Enter At Your Own Rift: The first day FAQ
You've watched the trailers, downloaded the podcasts, scoured the forums, and sold your soul for a VIP key. Tomorrow, your patient wait is over, and the RIFT head-start officially begins. As you stock up on Red Bull and Mountain Dew and fight off the shakes during your server queue wait, you might have a few questions about what your first moments in RIFT will be like.
For this week's Enter At Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few common questions that players might have. Are you wondering about how to form a guild? Have you already made a soul build that you regret and want to reset? Are you lost trying to find an auctioneer or a mount merchant? Read on for some answers!
How can I figure out all these souls?
Trying to pick among eight different souls might seem daunting, but don't worry if you make a choice and regret it later. The soul system is almost a game within the game, and you can visit your class trainer to purchase additional "roles." You can even reset them if you have the coin and want to wipe the slate clean. To do so, just reset your souls, head to the soul window (hit n), and click on a soul icon. You should see a drop-down list of your available souls, and from there you can select a new one. This is particularly handy as you settle on your favorite solo, group, raid or PvP builds, and it also helps reduce the sting of the nerf bat as the souls get tweaked here and there.
You can check out this handy chart for a quick breakdown of what each soul is like, then plan your soul builds and do some post-game analysis with this handy parser.
Where is the banker/healer/trainer/mailbox/auctioneer/etc.?
Your minimap has a filterable drop-down menu of important NPCs and locations. Click the little "eye" icon and you'll see the list -- from there you can select what you're looking for and you'll get a waypoint right on the map if there's one nearby.
How do I form a guild?
Once you get out of the starting area and into the world of Telara, make your way to Meridian if you're a Defiant or Sanctum if you're a Guardian. Head to the Guild Magistrate and purchase a charter (these were relatively inexpensive in beta, but that price might go up when the game launches). In Meridian, the NPC was just inside the main building, and in Sanctum, he was in a tavern around back. You need four others to agree to form the guild, but you can invite across zones by adding them to your buddy list and then sending an invite.
When your guild is formed, make sure to pick up guild quests from the nearby NPCs. There are different objectives for each quest, like closing rifts or winning warfronts; completing them will help level up the guild and earn some nice perks. You can see the benefits in the guild window, and as you level up, you'll have more points to spend on these. Many require guild consumables, which can be found on the Guild NPC, so make sure you snag some before you go if you want to use them!
Where do I get a mount?
If you purchased a Collector's Edition, you can pick up your turtle mount at a nearby mailbox (use the minimap filter if you need help finding one). If not, you can visit a mount merchant in town, and as long as you have the coin, you can purchase one at any level.
What do I do with Planarite?
Planarite are a type of currency you earn from fighting rift invasions. There are also rare currency that drops from special rift events, like Sourcestone and Sourceshard. You can visit a planar merchant or a faction merchant in the city to purchase upgrades like focus items or gear.
What's this planar focus thingy?
Your planar focus is a container that holds planar essences, which provide stat buffs and unique effects. You can place essences in the planar focus and then equip it to give you a nice stat boost. You can purchase larger focus items from planar merchants, and you can get essences as rift rewards or from NPC merchants. There are special planar essences that you can get from faction merchants in town, and as you level up, you'll have the ability to build some pretty powerful planar focus items. These can be swapped in and out so you can create multiple focus items and interchange them depending on whether you're soloing, PvPing, or grouped up.
I'm in a rift, and I see a little window pop up -- what does it mean?
The rift window gives a summary of the objective, your participation, the timer, and your rewards. The button on the left opens your rift reward bag, and the button on the right opens the leaderboard. The bar on the side shows your participation in the rift event; the higher the bar, the better the reward. Make sure to loot your rift rewards, because the bag does have a limited capacity.
When can I participate in warfronts? Will I get stomped on if I'm at the lowest level of the tier?
You can begin joining warfronts at level 10. What's nice is that you aren't at a severe disadvantage if you're the lowest level for your particular tier. According to a recent interview, Trion CCO Scott Hartsman explained that players will be buffed in warfronts based on their level, so while a level 19 player will still have an advantage over a level 10, the gap will be closed a bit between the two.
How can I see the target of my target and solve other UI issues?
Make sure to spend some time perusing the interface settings. If you click on settings then interface then combat, you can set it up so you can see your target's target. There are several other options there as well, such as sticky targetting and smart targetting, so it's worth playing around with different settings. Also, make sure to double-check your PvP flag setting. In beta, the default was to flag you for PvP if you did anything to another PvP-flagged player. You can turn this setting off, which is advisable if you're rift-hunting and don't want to accidentally become flagged in the heat of battle. Just make sure your groupmates do the same, because if they get flagged, you can't heal them until their flags wear off.
Lastly, enjoy exploring! From the very start, if you have a sharp eye, you'll come across special clickables, quest drops, and even unique vendors that offer a limited quantity of rare gear and weapons. If you're lucky enough to catch a rare vendor out in the world, and you have the coin, you can purchase some nice blues and even purples. My guildmate Faunis passed by a villager in the Guardian starting area, who asked him to help drive off a wave of attackers. After being saved, the villager said he was fleeing for safety and handed off a nice lump of coin to Faunis. Meanwhile, as I was killing some Defiant technicians in the Guardian starting area, I received some notes with clues to several hidden artifacts. I followed the clues to the locations, and sure enough, found the half-buried artifacts, which gave me a nice short-term buff when I clicked on them. So swim to the bottom of that lake, climb up to that plateau in the distance, and click every shiny you can get your hands on. And be sure to visit Rift Lore, for some great background on the story of Telara and some interesting easter eggs as well.
Happy launch day everyone, and make sure to share your first day experiences below!
Whether they're keeping the vigil or defying the gods, Karen Bryan and Justin Olivetti save Telara on a weekly basis. Covering all aspects of life in RIFT, from solo play to guild raids, their column is dedicated to backhanding multidimensional tears so hard that they go crying to their mommas. Email Karen and Justin for questions, comments, and adulation.
