Tobold's Blog Friday, January 07, 2011 The unfamiliar valley  In
robotics and 3D animations there is a hypothesis called the
uncanny valley, which states that people accept robots or 3D
avatars that either look exactly like humans, or that are very
different from humans, but that they are revulsed by them if
they are "almost human". I was wondering whether a similar
"unfamiliar" valley exists for MMORPGs, and in how far that
valley will hurt Rift.  My theory starts with a personal
observation: I do consider Rift to be a perfectly good game, but
I feel no desire whatsoever to buy it. I did buy Cataclysm,
because it is exactly like World of Warcraft, and I will most
probably buy Star Wars: The Old Republic, because it is
sufficiently different from World of Warcraft. But for Rift I
would have to relearn a lot of stuff, e.g. how the different
classes and stats work, and I would have to level up new
characters, find a new guild, make new friends, all to finally
end up doing pretty much the same as I'm currently d