SWTOR: Space Combat Preview

Space Combat is probably one of the more underrated features of Star Wars The Old Republic. Yes, it certainly is not innovative gameplay by any stretch of the imagination, but it really is quite fun. 

Of course, fun is relative and many will probably not look past the fact that it is a rail shooter. Admittedly, i did have trouble when I first tried to play, not really knowing what to expect. Controls were simple, but tend to be sluggish so that took a while to get used to. 


Gearing the ship is very expensive so you should not expect to buy all the upgrades at the same time. Since missions can be repeated even if you fail, you can decide which upgrade will be the most beneficial if you cannot afford them all. Mission ends with you alive but targets not getting destroyed in time? Just get the cannon upgrades and perhaps one for the missiles too. 


It certainly is a very pleasant diversion from the normal MMO game. You can certainly play the game without ever doing a space combat mission, but i think this gives players a better feel of being part of a larger game world...or galaxy. 

SWTOR: Tanking Alderaan PvP

I have to say I am definitely having more fun doing PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic than any other game I've played. Heck, even League of Legends did not keep me for very long, as great a game as it is. I suppose a huge part in SWTOR's favour is the fact that PvP is very accessible. The bolstering mechanic allows even a level 10 to go toe to toe with a level 50 and potentially win. However, it does not give any talents or skills so that is already a huge disadvantage. Bolster also does not scale down, so those with top pvp gear will still overpower those just jumping in as soon as they can queue for warzones.

Mind you, I've never been one-shot. Or 2-shot for that matter. I went up against a level 40 Jedi Guardian a few times and it was apparent we were both in tank spec. However, the gearing and ability differences were very obvious and I was clearly outmatched. But even then, the fight did take a while before I ran away like the coward I am.

Alderaan is not exactly perfect for a tanking class. With the lower damage, you can't expect to go solo and kill someone. However, because of high survivability, you are suited to being able to protect the objectives for a long time. Sure, it can be boring, but SWTOR actually makes it clear that it rewards people more for objective play than how many people you killed. In this Alderaan vid, I cut out several minutes because nothing happened while defending the center node but I ended up 3rd on the leaderboard, particularly with the medal count and objective points.

The match shown was really really close - pretty much down the wire, but we were able to pull it off in the end. Pretty good for a PUG group actually.

Highlights of the match:

• Some really terrible goofs from yours truly. Learn from my mistake and NEVER leave the objective for a long time.
• The nodes interfere with line of sight and smaller characters can effectively hide themselves. You may never know that they are there until it is too late.
• Line of sight also makes stopping a node capper from range a bit harder. If you are range, make sure to move around the node to take shots at them.
• Keeping a friendly shielded and his opponent taunted ensures his victory. After the taunt, I go back to guard my node.
• 11k Objective points! I honestly have no idea how and which points factor in to your rewards. Unfortunately, the leaderboard does not show the rewards given to even your teammates.

SWTOR: More Tank Hutball

Over the weekend I focused on getting my Sith Juggernaut to a level where I get more tools to play with. I stopped at level 26 and this gave me access to Force Choke and Force Push. The former is a nice crowd control ability limited only to the fact that it is channeled. It lasts for 3s but that is usually enough to keep someone away from an objective.

Force Push is just a fantastic ability. All day I have denied goals and killed opponents with this ability and made PvP even more fun. The knockback distance is actually quite long, perhaps 15 meters and it can stun opponents unlike other class' knockbacks. The one minute cooldown is very limiting however and knowing when to use or save it for later can make a difference.

Some highlights of the video:

• Good use of ball passing for both sides.
• Using Force Push to knock people off ledges and into hazards. In one case, I pushed the enemy ball carrier into the poison hazard and rooted him with a charge to make sure he dies. I died too, but that was fun.
• Using Taunt when I can to make sure the ball carrier takes less damage. A Powertech was also doing very well shielding the ball carriers.
• A lot of good group play in protecting the ball carrier. The opposing group were a little disorganized, but they didn't lack in effort and had been trying to score.
• A teammate going the wrong way! It was a little confusing at first before we realized what was happening. We were ahead 3-0 though so everyone had a laugh. That same ball carrier also seemed inexperienced with ball passing.

Sadly beta is over, but I'll have more vids coming out during the week, as well as commentary. With early access coming in just over a week, I am very eager to play and get more SWTOR PvP action.

SWTOR: Sith Juggernaut PvP - Huttball

On the last day of the beta weekend, I decided to give PvP a whirl. I decided to stick with my tank spec particularly because of one talent - Intimidation. This allowed Chilling Scream to be cast without any rage cost. While Chilling Scream is governed by the global cooldown, it does not have a cooldown of it's own. And having a free, almost spammable AoE snare is incredibly valuable. Sadly, I wasn't able to get high enough level to get other great abilities for PvP, but I figured I'd still give it a go.

Huttball is actually a great warzone for a Sith Juggernaut or Jedi Guardian. While PvP is always about killing other people, control is far more powerful in a game like Huttball. Killing opponents would actually make things harder as they spawn behind the goal line.

In this particular game, I decided to play very aggressively and see if I can draw the attention of multiple players. My first skirmish did just that and 4-5 opposing players decided to beat on me. A deficit of half their team locked in a useless battle. It did take them 24s to kill me which was more than enough time for the ball carrier to score by the time I respawned. I decided to use this strategy a lot as my opponents did not seem to really care about the objectives and decided to farm kills (or they gave up early). I did make a mistake at one point when I created a 3-1 deficit created in favour of the opponents when I decided to take on a smuggler. Not that I didn't appreciate the healing or the extra shooter, but it was an unnecessary fight.

One of the better abilities of a Juggernaut at this level is Guard and Taunt. These make Juggernauts and Guardians excellent bodyguards for ball carriers and healers and actually makes tanking useful in PvP. I have to hand it to Bioware that they decided to make all specs useful for PvP and it made the game significantly more fun.

Other highlights of the match:

• A 3-1 situation where I was able to take one trooper down before I died
• Force Scream is a really powerful finisher ability. It should be able to deal far more damage than seen in the vid if I was able to gear up more
• Force Charge is a ton of fun
• The Juggernaut's resilience is shown very well on that last goal. Taking focus fire and having one healer, I was able to slowly make my way to the goal line. Also, charging through fire is fun, if dangerous (my health went down to almost 30%)
• Another show of durability of the class is when I decided to run through the poison hazard. Took some damage but it was not significant and allowed me to save my charge in case other opponents don't take their attention from the ball carrier.

In any case, I have now cemented my decision to make the Sith Juggernaut as my main class. While I was sad to not have the time to level and get more abilities, I welcome the challenge of learning how to use a higher level tank in PvP.

Diablo 3 Beta: Initial Impressions

With some shock, I received a beta invite to Diablo 3 in my email earlier this week. Of course, the first thing I had to think was "it's a fake!" and logged in to the Battle.Net site. Surprise, surprise, Diablo 3 Beta is actually in my games list. Sadly, I had to wait a few days to download since I didn't really have the time to play it.

**Important Aside - always, always go to the official site to validate beta invites whenever possible. Sometimes clicking links is the only option emails give you, but you have to be very careful to check where that link is really taking you to.

