The Shrine

I got a beta key that has 25 uses (e.g. 25 different guys can use the same key) which I don't need, so if you want to try the beta send me a PM since if I post it here I'm guessing some bot will pick it up and use it up. The next beta is 1-25 to 1-28, and there are 2 more beta events after that. You'll have to create an account at http://riftgame.com/ and put the key there.

I've got one, too if Don runs out of uses

Ill take one

My Guardian character is on Deepstrike and my Defiant character is on Dayblind. Probably playing my Guardian character more the Defiant side seems completely packed in comparison.

Defiant side seemed cooler and they've better racials (right now) so it's not surprising.

My character is on Faeblight, Defiant side. Might start on a new server if it turns out to be too crowded.

I'm tempted to make a character on the Belmont server, but I got the feeling this is going to be the equivalent of the Archimonde/Illidan server.

High pop servers are always fun, especially PvP realms.

Except this is beta and it's a stress test so a more populated side means even more lag and dev-side experimentation. Already had a dev throw an invasion so hard at one of the level ~10 guardian spots that it required a server restart.

Loving the rift closing. I didn't really know what was going on with the first one that came out of nowhere, but I used my skill on the newly opened rift and before I knew it I had 6-8 people helping me close it. Cool stuff. I was worried that closing rifts would be annoying and interfere with questing but if anything they keep things from going stale so far.

Read a couple threads on the forums that because a lot of the casual/kid players think the defiant side is cooler (and their racial abilities are certainly better... seriously, guardian humans get 1% damage increase? Even at 100 damage a pop that's hardly a return) that the guardian side will likely be populated with more mature people. I'm not holding my breath. That said... I'd rather be Eth lore-wise :(

The Guardian side is just plain not as exciting as the Defiant from the lore point of view. The Guardians are kind of like the Paladins of Rift except The Light doesn't even answer to them whereas in WoW occasionally The Light helps out the good guys which means their cause is a futile one.

The rifts inject some community aspect which quests tend to be sorely lacking. It's good to know that there are other people around you that's supposed to be helping you out instead of just stealing your quest mobs.

There's something special about the "____ is the first person to loot _____ on this shard!" world-wide messages when you're looting vendor trash. Seriously... "Yemeth is the first person to loot [Broken Bow String] on this shard!"

I think the announcements are kind of silly, but yeah I clicked on the 'XYZ was the first person to loot soldier's shard of intelligence' just to see what it is.

I was the first person to loot Trickster's something of something else on Faeblight!

One thing I find it annoying is a lot of people can't tell the difference between a Major and a Minor rift. Unless I'm not aware of some overpowered combination of souls that allows a class to do 10 times my DPS, you can't possibly duo a Major rift to stage 5 even if the mobs never fought back. They simply have way too much HP to meet the time limit on stage 4.

Had a Titan (or maybe Giant, didn't get a good look) came out of stage 5 on a Major Earth rift. That guy was killing anybody in one hit and had HP comparable to the zonewide event bosses. No idea if it's bugged or if you're supposed to kill him somehow.

I think they're just experimenting and throwing stuff at us and gauging our responses

Well the zonewide event in Stonefield didn't yield a purple emblem (and didn't look like other people in raid got it either) so maybe the Titan was meant to be the purple level encounter. He's certainly way harder than the zonewide event boss. Of course, I can't really tell if it was a Titan or just a bigger Giant since whenever I got close to him I died (and sometimes I died while not getting close to him), but if it's a Titan then those guys are supposed to be the guys-before-the-last-guy tough, so it'd make sense.

So I spent some time in this game, and I have to say it is a glorious WoW clone of epic proportions. Right down the keybinds, and quest hubs, and interface. This is by no means a bad thing though, cause WoW is great, and this game seems just as great, and polished, so it should have a healthy launch and life.

WoW right now is rather guilty of hubris, their casual playerbase is struggling to do any content because Blizzard made all of the content absurdly difficult for no good reason, vs their Wrath of the Lich King model where everyone got to see everything. In WotLK everything/anything was puggable, in Cataclysm, pugs regularly are failing @ 5-mans and raid pugs are completely dead. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the playerbase checked out Rift as a result for an easier time/experience since WoW just isn't bad-player friendly atm.

The similarities is somewhat superficial because the key draw to Rift, namely the invasion/rift, don't play anything like WoW. They're basically fake hard. You'll see the people drop like flies but almost always you'll still win at the end. The zonewide event bosses are probably easier than a decently challenging 5 man boss of the same level. You really can't actually lose to them but they also have no problem dropping 10 guys in one shot who aren't paying attention, but they can never drop all your guys and they never heal up, so you can't actually lose to them either. But it sure feels pretty epic going against a mob with 6 digit HPs in your newbie zone that seems to be killing 5 guys every 5 seconds and win!

Rift is huge on mobility. It's a joke to defend an objective with an Ultimate Wardstone. I can tank 2 normal invasions at the same time with an Ultimate Wardstone behind me in DPS mode, and pretty sure I can tank a Major invasion with a single healer and win in the same conditions. But because you got a lot of things to do you'll sometimes find your UWs completely undefended and you absolutely have to get there on time or you lose the zonewide invasion, even if it only takes one guy to repel it. UWs also don't heal up either without using the expensive item, so you have to be pretty vigilant.

I've basically played them all. I have fun with Rift. Honestly, I don't even care any more. It's a good time and whatever.

