Rifts (the MMO)

[Darkfire]

So anyone playing it? Got into the open Beta and it's looking pretty slick (not revolutionary, just very much what I wished WoW could be I guess).

[Varaj]

Haven't tried it. For the most part I'm not willing to try a new game unless I can test drive it and haven't bothered to sign up for the beta.

[Darkfire]

So far it is really very slick:
1) You can resize, move, dock toggle every section of your UI
2) Minimap has a wide selection of tracking options (trainers, etc)
3) Quest section automatically has an icon for any on use quest
icons
4) Crafting items are useful from the start, not hugely involved
though
5) Main map is dynamic and real time updates for rifts, invasions,
quest objectives

So in terms of that a whole bunch of my WoW addons are built into Rifts from the start.

More unique things:
1) The Rifts and Invasion events, anyone can join, but rewards are based around your contributions, but I've taken part in events 10 levels above and still gotten something out of them.
2) Soul trees, very nice choices between pure builds and hybrids. I'm currently running a DPS, Ranged and Tank rogue souls to get a very nice solo setup. Still beta, but it feels easy to reset and pick new souls so easy to experiment.
3) Collection sets and artifacts collections for the obsessive compulsives in us

[DarwinOfMind]

Man, I almost made a thread last week and forgot to

I'm really enjoying rift, I went ahead and preordered.

Deathe, if your looking for a test drive now's the time to do it. Open Beta going on



If anyone gets on and wants to look me up I'm on Tearfall, I'm larahla hit me up and I'll get ya a guild invite.

[Critter]

I've been interested in this as well. Haven't bothered with the open beta just yet but I might give it a go here pretty soon.

[Darkfire]

I've just done the pre-order thing as well. Think it'll give me through the tough times until Skyrim comes out :D

Anyone got any good soul combinations yet? Really enjoying my Bladedancer/Marksman/Riftstalker.

[DarwinOfMind]

I'm loving the shit out of the Cloromancer, gotta be the most fun healer ever.

[Darkfire]

Thanks for mentioning the Chloromancer. Rerolled with a Chloro/Warlock/Elementalist and I'm loving it, much more fun than my Pyro.

Also revamped my main to Bard/Bladedancer and it handles really well.

Seems like the claim that Rifts will allow more hybrid builds seems true (especially with the ability to get all the souls eventually and have specs to swop back and forth)

[DarwinOfMind]

The Live Server list is up.
US Servers

Belmont PvE
Briarcliff PvP
Byriel PvE
Deepstrike PvP
Faeblight RP
Gnarlwood PvE
Greybriar PvE
Keenblade PvE
Lotham PvP
Reclaimer PvP
Seastone PvP
Shadefallen RP
Shatterbone PvE
Snarebrush PvP
Spitescar PvP
Sunrest PVP-RP
Wolfsbane PvE

Europe Servers

Akala DE RP
Brutwacht DE PvE
Trübkopf DE PvP
Argent EN RP
Blightweald EN PvE
Cloudborne EN PvP
Firesand EN PVP-RP
Icewatch EN PvE
Steampike EN PvE
Whitefall EN PvP
Brisesol FR PvE
Rubicon FR PvP

Anyone who's gonna play where ya gonna be?

[Darkfire]

I'm in the Euro zone, tempted to go with Argent (but I've a horrid healing feeling it will be the first pick for annoying WoW ppl, not that it's a diss to WoW, but damn I could've done with out the beta chat channel in the open beta)

[Darkfire]

And the Headstart was awesome :) Well at least for me it was, though I know some ppl had to wait to get logged in. Smooth without a single crash and while busy it didn't feel so packed that you couldn't quest.

[DarwinOfMind]

That's all I have to say about headstart right now...

[Darkfire]

Damn man which server were you trying to get on to??? I had to log out and came back a few hours later and it only took me 20 min to get back in. Granted thats one of the reasons I picked an Euro RP server.

