Quote (Zestro-theman @ Mar 9 2011 03:02am)
Graphics are beautiful, though I wish the skills were flashier. The environment is where they put most of the art, and they did it VERY well.
Leveling up is never boring, almost as easy as WoW, getting geared is pretty much the same. The world PvP is the same as any other game except they give a lot of exp per kill as well (1k exp per world pvp kill).
Warfronts (like battlefields in WoW) will most likely get old in the long run, though the level 50 warfront is FUN, don't think i'll ever get bored of that one. There's a lot of crap to do end game currently, so even if you no-life the game to 50 in a week, you'll still have a lot to do.
The classes is where this game gets even better, I'm going to assume you're familiar with WoW so:
There are 2 factions, each with 3 races, in those races you can pick from 4 classes (classes are not race dependent). Each of those 4 classes can obtain 8 souls (talent trees), but you can only PICK 3 of the said 8 to be active at any given point. Here's where it gets interesting, I will use a rogue as an example because its quite a contrast. Unlike every other game where when you pick 1 class, you're stuck with that (i.e. you pick rogue on WoW you're only a rogue) in Rift, you can fulfill multiple roles. Example: I chose rogue as my class, rogues can have the following 8 souls: Assassin, Bard (healer/buffer), marksman (gunner), ranger (archer), riftstalker (swordmage), Blade dancer, Nightblade, saboteur. You get to pick 3 of these PER role, you can have up to 4 roles saved and you may change roles on the fly while in a dungeon/warfront. What does this mean? Well let's take your normal dagger using rogue whom normally goes Assassin/nightblade route, while in combat they can switch to their Bard role, buff/heal themselves + allies, and by now the fight isn't anywhere near them, switch to marksman or ranger and become a ranged dps, all within a min or two. *note you must be out of combat to change roles but thats not hard to do, just break line of sight*
All in all the only "innovative" aspect of this game is the soul system. Everything else can be compared to another MMO however rift does do it slightly better than the rest, they've had time to work out the kinks and bring out a polished game.
I will be honest though, the rift system itself is pretty new but I'm sure i've seen something similar in another game, just can't recall the name. But the rift system is just at any given moment, a rift may open up and spawn mobs, and every couple hours there is an invasion of a certain element where the mobs travel on set paths killing everything in their way (including npc's). I kinda wish the path they traveled was random but they may change this later, it'd be more fun if i had to run for my life rather than simply moving out of the way and wave as they pass by.
If I've missed anything I'm sure some other jsp'r will come and fill in the blanks or correct me where I'm mistaken =] but that's the basic info of the game, and my opinion is that the game is totally worth the money and time. It's extremely enjoyable, and the storyline is superb, I'm actually catching myself reading it where in other games (including WoW) I'd just hit esc to skip it. Its a well rounded game, doesn't stick out in any specific aspect, and it isn't lacking in others. Don't come into this game expecting it to be something innovative and entirely brand new, its not. Its like every other MMO but with its own twist on things. If you like WoW, stay with WoW, if you're bored of it, come over here, the differences are minor and I'm sure blizzard will come out with an update to match rift in the near future anyway =], they don't like being topped and they have the funds/programmers to stay top game.
wall of text crits souldarite for 1337.
Very nice review. We need someone to compile and sticky all of the decent "reviews" that have been written, I've seen three or four good ones.