Rift

[Allara]

We used to powerlevel lowbies by pulling an entire zone to the entrance and chain stunning them with a paladin, then AOEing them. It was pretty damn effective and hilarious at the same time.

[Maegwin]

I used to powerlevel my alts in Lower Guk by pulling all of dead side and standing in a corner while they beat on me (to prevent pusback fizzles). I would throw on all my damage shields and chain heal myself. Then I'd have my alt cast some kind of AOE spell over and over to hit as many as possible.

The mobs would then kill themselves on my damage shield and the alt would get all the XP cause he was the only one that did damage that could be attributed to a character. (Damage shield damage had no source).

Runners were the only problem but thats why undead mobs were ideal.

[Maegwin]

One of the things I miss about EQ was the actual challenge of doing crazy shit. Like getting through zones using invis, soothe, etc that people w/o those abilities/skill could not.

Using that Ranger/Druid ability that would let you see from a mob's perspective and cast spells from it's location. Combine that with soothe and invis and you had some powerful utility!

[Syana]

Something I did in WoW that's similiar would be getting to 102.4% Avoidance (by avoidance I mean dodge + parry + block + miss) then pulling as many mobs as I can at the Black Temple terrace and killing them all. Of course, Blizzard took that away.

Meh

[Seraphina]

Wow, that picture brings back a lot of memories. It was probably 3 in the morning and I was half asleep. Talk about crazy EQ moments. Each pull was like a shot of adrenaline. EQ was the best, probably will always be to those of us who really enjoyed it. Spent way too much time, more than I should have, but I don't regret it for a minute. And I agree with you Torr, EQ's mechanics, including forced grouping, fostered the community that we still have today in games like Warcraft.

Humans aren't computers. We don't and can't play perfectly each and every time. The risk comes with how difficult the strategy or tactic is to execute, and the cost of failure. When you pull trains of 80 mobs -- each of which is harder to kill individually than a WoW outdoor mob -- you ARE going to have deaths; even if you are some of the best players in the game. You factor those deaths into the exp over time cost benefit analysis. The better you play, the larger the trains you can handle and the fewer deaths you incur.

Back when I was trying to AoE mobs in WoW two boxing Coral's priest, the hardest part was simply preventing mobs from leashing in the first place. I topped out at about a dozen mobs. In Cataclysm, I couldn't even grab 5 mobs to AoE at once a lot of the time on my druid solo because they would leash after I ran a few yards out of spell range even with dots ticking.

This is what AoEing looked like in EQ.

Attachment 6823

If you missed a color stun, your group was dead in 2 seconds. There is also a random factor to it; if too many mobs hit you due to bad resist rolls, they might interrupt an AoE stun, and you wiped. Get a chain of fizzles and wipe. Kill too slowly and you wipe. Also the puller has to not get stuned, blinded, rooted, etc while he gathers a train of dozens of mobs.



The only things that have advanced are the graphics and UI. The gameplay has devolved into single player mechanics. WoW is a single player game that just happens to have other people in it. Is Diablo an MMOG? Because I played with more people leveling up in that game than I did in WoW. So much for massively multiplayer.

I can remember the names of players I grouped with 12 years ago in EQ. Can you remember the names of the people you partied with using dungeon finder an hour ago? Did you even so much as say a word to them? At least dungeon finder was an attempt at reducing barriers to grouping. To bad cross server instancing and the ease of the game prevents any community from forming.



Laugh. You never played EQ, and you're so keen to judge it as draconian. You think dying in EQ sucks? Try EVE online. EVE, btw, has more subs than ever and is North America's 3rd most popular MMOG. Hell, Project 1999 is proof people want what I do. Its population increased after the progression server opened because people discovered it while investigating Sony's ez-mode server.

MMOGs just cost too damn much and investors want to take what they think is the safest route. Zynga makes money hand over fist, but what they produce is absolute garbage. Popularity means little.

[Seraphina]

So how is Rift? Worth the time or another AoC / Aion?

[Andaas]

I'll let others chime in with their thoughts, as I didn't play AoC or Aion, but after playing a bit during the headstart the game definitely seems to be more than what I've seen of those titles.

If anything, it's nice being in a world that isn't as safe as WoW has provided; with rifts opening up all over the place and the random invasions/attacks, you can just go AFK in a small quest hub like you could in WoW or you might find yourself dead.

[Zappo]

So how is Rift? Worth the time or another AoC / Aion?