[Darkfire]

So while my server has a 10 min restart I thought I'd post a few thoughts on Rifts (playing in the headstart). (Disclaimer: this is from a very WoW and Star Trek Online point of view)

1) It's amazingly stable (I've not had a crash and lag is minimal) and polished for a starting MMO (granted I only have Star Trek Online to compare against) with all the aspects of a more mature MMO in place already (decent crafting system, achievements and collectables, auction house and mail system).

2) Queues and servers. I've only had to wait once (on the evening of the headstart), since then I've logged in repeatedly every day and not a single wait (though other ppl have complained about the wait times).

3) It has flavour and lore which is actually moderately interesting (for me at least), much more so than Star Trek. 'Good' religious guys, the Guardians, vs 'bad' scientific types, the Defiants, isn't hugely original, but (you're from the past as a Guardian and the future as a Defiant) the overall story has the Guardians, in the original timeline, destroying the Defiants and in the process destroying their 'save the world' machine' and thus dooming the entire planet. Enter the player and a new timeline which is already altered by the Defiant players.

Some thoughts on the highlights so far:
1) The soul system. You get a choice of 4 base classes and within this you get 9 subclasses (including one PvP subclass) which you can swop in and out from you base set of 3 subclasses. The feel of each subclass is very distinct and each of 4 base classes has subclasses centred on (at least) 2 of the 'holy trinity' so mages have a healing subclass and rogues have a tank subclass (along with their usual dps roles). Combine this with up to 4 'roles' (basically sets of soul/point combos you can swop between) and you have scope and flexibility to really play around with your character. Which as a confirmed altoholic is going to save me a tonne of time and effort.

2) Rifts, Invasions and Crusades. These are all large scale events which give some pretty nice rewards in the form of rep and currency to buy blue and purple items and Invasions are really that. You'll get an announcement and then your map will light up with 5+ invasion rifts (along with raiding parties which try to wipe out towns or set up new spawn points). Unless the zone gets on top of the invasion you will see the npcs getting wiped out (and resetting the zone). There is no way you'll handle this solo, get a raid grouping together and reap the rewards. Which brings me to the next point, Public groups.

3) Public groups. On by default and all you need to do is walk into on of the above or click on a button above another player and you'll be in a public group. Exp each goes up, kills and quest items drops for each person. People are still getting their head around this, but this should hopefully get rid of camping.

4) This MMO isn't a revolution, but rather a real evolution from the last gen MMO's. It is very WoW, from terms to item levels/catagories, but they've put a whole bunch of things in that show up the age of WoW. Stuff like:
a) multilooting (click on one corpse and get everything from all the corpse around it)
b) ability queuing (click just before the last ability is finished and the next will start as soon as possible), so no stressing about lag and missing a rotation.
c) fully movable, scalable, toggable UI and settings menu which has things like a fully customizable combat text tab.

So anyway I'm back off to my Bard/Bladedancer (nothing like healing/buffing your party while slicing and dicing with duel weapons) and come give Rifts a try :D

[Dr_Avalanche]

If someone (like me) has little or no interest in PvP, is Rift still going to be a full, rewarding game? Everything I hear about it is positive, but when I listen to the developers talk about the game all they're raving about is PvP. And I don't care about that.

[Darkfire]

I would say so, I've certainly not noticed a problem not taking part in the Warfronts. Loot from quests/crafting/dungeons is fine and I've only hit the 3rd zone after a few weeks of playing (granted I'm 'alt'ing a lot).

[Dr_Avalanche]

Cool. That's sufficient for giving the free first month a try at least.

[Dr_Avalanche]

What server(s) do you play on?

[Darkfire]

I'm European and on Argent. Feel free to drop me an ingame message to my main (Alrana) :)

[Dr_Avalanche]

What faction?

[Darkfire]

Guardian

[Dr_Avalanche]

Ok. I've started a dwarf warrior over there. About lvl 6-7 so far. His name is Gilborn.

