Rift: A Fond Farewell

So after six months, I have finally ended my RIFT subscription for good. I did unsubscribe once, but came back soon after to give the game more time to make me love it. I have to say, I did, but it was just not enough. 




In my beta review, I did mention it was hard to justify pre-ordering the game, but some friends ended up playing so I decided it would be fun to join them. The game had several good moments in the leveling process and I did enjoy myself immensely. 


The first blow to my enjoyment was when my friends decided to quit Rift. Names in my friends list stayed grey as no one bothered to log on anymore. But I was a different breed of player and I stuck it out to make friends in the game. I did want my cleric to be the best it could so I vaulted to 50.  


The next blow came with the notoriety nerfs. In one patch, the time it will take to grind faction rewards tripled. And since the runes are pretty much the only thing I would want from the quartermasters, i would have to go all the way to glorified. It started going downhill from there. 


RIFT is a great game, no one can doubt that. But it just ended up not being entirely compelling. I still play the gorilla that is World of Warcraft and there's just a lot of time and effort invested in my character and I do still have fun in that game. Because I am not at all disgruntled with WoW, RIFT just had no lure for me to switch and set aside time to raid there. This long at 50, there is just nothing that would make me give up other games. Heck, days when I'm bored with WoW, I just play Dragon Age 2 and not RIFT.


The content patches also did nothing for players like me who are past the expert dungeons but don't raid. The first event was actually kind of fun, then the next event was fun, but looked the same as the one before. By the third event, I just didn't bother doing the dailies or try to collect the "currency of the month". There is only so much you can do to recycle this kind of content. 


It came to the point where I would log on, but don't feel like doing anything. I did try PvP, got a ton of achievements, then got bored. I tried hunting for artifacts, which got so tedious I just gave up and played Dragon Age 2.  It's one grind after another and I simply do not have the time or will to do all that. 


So thanks Trion for the great experience and my time in RIFT is certainly not wasted.