ZAM's Hands-On Look at Rift: Planes of Telara
This article first appeared on ZAM on Nov. 18, 2010.
To coincide with Trion Worlds' announcement that Rift will enter closed beta on Dec. 3, Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff shares his experiences with the fantasy MMO from Trion's recent Gamer Day.
Trion Worlds just announced that the first closed beta event for Rift: Planes of Telara will be held the weekend of Dec. 3-6, which makes it the perfect time to share my hands-on experiences with the fantasy MMO at last week's Gamer Day event. Trion invited a group of journalists and fans to its Redwood City, CA office to try out the alpha build, and it turns out the team has made numerous improvements to the game in preparation for the closed beta launch. One of the most noteworthy changes is the addition of completely revamped starting areas for the Guardians and Defiant, which beta testers will be able to see for themselves in a couple weeks.
Let me back up a bit in case you're unfamiliar with the game. The Ward that protects Telara from other planes of reality has weakened, and mysterious rifts are breaking through to wreak havoc in the world. Whenever a rift appears (like an air rift from the Plane of Air, for example), it creates an event that dynamically changes as players interact with it. Telara is being torn apart by these rifts, and both the Guardians and Defiant wish to save the world. Of course, each faction holds different beliefs, so they end up fighting with each other as they try to keep the end of days from becoming a reality.
That's just the tiniest sliver of the intricate lore found in Rift: Planes of Telara, but it's a good starting point. Stop the end of the world. I can handle that. Now let's dive into those new beginning zones!
The Guardians
I decided to start my day as a Guardian, and my first order of business was to select a race. I had three choices: Mathosian (the humans of the bunch), High Elf and Dwarf. I decided to embrace the fantasy setting and went with the elf. It is worth mentioning that each race comes with racial abilities, like the High Elf's increased MP/energy regeneration. Next up was my calling: Warrior, Mage, Cleric or Rogue. I always tend to lean toward casters, so I picked Mage and headed over to the character creation screen.
The customization options are plentiful. You can change everything from your facial features and hair to your height and markings. As an elf, I could even resize my character's ears, which is a nice touch. I decided to make them as big as possible and then randomized a name to see what the generator would suggest. That's how Killan, the Guardian High Elf Mage, was born.
In Rift, you play as one of the Ascended. Your character has been resurrected to fight the forces of Regulos, the dragon god of extinction. In the case of the Guardians, you've been brought back to life by the Vigil, the five gods who created Telara. This faction is all about honor and devotion to the Vigil, so the starting zone truly has a fantasy vibe to it.
When you first start your adventure, you're going to need to pick your first soul. The Soul Attunement system is one of the major features that sets Rift apart from other fantasy MMOs. Each calling has access to a variety of different souls, which can be mixed and matched to create unique combinations that can be changed regularly. As you level up, you'll ultimately be able to attune up to three souls at a time.
Sound confusing? It may seem a little daunting at first, but Trion actually did a great job adding a soul tutorial system to the new starting zones. My Mage had to talk with NPCs to learn more about my first three soul possibilities: Elementalist, Pyromancer or Warlock. Basically, I could choose one of those paths to have access to specific spells and abilities. I went with Elementalist and discovered that I could summon an Earth Elemental combat pet right from the start. Looks like I made a good choice!
As you level up, you'll gain soul points that allow you to strengthen your abilities. The system is similar to World of Warcraft's talent trees, but with an important difference: you learn new spells and abilities by going deeper into a specific soul tree. If I want access to more Elementalist spells, I'm going to need to add more soul points to my Elementalist tree. Of course, the other main distinction from WoW is that players in Rift can add or remove specific soul trees as they gain access to new souls.
Alright, time to jump into the zone and start some quests. Players familiar with MMOs will instantly feel comfortable with the interface and combat. You have a mini-map, quest log, ability bars, and all that good stuff. Characters will auto-attack during combat. If you can loot multiple enemies around you, looting one will automatically loot them all. That's definitely a handy feature.
For the most part, the quests were a combination of killing enemies, collecting items, and so on. Trion Worlds CCO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman mentioned later in the day that no quests will ask you to travel back and forth to areas you've already visited, which is helpful. As I mentioned, the Guardians starting area is all about classic fantasy; you're doing all this in an attempt to weaken the undead army of King Aedraxis, who brought Regulos and the Plane of Death into the land.
