Rift: Planes of Telara

Seriously, guys. Does anybody on this forum besides me play Rift?

Rift is one of the best MMORPG's out there, IMHO. It has some really great concepts and mechanics, plus the graphics are amazing. (One of the best game screenshots I've ever taken was of Moonshade Highlands in Rift...)

The basic concept is that a person's character is what's known as an Ascended, which is a warrior who died in battle and was reborn for their valor and bravery. The game has what are known as rifts, or tears in space, that allow enemies from the planes to cross over to try to establish a foothold in Telara. The objective is to repel these invaders, and close the rifts.

One of the core mechanics involves the soul trees. Soul trees are, in essence, skill trees. By assigning soul points to different abilities, you can create any number of attack combinations. There are four classes in game, each with different souls and playstyles: There is the warrior, who wears plate armor and focuses on tanking enemies, with the option to do close-range damage with swords and axes; Clerics, who wear chain armor, and focus on healing and fight back using staves and warhammers; Rogues, who wear leather armor and act as support or off-tanks, often fighting with rifles, daggers, and bows; and finally, my personal favorite, Mages, who wear cloth armor and act as long-range damage dealers, or off-healers, usually fighting with staves and wands.
My personal favorite Mage soul trees are Elementalist and Stormcaller, which are essentially used for summoning elemental pets, and fighting by controlling the weather, respectively.

If done right, any class could be an absolute beast to fight against, and playing the right way would increase your survivability significantly. My Mage is at level 41 as i write this, and yet, I've completed quests made for people on level 50, and solo'd enemies that would completely destroy groups of other players.

If there are any other players of this game here, I'd like to know your usernames, and what server that you play on. If you're a member of a guild, that would be nice information to know, too.

I used to play Rifts about 20 years ago. Not sure if this is the same thing in video game format, though...

It is not, Loki. I don't know what the hell you linked to, but Rift is a fantasy MMORPG more along the lines of World of Warcraft than anything else, though people often say that Rift is much better than WoW.

Rift has also only had one (High quality) expansion in the two and a half years that it's been out, while it seems that WoW has had two or three low quality expansions every two months.

Rift's expansion, Storm Legion, not only added new soul trees, but it also added two whole continents, introduced new mounts, and it actually fit with the lore of Rift.

Compare that to WoW's latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria: Where in the WoW lore do panda's and imperial China fit in?

As of June 12, Rift will also go free to play, with money being used for credit boosts and cosmetic items. This is almost identical to the system that Moon Breakers has, where you can get everything normally, but paying makes it faster. This change is because the players have asked for free to play, and the devs have listened. Even before this change, there was Rift lite, which allowed you to play, although with a lower level cap.

WoW, to my knowledge, has no free to play component at all. Even logging in requires you to shell out money that could (Read: should) be used for other things.

My dad actually told me a story once: A friend of his got so addicted to World of Warcraft that he stopped doing everything else. He lived on chips and soda, only paid to keep his electricity and internet up, and basically withered away. The guy's wife got a divorce, and he was eventually kicked from his house for letting it fall apart. When the guy realized what had happened, he bought a rifle, put it to his teeth, and swallowed a bullet. Think about that: He committed suicide because of World of Warcraft. Since then, my dad hasn't touched any Blizzard products, even breaking his World of Warcraft disc.

Nightwing wrote:It is not, Loki. I don't know what the hell you linked to...

It was a tabletop RPG (like Dungeons & Dragons) with futuristic cyberpunk/mage theme where technology and magic meet fascist regimes and inter-dimensional aliens. I guess the closes analog it has to a current game would be the new XCom.

Nightwing wrote:My dad actually told me a story once: A friend of his got so addicted to World of Warcraft that he stopped doing everything else. He lived on chips and soda, only paid to keep his electricity and internet up, and basically withered away. The guy's wife got a divorce, and he was eventually kicked from his house for letting it fall apart. When the guy realized what had happened, he bought a rifle, put it to his teeth, and swallowed a bullet. Think about that: He committed suicide because of World of Warcraft. Since then, my dad hasn't touched any Blizzard products, even breaking his World of Warcraft disc.

