I got in on the beta (www.riftgame.com) and played for about 2 hours last night. I have to say... impressive! First things first however - it is CLEARLY a WoW clone. Straight up and no joke, it's ripped off almost everything from WoW down to most of the default keyboard shortcuts and almost everything about the gameplay mechanics. That being said - why WOULDN'T they?? In the MMO world, Blizzard has clearly set the standard in gameplay with WoW. You don't get to 12million+ subscribers without having something that is VERY solid from a gameplay perspective! So for Rift to copy all that WoW has already done right, is just plain smart. Sure they could've tried to revolutionize MMO gameplay, but doing so would've almost certainly failed. Plus being so similar to WoW will make for a VERY easy transition for WoW players who either quit or are bored but still subscribed. Speaking for myself, I'm a very very casual WoW player. If I play 2 hours a week, that's a lot. I only subscribed in the last 8 months or so, so I'm absolutely not the "typical" WoW player (at least not compared to the ones I know). But while Rift has taken most of what's good about WoW, they have also added some things I think WoW should have, and that currently require third party adons to achieve. The graphics in Rift are not better or worse than WoW, they're different. While WoW deliberately went for a "cartoony" style (which I really enjoy btw), Rift has gone for the more realistic (yes still "fantasy") approach, and the graphics are indeed very good. You'll want a beefy video card though, on my system (quad core i7 with 4 gig RAM and an average video card) I have to run with the graphics on "low" at 1900px wide, in order to see solid FPS above 25. My friend with a high end NVidia card gets 60fps at 2500px res. ANother note... while grinding in WoW kinda bores me, grinding in Rift is actually a lot of fun! WHether this will fade after a while I don't know, it could be just because it's new and fresh. But it just doesn't feel the same as WoW. The questing is good too, I'm not big into the lore, but they've done a great job of making it easy to know what to do next. I have yet to be in that "WTF am I supposed to do now?" mindset that sometimes sets in with WoW if I don't have my adons to tell me what to do. The class system is a huge departure from WoW, and it's going to take some getting used to. It's so much more complex and involved than with WoW, because you essentially can have I think up to 6 classes in one character, each with their own skill tree. Time will tell what I think of this, but so far I love being able to mix & match stuff... like being a rogue who's a long-range weapon specialist that can do demolitions (explosives) and has pets. Wicked! All in all, Rift is extremely solid. I've had no issues of any kind (other than my system being underpowered in the video department) even though it's still in beta. No lag of any kind, and it's very fun to play. I think Rift is going to give WoW a very serious run for its money... this is IMO the firest real contender in the "Fantasy MMO Wars" and Blizzard is going to have to really step up I think, to challenge Rift. If they're starting off as good as WoW, I imagine they could leapfrog it in fairly short order!
I am not playing it yet but maybe its time to make a switch since i don't like wow that much currently. Don't think that Rift is going to take the throne from wow any soon.
eah not that Rift is going to crush WoW... but I think it will pull some significant numbers, and pull some away from WoW. It won't be the new king any time soon, but it's the first contender I've seen that I think could have some genuine staying power. Gonna be interesting to see how it goes post launch.