RIFT Hands-on Preview

14 Jan 2011 at 17:48:51 by Paul Younger

The MMO market is a funny one, last year we saw previously subscription-based games move over to a free to play model and the introduction of more micro-transactions. With World of Warcraft having dominated the space for so long it almost feels like developers had given up trying to compete. However, there is a shining beacon on the horizon that may just be a game that has slipped under many an MMO gamers’ radar, TRION World’s RIFT.

For the past few months TRION have been running a closed Beta for RIFT and we’ve had the opportunity to take our characters into the world of Telara. A month or so ago we visited TRION’s offices and were pleasantly surprised with what we saw so this was an opportunity for a few of the incGamers team to spend more time with the game.

Before we hear screams of "it’s a WoW clone", we can assure you that while is does share some similarities in gameplay mechanics, this is not World of Warcraft. Throughout the Beta test we kept an eye on the general chat to see what other players were discussing and the general consensus was that RIFT fuses many of the best elements from games such as WoW, Warhammer Online and EverQuest 2. No huge surprise as many of the development team have worked on these titles and know what an MMO game looks for.

Blizzard is known for their polish but TRION have been taking notes. Over the past ten or so years we’ve had the chance to take part in many MMORPG beta tests and I can confidently say that RIFT is the most polished closed Beta we have ever experienced, in fact I would go so far as to say there are retail games that are not as polished as the RIFT Beta.

Class Variety

So what is RIFT? Why is it called RIFT and does it offer anything new and exciting?

In the game there are two factions, the Defiant and Guardians, each with multiple races. First of all you need to select your race whether it be Dwarves, Mathsonians etc, and it's here where RIFT really starts to get interesting.

In most MMOS you get to select your class and you only have one choice. In RIFT however you select a class and then pick from a set of souls to form what can best be described as a hybrid class. Each character can have three souls to make up their class and they can have four sets of three souls. What this means is that you can have a character which has the ability to switch soul sets on the fly without having to re-roll. Soul sets can be switched at any point depending on the current situation, as long as you are not in combat. For example, you may have a soul configuration more suited to PvP so you can easily switch to that. It’s a really nifty system that sounds complicated but is in fact  very simple to use.

Each soul has its own tree which you assign points to and with those come certain innate abilities in the ‘root’ of the soul tree which activate as you progress up to the top tier of the tree by assigning points to the 'branches' in the tree.

Stylish

What is most striking about RIFT is the level of polish that has so far be applied to the game. As soon as you enter the world of Telara you are immediately sucked in with early levels moving at a very quick pace. There’s no time to hang around, Telara is in danger and TRION want you to save it.

TRION has managed to give RIFT a very unique feel and style which is no mean feat considering what is currently on the market. It’s this style that has kept us hooked on the game throughout the previous four Beta events, the world looks simply stunning, and when you have the graphics cranked right up you can’t help but be amazed by the visuals, especially the Rifts which look amazing as they spawn.

The interface is very familiar and intuitive so players of other fantasy MMOs can jump right in. Sometimes there is no need to reinvent the wheel and TRION have thankfully not tried to. What they have done however is take all the best elements of an MMO interface and polished it to within an inch of its life.  MMO fans may be wondering if there will be any interface customisation but at this point TRION are holding off on add-ons. However, they are open to the idea but it’s unlikely they will go as far as the customisation we saw in World of Warcraft. In our opinion there is no need, TRION give the player just about anything they could need to customise the look of the interface layout right in the game settings (as seen on the left).

Level Me Up!

Levelling in RIFT is much like any MMO, although it has to be said that you level up quite quickly; over the course of four three day beta tests we maxed out our characters to level twenty seven and there are a total of fifty levels in the final release of the game. There has been some concern that the levelling is a little too fast but it has been extremely satisfying to play an MMO which keeps you constantly on the move. However, levelling may be cranked up for the purpose of the Beta test and it remains to be seen whether TRION will slow the levelling down on retail release.

RIFT is full of professions so if you fancy being an apothecary, runecrafter or armoursmith there is an extensive profession system in the game so much so that if we spent our time in the beta concentrating on multiple professions we would have probably not levelled much. Thanks to the great interface design crafting is a simple affair assuming you have the right ingredients of course and we can see players getting locked into the crafting and using their produce to make money in the auction house or simply gifting items to guildmates and friends.

Rifts and Invasions

The game is called RIFT, (it was previously RIFT: Planes of Telera before a recent name change), because the world of Telara is under attack via RIFTs that open up and spew out hideous minions from other planes such as Air, Death, Water and Fire. As the Guardians or Defiant you are fighting against these forces and share a common enemy called Regulos. The difference between these two factions is that the Guardians appear to be a religion driven faction while the Defiant have their roots firmly grounded in technology. Think of it as a religion versus science scenario.

If you strip RIFT down to the different game components, at its heart is a traditional MMO experience with questing and a solid back-story, but there is another layer to the game, the rifts and invasions themselves.

Throughout Telara portals to other planes spawn, it can happen anytime and anywhere. These portals then spew out all sorts of nasties and unless players work together to close the rifts down the world becomes invaded by hordes of roaming and potentially dangerous enemy. Shut a rift down and the invasion is thwarted.

Over time rifts to these other planes will close themselves down but by then they could have caused all kinds of havoc. For example, leave a rift open for a long period and invading forces will take a foothold at key locations such as towns or outposts. Once this happens handing in quests takes on a whole new meaning. NPCs will attempt to fight the enemy but more often than not they get pasted. The only thing to do is work together and get the foothold removed.

This is where the game starts to differ from others. More often than not in an MMO you go about your business levelling and questing solo or in small groups. What TRION are managing to achieve is to bring players together around these events. This is helping to make the world feel alive with people who are working together against a common enemy. It’s a simple idea that is so far working incredibly well and will help bring the RIFT community together.

Fighting the rifts, players have to work together to take down the spawned enemies.  This is a great way to gain experience and also share in some tasty loot. Any player fighting a rift is rewarded so it makes it worthwhile getting involved.

Rifts tend to spawn in certain locations all the time so not everything is as random as it first seems. This usually happens around settlements, so if players want to hunt down invasions they never have to go far to find one. They can be incredibly challenging as we found out last week when a group of eight of us tried to take down a main rift boss called Werebeast. This took 45 minutes to achieve with our small group at 5AM. It was quite a battle as you can see from the video.

Heading to Release

With only two more beta events to go until launch, (the next being on the 25 January), we are gagging to get back in as more zones are to be opened up including the stunning looking Scarlet Gorge.  This will join the Defiant and Guardian faction zones together for the first time in the test because up until now they have been kept apart. Handbags at dawn!

Rift is so far proving to be a highly entertaining MMO that differs from its competitors, not because it is doing something spanking new, but because it is taking all the best elements of an MMO and fusing them together into one rich and entertaining experience.  The pedigree of the TRION development team is really starting to show as the beta progresses so this is one MMO that gamers need to keep a close eye on as it’s only a month or so away from release. Best MMO of 2011? It may be a little early to say but TRION are definitely on the right track with RIFT.

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