[Critter]

Ok, so I just found out tonight that apparently someone is buying the game for me (some of my WoW buddies are cancelling their WoW subs soon and want me to join them in this).

So, any good reading material around on the web to get an idea for some character builds/functions? I am immensly enjoying the mobility based Rogue spec in WoW so its very likely Id look for something similar in moving over to this.

[Darkfire]

Basic Rifts wiki here (http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Rift_Wiki), but it's still bare bones.

My main is a rogue (you get all the souls, so there is no worry there) and I really enjoy it. As always pet classes (the Ranger soul) make the early stages of the game easy, especially when combined with range DPS souls (like the Marksman and Sabatour). Sub in the Bard soul for extra buffing and healing.

What I am really loving at the moment is my Bladedancer/Assassin/Rift Stalker (the first 2 are dual wielding DPS soul and the last is the Rogue tank soul) only kicks in at 25, but you can get a talent which converts left over 'dots' from your rogue abilities in health and a strong buff. Down time has vanished, but I still use my ranger soul set for bosses as its the only combo that has consistent self healing.

Just to remember you can get easily get all 9 souls by lvl 15 and you can buy up to 4 slots to have sets of these souls (they take all of 10 seconds to swop out when out of combat) and as an added bonus your bars are saved for each soul set :D

[Critter]

Oh neat. I'll have to check some of this stuff out. Thanks for the wiki link, I'll definitely poke around and see what all is there.

[Darkfire]

There is also a class builder here (http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html) which I use, make sure you read through both the passive and active abilities tabs.

[Critter]

There is also a class builder here (http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html) which I use, make sure you read through both the passive and active abilities tabs.

Thanks a ton. Definitely some interesting stuff there. It looks like Assassin, Infiltrator and Nightblade are what I'd look at wanting to do for PvPing. Definitely sounds like Bard and Marksman are a good setup for soloing around as well.

[Critter]

Oh... Assassin/Riftstalker sounds fantastic and also does what I'd want it to do.

The options in this game seem absolutely fantastic. I really wonder how it's all going to be balanced out. That seems like it would be a task.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MMp_.0ARftsfqddk.VIx0ho0o

Sounds like it has all sorts of fun tools to tinker around with when soloing and PvPing :D

[Darkfire]

Thanks a ton. Definitely some interesting stuff there. It looks like Assassin, Infiltrator and Nightblade are what I'd look at wanting to do for PvPing. Definitely sounds like Bard and Marksman are a good setup for soloing around as well.

I'd through in Ranger as a 3rd soul to start off with (unless you like kiting), respec costs are minimal (I've literally changed a whole spec just to accomodate a new weapon)

[Critter]

I'd through in Ranger as a 3rd soul to start off with (unless you like kiting), respec costs are minimal (I've literally changed a whole spec just to accomodate a new weapon)

Well, you can have multiple setups, right? Odds are that I'd probably make a solo build for knocking out quests and a different setup for PvP and such.

Some interesting Mage setups look possible as well.

[Dr_Avalanche]

I've played my warrior up to lvl 13 now, but I think I'm going to put the account on hold for the time being (seems I only got 7 free days, not a month like I thought). I can't really justify paying for both Rift and WoW at the same time, and for now, I'm getting more out of WoW. We'll see, I might well be back later.

[Critter]

Anyone else still playing Rift? I'm thinking I'm going to put my WoW on hold indefinitely for this one.

[Darkfire]

I am, 4 alts and my main 2 are in the 40's :-)

[Critter]

Nice. I just got started and I've got two toons at 19 or so.

What shard are you on?

[Critter]

Hah! Last night I got the "Sheriff of Rock Ridge" title.

Need to see if the name Bart is available on my server and have him get that title.

[Darkfire]

Nice. I just got started and I've got two toons at 19 or so.

What shard are you on?

Guardian on Argent

[DarwinOfMind]

Lvl 50 Defiant Mage on Sunrest and Level 20 Warrior Defiant