Post by Peti on Feb 3, 2011 8:54:26 GMT -8
Rift's home page
Its a new MMO that has my interests piqued.
ZAM is giving away VIP beta keys (they get you into all the remaining betas, not just the next one) and the next beta starts tomorrow, and runs through monday.
I played in the last beta for it, and I've been pining all week for a little more.
Basic premise: Regulos, the destroyer, has descended upon the world of Telara, and the two factions, Guardians and Defiant, blame each other for the state of the world. Players of the Guardian side are 'chosen by the gods' to ascend and be protectors, while the Defiant use great magical machines to create ascended players of their own through technology.
The class system is pretty cool:
There are four 'callings', or basic classes. Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, and Mage. Each calling has 9 'souls' (8 regular souls, and 1 PvP-oriented tree thats pretty much the same across all callings). Each player can select three souls to allocate points into, much like a talent tree in WoW. The souls have much much more variety though..
I'll go through the Cleric souls as an example.
Cabalist - casts Death-type magics, stacking a debuff and burning them off to deal somewhat bursty damage
Druid - Can summon pets to heal or deal damage, as well as wield two-handed weapons to get into the melee themselves
Inquisitor - caster that deals direct damage
Justicar - Melee healer that has a tremendous amount of ways to improve damage resistance and mitigation.. makes a great tank
Purifier - Healer with damage absorbing shield spells, as well as a small arsenal of damaging spells
Sentinel - Direct support with little on the side of offense, making for a great healer in large groups
Shaman - critical-oriented melee attacker that can bring a slough of supporting buffs to a group as well
Warden - Specializes in healing over time, and manipulating the enemies' positioning and mobility
Now each character can choose ANY three of those they want, and place points into it. You arent completely locked into your choices either.. you can pay at an NPC to reset your selections at any time, and the same NPCs can be paid to offer you what the game calls 'Roles'. Much like presets, it allows you to have up to four sets of souls at one time, which you can switch between at ANY time as long as you arent in combat. (the closest analogy would be dual-speccing in WoW.. except, you know, quad-).
For instance: a cleric player could have one Role set up to be a Justicar tank, taking Warden and Druid for support skills, then have a second role as a Sentinel main healer, with Purifier and Warden abilities to compliment. Our group already has tanks and healers? OK, the third role is set up as a Cabalist/Inquisitor/Warden for magic ranged dps, and the fourth as a Shaman/Druid/Justicar for great in-your-face melee.
The customization and versatility of the soul system is pretty damn neat. Warriors can be everything but healers (yes, they have a magic damage based soul: flaming weapons anyone?), Mages can be everything but tanks (though they dont really have any physical damage builds either), and every calling has a soul with pets (I personally hate pets, but some people love em).
Leveling and questing are pretty straightforward.. some would say WoW-ish, but I hate comparing everything to that game, just because its the most prominent. There's open world PvP and warfronts (instanced, team-based PvP battlegrounds) neither of which you have to participate in if you dont want to (I usually do not).
The most interesting part of Rift, and the reason for its name, are the Rifts. Rifts can spawn randomly throughout the world, and spawn creatures from the planes of the elements. Sometimes an Invasion can occur, where a large number of rifts open all at once and send through many many groups of monsters until they are closed. Waves of monsters will continue to spawn from open rifts, and travel towards questing hubs and towns, where they can kill all the NPCs and take them over.
When an invasion begins, everyone in the zone is given a quest to close the rifts and stop the invasion waves. Once those are done, a boss will spawn, and bringing them down will require a lot of people.
All of that is called Public Questing.. and to go with that are Public Groups. If you walk up to an area where one of these battles is occurring, say at a rift, you can click a button at the top of your screen and it places you into a public group with all the people at that rift, so you can get healed (or heal them, if thats your role). Imagine it as if there were a system in FFxi to create parties and alliances at besieged or campaign battles. Click a button and you'll team up with those in the immediate area so you can use your skills to the fullest. No more would you have to go solo all the time (though, you can if you still want). Rewards are given out by participation.. the more you do, the better loot you get, whether it be by healing, damage done or damage taken.
Hmmm.. cant think of anything else atm, so I'll leave it there.
Beta 6 starts tomorrow (Fri, Feb 4th), and you can get a free key from good ol' Allahkazam. There's one more beta after this weekend before they go to official, not sure the dates though.
The game is slated for official release on Mar 1st (Mar 4th in Europe), and prestart on the 24th of Feb. If you lock in a payment method before Mar 15th, you get a decent discount.
