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Enter at Your Own Rift: The casual revolution in RIFT
The Fae Yule world event has arrived in Telara, and there's one part of the event in particular that really captures the holiday feeling. It's not the daily quests but the festive "shinies" that players can harvest around town, like mistletoe and the holiday candle. At first I enjoyed the fun of clicking and getting nice little rewards, but by the third shiny, I was cursing other players who were racing me to the spot and grabbing the goods before I could! Talk about a Black Friday flashback! Twenty minutes later I was in the middle of the most intense, knock-down brawl for shinies that could rival a top-tier PvP Warfront. You wouldn't think that harvesting little festive oddities could be turned into a hardcore game, but that is exactly what I and a few other players ended up doing. And that got me thinking about Jesper Juul's book A Casual Revolution. In it, he looks at how video games have gone back to their roots and reinvented themselves, leading, for example, to the rise of the Wii. His book focused more on console gaming and didn't address MMOs that much, but in this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I'd like to look at how his ideas apply to RIFT, particularly with recent changes to the game.
Enter at Your Own Rift: A six-month retrospective
About a year ago I was on a little show called The Rift Podcast with Arithion, Desi, and Trion Community Manager Cindy Bowens. It's hard to believe, but at the time, there was just a trickle of buzz surrounding RIFT and only a few details were available about the game. We're now six months into release, and it's worth taking a look back at some of the memorable moments for RIFT from beta and beyond. There have been many changes in-game, and while the ride wasn't always smooth, it's surprising how much has been added in game in such a short time. In this week's Enter at your own Rift, we'll journey back to beta and look at some of the peaks and valleys as it reached its six-month milestone.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Tidbits from 1.5
RIFT's Update 1.5 has been live for about a week now, and with it comes lots of changes. What always strikes me about the updates is the number of quiet changes that leave you saying, "Wait, what was that?" It's not a ninja nerf; it's more like the fine print of the patch notes -- things that you tend to skip over or not read closely because there's so much other stuff to chew on. This week in Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few of those "little" changes. And yes, we'll look at some of the larger ones too!
Enter at Your Own Rift: The curious case of planar attunement
Over the weekend, players finished off those last crumbs of the RIFT birthday cake and celebrated six months of fending off planar invasions. But already on the horizon is update 1.5, Ashes of History, and with it comes new ways for level-capped players to keep busy. One of the major features to arrive is the new Planar Attunement system. Players who are level 50 will be able to use any earned experience toward attunement points, which will grant new abilities and stat bonuses. In many ways, it resembles the AA systems used in EverQuest and EverQuest II, although there are some noticeable differences. The testing continues, and there are still tweaks to come with this system, but there are several questions surrounding the addition of the Planar Attunement system. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll look at some potentially tricky issues when it comes to RIFT and AAs.
Enter at your own Rift: Checking out Update 1.3
The calm before the storm. That's the best way to describe the RIFT screenshot above. As I puttered around and wasted time trying to frame my screenshot from the ideal angle, working that nomad model to his full potential, I was seconds away from a zone event opening up on my head. Instantly, about 50 gigantic desert warriors emerged to attack us for their leader's amusement. And for the next half hour, Fortune's Shore was overrun with warriors, stone golems, and dog people. Fortune's Shore isn't the only place to experience chaos and danger, though. Whatever the Dwarves did in Hammerknell, it's finally caught up with them -- and with all of Telara. Abyssal and Endless Court forces are posing a real threat, and the Ascended are now tasked with repelling the invasions and charging back into Hammerknell. In this week's Enter at your Own Rift, we'll look at a few of the changes from Update 1.3. Read on for a look at tithes, character transfers, trial servers, and towering colossi!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Notes from the front
The past week in RIFT has felt like a bit of a transition period. The world event came to an end, and players have generally put that behind them. Meanwhile, there are some pretty big things coming up soon with the next update, so you can feel the anticipation (and in some cases, concern) from the players over these changes. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I'll discuss a few things that have caught my eye recently in game. Is coin-lock doing its job? Are we winning the battle of the spammers? Will the Dwarf NPC that I'm escorting really be dumb enough to run into that foothold up the road? Read on for the answers!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Evaluating events
If there's one color that sums up my RIFT experience lately, it's purple. Purple loot, purple dye for my armor, and of course, the purple glow of a death rift on the horizon. One month after launch, players are faced with the decision of whether to subscribe and continue the pursuit of purple or leave Telara's struggles to another Ascended. Of course, Trion was all-too-ready to help influence that decision. With a one-two punch, the devs unveiled two big events this past weekend: The River of Souls world event and The Allies of the Ascended weekend. The world event highlights RIFT's first major game update, and it unfolds in a series of phases over the next couple of weeks. Allies of the Ascended was essentially a "recruit-a-friend" trial weekend, and players were given codes to pass along to their friends and guildmates. It's probably not a coincidence that these two events were launched together at a time when MMOs normally start to face a dip in population. So did these events deliver? Read on for a closer look!
Massively Exclusive: Simon Ffinch on RIFT's game update
Just one month after launch, Trion is set to unveil its first major game update for RIFT. One of the biggest parts of the update is the launch of the new 20-man raid zone, The River of Souls, and there is a week-long in-game event that highlights the storyline and kicks things off. Also included in the update are several adjustments to the souls and even some changes to the way rift loot is awarded. To chat about these goodies and more, Massively sat down with Simon Ffinch, Design Director for RIFT. Read on to hear him discuss some details about the in-game event as well as the new raid zone, an update on security, and a hint at what's planned down the road.
Enter at Your Own Rift: One month in, how's the game?
Snakes -- they're the one thing in RIFT that I absolutely detest, not because they're dangerous or scary, but because they refuse to drop the last snake tear that I need for my critter tears collection. I've killed dozens, perhaps even hundreds, but every time, I walk away empty-handed. Oh sure, every now and then, one will give off that sparkle effect when it has loot, but it's always just the morale-crushing snake skin. I have killed so many snakes that I could probably string them together and encircle the world of Telara three times. Instead, I'll step away from my snake-slaughter to report on the news from Telara. It's been a month since the head-start launch, and already we've seen several major changes. Read on for a my mini-progress-report on public grouping, security, training dummies, and my incredible shrinking armor.
Enter At Your Own Rift: Dispelling the WoWhammer myth
If you've participated in RIFT's beta events at all, you're probably wishing you had a nickel for every time you heard a player claim that RIFT is just like World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online -- WAR because of the comparison of rifts to public quests, and WoW mainly because it's the gold standard of MMOs today. Last week, my colleague Justin gave a great argument as to why the familiar isn't necessarily a bad thing. But while RIFT does have several familiar features, it manages in several ways to set itself apart from the pack. This week, I'm going to tackle the argument that RIFT is just like WoW and Warhammer Online. Join me for a look at what makes this game stand out from the crowd, and see why it's time to dispel the WoWhammer myth.
