Rift – What’s It Going To Take?

I read a fluff article on MMORPG.com about 5 Things Rift Must Do In 2014, which got me thinking. What would it take to get me to play Rift again on a daily basis again in 2014?

Well, the answer is pretty simple: Give me an expansion with new zones and more levels.

(Alternately, if I totally ran out of stuff to do in other MMOs I’m playing, I would probably play Rift.)

First of all, let me say that in my mind, Rift is the best WoW-clone out there by a long shot. If you take everything you love about WoW, throw out all the things you hate about WoW, and add in an awesome class system, you end up with Rift. It’s a really great MMO. (I expect to see something similar to that formula from WildStar, although the classes don’t look nearly as interesting as Rift’s.)

So why am I playing FFXIV right now instead of Rift?

Basically, because FFXIV feels new and interesting, whereas I feel like I’ve done everything there is to do in Rift. I have one character at 60 and three others at 51+. I would love to get my three other dwarves to 60, but going through Storm Legion is pretty tedious and that whole process would probably take a month or more.

Rift 3.0 is supposed to give us a new level cap and new souls, and that will be a must-play for me. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if Trion will even be around long enough to get Rift 3.0 out the door. It was a bit shaky for them in 2013, although from what I can tell the game itself is perfectly fine. I would love to an expansion in 2014, but when I look back at articles talking about what’s going to be in 3.0, I start to wonder if they can fit all of that in before the end of the year. (Combat pets, new souls, level cap increases, PvP dimensions, and you would assume a bunch of new zones.) If this was the Trion of two years ago I’d say sure, no problem, but Trion today is not the Trion of two years ago, unfortunately. They aren’t putting out Rift patches nearly as fast as they once were. And they’ve got a bunch of different games to manage now, not just one.

So sadly, without an expansion, I don’t see myself doing much in Rift except popping in for holiday events now and then. I’d like to level more alts to 60, but it’s not very high on my priority list right now. By the time I finish with the games I’m playing now, ESO and/or WildStar will almost certainly be out, and that will probably supercede leveling those alts again, for at least a couple of months.

Perhaps after the shininess of ESO and WildStar wears off, Rift 3.0 and my quartet of dwarves will be there waiting for me.