Its a new MMO that has my interests piqued.
ZAM is giving away VIP beta keys (they get you into all the remaining betas, not just the next one) and the next beta starts tomorrow, and runs through monday.
I played in the last beta for it, and I've been pining all week for a little more.
Basic premise: Regulos, the destroyer, has descended upon the world of Telara, and the two factions, Guardians and Defiant, blame each other for the state of the world. Players of the Guardian side are 'chosen by the gods' to ascend and be protectors, while the Defiant use great magical machines to create ascended players of their own through technology.
The class system is pretty cool:
There are four 'callings', or basic classes. Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, and Mage. Each calling has 9 'souls' (8 regular souls, and 1 PvP-oriented tree thats pretty much the same across all callings). Each player can select three souls to allocate points into, much like a talent tree in WoW. The souls have much much more variety though..
I'll go through the Cleric souls as an example.
Cabalist - casts Death-type magics, stacking a debuff and burning them off to deal somewhat bursty damage
Druid - Can summon pets to heal or deal damage, as well as wield two-handed weapons to get into the melee themselves
Inquisitor - caster that deals direct damage
Justicar - Melee healer that has a tremendous amount of ways to improve damage resistance and mitigation.. makes a great tank
Purifier - Healer with damage absorbing shield spells, as well as a small arsenal of damaging spells
Sentinel - Direct support with little on the side of offense, making for a great healer in large groups
Shaman - critical-oriented melee attacker that can bring a slough of supporting buffs to a group as well
Warden - Specializes in healing over time, and manipulating the enemies' positioning and mobility
Now each character can choose ANY three of those they want, and place points into it. You arent completely locked into your choices either.. you can pay at an NPC to reset your selections at any time, and the same NPCs can be paid to offer you what the game calls 'Roles'. Much like presets, it allows you to have up to four sets of souls at one time, which you can switch between at ANY time as long as you arent in combat. (the closest analogy would be dual-speccing in WoW.. except, you know, quad-).
For instance: a cleric player could have one Role set up to be a Justicar tank, taking Warden and Druid for support skills, then have a second role as a Sentinel main healer, with Purifier and Warden abilities to compliment. Our group already has tanks and healers? OK, the third role is set up as a Cabalist/Inquisitor/Warden for magic ranged dps, and the fourth as a Shaman/Druid/Justicar for great in-your-face melee.
The customization and versatility of the soul system is pretty damn neat. Warriors can be everything but healers (yes, they have a magic damage based soul: flaming weapons anyone?), Mages can be everything but tanks (though they dont really have any physical damage builds either), and every calling has a soul with pets (I personally hate pets, but some people love em).
Leveling and questing are pretty straightforward.. some would say WoW-ish, but I hate comparing everything to that game, just because its the most prominent. There's open world PvP and warfronts (instanced, team-based PvP battlegrounds) neither of which you have to participate in if you dont want to (I usually do not).
The most interesting part of Rift, and the reason for its name, are the Rifts. Rifts can spawn randomly throughout the world, and spawn creatures from the planes of the elements. Sometimes an Invasion can occur, where a large number of rifts open all at once and send through many many groups of monsters until they are closed. Waves of monsters will continue to spawn from open rifts, and travel towards questing hubs and towns, where they can kill all the NPCs and take them over.
When an invasion begins, everyone in the zone is given a quest to close the rifts and stop the invasion waves. Once those are done, a boss will spawn, and bringing them down will require a lot of people.
All of that is called Public Questing.. and to go with that are Public Groups. If you walk up to an area where one of these battles is occurring, say at a rift, you can click a button at the top of your screen and it places you into a public group with all the people at that rift, so you can get healed (or heal them, if thats your role). Imagine it as if there were a system in FFxi to create parties and alliances at besieged or campaign battles. Click a button and you'll team up with those in the immediate area so you can use your skills to the fullest. No more would you have to go solo all the time (though, you can if you still want). Rewards are given out by participation.. the more you do, the better loot you get, whether it be by healing, damage done or damage taken.
Hmmm.. cant think of anything else atm, so I'll leave it there.
Beta 6 starts tomorrow (Fri, Feb 4th), and you can get a free key from good ol' Allahkazam. There's one more beta after this weekend before they go to official, not sure the dates though.
The game is slated for official release on Mar 1st (Mar 4th in Europe), and prestart on the 24th of Feb. If you lock in a payment method before Mar 15th, you get a decent discount.