To avoid financial pitfalls, I always plan ahead at the start of each season. This Summer, being scheduled to work a few overtimes and a holiday, and with a little bit of budgeting, I found out that I’ll have some extra moolah that will afford me to play one P2P MMO for three months!
In a post that I wrote a few days ago, I mentioned that I wanted to play SWOTR, WoW and RIFT. These games are my initial options. But I didn’t want to dive in with my head first in these games. So, I did some scouting, and found out that RIFT and WoW can be played for free up to level 20. From there, I went ahead and downloaded their lite versions.
WoW Lite
It’s been four years since I last played this game. But, I think, it has aged pretty well. I’m a bit of a graphic whore and WoW’s eight year-old graphics didn’t appall me in anyway. In fact, I think its cartoonish design looks pretty awesome.
I rolled as a Gnome Rogue, the only race and class that I haven’t tried in WoW. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the first quests in Gnomeregan –dealing with sludges and irradiated Gnomes. The quests in this part also have the tone and shenanigans of a Saturday morning cartoon, especially “Down with Crushcog”.
But, soon after I left the shelter of Gnomeregan, I felt the grind. I played the game for more than two hours and most of what I remember is just running. I died too, a couple of times. It’s my fault for not being careful, of course. But I didn’t die as much in the lowbie areas of RIFT.
So, I left the game and uninstalled WoW. It’s just not for me. I don’t want to spend what little money I have on a game that makes me run a lot.
My Elven Cleric, defeating Regulos.
RIFT Lite
I’ve been away from this game for almost a year now. So, I’ve been itching to get back into it. Syp and the announcement of the Storm Legion expansion only made that itch worse.
Since I always played as a DPS, I wanted to try something new in RIFT and rolled an Elf Cleric. I want to try my hand at healing, see if I can keep a party alive in a dungeon or warfront. If I can’t, then I’ll just run as a DPS again. See, that’s what I love about RIFT. One class isn’t tied to one role, and one character isn’t tied to a single play style. With my cleric, I can switch to being a tank, healer, or DPS. Mix it up, keep the game from becoming boring.
Unfortunately, RIFT’s lowbie areas isn’t as populated as it was during launch. Since the spawn rate of rifts are tied to player population, there weren’t many rifts that popped out when I played last night. In RIFT, I never did quests. I just leveled by doing dungeons, closing rifts, stopping invasions and playing in the warfronts. So, this was a bit disappointing.
The Winner
On the lowbie level, RIFT isn’t as active as it was before. Which means fewer rifts and invasions. That’s the only thing I didn’t like about RIFT, which isn’t really big of a deal. Because I can still do quests to level. So, if want to spend my extra $45 on an MMO this Summer, it will be on RIFT.
Why RIFT? Well, for one, I have an endgame character in RIFT. Which means I don’t have to waste my time leveling to the finish line. He’s also T2 geared, can raid on Greenscale’s Blight and has a bit of rank on PvP. There’s also the new things I want to try out like the Chronicles, PvP Rifts and Planar Attunement. Lastly, there’s also Conquest, a 3 faction PvP that I’m really looking forward to in 1.9.
So, with RIFT, my money is going to be well-spent. But will I actually re-activate my account with RIFT? Probably not. $45 is worth a week of gas money. Besides, this blog’s angle is about playing F2P MMO and non-sub MMOs.
The Frugal Gamer 
I applaud that you can get around for a week on $45. That lasts me three days in a Honda Fit – which is super fuel efficient, but I drive 2+ hours a day.
AND YAY YOU TRIED WoW AGAIN. Even if it lost haha!
I actually use the train to get to work. I only drive 10 minutes from my house to the train station. So, $45 per week and $50 monthly train pass is actually a lot. Still much cheaper than me driving an SUV on a total of 2+ hours, to and from work, everyday though.
WoW only lost because I’m only going to play for three months. Getting a level one character to the end game using that time frame is impossible for me. On RIFT, I can participate on raids and high level PvP if I resub now.
Ooh yeah. I’m far too out in the middle of nowhere to take a train – there are none. 🙂
And RIFT actually looks like a LOT of fun. I contemplate playing it … but my attention span is tiny. Not sure if I could do two games at once!
I can’t live with out public transport. I just hate driving long hours.
If you like WoW, stay with WoW. I’m sure you’ve invested a lot of time on your character. But I do encourage you to try RIFT lite. Minus the raids, you can pretty much access everything RIFT has to offer with it.