Oh hello! I am a little busy this week with work and real life things but earlier today a guildie asked me “What’s new in RIFT and why are a ton of people joining up again?” and I wrote a teensie little 500 word treatise in response. Clearly I have something to contribute on the matter, and I figured I’d share it here, too. Just to be clear, this post is in response to folks who are curious about RIFT or played and quit at some point and are thinking about going back, and is totally not intended as any kind of “my MMO is better than your MMO” posturing.

Trion does have a “welcome back” bullet point list of everything that’s changed since beta on their official forums, but while it’s comprehensive it’s pretty easy to get lost in all the details.

Some old stuff that is still good

The biggest reason I went back to RIFT as my primary MMO is Trion, the company that runs it. Given that I generally enjoy the themepark MMO genre, Trion is the only company that actually releases content in a way that warrants my paying a monthly fee. Yes that firehose of content means that some stuff becomes a beloved fundamental feature and some falls by the wayside but every 2-3 months something has changed in the land of Telara, and that means a lot to my subscription dollars.

RIFT also has the same “dynamic content” that they had at launch. Nothing is permanently changed, but repeating events pop up relatively unexpectedly as you travel around the world. So often I run out into Stonefield to level my gathering skills, bump head first into a major zone invasion or a rift, and suddenly it’s 90 minutes later and I forgot all about harvesting yew branches or whatever. I love the feeling of logging on and not knowing exactly what I’ll encounter.

Finally, I have to continue to give props to the soul (class) system. As you probably already know RIFT is extremely flexible with creating class builds and switching between different ones, and also has a great macro system to help you manage all those crazy spells. If you are a person who enjoys theorycrafting, particularly in relation to abilities and mechanics, there is a huge amount of depth here.

As someone who is very much into healing, I love being able to decide exactly how I heal. For example, right now my level 38 cleric is toting a full ranged DPS spec (Inquisitor), a dungeon healing spec that focuses on HoTs (Warden), and a more hybrid, PvP-friendly healing spec where I turn damage-based combo points into gigantic AoE heals (Senticar). Non-theorycrafters who just want a lot of character flexibility should also enjoy themselves with the new official build templates.

Stuff from the last six months and the next six months that is good

Bullet points because I am lazy!

• Fishing and Survivalist (cooking) professions for all classes. Yes, I like having the option to just chill out, chat with guildies, and fish for a while.
• A huge array of structured level 50 solo or small group activities have been added, including master and expert mode dungeons, Chronicles (solo instances), Instant Adventures (invasions you queue for), new warfronts (instanced PvP), Conquest (3-faction huge zone pvp), the level 50 quest hubs on Ember Isle.
• Mentoring: got 5 friends or guildies online, but everyone is at very different levels? No problem! Everyone can mentor down to the lowest level and then run something together while getting rewards appropriate for your real level.
• Planar Attunement: much like AA points in EQ and EQ2, these provide additional grinding and character improvement after 50.
• PvP rifts: Oh Mister Guarrrrrdiaaaaan, I believe that’s my sourcestone you’re carrying. Temporary PvP matches set in the open world.
• OODLES more wardrobe options: Trion has been great about adding in fluff like more outfits, costume weapons, mounts, and pets. For example, the new festival that arrives tomorrow puts 11 new pets in the game!
• The content is older and more of it is under the current progression tier, which means pugging older 10 or 20 man raids is entirely doable and happens frequently.
• The expansion (coming this Fall) will have personal and guild housing, huge outdoor bosses that can open up new zones for the server depending on how you fight them, and add triple the current land mass. And cloaks. CLOAKS.

Things you might not like

Clearly I am pretty pro-RIFT, but I don’t think the game is for everyone.

If you are totally so very very over old school WoW, then I’m not sure you’ll enjoy this game at all. As I recall it, once you finished levelling in Vanilla and TBC WoW the game became about running stuff with small groups of friends and grinding your way through personal projects, whether it’s for crafting or reputation or festival points for a pet or whatever. I remember spending two hours killing worms in East Plaguelands for mats for my first epic (Hide of the Wild!), and although the environment and technology and the gear has moved along considerably that kind of attitude is very much alive and well in RIFT.

And I, for one, am pretty okay with that.

Do you have a podcast on MMOs, RPGs, or PC games? Want to trade 30 second promo spots? Email me!

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have recently rededicated myself to RIFT and part of that will involve writing more regularly about gameplay and not just yelling at the industry in general. Mostly. Well look, I’ll try. The point is, this is the first of a regular RIFT Roundup feature!

