I'm a "proud to be returning player"

[Donaven]

I just want to make a couple of comments as a returning player:

First of all, I pre-ordered the game and started my first character the day that the servers opened. I played for about two months, but found the game to be a little lonely. The community was ..difficult. Finding dungeons was unenjoyable without some sort of decent dungeon finder system. I did like the game, I just didn't seem to find myself choosing to play it over any other games at the time.

I've kept my eye on the website every few months and watched as some impressive patches were implemented. I don't know why, but when I saw the notes for patch 1.9, I decided to re-open my account. I re-opened my account as a "rift light" account. I played two characters to 20 in 24 hours and decided without any hesitation to fully subscribe.

Coming back, I've found that the community is wonderfully terrific (at least on my shard). I love that people participate in the zone events. Now, an exception here are events that take place in the "mid-level zones". However, in the high end zones and the lowbie zones there are always groups taking on the invaders. Dungeons have been tons of fun. I've been on a couple of rough runs, but fortunately no one has been overly rude and the one time it started to head that way one or two others spoke out against being negative and shut it down quick.

The game is far more gorgeous than I remembered. I climbed a very tall mountain and looked out over the landscape and can honestly say my breath was taken away. I love being able to mentor (even though I feel like a newbie myself), do random dungeons, pvp, grind rep (I know I will grow tired of this haha), craft, etc. The game really delivers in many ways that are fulfilling.

I am super proud and very happy to be a returning member. Trion has produced a fantastic game and delivered on a lot of great content over the last 15 months. They have certainly earned a customer. They will also get excellent word-of-mouth advertising from me. I am grateful to be back.

Thanks for reading.

[Isdomeia]

Hello Donaven! You and I started playing Rift at about the same time it seems...launch. I also played for a month or two but then went back to WoW because I had friends and raiding there. Eventually, however, the horrid community became too much to tolerate and even my guild is splitting apart. People are losing interest in that dead horse of a game lol.

I adore Rift. There is so much more to do and the leveling process is far more involved than anything else I've experienced. The world events and rewards and zone events and professions make it feel like the leveling process actually means something. I get a true sense of in-game accomplishment throughout the duration.

The community, for the most part, is stellar on my shard. There is the occasional spat or once in awhile some jerk who likes to hear himself talk but that is absolutely nothing compared to WoW. Everyone is super nice and very helpful. I'm thankful for how helpful people are because I know absolutely nothing about the game right now. I'm a bonafide noob! But hey, gotta start somewhere right? Hopefully I'll start to pick up on things as I level up more.

Its funny because I played WoW for about six years. So once I hit max level on any given toon, I knew exacty what to do to develop my character further: dungeons til the right item level, heroics til I could LFR, then regular raiding (never been a PvPer). In Rift after I hit 50 I won't have a clue what to do! lol! Oh well. I'll figure that out at 50 I guess

[Forbin]

Its funny because I played WoW for about six years. So once I hit max level on any given toon, I knew exacty what to do to develop my character further: dungeons til the right item level, heroics til I could LFR, then regular raiding (never been a PvPer). In Rift after I hit 50 I won't have a clue what to do! lol! Oh well. I'll figure that out at 50 I guess

Thats odd, because LFR was only added very recently in WoW's overall lifespan. And its not there for a step to regular raiding, its just for the people that cant do regular raiding for whatever reason.

The basic formula is the exact same in Rift. Rift gives you a bit more options for this, but the two games use a near identical endgame formula of grind for gear (usually involving a currency) to do the next level of content.

[Fujitasix]

Rift gives you incentives to get out of the cap city and DO STUFF, WoW did not. Artifacts, IA, chronicles, invasions and PA don't exist in WoW, and you get handed your spec so they can "balance" arena.

I had my share of fun in WoW, but that was years ago... eventually it was just a bad habit that needed breaking.

[Talila]

Welcome back to Telara

[Slipmat]

Sometimes it takes a fresh perspective to appreciate things

Playing a game day in, day out would tend to 'jade' a person so sometimes a break from the norm works wonders, welcome back

[CWerk]

Welcome back.

[Comrade Suhov]

As a player who returned to RIFT himself after a year break, I simply cannot agree more with OP.

[Alistair]

Welcome to Rift, come to say "Hi" on Icewatch, i´m waiting for you

[Dominix]

In Rift after I hit 50 I won't have a clue what to do! lol! Oh well. I'll figure that out at 50 I guess

Correct. As returning player I don't have any clues what to do. My old toon - which is in tier1 raid equipment - cannot enter raid progression guilds who are 2 tiers ahead and demand at least 11/11 HK equipment and have way too high requirements. My new toon cannot even enter daily rift without people asking "what the hell - you are in green/blue equipment?! You cant hit anything and useless" - and I don't feel like I want to spend few months farming equipment just to see it will be useless after expansion. Conquest has extremely long queues - I don't have that much time (1 hour to wait, 1-50 minutes in queue) - as well as raid groups for toon #1 takes forever to find (and I'm not even sure why I go to farm RoS/DH/GSB having full tier1 set)

Could be nice to have cross-server LFR tool.

[Forbin]

Rift gives you incentives to get out of the cap city and DO STUFF, WoW did not. Artifacts, IA, chronicles, invasions and PA don't exist in WoW, and you get handed your spec so they can "balance" arena.

I had my share of fun in WoW, but that was years ago... eventually it was just a bad habit that needed breaking.

None of those are real incentives (you can say Artifacts, but they are really no different than pet collecting or achievements or archaeology...fluff). Yes, you do spend more time out and about in Rift vs WoW, but at times it feels like they force you to do it with the ISS grinds and such. Theres still plenty of city queueing in Rift. Not saying Rift's current endgame isnt better than WoW's current endgame (it is), but its based upon the same principals and has a lot of its weaknesses.

[Dominix]

Good for you. Meanwhile I'm returned and confused: nobody interesting in mage in t1 raid suit as valid raid member.

[NearioNL]

Welcome back.

Am a "returning player" as well. Played from beta till about October, and left for Swtor. Returned in March. enjoyed it ever since

[Antigonos]

Good for you. Meanwhile I'm returned and confused: nobody interesting in mage in t1 raid suit as valid raid member.

at least on my server there are plenty of helpfull guilds which will carry you through the 2 days you need to be equipped for hammerhall raids.

[Luddfilter]

Well I wish I was a proud returning player.
I joined rift in november last year after years of wow, fortunately had to get rid of that game =) Rift was my replacement. I had fun play to february but since I'm a pvp player back then it was: what are the goals of pvp in Rift? And there was postings about the new upcoming patch but nothing about pvp in it. It was like... well, the gear grind is quite heavy in pvp and for what?
So a break was taken and then I read about conquest and thought "finally, trion cares about pvp, this will be epic, and I will come back and play mage dominator again, yay"
And conquest had it's epic moments, but the changes and the issues at least to me won't give me my moneys worth and I will not continue to subscribe.
I will keep an eye on the x-pac though, but it will show if Trion bothers with bringing back pvp players or not.