http://www.soulrift.com/ Official Soulrift Website; news and analysis of MMORPGs. en-us http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=86 Last time I blogged about Rift I complained a bit about having a hard time "finding" the fun in the game anymore. After talking more about the topic with my guildmates in Infernal Dawn last night, I think most of us agreed that Rift is ready for more than just flat content: we want an... Wed, 16 May 2012 13:44:13 -0400 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=86 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=85 Despite it's rough start and rougher going on since, Final Fantasy XIV is still running and the folks at Squeenix are still convinced they can fix it up. They did, however, decide to end the more-than-a-year-long free trial for the game back in December, and that's when I got locked out of the game.... Fri, 11 May 2012 13:26:50 -0400 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=85 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=84 It seems to me that modern MMORPGs are based on Achievements. You grind to level up, you grind to get gear, you grind grind grind to achieve goals set forth for you by the developers. The problem is, with all the focus on carefully balancing those grinds to take as long as possible, MMO developers... Thu, 03 May 2012 11:39:55 -0400 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=84 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=83 I managed to wriggle my way in to the TERA beta this weekend to check it out. So far, I've played a Warrior character through to level 12, completing the tutorial island. I don't know if I'll get much further. Here are my thoughts. Quests: The game is loaded with utter crap quests. Walk over and... Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:57:49 -0400 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=83 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=82 So Trion, the folks behind Rift, are merging some of their less populated servers into the more populated ones. Or, rather, "not merging" those servers, but simply "suggesting" that everyone on the underpopulated servers transfer to the populated servers so the underpopulated... Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:29:40 -0500 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=82 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=81 Happy New Year everyone! And to kick off the new year, a very special podcast with Bernd Lehahn of Egosoft, the company behind the X games. Our main topics are the recently released X3: Albion Prelude and the upcoming X: Rebirth. I'm a big fan of open-ended sandbox games and X scratches an itch that... Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:47:23 -0500 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=81 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=80 There were two big design elements that attracted me to Rift originally: the make-your-own-class system and the Rifts-and-Invasions dynamic content. I'm a big fan of dynamic content. I would like nothing more for MMORPGs to do away with "quest grinding leveling" and "end game... Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:48:25 -0500 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=80 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=79 Square-Enix just announced that they will start billing for Final Fantasy XIV starting January 6th, 2012. This is one full year before they expect to launch the 2.0 client and basically re-do most of the game, in 2013. So, despite all the troubles with the game so far, now they want you to pay for... Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:33:10 -0500 http://www.soulrift.com/index.php?article=79