[tadzio]

If anyone wants one I've got like 15 left. The beta works in phases lasting 3 or so days. Beta 5 is scheduled to begin Tuesday, 1/25/11 at 10:00AM PST lasting until friday.

And if someone doesn't know what it is. Rift is an upcoming MMORPG made by Trion. It's coming out March 1st.

here's some copypasta:
Join legions of adventurers in RIFT™, a new fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in a world being torn apart. Rifts violently rip into reality across the land and release powerful forces that threaten the very existence of Telara. Each breach brings with it new characters, events, and treasures, while the world itself changes dynamically around you. Play with your friends across vast, lavishly detailed environments, or go head-to-head in challenging Player versus Player (PvP) combat as you battle to uncover the secrets of the planes. Build and advance your character using an innovative new class system with limitless possibilities. The rifts have divided the people and endanger the world. Whether you fight to seal the rifts forever, or harness their power for your own, epic adventures lie ahead for those willing to fight for the future of Telara.

The class system sets this game kinda apart from the others. Basically you first pick your class out of the basic 4 classes; fighter, scout, mage, cleric. But from there you pick 3 of 8 subclasses to be. You can mix and match classes as much as you want for a diverse ability set. You gain access to all the subclasses eventually and can always change which 3 you choose.

[Hecatus]

Are these VIP keys by chance? If not I've already gotten a regular one.

[tadzio]

Hecatus, on 25 January 2011 - 10:19 AM, said:

Are these VIP keys by chance? If not I've already gotten a regular one.

yes they are VIP keys

[Wrathblood]

C'mon, Hec. We all knew Tad was a VIP. Just LOOK at him!

[Hecatus]

Dood hit me up w/ one! I got into beta three by pure luck and it was awesome. Need moar.

[Googleme]

My cousin and I have been messing around in the latest Beta. So far it looks pretty awesome, has a little less cartoony feel than WoW.

One thing I liked was unlike some newer MMOs they didn't really try to revamp how the game controlled and felt. WoW pretty much hit the nail on the head when it came to making a game that had very fluid movement and overall control of your character and interaction with the world around you. While it does, in a way, feel like a "WoW clone" really if its not broken don't fix it.

Sadly like most MMOs that have come out and most that will come out in the next decade I don't think any will ever be able to stand up to WoW and really prosper. I don't think they will see any WoWers that are still playing actively switching to Rift :/

[Wrathblood]

Yeah. The last game that actually took players away from WoW, albeit briefly, was Aion, which really did have amazing graphics and an interesting approach. Unfortunately, the PvPvE mechanics weren't as well thought through as they probably needed to be, so you ended up with some really bad mechanics, like making it worthwhile for max level characters to pour through rifts and slaughter people trying to level. It was also arguably too grindy for a lot of folks.

IMO, the real problem any new MMO is going to face is the competition from WoW, in the sense that WoW has had years of expansions to build content to the point that its a gigantic world, and they've had years to polish the mechanics on every aspect of the game. Games take time to get things right, but any competitor doesn't have that time, because WoW is sitting right there all shiny and enticing. Its certainly not perfect, but its so dominant that it sucks the air out of the space.

That having been said, I dunno if WoW's got another decade in it. Eventually WoW will fall, because everything eventually falls. WoW is already a very mature game, in terms of life-cycle and you can kinda see the end of the well in terms of game lore available to build expansions out of. Aezeroth is basically entirely mapped out now. They could always create portals leading to other world from Outland or wherever, but there's no lore to really support that. I can see the next Expansion being around the Emerald Dream, the one after that maybe going after the Eredar on their home world, and then a grand finale of going after Sargeras and finally meeting the Titans. After that, I'm sure they'd keep putting out new content, etc, but the story would have finally run its course and it'll be hard to keep coming up with brand new stuff that really grabs people. Its a multi-billion dollar business and they've been aware of this timeline for years, so I'm sure they've been working hard to address this. But unless they pull out something pretty brilliant, its an unsolvable problem and WoW's serious decline will start in maybe ~5 years making room for competitors.

[Deceax]

PM me a key if you still have some left. Would be interested in checking it out.

[Guinthel]

For those of you in the beta, hows this game look so far? It caught my attention when an irl friend asked me about it, and I had no real info on it until I started reading up.

[Deceax]

I played the open beta event they had this past weekend. There's really not too much to say. It's very much WoW 2.0. The interface, combat, talent trees, even hotkeys are all very familiar. While it's not necessarily a bad idea to emulate the king of the hill I just don't see it having much staying power. After grinding out to level 18 the "newness" had worn off and the grind feeling was already settling in. If I wanted to play a game like WoW I'd just play WoW...

The "rift" mechanic made the opening zones a lot more fun than the normal quest grind but I don't know how viable these events are going to be beyond the launch. It's easy to take out a rift when a whole zone is leveling up, but after the initial launch frenzy dies down it seems like rifts will just become something lowbies have to avoid. Rift combat seemed to mostly go to two extremes. Either a giant group would zerg the crap out of them and they would be a pushover or not enough people were there to stop the incoming invasion. There were a few times where the group balance seemed "right" for the rift but it seems like it would be a better idea to scale rift difficulty with raid group/level at the rift.

The game is fun, but it's only fun because it's WoW. There are a few differences but underneath the shiny new surface you're basically playing the same game. Expecting it to go the way of Warhammer within the first couple of months.

[Hecatus]

They'll probably scale difficulty of the spawns based off players in the area participating. They're trying to make it dynamic to the player base at that immediate time.

[Deceax]

Quote

They'll probably scale difficulty of the spawns based off players in the area participating. They're trying to make it dynamic to the player base at that immediate time.

I feel like I read the same thing somewhere, but actually playing the same it felt like the balance was still off most of the time. A lot of even the stronger rifts were completely facerolled. World bosses that came at the end of rift events were a diff story. They usually took around 20-30 minutes to kill just because hitting them as a lowbie did absolutely nothing.