Well the 5th beta of Rift is underway and I’ve managed a bit of play time, unlike the last one.
I won’t go into too much detail as I don’t want to spoil it for you all, it’s more how I’ve felt about the direction I’ve taken in this beta test.
My first session on Wednesday night only lasted an hour or so and as I missed the previous beta test I figured I would try out some PvP. I’m not a huge fan of PvP in PvE MMO’s, most PvP MMO’s I have enjoyed are entirely based on the Player Vs Player aspect. Planetside and Battleground Europe being the MMO’s in question.
In Rift the main PvP method for many people will be Warfronts. These are a lot like battlegrounds in EQ2, you click a button and click join to join a battle with other players for a given time period or until a score is reached.
In the current beta I’ve only managed to take part in one of these though I did as I said, spend an hour repeating the instance to get a feel for it.
For PvP I setup my 3 main souls (Archon, Chloromancer, Warlock) as a 2nd role this time focusing on PvP abilities. I ended up with a few points in Warlock for basic spells such as lifetap with a boost and the rest equally split between Archon and Chloromancer. The result is a debuffer/buffer with some healing ability. The healing comes in the form of one direct heal, a heal over time and a proc which when placed on an enemy heals those who hit the said enemy. There are a couple of other buff based heal procs in addition to those I’ve mentioned.
As my main is always a healer and my alt a mage, having a healing mage is a nice combination for me.
The PvP itself is not bad, not sure if it will get old in time but for now I did enjoy it. It basically consists of a decent sized map area with the 2 opposing factions grabbing and holding a flag, your faction scores points while someone on your side has the flag in their possession. I did quite well in the instances I played, finishing top 5 DPS despite not really having that much, or at least I didn’t think so. A lot of my buffs are DOT’s with a buff/heal proc so I must do some damage. Granted I was way off the top 3 but usually came in around the best of the rest. There’s also stats for deaths, kills, heals given, heals received and other bits. So if your a stat fiend (I’m not but check now and again), there’s something to show the effectiveness of most classes.
I tended to hang around in the middle of the fight making sure I had someone else with me, I did catch a couple of people solo and after hitting them with my slow spell, plus my health draining beam whatzit, managed to take them down. I was also caught out on my own a couple of times by a rogue and died fairly quickly.
In my 2nd play session last night I decided to go explore. I wandered through Gloamwood and Scarlet Gorge, as I’d heard scarlet gorge was a contested zone. I’m not really sure exactly what that means in Rift other than the fact there seems to be a split between Defiant and Guardian NPC camps. I did spot a few players from the opposite (Defiant) faction on my travels who show up as none aggro (yellow name) unless they hit one of your wardstones. Hitting a Wardstone flags you as PvP, not sure for how long though as I didn’t do it.
Gloamwood is a dark dingy wood, full of spiders and other nasty looking mobs. I did get to see a Fire rift from above which was an impressive sight, it also seemed as though the Rifts were larger though I could have imagined that. Scarlet Gorge was a dry desert style zone in a large Gorge funnily enough, think the Grand Canyon with people in armour and wielding swords.
As far as character progression in this beta, I wasn’t really looking for that though I did hit level 20 while exploring and get a shiny new mount (see pic above).
In relation to that pic, I’ve set it to cover the top of the post rather than a smaller thumbnail as a test, what do you think?
Anyway that’s my experience of the current Rift beta and I should get another play session tonight before the current beta ends. What have been your experiences of the current beta?
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It's my first time in the Rift beta, and I'm quite impressed – I think it was the discovery of EQ2-style collections that sold me on it, but the degree of polish in general is welcome. I also like the combat mechanics, and the combination of multiple souls with the novel implementation of talent trees promise a wonderful combination of depth and flexibility in character building.
Probably my only disappointment is the fact dwarves are only on the Guardians side, and Defiant seems lacking by comparison.
I play on the guardian side so can't really comment on the Defiants as I only played them in the first beta.
I am going against many dwarf rules by wearing a robe and having a pointy hat though.