Rift: Planes of Telara

[Grey Jorildyn]

I've heard lots say SWG had an amazing crafting system. Never played the game though.

[Purrrfect]

Are any of you Beta testers able to list the classes that are on the Defiant side? And are there some shared classes or are all classes one side or the other?

Also, it would be great if anyone can describe the crafting system.

Thanks!

http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Class Might help some.

[Alderaan]

Pyromancer gameplay.

[Lucavi]

My god, they even cast staff spells like Dungeon Siege 2. There has to be some ex-staff members working on this game, and that's not a bad thing at all.

[Kupo]

http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Class Might help some.

Thanks for replying but that site lists every class as both factions except Paladin and Warlock. The Paladin and Warlock info was released prior to Beta thus its not NDA which is why I think those are the only faction specific classes listed on that site. I don't really know if ALL other classes are available to both factions. I was hoping a Beta Tester could clear that up.

[Grey Jorildyn]

All classes are available to either faction afaik

[Hyan]

All classes are available to either faction afaik

Now this is finally some MMO revolution. Glad to see they are brave enough to break from the norms.

[Alderaan]

Thanks for replying but that site lists every class as both factions except Paladin and Warlock. The Paladin and Warlock info was released prior to Beta thus its not NDA which is why I think those are the only faction specific classes listed on that site. I don't really know if ALL other classes are available to both factions. I was hoping a Beta Tester could clear that up.

All classes are available for both factions, we just can't verify it yet since only Defiant have been playable so far.

The only real difference seems to be at what level they're available.

[Kupo]

All classes are available for both factions, we just can't verify it yet since only Defiant have been playable so far.

The only real difference seems to be at what level they're available.

Thanks for clearing that up. So it sounds like the classes available at the start of the game (character creation) may be based on faction but both sides can eventually unlock all classes.

Is anyone able to list out what classes were available to Defiant at character creation? It will be interesting to see how it compares to what Guardians can choose at character creation next weekend.

Oh, and if anyone cares, here is the August 2010 article that said some classes will be faction specific (but I realize things can certainly change especially when it comes to info prior to Beta).

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...re/4454/page/1

[Insanecyclone]

Rift just showed up on steam

http://store.steampowered.com/app/91000/

[Purrrfect]

Thanks for clearing that up. So it sounds like the classes available at the start of the game (character creation) may be based on faction but both sides can eventually unlock all classes.

Is anyone able to list out what classes were available to Defiant at character creation? It will be interesting to see how it compares to what Guardians can choose at character creation next weekend.

Oh, and if anyone cares, here is the August 2010 article that said some classes will be faction specific (but I realize things can certainly change especially when it comes to info prior to Beta).

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...re/4454/page/1

At creation you just pick archetype, not a specific soul. But I recall the initial 3 soul choices for cleric were Shaman, Inquisitor, and Sentinel I think. The rogue souls were Blade Dancer, Nightblade, and Ranger I think as well.

[Gokulo]

Mage was Warlock, Elementalist and Pyromancer.

[Purrrfect]

If you still need a VIP key I hope you're following their twitter. They've given out like 40 codes in the last 15 hours.

[Katlan]

If you still need a VIP key I hope you're following their twitter. They've given out like 40 codes in the last 15 hours.

I tried that for a few days, but its so retarded. 5 keys at a time. I inputted it w/in 30 seconds after it was put on twitter and I was still too slow.. so I gave up after that

[Purrrfect]

They started emailing last night, but lol@them cuz they sent the Rise of the Defiant email again. Anywho, you have a 2nd nda to agree to, and there is a 3.6gb client update from the last test.

[Grey Jorildyn]

If anyone else here is looking for a group to hook up with in the beta, let me know.

[Insanecyclone]

Got the email for this weekend. With that I know I probably wont get in the 3rd weekend for pvp

[Doombear]

Got my email for this weekend. Was unable to spend any time with it for round 1 but this time I am free... hope it runs alright. Updating now, and since I didn't for the first weekend that means a 6+ GB patch =(

[Alderaan]

Rift Reader Submitted Questions #8 – Dungeons and Raids

Exploring the scope and rewards of dungeons and raids in Rift

Armed with many reader submitted questions, Ten Ton Hammer’s own Ben de la Durantaye delved deep into the topic of dungeons and raids in the upcoming Rift MMOG. Talking to Berenger Fish, the design lead for dungeons and raids for Rift, Ben was able to loot a treasure trove worth of information. Whether your calling be that of Guardian or Defiant, the information unearthed will be of vital use to you in your quest to save Telara.

