Well, over the weekend, I went ahead and pick up Rift. For those of you who have no idea what Rift is, its an MMO pretty much just like World Of Warcraft is. I’m not gonna go into too much details about what Rift is, the storyline.. classes.. but what I will tell you is this.
Rift is different in that you start in the future, when all has gone to hell already.. you do a number of small quest and you end up going back in time to safe the future. Which for the most part.. the past is under attack by Rifts which release randomly in zones, mobs come out and attack. You as the player have a choice;
1) You totally ignore them and go on questing, farming, whatever you where doing in the zone
2) You join the public group and fight the Rift until its closed, gaining rewards.
Now. Lets take a look at those 2 choices. The first one, pretty much what will happen is the zone will get taken over.. and will stay that way until you take it back. So if your questing.. if the zone is lost.. you can’t do your quests or get new ones.
What I like about this feature of Rift so far is that this makes you WANT to go out into the world and do something. Unlike WOW which right now really your just sitting in a major city waiting for a battlegroup or dungeon or summon to a raid. Really boring as hell if you ask me, and I hope that Blizzard does something.
Anyways back to Rift, what I like about this, is the rewards. I’m currently level 13 and I’ve already gain end game reward tokens to use when I hit the level cap (which is 50) That really is nice.. because it not only tells you about this but you have access early on so it’s not a big shock to you if your a new player to the game. Like myself back in wrath when I hit level 80 and oh what? I need to grind to get these bages to get the gear? Why can’t I make it.. or buy it or farm it in the world? I have to buy it from a vendor after I collect 60 of this badge? WTF?
Yeah I know.. the game as you play it changes.. but in Rift that doesn’t seem to be the case. Also you get your mount as well early as level 1. I’m not sure if thats the case if you buy just the normal game.
I pick up the collectiors version because they are having a special $5 for the base and $10 for the collectors which gives you a mount, a pet, a title.. and some other stupid crap. Really for that price plus I had to pay the first month. Thats $25 in total to play Rift for one month. So even if I stop playing after that.. I got my money out of it.
So far I am liking Rift.. mostly because its new. I’ve been ONLY playing WOW for so long.. on and off that its gotten dull. I plan on playing Star Wars for sure when that hits and I know I’ll enjoy it.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are a number of things I dislike about Rift.. the world itself seem dull. Yeah.. the whole Rift system is pretty cool.. but they happen so often.. that after an hour of playing.. I got tired of having to fight those rifts… I really just wanted to do my quests and move on…
PVP I try out.. and it was way confusing.. as a new player to Rift… in my first BG.. I did well horrible. I had no gear, and well it was level 10-19. I remember those days in WOW when it was like that. So now I don’t feel so bad when I go into a lowbie bg.. and someone is retarded. Maybe they are new and have no idea what to do. Lession learned.
The next thing that bugged me was the lack of Addon Support. Yes.. Rift has like no add-ons. I’m not looking to totally outfit my UI.. but a nice small compact BAG add-on would be nice. It basically takes up way to much of the screen even on my large screen I have. Long with Add-ons is the Auction House. Which I find the whole gold making in Rift to be stupid. In most MMOs they have a currency after Gold. I already have like 1 Platinum and 60g gold. Which in for those wondering.. holy crap 1 Platinum! No.. its not that much. Basically 1 Platinum is the same as 100g so in truth at level 13 I’ve made 160g give or take. I simply gather ore and herbs.. and wood (What? in a moment..) and sold it all.. that and some leather and cloth and some random gems and crafted items I got form doing Rifts and sold them.
Thats one little thing I like.. Rift lets you have 3 professions. I know there where times I only had 2 or 3 characters that could have max professions in WOW.. and I died having to level X toon to get X profession to support my main (gold wise and item wise). However… Rift has more professions I think in game. Right now, as a level 13.. I can gather ore (mining), I can gather herbs and wood (Foraging) and I can skin leather (Butchery). Whats super great is I don’t have to buy any extra tools and carry them in my bag, like a skinning knife or mining pick.
The last thing about Rift that was some what annoying but really not that big of a deal was the fact I couldn’t keybind the mouse wheel to the action bar like I can WOW. For some reason in the AH window, I couldn’t right click an item to have its name show in the search box for easy searching.. but those are small things.
So what do you guys think? Did you enjoy reading about me playing Rift? Do you want to know more about what I’m doing in the game, stuff about the class I’m playing (warrior) how the talent system works and my thoughts about that? What about in-game footage? Leave a comment and let me know.
