TL
R:
I loved it and had a great time................ for three weeks
At that point I had been everywhere, seen everything, done everything, and all that was left was a bit of grind content towards a handful of crappy items I didn't even want anyway. It got uninstalled shortly after that. Shame.
Longer version:
I loved the combat especially. If you are interested in good RPG combat, you have to try this game. They basically ripped off the combat ideas from Vanguard and then improved upon them. I tried most of the classes and they were all really well made and great fun to play. It was so addictive just running around killing stuff.
The world was nice looking and nicely varied. The quests were as good as anything WoW has to offer. The tradeskills were decent too. The dungeons were well put together and raids (and Rifts) were fun too.
The bad stuff however is that firstly, it's just too small in general. The world is lovely but it's just so limited. You spend about 10 levels in a zone, and then move to the next one. By level 50 you are all done and realise that you really didn't see many zones because there just aren't many. If you like PVP you are shit outta luck. World PVP is totally pointless and hardly ever happened on my server (which was a well populated PVP server). Part of the problem is that levelling is so fast, you zoom to 50 in about 3 weeks and then you literally have no reason go anywhere... ever, you literally never leave your city again. The only stuff left to do are Warfronts (like WoW's battlegrounds), and dungeons (which are instanced), and all of those you get summoned to by the LFG tool so basically at 50 you just spend the rest of your life sat in one spot waiting.
The warfronts are the only place you can really get some PVP, and they just aren't good enough. There's only like 4 or 5 or something, and they are very small and very boring. If you are going to rip off WoW, at least improve on it. The dungeons, they are quite good, but it's so incredibly linear. They are all instanced for a start (just like WoW), so you never meet anyone in there. It's also so perfectly balanced you could never solo in there. So basically you load in with your boring pre-made party, they all spam their boring pre-made macros, and you go from section to section killing all the mobs the same as you did last time. It's all completely scripted so nothing random ever happens. Once you have learned how to run through the dungeon once, you can do it again every time without fail (so long as your party is ok), and it just becomes so grindy and tedious. You run through the same dungeons the same way, over and over and over. The worst thing though is that you do this for tokens to buy you phat loots, but the phat loots just aren't even that good and there aren't even very many of them. It's like a microcosm of a real MMORPG or something. In other words, it's boring and grindy, but unlike SoD where you just get on with it because it's only T1 and you have a dozen more interesting tiers to see... in Rift you get on with it and in a week you have got most of the gear the game has to offer. You then look at the other few remaining items you just think, what's the point?
As for the easiness, it's just the modern way. WoW did a lot of great stuff, but it's started a whole new era of MMORPG's where everything is easy and everything is handed to you on a plate, and there is no challenge in anything. Unlike early EQ which was an absolute brutal bitch, and made you bend over and beg for everything, these modern games just GIVE you everything without you even asking.
There's no one main thing you can pin point, it's just that everything is simplified compared to the old way. You have to add all the simplifications up:- You basically never die, because if worst comes to worst you just turn around and run and 20 feet later the mob gives up. There are no fizzles, no resists, mana and health is almost unlimited, everything is either alone or linked so you never need to split pulls or even pull, everything regens extremely quickly, all the characters are generally stronger than all the mobs so anyone can solo anything, and most of the time you can take on 2 or 3 mobs at once without any problem. XP is extremely fast so you are constantly blasting through the levels. Gear is meaningless, from almost every mob and every quest you get a new upgrade. There are no trains, wanderers are minimal and predictable, etc..etc..
It's just the modern way. These MMORPG's now are basically just utterly accommodating. There is practically no resistance, you are just handed everything and all it needs from you is that you are present and spend some time playing it (and not even that much time).
That rant makes it sound like I hate it, and I kind of do. Imo, some time around 2002 or something, there was a split, and EQ, UO, Shadowbane, and DAOC, they all died. And the new generation popped up with WoW which simplified everything, and ever since then, everything just copied the WoW way, meaning that those old earlier games are now like a long lost ancient knowledge. It's especially sad to me, because the new games do some things so well, and improved so much.. The graphics, the combat, the technology, the UI, it's all great. Just a shame it's all being used to power really mainstream dumbed down crap for the masses.