Had another zonewide event that literally failed in 2 minutes because nobody was at any of the two points to defend. Granted the game isn't always very clear on what you're supposed to defend either, but it was pretty clear everyone was just going out and attack the rifts instead of leaving a few guys to defend the wardstones too. It felt like a badly organized Arathi Basin or similar PvP game except we lost to the computer.

Was having fun and got my rogue to level twenty in the last beta and decided to give the warrior calling a go. The new beta started today and I like the way my rogue plays more so I guess I'll be sticking with him.

Having to do a full download again, but I plan on logging in at some point.

Really? I just ran the same beta client and it ran for me again after an updater patch and a half gig game patch. Bizarre.

Played for a few hours last night. It's fun. The interface feels clunky, and it's not super smooth, but that could just be my machine.

It is just like wow, except for the rifts, which are neat. I do like the 3 subclass system, it can make for some pretty interesting combinations, but I think like all MMOs there will be the inevitable "gimped builds" the "correct builds" I think you are able to redo your builds though.

Dont know if I will play when it goes live, maybe if I know some people who will be playing too.

It's smooth for me but I see enough complaints that it could actually be a glitch with specific systems. I'll certainly be playing my free month out.

Certainly some combination of ability makes more sense than others, like having a class that focuses on dot paired up with one that does DD wouldn't make much sense.

Yeah, I've found on all three of the characters I've played past level ten I've only bothered concentrating on one class as a primary and another as a secondary and haven't put anything into the third. So far I've liked pairing elemental damage dealers with normal damage.

Need about 20-30 points in a tree to unlock the more interesting stuff so you probably won't have much branching until you're around level 30 or so.

I haven't seen any purple currency drop in a while, wonder if you have to defend all the objectives to get them? Seems like asking a lot since you'd need pretty good coordination to defend all 3 objectives. Heck, it's hard enough to get people to defend one.

So who all is planning on playing at launch? I'm probably going to get it.

I think it's a promising mmo, my only concern with it is what those zones are gonna look like months down the line when the starting areas dry up, and people leveling won't be able to take rifts down.

It should be fine, there are plenty of rifts that can be closed with one person (albeit slowly) and my guess is they'll dial it down. They could also introduce a F2P model to keep the lower levels filled. Plus, unless it's summoning elites someone a few levels higher can easily solo a rift.

Having a little trouble deciding what rogue combination I want to play when the game actually releases. I tried a ranger/marksman through the tutorial and it felt like easy mode but it was mind numbingly boring compared to how much I liked being a riftstalker. Might keep my original character combo riftstalker/assassin/marksman with marksman just in there so I can build combo points from ranged. The character I played this beta was a riftstalker/nightblade/assassin and while the ranged stuff from the nightblade was cool it was more of a distraction from damage I should be dealing.

I have a lvl 16 Blademaster/Assassin/Riftstalker Its been fun, I like the dps. I had just started a Warlock/Necro/Dominator That has been a lot of fun too. I love the combinations you can come up with.

I'll be playing at release barring some unforseen catastrophe to the game.

Minor rifts can be closed by 1 person trivially. Need 2 people to beat stage 5.

Major rifts require 2 people to close. Need about a group to beat stage 5 (reliably).

Zonewide events can be won with 6 people (5 defend, 1 attack), though it'd seriously test your patience. The lowest I've won them is with 20, though I think we started with only 10 people and got the boss halfway down before all the vultures jumped in for the free loot!

Now it's certainly possible to lose to these rifts if your skill/coordination sucks, but I never said it's easy.

In fact one of the best way to level up seems to be just not close any rifts when you're attacked by a zonewide event and just keep on kill the invasions that attempt to attack an ultimate wardstone. If you think about it, it's basically a 20% XP buff for defending an ultimate due to the aura.

For my leveling spec I did Reaver/Champion/Riftblade, Reaver mostly for AE aggro/lifetaps, Champion for charge (upgrade charge very useful in PvP), and Riftblade for the crit damage buff (works well with Inescapeable Fury talented). It's mostly a tank spec but it does enough damage to be useful. I've been messing around with Void Knight and it seems like it's the best defensive tank, even better than the Paladin. If you manage your pacts right you have 20% spell reduction, +50% armor, and +50% strength at all times. It's also one of the overpowered specs for PvP because people never figure out that you're not supposed to cast on Void Knights. That said, keeping the pact buffs up is pretty challenging and you can go from a hero to a zero in 5 seconds!

We'll have to figure out a shard to all play on

Yeah was thinking that, too. I'll nearly certainly be playing the first day of head start so I'll shout out whatever shard I make my Guardian character on, I guess.

To defend the guardian side I can attest to starting locations making MUCH more sense and fast traveling is surprisingly easier (as in possible, as Defiant the first fast travel point I found after the capital was the mid level 20s town whereas you find it in the mid teens on Guardian, and there's another one when you hit level 20). Artifacts are also easier to acquire. I just wish I liked the races and their leaders as much. Although Orphiel (Defiant leader) does come off as a bit of a silly fool in his amibition.

I guess arguably it's in contrast to the blind devotion to the Gods the Guardians have.

I think Asha is the real leader of the Defiants. Orphiel was just some guy who brought her back to life after she died the first time.

I'll be playing Defiant. A friend of mine is currently playing on Belmont, and plans to play on that shard if the naming schemes are the same at launch.

Alright I'll use that shard for my Defiant characters.

Some friends talked me into trying Briarcliff (PvP)/Guardian side so I'll at least be on that during the last beta event and see how that went.

Looks like they're shifting around shard names at launch.