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Anyone see much on this yet ?

Its going to be released early march of this year.

So far ive only had time to glance but..

There is something like 24 classes, and graphics look pretty good.


Anyone know much about it ?

Pre-ordered it, its better than Wow in the fact they have dynamic events which arnt tied to quests.

Oh and the 24 classes is wrong, theres 4 classes( Warrior, Cleric, Mage and Rogue) each with 8 different souls, and you can mix and match up to 3 souls at any given time.

Ahh ok, i just glanced and figured there was a main class section, with sub classes.


Being able to mix and match seems rather nice.


Any idea if you can "Respec" your character and change what you mix and match ? or do you have to level each one

Im not 100% sure as I only tried a beta.

Iirc you can have 4 different setups soul wise, so you could have A,B,C as one set-up and X,Y,Z you can swap to.

Its more open in the forms of charcter customisation that most rpgs ability wise, but its the same as far as grinding quests go, unless its Runescape then is level to quest not quest to level.

So far its looking like im going to need to pre order this one.

If it has a trial or a beta, I'll try it out. Not really in the market for an MMO though, unless it's an MMOFPS, GW2, or DMO.

Theres been betas goin on for a while, however the catch is to recieve a beta key everytime is to pre-order the game,

You can on the off chance get a beta key if you sign up for it.

Bleh, completely done with MMORPG's, Ragnarok ate 5 years, wow half year, Cabal online another half year... Been there, done that.

EH, I don't particularly care either way. ATM I'm only interested in Guild Wars 2 and Dark Millennium Online as far as MMOs go.

In the recent RIFT newsletter emails, VIP Beta keys that would give invites to all remaining events were sent out, as well as being useable 25 times.

So, if anyone wants in on the Beta, send me a PM. No thoughts as of yet, as it's down until Tuesday where the PvP gets tested for a week, but I'll be sure to post something up on this thread...good way to spend the week before the Retribution Beta.

I got beta invite this week also. Can't wait to give it a go.

I'm pretty much with Melissia on this one, only looking at Dark Millenium and Guild Wars 2 (and Diablo 3 if that counts).

But the game looks cool, but if I have to pay for a trial/beta then forget it.

Paid demos, trials, betas, and so on seem very counter intuitive.

Beta is free, just need an invite.

I'm also amoung those who are waiting for Guild Wars 2 and Dark Millenium, but I'm not focused on those enough that I won't give others a look. Need something to play until those are released after-all.

Playing on beta now, will write something up when I take my next break.

And, here it is. A review of what I've played through, in varying depth (Some subjects I have more to talk about than others). Keep in mind that I've only played through the first zone or two (My character is level 10), and thus, some aspects of the game I don't know very much about yet, and most of it is from a mage point of view.

So, to begin, you have your opening cinematic. Not as beautiful as other recent releases (DCUO, trailers for the Old Republic, etc) but certainly not ugly. Gives you a little bit of general background information, a little insight into the two factions, and the world as a whole. Then, it's time for character creation.

Character creation...it's above the usual standard for an MMO. Your first choice is to choose your faction, Defiant or Guardian. I've chosen both, but Pelinore, my main character is a Guardian. Your next choice is to choose your race. This is actually a fairly big decision, it's not like others (World of Warcraft will be the primary comparison for this analysis) where the choice makes a little difference, but not alot. Here, it gives some fairly massive bonuses, from a powerful self-heal, to stat increases (The Mathosians (Humans) gain the ability to heal when taking damage up to half your health, and a static 1% damage buff, as well as resistances. Another race (can't remember which), gains a cooldown to increase critical strike chance, as well as a passive 10% more damage with your critical strikes, and the dwarves gain a self-heal for 30% of their health, as well as a health bonus. All in all, a substantial bonus. From there, it's time to choose your class.

There's four choices in Rift. Mage, Warrior, Cleric, and Rogue. These effect what souls you can take, as well as roles etc. The primary method of combat (Combo points, mana, etc.) is based on this choice, not your soul choices, so you can theoretically take any soul combination you wish, and they'll synergise.....although some do so better than others. These are based on the fairly standard DnD archetypes, and require little further explanation (More explanation when I get to souls).

After choosing your class, you get to customise your character. This isn't as in-depth as I'd like, but it's still better than most of the MMOs out there. It works like a toned down Dragon Age character customisation. You have quite a few shades of skin color, hair color, eye color, as well as the ability to change the size of your characters nose/mouth....that's about the total of the above MMO customisation. From there, you have about 10-15 different hair styles to choose from, facial hair, as well as tatoos and height. Here you name your character, and begin your journey...after a short cinematic based on your faction to give you insight into what's happening to your character as you take control.