It has been a very long time since I played a Diablo game. I totally loved the original game and would play it when I could. Diablo 2 on the other hand, not so much. The second game did not catch me with it's story and, as a result, it felt very grindy. Could be my fault for skipping stuff, but to further the story, I had to get to a certain level and going through the same dungeons over and over just became too tedious.

So how is Diablo 3? One word sums it up nicely: fun.

The beta is actually quite small - only 13 levels out of what looks like 30, maybe more. It only shows the very first part of the game, up until the fight with the Skeleton King which only gets you to level 8 or 9. There are no cinematics yet and, partially because of that, the story is quite lacking. It does look like they are testing mostly mechanics, gameplay, and perhaps loot drops and leveling numbers.

What? I still need to kill stuff! And find breakable things!

So what the heck made it fun? I think I have spent hours killing the same kind of mobs over and over again, but it has not grown old. Between 2 characters, i've finished the beta at least 10 times. And yet I still am compelled to log on and play some more.

Part of the fun is that everything you do had some cool effect. The level 1 abilities may seem simple, but they still killed monsters in 1-2 hits. Some even knock away enemies off to the outside of the playable area. There are also so many destructable objects, even those that cannot be directly targetted. There's just so much primal joy from using an ability and watching tables, chairs, even walls smash and break. Yes, these are shallow reasons, but when you can't get enough of finding things to break and kill, it is reason enough.

Take that you fearsome furniture!

Sometimes killing and breaking things do get old, but then there's also the loot. Certainly not ultra powerfull stuff (although some of those drop too), but scrolls, gold, and training pages to improve your crafting drop frequently as well. The training pages actually may end up the more valuable drop as the crafted gear looks pretty strong. Gold drops do seem to scale with the player's level as my level 10 barbarian can get 20g from a level 1 monster. That may be a bug though.

The other part of the fun is the sense of discovery. Like other Diablo games, the map has some randomness to it. Not completely new maps though. Rooms and corridors are liberally copy/pasted in, but the actual layout of the dungeon maps are changed from game to game. You can log out after exploring a dungeon and come back to the same dungeon with a different map layout. This can also be an annoying feature if you get disconnected and need to spend several more minutes finding the entrance to the next dungeon level.

That leads to one of Diablo 3's flaws - the game only works when the servers are online. There is no option to play offline. Then again, a fully offline client can lead to exploits and hacks that can interfere with online play. It would not be hard for some enterprising person to run exploits like duplicating items or gold if the game is available offline. This kind of thing would be very bad especially for the auction house.

Speaking of which, the auction house in beta does not have the real money option enabled yet and works passably when selling and buying gear. I was able to make some decent gold, but since there aren't that many people in the beta, demand drops off pretty quick. I do find it interesting that you can sell items that are stored in the shared stash chest, each character's inventory, and even what each character is wearing. Convenient for sure, but I smell a mobile app on the way.

Since the game is always online, each game session has it's own "instance" which can be joined by other players. By default, your game is set to "invite only" where you can find a friend and invite him/her into your game. Other modes allow others to jump into your game either by finding your Real ID or using the game finder to locate others who are in the same quest as you. Monsters do increase in power when others join so it provides a nice challenge, but the loot is currently a little broken with the end boss giving me only low quality items. Not sure if that is intended or i was victimized by poor RNG.

There is still a lot for me to find out and do in Diablo 3. There are still other classes I haven't played to a higher level and there are certainly more updates to come. Apparently, the game files already include models and maps for later levels, so I really look forward to testing those when they are made available.

SWTOR: The Last Beta

So this is it, the (very likely) last of the weekend beta tests for Star Wars: The Old Republic. And boy this is going to be a whopper. There's no official estimate as to how many people have been invited or have accepted the beta test, but we can probably give a good guess at it. Bioware did indicate that there are around 1.4 million registered accounts on their site, but that number is inflated due to those with multiple accounts, including yours truly. Still, given that there are over 800k retail box pre-orders in the US alone, plus the fact that around 200k+ codes were given away through media partners, that number may indeed be reached. However, given the test is on a US holiday weekend, there is a huge chunk of people who won't be able to play so the number may be closer to 700k, which is still a lot.

Will the game experience problems on day 1? It certainly would not be a stress test if it didn't. However, Stephen Reid did mention that they intended to use this test to determine how they deal with Early Game Access. I would not be surprised if people would be given a set time they are allowed to log on during the day that the beta starts. Doing this gives me high confidence that they are really committed in a smooth release. Not high confidence that release will be smooth? Of course not. You can't plan enough for events like this, especially with the numbers they will be expecting. Can they pull it off? I belive so. But, at the same time, I will not be surprised if things do go wrong.

As long as "things do go wrong" does not include deleting the whole game. *cough*

One thing I did find interesting is how excited I ended up being for the game. Earlier this year, I was lamenting on how long Bioware was taking to even give a release date and that my interest in the game was waning. It was to the point that I was almost ready to give up waiting. But then the large scale betas happened. Getting my hands on the game did so much to alleviate a lot of my concerns about the game and brought back to life that little dying spark of excitement I had. I was happy to send in bugs I found and provided my feedback. Now, I just can't wait to test it again or play it when it goes live.

See ya'll in beta!

DING! Leveling Up and Pacing

With Star Wars: The Old Republic releasing very soon (hopefully I get in on Dec. 15, but I don't mind waiting for release), I have thought quite a bit about how this game, or future games, can keep me playing past that first month. So many aspects of SWTOR is still unknown thanks to the Non-Disclosure Agreement for most people and one of them is the leveling curve. After quite a bit of thought, it is that leveling curve that played a major part of why I still play World of Warcraft.

Now why would the leveling curve be important? Surely one would like to get to max level as soon as possible to be able to "fully enjoy the game". It was certainly a train of thought I had years ago. I remember when The Burning Crusade expansion went live, I hadn't slept much over the course of 4 days to be one of the first to 70. After which I promised myself never to do that ever again and, so far, I've kept to that promise.

World of Warcraft's current pace of leveling is certainly not a good point of reference. With so many expansions since it's release, the game pretty much just wants you to blow through the low levels to get the the relevant content. Even without heirloom gear (+xp) or guild leveling perks (more +xp), you can easily skip several zones you've never seen because you can outlevel them by just completing the current zone you are in.

No, if WoW is going to be a point of reference, we will have to go back to the 1-60 game almost 7 years ago. I had started playing March of 2005 and it took me around 5 months to get my first 60. Granted, I've spent time to try a few classes and server types (the RP servers back then were waaaay out of my league and they still are), but during all that time, I have always enjoyed the game and the pace allowed me to get immersed with the world and my chosen character at the time. It felt that my character was growing and learning and that the world (of warcraft) was alive even without dynamic content.

Azeroth just feels to me now like it is a virtual home.

In contrast, leveling in RIFT was just way too fast. I hit level 50 in just 3 weeks and I wasn't even trying that hard. I had split my time between 2 games and still made it to max level in less time than it took for me to find a character I want to level in WoW. I loved the rich environments, but the pace just would not allow me to stay still long enough to be immersed in it. Heck, even now I don't know what the deal is between the rivalry between the Defiants and Guardians. Their emnity always seemed rather petty and arbitrary to me. The titular rifts did spice things up a bit, but a lot of them made them feel grindy, and the randomness of some events made me miss out on the more interesting invasions when they were relevant (eg: I never saw a werewolf invasion while I was questing in Gloamwood).

