Eccentric Flower talk:201102/Rift

Danima:

[...]

A + B = Damn it, I would play this. Any sense on whether it would be worth playing for one hour at a time every month or so?

-- 23:28, 8 February 2011 (GMT)

Bunny42:

Thoughtful and interesting comments to the Voting Rights article. (Sorry, but I'm with Robert when it comes to the games.)

-- 00:29, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Dan, I would say probably not (unfortunately). While you don't have to be one of these play-all-night-every-night types, I think playing once a month would probably be so seldom that it would make the game not a very enjoyable experience. And since Rift WILL be on the normal paid subscription model, you'd be leaking money the whole time you didn't play.

-- 01:27, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Sigh. I'm gonna have to get this, aren't I? I was enjoying the vacation from paid subscriptions.

Weirdly, I keep dreaming about WoW. I dreamed the other day about that area with the lake which I can't remember the name of - the dwarf one with the big dam at the top. (I don't remember the rest of the dream, except for the location.)

Each faction has a self-contained starting/training area with its own set of quests, which can take several hours to play through - very similar to the "pre-searing" environment in Guild Wars.

And you know how I love pre-searing. (I'm still playing through it from time to time.)

Aaaand... looking around at their website and at Amazon, I suspect I'm probably going to go ahead and get the digital version. I guess that will get me into the next beta? Or is it ongoing?

-- 04:06, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Well, this page says that if you preorder directly from them, it will, among other perks, get you into the remaining beta events (of which there is one left). (I'd still fill out the beta application though.)

It will also get you earlier access to the game than the retail customers (the "head start" period) and slightly lower prices on any subscription plan that isn't month-to-month.

-- 04:18, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Incidentally, I gather your comment about paying for subscriptions means that you didn't go back to WoW for Cataclysm after all?

-- 04:19, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Oh yeah, also, the digital preorder from them comps you for a month of play, so if you play for thirty days and decide it sucks, you could theoretically cancel and only be out the cost of the game itself.

-- 04:25, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

You're correct, I did not get Cataclysm, in the end. I was tempted but I suspected I wouldn't stick with it long, especially since I would have been playing by myself. I might go back and catch up with WoW at some future date, I'm not ruling it out.

-- 04:29, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

OK, so the next time you get bored, you can tell me about character classes and stuff! It might bore everybody else to death, but I'm suddenly very interested.

-- 05:26, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

ProfRobert:

I remember when, if you wanted to play a game with someone who wasn't in the same building as you, you played by mail. There were were actual tournaments for chess-by-mail, and I participated in one. But it was too slow for my 11-year-old-instant-gratification personality.

Will go read the Economist article when I have a chance.

-- 17:03, 9 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

If you care, Col, I've been nosing around the TOG forums and they are playing Defiant on the Belmont server, at least for the beta. They intend to eventually play both sides, they say. All else being equal, I wouldn't mind being able to play with those guys, but I know that doesn't always work out.

Robert, I'm old enough to remember chess-by-mail, but I was never patient enough to be particularly good at chess even in person, so I was never tempted to try it.

-- 05:34, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

The classes in Rift are the same basic four that have been with us since memory runneth not to the contrary, and they don't even try to gussy them up with fancy names: They straight-out admit that their warrior, mage, cleric and rogue are what they are.

One of the things I like about the game so far is that you always know where you stand. Souls and their talent trees are fully inspectable before you commit to one, and they are labelled in ways like Offensive, Defensive, or Healing so you know what the main point of that tree is.

The game will also make recommendations (if you take this tree, you may also want to take these other two) although I learned that I disagree with at least one of those recommendations (when I took a tree they recommended and realized I was never putting any points into it because it was useless to me).

Everything gets deleted at the end of the beta, as is standard, so the next beta interval is a good time to experiment. I may try to stick to Guardian characters because I have an idea already about what my first "real" character will be and it will be Defiant, so I am staying away from the Defiant starting areas for a bit so they'll be nice and fresh once the slate is cleaned and I start over. (But if you want to dabble there I can dabble along; I've only tried one char on either faction, and it was the same class in both.)

I would say that Defiant definitely has a more drawn-out, but also more robust, start. It takes a little longer to go through the Defiant training area, and a fair bit longer to get to the first major city. Guardians seem to have more things sort of handed to them early on. (There was some minor noise during the last beta weekend about Defiant=Horde, always have to work harder for everything. Dunno if I would put it THAT strongly. Also, there seemed to be a LOT more Defiant than Guardian players, but that may just have been my particular shard on that particular weekend.)

-- 16:12, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

I got the impression in reading the forums that there were more people playing Defiant than Guardians, too - although somebody said that PvP guilds were tending to play Guardians, for reasons that were not entirely clear. (It's not like we're going any nearer PvP than we can help, anyway.) I'm fine with playing Guardian to start with - I know we'll get around to both eventually!