If you can log in... its fine :P
Honestly... wait one month from the pre-launch and see. After trying 2 MMOs that flopped I learned if you want a keeper of an MMO-- just let guinea pigs play for 30days.

Thus far, I really enjoy it. In other MMOs people make alts to play different roles. Rift just has you macro one button to switch gear + roles. The only down side are the queues. If those continue, those will most likely be a deal breaker for most of us and ironically, the queues will then end!

[Torrid]

Torrid do you need to have so many mobs at once in order to play the game? If the answer is no you are just trying to do something difficult for an ego boost reward and thus being cocky.

I honestly find it sad how people who know little outside of WoW can't comprehend game mechanics which allow skilled players to advance significantly more quickly than others.

How has gameplay devolved into single player mechanics, this bit interested me explain to me how EQ mechanics are so different from WoW, Rift, War, Conan... From my understanding all of them use the EQ mechanic set as their starting place. Diablo 2 by the way does not qualify as an MMO as you can only ever play with up to 6 people at a time, since the first M stands for massively I would assume it means more then what you can rig up on a PS2.

Diablo 2 games/parties were up to 8 people btw, not 6. Which is 2 less than WoW's current 10 man 'raid' size. EQ raids had *72* people. (none, if any, required that many, however) Vanilla WoW raids were 40. Then 25. Now 10 is the most common raid size. Blizzard is unable or unwilling to remove the logistical hurdles players face which prevented a large portion of the player base from enjoying raid content without shrinking raids down to a small fraction of what was once considered raid sized. A prime example of how Blizzard solves multiplayer problems with single player solutions.

WoW's solution to the treadmill grind and difficulty of finding groups was to, again, resort to turning the game into a single player game. The lion's share of experience gained comes from clicking the 'complete' button on a quest NPC. These quests are 98% soloable. Any mob not inside an instance is a trivial solo kill for any class. Virtually everybody goes from 1 to level cap without grouping with anybody.

Buffs in EQ were actually highly desired because they were powerful. Enchanters added a great deal of DPS to groups by making melee group members do 60% more damage and casters could cast more spells with clarity. SoW allows you to outrun mobs and therefore go from dying to mobs that don't leash to running away with zero risk, or use kiting as a tactic. Buffs in WoW are almost worthless. Nobody gives a damn if I mark them while they solo quests.

I could go on.

I mean you get as much community out of EQ or WoW as you put in to it. Maybe the community isn't forced to be as cooperative in WoW but that makes the community you do create all the better for it since your not being forced to work with asshats you can't stand. You can't just say the value of the people you remember in EQ is better then the quality of friendships I have made in WoW.

Yes I can.

Being in a community is getting along with people you don't like. If you like everybody in a given community, then you're in a tiny community.

Forcing players to work together to overcome challenges is how you build community. The greater the challenges, the closer people tend to bond together.

I really have no issue with EQ or with you liking it Torrid, my issue is that you seem to think people must be stupid to like anything more then EQ.

More like I think you have bad taste in games; at least if you've played WoW for years and go running to Rift anyway. To people new to the MMOG scene, Rift might be worth some time, before moving on to something with more depth.

This is supposed to be about Rift and it has really gotten off track.

This debate is far more interesting than playing Rift is. You should be glad to discover what you've been missing all your MMOG life.

[Aindayen]

Bah, Wresh/Valdis this is Torrid being Torrid. It's nothing personal I assure you.

Best aggro tank I ever saw...

Ain

[Andaas]

I never cared for UO.

[Parak]

tldr: Play whatever is fun for /you/.

legends of kesmai > *

[Torrid]

Aw, thanks Forty

I guess talking about EverQuest on an EverQuest guild's message board is such an offensive thing to do here now. I just felt strongly compelled to clear up some gross misconceptions. This place could use a few more posts, anyway.

I honestly miss all you guys. It's a shame you had to roll Alliance. It does explain a few of the new people though...

[Andaas]

Diverting back to Rift...

I think Trion has made a big mistake on launch day by adding 19 new shards for the US.

While I think interest in the game is still quite high, I have my doubts that launch day is going to expand the user base another 30%. (I mean, you could still "pre-order" the game and play in the headstart yesterday... so the whole headstart/pre-order concept is kind of lost here).

Don't get me wrong, the game is one of the better MMO's to come along in years; and I may actually hit the level cap in this one and see what it has to offer for an end-game. I just think they've opened the community up to a big risk with potentially 1/3 of all active servers being empty. This game, more than others, requires a healthy population of players - soloing a rift isn't a whole lot of fun.