As I leveled, I was offered my second soul. This time I had seven more to choose from, but I still went with the trusty fire-casting Pyromancer that I was initially shown when I started my character. This opened up the Pyromancer soul tree, which meant I could now put soul points into either my Elementalist tree or my Pyromancer tree to gain new abilities. This new soul tutorial really gives you a feel for how customizable your character can become in this game.
Now might be a good time to point out that the music in Rift: Planes of Telara is incredibly impressive and helps immerse you in the game. If you'd like a taste, check out the recent video dev diary featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the soundtrack with Audio Director Yannis Brown and Composer Inon Zur. It's worth a listen.
As the zone's storyline builds to its climax, you're going to interact with your first rift from the Plane of Death. Rifts, as you can imagine, are one of the main components in Rift: Planes of Telara. They are dynamic events that all players in the area can interact with, and they don't require everyone to be on the same quest. Rifts are fought in phases, and players can see the requirements to complete that phase on their screen. For example, you may run up to a rift and see that it's already on phase three, which means a certain number of enemies must be destroyed. All you need to do is jump into the fray and start fighting!
The Defiant
If the Guardians starting zone is focused on fantasy, then the Defiant starting zone can be considered its sci-fi equivalent. The Defiant faction blames the gods for the planar convergence, so they focus on a mixture of technology and magic as the means to save the world. This viewpoint contrasts greatly with the Guardians, which is why they're constantly fighting even though they're ultimately working toward similar goals.
As far as races are concerned, Defiant characters can be Eth humans, the massive Bahmi, or the elven Kelari. I decided to go with a melee calling this time, so I created an Eth Warrior named Jabed and logged into... the future?
Yup, the Defiant starting zone takes place in the future. The Defiant have been using science to resurrect the Ascended, which includes my warrior. It turns out Regulos destroyed the Ward and brought in the Plane of Death, which means it's up to me to travel back in time and stop it from happening, à la the Terminator.
The entire zone has a completely different feel to it compared to the Guardian area. The technological setting permeates the zone. For example, the NPCs that explain my soul options take the form of holograms, which is a stark contrast to the Vigil-worshipping Guardians.
I chose the Reaver for my first soul for its focus on death and combat. The soul focuses on damage over time effects, which helped whittle down my enemies as I attacked them with my weapon. Warriors in Rift gain attack points by using various abilities. Players can build up three attack points at a time and spend them to use stronger finishing moves.
Once I gained access to my second soul, I had a lot to choose from: Beastmaster, Champion, Paragon, Riftblade, Warlord, Void Knight and Paladin. I liked the thought of being a Warrior with a pet, so I chose Beastmaster and learned how to summon a cat companion.
The majority of the quests in the Defiant starting area revolve around getting the time machine up and running. You'll also get to participate in a rift event, just like in the Guardian zone. Both starting areas give you the chance to try out the soul system and get used to your characters while still generating a sense of urgency. For the Guardian zone, the end of the world is just beginning. For the Defiant zone, it's already happened. Either way, you should be prepared for a fight!
Deepstrike Mines
After we played through the new starting zones, we were all given level 30 premade characters to run through the Deepstrike Mines instance. I initially chose a Cleric so I could heal, but it turns out most of my group members had the same idea. Once we decided we needed a tank instead of three healers, I logged out and came back in as a Warrior, which I just got some experience with in the Defiant starting zone. The character's souls were Paladin, Reaver and Warlord, so at least the Reaver spells looked familiar. The rest of my abilities were all brand new to me, so I had to learn on the fly.
The group setup was Warrior, Mage, Rogue, and two Clerics. The first thing that struck me as we zoned into the dungeon was its layout. The bottom floor was completely wide open, while the top was comprised of a series of narrow walkways that connected tall pillars. This allowed us to try out different fighting techniques for both open and confined areas. There were some quest-givers right at the entrance, so we all accepted the quests and made our way through the instance.
If you're an MMO player, you know the concept of fighting through trash mobs just to get to a boss. None of the enemies in Deepstrike Mines felt like trash. Mobs were generally found in groups comprised of approximately three enemies, and none of them were too easy to kill. Admittedly, that may have been partly due to the fact that none of us completely understood all of the abilities of our characters. Regardless, each battle felt like it required teamwork to complete.
