Category: Rift

There is actually one little big issue with Rift that I believe could have been dealt with in a different way. The problem is that the soul system is shoved in player’s faces in full. Of the 4 classes (warrior, rogue, cleric, and mage) each has 7-9 souls, and for the first 13 levels, players will be locked in to their three first choices. The soul tree system makes it a little easier because players aren’t really given the ability to choose bad skills, but initial soul selection is meaningful.

Now, I say this is a small issue in one light because no matter which three souls are chosen, players will get to the point where they can freely build from all the souls without much difficulty. However, it can be frustrating to choose a soul that is more oriented towards heavy group content or PvP without even realizing it because the player didn’t spend a good hour looking at the various soul trees. The game gives some guidance with a brief description and a note on which other two souls have the most synergy with the chosen soul. Still, I think with a little more narrowed path, players will have a lot more fun playing a “good” build right away.

Continue reading [Rift] Starting Soul Guide

…until the official launch.  I’ve done my due diligence.  Well, as much as time would allow while I try to shed a few pounds off my carcass.  I’ve played at least 7 different builds to level 8.  Two to 10.  And one to 15.  I love how smooth, playable and re-playable the game is at the lower levels.

During that time, I’ve evaluated my play style.  As long as I can remember, a game hasn’t made me consider and reconsider how I want to play at launch like RIFT has.  While I’ve come back around to my old standard of ranged DPS, it’s been fun getting a brief look at the mechanics of the other three class groups of souls.

I’ve been tired of the classic PvE questing that has become the staple of any modern MMO.  I understand why it’s there.  And like many developers and players…I still don’t like it.  But it has become a necessary evil.

But Rift gives us an opportunity to bypass the normalcy of PvE questing with Rifts and invasions.  I’ve seen great progress made in the game with this dynamic content.  So much so, I’m going to spend much of my time closing RIFTS and fighting invasions when they pop up in Telera.

I’m also going to dabble in PvP.  As I’ve aged like moldy cheese, I’m finding more and more that I like the realm of PvP in most games.  I’m not sure the reward systems or even the point of PvP are all that well developed in RIFT.  So I can live without it, too.

The main reasons I’m excited about the game and why I plan to play after beta have nothing to really do with sitting down and playing.  They have to do with:

1.  Great communication regarding development.
2.  Excellent attention to player feedback.
3.  Using beta for what it has been intended – making the game better.

But now I want to save that excitement and enthusiasm and energy for launch…or more specifically…the head start…which begins February 24…reportedly.

Open beta began yesterday with Rift. I am heading to the Guardian side initially at launch after I have spent most of the invitation-oriented beta on the Defiant side. The Defiant are a cool, god-forsaken magitech alliance. They comprise three different “new” races, lots of cool lasers and devices, and a total sense of independence. In their tutorial, the Defiant oppose fate and time by building a time machine to change the past for heaven’s sake. Then, we have the Guardians.

Having only experienced the Defiant side, I believed that the Guardians were going to be this boring vanilla faction. The Defiant have races with cool names I can’t even remember, and the Guardians have humans, elves, and dwarves. The Defiant are rebellious, and the Guardians are just part of the system… man. I also saw my prejudices confirmed in various forums on Rift. It seemed that everybody was excited about the Defiant, and “mature” guilds were considering rolling Guardian side just to get away from that immature crowd.

Continue reading [RIFT] Faction Cool Factor

I participated in Rift’s 6th beta event over the past few days and had a generally good time. Now that I know the rift mechanic, it’s not new and shiny but it is still entertaining. I wonder what the rewards will be for the zone-wide invasions that happen every 2 hours or so (turned off right now) and how those will scale, but otherwise Rift is your standard MMORPG. A LoTRO guildmate asked last week for a reason to play it over LoTRO, and I was honestly at a loss besides “it’s new, and the rifts are fun”. The best way to quickly summarize Rift is as it’s kind of an MMORPG Greatest Hits Album, like the ones that collect the good songs of the year or decade. That may come off as overly negative, but I don’t intent it that way – it pulls off the collection of what works in other games in a cohesive, fun, total, and then adds the rift element on top. Giving a new bit of flavor to something that’s well-known and comfortable might be just the thing to snag in those players who are simply feeling their game has gone stale.

