Rift Review

Post by Dan @ 03:36pm 07/03/11 | 67 Comments

The newest kid on the MMORPG block is Rift, the debut title from Trion Worlds that launched in Australia just last week.

Thanks to an open beta test period and pre-launch access with the game's headstart program, James has been able to give this one a good workout for AusGamers -- sinking some serious time into both of the game's factions. The verdict? So far so good.

There's more substance to these kind of MMOs than can reasonably be evaluated in a couple of weeks however, so James will be back in a month or so to let us know more about the longer term end-game content and whether the developer has maintained pace supporting the title.

Until then, find out all his thoughts so far in this in-depth review.

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Latest Comments

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LOTUK
Posted 04:08pm 07/3/11

damn it. I might have to give this a try... whilst maintaining my WoW characters...

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HurricaneJim
Posted 04:19pm 07/3/11

It's just another hack n slash, 6/10 (3 for class system and 3 for Rifts).

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Raider
Posted 07:07pm 07/3/11

Same problems face it, will it be able to lure people away from wow and keep them since they already have a group of mates / well established community in wow where there is nothing in rift. Half the time it isn't so much the game is bad but rather people can't convince others that it's worth it to ditch all their invested time from wow into another game which has a good chance of not going big.

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Crakaveli
Posted 07:10pm 07/3/11

I just don't see the point in ditching WoW for a WoW clone.

I'll wait until something unique comes along ( like thats gonna happen.. ).

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JamesPinnell
Posted 07:13pm 07/3/11

I honestly don't consider this a wow clone. It has a lot in common but Rift stands well on its own.

Once you've played through some rifts and gotten into the combat system, you're not even going to look back.

But Raider has a good point, it's going to be pretty tough to get your whole guild to move if they are entrenched in Cata.

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Khel
Posted 07:26pm 07/3/11

I played the beta, and it seemed like a very polished product, but I didn't find it particularly interesting. It seems to be the breath of fresh air some people needed though, so thats good, but each to their own.

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Llian
Posted 07:32pm 07/3/11

Love how people call pretty much any MMO a wow clone. What was WoW a clone of to start with?
ANY new startup MMO is going to do what works. In their own way, but it will bear similarities (OMG! It uses WASD for control! Such a WoW clone!).

Imo I will likely cancel my wow sub for this. It is really good. Rogue tanks FTW

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Eorl
Posted 07:59pm 07/3/11

I'm in need of a good MMO to sink my teeth in for those nights where coding gets to be a b****. Might give this a whirl after the first month honeymoon.

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Eds
Posted 08:36pm 07/3/11

I would like to try this but there is no trial before you commit option.

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Tanaka Khan
Posted 08:42pm 07/3/11

I dropped both my WoW accounts for this. After getting 10 toons to 85 I became quite bored with WoW. I took my time to enjoy the Cata expansion but I found I could go from 80-85 in 2 days, after that where was the fun? I did enjoy the revamped zones though, but shuddered when it came to going through Outlands again.

So far I'm enjoying it, but am worried that once I've gotten my first toon to 50, the next toon will be following the exact same questing path...

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 12:18am 08/3/11

I'm really liking Rift so far. Only up to lvl 14 but what I've seen has been great. Especially the visuals. Everything looks so lush and after coming from WoW it really is a breath of fresh air. Also liking the difficulty lvl as well. I've lost count at the amount of deaths I've had and when you do die it doesn't take long at all to run back to your corpse. Also found the trade skills quite easy to lvl as well and the gear you make is actually worth wearing, unlike WoW's.

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Corona
Posted 12:59am 08/3/11

After getting 10 toons to 85 I became quite bored with WoW

I'm sure you did..

I'm really liking Rift so far. Only up to lvl 14 but what I've seen has been great. Especially the visuals. Everything looks so lush and after coming from WoW it really is a breath of fresh air

How exactly? From the screenies I've seen it looked identical

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skythra
Posted 01:07am 08/3/11

It's just another hack n slash, 6/10 (3 for class system and 3 for Rifts).

But what would you give all other mmo's on average? I mean 6/10 is pretty high considering I'd rate most other MMO's at about a 2 (granted 99% of them are ragnarok ripoffs with barely better graphics despite often managing 3d) and the rest are between a 4-5...

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skythra
Posted 01:09am 08/3/11

How exactly? From the screenies I've seen it looked identical

The world actually has a purpose other than just differentiate level 10 from level 11.. :P

It also has rifts!