The game itself:

Immersion: RIFT goes out of it's way to attempt to immerse you in the storyline, and develop a connection with your character. You gain your first soul as the first thing you do in game, so right from the beginning, you're already burning faces off, or summoning the undead, or wielding two blades dripping with poison, etc. There's also quite a few useable items scattered around the place that will give you more insight into the story, as well as the ability to simply talk to NPCs about the world (One question that sticks in my mind is you can ask a fellow Ascended why they thought you were brought back.) With both storylines, you're immediately thrown into the midst of a life and death struggle of rather epic proportions, and establishing a name for yourself.

The story itself is quite interesting, at least I found it so, even if it's full of cliches. As a Guardian, you have been brought back by the Vigil, your gods, as an ascended being after falling in battle against a traitorous king and the defiant. Your struggle against the traitorous king defines the first zone you are in, working against both defiant and forces from the Plane of Death to try and save the kingdom. You are also in for a bit of a time-warp at the end of this zone.

As the Defiant, you're quite different, while still an Ascended. The Defiant do not worship the Vigil, and instead have brought you back through technology, in a bio-engineered form of the Ascended. At this point, you're basically told that you need to save the few remaining defiant, and start working to bring the 'time machine' online so you can be sent back to stop this from happening.

So, you have the Guardians, your usual 'holier than thou' pious race of intolerant do-gooders, and the Defiant, a technology based race of rebels. Fun times await!

Combat: The combat is exactly like World of Warcraft. If you've played WoW, you'll pick this up very easily, because it's pretty much the same. Mages work based on mana, with similar aspects to the casters of WoW, rogues have combo points, and warriors have an attack point system that works rather like combo points (I am yet to play a cleric). Alot of classes have pets, so at the moment at least, the world is flooded with them, allowing casters to have their own pocket tank.

Graphics: Some of the graphics are quite good, but the majority are fairly mediocre in my opinion. Alot of very nice scenary, as well as various machines, spells, monsters and the like, but the textures are rather lacking to back the concept up. Certainly not as gorgeous as I was hoping, but it could simply be that I'm running a crappy resolution due to breaking my monitor.

-----

The Soul System: So, if you've played World of Warcraft, or Diablo, the soul system is easiest to liken to a combination between the two. You place 'talent points' into the tree, which not only buffs your abilities with that tree like the WoW talent trees, but also enables new abilities (Thus, if you specialise heavily into Pyromancy, you'll be able to throw around massive firestorms, but unless you've also got a few points in the Stormcaller soul, you'll never be able to manipulate air/frost). For the most part as a mage, they seem rather balanced (Started two mages, Pelinore being a Guardian Pyromancer/Elementalist/Archon, and Valon being a Defiant Necromancer/Warlock) while keeping differences in their mechanics.

However, I at least feel you're flooded with souls too fast (Unless you can rechoose them, or unlock your entire class at some point). As I said earlier, the first thing you do, before any combat is to choose a soul. Within a level or two, you pick up your second one, and before level 10, you'll have a third. Without knowing the game that well, it's really impossible to know anything about the souls, how they perform, what they specialise in (AoE, DoTs, single-target etc.), so you generally go with the 'Recommended other souls' to work with your first choice. There are a few ways to find out more (Ctrl-click will bring up the 'talent tree', enabling you to see the spells/talents, but I don't think many have the patience to go through eight of these when they first begin, wanting to get straight into it, as well as being able to talk to 'Souls' around the starting area to gain an impression of what that soul is (They are however, lacking in the ability to find out about all the souls, which prohibits this from being an effective system).

They do synergise very well, as least for the most part. It's rather nice as a Pyromancer to have a pocket Elemental tank, or as a Warlock, someone who uses their own health in some situations, Necromancies extra few life siphoning spells also come in handy.

Rift System: Ahhhh yes, the rifts. If you've played Warhammer Online, the rifts are virtually a remade version of the public quests. You can see rifts on your minimap and map, as well as whether they are a major or minor rift, and then ride out, and if you wish, tear it open to wreak havoc on the world. At this point, the rift will begin. It's basically a fight in waves, with a public raid being formed by everyone in the rift area. You'll get a wave of little guys, and then slightly bigger guys, etc, all leading up to a boss for that rift, as which point it'll close and you are supposed to be rewarded loot based on your efforts during the rift (No going afk and getting loot), which it's currently not doing (Beta is beta). There are much bigger bosses, awarding much more loot, but I don't know much about those yet.

