RIFT - All The Good, Nearly None Of The Bad

[Kageho]

As I mentioned in DCU, I managed to get into the last beta test. I figured that you all would probably like to have some ideas of what the game is about.

For those of you who don't know, RIFT is being brought out by Trion Worlds. As far as I am aware it is there first outing in the gaming market. Its a team that was created by former Blizzard employees, though you can practically name any large gaming company (or MMO company) and they've got someone from it.

The game is set in the world of Telara. In this world, the dragon known as Regulos is trying to devour the world and it is up to the Ascended to save the world and fulfill the prophecy of the Vigil (Gods). There is more to the story and mythos than just that, but I don't want to spoil it, since its very interesting and also since there's no previous title for it to be attached to, you are getting it brand new.

As with any MMO, there are usually factions. In RIFT there are two factions. The first faction is the Guardian (who follow the Vigil) which is home:

Mathosians - A race of humans who once ruled the rocky north lands of Mathosia. They value strength, hard work and a man's oath. Mathosia though was destroyed by the Shade War, and they currently reside in Sanctum and work to fulfill the prophecy.

High Elves - The elves as a whole were given wisdom, long life and an affinity for the land to be the stewards of Telara. While many stepped off this path, only the High Elves remain on it and continue to do so. All "true" High Elves are Ascendeds. Their land is/was the Silverwood Forest, but have opted to join with the Mathosians in Sanctum.

Dwarves - When the crafter God, Behralt, created Telara he did so using spirits of creation to make it so. Once he completed the task, he created the race known as Dwarves who share Behralt's love for creation. They no longer have a home land due an ancient lie that finally surfaced. They have also gone to Sanctum.


The other faction is the Defiant who house:
Bahmi - Their ancestors, the elemental Shalastiri, arrived in Telara via a Plane of Air, and using a Ward to ensure there would be peace in Telara. The Shalastiri breeded with humans which produced this new race, Bahmi. Despite being the brawns of the Defiants and their brutish behaviour, the Bahmi culture promotes hospitality, the pursuit of excellence, and community. They currently resides in Rhaza'de Canyons.

Kelari - As stated, all Elves were originally one whole people, but the Kelari turned to powerful spirits and lesser Gods to gain "spiritual equality". When this was discovered by the rest of the Elves, a war broke out and nearly destroyed the entire race. They viewed their duty as stewards, not as a gift but as a burden and treated it as such. After moving to the dense jungles of Kelari, they made their home there.

Eth - The Eth are a tribe of humans who live in the desert lands. The Eth built massive machines that harnessed the power of sourcestones and when they were told by the Vigil that they could not continue their ways, they turned their back on the Vigil and continued to do so. But soon after the dragon cultists turned their machines against them, and the might empire that the Eth had, turned to nothing. They currently reside with the Bahmi after taking asylum with them.

There are four classes to choose from. Warrior (plate), Cleric (chain), Rogue (hide), and Mage (cloth). From those four classes, you can choose three of currently seven different souls to make a very unique and fun class to play. I could list them all, but that would take too much time for an opening post.

Well, I think I've given you enough to start with and you can look at the main site, RIFT, for more information on the basics.

Since I have beta'd it, I will answer any questions you might have that I can. I was only able to make it to level 20 with Beta Event 5, so I can't answer everything you might have.

 

[Obi Chris Kenobi]

Just updates would be great!

 

[vivisectvi]

It looks cool, but it looks like more of what WoW already is. Plus it's PC only (not even Mac). =\

 

[muzzington]

I hope this is good, I need something to stop me gambling.

 

[Kageho]

Just updates would be great!

Beta 6 starts on Friday, so I'll probably have till Monday to let you guys in on what's all new and fancy.

It looks cool, but it looks like more of what WoW already is. Plus it's PC only (not even Mac). =\

Saying its more of what WoW already is, is a disservice to this game. Then again, nearly every MMO kinda looks and plays like WoW because that's the standard format for the genre, so I don't blame you for thinking that. There is enough there though, that it does make itself not WoW.

And yeah, no Mac. For right now.

I hope this is good, I need something to stop me gambling.

It is very good. I really like it.


