Well the NDA has been lifted for the Rift closed beta, so we can finally talk about the game. Anyone following me on twitter will know that I’ve been involved in both beta weekends so far, though I didn’t manage as much play time as I would like. As a result this post is based on what I’ve seen so far and what my initial thoughts are on the game, Tipa over at West Karana has written a great post about her experiences with Rift having played right through to the upper reaches of what the beta weekends have allowed.
Myself? I played the first beta as a Sentinel/Purifier, as far as level 11. The Sentinel is a pure healer in the traditional cleric sense, think of a templar in EQ2. As you may know healing is always my first love as far as classes go in MMO’s so it was an obvious choice for me to start with. The Purifier is also a healer though with this soul type heals come from fire based spells and I felt they did offer a different angle to the Sentinel, mixing quite well together. I can’t go into too much detail as I didn’t make it all the way to the higher end of the beta, the dizzy heights of level 20.
This first beta was to give us the chance to play as the Defiant, the more technology based faction. In a traditional sense they are seen as the more evil of the two factions, though in reality neither are good or evil, both just have their own ideals and thoughts on how to stop the incursion of Regulos and the Rifts. The beta begins with you playing in the current time where armageddon is basically happening around you, after questing for a while you pass through a portal and travel back in time to begin your quests to stop Regulos before he destroy’s Telara.
The 2nd beta was a chance to play as the opposing faction, the Guardians. These are the shiny magical based types who believe their way is the good and righteous way forward, they are also the faction my guild is planning to play on release of the game.
This time I decided to play a mage type as I usually have a mage as my first alt in MMO’s. I went for the Warlock who’s spells seem to be based around debuffs and DOT’s with the odd DD in there too. I can’t really go too much into the Warlock as I only spent points on that soul until I obtained by 2nd soul via questing. My 2nd soul was the Archon, a kind of siphon based class. The Archon’s abilities are focused around taking from your enemies and giving to yourself and your allies. I again only managed to make it to around level 10/11 but despite that I managed to get a good variety of spells for the Archon soul. At the max level I reached I had direct damage spells, damage over time, debuffs, a damage shield, a slow and a couple of buffs.
The interesting feature of this soul for me was the fact that my buffs could stack. That is I could cast a spell during combat on a mob which would in turn buff me. I could then cast this spell up to 4 more times in the next few minutes to stack and increase the buff’s power. These stacks would last 5 minutes or could be refreshed as I went along. I also had charge (a mage wide feature) which increased with spell casting, though I’ve no idea what I was supposed to do with it or what the charge did in turn.
Combat is pretty much the same as many MMO’s in that you have abilities and you click them, I think the soul class tree could open up more varied combat by the abilities you can obtain, rather than the combat mechanic’s been any different to previous MMO’s.
I managed limited experience of crafting in the beta which is simplistic though I’m told allows you to actually make items which are useful, as good or better than looted items. This is a nice change to many MMO’s such as EQ2 where most of the crafted items are nowhere near as good as the ones you can loot from instances. You can choose 3 crafting/gathering professions and swap them out at anytime, though you lose your progress in a profession if you remove it. As far as the crafting goes it’s pretty much choose a recipe and assuming you have the ingredients needed, hit go. There are additional items you can obtain which allow you to improve recipes, basically it’s the LOTRO crafting system in the main part. I’ve yet to see a game which implements a crafting system as well as Vanguard did, in Vanguard you really had to think about your actions when making an item.
The defining feature in the run up to Beta was the Rift’s and their interaction with the world. In the first Beta I managed to fight in one Rift on multiple occasions and to be honest I found it a bit simple. It was Rift opens, you kill mobs that spawn in a given order and then it closes, think Warhammer Online’s public quests. The loot works in the same way as WAR’s public quests too, you are granted loot based on your performance.
The second beta however was a different story with regards to Rift’s and Invasions. The Rift’s were larger, more difficult and more varied, they spread around the landscape more and were not always in the same spot. There was also a couple of in game events at the Sanctum (the city base for the Guardians), which I didn’t manage to make it to. I have heard that multiple Rift’s opened and many mobs spawned and rushed the city, with NPC guards also involved.
Invasions also were happening where elite (more difficult) mobs would gather and run for a quest hub. If the players didn’t stop invasions they would destroy the quest hub until repelled. I like the idea that groups were formed just to run around the world closing Rift’s and repelling invasions, kind of a player rapid reaction force. I am sure my guild should we play will do that kind of group, it could be fun to have a group night where we go around saving the world.
I have heard it said that the Rift’s scale based on the amount of players around, though I can’t confirm that. It true this would be a welcome change from WAR where public quests quickly became empty as people left the lower zones, resulting in quests that could not be done by few or even solo players. Loot granted from Rift’s is also used to craft better items, as well as decent gear dropping if you perform well, so maybe that will be a further incentive to participate in them?
So, I guess it comes to the point where I tell you all what I think of the game? Well I am pretty sure I will play it alongside EQ2 on release, assuming enough of my guild play it. Yeah I know maybe I should just play if I like it? Well with a new MMO and the time I have to play at the moment, I only really have the interest to play when the strange bunch of people that are my guild are in the game too.
Rift is a nicely polished (from what I’ve seen) MMO, sure much of it is familiar and not groundbreaking but it does seem to be done well. The Rift’s and invasions give it something different and it will be interesting to see how they progress as players move through the game.
I like the soul tree system as it allows you to choose up to 3 souls which although they are all linked to the same archetype they all differ in meaningful ways. The ability to have different saved soul sets is also a nice addition as it allow the players to have different setups to change instantly, think of AA mirros in EQ2. Balance could be an issue in the future and people will no doubt go for builds set out on forums which are supposedly the best to raid/group with.
Some in my guild have argued that combat and crafting are simplistic, I can see their point though to be honest they are no different to many other MMO’s. Combat is like EQ2, LOTRO, WAR and other MMO’s, crafting is very similar to LOTRO and to be honest not that much different to EQ2. I know in EQ2 you press buttons during crafting but we all know that you end up pressing the same ones often.
I’ll be looking forward to the next beta event which is setup for the 28th of December to the 31st so I’ll hopefully get a bit more playtime in. The next beta allows the player to choose either faction so I guess I’ll be playing whichever faction my guild does, likely guardians.
More thoughts to come after future beta events, hopefully with a bit more detail into the actual quests and what goes on in the world.
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