Server Transfers are Easy

It had been clear for some time that our original server, Byriel, was low population. After some discussion, we decided to transfer the guild to Deepwood, the most populated PvE server. Characters in RIFT can transfer for free every 7 days, and guild leaders can tote their guild around with them.

The transfer procedure is laughably easy:

1. Make sure you qualify: Your character must be over level 15. Characters between levels 1-40 can only carry 3 platinum per level on them. You cannot have transferred in the last 7 days. Your mailbox must be empty.
2. Log out to the character selection screen. Hit the “Transfer” button. Select your new shard and click “Transfer”.
3. Type “transfer” to confirm the switch at the prompt.
4. Wait 5 seconds or so. Done! Do a little “new server” dance.

If you have to change your name, you can select a new one the next time you log in. (January the cleric is now Mercredi.)

So what if you have a guild? You’ll be asked during the transfer process if you want to bring your guild with you. The guild bank must be empty, including the coins, so if you have an active guild make sure you spec out of Tithe first!

The next time you log in your guild will be there and you’ll be leader. Any guildies who log on to the old server will be notified about the move and told where they can find the guild now. Upon transferring, the character will automatically appear in the guild, although at the “Recruit” rank. Because Trion is awesome, if a guildie had to change their character name during the transfer the old name will appear in the “Officer Notes” field.

As for the results of our shard change? Total success! To quote a Cat, “I was in Meridian on Byriel and there were five people in the city, counting me. I transferred to Deepwood, logged in, and there were at least five people standing on me!” High level players are a lot happier to have more pug action, and lowbies like me are running around to all the zone events being triggered. If you are wondering if you should take the plunge, I cannot recommend it enough.

Tricks and Tips for Levelling through PvP

The next RIFT patch, which is rumored to drop on Wednesday, will include Instant Adventures for folks under level 45. Although I haven’t done an IA myself yet, my understanding is that it’s sort of like queueing for a zone event. You get teleported into an Adventure with other random folks, kill things and accomplish goals, and in about 45 minutes it’s all over and you can queue again. The rewards include planarite and other planar things, XP/PA points, and reputation with various zones. I’ve heard nothing but awesomeness about IAs and I can’t wait to try them myself after Wednesday.

Part of my excitement stems from the fact that as usual I dislike questing to level. If I had to identify a weakness of RIFT it’s that their standard quests are pretty boring and definitely uninspired. Get 10 bear ears. Kill 8 evil goblins. Escort this incredibly stupid NPC across the map. You know the ones. Thanks, but no thanks.

Thus far I’ve leveled almost entirely through PvP, and while it’s more fun for me this way it does take a bit of planning so I won’t end up with a weird character at level 50. A few things I’d recommend are:

• Planarite and Sourcestones: These are great for gear upgrades now and of course you’ll need a mountain of them at level 50 for various things. If you can, play the Planar Invasion lootable from the RIFT Mobile app for ~200 planarite a day and random sourcestones.
• Porticulums: My advice is to go get at least one portal in each zone as early as possible. Yes, it is a pain in the butt and yes you might have to corpse hop to some of them, but it helps a lot with…
• High Level Zone Events: Of course you should be doing zone events in equal level zones when they pop up for planar rewards and XP, but I would also recommend checking out events in the high level zones too. You won’t be able to contribute a lot of course, but join the event raid and throw around some baby heals or DPS. You’ll get a LOT of XP.
• Triage your reputations: Non-PvP reputations are tough to get right now, but will be a lot easier using low level Instant Adventures. Figure out which ones have serious gear upgrades for you now or which will be more important to you at 50, and focus on those.
• Buy or make gear: Upgrades are pretty few and far between for sub-50s in PvP, and you’re going to have to suppliment it. If you have crafting guildies, you can always talk to them. Otherwise I recommend picking up 3 gathering skills (and gather in between queues) so you can make some plat and buy your upgrades. You definitely shouldn’t do what I did and realise at level 33 that you’re still wearing your starting zone belt and a level 3 +dodge ring (on my healer).
• Favor: There’s not a lot to spend it on until 50, but you should buy the mecha-pony (edit: or valmera for Guardians) at level 25. It’s faster than other starting mounts and looks rad.

I’m still going to have more things to do at 50 than someone who did the standard questing path, but at least I will never be short of projects!

The Cat Context Podcast #3 is on track for a Monday release! Topics include Diablo 3 (natch), tips on mastering the hat market in Team Fortress 2, and Liore will tell the sad story of how she lost a weekend to Tropico 4.

