Rift: The answer to my MMO blues

I never really think about it very much, but I’ve been playing MMOs regularly since I first fell in love with Dark Sun Online back in the mid 90’s. Since that point in time, my involvement in MMOs went from fascination to obsession and back again. I’ve been a fan to the point where I dedicated years of my life to working on them, and there were many highs and lows that came along with it.

It’s tough to separate out the timeline of games that I played for various reasons, especially ever since I worked on EQ2. There were a bunch of games I bought purely out of professional curiosity, and many of them didn’t get played a whole lot. When I switched my professional focus from working on a fantasy game to that of a game where guns did the killing, my research preferences changed too. I ended up spending a lot more time playing shooters, keeping the few MMOs that I really liked on the hard drive, eschewing those that just didn’t have the staying power.

There were only really a handful of games that stayed on my hard drive for more than a few months over the last several years. I guess I have a hard time keeping my eggs in one basket. Anyways, I can only say that since my time on EQ2 that I’ve only really been “into” EQ2, EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and possibly (if you think it counts) Maple Story.

Last summer when I made a sudden career change away from MMO development, I have to admit I was heartbroken. At that time, the only MMO I was playing was EQ2 despite the fact that I hadn’t worked on it for a couple of years, I just loved the game. Still do. The problem is I just didn’t have the heart to log in anymore. I know and knew I had a home there with my guild, but for some reason, I guess I’m not ready to return to that place, silly as it seems. In any case, I’ve felt this distinct desire to find a game to play as the months went on.

When the latest WoW expansion came out, I found myself in the same pattern that I experienced the last 2 expansions they put out where I would play for about 2 weeks, exhaust the new new stuff, and then find myself not logging in anymore.

That brings me to Rift!

With several friends on the development team, I was always interested in how the game was going, and I knew I was going to buy it as a show of support one way or the other, but I have to say that I knew something cool was going on here when I peeped the game when it was alpha early.
Once I got to spend a few hours with it I knew it was a game I was going to want to buy, so I backed off and kept myself away from any info about the game and avoided logging in. I wanted the game to be fresh and brand new to me when it released and I’m really glad I waited.

Anyways, I intend to write in depth what I’m liking about the game, and yes, I’m definitely liking it a lot. This has to be the first MMORPG that I’ve liked this much since Warhammer Online came out.

If I could give the game any kind of endorsement for the casual reader I would say this… Rift is a good cross between all the things you like about EQ2, World of Warcraft, and Warhammer online. If you liked those games, you need to buy Rift right away and join my server “Shadefallen” and make a Guardian because you don’t want to be one of those Godless heathens called the Defiant.