As I mentioned, Beta 6 starts up on Friday, so I'll be able to give you guys a play by play experience of my times playing the game. I played Warrior in Beta 5, so I'll probably do one of the other class for Beta 6 (unless they trashed my warrior, because I'll start him again) and start from the ground up to give you a play experience so you can understand how things are and such.

I mentioned earlier that each class has souls that they can take, so I'll expand on that. Each soul is basically like a talent tree. Each talent tree is specifically built to play out a certain style of play. I can already hear people scream this is just like WoW, but its not. Each soul is built to stand on its own, or combine with another soul (or even two!) to allow you to create the type of character you want. If you are like me and you want to make a dual wielding warrior who's able to deal out a lot of combat and also actually take a lot of damage (meaning you can tank), its possible. If you want to build a warrior who can do a lot of damage over time, its possible. If you wan to wield magic and attack from the distance instead of being up close, its possible. Its all a matter of what you wish to do with the character. There's no real right or wrong way to play.

Though I didn't tinker with it, there is also the possibility to have different roles as well. A role is designed by three souls and you can official obtain a total of four roles in all (first role is your default). This means that you can shape your class to be another role if you feel that you need to cause more damage over time, or just need more tanking. While I never gained my second role, I have heard that this was able to be done on the fly, so hopefully with Beta 6, I'll be able to let you guys know more on this part of classes.

And that's how classes work. If you make it to level 50, you'll have 66 soul points to spend.

 

[vivisectvi]

I mean like WoW in the fantasy sense. Like orcs, etc.

 

[Kageho]

OH... Then yeah, its typical fantasy setting.

And I guess I can thank my asthma attack for being able to check this out in my e-mail just now.

We’ve had heaps of players in the RIFT beta, and we’re really proud of how the shards are holding up. We think they can handle pretty much whatever we throw at them... so let’s throw more stuff! We’re hosting a special “Bring Down the House” event this Saturday to see just how much they can handle. The proverbial gauntlet has been thrown down and to make it worth your while, we’ll be giving away 100 In-Game Prize Packs, and an Nvidia GTX 460 video card. All you have to do is play for the duration of the event.

Bring it. We dare you. Because seriously, the riftspawn were saying some pretty rude things about all your moms.

 

[vivisectvi]

Yeah, I love fantasy stuff.. but I think I've just played so much of it lately that I'm craving more sci-fi. Though, I did try Star Wars Galaxies and I wasn't a fan of how it played, TBH.

Anyway if they ever Mac this game or put it on Steam for Mac, I'd definitely give it a go.

 

[Kageho]

Its true that there are a lot of MMOs out there that are built on the fantasy setting, so I could see why you'd want a sci-fi one. If that's the case, I'd recommend probably trying Star Trek again. Its apparently got its wings and all ready to go.

Its too bad I'm going to be working most of Saturday, because I certainly would like an In-Game Prize pack, or better yet that graphics card. Stupdi Monster Truck Jam thing happening.

I don't think RIFT will probably leave the 4 classes, but rather expand upon the existing soul system instead. I think this simply because a few things that I think would get their own classes: Paladin (Warrior), Druid (Cleric), Shaman (Cleric), Ranger (Rogue), Necromancer (Mage), all fall under certain classes as souls.

Though just leaving it as four classes and making the souls is quite alright. I can think up a few things that I remember as classes, such as the Bard, and realize instantly what class it would fall under as a soul. Which in the aforementioned Bard's case, would be Rogue. And I also lied earlier. I said that every class has a healing soul and that's false. The Rogue class has no healing soul at the moment, but nearly everyone's assuming it'll be Bard.

I'm not too sure what souls they could introduce for the other classes though. For the Mage I could see a Blade Mage like class that would give them a class that could actually melee, since they don't have that yet. The Rogue would get the Bard, since they need a healing soul. Its just the Warrior and the Cleric that I'm having a hard time thinking on what they can do. The Warrior could use a soul that grants healing outside of itself, though I'm not exactly sure what class from D & D would be a good idea to make into a soul.

Its the Cleric that's the really hard one. The Cleric has a pretty good balance of souls already and I'm not too sure what type of soul you would grant them.The only thing I could think of would be Priest, since we've got Shaman and Druid.