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 01:50am 08/3/11

How exactly? From the screenies I've seen it looked identical

If you can't see the graphical difference between WoW and Rift then maybe you should get some glasses. The visuals are better by 100% and the sound effects, especially when rifts are happening is f*****g awesome. WoW is almost 7 years old now and even though I do like the style of the game you cannot say that Rift visuals are the same. Rift visuals are leaps and bounds ahead. I'm not sure if you've played it yet and judging by your post you prolly haven't.

Anyway, I don't really give a s***. I'm having fun atm and that's all that counts!

8-)

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Jim
Posted 02:29am 08/3/11

I took my time to enjoy the Cata expansion but I found I could go from 80-85 in 2 days, after that where was the fun?

umm... the fun in wow is after you finish levelling and work through the raid content

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Basket
Posted 03:20am 08/3/11

I took my time to enjoy the Cata expansion but I found I could go from 80-85 in 2 days, after that where was the fun? umm... the fun in wow is after you quit* Fixed

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Drummo
Posted 07:29am 08/3/11

Guilds are going to be the biggest hindrance to people migrating from WoW. If mine hadn't reformed for Cata, and I wasn't having a blast with raid content then I'd be heavily considering Rift.

Don't get me wrong, if we were banging our heads against the wall with raid content I probably would of jumped ship already, and when we do hit that roadblock, Rift is going to look all the more appealing.

I set myself a rule, no more day-one MMO's.

Give it a couple of months and we'll see where it is, but It's hard to see it disappearing any time soon.

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Nerfington
Posted 08:02am 08/3/11

umm... the fun in wow is after you finish levelling and work through the raid content

Tbh I only really enjoyed leveling, the feeling of progress and finding new things.

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LOTUK
Posted 08:26am 08/3/11

Has anyone given Aion a decent enough run to compare with Rift?

I don't have the time to get in to raid content. best I can do is PvP. So a new leveling experience might work well... now if only I could convince my guild to switch games :(

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Saint
Posted 08:45am 08/3/11

Rift is great fun, it's pvp is far more enjoyable than WoW because you can actually world pvp. WoW was the same boring s*** in Cata .. will probably go back eventually but for now Rift is different enough and more fun so I'll be sticking with that for a while. Finally a new MMO released that's polished on release instead of buggy as crap!

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Keato
Posted 08:51am 08/3/11

Its a great game, when you do Realm of the Fae for the first time and you run up into the snow and fog on the top of mountains you truly realise its visuals are great.

I liked wow, and won't bag it, but RIFT is more than holding my attention, not since DAOC have I felt a relaxed gameplay where I just meander along leveling, playing alts, PVPing, collecting sparkles. In 1 hour I achieve a lot more than I can in wow.

Needs more Jim imo, but Jimsaq the Obes Pet is taking enough abuse to fill the void.

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Jim
Posted 09:01am 08/3/11

if only there were more hours in a day for a second mmo, 36 hours or so in a day would be sweet

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Keato
Posted 09:13am 08/3/11

You need to raid less wow, play more RIFT, were casual enough for you to fit right in fine :P

We only play a few hours a night 3-4 times a week, remembering your wow hours you prolly could manage that between daily's :P

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Khel
Posted 09:50am 08/3/11

Graphics are definitely more advanced in Rift, but I still didn't find it graphically as interesting as WoW. Maybe its just cos I'm more heavily invested in the lore of WoW, but the zones seem to have more character to them and tell more of a story and feel more alive. The graphics in Rift, while very nice, just felt a bit generic and stale to me (except for the rifts themselves, which did look rather cool) and the zones I saw, I didn't find all that interesting.

But maybe I just play these games for different reasons than other people :P Like I'm not really interested in pvp at all, and a lot of people just see the questing content as a means to an end while I really, really love exploring it and reading everyone's stories and really getting wrapped up in the lore of the place. Rift just didn't really have that for me.

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Eds
Posted 09:56am 08/3/11

umm... the fun in wow is after you finish levelling and work through the raid content

I don't raid anymore, it just sucked out so much time. I am still playing wow but very rarely. Maybe Ill buy this after some of the reviews here and try it out.

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skythra
Posted 10:48am 08/3/11

Maybe its just cos I'm more heavily invested in the lore of wherever WoW stole their latest story for adaption

At least rift so far is (as far as i can tell) their own story.