In the end, while RIFT may be the better game in many respects, I went back to World of Warcraft. It's not even about the time invested in the game, but RIFT simply did not give me the sense of really knowing my character. A lot of the questing is generic and there is nothing that helps define your niche in the world. It's just "get to 50 and grind for your gear". While that pretty much sums up ALL MMOs, having gone through 1-49 so quickly just made it the whole lot more obvious. Grinds just don't feel like grinds when there is an actual objective to reach that is more than an in-game item. 

Perhaps SWTOR's "story driven" gameplay can drive things up several notches when it comes to pace. Without really knowing how fast levelling is, I can only guess that focusing on the story would slow things down significantly. I can certainly tell from the released videos that a lot of time will be spent just watching what goes on during conversations. If the quality of story is similar to Bioware's single player games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age (or even older games like Baldur's Gate for that matter), and if the game paces itself where I get to care about my character and the game world around him, then WoW will have some serious competetion for my time. Perhaps my new home will be in a galaxy far, far away.

Or maybe I'll be running around as an Asura in Guild Wars 2. Or sharing the skies with panda people on dragons. Only time will tell.

WoW: Item Levels go Squish (maybe)

Ghostcrawler posted a very interesting article and really, it was a topic that was expected to come up eventually. A guildie of mine mentioned that it should have been brought up for Wrath of the Lich King, and I definitely agree. I actually remember commenting about this when fighting Prince Malchezaar back in the Burning Crusade. 


What's also interesting is that, this is not just a problem with WoW. RIFT has some really crazy numbers with bosses that would quickly reach WoW Cataclysm health levels in a very short amount of time. Star Wars: The Old Republic will see this as well unless they figure how to deal with it early. 


MMOs have always been a numbers game at it's core. In PvE, the boss' health determines the length of the fight relative to how much damage the players are expected to output. Average player health determines how much that boss can reasonably do to pose a challenge to healing without overwhelming the healers. The situation is the same in PvP where the health/damage numbers have to be managed properly so combat can be enjoyable without getting frustrating (remember back in classic? 2 Holy Paladins going at each other can take hours). 


The numbers cannot go away, but right now, it's just ridiculously large. Back in WoW Classic, Ragnaros' 1 million health was pretty insurmountable, and bosses required 40 people to even pose a threat to The Firelord. Now the stats have inflated so much, a solo player can take him down is less time than when he was relevant content. 1 million just doesn't go very far these days. Good thing he's no longer a threat ...... oh. 

HA! Try to push me around now you meanies!

Now it generally isn't a bad thing, there has to be some incentive on getting good gear. Like Ghostcrawler mentioned, a +1 stat point upgrade is still an upgrade, but it's not that big a deal in the long run. Many people would like to feel like their characters are getting stronger as time goes by and nothing says that than a tank with +20k more health ... or 180k. But when the numbers get larger exponentially, it becomes just really difficult to manage. 


He goes to present a sample of what could be an item from Mists of Pandaria. He stresses that item levels are not set yet, but if they inflate the way they have been, this will likely happen. 

Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment. I totally want this by the way

So what are the solutions? Ghostcrawler presented 2 ways of how it could go; compressing the numbers or "squishing" item levels. 


Compressing numbers, basically just shortening them so that 1.000 will be presented as 1K looks like a good solution, but it seems more of a band aid than a fix. Not going into the technical limitations of current computing hardware/software, while the numbers will become more managable, inflation is still actually happening at a silly rate and, when we come to it, 1B will still be 1,000,000,000. Also, DPS numbers don't really increment in large numbers. 50k dps can be anywhere between 50,000 and 50,999 and that is a huge difference. It provides a bit more challenge when it comes to theorycrafting.


"Squishing" item levels seems like a better solution. The idea is to go back to previous expansions and reduce the differences between max item levels of those expansions.  An example will be that an item level 70 piece of gear from Burning Crusade won't be as big an upgrade over a level 60 classic item. While current content inflation will happen as normal, the numbers won't be drastically high as the items they are compared to isn't very powerful. 


The effect will be that current gear will have their item levels lowered significantly and damage/health affected appropriately. Yes, it will make it feel like everyone was nerfed if this is implemented. And yes, going down to 20,000 health from almost 200,0000 would be a bit of a shock, but this solution gives a lot more room to grow, and when a new expansion arrives, the items from the previous can go "squish" to make room for it.  I would take the initial shock of a nerf over eventually fighting a boss and chipping away at 1,000,000,000 health. 

So I'm gonna get nerfed again? Screw that!

Are there other solutions? One thing that could allay issues with high numbers would be making encounters more complex. Heroic Shannox is actually a good example. He does not have a lot of health compared to other bosses in The Firelands. Were he a straight up tank/spank fight, he would be dead in 2 minutes. The fact that you don't need to kill his dogs means that his health is all you need to bring down but, in order to do that, the whole raid needs to execute the fight properly. Just standing there and focusing on killing him will lead to a wipe as Rageface takes out people one at a time. 


Of course, fight complexity can only go so far and gets limited as more and more people opt for 10man raiding. Not so much you can put into a fight if there aren't enough people to do it. 


 Perhaps another solution would be some combination of "Squish" and leveling out the stat curve to make it more linear than exponential. There may not be any need to lower the baseline significantly so there would be less of a shock. It would make it harder to solo older content if this happens, but it would make things more manageable in the long run. 


I have no doubt that Blizzard will be addressing this matter and hopefully in time for Mists of Pandaria. However they decide to do so is up in the air at the moment, but the sooner they do it, the better. Other games will also need to pay attention to this as they will encounter this very same problem down the road. Their respective solutions may be different, but at least it would be something they will address. 

Mechwarrior Online: Joy oh Joy!

There is now do doubt that this site is not about breaking news. I only learned about Mechwarrior Online from Massively and even that is a link to the GamebreakerTV webcast. I have heard some mention of it here and there, but I didn't really give it mind...probably because I think it's too good to be true.

But there it is. It's true.

Now this is where the bigger nerds get to beat me up - I did not read a lot of the BattleTech/Mechwarrior novels. Much of my exposure to the BattleTech universe has been through the tabletop RPG, boardgame, technical readouts, and Mechwarrior video games. But the stuff I did do, I had a LOT of fun with. I remember one boardgame skirmish where a player was laughing at a situation where his 100-ton Atlas was being fired upon by a 20-ton Locust's machine gun. Then the Locust scored a critical hit. Which hit the Atlas' reactor. The Locust did die, but the Atlas was crippled for the rest of the skirmish, being unable to move more than 1 hex per turn, and was effectively useless.

These were the kind of situations that made BattleTech so engaging even though luck played a huge factor (much less in the later games). This translated well with the BattleTech computer RPG (The Crescent Hawk's Inception) and the added roleplaying elements of finding a good team just made it more immersive. Many times I ended up shelving a favourite mech until I had the resources or expertise to repair it.

Then there was the concept of customizing mechs. This was always part of the game world, but implemented early on as mech variants (i.e. different weapon configurations). This was kept as set configurations (limited on the availability of the weapons) until the later Mechwarrior games when you can put any type of weapon limited only by weight or allotted space.