Anyway, in addition to these Deep Thoughts, I also played the Defiant side this time, and played a Mage and Rogue. I also played with two other tradeskills, the PvP zone Black Garden, and, thanks to my gaming family, got to see the guild functions a bit. Breaking that down after the cut.
Continue reading Rift: MMO’s Greatest Hits Album

I tried Rift again yesterday. I still find myself unable to get very far out of a sense of “different enough to feel uncomfortable, similar enough to feel like I have already seen it all.” (Gameplay wise, not whatever the world might be.) The discomfort might not be there if I was a player of WoW rather than the similar games with slightly different controls; I am not sure if that would be good or just leave “same.”

I presume that goes away as you get into the Rift-unique stuff that lies beyond the introduction. That is a big problem. The tutorial zone is horrible in the sense that it shows off every way that Rift is like its competition while highlighting none of the ways it is unique beyond a small taste of the soul system. If you are making things familiar to target the audience that already plays this genre, you also need to make things different enough to give a reason to switch games (with all the related inertia. Not that “former WoW players” is not a huge market, but expect Blizzard to put in something special to convert them (at least temporarily) to “current WoW players” just before you launch, just to make it that much harder for you to get entire guilds to switch.

: Zubon

I managed to get an invite for Beta 5 of Rift, and after hearing friends raving about the game decided it was worth trying out. I was not disappointed in the game, but after playing LoTRO so long, I experienced some shellshock with the community therein. This is bound to happen in this day I suppose, but the sheer amount of people who logged in to seemingly do nothing but deride the game and every other player that talked in public channels was a big alarming. During the day, the channels were largely free of this, with advice, random jokes, and comments about specific elements of the game that they liked or didn’t like, with reasons why. Night, however, is when the trolls began to roam the land.

That said, I’d like to give my feedback on the game itself. I’d recommend you first read Ravious’ post here about the Defiant side and his Beta 4 impressions, as you can see some of the issues he mentioned have been retuned, and others have not. After that, come on back and let me tell you about my view, as I played my time exclusively on the Guardian side.

Continue reading Rift Beta 5: Rifts Ahoy

Anybody who has read a mere handful of my blog posts since I started writing here knows that I am a zealot in the war against subscription MMOs. I hate subscribing for content. This is a highly debatable subject, but my belief is that most subscription MMOs barely qualify as a service anymore than say a working single-player game. I feel that my subscription fees should pay for reaction and growth in a sustained manner. Yet, there are so many differing opinions on what the customer is owed when paying the monthly fee. Some people are simply happy to shell out a subscription fee as an access fee regardless of the stagnation of the game’s content (until a buyable expansion releases, anyway). If that’s how they want their money to talk… more power to ’em.

Initially I had written off Rift because it was a subscription game, and, once again, I didn’t want to pay a monthly fee for a theme-park ride of content. I decided to play in the beta because it was a free sneak peek, and first impressions were “more of the same.” There was a fervor in the MMO community that had me come back to try it in a different light, and the result was glorious. Now, I am really looking forward to picking Rift up in March, and I am looking forward to paying them a subscription fee.

There is one big reason (besides, of course, having a fun game), Trion Worlds is so far showing potential customers that they intend to provide a Service. They will respond in a timely fashion to players’ feedback, and continue to expand the content. They will not simply collect a monthly access fee to pay for bandwidth and servers. Rift now has a public grouping system, a streamlined character sheet, itemization changes, and so much more. It’s like a breath of fresh air to actually see change during the beta when so many betas before simply accepted the feedback. I’ve also noticed that they are continuing to refine and expand the invasion content, and they are hinting that invasion events are just the start of their dynamic content features.

I know that what they have done in this beta crunch time may not be indicative of the level of service Trion Worlds will provide at launch, but they have a customer right now. Keep it up Trion!

–Ravious

I plan to make a nice long Rift post tomorrow, as I managed to sneak into the Beta 5, but while I try to enjoy my last testing day I’d like to appeal to my fellow testers to be strong and just ignore the “this game is just like Game Name Here” people which seem to be quite heavily popping up, especially in the evening US time. Explaining how all games borrow/copy successful elements from predecessors is something they either cannot understand or simply choose not to. It’s how evolution works, but the concept is lost on them. Don’t waste your time.

/soapbox

Last night was a very wonky night in RIFT. The servers were going crazy, whereas in prior betas they ran pretty well. Many wise voices in chat kept repeating that this was beta, and this is the best time for Trion to optimize servers. So, my playtime was constantly interrupted, and I didn’t get to play in a big event. I did get to play in a few small invasion events, where I was able to test two new features.

The first was the open grouping feature. It is pretty good, but I wonder about whether it is an artifact, rather, of the decision to keep conventional MMO grouping mechanics in the open world.

Continue reading [RIFT] Untethered from the Group