oh, noobs

I tried playing the latest RIFT beta, and... even without whatever issues it was having with my video drivers, it was tough going. I've been in too many newbie zones in my life; as it turns out, I just don't have the stomach for another one.

Supposedly the game is a fairly enjoyable incremental change, and its mix-and-match approach to classes and talents is kind of intriguing: each base class of fighter/rogue/cleric/mage gets to pick three more specialized subclasses (out of eight). Each tree is divided into 'branches' and 'roots', which is right on the line between cute and irritatingly literal.

I'm not sure how many times various games have taught me how to play WoW. Probably six? And they're all so methodical and thorough: here's how you talk to a guy (click on him), here's how you fight an enemy (click on it), here's how you loot a corpse (click on it), here's how you activate a quest object in the world (click on it)... And it's all the same from game to game. Ironically, if one of these games had a thing that set it apart from the pack, it would totally get lost in the noise.

I can sort of sympathize; I've implemented/been involved with the manufacture of my fair share of tutorials, and it's kind of horrible; the only thing more horrible is that one dude in your focus group who gets frustrated because the game isn't progressing, even though the text that tells him what to do next is RIGHT THERE ON HIS SCREEN. It's our fault for caring what he thinks, I guess.