But what made the BattleTech world really immersive was the fact that it was easy to relate to. Technology in BattleTech/Mechwarrior was not completely otherworldly. Mechs were lumbering behemoths that was in constant danger of killing it's own pilot through overheating. Projectile weapons like machine guns or missile launchers were the norm and the more powerful laser weapons just exacerbates the heat issue. There were also no alien races. Humans are split into feudal factions that have some cultural resemblance to our own.

In the Mechwarrior games, piloting a mech was anything but graceful. The mechs simply felt huge. There were no instant turns, run/walk toggle, or even automatic targetting. The things can't even jump without jets firing and landing was another matter. Got your leg shot out? Then you can see the mech limping and barely able to move. Heat sinks damaged? Gotta find some water and stay there if you want to use your laser weapons. I remember blowing up my own mech when my ammo exploded due to overheating. Also, nothing can really make you swear in despair more than having your mech shut down and seeing 15 missiles headed right to your cockpit. I can probably go on and on about what I loved about the franchise (and what I hated), but that would just take too much time to do.

Mechwarrior Online will have really high standards to reach. While there hasn't been a Battletech/Mechwarrior game in years, nor has there been anything that matches the experience since then, the developers will need to build up on what's already been made.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if Piranha and Infinity Game Publishing can pull it off. In the meantime, all this hype has led me to MekTek and their Mechwarrior 4 distribution. I'm just kicking myself right now for not even knowing they existed until today. So much for resting on the weekend.

WoW: Blizzard is Evil™ Edition

I am so glad for sites like WoW Insider and MMO Champion. They make data gathering for ranty sites like mine so easy.

With that aside out of the way, Blizzard is just totally evil. Not in the megalomaniac villain sort of evil, but the "business evil". The kind of evil where you know it is nothing but a cash grab, but you can't resist it because of one or more compelling reasons. One cannot fault them for it though because, well, they are a business after all. For every company, despite all the repeated "for the players" speech or PR quote they do, they all have to watch their bottom line.

So why is Blizzard "evil" this time? Behold the Annual Pass! You sign up and you get a bunch of free stuff. A new mount for World of Warcraft, a free digital copy of Diablo III, and guaranteed access to the next WoW expansion beta. All the other stuff is great, but that last one really caught my eye. 

I am still on the fence with regards to purchasing the next expansion, even if I have already accepted the pandas invading WoW. My hope was that I would be lucky enough to get a beta invite to try it out before I decide. And this is where the annual pass comes in. If I want to make sure I get beta access, I should get locked into a subscription for a year and there is already speculation that Mists of Pandaria™ can go live sometime Summer 2012. If this is true, then I'm basically paying for the game whether or not I buy the expansion. If this is the case, I would not be able to play any of my max level characters except for fiddling around the new systems. And I certainly would not be able to make a Monk or Pandaren character.

So basically, getting the annual pass makes getting Mists of Pandaria™ pretty much a sure thing. Unless it gets released late Fall or Winter 2012.

How evil. But also incredibly smart.

Will I get the annual pass though even after seeing all this mindbending evil? The magic 8-ball says "most likely". Man, that toy is kinda creepy.

WoW: Death Knight T13 - Huh.

So MMO Champion has datamined the death knight's T13 set from the latest PTR update and I have to say I am underwhelmed. It's not a bad looking set, and, if it was released/available when the others were, it would have been more acceptable. However, Blizzard has indicated that the original T13 was not up to snuff when it was rendered so they started from scratch. They went on to say they wanted to make a really great set that fit the death knight theme and I have to give them that this set does that. However, a lot of expectations were raised when the Q&A panel was asked:

Where is the Death Knight tier 13?

Its really awesome and you will see it soon

It's hard not to anticipate from that that the death knight tier 13 would be on par or better than what they did for warriors or hunters. Like I mentioned earlier, this isn't the worst set for death knights, but the first impressions from it was that it was rather bland. So what is really wrong with it?

It's really all about the helm. The rest of the set seems right and I do like how the shoulders look, but the helm is what everyone looks at first. The helm is where the first impression is from and where one would like people to stop and look at the fearsome death knight standing there. As it is, the first thing I saw was a bearded man. After some adjustments in MMO Champion's model viewer, it looked better, but I cannot unsee the beard. The female example looks like a bearded lady.

Now I know what they are going for with the spiked front of the helmet. It's supposed to be a ribcage for the skull theme of the helm. But it also makes the horns look a bit out of place. Granted, it looks fine in the front view, but the forward angle and length seems a bit much.

The biggest problem with the set is that it was released almost a month after the others were available. Even at the Blizzcon art panel, they had an image that shows every class except the death knights. This raised expectations even more. Surely something that takes this long would be an epic set that would blow away the rest. It became almost certain that Blizzard would put something that would "wow" their death knight players. It would immediately be known that death knights will have an awesome set.

Then we have the MMO Champion datamine. Huh.

I have to say, once again, that it is, in no way, a terrible set. It simply did not have the impact that was expected, certainly not in the way when the warrior or hunter sets were introduced. The general reaction was closer to when the paladin set was found. I remember the round of mocking laughter at the "bird boy" set, but, after a while, it did grow on people and I personally find it a set I would like to kit my paladin with. The same is likely going to happen with the death knight set. As understated as it is, it does fit the death knight theme and will likely look a whole lot better in the game than through model viewer pictures.

Even if it doesn't get accepted widely as a good set down the road, death knights do have to be glad that Blizzard didn't try to make a counterpart for the warducks.

WoW: The Pandas are Coming

I have dreaded this moment. It is probably a good thing I didn't attend Blizzcon as I probably would have just left after the expansion announcement. But is it really that bad? Are having pandas ... er ... pandaren really that devastating to the World of Warcraft? Is it really worth ragequitting the game because of this rather dubious addition to WoW lore? 


Actually, after the initial shock wore off and I managed to think about it,  the answer is no. 


Yes, the addition of the pandaren is a bit hard to swallow, and the lore behind their appearance in the game may seem forced, but it is definitely better than the draenei. A mist-ical (get it? wow, tough crowd) land shrouded in magic is definitely more acceptable than goat people crash landing their spaceship on Azeroth. But in the years since their introduction, they've become an accepted, and even a preferred, race for players. 

Panda or not, this is an awesome picture

Pandaren also serve another purpose; the World of Warcraft needs to stand on it's own. WoW has relied heavily on lore from the Warcraft RTS games and the story can stretch so far. As of 2011, Illidan has been killed, Kil'Jaeden locked from Azeroth, Arthas is dead and Deathwing is soon to follow. The list of threats stemming from the RTS lore is running low. 


That's not to say World of Warcraft was only keeping to lore born from the RTS games. The game has introduced a lot of lore it can claim as it's own and has been very successful (mostly) in making all that very immersive. Beloved and hated characters like Highlord Bolvar, Garrosh Hellscream are WoW inventions. The increasing insanity of Sylvannas, while not a WoW-born character, brings further depth and the promise of interesting events to come that will affect Azeroth. 