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Late last year I wrote a post titled “Why aren’t you playing RIFT?” in which I wondered why, despite all the things I ostensibly love about RIFT and Trion, the game just didn’t hold my interest beyond a couple of months. The comments were filled with folks who felt the same: the game was well-made and well-run but not different enough from WoW to keep the burnouts (myself included) entertained. And that was that. Until yesterday.

Yesterday Trion officially announced their first expanion for RIFT, Storm Legion, and in the space of a press release I went from not having anything to look forward to on the MMO horizon to demanding a release date and planning my alts. Trion has been infamous for turning out out well made patch-based content at a rapid pace since RIFT launched and admittedly much of my anticipation for this expansion is based on the good will their development team has built up, but get a look at some of these advertised features:

• A new soul (aka a new role/spec) for each calling (rogue, mage, warrior, cleric)
• New continents that will triple the size of the current world, including a new cross-faction capital city
• 7 dungeons, 3 raids, and a new Chronicle (solo instance)
• “New rift gameplay” — a little vague, but okay
• Capes! (This seemed like an odd selling point but the official forums are full of people thrilled about capes so good on them.)
• “Customizable spaces allow players and guilds to own a sliver of Telara”

Wait, what? Let’s look at that last one again:

• “Customizable spaces allow players and guilds to own a sliver of Telara”

rift storm legion concept art

Oh, be still my heart. Is this.. player housing? Can I decorate it? The internet is, unsurprisingly, low on details about this development but it sounds like players/guilds will be able to create their own home instance. Found a good location at a city inn? Create a copy of it in your own Dimension and “customize” it. I am going to be keeping a very close eye on this feature, but it sounds very promising. (Bookshelves, Trion. Give me bookshelves. Oh, and a giant fur “Rob Stark”-style cloak, while you’re at it.)

Also, the concept art is weird and awesome. Also also, three faction open world PvP just hit the Player Test Servers! Trion has proven themselves to be awesome at liberating all the best features of other MMOs for their own game.

So why am I not playing RIFT? I’m … not sure anymore. I’ll probably wait until a little closer to the expansion’s Fall release date to resubscribe and finish levelling up my cleric, but the initial details about Storm Legion has definitely earned the game a top spot on my anticipated games list.

Mass Effect 3 mid-game mini review: SO GOOD. I am already melancholy that it has to end soon.

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By far and away one of the most common search terms people use to find this site is “rift review” or some variation. That’s true even now, when the game is a year old. I wrote a review of RIFT at its six month anniversary, but the public has spoken and I do love to talk about RIFT, so let’s address this issue again.

Hopefully the following will help you decide: Should I Buy RIFT?

1. Are you tired of WoW-like mechanics?

If you hated WoW, you probably won’t like RIFT. If you liked WoW at some point but got bored of it, you might also be bored of RIFT.

The basic mechanics of RIFT are startlingly similar to WoW. It has the standard action queue system of MMO combat. The interface uses almost identical keybindings. Both games have warzone PvP, raids in multiple group sizes, and daily quests. Both have dwarves and elves and rogues and mages. RIFT certainly brought a few unique ideas to the table — namely, um, rifts — but in general if you are really bored with the basic mechanics of WoW then you will be bored wth the basic mechanics of RIFT.

2. Do you enjoy fluff (non-progression content that is fun or looks good) in your MMOs?

If you enjoy “fluff” content like wardrobes, pets, and achievements, you will probably enjoy RIFT.

Trion has done an admirable job of adding fun content to the game since it launched. There is an elaborate wardrobe system with armor dye and they continually release new costume gear for all levels. There are a handful of major events each year which usually come with amusing new daily quests again for all levels. There is a full achievement system, and collectible artifacts sprinkled around the world. Additionally, RIFT has a number of neat pets and mounts that are obtainable in different ways and suit different occasions, from a pet corgi wearing reindeer antlers to a giant steampunk spider mount.

3. Do you enjoy theorycrafting?

If you like doing your own research and experimenting in MMOs, you will probably enjoy RIFT. If you cannot live without WoW on one monitor and Wowhead on the other, you may be disappointed.

The flexible class talent trees is a bonanza for people who like to fiddle with their characters and play with mechanics. If you want to get into serious progression raiding there are probably optimal setups that you’ll be asked to use, but otherwise it is up to you to find something that you enjoy and that does what you want it to. It is a theorycrafting paradise!

Also, for whatever reason RIFT doesn’t have the same array of online resources as WoW or even SWTOR has available. That means you’ll probably have to discover a unique rotation or where Questgiver X is on your own.

