I've come to the end of my 24 hours in RIFT and I'm not sure how to sum it up.
The core problem with this game is that all its weaknesses are on the surface, which makes for a bad first impression. The visuals are solidly realised but unimaginatively designed; the music is unmemorable and so faint that I initially though I'd accidentally altered the audio settings; the writing is... well, it's words put together into sentences.
How much does that matter though? Other MMOs have good writing but indifferent gameplay - Secret World Legends and The Old Republic come to mind - or have only so-so writing but good gameplay. There's only a few games that do both well, which is one reason why City of Heroes remains my favourite MMO.*
The lack of flair in the design of the environments and the characters who inhabit them is more of an issue than the writing, as is the weak music. A distinct visual identity and a good soundtrack goes a long way to enhancing the experience of playing a game, and most of the time RIFT just doesn't have these things. All of which can make writing about this game a frustrating experience, because the things it actually does well it often does exceptionally well.
*I don't know if this reflects well on CoH or badly on the rest of the MMO genre for not having surpassed a game that launched in 2004 and sunsetted in 2012.
As I've gone further into the game the Soul Trees have only become more impressive, offering a variety of ways to play a class that rivals City of Heroes. In fact it's arguably superior to CoH since the ability to switch roles, and do so rapidly, provides entire extra layers of tactical options. Thus far I've stuck to one role, but there have been a few situations that have got me thinking about alternate setups. This is also a godsend to solo players, since it allows for an all-rounder build for solo content, and a more specialised build for group content. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what this part of the game offers, and I do want to explore more of what can be done with it.
There's other good things as well. Combat flows well and characters move smoothly - aside from in underwater combat where the animations could do with some tweaks as it sometimes appears I'm standing upright in deep water. There's also the rifts themselves, which make for fun challenges and add a lot of life to the zones, and the wardrobe system, which I'd like to see ported into every other MMO where gear has an impact on a character's appearance. Quick and easy to use, it makes every other MMO's cosmetic system seem fussy and over-complicated by comparison.
RIFT feels like an older game than it is. Despite coming out in 2011 it feels more like an MMO from the mid 2000s, like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online. That said, it's a mechanically very sound version of that kind of MMO.
It's WoW that I'm most reminded of, and specifically the Burning Crusade era of that game. That's not a bad thing. Gloamwood, like Silverwood before it, concluded with a quest that took me into the castle of the zone's Big Bad, and I was strongly reminded of the times I've ventured into Deatholme at the end of Ghostlands in WoW. Since Ghostlands is one of my all time favourite zones in any MMO that's not a bad thing either.
Shadefallen Keep has an excellent layout in that while there are some areas where it's possible to pull a lot of aggro there are also ways to reduce the risk of doing so. I strayed from the main quest several times to go off an explore interesting looking areas, and always found it worth doing so. The final confrontation in the Keep is also much more satisfying than that of Deatholme, being better staged and much better balanced than that annoying fight with Dar'Khan Drathir. It's easily my favourite location in the game so far.
So I've finished up this run on a high note, and that's one reason why I will come back to RIFT. As I said at the start of this post all of the game's weaknesses are on the surface, and sticking with it for longer than I have in the past has made me think better of it than I previously did. RIFT is the Volvo of MMOs - not terribly interesting to look at perhaps, but there's a lot going on under the hood, and ultimately it's a better product than some of its flashier rivals.
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