Pictured: Freshness

The lore additions of World of Warcraft has been weaved into, and expanded, the RTS lore and has been, for all intents and purposes, gradual. Mists of Pandaria takes a huge leap into lore of it's own making. An entirely new continent, new races, new stories not stemming from anything found in Warcraft of the past. The pandaren and Pandaria are a shot of freshness and are there to show there indeed are more stories to tell in Azeroth. It's Blizzard's way of showing that the World of Warcraft is more than just what we have already seen in previous games. 


Yes, they could have done an Emerald Dream expansion, and maybe it would have made more sense. Yes, they could have maybe sent us to bring the fight to the Burning Legion. But with the reveal of Pandaria, now we have to think "what else does Azeroth have to offer?". The last line in the reveal trailer said it quite nicely: "Azeroth's limits have yet to be revealed".  There is now confidence that there can be more after Pandaria. 


So I have accepted the pandaren as a good race for the World of Warcraft. The models look great and the environments shown look like they can be quite immersive. But why am I not convinced that I will play this expansion? 


Maybe I am not sure I will like this story arc. The promise of returning the focus to the horde/alliance war is nice, but I would have preferred fighting for lands already taken and lands to be conquered. Pandaria seems like a detour kind of like how Outland was. Perhaps it's because I don't know too much about it. After so many years, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor do feel like a second home. I still feel badly for the loss of Southshore and I take my time to look over it during my archaeology runs. After Deathwing falls, it just makes sense to me to kick some Horde ass and take back some of what we've lost. Or, if Horde, press the offensive. 

Do I look like I snuggle?

Maybe there will be all that in Mists of Pandaria and maybe it will be awesome. With the information now though, I just don't know. With luck, maybe I can get into the beta and see for myself if I will purchase this expansion and snuggle with the fuzzy bear men. 

WoW: Hollow's End Returns!

Another holloween season and another Hollow's End event in World of Warcraft. Naturally, the Headless Horseman's loot has been updated to ilvl 365 but great news to those who need those last few masks for the achievement: you can get them from the vendor.

There is also a new pet (pic from MMO-Champion) - leave it up to Blizzard to make something cute and creepy at the same time. 



The cat costs 150 tricky treats. Now these are relatively easy to come by, my paladin has around 30-odd of those in the bags now. In an eeeeeeevil Blizzard way, these treats can also be obtained in the handful of candy bags from the inns. So in their eeeeevil Blizzard way, they've found how to get people who have already done the achievement to do it again.

A few other things of note:

• Masks no longer take the helmet slot. They instead put a buff with no duration on the character to put the mask on. It doesn't persist through death and is still really, really ugly.
• The new quests are pretty fun to do and the Wickerman dousing WILL get you flagged for PvP. Some horde chased down my paladin after getting the dousing done. no one bothered my Death Knight. Sheesh, not even ganking love.
• The sword from the loot bag has some use even for non-agility users. The pumpkins are now level 85 and they can do some damage. Having my army of ghouls and pumpkins attack a boss was pretty funny to see.
• Setting fire to your own faction's Wickerman gives a reputation and xp boost.
• All those rare items that caused frustration for completionists that could not get their title for years? Those can now be bought by using tricky treats. Not cheap, but now a better means to complete the achievement instead of just pure luck.

SWTOR: Inquisitor/Consular Main Tanks

So the forums were abuzz with chatter from a Q&A session with community manager Stephen Reid where he indicated that the game would have 4 classes as a main tank (Sith Juggernaut, Jedi Guardian, Bounty Hunter Powertech, and Trooper Vanguard) and 2 as off-tanks (Sith Assassin and Jedi Shadow). This, of course made potential Inquisitors/Consulars quite irrate and people hoping that Mr. Reid misspoke or was simply mistaken.

As it turns out he was (see the related quotes below) mistaken and all 6 advanced classes are designed to main tank. This leads to an interesting situation where we have a total of 16 advanced classes (8 per faction) where 6 can tank, 4 can heal, and everyone can dps. Also interesting to note that none of the classes can do all three, so there are no jack-of-all-trades classes.

Now will this make me want to play an assassin rather than a juggernaut. At this time, not really. At least, not until I get get my hands on to test them out.

Quotes start here:

StephenReid General Discussion -> [VIDEO] Interview with Stephen Reid @ NY Comic Con 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calimwulf

Yep, this also contradicts what Zoeller was saying on class philosophy design. I wonder who was wrong, or if something has changed or was misinterpreted.

 I was wrong in this instance, sorry folks! I was

As I said in another thread on the topic, I got myself mixed up - a combination of my limited experience as a tank (generally) and my time spent playing a Sith Assassin specc'ed to be an off-tank.

Again, apologies for the confusion... don't blame Ed for the question, blame my lack of sleep. And lack of tanking.

I guess I should level a tank to 50 in live now to make up for it. 10.17.2011 05:29 PM


StephenReid Jedi Consular -> I *Really* Hope SR Misspoke Here :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by torsjn

In this interview, SR calls the Shadow/Assassin an "offtank".. wth??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6gtNCQPDmk tank part starts at 2:00.. he clearly says Shadow/Assassin are "offtanks".. Taugrim sums up and says something like "so there's 4 main tanks and 2 offtanks?".. and SR again says, "yes, that's right".. and then he also specifically calls the Shadow/Assassin "evasion tanks"

SERIOUSLY disappointing if this is not just SR misspeaking

As you'll see from Georg's latest posts, I did mis-speak. My tanking experience is limited (in MMOs generally; as I said in the interview, I'm a DPS lad) and I did point that out in the interview.

I think my confusion came from playing a Sith Assassin in our Eternity Vault demo many, many times, who was specced to be an off-tank, not main tank. However, as Georg has now corrected me on, that's not a limitation of the AC, it's a choice on the part of the player.

Sorry if I confused everyone for a minute. This is what happens when you ask questions of the Community Manager that are better suited to the development team. It's not their fault that they can't make it to every show, we want to keep them hard at work on the game. 10.17.2011 05:25 PM


GeorgZoeller Jedi Consular -> I *Really* Hope SR Misspoke Here :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by CriticalMass

Things change, apparently this has too. With MMO developers you can only go on the last thing that was said.

So apparently they've changed their thinking on the matter and now we are off-tanks. Which blows and goes against what they've been saying for a very long time, but whatever.

Nope.


By design, all tank capable ACs can spec to be fully capable main tanks.


There are no 'off tanks' unless you intentionally spend your skill points into different trees. 10.17.2011 04:19 PM

GeorgZoeller Jedi Consular -> I *Really* Hope SR Misspoke Here :(

All tank specs in the game are designed to function as a main tank. There are no 'off tanks' by design in the game, that would involve players intentionally choosing such a role by speccing hybrid.

SWTOR: A Never-End Game Story?

Ok, that was a terrible title, but I like it somehow so I'll stick with it.

The developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic have repeatedly touted that it's MMOs "story driven" gameplay will set it apart from all others. Story has indeed been a huge part in many games. World of Warcraft decided to focus on the story of the game with Wrath of the Lich King and had implemented technologies (e.g. phasing) to make the game more immersive. RIFT's dynamic environment does something similar and they have been releasing stories relating to the game's lore - something I wish they had done before the game was released. There is no doubt that the more attached the player is their character(s), the more they would want to spend time playing.

