WoW Moviewatch: Nub Tales: WoW vs. RIFT
by Michael Gray 
May 2nd 2011 at 12:00PM
Yumfries gathered some awesome voice talent for this piece, too. Gigi plays the role of RIFT, and Zeilla voiced WoW. Somehow, everything in this video just seemed to come together perfectly. It's fun, short, and totally worth the time to check it out.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
epicboyz May 2nd 2011 12:19PM
THIS made my day! TY Yumfries.
Elmouth May 2nd 2011 3:17PM
I'm still waiting for the one where the Everquest elf bitches about the WoW elf stealing her stuff
Eirik May 2nd 2011 5:04PM
@Elmouth: They might well be looking over a grave, with a hand sticking out of it holding tightly to one last slice of cake...
Tim May 2nd 2011 12:25PM
Not a big fan of using GD in any form of use, but the captions at the bottom for cussing is freakin hilarious. Loved it on STFUUUU as well. As for the rest of the video, it was very amusing. I liked most of it.
Dreyja May 2nd 2011 12:36PM
I... give you back your... thirteen year olds!
Hilarious!
I find it interesting that just about everything the female elf from rift does looks like she's in one of those telephone chat-line commercials. "I'm a shy elf but I am stereotypically hot and if YOU call in now you just know me, and all my friends who look just like me will be there for YOU. We are in our underwear and having a pillow-fight, right now!" GAG rift. What's next, women play for free? ;-p I'm teasing but it's funny.
So Rift's elves are even more designed for hormonal teenage boys than the WOW ones. /eyeroll
jealouspirate May 2nd 2011 1:03PM
No, their stereotypical sexiness is pretty similar, it's just that RIFT's graphics are better so you see a difference there.
Dreyja May 2nd 2011 1:07PM
meh. If you say so. Nelf gals don't put their finger in their mouth and look at the "camera." That was just pretty lame. But then, so is the nelf stripper-dance, granted.
As for graphics, I still don't see it. I played around in the rift beta and yes, everything is more "realistic" but that has it's problems. I prefer the more cartoony models if they move in a nice way.
I'm not bashing on Rift. I know people are enjoying it. :)
jealouspirate May 2nd 2011 1:19PM
I don't play RIFT, and have no interest in playing it, I just think that both Blizzard and Trion go way out of their way to design sexual females and armor that exposes the skin. For WoW, female Draenei and Blood Elves are the probably the most obvious, but as you say the Night Elf female is also designed to be provocative.
There are lots of good reasons to prefer WoW over RIFT, I think don't think their treatment of women is one of them.
P.S. I think RIFT's races are overall very bland, but their Dwarf females are actually quite pretty while still being very tasteful and Dwarven. I thought you'd be all over that!
theRaptor May 2nd 2011 1:44PM
Right because the male characters are fat and unappealing.....
No, the skinniest male bloodelf has bigger pecs than Arnie.
I could see a point complaining about games having sexualised female characters if the male characters weren't built with the exact same philosophy. Character designers in most games are going straight for juvenile escape fantasy with both sexes.
P.S. Thanks to this phenomenon I know to skip games that feature an ass shot of a female character on the cover (ala Starcraft:Ghost style).
Snuzzle May 2nd 2011 2:44PM
I think WoW's treatment of female avatars is a lot better than average. Or at least, it was in Vanilla. The blood elves and draenei were pretty disappointing, and the worgen female are just insulting. The goblins are great, though.
See, in WoW, I have options as to what kind of body I want. I love my female tauren with their clunky yet strong bodies. My goblins are adorable yet still formidable. Even troll females, the most arguably "humanized" non human player model, do not have an overly sexualized body. Even night elven women are not your typical top heavy waifs. They actually have a pretty small cup size and a solid waist, which makes sense with a society of huntresses and female warriors. Sure they're still idealized, but this is a fantasy game. That's to be expected.
Personally, I'm pretty happy with the female player models in WoW. I've seen a lot worse than RIFT but I've rarely seen better than WoW. I just hope that worgen females are a fluke, and not a sign of things to come.