As far as my role was concerned, I hit every ability that said “generates additional threat.” I was throwing around my shield a lot while casting some DoT abilities. I had to tab through the targets to maintain control of the various groups, but one of the developers told me that I could have chosen an ability in my soul tree that instantly put the debuffs I had on one enemy onto the rest of them. That certainly would have helped.
Each boss fight was a bit different, but two stuck out in my mind. During one boss fight that included a lot of minions, I fell off the narrow walkway and had to run back up to my team. Even without a tank, the healers were able to keep everyone alive while I made my way to the battle. We ultimately succeeded because everyone worked as a team, which was a great feeling.
That great feeling ended with the final boss. This guy used crystals to heal himself, so the point was to destroy the crystals as they spawned and slowly chip away at the boss' health. We were down to four members at this point and tried multiple times, but we couldn't succeed. Another group ultimately defeated him after a very long battle, and everyone in the room cheered when they emerged victorious.
Oh, this may be a good time to explain the death system. Once per hour, you can choose to Soul Walk when you die. This will spawn you directly on your body and give you a little time to get out of aggro range. Every other time you die within the hour, you're going to be running back to your corpse. Thankfully, it spawned us at the entrance of the instance during our wipes at the final boss.
Warfront PvP Maps
To end the day, we got to try the three Warfront PvP maps that are currently available in Rift: Planes of Telara. This was the first time that the maps were shown to the press and community members. Our characters were automatically boosted up to level 50, so I'm not ashamed to admit that I did not last long in these battles against the seasoned veterans in the alpha test. However, I did come away with some descriptions of the maps.
Black Garden, also known as martyrdom, is basically a “kill the carrier” scenario. One player picks up an object in the center of the map, and the teams must either defend or defeat that player. Your team will earn more points for keeping the object near the center of the map, so it pays to keep the battle in the middle rather than running around the exterior.
Codex is a domination game where you have to hold control points, and Whitefall Steppes is a classic capture the flag map. You can queue up for the Warfronts directly from your interface, so there's no need to talk to an NPC. The game should launch with all three of these maps, but don't be surprised if more are added in the future.
Overall, Rift: Planes of Telara was incredibly polished for the alpha build. While it may be another fantasy MMO, the dynamic content and soul system, not to mention the detailed lore, certainly sets it apart from its competition.
To coincide with Trion Worlds' announcement that Rift will enter closed beta on Dec. 3, Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff shares his experiences with the fantasy MMO from Trion's recent Gamer Day.
Trion Worlds just announced that the first closed beta event for Rift: Planes of Telara will be held the weekend of Dec. 3-6, which makes it the perfect time to share my hands-on experiences with the fantasy MMO at last week's Gamer Day event. Trion invited a group of journalists and fans to its Redwood City, CA office to try out the alpha build, and it turns out the team has made numerous improvements to the game in preparation for the closed beta launch. One of the most noteworthy changes is the addition of completely revamped starting areas for the Guardians and Defiant, which beta testers will be able to see for themselves in a couple weeks.
Let me back up a bit in case you're unfamiliar with the game. The Ward that protects Telara from other planes of reality has weakened, and mysterious rifts are breaking through to wreak havoc in the world. Whenever a rift appears (like an air rift from the Plane of Air, for example), it creates an event that dynamically changes as players interact with it. Telara is being torn apart by these rifts, and both the Guardians and Defiant wish to save the world. Of course, each faction holds different beliefs, so they end up fighting with each other as they try to keep the end of days from becoming a reality.
That's just the tiniest sliver of the intricate lore found in Rift: Planes of Telara, but it's a good starting point. Stop the end of the world. I can handle that. Now let's dive into those new beginning zones!
The Guardians
I decided to start my day as a Guardian, and my first order of business was to select a race. I had three choices: Mathosian (the humans of the bunch), High Elf and Dwarf. I decided to embrace the fantasy setting and went with the elf. It is worth mentioning that each race comes with racial abilities, like the High Elf's increased MP/energy regeneration. Next up was my calling: Warrior, Mage, Cleric or Rogue. I always tend to lean toward casters, so I picked Mage and headed over to the character creation screen.
The customization options are plentiful. You can change everything from your facial features and hair to your height and markings. As an elf, I could even resize my character's ears, which is a nice touch. I decided to make them as big as possible and then randomized a name to see what the generator would suggest. That's how Killan, the Guardian High Elf Mage, was born.