But then, in RIFT and WoW, the story is little more than a diversion from the daily routine. Once the story has 'ended', i.e. finished all the plot quests, it's back to the grind. I barely do any daily quests anymore and queue up for random dungeons only with great hesitation. Then again, it did take me a few years to get to this point in WoW so that's saying something about how the game keeps me engaged. Sadly, I got to this rut in RIFT after only 4 months.

SWTOR, on the other hand, supposedly brings the story at the forefront and is supposed to take a good chunk of time to do. Now this intrigues me in good and bad ways.

First off, I have played Bioware RPGs and the story elements are mostly top-notch. I have rarely played a Bioware RPG where I did not end up immersed as a result of the story. My favourite was Dragon Age: Origins. The story of the game did feel epic and it made up for a number of shortcomings. In the end, it gave my character great depth and I felt proud for his great achievements in the game world (also, he died). I played through a few more times, but none of the other characters felt as epic.  If SWTOR has a story element as good as this, I would be extremely happy.

But that brings me to the other side of the coin: stories have an ending. In my Dragon Age: Origins example, the game ended leaving me in awe and amazement at how good a game it was. Even all other playthroughs ended at some point. MMOs in general are not designed to end. When a player reaches max level, the game does make a change, and not always for the better. How will the character's story cope with the grindiness of the end game? If the story is about my Sith Warrior's rise in power and becomes a Darth at level 50, what now? Will the story be to go from system to system to kill x number of Jedi Knights on a daily basis? If there is more to it, how much more can there be until more can be added through patches or an expansion?

As excited as I am with getting my hands on SWTOR (subtle hint to get a beta invite), I have to wonder how the story element can hold up in the long run. MMOs are games to be played over a lengthly amount of time and there has to be something to do when logging on. Will the story provide sufficient longevity so players will keep playing this game over others?  Or will the story elements while leveling (which is said to be quite substantial) be enough for players to have such an attachment to their character(s) that they would invest more time in the game even if there is no longer a story to do?

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to answer that question. With the current NDA, there is no more info than what Bioware/EA has released or allowed to be seen. We need to have faith in the force (i.e. Bioware) that they can pull it all off.

Itemization Changes and Re-gearing

I still browse RIFT forums mostly to see what is going on. Not to mention that a lot of good topics from that game and WoW can be applicable to other games in the genre.


One of the bigger topics going on recently are changes to how stats work for warriors. For those unfamiliar to RIFT, warriors are currently stacking Dexterity rather than Strength (supposedly their primary stat) simply because Dexterity scales better. Most warrior abilities work so much better with higher critical strike chance than higher attack power and, while I won't go into specifics, it is certainly understandable when a lot of abilities/talents give extra benefit with critical strikes.

The downside is that warriors are preferring leather items or things with high dexterity over plate or anything with high strength. Trion attempted to stem this behaviour by providing a lot of critical strike chance to plate gear but the leather counterparts were still simply supperior. Trion's latest attempt on the test shard was to half the effectiveness of Dexterity for warriors. It has since been reverted due to, as Trion said, not being the right time to make such changes, but the furor on the forums was hard to ignore.

The same thing was done with clerics and Intelligence/Wisdom and the response and result were the same.

What interested me was not the actual changes, but the reaction. The main complaint I've seen was that people are forced to take time to re-gear. I'm not saying that that is not the case, I'm just saying wondering why it is a problem.

If you are a raider, hardcore or otherwise, you would be doing this anyway. Gearing has never been really static. Everytime a patch introduces changes, raiders will always see how it affects them and make changes appropriately to maximize their effectiveness. This is the same reason raiders will endure the grinds to get best in slot enchants or patterns no matter how long it takes. Recent memory in RIFT brought dual-weilding warriors to the top of the DPS charts and had them scrambling to get two good weapons to the chagrin of rogues. Changing the stat weights won't be any different, and you'll end up doing it no matter how much you complain.

If you are not a raider, it's not like they would be removing the stat's usefulness. There is no need to min/max stats if the extent of your play is solo or the occassional dungeon run. With this kind of pace, re-gearing will come naturally in the process of your daily routine and, like I mentioned, your current gear would be far from useless.

There are no MMOs that promise nothing will change from launch. In fact, the changes are what helps keep the game fresh, even if it does get inconvenient for players. When there is nothing new to learn, or no new goal to reach, games will get stale and players will move on. Change will happen, no matter how loud you complain. Best options are to deal with it or move on.

World of Warcraft: 4.3 - Back to the Story!

MMO Champion has posted some really interesting info on the upcoming 4.3 patch. It's already known that the patch is a big one, but I guess it's only recently that we can grasp the full scope of this update.

This also is very interesting to me because, despite being jaded with WoW and MMOs in general, I am quite excited about this patch. Yes, it's a new tier of gear, more profession recipes, and a set of dungeons to set up the raid's story just like at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. Same old recycled concepts, right?

I guess my main excitement comes from knowing that closure is at hand. One of the reasons I was so hyped up about Cataclysm was that the world was going to change and is on the brink of destruction. With the epic changes in the world would come an epic journey to defeat the Aspect of Death.  Several months later, Deathwing has hardly been seen. For max level players, you only get to see him twice as part of a quest. More if you get breathed on during one of his zone excursions.

Deathwing's absence left a huge gap when it comes to immersion in the game. While the level 80-85 game had several references to him and the Twilight Hammer is rampant, we do not actually get to feel his presence. After being able to survey the changes, the impact becomes increasingly muted as it becomes a normal thing. 

 In order to get a feel of how dangerous Deathwing really is, one would need to go back to do low level quests and not everyone is willing to do it. Heck, I would not have even known about the story of the pure black dragon if my guildie did not link what she got from the quest chain.

It was completely different from Wrath of the Lich King where Arthas was practically everywhere. You see his involvement in many quests and culminating in direct confrontation. It was a story that was paced well and a villain with clear motivations. Even if the methods were not at all that clear, we do see Arthas at work. We also get to see Arthas at his points of weakness and strength, a villain that has a personality. Hate him or love him, he needed to die.

Deathwing, in contrast, is a dormant villain. We do not have any clear idea of what his main goal is. Sure, it could be the complete destruction of Azeroth, but then again, it could not. The damage to Azeroth has been mostly collateral. As far as we can tell, he broke out and headed to Stormwind to ... torch the park? Other than perceived insanity, we have no idea of what his motivations are.

He does not even appear in any of the 4 raids that are currently live. Not even a quick cameo. Sinestra is probably the closest thing to Deathwing's involvement and she can only be accessed by top end guilds. Not exactly how you would imagine a story around a world destroyer.

So I look forward to see how they get Deathwing back to the forefront and our climactic battle to beat him. Lets hope it is as epic a journey as it is hyped out to be.

SWTOR: How Long is too Long?

Star Wars: The Old Republic (or SWTOR) is arguably the most anticipted MMO right now, with Guild Wars 2 being the other game out there making the MMO fans wait excitedly. But news for SWTOR has been relatively light considering the potential release date window closing in. I say "potential" because EA/Bioware has so far refused to give out their target release date. The best they have offered is "holiday 2011".

Considering that, as of September 2011, the game is still in closed beta, that likely means a December release, but that is only speculation at best. Now there is news that the game might be pushed to 2012.  Naturally, online comments about this haven't been too kind.

