Podcast 25: New Years, Beta, and the state of RIFT

by on Jan.03, 2011, under Podcast

We Kick the new year off with a mini roundtable discussion about the state of the RIFT betas so far.

Kaelistis, Ananiah and Aimgar join Arithion to talk about:

  • Overall impression of the game
  • Soul system and the recent changes and needed changes
  • Rifts, Invasions, Footholds – the dynamic content
  • Crafting

Beta three is behind us now, and the beta NDA has been lifted. It’s full steam ahead to release now – soon is closer than it ever was.

Wednesday December 22

Thursday December 23

Wednesday December 29

Thursday December 30

Sunday January 2nd 2011

Podcast: Play in new window

Written by Arithion

Arithion was insane enough to start the production of The Rift Podcast back in June 2010. Apart from hosting The Rift with Desikis she also writes articles for the site and has a fascination with corgis.


31 Comments for this entry

  • Hadrune
    January 3rd, 2011 on 8:21 am

    Have to agree with many of the points, beta 3 went very smooth and it seems we will finally get some extensive PvP in beta 4. Rift is shaping up to quite the experience in these last few months…

    Thx for the podcast!
    Hadrune

  • Jason
    January 3rd, 2011 on 8:28 am

    Great listen once more folks. Thanks.

  • Veckna
    January 3rd, 2011 on 10:00 am

    Aye great listen as usual. I think the mobs with the varying health is to do with the dynamic scaling of the rifts/invasions as we’d often see the same name/level mobs with 500 health or so solo then when the area was crowded they’d have thousands of health.
    The zone event/bosses all had huge amounts of health whenever they spawned though (130k-500k+ depending on the mob)and were some really fun fights (the 2 water miniboss type guys were evil with a lot of aoe/knockbacks etc).

  • Joe
    January 3rd, 2011 on 10:42 am

    wb Ari and happy new year! Great listen as always. It’s nice to hear other players impressions. Sometimes the way they see things is a little different from your experience, giving it a new perspective.

  • SG_01
    January 3rd, 2011 on 11:20 am

    Great cast, a couple of notes:

    1. I think they changed invasion aggro between betas. I remember the first beta, and the had some invasion spawn and kill everyone at the rift before leaving ^^
    2. There is actually a “target of target” system in there. You can turn it on in the combat options. It has two options: “Show target of target” and “Cast spells on target of target”.

    Now, the invasion event at the end of beta 3 on the deviant side was awesomesauce. Need more of that :D

    ~ SG

    ~ SG_01

    • Arithion
      January 3rd, 2011 on 3:29 pm

      Yeah, I use that targeting system all the time. It’s not quite a dual target system, but it’s really not bad.

      I do seem to remember the agro, but I wasn’t tanking in earlier betas sooooo I don’t think I noticed it as much lol

  • Thas
    January 3rd, 2011 on 12:56 pm

    My first run into the Rift was Beta 3 so I don’t have much experience with the game but hopefully Beta 4 will show up in my mail. Any way, the game was very solid, I liked the skill tree customizing, the only thing with the skill trees are that some of the lower level abilities kinda repeat or mirror each other for each class choose but not really a big deal because is low level. My biggest complaint is the game performance, I’m still running a dual core (yea I know)processor @3.02 Ghz but I have 8g’s of memory and very good ATI graphics card with 1g of memory on it and wow I’m getting very low frames per second in these game, like 15-17 in most places. Hopefully as the game progresses the performance will get better, hopefully.

    • Arithion
      January 3rd, 2011 on 3:30 pm

      I hope the performance improves too – I actually have no problem at all. I’m able to run the game on ultra + (custom) and get around 50-60 fps constantly – but I do know people not as fortunate.

  • Belenos Stardust
    January 3rd, 2011 on 1:51 pm

    OMG I LOOOOVE your voice, as always.

    Awesome podcast. I enjoyed this one and the last one I heard.

  • Seeten
    January 3rd, 2011 on 2:48 pm

    The elite mobs with a metal helmet in the bottom of their elite pic are raid bosses. I can say that for sure.

    • Arithion
      January 3rd, 2011 on 3:31 pm

      Yeah, it’s kind of a cool way to differentiate them. I actually love the target frames with the pointyness … yes that is now a word.

  • Curtis Miller
    January 3rd, 2011 on 3:18 pm

    Good interview but totally one sided. Any chance of having interviews with people of different views? Rift is a beautiful game but so linear it bores many people to tears.

    I never had the opportunity to play Everquest, but played DAOC, Everquest 2 and so on. After 2 beta’s I am still looking for the challenging part of these games in Rift. Everything is so simple, point and click which takes no creative thinking at all.

    Also on Rifts website crafting is suppose to be robust? Where is the robust crafting system? In this interview you guys keep talking about how simple crafting is. Why is this a good thing? Would not it be better if it had a challenge to it? Instead of click a button and go text 20 of your friends while you make some armor?