In Rift, you play as one of the Ascended. Your character has been resurrected to fight the forces of Regulos, the dragon god of extinction. In the case of the Guardians, you've been brought back to life by the Vigil, the five gods who created Telara. This faction is all about honor and devotion to the Vigil, so the starting zone truly has a fantasy vibe to it.
When you first start your adventure, you're going to need to pick your first soul. The Soul Attunement system is one of the major features that sets Rift apart from other fantasy MMOs. Each calling has access to a variety of different souls, which can be mixed and matched to create unique combinations that can be changed regularly. As you level up, you'll ultimately be able to attune up to three souls at a time.
Sound confusing? It may seem a little daunting at first, but Trion actually did a great job adding a soul tutorial system to the new starting zones. My Mage had to talk with NPCs to learn more about my first three soul possibilities: Elementalist, Pyromancer or Warlock. Basically, I could choose one of those paths to have access to specific spells and abilities. I went with Elementalist and discovered that I could summon an Earth Elemental combat pet right from the start. Looks like I made a good choice!
As you level up, you'll gain soul points that allow you to strengthen your abilities. The system is similar to World of Warcraft's talent trees, but with an important difference: you learn new spells and abilities by going deeper into a specific soul tree. If I want access to more Elementalist spells, I'm going to need to add more soul points to my Elementalist tree. Of course, the other main distinction from WoW is that players in Rift can add or remove specific soul trees as they gain access to new souls.
Alright, time to jump into the zone and start some quests. Players familiar with MMOs will instantly feel comfortable with the interface and combat. You have a mini-map, quest log, ability bars, and all that good stuff. Characters will auto-attack during combat. If you can loot multiple enemies around you, looting one will automatically loot them all. That's definitely a handy feature.
For the most part, the quests were a combination of killing enemies, collecting items, and so on. Trion Worlds CCO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman mentioned later in the day that no quests will ask you to travel back and forth to areas you've already visited, which is helpful. As I mentioned, the Guardians starting area is all about classic fantasy; you're doing all this in an attempt to weaken the undead army of King Aedraxis, who brought Regulos and the Plane of Death into the land.
As I leveled, I was offered my second soul. This time I had seven more to choose from, but I still went with the trusty fire-casting Pyromancer that I was initially shown when I started my character. This opened up the Pyromancer soul tree, which meant I could now put soul points into either my Elementalist tree or my Pyromancer tree to gain new abilities. This new soul tutorial really gives you a feel for how customizable your character can become in this game.
Now might be a good time to point out that the music in Rift: Planes of Telara is incredibly impressive and helps immerse you in the game. If you'd like a taste, check out the recent video dev diary featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the soundtrack with Audio Director Yannis Brown and Composer Inon Zur. It's worth a listen.
As the zone's storyline builds to its climax, you're going to interact with your first rift from the Plane of Death. Rifts, as you can imagine, are one of the main components in Rift: Planes of Telara. They are dynamic events that all players in the area can interact with, and they don't require everyone to be on the same quest. Rifts are fought in phases, and players can see the requirements to complete that phase on their screen. For example, you may run up to a rift and see that it's already on phase three, which means a certain number of enemies must be destroyed. All you need to do is jump into the fray and start fighting!
The Defiant
If the Guardians starting zone is focused on fantasy, then the Defiant starting zone can be considered its sci-fi equivalent. The Defiant faction blames the gods for the planar convergence, so they focus on a mixture of technology and magic as the means to save the world. This viewpoint contrasts greatly with the Guardians, which is why they're constantly fighting even though they're ultimately working toward similar goals.
As far as races are concerned, Defiant characters can be Eth humans, the massive Bahmi, or the elven Kelari. I decided to go with a melee calling this time, so I created an Eth Warrior named Jabed and logged into... the future?
Yup, the Defiant starting zone takes place in the future. The Defiant have been using science to resurrect the Ascended, which includes my warrior. It turns out Regulos destroyed the Ward and brought in the Plane of Death, which means it's up to me to travel back in time and stop it from happening, à la the Terminator.
The entire zone has a completely different feel to it compared to the Guardian area. The technological setting permeates the zone. For example, the NPCs that explain my soul options take the form of holograms, which is a stark contrast to the Vigil-worshipping Guardians.