But it hasn't really been so long since the game was announced, only a mere 3 years. World of Warcraft took that long from announcement to live and it grew to be the biggest game of it's time. Wouldn't it follow that SWTOR would go down this same path? Is it wrong to say that this waiting has gone for too long?

The biggest problem I have with SWTOR and the wait is that the hype machine is not exactly doing it for me. Somehow, I feel it is simply lacking. Anticipation for the game was high when it was announced but there has not been any increase in activity since then.  Videos and announcements seem to have been released in small doses. If one is not lucky enough to have attended PAX, E3, or similar expos, there is no chance to even get a feel for the game other than short glimpses.

Beta weekends were the biggest thing to happen to get anticipation high about the game and probably the biggest news since it's annoucement. Not only did it get the fans all excited about getting an invite, but it provided a sense that the game is just around the corner. Finally, we had thought, the waiting is coming to an end.  Then, after what EA/Bioware indicated was a successful beta weekend, they announced the next weekend would be cancelled. While I know they probably have a good reason for it, it certainly does not bode well for the fans and slows anticipation to a crawl, if not stop it in it's tracks altogether.

Coupled with the news article linked above, one has to wonder what is really going on. If release is slated in 3 months, getting more people into beta would make perfect sense. There should be an increase in anticipation for the game, not more of the same small stream of videos and art previews. Whatever happened to things like the timeline videos or webcomics? Anticipation built up just from the IP is strong, but it will not just be the IP that will keep it strong for the game.

Maybe I'm just impatient. Maybe I'm just reading too little in between the lines. But right now, Guild Wars 2 is becoming more and more interesting with all the info they are putting out and, if EA/Bioware don't do anything soon, may eclipse SWTOR even before either game is released.

When Copying is a Good Thing

I've said this before, but I guess it does need it's own post : a game being like World of Warcraft is not a bad thing. Many times, a game is labeled by people as a "wow-clone", and usually as a derogatory term. To me, this does not make much sense. World of Warcraft is a nicely designed game. It has it's faults for sure, but so does every other game. To not look at what made it a huge success would simply be foolish.

Of course, World of Warcraft itself used to be coined as an EQ-clone, and again as an insult. But because of it's resemblance to EQ, people did flock to the new game. It was familiar, intuitive and, most importantly, accessible. While one can argue that the extreme popularity of the Warcraft RTS is what really boosted the MMO, the fact is that the games do not have much in common other than the intellectual property they are based on. There had to be something that went from launch to being the behemoth that it is today, and that's what the competitors are looking at.

RIFT is a fine example of taking another game's ideas and molding it to their own thing. There are many things RIFT has that WoW doesn't, but at the core, they could be considered the same game. And there's nothing wrong with that.

That was the amazing thing about RIFT. On first playing it, it was incredibly familiar and new at the same time. Considering the target of RIFT's advertizing (hint: We're not on Azeroth anymore), they wanted to get veteran MMO gamers in and hooked. I still hold to the theory that their beta tests were a mere marketting ploy to get people to pre-order the game. And it all worked. It is one of the most successful MMO releases in a while and one announcement indicated that RIFT hit the "1 million customers" mark.

It will be interesting to see where the games of 2011/2012 will take us. But one thing is sure, if one or more ends up being called a "WoW clone", that is going to be a great compliment.

Rift: A Fond Farewell

So after six months, I have finally ended my RIFT subscription for good. I did unsubscribe once, but came back soon after to give the game more time to make me love it. I have to say, I did, but it was just not enough. 




In my beta review, I did mention it was hard to justify pre-ordering the game, but some friends ended up playing so I decided it would be fun to join them. The game had several good moments in the leveling process and I did enjoy myself immensely. 


The first blow to my enjoyment was when my friends decided to quit Rift. Names in my friends list stayed grey as no one bothered to log on anymore. But I was a different breed of player and I stuck it out to make friends in the game. I did want my cleric to be the best it could so I vaulted to 50.  


The next blow came with the notoriety nerfs. In one patch, the time it will take to grind faction rewards tripled. And since the runes are pretty much the only thing I would want from the quartermasters, i would have to go all the way to glorified. It started going downhill from there. 


RIFT is a great game, no one can doubt that. But it just ended up not being entirely compelling. I still play the gorilla that is World of Warcraft and there's just a lot of time and effort invested in my character and I do still have fun in that game. Because I am not at all disgruntled with WoW, RIFT just had no lure for me to switch and set aside time to raid there. This long at 50, there is just nothing that would make me give up other games. Heck, days when I'm bored with WoW, I just play Dragon Age 2 and not RIFT.


The content patches also did nothing for players like me who are past the expert dungeons but don't raid. The first event was actually kind of fun, then the next event was fun, but looked the same as the one before. By the third event, I just didn't bother doing the dailies or try to collect the "currency of the month". There is only so much you can do to recycle this kind of content. 


It came to the point where I would log on, but don't feel like doing anything. I did try PvP, got a ton of achievements, then got bored. I tried hunting for artifacts, which got so tedious I just gave up and played Dragon Age 2.  It's one grind after another and I simply do not have the time or will to do all that. 


So thanks Trion for the great experience and my time in RIFT is certainly not wasted. 

Rift Beta Review

So the last RIFT beta event is over and I have been able to play a whole lot more this time around than the previous ones. So much more that I can actually do a proper review! Lets get something out of the way first.

Like I've said before, RIFT is pretty much like World of Warcraft; and any other MMORPG for that matter. Yes, you can tout all the differences between them, but, at the core, its the same kind of game. It's like comparing a Toyota and Honda sedan. You can keep holding to the minute detail that convinces you that one is better, but it's pretty much the same thing and does the same function. Games don't have to be extremely different from one another to be successful and a game just has to stand on it's own.

In fact, RIFT's being like WoW is part of what can make it a success. With little difference, switchers will have no difficulty at all getting used to the game. I certainly got used to the interface very quickly and everything just felt nice and familiar. Kudos to Trion in understanding this.

I decided to level from scratch again, mostly to see if anything has changed there, and also to try to level crafting simultaneously. The most I've gotten is level 32, and my armorsmithing and mining skills were about on par. Granted, I've neglected my weaponsmithing skills, but that probably was a mistake to try to level 2 crafting skills with such a short time alloted for play.

Creating the Character

For each faction, you basically end up choosing one of three races; an elf, a human, and a giant(defiant) or dwarf(guardian). Racial abilities can help determine your choice if you have planned your character ahead of time, but the choices are mostly cosmetic.

 What the game does lack in race choices, it tries to make up with a lot of customization options. Again, personalizing your character is great, but most of the time, such minute details are not clearly visible unless you look really close. Or go around without armour. Even then, your choice of makeup colour will probably largely go unnoticed. Still, the time invested in making your character is probably well spent seeing they cannot be changed and you will probably be playing this character for quite a while because of the class system.


Unlike some games, this one does not have a bust size slider

The class/talent system of RIFT is pretty interesting if a little overwhelming at the beginning and, unless you are a true alt-aholic, you may not want to create another character. The cleric, for example, can have tank, healing, and damage roles and they can be very effective in all of them. Even a rogue is capable of healing and tanking if they so want to do so. Naturally, there are strengths and weaknesses for each class filling certain roles, but the option is there.