Not that stealing a story and then writing your own version of it has ever gone bad.

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 10:58am 08/3/11

It's always nice hearing how people play their MMO's. I personally couldn't give a s*** about lore and just prefer to lvl and check out the locations. That's one of the things I really liked about WoW when I first started. I was in awe of the different places I would head into. Still remember the first time I logged in on my NE in Taldrassil. F*** me it was awesome. And then opening up the map once I got across to Darkshore and just thinking, "holy f*****g s*** this game is big."

I'm getting that feeling again with Rift because it's something new and I can tell by looking around that the artists have put in an ass-load of work with the buildings and environment. I'm actually being lazy in Rift and not really bothering to read the quests since they have the locations marked out on the map. I know I'm missing a huge chunk of the story but I prefer to just head out and kill stuff and get my loot.

8-)

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boba
Posted 11:00am 08/3/11

best thing about rift is world pvp. nothing like questing with some mates and then deciding to gank people and then get chased around by 20 odd defiant and everyone trash talking each other over /y

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Eorl
Posted 11:02am 08/3/11

I'll play it after the first month honeymoon, then I can better gauge what exactly the devs will do.

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Khel
Posted 11:16am 08/3/11

At least rift so far is (as far as i can tell) their own story.

Where did wow steal their story from? Yeah sure theres influences, the Old Gods are cthulu inspired for example, and they have their own version of elves and dwarves and orcs like every fantasy story does, but they have put their own unique spin on them and its very definitely their own story. If you have sources though that prove me wrong I'd be interested to see them, if the story does come from where else I'd be interested to read whatever the original story was. I get the feeling though its just more anti-WoW hate from anti-WoW fanboys who've never actually played the game.

The Rift story didn't really do much at all for me, I played to about level 20 in the beta and it was EXTREMELY generic. Mages dabbled in things that they shouldn't have, released a big bad evil guy, and the big bad evil guy is now destroying the world. There didn't seem to be a *whole* lot more in it than that. There didn't really seem to be much story to the world, and not really a lot of interesting races with their own history and such.

The only interesting story elements seemed to come out of the conflicts between the Defiants and the other technology driven guys who's name I can't remember. It was kind of an interesting twist that the Defiants were outwardly supposed to be these holy paladin type protector people, but they were totally right wing fundamentalist about the whole thing and committed horrible atrocities in the name of "good". I also liked how when you started a new character you started in the future where the world was completely destroyed and the big bad evil guy was about to win and then you had to go back through time and stop him. But then it got decidedly less interesting for me after that.

Anyway, thats just my take on it, I wouldn't have bothered typing such a huge rant if I wasn't bored and trying to find ways to not do work. Carry on.

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Eorl
Posted 12:33pm 08/3/11

You know that all the Warcraft lore is horrendously ripped off Warhammer right? Blizzard were suppose to actually do a Warhammer game, but they got knocked back, so they made WC1.

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Obes
Posted 01:13pm 08/3/11

I named a pet after you jim ... so you are playing rift by proxy

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Jim
Posted 01:24pm 08/3/11

kinky

also this is during the wow beta, the day they added the new hunter class

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boba
Posted 01:26pm 08/3/11

if your pet isn't named obes and getting stuck on bridges, you aren't doing it right

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greazy
Posted 01:34pm 08/3/11

hahahah boba.

S*** talking sounds amazing and people talking about this game makes me want to play it. Too bad no comp any more :(

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kappa
Posted 01:50pm 08/3/11

Might give this game a try. Would a 7900GT with a c2d e8500 run it?

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JamesPinnell
Posted 02:22pm 08/3/11

Kappa - I ran it on a HD4850, which got me 1600x900 with Ultra High. I don't see why you couldn't on a lower setting. System specs are here: http://telarapedia.com/wiki/System_Requirements

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Khel
Posted 03:20pm 08/3/11

You know that all the Warcraft lore is horrendously ripped off Warhammer right? Blizzard were suppose to actually do a Warhammer game, but they got knocked back, so they made WC1.

Except the real work on the lore didn't start until WC3. I dunno, I keep hearing that Warhammer story, but I can't see what in WoW is ripped from Warhammer. So they have orcs, elves, dwarves, geez Tolkien better look out, Games Workshop is gonna sue his estate for ripping off their IP! The races of Warhammer such as orcs, goblins, the empire, the tomb kings, the lizardmen, the ogre kingdoms, really have nothing in common with WoW, and the vast majority of WoW has nothing in common with Warhammer beyond the genre cliches and scared cows that both pay service to.

