On Rift,1.6 and how Skyrim ruined it for me

So the EU servers received the 1.6 Ember Isle - Ashes of History update early on Thursday morning. Being so heavily immersed in Skyrim right now has left me rather underwhelmed about the whole patch and I haven't given Rift as much time as I normally would with such an update.

Some reasons are more straightforward. For one I'd already seen Ember Isle on the Playtesters Server so there was not much to discover, only the rather mechanical box ticking of getting my character back up to where i was on PTS. Exploration achievement? check. Dancing on Mailboxes achievement? check (Loving the irony of that one Trion, "You are not in Azeroth anymore..." hmm really?).

The storyline quests in themselves are still much the same. The mobs might have more health which is a welcome challenge, but despite really making an effort to stop and read each quest, I lost interest in whatever plotline was trying to be created and ended up back to the usual 'click click click, accept accept accept...check map...run to the yellow circled areas...which mobs? Okay, kill 10 of those. Done, next?'

The warrior tanking souls have been reworked. I'm not much of a theorycrafter, especially where tanking is concerned where if my theory meets the reality of 'not enough threat' then the result will be several sad pandas. So with a broken soloing spec and outdated tanking specs my warrior alt will be on haitus until the Warrior forums collectively decide the best new specs. Even it wasn't, the desire to repeat this content over again on an alt is really not there any more.

And I think this has just been compounded by Skyrim.

Perhaps i should have avoided the PTS, but the difference between exploring in Rift and Skyrim just illustrates the superficial nature of MMOs like Rift. Exploration in Rift involves uncovering grey areas of the map until there are no more. What you might find is are some circles on the map indicating quests. Some are one time things, others being dailies. My emotional reaction to any of it was virtually non-existent. Comments like, 'oh, big rock' 'oh, that looks nice', 'ah a Guardian outpost, will need to path around some of these mobs' or 'ah another daily, I'll do that later'.

In Skyrim there is both a genuine sense of danger in traveling around on foot and a true sense of adventure just in poking around, and exploring the world. Who knows whats in the cave and what it will lead too. In Rift you know that the cave will have mobs of a certain variety and if there's anything at the end of it, perhaps you should have picked up the relevant quest first, otherwise you'll have to come back and kill all the same mobs again.

I've accepted what Rift isn't, or at least tried to reconcile with it. Yes there is no immersion, no real sense of adventure, but as a themepark raiding endgame MMO I think it is very good. But always its comes down to numbers, collecting badges and currencies and pursuing progression of your character through gear. You do dailies for the 50th time not because its fun, but for the reward, the Best in Slot rune, or ten more achievement points.

There is character progression in Skyrim, but it is not there to be gamed or min/maxed. Mobs will scale to your level so its simply about choosing how you wish to play your character, and whether to specialize, or spread your skills in order to be able to try different approaches. I've read of players completing the main questline at level 20 whereas others are level 30 and not halfway progressed along this storyline. Whether you take on the final boss (I'm assuming there will be a final showdown) at level 20 or 30, there will be a scaled challenge to suit your chosen path.

On reading other blogs I rather despair at attempts to game it. On the one hand i feel as if i'm perhaps unintelligently playing the game and should be pushing and pulling at it to extract all the failings and intricacies. On the other, it saddens me that they seem to be unable to enjoy it for what is it. I have determined to avoid all spoilers, to make character progression secondary to the plot and (i think) have been playing it as intended and the result has been that I've had and continue to have so maybe memorable experiences in this game.

So as i said in my previous entry, I play Skyrim to progress the plot rather than my character and i wonder if ever an MMO could do the same. Star Wars is reputed to have strong storylines. However each storyline will naturally have some kind of ending, yet it is an MMO and Bioware will want you to carry on playing its game. What will you be left with? I fear the answer will be a rather dated and insipid 'Wow in space'.

Perhaps these things can never be reconciled, a persistent world with motivation to resubscribe through a constantly evolving, personal storyline providing an immersive experience. Maybe the 'personal story' in Guild Wars 2 will be it. I hope so, but I'm not putting any faith in it as yet.