The RIFT

The “River of Souls World Event Wrapup” post by Scott Hartsman is why we play Rift; it is why we support Trion and why they are head and shoulders above the competition.

Fail or Learning Experience?

Let’s face it the event didn’t go to plan, the timing for a start for the Phase Two and Three events was silly, a short period on a Saturday that not everybody could attend – honestly who thought that was a good idea? I get why they thought Saturday afternoon was a good idea but some people who wanted to be there were still at work.

The zone events were laggy both from a network and graphics (I have an amazingly good PC here and I still saw issues) standpoint, the bosses continuously de-spawned in some zones until kills were “luckily” made.

Rewards didn’t drop correctly and some people experienced a failure to get the Achievement for attending the event despite being there (I was witness to this though it wasn’t me personally).

All in all, as Scott admits, not the way the event should have gone.

Pessimist or Optimist?

Some people will read this and think “well that’s not very constructive is it” truth is, it’s not meant to be, these are the plain and simple facts, this is what was witnessed by people attending the event. Constructive or not the truth is the truth, it’s what they do from here that matters. As the post above says they had great ambitions and fantastic ideas of how the event should work –  However, in the real world things seldom work just the way you want, they have learnt from it that’s what matters.

Sure it was frustrating and irritating that it didn’t work out as we hopped but it’s a learning experience, both from the developer’s point of view – What they can actually achieve out of their ambition – From our point of view we know what to expect, what to hope for and what can be achieved.

Life – Don’t talk to me about life.

An MMO is a ever evolving life-consuming bitter sweet experience and only through development time and the end users patients and input will this game be the experience we want and expect it to be.

Don’t go all rage-quit on it yet this game is just out of the blocks and we are yet to see the best of what it can deliver – and let’s face it what it has delivered so far is way above standard for it’s lifespan. Rift has plenty of growth room and plenty of surprises to deliver, strap in.

Day in – Day out.

Trion and Rift continue to shock, amaze, bewilder, astound, live up to and fall short of expectation it is a rollercoaster but all MMO’s are. The thing is the ups and way more often than the downs and Trion have proved here that when they feel they let us down they pay us back in kind.

I myself am glad I jumped on-board and I am very glad I invested in a 6 month sub, I am looking forward to many more World Events, Raids, Dungeons and anything else Trion has to offer – If along the way I have to experience a few “mishaps” then I am at least glad to know that the Team at Trion will be there to fix things.

Rift On!

As you’re killing your last Bogling, a horn sounds in the distance. Somewhere far away, someone exclaims that a strange smell is drifting through the area.

And then… nothing. No, there isn’t even a quiet before the storm. Literally nothing happens — life continues as it was before, rifts and tears continue to await the ascended, and monsters continue to stalk around, looking for people to kill. Anyone entering the zone would have no idea that an invasion is coming up.

And then, it happens. The sky may change colors, or a ton of tears that instantly transform into rifts may appear. And Rift missed a great chance to be dramatic.

Though it probably would never be high on the to-do list. this needs to change. (continue reading…)

It’s been a month already?

Can you believe we are already paying our first month subs, or in my case 6 months? Time really did get sucked into Rift!

It has been a month filed with many ups and very few downs, although the security issue kind of made up for there being very few downs. Despite it affecting less then 1% of accounts, it has been an issue that has overshadowed a near perfect launch.

So, Trion and Rift’s 1^st month. It’s been an interesting one, let’s see what has happened!
(continue reading…)

Many people think that Rift needs a system that can assist in the formation of groups for dungeons. Some other people argue that this LFD feature would make Rift much more anti-social (among other reasons). Both sides of the LFD argument need to look at more than just Dungeon groups.

If we looked at the numbers, most of the groups that are formed probably aren’t dungeon groups. Instead, they’re a kind of player-formed quest-oriented “causal group” that we make when we see people killing the same monsters we’re killing.

They’re the kind of group Trion should build Rift’s group finders around. (continue reading…)

Shyntyrr has pretty much covered everything you could want to know about Security and I don’t want to drone on about the same subject but now that the Coin Lock has been implemented I wanted to cover that and impact.

The Issue

Masses of players have been affected by the hacking of accounts — it is in no doubt an epidemic of epic proportions. No game has seen this level of “hackery” (made up word) ever. This is both a good and very bad thing. Well, ok, it’s only a very bad thing. However, it is interesting to see so much interest in the game, isn’t it?

The Resolution…?

The levels in Rift are staggering and in order to stem the tide of “hackery” (I am going to keep using it, get used to it!) Trion has implemented the Coin Lock system — a system that will basically lock down some functionality of your account if it is accessed from an IP address outside your normal range.

What does this mean?

Well it means that if you are hacked by a little evil doer from somewhere else in the world, they cannot sell your stuff or mess with the Auction House… but they can level for you! It does create a small amount of inconvenience if, say, you go to a mate’s house or play away from home — the game that is — but is a little inconvenience a problem? Clearly the answer is no.

(continue reading…)