Dafuq did I just read?

Loki wrote:

Nightwing wrote:My dad actually told me a story once: A friend of his got so addicted to World of Warcraft that he stopped doing everything else. He lived on chips and soda, only paid to keep his electricity and internet up, and basically withered away. The guy's wife got a divorce, and he was eventually kicked from his house for letting it fall apart. When the guy realized what had happened, he bought a rifle, put it to his teeth, and swallowed a bullet. Think about that: He committed suicide because of World of Warcraft. Since then, my dad hasn't touched any Blizzard products, even breaking his World of Warcraft disc.

Dafuq did I just read?

I thought the EXACT same lol

Nitestalkr wrote:

Loki wrote:

Nightwing wrote:My dad actually told me a story once: A friend of his got so addicted to World of Warcraft that he stopped doing everything else. He lived on chips and soda, only paid to keep his electricity and internet up, and basically withered away. The guy's wife got a divorce, and he was eventually kicked from his house for letting it fall apart. When the guy realized what had happened, he bought a rifle, put it to his teeth, and swallowed a bullet. Think about that: He committed suicide because of World of Warcraft. Since then, my dad hasn't touched any Blizzard products, even breaking his World of Warcraft disc.

Dafuq did I just read?

I thought the EXACT same lol

meh, not as impressive as that guy in china who lives inside a netcafe playing MMORPGs and selling virtual shite on e-bay

http://now.msn.com/li-meng-chinese-gamer-spends-six-years-at-internet-cafe

or the others who died while playing WoW...

Nightwing wrote:... As of June 12, Rift will also go free to play ...
WoW, to my knowledge, has no free to play component at all. Even logging in requires you to shell out money that could (Read: should) be used for other things.

My dad actually told me a story once: A friend of his got so addicted to World of Warcraft ... He committed suicide because of World of Warcraft. Since then, my dad hasn't touched any Blizzard products, even breaking his World of Warcraft disc.

So you're saying that a game, that is suppose to be, very much like WoW and is considered by many people to be the higher end product is going to be F2P very shortly. And that even as a lower class product, Blizzard caused one man to make a series of poor choices that lead the individual to puss out of life and quit early. So in short you are advocated a game genre that has been known to kill people? Also that your father is only adverse towards the Publisher, who doesn't actually develop the product?

the skill trees are interesting, though very little has been mentioned of actual gameplay.

im seeing comparisons to WoW and mention of pets, so i can respectfully assume a diablo / WoW clone? (in terms of gameplay mechanics such as a spell bar, character sheets, skill tree pages, slotted and tiered items, etc)

edit - to clarify, in WoW and co, the mechanics revolve around semi-third person platforming with single-target selection and casting, with everything else fitted into that model. does this game allow hack-and-slash targeting (ie, no targeting / damage to non-targeted enemies)? i doubt it since it's an MMO... even eve fits into this model.

the-anger wrote:(in terms of gameplay mechanics such as a spell bar, character sheets, skill tree pages, slotted and tiered items, etc)

By that logic, any modern MMO, regardless of other factors, can be considered a Diablo/WoW clone. Those features are now considered to be industry standard.

does this game allow hack-and-slash targeting (ie, no targeting / damage to non-targeted enemies)?

The closest thing that I can think of to this type of targeting would be one of the Mage attacks: When you use the ability, you get a circle on the ground that centers on the mouse pointer. When you actually cast the attack, anything inside of that circle will get blasted by what amounts to a thunderstorm. It does not involve targeting individual enemies. You can actually have an ally targeted, but when you use the ability, it will only damage the surrounding enemies. This attack actually makes for a good crowd control, because so long as the enemies are in range, they will take the full damage, regardless of how many enemies are hit. Think about it like this: If the attack does 3,000 damage to one enemy, it will also do 3,000 damage to ten enemies, so long as they're all in range.

my point is though, that you're free to cast it at some point on the ground without selecting an enemy initially (with aoe effects stemming from the enemy in WoW)... that is different to WoW and co to my knowledge