I chose the Reaver for my first soul for its focus on death and combat. The soul focuses on damage over time effects, which helped whittle down my enemies as I attacked them with my weapon. Warriors in Rift gain attack points by using various abilities. Players can build up three attack points at a time and spend them to use stronger finishing moves.
Once I gained access to my second soul, I had a lot to choose from: Beastmaster, Champion, Paragon, Riftblade, Warlord, Void Knight and Paladin. I liked the thought of being a Warrior with a pet, so I chose Beastmaster and learned how to summon a cat companion.
The majority of the quests in the Defiant starting area revolve around getting the time machine up and running. You'll also get to participate in a rift event, just like in the Guardian zone. Both starting areas give you the chance to try out the soul system and get used to your characters while still generating a sense of urgency. For the Guardian zone, the end of the world is just beginning. For the Defiant zone, it's already happened. Either way, you should be prepared for a fight!
Deepstrike Mines
After we played through the new starting zones, we were all given level 30 premade characters to run through the Deepstrike Mines instance. I initially chose a Cleric so I could heal, but it turns out most of my group members had the same idea. Once we decided we needed a tank instead of three healers, I logged out and came back in as a Warrior, which I just got some experience with in the Defiant starting zone. The character's souls were Paladin, Reaver and Warlord, so at least the Reaver spells looked familiar. The rest of my abilities were all brand new to me, so I had to learn on the fly.
The group setup was Warrior, Mage, Rogue, and two Clerics. The first thing that struck me as we zoned into the dungeon was its layout. The bottom floor was completely wide open, while the top was comprised of a series of narrow walkways that connected tall pillars. This allowed us to try out different fighting techniques for both open and confined areas. There were some quest-givers right at the entrance, so we all accepted the quests and made our way through the instance.
If you're an MMO player, you know the concept of fighting through trash mobs just to get to a boss. None of the enemies in Deepstrike Mines felt like trash. Mobs were generally found in groups comprised of approximately three enemies, and none of them were too easy to kill. Admittedly, that may have been partly due to the fact that none of us completely understood all of the abilities of our characters. Regardless, each battle felt like it required teamwork to complete.
As far as my role was concerned, I hit every ability that said “generates additional threat.” I was throwing around my shield a lot while casting some DoT abilities. I had to tab through the targets to maintain control of the various groups, but one of the developers told me that I could have chosen an ability in my soul tree that instantly put the debuffs I had on one enemy onto the rest of them. That certainly would have helped.
Each boss fight was a bit different, but two stuck out in my mind. During one boss fight that included a lot of minions, I fell off the narrow walkway and had to run back up to my team. Even without a tank, the healers were able to keep everyone alive while I made my way to the battle. We ultimately succeeded because everyone worked as a team, which was a great feeling.
That great feeling ended with the final boss. This guy used crystals to heal himself, so the point was to destroy the crystals as they spawned and slowly chip away at the boss' health. We were down to four members at this point and tried multiple times, but we couldn't succeed. Another group ultimately defeated him after a very long battle, and everyone in the room cheered when they emerged victorious.
Oh, this may be a good time to explain the death system. Once per hour, you can choose to Soul Walk when you die. This will spawn you directly on your body and give you a little time to get out of aggro range. Every other time you die within the hour, you're going to be running back to your corpse. Thankfully, it spawned us at the entrance of the instance during our wipes at the final boss.
Warfront PvP Maps
To end the day, we got to try the three Warfront PvP maps that are currently available in Rift: Planes of Telara. This was the first time that the maps were shown to the press and community members. Our characters were automatically boosted up to level 50, so I'm not ashamed to admit that I did not last long in these battles against the seasoned veterans in the alpha test. However, I did come away with some descriptions of the maps.
Black Garden, also known as martyrdom, is basically a “kill the carrier” scenario. One player picks up an object in the center of the map, and the teams must either defend or defeat that player. Your team will earn more points for keeping the object near the center of the map, so it pays to keep the battle in the middle rather than running around the exterior.
Codex is a domination game where you have to hold control points, and Whitefall Steppes is a classic capture the flag map. You can queue up for the Warfronts directly from your interface, so there's no need to talk to an NPC. The game should launch with all three of these maps, but don't be surprised if more are added in the future.
Overall, Rift: Planes of Telara was incredibly polished for the alpha build. While it may be another fantasy MMO, the dynamic content and soul system, not to mention the detailed lore, certainly sets it apart from its competition.