New players will have a bit of reading to do though. Because each 'soul' of a class (equivalent to a talent tree in other MMORPGs) can be a primary, they come with a lot of redundant abilities. By level 6, a warrior will end up with 3 main strikes that appear to do pretty much the same thing. Before the action bars can fill up with redundant abilities, one has to choose which one is appropriate for use and ignore the others. Things become simpler once more points are put in. But, because you can't put in more points than your level in your main soul, some more redundant abilities might open as you put points in a secondary soul.

A sample soul. Yes, I like warriors.

You only start with 3 souls for use and the others can be learned later through quests. Resetting souls becomes increasingly costly so investing in role slots tends to be a good idea. Roles allow switching from one set of souls to another on the fly. If you want to tank and heal, having two slots for each role is very convenient. Each role slot becomes increasingly more expensive however (30g for the second role, over 1 platinum for the third, and so on). Still, it's better than going to a trainer and resetting souls.

The World of Telara

Telara is big. Really big. Kudos indeed to those that devoloped such detailed and massive landscapes. It is clear that a lot of time and effort was put into making as immersive a world as possible. Exploring is definitely something recommended to do between leveling and rift events.

One of RIFT's big selling points is a dynamic world, and it shows. Terrain can change depending on what is happening; one town may be successfully invaded by undead and the ground will turn from lush green to charred black. NPCs will also be killed and unavailable until the invasion is repelled. Yes, this includes quest givers. So best to make sure your quest hub has the right NPC in charge.

Hmm....people in this hub seemed to have lost a lot of weight. All skin and bones now.

There is a price to pay though with so much detail in the world.

RIFT is a graphics intensive game. At Ultra settings, I was barely eaking out 10fps. My gaming machine is hardly top of the line, but it is no slouch either. I needed to set it to Low in order to get a playable framerate. Draw distance is one of the biggest culprits here, as well as texture detail. Now I could go out and get a better graphics card, but that would be quite an expense to play just this game since all my other games play just fine with what I have.

Such large and detailed world around me. Now if only I could move.

The game can also come to a halt when massive number of players appear at the same place and starts casting spells. Twice I've had to deal with disconnects during invasion events when a boss monster is involved, and over 50 players are hell-bent to kill it. And this was at low graphics.

Fortunately, the game is still visually appealing at low settings. You just don't get to appreciate the world around you until you are much, much closer.

Telara being a massive world is a great thing, but there are few ways to effectively get around the world. Going from one quest hub to another is linear enough and, thankfully, there are places to sell junk to in most quest hubs so you can free up the inventory for important items - or more junk - as you quest. There is just no quick way to go from one quest hub to another until you reach a city/town that has a portal that links to the main city.

I am sooooo far from where I parked my car.  

There was one point where I was in the middle of nowhere questing when I wanted to go back to the main city (Meridian in this case) to learn new skills. It took several minutes from the portal hub, and a few fights, to get where I already was and I'd have to do it all over again. So the choice becomes if I wanted to continue on until I get to the next portal hub or just eat the wasted time and go to Meridian. A fast travel system to places I've already been to would have been extremely handy. I get that travelling slowly helps with immersion, but doing so multiple times makes it feel like an unwanted commute to work.

Luckily, dungeons help a bit in that everyone can be zoned into the dungeon when one person enters. But someone still has to make the trek to the dungeon in the first place for that to happen.

Rifts and Invasions

So I've mentioned rift events and invasions a few times. The title of the game is also what drives the game world. At random times an places, rifts will appear and spawn a certain event. It could be waves of monsters or it could be a puzzle event of some sort. Most rifts also spawn invasion forces that make for a particular town that can be defended. There will always be rifts and invasions around and players can also force a rift open if they see a tear in the fabric of the world. Conveniently, all these can be tracked in the map and you can even see where a certain invasion force is going. Some rifts and invasions are easy to deal with and some have elites that will take a group of five or more to kill.

A few times a day, a massive invasion event will occur and a zone-wide quest becomes active. Everyone in the zone can do this quest and help bring this invasion to a close, which usually means beating a boss monster at the end if the first set of conditions are met successfully. Participation in these events provide rewards of various loot and currency for powerful items as well as experience. It was very easy to level by doing just rift events, but that may change in the live game.


Charging headlong without much backup isn't normally a good idea. But there's loot to be had.

The rift events are also the primary grind in the game. Almost everything is tied in to these rifts; repeatable quests, learning new souls, story quests, etc. To get the most powerful items for your level requires a lot of rifts and invasions to fight as well as waiting for major events to happen - and hoping there are enough people around to beat the event. At the time of beta, the higher level up, the fewer events that can be beaten because there just aren't enough people in the affected zone.

The rift grind will happen early on as well. Pretty much as soon as you leave the starter area, there will be a rift or two nearby to defeat.

Because the RIFT beta was divided into events rather than one long testing phase, there is no telling how long it will be before the spectacle of rift events becomes mediocre or tiresome. How much can one stand when the maximum level is reached? Are there going to be more varied rifts to keep things interesting? Considering the game has an end boss already defined, can they stretch out as much as they can until the inevitable confrontation? Can RIFT keep me interested two, three, twelve months down the road? Sadly, there is no answer to that because....

End Game...or Lack Thereof

There is no information whatsoever about life at level 50. The last beta event only had leveling go to 42 and nothing about the end game has been addressed a week before the official release date. From what I've understood, the end game is currently in the alpha test phase with a lot of changes still to be made. This does not really bode well as it implies that there will be beta testing before any end game content can even be released.

This is probably the most unsettling thing about RIFT and the most glaring flaw. Unless they change leveling, it will take me only two, maybe three weeks to reach 50.  PvP is certainly an option, but I'm not a big fan of PvP other than a way to pass the time. The game world needs to have something to keep people involved and it needs to evolve itself in order to provide lasting entertainment. The MMORPG grind is perfectly fine as long as there is a goal. What is that next challenge in the horizon? What am I getting all this gear for?

As it is, the uncertainty has kept me from pre-ordering the game. I just cannot justify $50+subscription costs if I cannot be sure I will enjoy the game at max level. The game is fun while leveling because it is new, just like any new game. Things start changing when the leveling is over and there is the need for new goals.


Big ugly mob looks like it's as tired of seeing me as I am of seeing it.


At the End of the Day

RIFT has what it takes to be successful, but it is not a revolutionary, nor is it even an evolutionary game in the genre. It offers some neat mechanics that makes it stand out and the world of Telara is very immersive and is helped by it's dynamic nature. I certainly will be paying attention to how the game pans out in the next few months.

It is really only the lack of an end game that would keep me from recommending it highly to people - or even to pay to play it myself. The fact of the matter is, the beta events appear to be a mere marketting ploy to get as many pre-orders in as possible. And it certainly has worked. Without an extensive beta test, only the early parts of the game can be seen, and the game excels in providing a great leveling experience. To say RIFT is better than the competetion is a bit of a stretch when all I've gotten so far is the feeling of excitement that comes with a new game.

Just a gratituous screenshot while mounted

Still, RIFT has a lot of potential and it is all up to Trion to build up on that potential. With all the elements so far, I don't see any reason why RIFT can't be a huge competitor in the MMORPG market.