executes it well.

And executing well is what separates Rift from other MMOs IMO. I’m not just talking lack of bugs or stable servers, I’m talking ideas improved on slightly to make them overall work better. The zone invasions and rifts are PQs 2.0 not because of some hidden details or improvement, but for the simple fact that when they happen, a large section of the zones current population gets together and fights it off. That’s very, very different from WAR, where unless someone gets people together, you don’t run a PQ. Reactive vs proactive. Huge difference. That they tie into each zones lore and storyline is just icing on the cake.

The difficulty here is also important. If you show up with a few people, you will succeed at the early levels. The more people you have the faster you succeed, and the better you play the higher your chance for a reward, but the difficulty being what it is means the event is more of a social “come look at the pretty lights” type of deal than a hardcore DPS metrics race to the e-peen top. This conditions people to show up, rather than having the average player get stomped at level 15 and swear off invasions all together.

One other thing I’d like to point out, and something that I hope continues as I level, is that rifts, instances, and invasions are slowly getting a little more complex as you go. In Silverwood the bosses and rifts were pure tank and spank, while in Gloamwood they have a mechanic or two that semi-matters (you can ignore it and still zerg-to-win, but reacting to it is better). Hopefully by 50 things are closer to the old WoW world dragons, if not quite that tuned, as at that point it’s no longer an option to ignore them and move to the next zone. Again though, the tuning is going to be key. Make things too difficult, and you condition people not to show up. Make them too easy, and at 50 it might not entertain people as long as you expect in an MMO. I’m thinking this is where raid-level rifts come in, and if so, I’m looking forward to them.

A quick note about questing difficulty; 90% of it is WoW-easy, but that 10% is just enough to keep things interesting. Skip the next paragraph if you have not been to Gloamwood and want to avoid a somewhat minor spoiler.

There is a quest in Gloamwood that, at one point, curses you and turns you into a werewolf, which subsequently makes most of the previously friendly NPCs (merchants, guards, etc) hostile to you. If you finish the quest and kill the named mob, the curse is lifted, or you can sneak into town and talk to someone who can also break the curse. As I’ve been reading the quest text, none of this was a surprise and I was able to reach the NPC to cure me after some sneaking and running away. Two guild mates who play only for the shiny had a tougher go of things, and I’ve seen some hilarious forum threads of people complaining that this one quest “completely broke the game for me and made it unplayable!”

It’s good that in the age of ‘accessibility’, there are still a few quests or encounters that require more than fist-pounding your keyboard, and they make all of those simpler quests more enjoyable by contrast. If every quest cursed you, it would be a drag, but being challenged once in a while is, in my book, a great thing. And so far, that’s really what Rift has been about, one enjoyable ‘great thing’ after another.