All in all, the few rifts I've done have been quite fun, certainly very different from anything I encountered in WoW. Very reminiscient of the old Warhammer public quests, but I liked those, so I'm not fussed.

----

And that's it for my current review. Shall add more as I play more, perhaps even moving it into a voice, perhaps even video, format on youtube so the wall of text doesn't kill so many, and polish up what I've already written (Not taking alot of time to polish this up, writing it in a hurry as I need to do other things tonight). If you have any specific questions about the game, on whatever aspect, just ask, and I shall do my best to answer, or play through some of it if I haven't yet (Haven't done any PvP yet, which is what's going to make or break this for me at this point).

PLayed last night also..

Had graphics at ultra setting.

Game is alot better then Warhammer online/wow for graphics easily.

The class system is very nice.. its hard to get bored when you can do so many things.

Gameplay is smooth and very enjoyable.

So far, im gonna pre order it as good as its been so far.


(Graphics and character animations are always lacking in beta... its not the finished game...)

It looks interesting from what I've read in mags, my only concern was once again a WoW reference in their advertising.

Why? I just don't get it, its their chance to big up their game and they waste it with 'You're not in Azeroth anymore' why mention that game at all.

It's like they are acknowledging the big dog in the yard right off the first ad.

Just concentrate on your game and make it awesome, WaR used to do all the same things, pointing out how it would be better than WoW. Taking shots at the rival, and look how that turned out.

Reminds me of Legend of the 5 Rings when it tried to release its compeating Minatures game with the ad line 'I've got your Warhammer right here!'

Yeah nice, so now folks are going, whats the Warhammer reference about, and looking into it.

Just concentrate on your game and make it awesome, WaR used to do all the same things, pointing out how it would be better than WoW. Taking shots at the rival, and look how that turned out.

WAR's problem wasn't the advertising. In fact it was poised to do quite well but they botched it. Blaming the ad campaign is a bit akin to saying the Hinderberg exploded becuase it didn't advertise well enough. Remember when WAR launched it sold huge numbers. Keeping the customers turned out to be tricky, the main cause being launching before the game was really ready.

Spyder68 wrote:
(Graphics and character animations are always lacking in beta... its not the finished game...)

Beta is Beta. Certainly not keeping me from continuing to test it, but I was expecting more than what they currently are. Maybe my hopes were a bit high. I'm more testing it for the storyline they're really bringing to the front, as well as to look at the PvP/Rift system. I'm very much a fan that it appears terrain might actually play a role in various PvP scenarios, that it never has in WoW...unless you're a mage and your blink takes you 2yds because you hit a slightly raised graphical area.

Ahtman wrote: Remember when WAR launched it sold huge numbers. Keeping the customers turned out to be tricky, the main cause being launching before the game was really ready.

This is rather accurate.

WAR was actually quite a fun leveling experience, especially as it was the first MMO I played that allowed you to level via PvP, and had several excellent battlegrounds for doing so. The problem myself, and the rest of my guild, had with WAR that led to us quitting was a complete lack of content at the end-game. At release, I think there was a grand total of two dungeons? Leveling ahead of the pack meant run those two dungeons, queue for PvP and wait half an hour as no-one else was 40, or go attack Keeps that there was barely anyone to defend. Not the most appealing of options. Now, while this is a danger when you level ahead of the curve in any scenario, the successful games tend to have a decent amount of things to do at max-level with a small group, or even solo, that WAR simply didn't have.

Had they held off the release for another few months, and released it with the content they added in the first few patches, it would have done far better IMO.

It's more of the confidence issue, GW wasn't the sole reason the Lo5r miniatures game failed either, and I wasn't saying the ad campaign was the reason WaR failed.

However perhaps if they had spent less time telling us how awesome WaR was going to be, and more time sorting out the fundementally flawed games engine, it might have been a bigger success.

I'm just suggesting that mentioning your main competitor in your first advertising campaign, might not be the best thing to be doing.

Why not mention it ?

Everyone knows that WoW is the biggest and most successful mmo ever ?

They are just stating they are going to attempt to compete with it.

This game plays Like WoW/Warhammeronline/EQ ish

It's rather nice so far.

Im not going to say its in any way a wow killer or ever close, but from the looks, and game play so far, its on par to me.

Its definatly worth trying and giving it a go.

Meh, not interested in WoW or its competitors. Mostly interested in games which offer me something good instead. CoH/V and Champions Online for their character customization which is second to none thus far, Guild Wars for being free (and GW2 for being more of an action game), WAR for its WFB lore basis, LotR for its Tolkien lore basis, and DMO for its 40k lore (and possibly FPS/3PS elements if it has them).