Dreyja May 2nd 2011 6:32PM
Jealousepirate - I did play a dwarf and I liked their design. You know me well. ;) The game overall didn`t grab me though.
Pfft - of COURSE I rolled a female drwarf the second I logged into a new game - what do you take me for XD ;-p
Dreyja May 2nd 2011 6:45PM
Theraptor - I'd agree if the male ACTIONS in game were teasingly sexual and vapid (male belfs notwithstanding ;-p). Plus, most of the male models, are repellent to look upon. Nelves are the worst. Believe it or not, all those bumps are really ugly to a lot of female players. (I am not saying all).
I'm sorry I cant make a straight across comparison because the telephone chat-centres don't have commercials for ladies, in quite the same way.
Admit it. The finger in the mouth is REALLY LAME... It's a 15 year old girl with bad self esteem trying to be sexy in her facebook picture - LAME! ;-p
Snark May 2nd 2011 12:43PM
This made me want to play Rift, if only because it looks a million times better graphically.
mmclure May 2nd 2011 12:47PM
I played RIFT during the weekend it was free for friends of players. Wasn't impressed. Yes, the graphics are better, but WoW's art direction is much better. With RIFT you end up with a whole bunch of highly detailed drabness.
Dreyja May 2nd 2011 1:10PM
@ mmclure - exactly. I played a bit but there is just something about Wow's overall design that blows Rift out of the water for me. It's a matter of taste, to be sure but I just prefer how Wow feels and moves. Rift was kind of jerky.
quickshiv May 2nd 2011 1:52PM
I have to disagree with both mcclure and dreyja. You are comparing the starting rift gear to wow end game artwork. The end game rift gears is much more detailed and intricate then anything wow has ever produced. Wow uses big clunky models and simple (by comparison) textures. Rift gear looks realistic where wow gear is over the top. Blizz always states that the over the top clunky gear is their art direction but I believe it is because the artists are so restricted by the graphical engine. A lot of people like that over the top wow look and to each their own but to say Rift gear is bland is in my opinion a fallacy.
varilhigh May 2nd 2011 2:28PM
Don't bother unless you want to re-learn everything. I tried it, but it turns out that I really don't want to re-learn to play WOW. It has some differences, but not enough for me to abandon WOW and learn how all their stuff works. Now when STWOR comes out......
darkLogik May 2nd 2011 2:36PM
@quickshiv
I Didn't read anything about "gear" in the other 2 posts. If it were based on that I could see what your saying, but they were referring to over look and feel.
I played rift for a while. It was unique but the art direction was limited by how realistic everything is trying to be. In the real world our eyes focus on detail and texture so we are not overwhelmed by it. trying to do so in a game does not work because all textures and details are apparent all at once.
Rift did some cool stuff, but it wasn't enough to get me away from my cartoony wow. :)
CrimsonKing May 2nd 2011 3:02PM
@quickshiv: I don't think either mmclure or Dreyja were talking about gear, in fact not once did they mention gear specifically so why is your argument focusing on just the gear aspects of the game? I think they were talking about the overall environment of the game, you know the landscape and stuff like that.
Also their both right Rift does look more realistic and realism can come off being drab at times. A lot of next gen "realism" games tend to drop the ball in the color department. Here's an example
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/10/23/the-color-of-next-gen-gaming-is-brown/
I played Rift and to be honest I felt the whole realism=brown syndrome with it, but that's not really the reason I didn't decide to stick with Rift I mostly decided not to stick with it because I'm still having a lot of fun in WoW and don't see myself being able to balance both games good enough, I can definitely afford to play both though. I think I'll wait till Star Wars TOR comes out and Guild Wars 2 before I try to commit to multiple MMOs, and I'll still be playing WoW as well just maybe not as much.
Toggle May 2nd 2011 6:15PM
Its disappointing to me that so many people equate good graphics with realistic graphics. When everything is photorealistic, we'll wonder where the innovative style and artistry went. Too bad.