Rift: Planes of Telara

[Alderaan]

If there's anything Korean MMO's do right, it's the character models in my opinion. Their proportions and animation are always perfect. There's always something in every western MMO that seems off of goofy with our models to me. I don't get why we can't get them right without going the cartoony route of WoW.

[Lucavi]

Its the stiffness. Western developers don't use a lot of fanciful floating graceful swan attacks like Asians do. A lot of it flows down from their forms of combat. Western combat is straightforward and rigid; stiff. Traditional asian combat utlizes a hell of a lot more fluid movement. Take a look at any martial art over there that utilizes a polearm, for example. You'd have a European simply thrusting and jabbing with it, while across the planet, they're spinning and sweeping, not simply thrusting.

Some of that... "grace" becomes annoying when you see shit like Omninslash with Cloud or Blitz Ace with Tidus, where you have these regular people doing fucking double backflips and spins with a large sword. Its unrealistic. It does, however, look a lot better than a stiff, jerky form of combat that, while frenetic, doesn't look very nice from an artistic standpoint.

A perfect example is Age of Conan with just about any one-handed weapon. They're swinging it all around violently and jaggedly like its an American Gladiators episode, or some old Arnold Age of Conan movie. Then you look at Aion, which looks like it was pulled straight from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon spliced with Dragon Ball Z.

I'd like a middleground somewhere, which is why I liked certain WoW animations. There was enough grace with flowing swords or dagger thrusts, but still with enough savagery (mostly Orcs - I didn't like many other races attacks) to look like they're fighting on the whim, and not in some choreographed perma-cutscene.

I think that's my biggest complaint with Asian animations. They all look so scripted and pretty. There's no rage or sense of "fight or flight". Everything is like its been rehearsed over and over behind a camera.

[Katlan]

The combat and movement animations are, like Lucavi said, identical to AoC. when you atk and move, it doesn't feel like your atking a mob, but instead just going through the motions. It isn't even isolated to the fact that all weapons are treated like they carry the weight of nerf bats, it's that the movement and combat animations are down right clunky. One of the big things in mmo's is the need to have appealing animations since that's what you are going to be watching for the endless hours you play.

Blizz, w/ their 6 year old game, got animations down damn good (and they have gotten better w/ the newer models / races). So i don't see why a modern day game suffers from clunky animations like this. And the reason I mention this is because that was the first thing i noticed w/30 seconds of playing the game. And I didn't think anything better of it as I started to lv and use different weapons / new abilities

[Insanecyclone]

"Thank you for your feedback and for your patience as our team keeps working to prepare Rift for future betas and release. We'd like to show our appreciation by extending the beta for another 4 hours! Servers will be open until Friday, 2 p.m. (PST) ."

Awesome

[Jintu]

Some screens from beta3, all Rift Stalker.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v724/fuzen/th_b1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Rift/th_b2.jpg

[niwaar]

I got to play this for several hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am not going to say I got very far at all. I managed to get a Justicar/Druid/Iforgetcausethere'sfartoomanysouls to 10 as a Defiant and a Shaman/Elementalist/Pyromancer to 10 as a Guardian. The world is interesting enough. However, from the moment I jumped into the game, I felt that this was how Mythic salvaged money out of Warhammer. The game's graphics engine and NPC system seem to have been directly purchased from Mythic. The game looks and feels like Warhammer from step one. Even right up to the point where you are immediately in the midst of the war as you start up. Even the fonts used for all aspects of gameplay have not been changed.

Not to say the game wasn't fun when I was playing. It has some interesting abilities for all classes. Plus I really dig pet classes in MMOs so having multiple soul's that give you pets at level 1 was an awesome thing to see. The soul system has a huge amount of flexibility to it. I can see a lot of potential in its future. Definitely something Warhammer failed upon that was upgraded with Rift.

Rift's are basically a different version of Public Quests. While they seem to be more interactive and upgraded version of said interactive quests. Definitely a better way to obtain rewards. I never felt like I just spent the time closing a rift for absolutely nothing.


