Back from Rift....

[Dyvid]

There is something to be said about companies that try to push the genre forward and I'm glad FFXIV is trying to do that. I was very very bored with Rift and constantly felt like everything had been done before.

I just want to say this to the developers, build upon the lessons learned from FFXI and you'll do fine. You had alot of great concepts and idea there, don't toss them out just for more mass market appeal. You're client base will come from people who love Final Fantasy and those who are tired of the current MMO trend.

[Keith_Dragoon]

There is something to be said about companies that try to push the genre forward and I'm glad FFXIV is trying to do that. I was very very bored with Rift and constantly felt like everything had been done before.

I just want to say this to the developers, build upon the lessons learned from FFXI and you'll do fine. You had alot of great concepts and idea there, don't toss them out just for more mass market appeal. You're client base will come from people who love Final Fantasy and those who are tired of the current MMO trend.

I know this has been and will be said a billion times but Rift to me felt like a exact copy of wow with a new mob table, more detailed classes and tenticle spewing portals.

I played it in first beta and again in open beta and both times I got bored after staer missions.

[Coombah]

I played the beta only a couple hours and it did nothing for me. I uninstalled and never looked back.

[OmegaNovaios]

. I just want to say this to the developers, build upon the lessons learned from FFXI and you'll do fine. You had alot of great concepts and idea there, don't toss them out just for more mass market appeal. You're client base will come from people who love Final Fantasy and those who are tired of the current MMO trend.

People tired of senseless and tedious grinding w/o any challenges other than testing your patience to see if you can make it to EG before you have had enough even in a fully polished game? lol

Yeah, I felt FFXI had some very good concepts that are unique, fun and the best of any MMO out there today, just paired with some not so good concepts. I expected FFXIV to have those concepts and 8 years of renovations/improvements to those weaker concepts, but instead they tried something totally different. SE is working on their flaws and I still have hope in this game because it still has a great amount of potential.

[Rau]

People tired of senseless and tedious grinding w/o any challenges other than testing your patience to see if you can make it to EG before you have had enough even in a fully polished game? lol

Yeah, I felt FFXI had some very good concepts that are unique, fun and the best of any MMO out there today, just paired with some not so good concepts. I expected FFXIV to have those concepts and 8 years of renovations/improvements to those weaker concepts, but instead they tried something totally different. SE is working on their flaws and I still have hope in this game because it still has a great amount of potential.

Omegaaa! <3

[Xatsh]

I tried Rift and played for a little while, but it is not that great of a game. Not bad but not good either.

Rift done alot right, and done a whole lot wrong. Basically Rift is a game designed for those who love WoW, which is why it is a massive success especially in the West where only WoW can exist. That alone will probably make the game a success, they are first WoW clone to clone wow well enough to attract the NA playerbase.

I gave it a fair shot was in it from beta 3+, open beta, and played some on release, but the game has all the game breaking elements WoW had for me and like WoW I just cannot take it anymore. All in all the game was just not fun for me so I stopped playing it (and I didn't even make an I quit thread on the Rift forums >.>).

This is my View on Rift: A lot will disagree with me but this is my view on it.

The Good
1) Perfect release (finally a mmo released without 200 bugs, glitches, and incomplete content)
2) Great Marketing (This game was plastered everywhere with the best free trial ever.. aka beta 1-open)
3) Lots of Content (The game has quest in every corner of the world, artifact hunting,crafting/gathering, pvp, dungeons, invasions, and rifts)
4) Copy/pasted WoWs entire UI and it works very well. This is good simply because WoW has the best keyboard/mouse UI for a mmo ever developed.
5) The Rift/Invasion Concept.. this will be good if they expand on it like 10 fold.
6) Pretty good designed World, Everything fits the theme and has variation.

The Bad, at least in my opinion
7) Rift are the exact same thing every time they spawn almost, they vary by zone with the bosses. They do not really even spawn randomly there are set spots they can spawn in. No strategy, there are auto partys but it is 2+ people soloing the mob. Aka the Behest of Rift. Fun as crap the first 10 or so times, then a endless grind to get the special currency from it.
8) The quest are cheap and horribly boring... there are basically 4-5 quest in the whole game repeated 2000 times, no CS no real story. I cannot stand playing the game for more 1hr at time it is just ungodly boring solo after a few quest and there is basically 0 partying outside dungeons. Rifts/Invasions are not partying they are group soloing. (Game breaker for me)
9) No focus on multiplayer in a multiplayer game... typical Western solo based mmo with the option to group for instanced raids. (my biggest game breaker of rift, a mmo should never put Solo above group in terms of design)
10) Horrible crafting system... Identical to WoW
11) Horribly character Animations... Graphics are far superior to WoW but the animations are the same level... aka horribly outdated in 2011.
12) Decent main story but besides that 0 originality... If you played WoW you already know how everything from the jobs, quest, crafting, gathering and PvP. MASSIVE COPY PASTA!
13) Extremely watered down, there are people hitting cap within 2 weeks. Meaning those people have a grand total of about 2 months of gameplay if they level all classes.... this is pure crap design for a mmo, they are going to have to inject a ridiculous amount of content to keep the midcore/hardcore players in a fairly short time. (Game Breaker for me)
14) Extremely dumbed down game mechanics. Anything outside fighting is click 1 button then done, nothing involves decision making. (game breaker for me)
15) The jobs mechanics are almost copy pasted from WoW to the letter. It adds variety in action through the soul system which is the only saving grace of the job system. Aka the soul system lets you combine the jobs from WoW together to a limited degree. If you want to play the whole game you have to repeat all the quest at least twice (2 times on Guardian, and 2 times on Defiant) this is the huge negative of the soul system, it is not true character freedom.

[AshelyRiot]

I just want to say this to the developers, build upon the lessons learned from FFXI and you'll do fine. You had alot of great concepts and idea there, don't toss them out just for more mass market appeal. You're client base will come from people who love Final Fantasy and those who are tired of the current MMO trend.

I agree with you about this and can't believe they just tossed out everything they learned and achieved in XI just to try and please the masses. I understand about them trying to gain the masses for financial gain but it just didn't work out.

[Eolrid]

I was invited throughout Rift's closed beta. I only actually logged in during the first two events or weekends or whatever.

My very first impression when I jumped into the game was, "Did I just load Warhammer Online by accident?" Aesthetically, it all felt very familiar.

That said, I don't hate the game, and maybe I'm wrong about it. But I'm just tired of the same old, same old.

[Ceaser]

Ya I played Rift beta for like 3-4 weekends and my impression was, this is a deeper warcraft with better graphics, but the combat was god awful and boring.....I had no motivation to log in ever, that's how you judge and mmo imo!

[ShinChuck]

I agree with you about this and can't believe they just tossed out everything they learned and achieved in XI just to try and please the masses. I understand about them trying to gain the masses for financial gain but it just didn't work out.

But that's the catch: they didn't understand what the masses wanted, and that's why they failed at getting them. FFXIV at launch had absolutely nothing mainstream about it. They ignored all conventions, they definitely did not pander to the masses.