Everyone's looking forward to SWTOR. Have ya seen the latest graphics? I'll definitely have to upgrade for that. But what worries me is that it may be too linear like Dragon's Age, and have a boring endgame like all MMOs. I wish they had a more open exploratory space game, than one on rails. I guess that would be too much to add.
---
I still have faith in Rift. Reason is that I was just plain bored with WoW. That's even with my guild progressing well. It's become just sitting in town waiting on queue. While listening to the attention whores flaming each other through trade chat.
Why Rift is better?
1. No arenas: The constant changes and nerfs based off of arenas has completely changed the class that I played for 6 years. And no, the class did not become more enjoyable to play.
2. No flight: The worlds will always stay large, instead of becoming vacant void zones, except those wanting to punish themselves with archeology. I swear, after 6 years of playing wow, I think I spent a huge portion of my time waiting while taking flight paths. Rift has portals to main hubs. I can already see the amount of time I'm going to save without them, actually doing something. It also pays to just explore. I've came across many quests out of the way, mounds that contained a bag of epic loot, plus many artifacts.
3. No cross server LFD: This brings back the community. Believe it or not, people in Rift are generally more friendly and more open to work together. Wow has become all about nerd rage. Why so many hateful players in LFD? Because they can be with no consequences. And this allows having world chat, which would be too annoying with wow.
4. Easy grouping: Public grouping not only allows to instantly join in on raid invasions, but just doing everyday quests. Unlike wow, it isn't all about tagging the mob before the other person. If in same area, just click a button above his portrait and you are grouped. Help on killing that mob, and even the quest loot is lootable by both. When done, just leave group. And this is without saying a word to each other. I once helped someone take down a boss without grouping, even though was tagged by another I still got credit for it. Plus can easily merge groups.
5. AoE looting: I no longer can live without that. I also like how the rift loot is set up. Automatically retrieves and gets stored, which you loot as you please by clicking the button that comes up on the right side. Nice when bags are already full.
6. Dynamic world. I still love the invasions. They even increased the number of them in higher areas in last patch since many complained not enough. It's an active world that gets people to work together...without feeling that we are being forced to. I enjoy that the NPCs get overrun, yet I can also help defend with the NPCs assisting. In this game, the road can be a dangerous place to be, since the invaders prefer to use them too.
7. World PvP. I've seen raids formed just to cause havoc to the other side, but unlike WoW people will quickly rally up and push them back. Even saw a huge raid made up of all dwarves, in a guild called Clan Ironsides. Destroying everything in it's path, rifts and defiance. Don't see that in WoW anymore since vanilla. I was with a few friends exploring the defiant side and came across some other guardians that quickly joined our group (no need to invite they just clicked to join). While attacking some defiants, they retreated to one of their small camps, using their NPCs for protection. That NPC healer hits hard. Just when we were about to move on, a rift invasion attacked their camp, preoccupying their NPCs allowing us to go in for the kill.
Now you would think that doing the rift invasions would suck in a PvP world. Actually, we usually work together to defeat them. We both benefit from it. Of course, when it's over with all of us in one area, we play the last man standing. And no loss to either side since loot is automatically distributed.
8. Flexibility and variation of classes. I see more groups looking for DPS than tank or healer. This game has already solved the shortages that WoW has had since start. Doing an instance with rogues as healers (bards) is ridiculous yet fun. People say they will have a hard time balancing the game. No doubt, but remember: There are no arenas. Classes will not be nerfed due to their 3v3 viability, and more attuned to 1v1. Which I'm sure most prefer. Plus there is less likely that a person will feel useless overnight, with so many variations that they can become. Unlike wow which is to reroll. People can now have characters suited to how they feel like playing, instead being told how to play.
9. Devs. It's such a breath of fresh air to have them respond to people's concerns, without being condescending or just plain ignored. This game has changed alot from Alpha. It is what is today by listening to the players. Features are quickly added and done efficiently. The devs have even introduced themselves instead of staying hidden.
One huge problem after release is that many peoples' accounts got hacked. Those gold sellers have swarmed this game. Well, they quickly added features like coin lock (if log on from a vastly different IP, account becomes locked, which needs code that gets automatically sent to email). Unlike Bliz, we don't have to give them more money for such protection. Plus surprised to see that they added many other security features suggested by the players.
Seeing how quickly they patch things up and doing it efficiently has given them my faith and my money. I can't think of any MMO as polished as this on release, including WoW.