The game world however, felt more like a cross between Aion and Warhammer. Dragons coming to kill us for no other reason but to destroy us, just seems too much like Aion's backstory. The races really don't have any real individuality. A Dwarf just looks like a fat short human, and the rest of the races just feel completely human (even if the elves have pointy ears).

Needless to say I was disappointed by the game at this stage in MMO history. We have seen many new MMOs come out lately but none of them have had the polish that Blizzard has put into WoW. Graphically or otherwise. While the basic game systems for Rift are completely identical to WoW in virtually every way (the exception would be the interesting balancing act that is the Soul System), these features still feel a bit clunky. Graphically, it looks too "real" for its own good. The graphics are identical to Warhammer and Warhammer was not a pretty game. This game, just makes me look forward to getting my hands on TERA even more. It shows me what good people can do with a dried up, borrowed graphics engine and decent ideas. Now lets see what the people behind TERA can do with better graphics and decent ideas. Its just too bad that SE failed so pathetically with a brand new graphics engine and people who didn't give a flying f... about making a game better than their previous one.

[Biggie]

I have just recently started following this game and can say I'm looking forward to this most out of all the releases coming this year. I played WAR at the start and really liked the public quests and how they worked. The rifts look amazing in this game and seems to add nice content to keep you interested in playing and not getting burned out.

[Zerocool]

Warfronts!
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM PST (18:00 GMT) through 10:00 AM PST (18:00 GMT) on Monday, Jan. 10, 2011

Levels 1-25

As conflict grows increasingly brutal, the Warfronts of Telara call for champions to take arms and stain the earth with enemy blood. Will you join the Guardians and follow the will of the Vigil to salvation, or fight as a Defiant to usher in an age of techno-magical dominance?

Play to win! Participate in any Warfront and you could be eligible to win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 video card! Terms and conditions apply,

[Jintu]

For those interested, a parser which should be ready for this next beta event: http://riftparser.com/

[Grey Jorildyn]

Hooray for level cap raise too. That will be great!

[Merovingian]

Sup guys got a beta key from nvidia for this game(RIFT™ Beta Event: Warfronts) but frankly i have to many games and i'm not really interested in it if anyone wants the key send me a PM. Dunno if the keys are rare so forgive me if they are easy to get.

edit:

you guys are fast 3 reply in 10:06(kuya) 10:07(Grey Jorildyn) and 10:08(Shnaklaha) so i gave it to kuya since he was the 1st. Goodluck and have fun i guess

[Bombur]

Gamebreaker.tv captured a cool invasion with a raid boss and massive amount of mobs… and death.

[Misuicide]

I got one of those beta invite keys too from nvidia, if you're interested PM me, I wont play this game. Wont have time

[Jintu]

Rift Set to Launch March 1, 2011

Retail and Digital Pre-Order Start Today

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – January 4, 2011 – Trion Worlds, a global publisher and developer of premium online games, today announced that the upcoming MMORPG Rift™ is scheduled to launch in North America on March 1st and in Europe on March 4th. Today also marks the start of the game’s pre-order program through both digital and retail channels.

“The launch of Rift is the culmination of our tireless efforts over the past several years to bring players the most complete, full-featured, and dynamic online game they’ve ever experienced,” said Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion Worlds. “Through the dedication, creativity, and incredible track record of our veteran development team, we’ve been able to create an exceptionally polished and immersive online world filled with adventure, surprise, and beauty. We can’t wait to share Rift with players around the world.”

Beginning today, customers who pre-order Rift receive their choice of one-of-three exclusive in-game pets, and are eligible to participate in the head-start period anticipated to begin February 24th. Pre-order customers will also be granted access to play in all remaining closed-beta events. Beta details, including a regularly updated event schedule, are available at http://www.riftgame.com/beta.