-- 21:38, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Also, I saw a character who looked like a ranger - where do they fall in this? Those four pretty much narrow me down to playing warrior or mage, at least to start with. Or some sort of offensive healer (which ought to be a contradiction, but probably isn't). I never have gotten into playing rogues - and I keep deleting my monks in GW lately, which I suspect tells you how I really feel about healing, as if you didn't know already.

-- 21:53, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

I think that if you saw someone who looked like a ranger it was probably a rogue. There is a lot of leeway. For example, mages can take a tree which makes them pretty good healers! Clerics have some ranged, some melee, some heal ... it's a fairly open system. Warriors tend to be pretty restricted; they are meleers and they just tank. That may be why I didn't see nearly as many of them as the other classes.

-- 21:59, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Here, have a look at this: http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/system.php and the specific trees under each class's page:

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/cleric/index.php

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/warrior/index.php

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/rogue/index.php

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/mage/index.php

And don't believe that ridiculous concept art. There is not a single character in the game dressed that silly. In fact, so far this game has been notable for armor that actually looks like armor, and not like the classic chainmail bikini cliche. (One of my clerics has a long skirt under her armor. She looks like a very dangerous librarian.)

-- 22:03, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Mel: Five Rift shots starting here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eccentricflower/5434888120/in/set-72157594428423366/

They were uploaded at actual screen size, so you can make them a lot bigger if you want to see the interface details.

(P.S. I did not pick the characters' names, at least not directly. I cycled through the randomizer until I got ones I liked. Actually, I did that for their appearances too.)

-- 23:23, 10 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Okay, I think I'm starting to get it - I was confused by the ToG people throwing around the subclasses. It was this cinematic that had the ranger-like guy: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/life-rift-rift/709829 and he also does some appearing and disappearing there, which makes more sense when you think of that as a rogue thing.

I did see a picture of a girl wearing something bikini-like in somebody's screenshots, but everybody was mocking it so it's obviously an exception in this game. (I've looked at so much stuff I'm having trouble remembering what was where, as you may have figured out.)

-- 02:25, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Well, so I guess I won't be playing a cleric - at least not for the beta. (One of yours is a druid and... what's the other one? shaman?) I'm not sure what I WILL be playing yet, though. Mage didn't grab me right away, although it may be more fun than I think. Maybe I'll try the ranger/marksman thing.

-- 07:02, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Let's see, what other questions do I have... what happens when you die? And how much does it matter what race you pick? (I'm sure I'll think of more.)

-- 07:47, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

There are very minor distinctions between the three races each side has. Each one has a race that's a little bit more physical, one that's a little more all-purpose, and one that's a little more "spiritual" (e.g. might make a better casting class). But I suspect in the long game it doesn't mean too much. I chose the "caster" race in each case and they still did pretty good in melee - so far.

This game has a ghost/corpse-run system. You can choose to revive fully at the rez point, but will suffer nasty penalties for doing so, so usually you ghost your way back to your body. You also have an ability to fully revive without the corpse run (it's called Soul Walk) but you can only use it once an hour. There is a "death penalty," although it's not clear how badly it affects you unless you let it get all the way down to zero, at which point Bad Things may happen. The main point is that it doesn't go away over time; you have to pay a healer a modest amount to remove it.

-- 17:20, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

I've told you before I'd play with you if you didn't have your weird thing about superheros. ("It's no stranger than your thing about dwarves!" "Dwarves are very upsetting!")

(Also, I hate your login system.)

-- 19:50, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

You know the rules. No superheroes, ninjas, pirates, zombies, or vampires. Not only do the tropes bore me, but most of their fans bore me too. (Not you, obviously. Of the many adjectives I could possibly apply to you, "boring" would never be one of them.)

-- 20:01, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

Heh. On CoW (City o' Wossname) I have superheroes, ninjas, pirates and zombies. No vampires, though.

-- 20:27, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Woot - got my beta invitation. Not that this is a surprise or anything, but I was going to wonder about it until it came, so I'm glad I didn't have to wait all weekend. Now for the installing. I always worry about that, too - although since this is brand-new, hopefully it won't have any of those pesky Win7 problems like DDO did!

-- 00:10, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Yeah, I was going to tell you to start installing as soon as you got your invite. It's a long download.

This thread has some useful info you might like to read:

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?63650-One-last-time-for-all-the-new-people...

-- 15:27, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Oh hey, I forgot to mention one other peculiarity of this game's skills that you want to keep an eye on.

http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/system.php

Notice the part about the "roots" of the talent tree midway along.

