Last month Trion Worlds released Rift to the masses of MMO players across the world. It’s been a little over a month and people have been claiming that it’s either a World of Warcraft killer or a World of Warcraft clone. Whichever it is, we got the chance to play it and review it for our readers.
The game takes place in the fantasy world of Telara, a sort of central station for all the different dimensions or worlds. The death god Regulos has caused different rifts to open on Telara, slowly bringing armies to conquer the different territories throughout the land. To prevent the take over two factions of Telara the Guardians and Defiants fight to cleanse the world of the invaders.
Guardians are resurrected by the Vigil after dying during one of the earlier conflicts with Regulos. At the start of the story your Guardian character fights and dies against one of Regulos’ commanders, only to be brought back and start the current path that you choose. Players are able to choose from the high elves, the Mathosians, and dwarves.
Defiant were resurrected after a battle that has almost completely decimated Telara. Players who choose Defiant are sent back in time to the beginning of the invasions, allowing them to fight alongside the Guardians. Defiants are those who put their trust in technology as a way to conquer the forces of the Regulos. They include the Eth, the Bahmi, and the Kelari.
Players are able to choose from four main classes, the warrior, the mage, the rogue, and the cleric. Each of the four main classes have eight subclasses. Each subclass has different attributes and different roles which you can mix and match up to three possibly even four classes. Need a tank which can also be a healer? How about a archer that can teleport to safety? It’s all possible but that is just some of the possibilities of each subclass. The Soul Tree also helps power up your classes that you choose. Each class has a soul tree you can add skill points to that strengthen character’s powers and spells and/or skills. Like a real tree, the skill tree has branches which are the normal active and passive skills. There’s also a root system that has been added. The more you progress in one class the more abilities and spells you unlock in the root or the “core” abilities.
After spending a large amount of time configuring what classes I’d want to play and how my character should look as a Guardian, I got my first glimpse of the world Telara and what it has to offer. Right out of the gates a war torn Telara stretches over the horizon as incoming catapult fire illuminates the sky and smashes into the ground around you. The world of Telara is vibrant and full of colors, and what makes it even more vibrant are shifts that rip open the sky and pour out different dimension. Of course the game varies on how well your computer setup is and if it can run the game on higher resolutions, although the game can run a moderate to low end computer with everything turned down.
Adventuring out into the lands of Telara you can’t help but notice there are always NPC’s waiting to hand out quests to you left and right. Just one night of questing and grinding, leveled me up to 15 in no time. The great thing is that the quests may not be completed because of the many rifts that may open up over certain NPC’s or even just small raid groups attacking a city. Why is this great? Instead of the lull of having to hunt down enemies for other quests to gain levels, the invasion of rifters helps break up the monotony of grinding certain areas. Another tidbit that keeps the game interesting is artifact gathering. The game tends to reward players who like to explore areas thoroughly. Collecting a set of artifacts in the game and turning them in gives players different types of rewards.
Rift so far gives players plenty to do. If you aren’t questing you’re raiding, if you aren’t raiding you’re going into instances, and if you aren’t doing any of that then you’re in the Warfronts (Rifts version of Battlegrounds). Warfront, depending on what level you are, has four different instances. Black Garden, The Codex, Whitefall Steppes, and The Battle for Port Scion. Each game consisting of playing keep away, capture the flag, holding territories, or trying to kill the other team’s commander.
Trion has done a great deal to keep things fun in the game, but to call it a WoW killer is still too early to say. If you’re looking for a game to get away from WoW and change up the experience of MMO’s then look no further. Rift has a large assortment of different ways to play characters and classes, which gives veteran MMO players new dynamics and a breath of fresh air. The world of Telara seems vast and full of things to do, and with much more content on the way expect to be busy for months maybe even years to come.
[starreviewmulti id=2 tpl=20]
Overall = 9.0
