Rift and ToR - A Comparison of Worlds

Yes all it is me once again, and I know I haven't had much in the way of posts recently due to the fact of being completely sucked in with Star Wars The Old Republic. Recently though I had gotten quite "bored" with ToR and many of the systems that were in place for PvP Gear and such. Yes I know that they do have all intents to fixing and stream-lining this in the near future, but I needed a break from the grind fest that was taking place in game.

So - I left ToR and trotted on over to Rift. Mainly at first I was only going to sub for the "wedding" feature that a certain someone who will remain nameless wished for me to partake in. I went ahead and got the marriage and all that jazz done, which from an RP perspective (though I am not much of an RP'er) it was really cool and interesting to see how all this went about.

Now on the flip side (switching topics again), ToR has stated that the legacy system in 1.2 will allow you to "create a family tree" of sorts. Now my thought on the matter is this - does this mean that there will be certain RP aspects here as well, such as weddings between others in game or is the "family tree" merely another thing to get bogged down with and spend precious time doing (as there are many many time sinks in SWToR).

So, back to Rift now - I had started doing some PvP in game (mostly warzones) and saw that they had adjusted some of the mechanics in Whitefall for one (yes, I haven't played Rift in awhile), and to top it off you get double experience, favor, and prestige for the weekend. I enjoyed this very much as it made the "grind" somewhat easier then most games.

I am hoping that when 1.2 comes out for ToR, that some of these mechanics will be available in the game - like picking which warzone you want to do, giving some benefits to Ilum again (as it is now worthless for any melee character to go do), and possibly the ability to get "double rep" on certain days. This would make it less of a "grind-fest" so that players can focus on other things while they play.

Now - sure ToR has all the story elements and such that make the game great, but honestly comparing ToR's graphics to Rift's is almost a joke (and before you ask - I run everything on the highest settings in both games, I also can run both at the same time on two different monitors and not experience any lag what-so-ever). I know that me saying this next phrase will cause the "fanboi's" and "trolls" to spring forth from the nether, but, I really think ToR's graphics are a "better" version of World of Warcraft's graphics.

I mean, once you turn everything up on Rift (and I mean everything to max), ToR almost looks comical! Yeah sure the game looks nice, but, Rift has a feel of "realism" that many other games do not have (at least visually). And as I said, the story in ToR is what set's it apart from everything else - but once you take that out (all the voice overs) and put in a quest box that you "need to read", you basically get a WoW in Space sort of game.

Now I'm not saying that Rift is better then ToR or vice versa, as I enjoy both games equally. I love Star Wars and ToR, but I am also a die hard fantasy fan also (same with the sci-fi genre). So I can't really say one is better then the other, it is just that both games have different visuals and art styles that will adhere to many different audiences and make the game enjoyable.

I had just wanted to speak of a few items that I had seen that were quite different in both games. If you have any comments on the subject please respond down below and leave me your thoughts. Otherwise, have a great time doing what you do in your virtual worlds, and I hope to see you all in game soon!

Cheers All,

~SV

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