Thursday 21 April 2011

Rift: FOR SCIENCE!


"damn, I broke a nail ~"

A week ago there was an open free trial in Rift, so I thought I'd give it a shot (esp. since I had just turned into a D&D widow for the weekend). I had tried the game briefly during beta, but didn't think I'd want to play it after launch since I was busy with work, travel and the new LotRO update. Luckily Rift was so easy to get into that I finished the trial (the cap was level 15) very quickly and wanted more, so after hunting around on the interwebz a little I found a site that sold the retail code for 25€. I grabbed the offer so I could continue leveling my little mage.



Yup, I rolled a Defiant mage. Usually in these types of games with two factions one of them is the "goodie type" and the other is "baddie/emo", and although the Kelari (Defiant elves) have quite convinving emo looks I think Trion did quite a good job making them more interesting than "hurrdurr we're just misunderstood". I actually tried rolling a couple Guardian characters (the "goodie" side) but my inner antitheist just couldn't tolerate any of that godtalk (and the angel-like npcs gave me bad memories from Aion). So I chose to support the Defiant cause and created a character called... Science. Because I'm cool and edgy like that.



So far Rift has been fun. I like playing it, although I'm not yet sure if I like the game itself and its world - it's as generic as you can get and doesn't seem to have the epic art direction of Guild Wars to make it stand out from the other generic fantasy mmos. The soul system is great fun though and I can't wait to try out all the different roles and combos I can come up with - I like the idea that I'm not locked into a single role (great cure for altitis!) and that I can swap complete builds anytime I want.

Tl;dr: playing a defiant mage called Tiede (Finnish for science) on Argent PVE-RP. Looking for friends and guilds and fun.

9 comments:

  1. Feel like I'm missing something...I just couldn't get into it. It was just *too* generic. There wasn't anything to grab me. :/

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  2. I agree with you, the reason I'm having fun is not because of the storyline or going ooooooh at the world, but because of the rifts and invasions and how they make the landscape more interesting.

    However I can see a time when I've got so used to all the dynamic stuff that it just starts feeling like "background noise". But at least now it's way more interesting to me than LotRO :D

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  3. yaay! :) more people to Rift ^^

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  4. I think that's the thing with Rift, unless you're bored with the current game you're playing then it doesn't offer that much that is new. I've been enjoying so far, but at lvl35 I'm starting to see that gear grind at the end looming on the horizon *shudder*

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  5. I tried rift also. It can be a nice change of pace, and I like how they exactly copied warhammers excellent pvp system, but it all just feels pretty generic and I dont feel involved in the story at all.
    The soul system can be a good idea but ultimately it will lead people to spend less total time on the game because it greatly diminishes the need to level alts, since your one character is so many different classes in one.

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  6. Yeah, I wonder how long they can keep pushing out new stuff-to-do (especially considering that leveling is so fast that it took hardly even a month for many to reach the cap), because sooner or later there will be a point where people are stuck at the "top" for too long and get bored. Personally I'm curious to see how soon my enthusiasm will fade - this week, the next, next month?

    I don't know about Rifts and alts that much yet, although I guess most would roll at least one on both sides (G/D) and also an alt or two on the same side as their main in order to provide self-sufficient crafting. At least the other three Callings would surely be interesting to try out.

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  7. I preordered Rift and played it at launch, but decided not to subscribe past the 30 free days. I had a level 35-ish Defiant Rogue on Argent.

    The gameplay is REALLY solid and plain fun and the soul system is awesome, but what killed my interest was the fact that it was all there was to the game. No RP toolset, no hobbies or housing or other fluff to take a break from the (nonexistent) grind with. Only places you could even hang around without being under risk of a random invasion were the core faction cities. It got tiring pretty fast. I'm not interested in PVP at all so I missed out on that side of the game as well.

    The initial *ooooh* phase is really sweet and the game is enjoyable for what it provides. It's just a shame they boast RP servers without providing any tools for the RP itself - mob aggro from level 1 monsters doesn't make it any better, and you can't even sit on chairs (without a LOT of effort) so all you're limited to is standing around and talking. Mash that together with no outfit tabs.. Yeah.
    It's a gorgeous game and a lot of fun but I'm personally waiting until they add more stuff and fluff to it before I resubscribe.

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  8. Whoah! Just after posting that I found out they're patching in an appearance tab, and multiple ones to boot. Trion is awesome. Considering resubscribing myself now.

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  9. Good points Milawyn, and seeing Trion's track record I can actually believe they'll do something about the rp tools too sooner or later. As for hobbies, at least here's artifact-collecting for now :D.

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