1 hour and a half to go before I get to play! As mentioned I'll do a write up on a new character and let you guys get an idea of what its like.

 

[vivisectvi]

Its true that there are a lot of MMOs out there that are built on the fantasy setting, so I could see why you'd want a sci-fi one. If that's the case, I'd recommend probably trying Star Trek again. Its apparently got its wings and all ready to go.

Star Wars, actually. But if there's a Star Trek one I'd be interested in seeing that, too.

 

[ViciousFish]

Star Trek Online is weird. It's a paid sub game, but there's also micro transactions which I don't like. It should be one or the other.


The rumors on the new Star Wars MMO are saying it's going to be one of the biggest disappointments of all time.

 

[vivisectvi]

Is it KOTOR based?

 

[Kageho]

The very first area you'll participate in is actually during the civil war of Mathosia if you start off as the Guardians. The civil war of Mathosia occurs when Aedraxius the Usurper uses the Defiants machines to destroy the Ward that is holding back Regulos the Devourer. This opens up the rifts once more to Telara and so you need to help Cyril Kalmar, hero of Mathosia, and Shayla Starearth, Priestess of the High Elves, in stopping the Usurper from allowing Regulos back onto the lands.

You'll begin the game being restored to life by the Vigil (Gods), as like any Ascended, you've died previously in the war to stop Aedraxius. The very first quest, which you'll acquire from the Vigil in front of you, will allow you to choose your first soul. Your first soul is just that, your first soul. You don't necessarily need to choose your main soul, but you can take one of the complimentary ones first to aid you.

For example, when I started playing, I wanted to make a Warrior with Paragon talents, but had some skills from Paladin and Champion. What I did though, is I took the Paladin. The first tier (row) of skills for Paladin has one I wasn't going to need for my Warrior, but Armor Value increased allows for my Warrior to take a bit more damage. So I took that, instead of Paragon right away.

When taking your new soul, you'll also be shown examples of stuff that go well together with it. However, those are just suggestions that the game's developers found useful. You can find anything that works well together, if you want to play a certain style. Pure builds will be very strong in a single thing they do, but if you build your class and branch very well into every soul, you'll still be just as effective as a pure build. The game actually encourages you to experiment, as you'll gain 66 total soul points when you hit the game's level cap of 50.

You'll then take some quests outside of the church and move towards the town's center. There you'll meet one of the important people of Telara, Shayla Starearth. Upon reaching the High Elf Priestess, you'll be granted a new soul, and a few more quests to help aid the cause. Again, the new soul doesn't need to be your main soul. With the slight changes that were made, if I had to do it over again, my second soul would've been Champion instead of Paragon, so I could go after the first tier skill, Strength Bonus.

After doing the associated quests in that area, you'll move to the town walls. Here you'll acquire your second bag. Only 4 slots, but hey, its 4 slots you didn't have. Doing these quests will run you into Orphiel of the Defiants. After seeing the Ascended, he's trying to use his machines to replicate the procedure without the Vigil's aid. Its a brief in-game cutscene, but it does make the Defiant sound like assholes.

From there, you'll make your way to Valor Hold. Where the Guardians are preparing to launch an assault against Aedraxius and also to stop Orphiel from replicating how Ascended are made. Upon arriving in Valor Hold, there's three things you can do. The very first thing you can do is visit Cyril Kalmar, Legendary Hero (and also probably at the very least eight feet tall), to gain some quests in the area. The second thing you can do is visit the General Goods vendor to sell off any crap you get. The third thing, and very highly important, is visit with your trainer. Yes, that's right, its like WoW in which you need to train you skills up.

Do those quests, get those rewards and you'll then have a chance to go stop Orphiel and also go acquire your final soul. Orphiel isn't too hard if you are playing as a dps based class. You'll only need to get him to half health before he runs away because he doesn't want to die before replicating the Ascendeds form. Head back to Valor Hold, do couple of quests, and then its onto the final boss of the baby area, Aedraxius the Usurper.

Upon reaching the area Aedraxius is in, you'll first need to get rid of all the baddies blocking the path. The Vigil will allow you to gain access to your "Awesome Powers of the Light"(tm) and utterly destroy them. Passing their corpses (which sadly aren't lootable), you'll enter into your first rift.

