Rift is now f2p. Why are you not playing it right now?

Over the last two years, the MMO scene has become bloated with "free-to-play" games.  How free these games actually are is open to debate, but they're here to stay.  Once upon a time, Western MMO devotees turned their noses up at any mention of micro-transactions and games that didn't require you to subscribe.  The assumption was (usually accurate) that any game that didn't ask you to pay for it wasn't a quality game.  In Korea, it was a different story.  I remember buying the Echoes of Faydwer expansion for EQ2 and having a lengthy discussion of this new cash shop thing blowing up in Asia, and how dumb people were to spend money like that on a game.  My friends were convinced it would never take hold with Western gamers, that we would never allow ourselves to be nickled and dimed by our devs.  No, we preferred our fifty dollar annual purchases, and our all-inclusive fifteen dollar subscriptions.  I disagreed- and not just because I was borrowing over half of the money for my expansion from a guildmate.  I knew it would take some time, but sure enough...  the f2p/cash shop model has managed to really take root in the industry.  Sub-based games are the minority now, and recent attempts to hold to the traditional model have flopped gloriously.  Of major titles released in the last three years, none are still subscription-only (that I know of).  As of this week, only World of Warcraft stands as it was at launch- and the debate on how good a thing that is gets pretty heated.  (At least in this household.)

Yesterday, Trion Worlds' Rift went free to play.  I've been playing in fits and bursts since the release of their Storm Legion expansion, but it wasn't until I realized just how awesome a game I was about to have access to for jack all that I actually dove into it.  Trion isn't kidding when they say they're offering one of the most player-friendly features matrices.  Everything in game is available.  The currency caps are reasonable.  There are no level or gear restrictions based on how much you've paid them.  Now, I'm not seeing a lot of the potential handicaps of a froobie because I've still got over a hundred days of subscription time left, but so far...  I'm impressed.  Their services are reasonably-priced, and the ingame toys are neat. You can buy costume versions of basically every armor set in the game, mounts, fluff pets, house items...houses... for between five and twenty dollars.  If you subscribe?  You get a credit bonus.  If you've bought the game, or expansions, or whatever?  You get bonuses for that.  Your store purchases and subscription time get you loyalty credits, which are basically veteran rewards.  The nice part, like I was getting at a minute a go, is that nothing in the store can be considered mandatory for game quality of life or performance, and even if they add stuff like that in at some point...you can buy credits with ingame plat thanks to their rex system.  (Think Krono from EQ2, only usable for everything, and not just subs.)

So...yeah.  If you haven't tried Rift, or you've been gone for a while, drop back in and see what you've been missing.  I'm Roxina (you saw that coming), on Faeblight.  Friend me and hit me up with a tell, and we'll smash shit.

Some things are best left in the past...just sayin'.

I'm still about three weeks out from being not-poor enough to re-subscribe to WoW, and in the meantime I'm pushing towards endgame in EQ2 on my rerolled Inquisitor.  (Raava, Tactical Dysfunction, Antonia Bayle Server.  Check me out!)  It's been a huge blast from the past, with a lot of memories being dredged up from my days in the original Everquest- some good, and some bad.  On the whole, I'm having fun, so long as I limit myself to two or three hours a go, with long AFKs every half hour or so.  For a girl used to playing eight and ten hour sessions without much in the way of a break, that's saying something.

Who the hell told Sony it would be a good idea to bring back long, tedious key quests and access timelines?  In order to unlock the dungeons and gear vendors for Chains of Eternity content, you've got to complete pretty much every single quest in the two overland adventure zones they introduced: Eidolon Jungle and Obol Plains.  Along the way, you've got to complete solo versions of every.  Single.  Dungeon.  In the expansion.  And it's not like they trimmed down the BS level of the dungeons.  I spent over an hour killing TRASH in one of these things the other night.  Admittedly, I'm only just level 94, and I'm pulling barely 60k dps, but still.  The tedium level of this process is high.  I thought we'd left behind this kind of nonsense with Burning Crusade, Ruins of Kunark, and whatever expansion it was came after Dragons of Norrath in EQ1. Underfoot?  Whatever.  The point is, one day MMO developers collectively got their head of their ass and started removing keying requirements for content.  The gating mechanism became more gear and skill-oriented than timesink, and gamers rejoiced.

The last three expansions in EQ2 have pretty much been set in Velious, or revisited other continents and regions in the game.  They're bringing a lot of old plot threads together, and it's not hard to see that they're trying to bring us into the endgame of the story.  We're finally finding out what happened to all of those fun little factions we had to grind in EQ1, and what the hell all this bullshit about the Ethernere has been all these years, but...  I don't want to relive the grind along with the content. 

Maybe I've just lost my taste for hard work in games.  Maybe I've been spoiled by Cataclysm and Champions Online, and not having to work harder at my game than my job.

But seriously, dev types.  If I can do the content, let me do the content.  Don't make me hate my life for a week just because you don't want me breaking into it too fast.

She of the dysfunctional tactics returns! (Again!) ((No really this time!))

If at any point I had a loyal reader-base, I'm sure to have annihilated it with my grand five month unannounced hiatus.  I was on a roll with my Returning Gracefully and For CoX Players update arcs, but then...  The Move happened, and then The Job happened, along with The Girlfriend and The Bills Crisis.

Long story short, RL has been using my backside to skill up its unarmed combat, and I've got the bruises to prove it.  The important part is that I'm back, and I've got some neat stuff to write about.  I've returned to EQ2 on a very limited basis, and have been asked to come "pew the mans" with some RL friends in WoW.  We're working on starting up a D&D table, with actual other human beings, to take place in my actual living room.  (The roommate assures me that social interaction does not cause cancer or lead to spontaneous combustion.)  If that weren't enough, I'm looking into resurrecting the TacDys channel on Twitch.tv to cover all the hilarity of two very rage-filled women gaming on the same couch.

Over the next few weeks I want to put together some updated reviews and rants for EQ2, WoW, and possibly TSW and Champions.  Assuming I get some XBox time that isn't being used for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Make It Or Break It marathon on Netflix, I'll give the new Tomb Raider and Injustice: Gods Among Us some love as well.  The current vision for TDBlog goes beyond the sphere of digital entertainment, so expect some Demand Your Librarian Give You This articles and Why Does GRR Martin Hate Me So Much whining.

In parting, some pro advice from personal experience:

Wise man forbid wireless mice when gaming with angry healers.  Wise man also keep angry healers from grouping while playing on free WiFi at McDonald's.  Unless wise man like being yelled at by Mommysaurus Regina.  Then...wise man not so wise, and deserve what he get.