(Interestingly, there are currently 19 servers with "LOW" populations; I scanned through the list of today's new servers - and they match up perfectly with the 19 "LOW" population servers).

[Widespreadd Panic]

Really? This coming from someone that when he did not get his way on what the guild was doing would throw a fit on vent, leave the raid and log off? Hmm..

I believe I personally remember I was in the top 3 on every fight for dps and damage done. It went so far we held a contest in ICC and bet gold...I do believe I led by over 3 million damage done by nights end w/o pulling agro like some people do (but I don't know tanking classes or dps classes...hmm).

Also, this comes from a rogue that was ALWAYS under par for his gear level in terms of damage output (and you have what? 4..FOUR?!?! rogues and still cannot get it right??) This never involved you Forty, but since you bring things up, then I will have to reply...and you know I will.

......



Good...glad you won't be playing then Forty.



Have a great day!!

.......

[Rhedd]

I play rift, no really!

[Kikiyo]

Diverting back to Rift...

I think Trion has made a big mistake on launch day by adding 19 new shards for the US.

While I think interest in the game is still quite high, I have my doubts that launch day is going to expand the user base another 30%. (I mean, you could still "pre-order" the game and play in the headstart yesterday... so the whole headstart/pre-order concept is kind of lost here).

Don't get me wrong, the game is one of the better MMO's to come along in years; and I may actually hit the level cap in this one and see what it has to offer for an end-game. I just think they've opened the community up to a big risk with potentially 1/3 of all active servers being empty. This game, more than others, requires a healthy population of players - soloing a rift isn't a whole lot of fun.

(Interestingly, there are currently 19 servers with "LOW" populations; I scanned through the list of today's new servers - and they match up perfectly with the 19 "LOW" population servers).

That's one of my quirks Fir. Rifts are fun, because of the massive amount of people that do them and work together. If the game doesn't have good population servers, then rifts are boring and not any fun. That's one of the reason I will wait. Come 3 months from now and people will get bored of the game and it will lose a huge chunck of it's population or 6 months from now and loses 75% of its population to Star Wars, well then you have a lot of dead servers that will have to be recombined in order to make the rift system playable. If this game was a freemium like LOTRO or Runes of Magic, I think I would jump on the game in a heart beat, but it's subscription based and I don't want to spend the cost to buy a game and its subscription to play the game that could be dead in 6 months.

[Parak]

That's one of my quirks Fir. Rifts are fun, because of the massive amount of people that do them and work together. If the game doesn't have good population servers, then rifts are boring and not any fun. That's one of the reason I will wait. Come 3 months from now and people will get bored of the game and it will lose a huge chunck of it's population or 6 months from now and loses 75% of its population to Star Wars, well then you have a lot of dead servers that will have to be recombined in order to make the rift system playable. If this game was a freemium like LOTRO or Runes of Magic, I think I would jump on the game in a heart beat, but it's subscription based and I don't want to spend the cost to buy a game and its subscription to play the game that could be dead in 6 months.

On the flip side, I played Warhammer immediately when it came out, and for almost a year it was exceptionally enjoyable. The server merges started to happen around then, but it was money quite well spent for some epic sieges and ~200 v 200 zonewide pvp battles that were happening daily before that.

Personally, I simply don't care for any sort of vague attachment or persistence to an mmo or even a single player game that costs $60 for 50 hours of gameplay. I play and pay for a game to have fun, and stop when I don't have fun anymore. Simple as that. If Rift only gives me that for four months, then I'm out of $76 for probably hundreds of hours of gameplay.

[Widespreadd Panic]

Digital Collector's Edition cost the same thing as a brand new console game. I can not even begin to count how many 60$'s i have wasted on a console game that bored me after the second level of play. I play to have fun, if I am no longer having fun playing something I will stop in a heartbeat and play something that is more fun to me. Loyalty to a game or game company is not something I have ever had, i just seek fun entertainment.

I definitely could care less about letting things rot on a character in a game. EQ, DAOC, CoH, etc etc all have a lot of crap thats sitting rotting on an accounts(s), but I sure did have fun during those hours of play; and thats the whole point for me.

[Widespreadd Panic]

I brought this thread back from where it was taken.

I took the attacks out, since this is a public forum. If you want to debate you can do it without attacks or belittling the other.

Thanks!