Rifts are pretty interesting devices. They can spawn at any point in Telara proper, and drop monsters instantly to conquer that piece of land they dropped on, or it could be an invasion by an entire Plane. These monsters are much tougher than the monsters you've fought before, mostly because they are "elites" and you'll need a party to take them down. At some point its even possible to travel to those Planes, but that comes much later when you are more prepared.

For the rift in the baby area known as the civil war of Mathosia, they aren't as special as they could be though. Don't get me wrong, slightly harder to kill, but not like what happens when you get to Telara proper. You'll need to kill a few Dead Rogues and Defiants to destroy the machine that allowed Aedraxius to contact Regulos. By destroy the machine, it makes it so Regulos isn't able to reveal his true form into Telara.

Accomplishing the machine's destruction will bring Aedraxius out from hiding who tells Cyril, Shayla, his bastard brother (who's name I forget, he's not important), and some others that there is nothing they can do to stop him. To prove this point, he allows Regulos to become one with his body and strikes down his bastard brother, destroying the line of Mathos.

With Regulos the Devourer in a suitable host, the final battle of the civil war is on. Its a 3 stage fight, in which you fight against some Spawn of Regulos, some Giant Troll things (I don't remember the real name, and they aren't trolls), and then finally Regulos. Just beat the crap out of Regulos and then use the Hammer of the Vigil to smash the body and the war is over! The Vigil send yourself to "heaven" and Telara is saved...

...okay, no its not. All you did was save the world at the time. The ward holding back Regulos has fallen, so he's using the Planes to cause rifts to eventually devour Telara. The Defiant have managed to replicate the Ascended, and are using their machines to actually borrow the powers of the Planes and the Dragons!

Twenty years will pass since you've last stepped on Telara. Many things have changed for the people of Mathosia, the High Elves, and the Dwarves. The Civil War has destroyed the homeland of Mathosia, and left them without a place to call home. They would move from Mathosia to Silverwood and set up a city called Sanctum that is run by the legendary hero and most say slayer of Aedraxius, Cyril Kalmar. Though the people of Sanctum wish for him to take up the crown, he views it not as a time of kings, but a time of leaders, and hence isn't king. That's likely a yet, because I could easily see him taking it at a later time.

The High Elves fractured into two parts, the High Elves, all of which participated in the Civil War, died, and were brought back as Ascended. The other also consider themselves High Elves, but are really Aelfwar Elves. Elves who were High Elves, but stayed with their King, and did not participate in the Civil War believing that it was not their place to be there. King Aelfwar also uses the powers of the Green Dragon to help him, hence he isn't a good guy at all. They are lead by the Priestess Shayla Starearth, who stands next to Cyril Kalmar and her authority is only second to his. There are no romantic implications between Cyril and Shayla, so there is no possibility of a union between the two.

The Dwarves were already displaced once before from their home due to an ancient deceit that ravaged it (this though, I needed to read back story outside of the game on the website to find out). Thanks to the Civil War, they followed the Mathosians and High Elves to Sanctum. There they try to help out by being impressive armorsmiths and weaponsmiths for the Guardians. As far as I am aware of, they do have a leader during the Civil War, but I do not know if he survived, nor do I remember his name, which I do realize is a blunder for me.

That was my day one playthrough, and although this might make it seem like the baby area is long, its isn't. You are gone from it, anywhere from level 5 to 8, depending on how much time you spend on kiling things. If you do it quickly, its maybe an hour top. I just didn't have a lot of time to play on Friday, and yesterday no time at all (thanks to a double shift). I'll give you more of an update tomorrow if you wish. Or you can ask any questions you might have right now.

 

[muzzington]

Does the lore capture you much? The only MMO I've really stuck with is WoW because I'd played the series since I was a wee boy and the Warcraft Universe is one of my favourites so the idea of running around that world was fascinating in itself.

 

[Kageho]

Yes, the lore is very interesting and you can easily fall into it. I originally was going to make my post a lot larger than what I did because I knew much of the lore, but then I decided not to, because I didn't think you'd like me to bog that post with it.

There's a lot on the website too that will let you in on the history of Telara.