If you have any questions you wish us to ask Trion Worlds in the future, please post them in our official Rift forum.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are there lockout timers for raids and dungeons?

Berenger Fish: There are two different difficulty settings for our five-man dungeons. There is our standard dungeon that I use for players leveling up in the game. Those do not have any lockdown timers and you can run them as often as you want to. There is also the expert difficulty of the dungeons which are for our level-capped players, which add more bosses, greater difficulty, and have an expanded storyline. Those do have a daily lockout. As for our raids, we’re expecting that our raids will have a weekly lockout. However, we may change that based on the size of the dungeon or player feedback.

Ten Ton Hammer: What is the main difference between the expert dungeon and the regular dungeon?

Berenger Fish: The first thing we looked at was expanding the story of what was going on in the dungeon. For example, we have a dungeon called Deepstrike Mines where the first time you go in, you only see the mine section and the final boss is in front of a half-buried door. That’s a low level dungeon and that’s the complete story for the dungeon at that time.

When you go back as a level-capped character, you’ll find not only what was there before, but you’ll have access to what was behind the half-buried door. You’ll see the further storyline of that dungeon. We try to do that where it makes sense. We didn’t try to force anything. With some dungeons, it didn’t make sense to expand them that way. But every single expert dungeon has more bosses, increased difficulty (not only in stats, but also in mechanics and encounters), and better loot.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93121

Ten Ton Hammer: Expert dungeons are available to level-capped characters only?

Berenger Fish: That is correct.

Ten Ton Hammer: And not all dungeons have an expert mode?

Berenger Fish: Every single dungeon has an expert mode.

Ten Ton Hammer: How large are raid groups in Rift?

Berenger Fish: Our raid groups are, at the moment, ten man and twenty man raids, being two or four groups of five. Every single instance raid will have both a ten man and a twenty man version.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will there be any dungeons for small parties of two or three people?

Berenger Fish: We’re not planning on instance content for groups of less than five, but we feel that there’s plenty of content out there in the normal world for smaller groups in the form of rifts and individual storylines within the zones themselves.

Ten Ton Hammer: How large a role will crowd control play in dungeons and raids?

Berenger Fish: We try to take into account the abilities that a player has within a given level range. For example, we wouldn’t expect players to use Purge or Cleanse abilities early on. For our lowest level dungeons, we assume that the player won’t have those abilities. If they do, great as that will help them, but we won’t rely on players having those.

As the level ranges rise and we start introducing more mechanics of the game, or expecting players to have more abilities at their disposal, then we’ll ramp those in. Once you hit the expert level dungeons as well as the raids, you can expect to see some encounters that will require, or highly suggest the use of, crowd control. However, it won’t be every single encounter.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93122

Ten Ton Hammer: We understand that at end-game, we’re going to see expert level dungeons and raids in the forms of instances, but we also hear about rift raids. What’s the difference between a rift raid and an instance raid?

Berenger Fish: An instance raid has its own play space that is private for your group. The raid boss and encounters can be perfectly tailored to the environment. You can basically have a lot more scripted control over what is going on for the experience that we want to show. A rift raid takes place in the world and not necessarily at the same place. It’s a lot more chaotic.

In theory, other players and NPCs can interact with the rift raid at the same time the group is working to defeat that raid rift. That can be both a positive and a negative. If you’re on a PvP server and you’re trying to defeat a rift raid boss, you can fully expect to get interference from the other faction. It’s a different dynamic.

Ten Ton Hammer: Would rift raids be locked to a certain amount of people or would anybody be allowed to join in?

Berenger Fish: The more the merrier, really. The way they’re being set up, difficulty wise, some won’t necessarily require a full raid, but there will be ones that will. The most that a rift raid will ever require is the size of our largest raid group, which is twenty. That doesn’t mean that other people can join in and help.

Ten Ton Hammer: How will rift raid rewards compare to rewards from instanced raids?

Berenger Fish: The tack we’ve taken is that the rewards you get from whatever path you’re taken, such as PvE or PvP or rifts, we try to make the rewards as complementary as possible. That way if you only do one thing, you’re going to limit yourself. This is more of a broader approach. We don’t want players to feel that they can only do the one thing and that will negate doing something else. We don’t want players that play raids to feel that there’s no reason to do warfronts.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are there any PvP dungeons where the Guardians and Defiant will race each other to kill a boss while fighting each other?

