So, I wasn't really into this game at all until Nariah started sending me stuff. Now I'm crazy excited for it. Anyone else? They start the open beta this Tuesday.

Oh hell yes ever since CB4.

Roll on Faeblight. It's a must.

Defiant side, too, because lolGuardians.

Why Faeblight? I really didn't get a chance to do any of the closed betas. No time or inclination. Though now I'm chomping at the bit for the open beta.

Highest population RP-PvE server, designated by the forums as the unofficial 'Old School Server' where ideally everyone won't be complete wankers to one another. The community has been great so far, and while you won't find much RP in the beta there's a bunch of guilds looking to settle in. Seriously, nothing but good experiences. Defiant-side, at least.

I honestly don't even roleplay (but immersion is fun); I imagine less than half of the server actually does. Everyone just congregates for the greatest density of common sense and mutual respect. It's usually been at High or Full population levels in the betas so you might run into server queues, but it was never anything large for me.

And ohman one more day until a nearly week-long beta session. And then 3 days to head start. So hype.

Should be fun times!

I've been interested in this, mainly just as a change of pace from WoW, but honestly I have a hard time getting excited about new MMO's anymore after how much Warhammer and Aion disappointed me.

Everyone is so positive about it >_> And, granted, I can't find much flaws in it, because they are really doing as they are saying with the doing away with annoying stuff. And they are really good at working their community. But after AoC and Aion I've learned that this overly positive culture may just be the initial hype and that when things get real you suddenly are left disappointed. AoC has it past level 20, where suddenly all the voice acting stopped, and if you got far enough in you were just left without content. Same thing in Aion, really liked the game, but then you also hit this content gap. I mean, really, can we have a game that has content until its endgame for a change, please?

I do however like the rift system, it's kinda like Warhammer, but they also seemed to have learned a lot from Warhammers mistakes. The souls system is also great, certainly for someone like me who's over time fallen in love with playing hybrid classes. And yeah, some stuff is like WoW, and when you say that you really mean it is also like all the MMO's that came before it, really. But then again, some things are just good and work. Though, I understand the frustration that some players have with it. I've recently quit WoW for what I hope will now be the final time, because each time I go and try and another MMO, it is a sub-par clone and I end up back with the original. And while the original is indeed great, after six years I kinda want something else >_< So I am not sure if my / other people's view is skewed by the want for something different, that Rift gets hailed for daring to do different things, but I do see it as a step in the right direction. Looking forward to more beta play, and will see where I end up next. Just not going to burn my hands on another preorder, even if it is the one MMO to change all other MMOs

Visaeris wants me to play, but eh.

I dont want to grind.

The issue with any new MMO is it has to go with what people know. And what people know is WoW. I was showing some rift stuff to my girlfriend and she was getting upset that they were using WoW terms until I pointed out that if they didn't use them she would never know what they meant.

As for hopes, I'm excited and I'm willing to toss myself into this. Though I never got burnt on Aion or AoC, though I never thought they looked that good. I want something different and Rift seems to put some care into having an immersion and changeable world. Their whole media blitz is that they're not an amusement park like WoW where things keep resetting. How that works in practice, I've got no clue, but if they do it well then I'll be incredibly happy. That is the sort of stuff I look for. I think my biggest worry is going to be end game content. It might of been put out but I have not seen or read much on it.

Also, I saw the videos of the mechanical horses. I want a mechanical horse. A lot.

Edit: And I like the story from what I saw. That means a lot. WoW has no story, it is a monster fighting simulator.

Every MMO is going to be like every other MMO, and if you quickly tire of 'This is like WoW but ____' conversations you'll probably want to learn how to turn off certain chat channels fairly soon.

I don't think Rift claims to be a not-WoW, nor a WoW killer. It's just polished. Really damn polished. It takes the best of everything and adds spins and twists to it. Warhammer PQs? Yeah, rifts. WoW Instances? Yeah, Iron Tomb, Deepstrike Mines, what have you. Warhammer Scenarios? Yeah, War Fronts. What comes with Warhammer Scenarios? No goddamn level 19 gnome rogue twinks that drop you in two seconds flat. UI? Smooth, customizable, shiny, variations of smart targeting, target of target, focus targets, whatever you want.

I feel like it's important to point out, though, that a lot of people are misguided into thinking this game is Warhammer+ because they're implementing Warhammer-esque features. There's no RvR here and open world PvP is restricted unless you deliberately choose to join in it. And even then rolling on PvP isn't going to give you a Warhammer feel - it'll feel like a cluster free-for-all and nothing more, as has been proven by most every PvP server in every MMO.

My brother's been raving about some other MMO that supposed to be coming out mid summer. Trying to remember the name but it's escaping me... I think it's developed by Nexon?

Well, WoW has more story than Rift by default. It's built on a long-established world from the RTS days. Rift's lore is pretty basic but is continually getting fleshed out by community request. You'll miss most of it if you don't really pay attention to NPC and quest dialogue.

WoW technically has a story that I rather like, it's just for some reason almost all of it is told in novels and comics rather then in the actual game. I'd say that they have to make money somehow with extra merchandise, except they have f'ing 12 million subscriptions, so I dunno

I actually loved all of the old Warcraft RTS games. Orcs vs. Humans is the first RTS I ever played. The story in WoW has become such a ridiculous mess of retconned, disjointed, unconnected crap. So that might be why I prefer what I see with Rift. It has an understandable narrative.

Also, it is a detail, but what really stood out to me is that they treat their PVP and PVE shardsdifferently. Guard npc's were buffed on PVE realms to avoid griefing, but they were holding off implementing the change on PVP shards because "we assume that if you roll on a PVP shard, you will want to fight other people and get every opportunity to do so". I mean, it is so simple, and so obvious, but it makes so much difference. Now I just wonder if they will also treat RP that way, or if RP in MMOs is still something that happens in small communities. How I wish that Lusternia's policy on that could someday be realized into a graphical format. One can dream, right?

I was kind young when I played the orginal RTSes, and honestly the only thing I can remember that was retconned was the Draeni/Eredar origins. Was there much more that got changed?

Ooh, cool, open beta. I'll roll a character and join in.

The only thing I don't like about MMO's, WoW included, is the steep up front cost of the game. I understand that studios need to recoup their development costs, but it's crazy to me that you have to spend $60 on a game which becomes absolutely worthless after 30 days if you don't pay more money. I think MMO's with a monthly subscription fee should either have a cheap up front cost (like $30), or guarantee that you'll always be able to do something in the game. I like what Warhammer does - they have an infinite free trial.

It's just hard to plop down $60 on something that will ultimately be worthless without spending another $15. Give me something to do with that disc (or digital content, if it's downloadable, as most MMO's are).

42 minutes to go.

WHY MUST TIME PASS SO SLOWLY.

We're down to 34! Time moves so quickly!

Opened 10mins early!