Its pretty obvious to anyone who even played Warcraft 3 though, let alone WoW, that warcraft's orcs and elves and such are not your typical orcs and elves. For example, instead of the mindless savage, throwaway bad guys orcs usually are in these sorts of stories, Warcraft's orcs are a proud, intelligent, noble race built around an honorable warrior culture. Thats the sort of thing that makes it unique and makes it interesting and makes it recogniseable as WoW.

Anyway, this is all waaaaaaaaaay offtopic now, and i've fanboyed enough for one post.

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Nerfington
Posted 03:30pm 08/3/11

Also the elves are a*******. At least the caucasian elves. Frikkin overran the horde and it never felt clean again.

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skythra
Posted 03:49pm 08/3/11

Where did wow steal their story from?

This is why wow seems so inspired, but even blue posts often tell you of where the lore came from, lots of norse stuff for example was released in wrath of the lich king, lots of influences from uther's time, and the strange and different way arthur kills instead of uther, his father. Uther being his mentor instead.

There are very few original stories, but they PURPOSELY stole lots of stuff, just so people would get the references, and i'm not talking about the little quest ones which are often pop-culture references, i mean the story ones too. Just odd fanfic tales of myths and old legends and all kinds of things. Often they'll pass through you without you notiicing but then someone will tell you where it came from and wikipedia will tell you the rest.

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skythra
Posted 03:54pm 08/3/11

You know that all the Warcraft lore is horrendously ripped off Warhammer right? Blizzard were suppose to actually do a Warhammer game, but they got knocked back, so they made WC1.

You sound like another friend of mine. It was a lot like that for WC1, you know, 15 years ago. But since then they've expanded it. He also laboured on "Orcs are a race in warhammer" and its like "They're a race which is known as a tolkien race.. hey.". He hates blizzard for some reason, probably because he didn't actually play warhammer until it was a video game.

I played warhammer/40k when i was 10-14 and the lore and stuff there doesn't really totally add up. Both are fairly independant but they obviously too have influenced each other. That is, blizzard made a really good game which took it off the tabletop, into a playable format. It took another 10 years before games workshop to do the same and they strayed FAR away from the feel of the tabletop game. For good reason: it didn't translate well to a computer game.

As for the lore, they both stole stories from everywhere.. but I know a lot less about the warhammer worlds.

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Khel
Posted 04:59pm 08/3/11

Yeah, but theres a difference between stuff thats inspired by norse mythology (such as all the stuff with Loken and Hodir and those dudes in Wrath), and ripping it off. Beyond some aesthetics and the general vibe of stuff, theres no real similarities in the mythology, its entirely different.

Same as Icecrown was very much inspired by Mordor, but beyond the aesthetics and a few explicit references like the all-seeing eye thing on top of one the citadels in Icecrown, the actual story and mythology is entirely different. Sure blizzard draw inspiration from many, many sources, but its not like they just cut and pasted norse mythology or egyptian mythology or lovecraftian cthulu mythology into wow, they took it as a starting point, and built their own version of it.

And arthas killed uther as well as his father :P

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Corona
Posted 05:59pm 08/3/11

If you can't see the graphical difference between WoW and Rift then maybe you should get some glasses. The visuals are better by 100% and the sound effects, especially when rifts are happening is f*****g awesome. WoW is almost 7 years old now and even though I do like the style of the game you cannot say that Rift visuals are the same. Rift visuals are leaps and bounds ahead. I'm not sure if you've played it yet and judging by your post you prolly haven't.

Anyway, I don't really give a s***. I'm having fun atm and that's all that counts!

8-)

I just looked at the screen shots and you-tubes again and it still looks identical. If it looks different in-game then fair enough, I'm certainly not going to buy it to find out for myself

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Eorl
Posted 06:15pm 08/3/11

Eh, I got off the WoW bandwagon so I have no major hate against you guys for liking what I don't like anymore. It is your choice after all :)

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Eorl
Posted 11:54pm 08/3/11

Ok Corona, now your trolling. You can clearly see a difference in art designs and texture quality compared to WoW. Just stop now before you hurt yourself.

