Rift: Planes of Telara

[Insanecyclone]

Preorder items remind me of Aion's preorder rings.

[Purrrfect]

Just wanted to say also, that this game really does run smooth despite a low fps indication. I don't understand why, but Rift@20fps is smoother than xiv@40+fps almost all of the time.

[Katlan]

does this mean a release date has been given?

[Alderaan]

5 more beta phases, so that's 10 weeks.

Everything points to a mid to end of March release.

[Kupo]

http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/exclusives.php

Exclusive in-game digital items:

-- Ancient Tartagon Mount: Available at level 20, this turtle mount increases player speed by 60%

Does anyone know the speed increase for a standard mount? 50% increase? 25% increase?

[Pyree]

Does anyone know the speed increase for a standard mount? 50% increase? 25% increase?

It's the same speed as your standard Lv20 mount. It's just a unique model, but no functional benefit over what you buy at the vendor.

[Alderaan]

Green mounts - 60% movement
Blue mounts - 90%
Purple mounts - 110%

[Katlan]

only got to play a very little bit last night (for my first time), but the game sure is ugly. It has some nice things here and there, but the lack of them trying to make movement, character physics, ect... even remotely real makes stuff look awkward. Reminds me a lot of AoC (when i tried that game). Characters move and fight the same way (graphically / physically) and it looks very clunky... Not really sure how to describe it, but even when you swing your weapon or casting animation for stuff.. my character can be holding a giant 2 hand mace and yet they toss it around like its a piece of paper and there is no form to it. And you run so funny it makes me laugh lol. Even when you go out of combat stance, the weapon just appears behind you, there is no out of combat animation.. it just happens. Also, wtf is up w/ modern games not having AA options in game.. shit is ghetto.

But aside the graphics and poor physics, the game seems fun and like it has a lot of depth.

[Lucavi]

^ Sounds just like the Dungeon Siege series, just like I've been saying. No weight to the weapons, hilarious running animations (I haven't seen a MMORPG yet that gets runs down properly, though, outside of certain animations like a male Orc's full sprint), but a colorful and relatively immersive game.

As long as there are a lot of attack animations, or at least 2 for each type of ability then I'm fine. I don't wait to see a repeat of XIV's nonchalant hand-waving for every spell cast in the game.

[Insanecyclone]

AA is turned off for beta

[Katlan]

I havent played enough to diss or praise the game. I like the depth of talents and that stuff, but just the physics and graphics are so ugly.. and, as awesome as the UI customization and WoW style they used for that, they also made it look extremely outdated. UI, aesthetically, looks like... again, AoC's lol... looks old and ugly. I just don't get how WoW, even though its a 6 year old game and doesn't use physics, has the animations down very well for what it is.. and yet there are new games that look so pathetic in that department. But, if the only thing I'm bitching about is the grpahic's and related stuff, I guess that's a good thing since graphics don't make a game good.

[Alderaan]

I rather like the UI, it's so clean. It's a step up from the standard WoW UI for sure.

The only thing i dislike in the UI is the character hp/mp picture bar.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Targetting needs some improvement too. It's like Aion all over with terrible tabbing and no way to real pick out clear targets in PvP.

[Lucavi]

Based on how much they've changed things already, I actually have some semblance of faith that these guys will actually take those complaints to heart and institute some kind of compromise.

[Purrrfect]

Key binds for targeting nearest enemy [class]? Or key bind for targeting pt leader's current target? I dunno, sure some would argue those would be too ezmode and some would say it is needed.

Also, I don't think I'd call it ugly really. I reserve ugly for WoW, that is the only reason I cannot play that game, which was a shame. Rift far and away is no XIV, and not groundbreaking in any respect, but given it's 'blockyness' it looks good I think. Something like TERA feels a lot 'rounder', but something about the coloring or shine or something in TERA makes it feel completely different from any mmo I've played.

[Pyree]

I wouldn't say the graphics are bad. The animations are pretty unrealistic, and I agree those could be improved, but the graphics all fit within the style that it seemed to be going for. It wasn't going for bright and bubbly fantasy style like Tera, completely different styles and neither of them are necessarily worse.

Graphically, I find Rift has many visual effects that are really impressive. The way the terrain changes when invasions are moving across the land or a rift spawns is really neat. Add in the various weather effects that I believe come along with those same events, and it can make the whole scenery very eerie. But that feeling isn't permanent, you could go to that same spot later on in the day and find it's calm and peaceful. I actually logged out in an area that was really chaotic, it felt like an apocalypse. A few hours later when I logged in, it was sunny and calm and there were deer running around. I thought that was really cool.

[Kupo]

I agree with what Pyree wrote.

For what it's worth, I really liked the animations and graphics. Then again, I'm not the type who cares about realism in these types of games. I've always liked the "anime style" of hero holding a sword the size of his body and swinging it around as if it weighs like a feather (not that Rift is that bad).

[Lucavi]

^ Hate that style, but not many games get the feeling of weight right without doing the opposite - turning your hero into a pasty little number that waves his "sword" around like a butter knife. There's a fine line between anime stupidity and boring/realistic drivel.

XI only had pretty much 3 attack animations per weapon, but they weren't bad for many classes. I loved WoW's attack animations for certain races/sexes, like male Orcs with a 2-hander or dual-wield (savage, yet surprisingly nimble), and there weren't weight physics for either game, just a focus on slowing down attacks and attack speed with the former. Then you get games like Fallout that are just hilarious with their animations, where using a sword or katana looks like a pregnant teenager trying to stave off a pack of wolves. Pathetic.

Rift looks exactly like I'd expect it too; a DS on steroids. I've said it before in this thread, but its really the biggest comparison I can draw based on what I've seen. The animations look frenetic, like the people are seriously fighting for their lives, but that frenetic pace starts to look odd after awhile, depending on the weapon.

Still, I'd rather have that AoC-esque frenetic realism than Aion's flashy lightshows that make it seem like every hero/heroine took 16 years of pilates and gymnastics classes before they ever picked up a training sword.

[Alderaan]

I'm not sure if it was the engine Aion uses or what, but that game got ridiculously choppy for me when i had hundreds of people on my screen. I don't have that issue at all with Rift. Like Purrr said, it runs smooth even at low fps with hundreds of people around.

I would still love Aions character models and animations set in Rift's world, but not at the expense of playability.

[Lucavi]

I still can't really see the difference between Aion's models and TERA's models. It all screams " KOREAN tits for chicks with a sultry (slutty) expression and bare abs for dudes with a pouty, yet angry face~!!", just like 95% of these "western" single player games feature the same fit white guy with the shaved head and varying amounts of facial stubble.