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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SW:ToR Closes in on 1 Million Boxed Pre-Orders

As one of the most anticipated MMORPG's this year closes in on its December 20th release date, it is also gradually closing in on the fabled "1 Million Mark" for Pre-Orders alone. Now many of you will say, "Man that's nothing! World of Warcraft has 13 Million subs!" Well there is one thing to remember here Children of the Panda - this number is strictly North America Only, it also does not include Digital Download Pre-Orders, and it DOES NOT take account for ANY of the Pre-Orders from Europe.

So with that said, can this game be the "WoW Killer" so many of us have dreamed about and longed for since the release of that game? I will say - we will have to wait and see. As far as industry leading innovations, the team at BioWare has pretty much set the standards now with ToR. If it is any indication from what Blizzard will be doing with their upcoming "Panda Bear and Sparkle Pony" Expansion (voice overs and no auto attacks), I think this shows how much Blizzard wishes they were BioWare and thought of this stuff first.

Sadly though, they didn't!

No, I really am not sad about that (./insert lulz here) - because honestly I want ToR to be a HUGE competitor to a game that has become one of the EASIEST MMO's on the market where even a 4 year old child can successfully do level 85 raids as a Main Tank (Yes! I was in a guild where the guild leader let his youngest son tank raids, he was 4 years old)!

I want there to be a challenge - I want SKILL to dominate! I do not want the factor of GEAR to set the standard for what you CAN and CANNOT do in a game!

The MMO's of old used this concept to its fullest extent - people loved it! Personally, I believe that ToR (with what has been shown and said) - is very well going to accomplish this style of play, and once again make me feel like I have a game I can make my "home" for some time to come.

I know the stakes are high for BioWare, as we the fans are coming up on the very final "Beta Weekend". Then after that it will probably be time for that one blissful moment of "Early Access". If the cards are right - BioWare is going to win one of the largest pots of all time! It just seems like everyone here is waiting for that river card to turn so we can see who wins the big bucks in the Battle of MMO's.

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BlizzCon 2011 - Kung Fu Panda: The Game?!

So it seems like the much anticipated children's movie is coming to life in a video game much like Hello Kitty Online has spawned from the depths of Hell onto the internet and somehow became a fully playable world in the video game sense. Yesterday afternoon Blizzard had announced that they would be adding the much anticipated (?) Pandarian race to World of Warcraft in an upcoming expansion. And in my my fits of laughter and tears (yes I really was laughing that hard), I found out they really were serious!

In my previous write up about BlizzCon I had spoke of how I thought Blizzard would step forth into the world with some news of "great things", but really- walking, talking Pandas? Is that what you spend your multi-million dollar budget on? How hard was it to get an old model of a character and put a panda skin overlay on top of it? Oh yeah and put a voice .mp3 file in there too! Great job concept team - that must have taken you about 30 minutes to come up with and another hour to put the skin on top with how hard it is to figure out what colors BLACK and WHITE are in your code base.

I'm glad you guys have a bunch of nerf guns and XBox 360's on Campus because you all must have spent a great deal of time celebrating your new expansion and successful creation of a new player race by playing Forza 4 and doing some Multi-Player in Halo afterwards. I call this one a great success for you and the team - as well as the droves of your targeted market 9 -15. Well done, lets give you all a pat on the back once again, just like we did with Cataclysm!

And now with the annual subscription model World of Warcraft is surely looking to try and "fatten up" its figures in how many active subscriptions they have when they sucker people into they game and then when the players decide the game is crap - they still get to record those numbers for a whole year (i.e. the annual marketing report). This is undoubtedly a way to make the numbers of players look and seem like there are way more in game then there actually are. I mean - 12 million subscribers looks really darn nice when you see it on a sticker when you buy a game, it really lures you in and makes you think that there are tons of knowledgeable people playing the game right?

WRONG!

Most of these people are in fact dumb as nails or are the most obnoxious elitist trolls in any game around. And when you tell me that there are youngin's in my guild and in voice chat with me (around 10 or so) and you are in fact their PARENT and are being an obnoxious elitist tard, that some how does not instill the confidence I have in the marketing potential of said game - or even its community.

So I will let Blizzard have their Kung Fu Panda Expansion. I just hope next year that they don't come out with a Finding Nemo one.

BlizzCon 2011 - Blizzard, what will you do?

So it seems BlizzCon 2011 Starts later on today, and I am sure there will be many things discussed this year from the changes made in World of Warcraft with Cataclysm to all things pertaining to StarCraft II. But one things stands out in my mind as the most sought after topic of all - as Blizzard has not made mention of it for some time. What is this "Next Gen MMO" that they have planned in the works and are currently developing in their studios?

I have quite a feeling many of you do not know what I am speaking of, so I might as well direct you on over to the link to Blizzard Entertainment's career page to show you what exactly I am speaking of in the mean time.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/directory.html#region=Americas

As you take a look at the many vacancies in the "Next Gen MMO" area right in the middle of the page - I'm sure you will wonder as I do, what could this game be? Sure it is not another expansion to World of Warcraft, but could it be something greater? Possibly the long awaited "Starcraft MMO" all of us have looked forward to in the past?

If this were true I know many of us would be quite pleased with something like that in most case, but there are quite a few people who have lost touch with the Blizzard IP in the past months and have taken on new games of choice, such as Trion World's little gem - Rift. Albeit World of Warcraft has lost some of it glitz and glam since the inception of Cataclysm with the game become almost "too user friendly" for most, but does that warrant the amount of players who seem to leave the game on a constant basis and then suddenly come back for almost no reason just to leave once more? I think not.

If Blizzard is going to start fresh with a new IP they will have to do something quite extraordinary and not stick to their guns like they have in the past or even start "dumbing down" many of the game systems to tailor to a much younger user base. Many of the players are frustrated by a sense of the game "too easy" and "fail sauce" because of how the game mechanics work, and many of the players who either quit during vanilla or during a previous expansion and have returned rarely stay for long to even try the new update to the game as they were expecting "more".

My final thought on this come the day BlizzCon kicks off in the morning is - I really would like to see more innovations from the crew at Blizzard, rather then just some CG Movies and stale gameplay videos that seem to just raise the hype of the fan base and not give much relevant  information as to what the upcoming patch or nerf is truly about. More info on what is being planned for the future of the company and future releases would also be great as well, as many of us are looking for some "out" from World of Warcraft, but are just too "gun shy" to go to another game at the moment as we feel WoW is the best thing on the market.

So please Blizz give us something to look forward too - cause you know damn well, there are many games this year looking to kick you down a peg and become King of the Mountain.