4. Is crafting important to you in MMOs?

If a robust crafting system is an essential element of your MMO experience, you will probably not like RIFT.

Crafting in RIFT feels like an afterthought, much like most big MMOs. It is the standard procedure of selecting a few gathering professions and a few crafting professions, and then AFKing for 20 minutes while you make stuff. If I had to come up with a positive comments about the crafting, it’s that at least some of the level 50 recipes are desired for gearing up new characters.

The Auction House has all the usual features and a nice interface, so if you like playing the markets then RIFT will fit the bill.

5. Are you a casual or hardcore MMO player?

If you are a casual MMO player — casual as in limited in time, not limited by effort — then you will probably like RIFT. If you are interested in hardcore PvP or PvE progression for notoriety, you should play WoW. If you like challenging PvE content, you will likely enjoy RIFT. If you like challenging PvP content, wait for GW2 like everyone else.

There is a ton of drop-in content in RIFT for characters of all levels. You can be just running around and hit a rift or invasion. You can swim over to Shimmersand and join in a crafting rift raid for a while, or keep an eye on General Chat for a daily raid rift or PvP rift. You can do an Instant Adventure (queued group quest), visit Ember Isle at level cap (special quest zone), or run a Chronicle (solo/duo dungons). Additionally, RIFT has the standcard automated LFG dungeons and PvP battlefronts.

I haven’t done the serious progression raids, but I’ve heard that they are challenging and fun. (And Trion has beaten out most of the bugs that drove early raiders crazy.) On a firsthand level I’ve enjoyed the 10-man raids I’ve run, and they are frequently pugged now as well.

So, best case scenario: If you are tired of WoW but not of WoW-like mechanics, enjoy character fluff and theorycrafting but don’t feel too strongly about professions, and are happy with either drop-in or relaxed progression content… my review concludes that you should try RIFT!

As I threatened to do in yesterday’s post, last night I managed to patch up RIFT and get hitched! My goal was to contribute to Trion’s bid to take the world record for in-game weddings, but I didn’t need much of an excuse to see how ol’ Telara has been doing.

I’m not much of a role player, but from what I can tell RIFT handled the whole wedding thing well. There are dresses, suits, and bouquets on a vendor, and players have the option of porting their entire raid group to a personal instance set in a cathedral with a full ceremony and cake. My rogue Accolade went for a more simple option, but she did wear a wedding dress and her favorite rams horn helmet. Much thanks to guildie Joanjett and her pet Blackheart for joining in the shenanigans! Apparently we will now get the title “The Avowed”, which is cool.

While I have lots of things to do and see in SWTOR, and I’m looking forward to them all, I will say that last night reminded me how uninspiring the graphics are in Bioware’s MMO. I miss RIFT’s detailed textures and dyes, and I may have to bust my baby healing cleric out of ice and run a few warzones since I’m all patched up now and everything. (Wait, was that Trion’s evil plan? Those bastards!)

Unfortunately there wasn’t much time to celebrate Accolade and Joan’s nuptials, because I had a date with Bioware in space. Wait.. a different space! This time it was with my old friend January Shepard in the Mass Effect 3 demo. I played through the opening sequence — about 30 minutes, mostly story — and tinkered around with the mechanics a bit in a combat setting.

(Note: here there be mild demo spoilers!)

The controls and features generally seem to adhere to those found in ME2, along with the classes and origin stories and whatnot. There was a setting in the character creation to choose roughly how upset your Shepard is over the deaths of previous colleagues, which was a nice touch. The graphics were.. a little strange. It was weird to see previously familiar faces rendered in using different textures, and body movement looked (I think?) less realistic than in ME2. The rest of the graphics looked amazing, though, and ran smoothly (MUCH smoother than SWOTR) on my rapidly obsolete computer.

I chose to play the new default FemShep, and unsurprisingly Jennifer Hale’s voice acting is still superb. The whole first 30 minutes of the demo, in fact, is pretty jaw dropping. You see some old friends, encounter a few cinematics where Shepard once again proves why s/he is Kickass Space Hero #1, and by the end you will probably feel as motivated as you have ever been to fly into space once again and kill some Reapers. It is seriously an amazing experience.

Plus, the opening scenes are set in Future Vancouver which has the mountain tops and a few buildings from present day Vancouver, so I got a personal thrill out of running around defending my home town.

