Title: Rift Genre: MUHMORPUGGER Developer: Trion Worlds Publisher: Trion Worlds Ratings: PEGI - 12, ESRB - T Formats: PC Exclusive
Synopsis Overview: The world of Telara is at war, not only with itself, but with the forces of Regulos, the God of Death, whos forces have been recently bolstered by the Elemental Lords, attracted by the Blood Storm, a particularly strong elemental nexus around Telara. Even united, the enemies of Telara are still at odds over the ends. Regulos seeks to destroy Telara, but the Elemental Lords of the Blood Storm each wanted to shape Telara in their own images. Spurred on by the infighting, the legendary mages of Telara and their forces managed to strike back, and defeat each of the Elemental Lords in turn, eventually being able to defeat Regulos himself. Despite all their powers, the mages are unable to completely destroy Regulos, and instead decide to imprison him behind The Ward, an immense magical barrier surrounding Telara.
Eons later, The Ward has weakened to the point of breaking, and numerous Rifts are forming in Telara. The devout Guardians and the technologically superior Defiants are at each others throats over the elemental riches of Sourcestones, physical embodiments of pure elemental energy. Unknown to them, the Rifts have multiplied, and threaten to completely breach The Ward, and allow Regulos to retake his physical form, and invade Telara anew.
Ok, so this is less of a "normal" review, and more of a look at the game in its current state, as Rift, like any MMO, evolves over time. Now, the current state is about a month in, beta times aside, and a fair number of guilds and characters are hitting the upper tier content.
One of the major things that differentiates Rift from other MMO is the immediate, and apparent, lack of character classes to choose from, with only 4 overarching classes available. The choices that you do have at the start are the ever present choices of Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, and Mage. Once your character is created, however, you do get let in on the "secret" of the other 9 subclasses, known as Souls. Taking Cleric as an example, this is then broken down into 3 healing Souls, 4 offensive Souls, and 1 defensive Soul. Oh and 1 PvP Soul, which scales with the more PvP favour you accumulate. You also then get 4 different Roles that you can customise with the aforementioned Souls, with the ability to change back and forth while you're not in combat.
The really big selling point that Trion have pushed with Rift is the titular Rifts, with the forces of Regulos breaking through. These basically form micro-phased instances, with impromptu raids being formed to defeat them. Rifts can spawn completely anywhere on the map (There's been a few that I've seen that have spawned inside the capital city), and form 3 stages with 2 bonus levels that are timed. Rifts are designed to have the first 3 levels soloed by appropriate level and skilled players. Stages 4 and 5 are really designed for parties and raids respectively, with the time limits being restrictive at best, and damn hard at worst. In addition to the Rifts, you then have Invasion Events, which are a huge number of Rifts spawning in an area close to a city. These events happen roughly once every 2-3 hours, and last 45 minutes at the most (mainly because they despawn after 45 minutes). Once the Rifts are closed, the zone then has to deal with an Elemental Lord, essentially a 30-ish man raid boss. These raid bosses are needless to say, rather annoying when they run up and kill an entire settlement of quest givers, then proceed to rape anything not 5 levels higher than them.
Outside of events, Rift has quite a well scaled levelling and quest progression curve, with the only real complaint of the map not tracking quest locations in their entirety. This is only really a small annoyance, and probably one from being spoiled during years of WoW (with Carbonite in its early days). Elite enemies mixed in with the normal mobs keep the player on their toes, forcing you to check your targets before unleashing some cooldowns in their direction.
Instancing in Rift is a whole other ball game in comparison to the Easy Street of WoW (even with the recent jump in difficulty during Cataclysm). The opening dungeon of Iron Tombs is easily capable of ripping apart an entire group with little regard for the fact that it's a level 17 dungeon. Groups are rewarded by being cautious, and deviating from the standard 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS model that AEs everything down. Crowd control is encouraged, and the Bard Soul from a Rogue is a much welcomed addition, making the common Rift model to 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 Bard, 1 CC (Mage/Rogue), and a Cleric (Many buffs, and passive healing). Group buffs and enemy debuffing is hugely rewarded, making even the hardest fights trivial with the correct buffs.
Current niggles though, as with any MMO, is the player base themselves. A typical run through the level 35 content that I'm on at the moment is showing a huge number of WoW-migrants, all comparing Rift to their nearest-and-dearest, as opposed to taking Rift on its merits. Another MASSIVE annoying are the titular Rifts themselves, with Invasion Events being just as guilty. While the first twenty or so Rifts and 10 or so Invasion Events are amazing, they quickly devolve into just "Oh god, not another one", especially with the potential to disrupt questing.
Instances are equally frustrating, with a sizeable number of Rift players coming from WoW, with the "It's too hard" mentality of the last expansion, with incompetant players, and overenthusiastic AE DPS blowing their collective loads too early for comfort, and subsequently wiping the group repeatedly.
Overall, I'd say that Rift is a worthy entrant to the MMO market, with some balls-out advertising giving them even more ground. Whether or not I'll permanently switch over though, still remains to be seen, but if Rift matures in the same way that it is, then it'll turn into something lasting.
Last part... and this is the part that everyone is asking... Is it a WoW killer? Probably not, but it'll operate perfectly alongside it, for people who are new to the MMO scene, and for people who are bored of WoW.
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Upcoming Reviews: <-- Add to the list! Dragon Age 2 (PS3) <- OMG YU SO ADDICTIVE?! *In Progress!* Ratchet and Clank 4 (PS3)
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