You choose to put skill points in the UPPER part of the tree; the stuff in the roots becomes available automatically, depending on how many points you've spent in that tree. This is important not to forget because often the skills in the roots are some of the better skills! So don't just think in terms of "I'm investing skill points so I can get to [skill up in the branches somewhere]," think also in terms of "I'm investing enough points so I can activate [skill I want down in the roots]."

And remember to visit your class trainer every so often to buy higher levels of the skills you've unlocked.

-- 15:34, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Oh good, I meant to ask you about that - I had figured out the root part existed, but I hadn't figured out that you didn't have to use points for those. (There's a nifty website somewhere that lets you test out talent trees, but I'm going to have to find it again!) (Aha, here we go: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html)

Everything installed, AND it played the opening cinematic at me, so that's a good sign. I hear the switch is going to be flipped at noon my time on Tuesday, so I may be tweeting questions at you Tuesday afternoon! (That may well be for the best: if anything's wrong, I'll have time to work it out before you get home from work, hopefully.)

-- 03:51, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

The two characters I have already tried are on the Greybriar shard, for what that's worth. Although I may start a new one on Tuesday. I'm in an experimental mode.

-- 19:59, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

I was assuming you would start a new one with me, since that's mostly what we've done in the past - although I guess not always, come to think of it. I was thinking I would maybe start a Defiant char, to play around with while you're still at work, and then start a Guardian later. Or something like that. (Depends on whether they actually get started on time, whether I actually start playing when they do, and whether everything actually works correctly!)

-- 23:04, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

I'll be on Rift on Tuesday most likely. In a PvE shard. We'll see how long it takes before I get bored with it.

-- 16:49, 14 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Does grouping work the same way as in other games, Col?

Ysabel, I don't know if you are able to play during the day, but I will probably create my Defiant character on the Belmont shard (assuming the server names don't change tomorrow - right now it's still showing up on the list), because that's where the Older Gamers group is playing. I don't think anybody I know well from that group is playing, though, so I'm probably just going to be wandering around on my own. If you want to join forces, we can try to find each other!

-- 20:44, 14 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Also, there's another patch today, but not a big one. I wouldn't be surprised if there was another one tomorrow.

-- 20:46, 14 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

You know, I have no idea how groups work outside of the kind of rift battles where you are essentially automatically thrown into a group. I didn't get around to that!

-- 21:04, 14 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

Amy and I have Defiant characters on Belmont. I'm Ysabel there for right now.

-- 20:15, 15 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

I've got a Defiant on Belmont named Ranau. May start a Guardian next!

-- 23:00, 15 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

My Guardian is on a different shard, Greysomethingorother, and then the stress test that is the first day of open beta caused the servers to crash and my Guardian character to (temporarily, they say) vanish.

-- 01:08, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

Hey, Col, how do I get extra action bars?

-- 03:55, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Yup, I figure they lost 5-10 minutes of state database, based on how much quest progress we lost. They brought everything up after the crash, then immediately killed all shards again (I would bet cash to do a DB restore or at least an integrity check). This is why open beta was invented.

Look under Interface settings for Action Bars and there's a dropdown list to choose how many action bars display at the bottom of the screen (or on the side, but the sides of the screen in this game are pretty cluttered). The second bar will not come preset with keys, so you have to map keys if you want them. (Watch out; if you map control+numbers to them, you unmap your pet controls if you have a pet. Then again I never use keys to command pets anyway.)

-- 04:59, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

So how the heck do I find y'all on any of the shards I'm dorking around with? I know I can search by name, so I'll search for Ranau on Belmont, but Columbine, I have no idea how to find you...

-- 17:41, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Ysabel:

Also, Mel, I'm YsaFairy on pretty much all the IMs out there (AIM, YIM, gtalk, etc) so you can catch me on IM if that's a useful way to coordinate synching up.

-- 22:01, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Sorry, Ys, it's just the braindeath. I have been so exhausted the past few days that I'm doing well to find my way into the game at all, let alone remember to give out names.

It doesn't help that I'm using the random name generator so I don't feel any particular connection to these names.

Let's see, the Guardian mage I made on Belmont is called Orja and the two clerics on Greybriar are Eudara (Defiant) and Kenenna (Guardian).

I have no idea what we'll be playing tonight or how long my stamina will hold out.

-- 22:54, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

I put you on Renau's friendslist, Ysabel. I might not be back on there until later tonight, though. I've also got a Guardian rogue on Belmont named Marte, and a Guardian mage on Greybriar called Lilin. I may start a cleric somewhere before the week is out, just so I've tried everything!

Oh, and my AIM name is meiiificent.

-- 23:08, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Mel:

Oops, it's RAnau not Renau. I can't even spell my own characters' names.

-- 23:58, 16 February 2011 (GMT)