I’ve decided not to play any more of the single player demo as I don’t want to ruin the story and it’s not the same without my CanonShep, although I may try some of the multiplayer just to see what that’s all about. Suffice to say that I was impressed by the opening of the demo even more than I expected to be. If they keep up the high quality of story-telling and didn’t mess with the mechanics of combat too much this is going to be an amazing gaming experience and I am on tenterhooks until its release on March 6th.

Remember that post I made last week about finding moderation in MMO gaming? About resisting the temptation to “keep up with the joneses” outside of my adult lifestyle and being responsible? Yeah, so.. between 1pm on Saturday and 4:30pm on Sunday, I went from level 46.5 to 50 in SWTOR.

To be fair, it was actually an entirely planned gaming binge. Last weekend was an oasis of spare time, and the next few weeks look pretty busy. I wanted to get to 50 and be done with it. Also, I know from experience that when you don’t have much time it’s a lot easier to maintain a level-capped character than to level one.

Long story short, a pot of coffee and two energy drinks later I hit 50 after losing a game of Huttball, which seemed strangely appropriate. The best method of power-levelling I found was running the daily Heroic-4 and Heroic-2 quests on Corellia. Of particular note for fellow Imps is the quest Prison Busting, which has an associated bonus quest to kill 60 elite inmates. Grab three friends and knock it out — this area alone accounted for half of my level 59 XP bar.

Because my guild is both awesome and insane, literally 10 minutes after hitting 50 I found myself inside Eternity Vault. It was my first time there, of course, although most of the raid had been there before. A quick rundown of impressions by boss:

First Boss Guy – Not very difficult to heal. This fight involves getting out of line of sight of a missle barrage ability and not standing in things that really look like you shouldn’t stand in them. I actually got to use Recuperative Nanotech/Kolto Cloud in a way that was useful for the first time ever! Talent point validated! (Sigh.)

Lava Guy – This is exactly the kind of fight I love to do: there’s environmental awareness and moving, but not in a “you turned 2 degrees too much to the left so everyone dies now” way. Running, jumping, a few add waves to keep it interesting. This was a good time.

Pylon Boss – I was a little worried when we split the raid into two even groups, leaving me the sole healer for my team, but it turned out okay. For this boss, from what I can tell, we all just kill things like usual while two people do all the tricky puzzle bits. The mobs hit hard, so be prepared to laugh and battle rez (yes! me! with a BR!) if a DPS pulls aggro. I have no idea what the puzzle guys were doing, but it worked!

Individual Boss – You know, the idea for this boss is really simple but unusual. Basically everyone gets a mob and has to kill it. Tanks get the ones with the lowest HP, healers the next highest, and then of course DPS get the toughest. Someone starts the fight, your dude comes to life, and you have to kill it before he enrages and kills everyone. You cannot heal anyone else or assist them with their dude in any way. Go! Me and my awesome 10-minutes-old gear wiped the raid the first time, much to everyone’s amusement, but on the second attempt both I and my target died at the same moment and we won. (Note to self: Remember fighting Leo in SSC? Get some Accuracy trinkets or something, noob.)

Soa, the talky boss – A pretty epic fight! We did not kill this dude, but we will. There’s giant falling stairs you have to hope down and balls of lightning that follow you around and a “mind trap” with a dude you have to kill and occasionally tthe boss will whirl you around the room. It’s totally chaotic but not unreasonably so, and as a bonus you occasionally get to see your guildies jump to their deaths. I’m curious what Bioware had in mind when they designed this fight: are you supposed to run it until you remember where each piece falls so you can take the most efficient route down, or just wing it?

All in all, I’m actually pretty impressed with the encounter design in Eternity Vault. It was pretty easy at Normal difficulty (definitely designed with pugs in mind), and the mechanics themseves were familar but presented in new ways. Perhaps it’s just because the game is young, but there was no crazy boss crap for crazy’s sake, which is kind of the direction I think raiding is going in WoW.

So 90 minutes after hitting level cap I had killed 4 of the 5 bosses in Eternity Vault, earned two huge upgrades (hat and boots), and gained a bunch of weird new currencies from raid and PvP.

Then I went to bed. :)

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Quick reminder that RIFT is trying to set a World Record today for Most In-Game Weddings in 24 Hours. I don’t have much time to visit Telara right now, but I will definitely be logging on later and marrying Accolade off to a friend! Trion is a nice company that tries hard, and they allowed same sex marriages in their game right off the bat (hi Bioware why won’t you let me love Kaliyo) so I will definitely participate and hope y’all to do so as well. Here are someone’s RIFT wedding photos if you need a little help to get in the marrying mood.