 

[Kageho]

The Final Beta, Beta 7, will be open to the general public for 1 whole week. So folks, if you wanna take a look at the game yourself and the first 42 of 50 levels the game has to offer, then I'll see you on the shard of Deepwood.

 

[Kageho]

Just a reminder to everyone who was interested in hte game. Today is the day that the open beta is out. All you need to do is sign up with Trion and wait for your invitation so you can download the client.

The beta officially starts at 10 am PST, and ends on the 21st at 10 am PST.

 

[muzzington]

I've ordered and payed for this, looking forward to it. Looks like it'll be one of the most solid MMO's straight from launch as opposed to the rush jobs a lot seem to be.

 

[ViciousFish]

So does none of the bad not include 2 hour queue times to play? I'm confused. I thought this was the perfect game.

 

[Kageho]

: Okay, got me there. Wasn't really expecting queue times of that bad to play. Though with the amount of new servers they opened up (10 that I noticed), it should be a little bit better hopefully.

 

[ViciousFish]

It's not. At 2am I had friends with 90+ minute queue times.

 

[Kageho]

What server are you trying to get onto? With Deepwood, I have had no queue times any time I've logged in.

 

[muzzington]

Actually really enjoying this so far, but mainly because I love rolling alts and this game caters to that to a tee. I actually wasn't impressed with the visuals when I first started playing, but then either I got used to them, changed a few important settings or they added something in a patch to improve them but now I like them.

So far I've got two Saboteur/Marksmen/Bard combos (1 of each side), a Paragon/Riftblade/Warlord and a Elementalist/Dominator/Chloromancer. The Sab/Mark/Bard is my favourite so far.

 

[Kageho]

Okay, I've got to ask. How the hell do you make Sab work? I haven't figured it out yet.=

With my Warrior I've got three specs for him now. He's running Paragon/Champion/Paladin as the DPS role, Reaver/Champion/Beastmaster as the AOE role (small AOE, but damn near dangerous), and running a Reaver/Paladin/Warlord role for tanking.

It fills everyone's needs so it makes him an awesome person to party with. If I get the fourth role, I'm going to try looking into a buffing role to flesh out my Warrior so that he can join in nearly any situation.

My Rogue right now only runs a Marksmen/Nightblade/Ranger role. While I didn't mind Sab while I originally created her, I remade it because I want the guys dead before they get to her in melee. She toasts them pretty well in 9 hits flat. Not too good in groups, but that's not the point. When I get her high enough, I'll probably give her a pure melee role next.

Pure healing classes in this game rock actually. Created a Purifier/Shaman/Warden and its hilarious when I'm tanking four to five baddies my level. He has so many instant spells that its a crime. Plus with all the healing and great mana regen, if he dies, its because I agro'd too much or wasn't paying attention to my heals.

After playing the Cleric, I got a brainstorm for my Mage and made her first role to blow everything to bits. Stormcaller/Elementalist/Archon. Works damn wonders on blowing things up and because I played Cleric, I don't even bother looking for what is the best intelligence based armor, but wisdom based armor, because the faster she can regen, the faster she can blow everything up.

Thinking up different ways to play characters is fun in this game.

 

[muzzington]

I've paired Sab with Marksman for speed and mobility. Adhesive bomb is probably my favourite skill so far although I haven't levelled that much. I love building up charges and unleashing them for one hit KO's. I've looked up the Saboteur tree and there's some great AOE charge/bomb talents.

I'm tempted to make my next character full bard just because I love strumming attacks, heals and buffs.

 

[Kageho]

Heh, I'm tempted to add a bard role to my rogue as well.

 

[muzzington]

Have to say, the patching and updating system has been flawless for me and it either gets complicated or is terribly slow on other games since I'm from Australia.

 

[vivisectvi]

This game has gone free to play up to level 20 recently. It's dubbed "RIFT Lite". I think I may give it a go just to see how it is..

 

[vivisectvi]

I don't play this but wanted to update that the game will completely switch over to the F2P model starting June 12: http://uk.riftgame.com/en/promo/freetoplay.php

 

[Kageho]

Just heard about that. Considering they are one of the few MMOs that update with new stuff constantly, being free to play may be fun. Since my sub ran out.