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Khel
Posted 02:05am 09/3/11

Yeah, I'm a wow fanboy and even I can agree that graphically Rift is far superior to WoW. Wow's graphics were old even when the game launched 6 years ago. Sure Blizzard manages to do some rather amazing stuff with the limited graphics, and they make some environments which are really impressive, but in terms of sheer graphical fidelity Rift's engine has the WoW engine beat hands down.

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Keato
Posted 08:57am 09/3/11

Im into Lore, I play a High Elf cause I can fly and s*** and all elves are f*****g pro at flying.

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Obes
Posted 09:28am 09/3/11

I can confirm keato is a fairy.

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Keato
Posted 09:58am 09/3/11

I can confirm keato is a fairy.

I can confirm keato HAS a fairy.

Its called Casa, its a little b**** ass pet thing that does f*** all but you cant shut it up.

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Obes
Posted 10:01am 09/3/11

Does it feel you are ignoring it if you go AFK ?

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Keato
Posted 10:03am 09/3/11

No idea but every time I ride near a bridge is starts a little comedy skit "Bridge hahaha Bridge hahaha"

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Obes
Posted 10:07am 09/3/11

I should rename my pet "Bad" so it has a friend.

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kappa
Posted 01:26pm 12/3/11

I'm trying to download Rift off steam and its taking f*****g forever.

Can't find a decent content server! :( Is it even on aussie content servers?

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skythra
Posted 06:17pm 12/3/11

I'm trying to download Rift off steam and its taking f*****g forever.

Can't find a decent content server! :( Is it even on aussie content servers?

No idea, when i downloaded the beta, my connection was fully maxed out in download speed. But that was from the official site. Was nice to see exactly how a 7mbit connection can download! (not that fast)

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kappa
Posted 07:04pm 12/3/11

All good. I went around that s*** heap Steam and downloaded the patcher which is now downloading the game files @ 2MB/s.

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kappa
Posted 11:34am 13/3/11

I'm really enjoying this game but my 7900 gt can only handle the low resolution version :S And I'd love some eye candy. What's a good card to run it at 1080p? I've got a C2D E8500 as well.

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 12:23pm 13/3/11

Anything that uses Orcs and Elves ripped of Tolkien.

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Midda
Posted 12:28pm 13/3/11

But maybe I just play these games for different reasons than other people :P Like I'm not really interested in pvp at all, and a lot of people just see the questing content as a means to an end while I really, really love exploring it and reading everyone's stories and really getting wrapped up in the lore of the place. Rift just didn't really have that for me.

This is exactly how I feel. I never understood why people are always trying to find the quickest way they can to level their characters. That was the most enjoyable part of WoW to me. I stopped playing shortly after my character reached level 60 (and it took me ages to get there), because there wasn't this obvious sense of progression anymore.

I bought Aion a while ago, and I guess that's why I was really enjoying it despite the fact that it's hardly different to WoW. It was all new and interesting, with a cool looking world and all that.

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skythra
Posted 01:12pm 13/3/11

I'm really enjoying this game but my 7900 gt can only handle the low resolution version :S And I'd love some eye candy. What's a good card to run it at 1080p? I've got a C2D E8500 as well.

9800gx2 couldn't even come close to running it fully. :s

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kappa
Posted 01:27pm 13/3/11

I'm considering this card:

eVGA GF GTX460 1G DDR5 EE SC (SuperClocked, External Exhaust) Edition

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Saint
Posted 04:40pm 14/3/11

Old people who play Rift need to learn to use the /ignore command to prevent oldman tears.

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Jim
Posted 07:12pm 14/3/11

haha
you're talking about casa right?

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Obes
Posted 07:43pm 14/3/11

Wow saint ... random commentary

Maybe a guild full of now nearly 30 year olds, need to realize that when the only conversation in guild chat is a stream of insults people may get bored and want to go do something else. It might be this "having fun" thing people are talking about these days.

You could respond harden up, but one might say no you harden up and don't create edramas ...

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boba
Posted 07:48pm 14/3/11

lol

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Saint
Posted 08:08pm 14/3/11

mmm delicious obes bait

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TicMan
Posted 08:36pm 14/3/11

Ran my first dungeon last night as a tank (pal/war/reaver) and it was pretty damn rad. 4 bosses, nice and quick with not much trash in between but still semi complicated enough to not just barge through (WoTLK style). Boss mechanics were not overly complex but given its the first dungeon of the game I'm not too surprised.

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