I ignored all the Internet kerfuffle about Rift. I ignored it in a hardcore fashion, like I do with most video game buildups. I do this mainly to inoculate myself against the armour-piercing hype that can beguile even the most ancient and hard hearted of gamers if its applied frequently enough. The first I really knew of it is when people I played World of Warcraft with started to disappear. One after another, stoic six year veterans would reduce their presence on Azeroth to nil with only one word of hurried explanation; Rift. I was skeptical in the extreme; these sudden migrations always end in crestfallen players slinking back to WOW which welcomes the prodigal subscribers back with open servers.
Then my real life friends started talking about it. Then they started urging me to get it. They began to close their WoW subscriptions. Finally one of them pressed a crisp twenty on me to allow me to get a copy. Holy Moses in a minefield thought I, this must be something seriously awesome. Then I remembered Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures and the scepticism returned all at once.
Once installed, the account sign up website and update tool/launcher did little to quiet this anxiety- they frankly look cheap and poorly cobbled together (that said so did LOTRO's front end and that turned out to be fine).
Bish bash bosh I went through the character creation process, which admittedly had just the right level of detail; not so much that you get obstructed choosing details no one will ever see, just enough so you feel your avatar can be made to stand out and not be just another clone.
I entered the game proper, absorbed some of the history of the new world, Telara, and came across the first surprise- the class system isn't a class system as such, its a "soul tree" system. You have base classes such as Warrior, Cleric, Mage and Rogue, but these are just very general descriptions rather than set-in-stone class boundaries. For example, Clerics and Mages can be effective tanks with the right souls equipped and invested in; Warriors can be a hunter-style ranged class complete with pet and Rogues can be ranged DPS or tanks. It's all about how you set up the relevant souls. Despite this, each base class retains a real sense of its core idiom and they don't feel like a clumsy mish-mash trying to cover all bases.
Plot wise you undertake simple quests to steal these souls back from the servitude of Regulos, god of the plane of death (dun dun duuurrrrrr) and the Game's current Great Satan. Each soul represents a fallen hero from the history of Telara and reclaiming their essence via a death rift gifts you with their knowledge and experience. So, reclaiming a hunter type soul will unlock the hunter abilities for use and so on. In total (as far in as I've played) you can get seven different souls per base class and have three of these on your soul tree at any one time, giving you incredible diversity and scope for experimentation. Later character advancement sees you able to switch these souls about for a fee and also to set up several "roles" (read as specs) to be called on at will allowing you to potentially fill any need in a group or quest. Bloody marvellous.
I mentioned a death rift earlier- these titular anomalies are one of the game's central conceits. Boiled down, Telara is under constant siege from the elemental planes; Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Life and Death. Each plane wants to convert Telara to its own element, but unknowingly they serve the ends of Regulos who wants everything, everywhere to be dead. The dastard!
In game play terms, this means elemental themed tears in reality appear at certain locations in the game world. Left unattended these tears form full on Rifts and spill similarly themed monsters into the world. Further neglect sees these monsters begin to form war bands, charge towards NPC settlements, kill everyone and take them over. Telara has no UN; if this is allowed to happen it's up to the players to liberate these outposts before they can be used for questing, shopping or crafting again. Worse, new sub invasions can spawn from these occupied areas, spreading the incursion exponentially.
Stopping the rifts is simple in theory, tough in practise. The approved method is to roll up to a rift and kill everything you see. This will work well for minor, low level rifts, but the larger ones require more firepower to seal as the waves of defending enemies become harder all the time, often peaking with a tough miniboss.
Luckily this is where one of Rift's* best features kicks in; if a number of players turn up at a rift, they will be offered the chance to join a "public group". Accepting groups you with these other players, increasing your ability to co-ordinate to close the tougher Rifts faster (Closing the rifts quickly earns you the right to attempt bonus waves, increasing the loot payoff ).
Coupled with this is the participation meter- if you hang around rifts, not grouping, tagging mobs and letting others kill them you'll get squat but the lint in the beast's pockets. The guys in the group will top the participation meter and when the rift closes, they'll get the goodies rained down on them- literally. I love this on a personal level as I despise the culture of infantile selfishness that survives in most MMOs, often to the point where being a relentless asshat is considered normal behaviour. Someone will probably find a way to break this in the future to make Telara safe for preteen morons, but right now its working well. Incidentally, everyone gets a share of the proceeds anyway, only things like BOE items are rolled for in traditional N/G/P style. (Update: This system has since been altered and the P.M.removed, or at least made invisible to players)
As well as rifts and minor invasions from enemy faction NPCs (I'll talk about them at a later date) there are Critical invasions, led by a boss creature. These are zone wide events that see large groups of players (20 or so) banding together under the public group system to fend off a general assault from a particular elemental plane. These are perfectly telegraphed to the players giving them to option to join in or go about their business as they like. There's great fun to be had charging about the zones in a massive group smiting the Outsiders and throwing them back, then picking a fight with their leader and beating a deluge of loot out of him.
I'm only a little way into the game at this point and there's still a lot to see and do. What I've seen so far has pleased me so much that I cant see myself returning to the comfortingly familiar but frankly limited model of WoW- In fact I've canceled my sub. Here's a twenty. Try Rift. What's the worst that could happen?
*I know, I know, Rift has taken "inspiration" from the best features of previous MMOs like WAR and WoW and even LOTRO, but those were small pluses in games crammed with meh.
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