Rift - Climbing the Ladder Slowly

I'm still spending most of my gaming time in Rift, and slowly climbing up through the levels.  My rogue is now level 40, and furiously saving money for the 90% speed mount.  I'll be glad to get my nimble rogue onto a sleeker, faster mount, as the lumbering behemoth he rides now seems kind of silly.

I'm enjoying my time in Rift, it's just a well crafted, highly polished, player friendly, fun themepark MMORPG.  I'd recommend it to anyone who likes WoW-style fantasy gaming, so long as they're not completely burned out on it.  I quit WoW because it became boring and I didn't care for the development decisions Blizzard was making, not because I didn't like the fundamental gameplay behind it.  Rift has suited me just fine, allowing me to play an accessible MMO that's full of character options and things to do.

Patch 1.2 is only going to make it better.  One of my biggest complaints about the art in the game has been the armor.  Rift has very nice graphics, and it certain areas can be spectacular.  But a great many of the armor models and textures leave a lot to be desired.  Thankfully they're adding a wardrobe/appearance function such as Lord of the Rings Online has, and we'll be able to equip one piece of armor while using the look of another.  Goodbye hideous armor.

One of my favorite parts of the game so far (aside from the character development and the rifts themselves) have been the dungeons.  They're generally fun and challenging without being wipe fests, and pugs typically do just fine.  Finding groups for them has been a chore, especially since my guild has largely outleveled the content I'm working on.  Again, Patch 1.2 is coming to the rescue with a Looking For Group tool (finally).  I don't know much about it, but I don't believe it is going to be a cross-server insta-dungeon group tool like WoW's Looking for Dungeon tool.  I believe it will be server only, and possibly resemble the tool WoW had before LFD was invented.  That would suit me just fine.  I don't mind putting groups together, I'd just like better tools to do it with then spamming the level channels.