Berenger Fish: There are no PvP dungeons per-se, although you will probably see something like that in one of our warfronts.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93123

Ten Ton Hammer: What happens if someone gets disconnected while they’re in a raid or instance? Will they be able to rejoin?

Berenger Fish: Definitely. As long as there is still room in the dungeon and weren’t replaced by somebody else or as long as they’re still part of the group that is still inside the dungeon, as soon as they log back in, they’ll be back in the same place they were when they were logged out.

Ten Ton Hammer: Conversely, can latecomers join a raid or dungeon?

Berenger Fish: Yes they can.

Ten Ton Hammer: How many dungeons and raids do you have planned for launch?

Berenger Fish: We’re planning, at least for our five man dungeons, on having ten dungeons at launch, which means that there are ten standard versions of the dungeons and ten expert versions of the dungeons. As for the raids, I’m not allowed to talk about that yet. I can say that there will be plenty of content.

Ten Ton Hammer: Those ten dungeons, are they available to both Defiant and Guardians?

Berenger Fish: Yes, although there are dungeons in each of the starter zones in the world. Those might be harder to reach, but there’s no reason why the other faction can’t go in there if they want to.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will they have quests in those dungeons?

Berenger Fish: We won’t lead into a dungeon from the other faction in the case of the low level dungeons. We don’t want to encourage a lower level character to go into hostile territory. If they go inside the dungeon, they can pick up a quest or two inside the dungeon.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are the dungeons spread out, level-wise?

Berenger Fish: They basically cover the entire leveling range of the game. When players reach the top end of the level range of the first world zones they are in, they’ll be able to do dungeons from that point up to level cap.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will there be any pre-level fifty raids?

Berenger Fish: We’re not planning on launching any raids below level cap at this time.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will there be requirement and level limit for dungeons? By level limit, I mean can a level fifty join a level twenty dungeon group?

Berenger Fish: We don’t have any upper limit in terms of the max level that a character can be to enter a dungeon. We do have some minimum requirements, which I believe are fairly low in that it’s lower than the level content of that dungeon. We just want to protect the newest players from going in there. For expert dungeons, you have to be level fifty.

Ten Ton Hammer: Just to clarify, a level fifty can join a group of level twenty characters in a dungeon?

Berenger Fish: Absolutely.

Ten Ton Hammer: Is there any kind of xp penalty for bringing in somebody that is higher level?

Berenger Fish: Actually, I believe there is a small xp penalty, but I don’t know what the exact number is. This applies to anywhere in the game that if you have a higher level character, so whatever penalties we apply would also apply to the dungeon.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/93124

Ten Ton Hammer: What is the time commitment that you’re aiming for with dungeons and raids?

Berenger Fish: They vary a little bit. We have a general target for dungeons ranging from thirty minutes to an hour. Some dungeons are taking longer than we’ve expected due to the skill of the players or familiarity of the game. The expert version takes longer because there is more content.

The raids will vary as well. Some will be, in terms of bosses, a small handful while others will have a significant amount. Those with a higher number won’t be expected to be cleared in a single sitting, so we expect it to take several days, at least in the beginning. As players get geared up, they’ll start clearing content faster.

Ten Ton Hammer: If you have a group going into a dungeon or raid and they can only complete part of it, can they come back the next day and finish it off?

Berenger Fish: For our expert dungeons, they will reset in the middle of the night, so in theory, the next day you’ll be playing a new dungeon. If, however, you play in the morning and then come back later in the day, you’ll come back at the point you stopped. For our raids, they will reset once a week. As long as you come back during the week, you’ll have the same progress you had when you left.

Ten Ton Hammer: Is there anything you want to tell our readers about Rift?

Berenger Fish: I would like to say that we’re very happy with the way that our dungeons have turned out in terms of quality compared to other games. We think that people will enjoy them quite a bit.

Our thanks to Berenger Fish for this interview. If you have any questions you wish asked in a future interview with Trion Worlds, please post them in our official Rift forum.

I'm a bit concerned about having level 50's doing instances for lowbies, but i guess it depends on the exp penalty.

[Katlan]

I'm a bit concerned about having level 50's doing instances for lowbies, but i guess it depends on the exp penalty.

how is that different from any other mmo where high levels run stuff for lowbies?