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.

Rift: Beta 5 Experience

I've seen ads about RIFT for a while now, but have always chalked it up as an AION clone or one of those cheap free-to-play (f2p) MMORPGs. But a few weeks ago, my curiousity was piqued enough to sign up for the beta. I was quite surprised, when I got a beta invite, that the beta event I was invited to was only 3 days long...and on weekdays. I had to look the email over a few times to be sure I read it right.

I suppose they were running server load tests for different times and days to monitor peak use or something like that, but it certainly did limit how much time I had for the game. Still, I was able to get a few hours of game time to have a really good look at some of what the game had to offer. UPDATE: They extended the beta for one more day, giving extra time for more testing.

Getting some stuff out of the way

First off, just to put everything in context, I am an avid World of Warcraft player. I raid at least 3 nights a week and spend a good amount of time in the game. WoW is still fun for me and there is a lot to keep me entertained while online. I am not looking for a replacement for WoW nor am I trying to "go against the flow" by choosing a new, lesser known game, nor am I trying to find that "wow-killer" game. I went into RIFT out of plain curiousity and with an open mind. Is RIFT really a good game or will I just be wasting my time?

RIFT is like WoW - and that's not meant to be a bad thing. There is no need to be completely revolutionary to be successful. To say that RIFT is like WoW is like saying a Honda sedan is like a Toyota. Sure, there are differences, but also many similarities. In the end, the game has to stand on it's own merits and drawing on already established aspects of popular MMORPGs only helps that. Debates of RIFT vs. WoW are ultimately pointless so I will avoid comparisons unless necessary.

Starting the Game and Game Performance

The first thing I noticed was that the loading times was really long. The RIFT logo screen was up for about half a minute after the intro cinematics. Speaking of which, I don't really like the main cinematic of the game which consists of stills, a voice over, and a LOT of on-screen text. The last part is what made me cringe. It's a pity that it totally distracts from the images, which are quite well done.

The game is also very graphics intensive. I run an i5 with 6GB RAM and a GT 220 video card. Not top of the line by any means, but no slouch either. I can barely get 9 fps on ultra graphics mode. Even on medium setting, I still can't get past 20 fps. I settled for the low settings, plus a few customizations to play at a smooth 45 fps. The game still looks very good on low graphics settings so I was more than happy to continue with that setup.

Factions/Races

With two factions and 3 races each, there aren't too many choices in this regard. They both have some kind of human and elf on their sides. The Guardians have dwarves while the Defilers have giants called Bahmi. Naturally, each class have their own racial abilities so those can also influence your decision on what to play.

The factions, to me, seem rather arbitrary really, with the conflict between them fueled only by fanatacism (Guardians are religious fanatics while Defilers swear by their machines). So far in my gaming, I haven't seen any reason why they simply cannot work together especially given how bad and powerful the common enemy is - no one is willing to see the middle ground. But hey, factions are required for PvP to happen so fantatic hatred it is.

The Class/Soul System

One of the biggest selling points in the RIFT ads was how much you can customize your character based on how you want to play. You get a choice of 4 base classes and each one allows you to pick 3 out of 7 'souls'. These souls provide abilities based on how many points are spent in them. The base mechanics of the class tends to be the same, but the souls give plenty of depth to augment the class itself.

All points spent on souls can be refunded for free by the class trainer and redestributed. Points cannot be all spent on one soul however, and you will be forced to put points in a secondary soul. Naturally, secondary souls have lower limits on points that can be spent on it compared to the primary.

Unfortunately, I had only enough time to play 2 characters. The first one was to get the feel of the game in general and the second was to actually try to level. I had a thing for tanks so my first character was a warrior with paladin(primary)/warlord/void knight souls. I followed that up with at justicar/shaman/druid cleric which I enjoyed playing. 

As good as the customization is, I can see there being some limits to it. Not all souls have synergy with each other and there are only so many points to actually spend. Chances are, there will be optimum soul/talent combinations for various situations near the end game, which will put some limits on customization.

New roles can also be learned and it gives another set of 3 souls to set up. Having multiple roles are rather nice as it is like being able to switch to another class without creating a new character. My cleric tank has a secondary role of a DPS with good damage over time and area of effect spells.

Learning those other souls required quests where you close a rift and defeat the summoned spirit from the quest item you loot. Unfortunately, at the time of the beta, souls can only be learned one at a time. This makes trying to learn all souls for your selected class quite tedious. Then again, time sinks are what makes MMORPGs function so it is likely intended.

And since I mentioned rifts....

Rift Events

Another selling point of the game are the rift events. Various rifts open up periodically around the world. These rifts spawn monsters that need to be killed to get to the next stage in closing that rift. The rift closes when the boss of that rift is defeated. There are also invasion events where towns and cities get attacked.

Defeating invasion groups and rifts give various rewards that are used as currency for purchasable items. Because of this, rifts and invasions become part of the grind for better gear and, after some time, it really feels like a grind. It's one thing to go and fight an invasion or rift nearby; and another thing completely when trying to hunt for them.

While I still had some fun fighting these rifts, there is just little variety in them. The only thing that changes are the kinds of monsters that spawn out of the rift.  It already started getting old and tedious after 8 hours of playtime, so I can't imagine how it will be later in the game. I suppose Trion will balance the rifts. Too few, and there will be quests that cannot be completed in a decent amount of time, while too many will make the rifts old news very quickly.

So What Do I Think?

While it feels like a quality product, there is still much that is still missing. I only managed to hit level 21, mostly due to spending my time exploring, but the level cap of the last beta was 30 out of the 50 in live. End game class balance and content are still things that haven't yet been addressed and the release date is almost a month away.

The fact that I lost track of time while playing says a lot - it is that engaging. But being great entertainment for a few days does not mean it will be entertaining months down the road; and that is what any MMORPG needs to focus on. In this respect, I cannot even begin to guess how good RIFT will be in the long run - there just isn't enough information.

I have to say it again, my first impression is that RIFT is a good game. It just isn't a "must have" game for me. I will be in the "wait and see" mode and, while I may not play RIFT at all, I do hope that it becomes successful.