Available for purchase online and at select retail outlets, the Standard, Digital Collector’s and Retail Collector’s Editions of the game will sell for $49.99, $59.99 and $79.99 USD, respectively. The standard monthly subscription rate for the game will be $14.99 USD.


https://www.riftgame.com/en/products/

[Katlan]

So next beta test event is soon. It shows me as admitted to beta 3 (upcoming is beta 4), and i no longer have beta forum access.. does this mean I wasn't invited for the next event of testing? Would suck if so.. barely got to play since it was during the week and I raid in WoW during the weekdays.. but I left feedback for what I did get to see!

[Jintu]

So next beta test event is soon. It shows me as admitted to beta 3 (upcoming is beta 4), and i no longer have beta forum access.. does this mean I wasn't invited for the next event of testing? Would suck if so.. barely got to play since it was during the week and I raid in WoW during the weekdays.. but I left feedback for what I did get to see!

Beta forums close after 48hours every event for review, I can't view them with a VIP key. It seems most people who've participated before get invited again so watch your email/account management page.

[Gokulo]

Someone posted a leak of the event dates (w/o any source thought so I can't promise anything ):

- “Warfronts!” event four: 1/7-1/10
- “Battle of the Ascends” event five: 1/25-1/27
- “Planar War” event six: 2/4-2/7
- “Telara the Merciless” event seven: 2/15-2/22

[Grey Jorildyn]

If BGers are looking for a solid group still, drop Impact Gaming an app on the forums. We have about 12 members with around 6 more coming in. Will be end game focused and we've got a solid leader running our Rift chapter. Check us out.

Should we request a forum for this game here on BG I wonder. Seems like there's gonna be a lot of players at launch.

[Man0warr]

I got to play this for several hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am not going to say I got very far at all. I managed to get a Justicar/Druid/Iforgetcausethere'sfartoomanysouls to 10 as a Defiant and a Shaman/Elementalist/Pyromancer to 10 as a Guardian. The world is interesting enough. However, from the moment I jumped into the game, I felt that this was how Mythic salvaged money out of Warhammer. The game's graphics engine and NPC system seem to have been directly purchased from Mythic. The game looks and feels like Warhammer from step one. Even right up to the point where you are immediately in the midst of the war as you start up. Even the fonts used for all aspects of gameplay have not been changed.

Not to say the game wasn't fun when I was playing. It has some interesting abilities for all classes. Plus I really dig pet classes in MMOs so having multiple soul's that give you pets at level 1 was an awesome thing to see. The soul system has a huge amount of flexibility to it. I can see a lot of potential in its future. Definitely something Warhammer failed upon that was upgraded with Rift.

Rift's are basically a different version of Public Quests. While they seem to be more interactive and upgraded version of said interactive quests. Definitely a better way to obtain rewards. I never felt like I just spent the time closing a rift for absolutely nothing.


The game world however, felt more like a cross between Aion and Warhammer. Dragons coming to kill us for no other reason but to destroy us, just seems too much like Aion's backstory. The races really don't have any real individuality. A Dwarf just looks like a fat short human, and the rest of the races just feel completely human (even if the elves have pointy ears).

Needless to say I was disappointed by the game at this stage in MMO history. We have seen many new MMOs come out lately but none of them have had the polish that Blizzard has put into WoW. Graphically or otherwise. While the basic game systems for Rift are completely identical to WoW in virtually every way (the exception would be the interesting balancing act that is the Soul System), these features still feel a bit clunky. Graphically, it looks too "real" for its own good. The graphics are identical to Warhammer and Warhammer was not a pretty game. This game, just makes me look forward to getting my hands on TERA even more. It shows me what good people can do with a dried up, borrowed graphics engine and decent ideas. Now lets see what the people behind TERA can do with better graphics and decent ideas. Its just too bad that SE failed so pathetically with a brand new graphics engine and people who didn't give a flying f... about making a game better than their previous one.

DAOC, WAR, and Rift all use the Gamebyro engine.

As for polish, Rift is easily the most polished game since WoW. There are literally no bugs in the beta that I've come across.

[Gokulo]

Lol :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzpnQ...layer_embedded