creature-comforts

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  • Enter at Your Own Rift: Creature comforts

    by 
    Justin Olivetti
    Justin Olivetti
    02.02.2011

    Ever since RIFT's beta mushroomed in both population and presence, there's been an exponential increase of folks trying to get a handle on how they feel about the game. It's the same song and dance that you see with any new MMO: People come to it with a need to know whether they like it, whether it's worth their money, whether it should be defended or denounced as rubbish. It's extremely disconcerting when you can't match up your gut feeling with logical reasoning, such as when your gut tells you that you really, really like a game, but you have a hard time putting it into words. It's kind of like the "On paper, it should be a perfect MMO, but in practice, it sucks" effect (and vice-versa). I've been amused by how many bloggers and commenters have echoed my own thoughts about RIFT when they say something to the effect of, "I know it's a lot like other MMOs and has a lot more of the same, but I'm actually enjoying it" -- as if the fact that RIFT shares commonalities with its contemporaries should be dooming it from the start. Instead, today we're going to take a peek into why "more of the same" isn't necessarily a bad or even disreputable factor for an MMO, and why RIFT has struck the sweet spot of appeasement with so many of us. Except for you, Angry Commenter. We're not ignoring you, promise -- we're just having fun in our game.