Jack Online A few words about a camel named Bob

Thoughts on Rift™

For the last month I've been playing Rift when possible and I've got to say, it's good.  Damned good at that.

I had applied for closed beta sometime late last year, and had completely forgotten about it until I got an email from the developers (Trion), which I put into my "Read later" folder and promptly forgot to until about a week later.  After reading the various infos online and looking up when the closed beta was up, I decided to jump in, and after all of 20 minutes wished I had been one of the lucky few who had an invite to the very early beta's.

Rift is an interesting MMO.  It takes a lot of parts from other games and refines them, adding to them, and pretty much improving them in a way which makes you think 'Why wasn't this done before?'.  I'm not going to say it copies WoW, because that's stupid, and if you're going to bring up that, then you might as well say EVERY MMO is a copy of Everquest, and whatever was before that, and so on, so forth.  Yes, it takes from the previous list of games and experiences, but it does what every good MMO should do - it ADDS and BUILDS to it.

The game is generally about Rifts, which are a sort of global event that everyone and anyone can attend.  Rifts spawn NPC mobs that come in waves, each wave getting progressively harder as you progress through the event.  You can instantly spot a Rift whilst walking around because of the gigantic tentacle-like things that come reaching down from the sky, usually accompanied by a very bright beam of light (which signifies which type of Rift it is (Life, Fire, Death, etc).  Rifts are also noted on the map, which you can mouse over to see if they are a Minor, or Major Rift.

Minor Rifts are the sort of events you can do solo, but can bring a friend if you so wish.  They don't pose a huge threat, but they can be interesting, and they give decent rewards.  Major rifts on the other hand, are crazy.  Not only can they spawn Invasions (groups of NPC's that will walk to the nearest outpost or town and start clobbering you), but they can require a group, or an entire raid to take down, which brings me onto the next topic.

In past MMO's, getting a group for world raid bosses, or just groups in general, can be difficult.  Rift brings something to the table which I cannot believe hasn't been done before - public groups.  When you walk up to any event, which includes Invasions and both types of Rifts, a neat little button displays in the top-middle part of the screen stating "Join public party".  When you click this button, all players in the area are grouped into a party, or raid, which can then tackle the problem at hand, and share the rewards.  It's incredibly simple, intuitive, and as I stated earlier, I cannot believe it's taken this long to do.

Now, Rifts are only one part of this game, and it would be unfair of me to finish this post without going into some detail about the others.  Firstly, Rift is one of the few games that I can remember in which I have not spent most of my time playing looking at that damned EXP bar.  I just PLAY it because it's fun, and every now and then "YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL" appears on the screen, to which I usually go "What the hell?!".  It's lovely to be playing a game and enjoy it to such a degree that I'm not obsessed with hitting level X or getting item B.  The progression through the levels, the quests, the design of it all is just fantastic, and if you're one of the few people who ends up rushing through this game, then I feel sorry for you - you're missing a lot.

Rift also has a neat class system, in which you can choose a main class (Warrior, Cleric, Rogue or Mage), and then decide what Souls you want to use.  Each class has 12 souls, of which do various things (tank, support, heal, range, melee, whatever) and you can mix and match whatever ones you want.  Further more, just because you pick those three, doesn't mean you're restricted to just those.  At certain points you can pick up quests to unlock a new Soul, which you can swap in and out at your leisure by purchasing a new role at the trainer (you can have a maximum of 4 roles, which you can swap on the fly as long as you're out of combat).

It doesn't just stop there though...  To stop players from rushing through the tree's and going for the last skill, Trion have requested that for every x number of points you put in a tree, you must put a few in another.  Now, at first I thought this system sucked (mostly because I wanted the end skill), but each Soul suggests two other Souls to be paired with, and they each have skills on the bottom few tiers that you can pick up that compliment your class really, really well.  The design that's gone into this skill builds is insane, and it really shows.

The game has a level of polish to it that you just don't get anywhere these days, and that's no small feat.  Overall, Trion have done a fantastic job on Rift, which is exactly why I've pre-ordered it and intend to play it to hell and back on March 4th.  If you have as well, I look forward to Riftin' with you!

Portal 2 release date set, pre-purchase available!

Portal was one of the most ingenious games of the past decade, so it's little wonder Valve decided to work on a sequel (plus, who doesn't want to hear that catchy song again?).

Today at 11:09, Valve posted a news article on steampowered.com, stating that Portal 2 pre-purchase was available, and that the game would become available worldwide on April 18th.

I don't know about you, but I'm about 5 seconds away from entering my payment details...

Source: Steampowered