Rift Beta 5

Posted by Wolfen in Rift

The latest beta test for Rift, the upcoming fantasy-based MMO, has come and gone. A larger amount of players were allowed in this time to test the latest offerings from Trion. If their impressions of the same are close to mine, then they had plenty to like.

There are two opposing sides in the land of Telara. One side is “good,” while the other is “evil,” but that all depends on the point of view. Be that as it may, your first decision upon logging into the game is to select which side you want to belong to: Guardian or Defiant. Each side gets three races to select from. Character customization is very nice and detailed.

One worry of mine is that each side only has one starting area, no matter which race you choose. My worry was well-founded because with the influx of new testers the starting areas were packed. It was a literal sea of blue player names. As to be expected, competition over quest mobs was intense. I eventually got through, but this is a definite foreshadowing of a bigger issue when the game launches in March.

The world of Telara is a beautiful one. The graphics used are of a more “real world” style as opposed to World of Warcraft’s cartoon style. I have always preferred the life-like graphical style, so I was definitely pleasedwith what I saw. My computer was able to handle it very well. It has an AMD Quad Core processor with an ATI 5770 video card. I couldn’t max every setting out, but I could darn close to it and still get very good frame rates. The only time I experienced major slowdowns were during rift events.

Speaking of rifts, they are a major feature of the game. The barrier between Telara and the planes has been weakened, which allow rifts to occur across the land. Rifts are unmistakable because they are large and can be seen from a long distance. Once a rift opens, bad guys pour out of it, and it is your job to take them out. Failure to close a rift can result in an attack force gaining a foothold in your area, which will rampage across the land, terrorizing everyone they come across. If you are successful in closing a rift, you are rewarded with various planar currency, experience, and items.

Another big feature in the game is how the Soul system works. Souls are subtypes of your class. You can use three souls at a time. For example, if you chose to be a Warrior when you went through the character customization, then you can pick among various warrior soul types. You could choose to be a Paragon, or a Riftblade, or a Champion. Or you could be all three things at once. There are many different types of souls to choose from, each with different skills. As you level up, you get points to put into your souls, which allows for a large amount of combinations to play with. To me, this is the biggest reason this game is so interesting. The possibilities are virtually endless!

I found the game to be is very good shape for being in beta test. Not once did I find any glaring or game-breaking problems. The game client never crashed on me. Everything ran very well. They have some class issues to work out yet, but overall, the game is very polished. I have high hopes for this one.

So, that is a quick summary of my early days of testing Rift. I can’t wait to play in the next beta event, which will start on February 4th. I hope to see you there!