/target Aurelis
/point
/yell Girly girl! Girly girl!!! =)

But I digress. How I like to think about the instant class change of rift, is to liken it to switching fighting styles. If a combatant only knows one fighting style eventually that will become a liability. I prefer to think of switching classes in RIFT to that; I switch to the fighting style to best defeat my opponent. Or if you’re a mage, switching what area of arcane knowledge you are drawing from. You’re a Hero! Why should you be limited to one method of fighting, one that could get you killed when the correct opponent appears. Fighters don’t stick with one fighting style, they adapt or die. Just how I think about it, your mileage may vary.

I personally REALLY like that I can change my character as far as role goes. In real life, I have different skill sets, likes, dislikes, etc. that don’t always mesh. I like to climb trees and go on walks, but I also like to sit on a couch with a bag of chips and a TV remote! In my head, sometimes it really is like someone clicked a button and I get up and do something, or get down and stop doing things. I like to code and dig deep with Javascript, .NET, PHP, SQL, etc…. and I also like to wear a pretty dress and paint my nails and go shopping with my best friend. I’m certainly not saying female coders/scripters/developers/whatever can’t be girly girls, I’m just saying I never want to be one when I’m in the mindset of the other (;

Now, Aurelis was originally a mage. In RIFT she’s a warrior. I’ve had to rethink her history and what I used to know of her, and her ability to go from tanking to DPSing (albeit poorly) fits in nicely. She put down her books to pick up a sword and shield, but sometimes, she just wants to wreck havoc like the good old days – Riftblade and Void Knight fit in well with this image of an ex-mage gone warrior!

I felt that it encouraged the opposite, with the endless tinkering of different specs leading me to shift my identity so much that I felt more like an amorphous blob of game mechanics than a consistent persona. I suppose for me, function and feel are intertwined, and I like to build a back story – and forward story – that explores how I’ve developed. I never figured out how to reconcile that with clicking a button and completely changing myself into different roles, and honestly the game didn’t give me enough “mechanics indepedent” customization options to feel like it worth trying.

I’m not saying I didn’t love the flexibility of the game (it is an amazing feature) but it sure didn’t help me identify with my character. Why did I need more than one alt of each archtype? I had four chameleons and yet none of them unique.

I don’t suffer from the altoholic syndrome, but I certainly suffer from this. Lately though I have tried very hard to ensure I am no longer making new characters simply because someone else seemed to kick ass with that class or combination. They probably worked at it for months, acquiring the perfect gear, grinding PvP content, not to mention the arduous leveling game.

My point is that sometimes you have to talk yourself out of it, or you end up with a platoon of half-used, half-leveled characters, and no desire to play, through no fault of the game or the developers!

Lots of rage on the forums atm. This patch wasn’t ready IMO, it needed at least 2 more weeks of testing. Right now they are possibly doing a emergency fix because they broke warrior dps by changing the way the multipliers work (SLI) , but not boosting any other buffs to compensate.