Rifts add an interesting element to gameplay, and they have improved on earlier implementations of this concept. They give players a common enemy to fight, and that enemy poses a real threat to the world if they're not dealt with. Still, they suffer from some of the same shortcomings as WAR's public quests. Closing a Rift is best accomplished with a group, and that may become a lot harder to find in lower-level zones as players progress and move on. You'll also find that if some high-level players join in, or the group gets too large, Rift mobs start to go down so fast you can barely get a shot off. Within limits, however, the Rifts do scale reasonably well, and they certainly are more compelling than the customary static spawn point.
Instances
Quests and rifts are not your only option for action in Telara. The game has a full complement of 5-man dungeons and a couple of end-game raids, with more on the way. The dungeons become available at about level 16, and many of them have expert modes for players at the current level cap of 50. You need to revert to old-fashioned chat to find groups for these instances, as Rift doesn't yet have the equivalent of WoW's Dungeon Finder.
Rift has both PvP servers as well as instanced PvP battlegrounds in the form of Warfronts. Warfronts consist of 20-player, 30-player, or 40-player matches with even teams and common objectives like capturing enemy artifacts or holding certain positions on the map. From what I've seen of them, they're thoughtfully designed, although again, they are pretty standard fare for a game of this kind.
Crafting
Gathering and crafting in Rift are present and accounted for, with 3 gathering skills and 6 crafting professions. For the most part you collect raw materials, purchase an extra ingredient or two from a vendor, find the appropriate crafting station, and click. Some of the rewards for closing rifts can be used to enhance crafted items, which is a nice touch, and it's an easy system to learn. Unfortunately, like most of Rift, it varies only slightly from the crafting in scores of other games, so it's hard to get excited about.
Inevitable Comparisons
There's no doubt that games have a long tradition of building on the strong points of earlier titles. It's wise to follow a proven formula, but it comes with the risk of making the game redundant, and Rift treads very close to that line. The vast number of similarities to WoW make comparisons inevitable, and little details from hearth stones to rest experience to the number of Rogue combo points seem to be borrowed from earlier games without question. I mean, are 4 slot bags so much fun that every game has to have them now? And while comparisons to WoW abound, Rift is probably closer still to Warhammer Online, which uses the same core graphics engine.
The Bottom Line
Getting back to the question we posed in the first paragraph, anyone that has played a lot of fantasy MMORPGs is almost certain to get a sense of "been there, done that" from Rift. Of course, more of the same in a different skin is exactly what some people want, and in that respect, Rift delivers. Trion has proven that a remarkably polished online world can be developed by a relatively small team in a reasonable timeframe, and it's hard not to be impressed by that. Furthermore, the feature set was largely intact at launch rather than being patched in months or years after release, as is so often the case. While having a rift open next to you definitely injects some excitement into the routine, it's not quite enough to move the genre forward. Rift is another good MMORPG that leaves little to complain about, but it also does little to stand out from the crowd or entice players from other games.
