Author: Ravious

Last night, Chapter 2 of my guild’s epic Rift journey started in Gloamwood. Thankfully with my horse-plodding advancement pace, I had just hit the near-end of Gloamwood’s quest cycle by the start of the event. The guild event was a lot of fun, and we opened up Gloamwood’s “mega-event” The Purging of Gloamwood Pines. It seems that our glorious guild leader heard through the direct-source grape-vine that cleansing the zone of small events is one of the best ways to start a zone-wide event. The grape-vine hoped that my guild could “double-check” this functionality, and it appears to be working.

So far I have felt that the events I saw were not to full potential. There are nearby events that appear in the quest tracker when a player gets within some distance. These are the rifts themselves with their offshoots, footholds and invasion forces, which are all one-offs. Destroy the foothold, kill the invading force leader, or close the multi-stage rift, and the event is gone. Then there are zone-wide events, which many call invasions. Everybody in the zone is notified via flavor text and the quest tracker update. Those that I’ve seen so far are simply a mass spawn of rifts and invasion forces followed by a boss that appears after so many rifts and/or invasion forces are dealt with. Continue reading [Rift] Events, Chapter 2

My last post exploring a phenomenon I saw in Rift created a swath of great comments that cross a broad spectrum of ideals. The issue was how evidential of, well, anything is the post-event public group scatter. My favorite was from coppertopper who said that the phenomenon was like “a comedic aside on a system that works so well, the only thing to pick on is no one stays around for a group hug after the event is finished.”

There is an interesting prejudice with what is required to “be social” in an MMO. “Social” at its base is activity in a group. Driving a car on a crowded freeway is a social activity. I can’t selfishly do what I want. I have to respond to other people. It doesn’t seem social since all the other people are hidden behind a ton of metal and plastic, but we are all acting as a group. We know that if we all follow the rules and remain within set social boundaries, we will all get to work more efficiently.

Continue reading [Rift] Social Work

Melmoth over at KIASA analogizes the open-grouping system in Rift with some comedic situations. For as far as I have gone in Rift, I tend to disagree. I have yet to feel that my “personal” game space has been invaded. Yet, there is a personal downside. Let’s call it the scatter of shame. Going off Melmoth’s last situation involving his wife and many partners, there is another moment where everybody is finished with Melmoth’s wife and the party is over. People still have to run by Melmoth, scamper down the hallway, and jet out of Melmoth’s house. Everybody tries to do it without looking at each other (or Melmoth). No one seems to want to bond or mention that they just partied together and there may be other similar events going on elsewhere.

It’s like a race to see who can exit the raid the fastest. I still think this is another symptom of the solitary events. Perhaps if events fed into one another in a more elegant way, people would forge bonds more similarly to a dungeon crawl than a pity group to share a slow-spawning quest mob. It actually occurs in invasions as well because after a rift is closed half the raid might go one way, another quarter might decide to head to the main hub, and the rest decide to all go bio. They might forget to leave so when I finally hit the next event destination half of the raid has wasted space. It’s just easier to leave the public raid right away and rejoin close to the event.

Trion Worlds next grouping mechanic will be a way to form a group, but I really hope they start taking note of ways to keep a group together post-event. Then again this all might just belong in the personal preference bin. I’m not sure. System flaw or subjective flack?

–Ravious

 

SynCaine spoke on this already, but the “coin lock” feature is seriously a “duh” moment. I definitely appreciate the fact that I can log on to my Rift account from any computer to play, but seriously. Basically, if the account logs in from, say for a completely random country chosen at random, China then the account will go in to locked mode, which does makes it so funds/materials cannot be liquidated and characters cannot be deleted. Tampering down the accessibility just a little for a significant trade off of having increased account safety is well worth it. It appears that players are getting the “coin lock” feature in the update for Rift today. I already did this with Steam’s version, Steam Guard, and I am really glad that the PC gaming industry giant is also helping to lead this change.

Blizzard’s authentication device was cool, but Trion Worlds is also working on another way to authenticate using text messaging or a mobile phone app. They really are working hard for subscription fees. I hope future games, especially ones already dedicated to having mobile phone apps, take note.

–Ravious

I have moved on from the first zone in Rift, and I am about half-way through Gloamwood. The game is still fun, but things changed so rapidly. I am not sure how to perceive the future. Just over the mountains is a bustling, event-filled forest filled with animal tears and sunlight. In my neck of the woods, there is gloom and the occasional mid-20’s refugee, like myself.

The zone population has plummeted. After the first zone the drive to get back with the herd must be insatiable. After spending a few hours in Gloamwood, my biggest public group has been three people. I have not seen an invasion, and I am constantly trying to take down footholds on my own. We all pretend not to see that major death rift looming over the central town with its elite mobs.

Continue reading [Rift] Gloam-covered