    Just my 2 cents.:)

    Curtis Miller

    • Arithion
      January 3rd, 2011 on 3:41 pm

      It was neither an interview nor a debate, but a discussion of a group of friends who like the game but do see that it has some faults, and are capable of calling a spade a spade. When we have hot topic debates they’ll have differing opinions, but this was never meant to be heated.

      The game is very linear if you decide to ignore the actual dynamic content – which is possible if you so choose. But you can quest solo all the way up, group as a duo or trio all the way up, and so far, you can group to do dungeons to level after 15 – it remains to be seen if this is possible post 20. Like I said, it’s linear if you only look down one path.

      As for simple – yeah it’s pretty much as simple as most other mainstream mmo’s out there, but the constant invasions and rifts make the world far more dangerous than many others do – it’s what makes the game fun and makes it stand out just that little bit.

      Crafting is simple – it’s a good thing for some and not for others. That said – there are portions of it that are hard to obtain – like faction recipes at endgame – like some of the items available from rifts. Why would you want crafting to be intricate. I played EQ2 – we had the intricate crafting and it drove the majority of the game population mad.

      Not every game is for everyone – the game, apart from some adjustments within their game parameters is probably not going to change much.

      Sorry you didn’t enjoy the discussion – but then, if everyone agreed, it’d be a very boring world now, wouldn’t it? ;)

  • Nightfall
    January 3rd, 2011 on 4:18 pm

    Everyone had great energy,cept the newer player who sounded almost catatonic…j/k Everyone needs to remember these are FANS/PLAYERS of mmos, not proffesional gaming journalists. So cut them some slack……
    Ari is completely right about the lack of customization and boring combat animations. Those two items are the most talked about issues in beta atm.

    For the most part, it sounds as if the players are enjoying themselves immensely, and thats a definite positive.

    Keep up the good work Ari, and continue to let TRION know about the things that need to be worked on..i,e. combat animations and customizations…..

    Peace!

  • Crixus
    January 3rd, 2011 on 6:05 pm

    Wow, Arithion’s accent is so hot.

  • Nightfall
    January 3rd, 2011 on 8:44 pm

    Thats all you have to say Crixus? /facepalm

    Shes probably so sick of gaming nerds saying that…lol…poor lady……

  • Red
    January 3rd, 2011 on 10:23 pm

    Great podcast again :) I have been concerned with a particular aspect of Rift that everyone points out as a innovative feature. I find it slightly un-immersive… anti-immersive… non immersive… oh what ever the word is, that someone that is, for example, a cleric. They can have so many various skills without training those new skills.

    If you pick up a new soul, how do you all of a sudden become better at healing over time? Just allocating points all over the place seems a bit too easy. If you wanted to get good at picking locks, for instance, you should have to train, do a quest, get mentored, etc…

    Is the concept that you inherit a dead persons soul and you learn what they knew in a prior life or something?

    Anyway, was just curious about that point in the lore/mechanics..

    Thanks a ton for your site and casts, very informative and well done !!

    • Arithion
      January 4th, 2011 on 9:26 am

      Actually I think that is some of the lore – pick up a soul and BE that soul – so you should know how to use it.

      The thing is, what if you level up with one soul to 50 – and then try one you’ve never tried before… I can see that resembling the ebay’ness of characters back in EQ and early WoW lol

      • Red
        January 4th, 2011 on 8:37 pm

        So is that going to make us all schizophrenic? :) having so many souls in one body? And we know all the skills that the souls previous owner knew?

        ‘Hey, quit arguing with the poor girl…’
        ‘Oh don’t start up with me, I’ll argue if I like’ :)

        ladeda…

  • Dlvan
    January 3rd, 2011 on 11:22 pm

    Great cast like always.

    There is a minor way to distinguish between the various elites, it’s not always surefire but it helps. There is a buff on them, forgot the name but it says it increases damage and health, scaling from 1 to 5(1 being lowest and 5 being the highest).

  • Veritasien
    January 4th, 2011 on 3:45 am

    I’ve noticed a pattern of important announcements on Mondays and I wonder if making the podcast midweek would allow you to capture and comment on such announcements in a more timely manner.

    Naturally, you must have the time for it midweek.

    Cheers and thank you for your great work.

    • Arithion
      January 4th, 2011 on 9:27 am

      Mmmm sometimes the releases get made on Tues- Thurs too. This week’s was actually made on a Sunday sooooo there’s really no ideal time to put the podcast out :(

      But I get where you’re coming from – thanks

  • Veilll
    January 4th, 2011 on 9:50 am

    Oh i have a Beta key and i would love to be invited at last …

  • guest
    January 5th, 2011 on 10:54 pm

    Arithion you have an awesome voice :)

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