Keeping my feet on the ground for Rift

It's no surprise I'm waiting on Rift being launched however I'm waiting for it with a sense of caution. Not that it's a bad game, I'm sure it will do well but I'm not getting carried away in the hype that's being carried by the players and media. I'm keeping both feet firmly on the ground and even though I'm pre ordered the game, I'm not expecting miracles, I'm not expecting the most fabulous MMO since Sliced Bread Online but what I will do is play it under my own terms. I feel sorry for Trion in some regards, the MMO community have now managed to hype the game up without much poking from Trion themselves and yet should it not turn out to be what the community thinks who will get lambasted for it? Not the players.

I'm already reading and hearing about folks in the guild looking for world firsts (not even server firsts) and I'm sitting here thinking "Y'know.. How about playing the game first?". Obviously my main concern is that I fully intend to take my time and not rush the game but with the risk I'll be left way behind and abandoned for any raids (meh). Added to that I'm very much aware that if people are intending to burn through to level 50 within a couple of weeks or so and then gear up for raids and burn through them could we see people having run through most of the game within the first two months or so? If people have will Trion be able to react to make sure there's content for players or can they slow down progression for the people racing ahead?

Ach, going off on a bit of a tangent there but even though I limited myself to level 20 in beta (I don't want to ruin the game completely) and purposely didn't read the quests so I could enjoy the storyline when I play for real I still found myself sitting a few times going "Meh...." and logging out because there wasn't a whole lot there other than a standard grind to 50. Now this will change when it's live but there's a few things that niggle me about Rift that I can't quite put my finger on. So far we've seen from alpha patch notes that have been leaked that Trion are quick to react and make changes but as I've said in the past this is all fine in a beta development phase, wait until live and it's a whole different kettle of fish (where the hell does that saying come from anyway..seriously.. fish.. kettle... wtf). We also have to keep in mind that as a game matures in time people find more and more potent and the easiest ways forward, see the optimum raid setups in WoW or the bomb squads in WAR, once these things are found the developers have to be very quick to make sure it's well within the balance of the game.

We'll see how things go anyway, though as the title of the post goes I'm going to keep my feet firmly on the ground. Maybe I just have 'experience' in being an MMOldie and seeing a lot of launches and watching as the community over hypes a game only to fall upon it with daggers when it's not living up to the expectations the very same players decided on. Either way, come November when the first batch of 6 month subs run out we'll get a better picture of how the game will be doing. It's wrong to judge a game not only in Beta but the first couple of months of live, but after then the studio needs to be very quick to keep momentum going.