Rift: Planes of Telara. I have a lot to say about this rare gem of development perfection. When I first heard of "Rift" the very first thing that came to mind was yet another Korean grinder MMO. And I've had quite enough of those. The difference between the "Old Age" of MMO's and the current one seems to be based on the fundamental gameplay mechanics. Old games like Asheron's Call, Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot...These games all actively promoted unity in the community - a necessity to play a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME with more emphasis on the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER part and less on the...whatever it is the current generation seems to be focusing on.
Rift started out fantastic - in the beta, the game was so incredibly polished, it felt like I was playing any of the other current MMO's on the market 1-2 years after they released. The game was a masterpiece of design success. The developers had actually finished so much of what they planned, I had read several times that they were already working on post-launch end game content that would go live within the first 2-3 months. That's a damn miracle - even World of Warcraft - who's launch is scarcely remembered, was a pile of shit. I remember waiting for the servers to come back up from downtime more than I remember playing WoW during it's first month. In Rift's first month, server downtime has never been more than 10-15 minutes at a time. Trion Worlds is literally one of the best, classiest and well organized developers I have ever seen, and I've been playing games, specifically MMORPG's, for 12 years.
