Rift: Planes of Telera Beta

[ChrisJSY]

If I wasn't playing WoW already this would have been a decent distraction, however it is very clear to me that the rift part of the game is a waste of time and will no doubt become very tiresome. There is a distinct lack of reward, even when you come first many times, the parts needed for the blue/purple items are too rare and there's nothing between, I just have over a 1000 and counting of those essences or w/e it's called stagnating doing nothing? Unless you can buy pvp gear with it, in which case PVE content to get PVP Gear? Ugh.

I think to combination of a really basic and boring rift system and the monumental amount of skills once can choose will be the games downside. Versatility is good but not at this scale. They're tried too hard to avoid people making cookie cutter builds but all it ends up being is just that, people that can't be bothered going through the masses of skills copy those who have trialled and tested ones that work.

There needs to be a lower instance, in the level 8-10 range because frankly, those who play casually won't see one for ages, the first instance is a bore, the packs are annoying and the bosses drop too few, the second is a complete flip and is a lot of fun.

 

[spengos]

The beta events are little more than a publicity stunt, much of the real testing has been taking place in alpha, which is running inbetween and during the betas. We have had access to the whole game (just about) for quite a while (I have a level 50) We get patches earlier as well to test them before they go to beta.

The reason the 'beta' is so smooth is because there is a whole other beta (called alpha) doing all the real testing so that the betas are already polished, so that everyone goes 'oh wow these are so polished' some of the stuff we have had in alpha has been no where near the same quality.

Thanks for the reply Oizu. I guess this is the way the big MMOs are handling pre release now, and it seems to have worked well for Trion. Making a good impresison in a beta is probably more important than the actual game launch these days. First impressions are crucial and some players will get completely turned off by a bad beta and never come back. I think Trion have been very clever with the way they've handled the marketing and pre release. Their forums have been on fire with hype lately and the game is getting plenty of good press around the net. So far so good for them, I just hope they can leep the momentum going and the fans happy.

 

[Sin_Chase]

So crysis is Doom with different graphics

Euhm. Have you played either? They are miles away from each other in terms of uniqueness outside of both being a FPS.

 

[BunnyKillBot]

The beta events are little more than a publicity stunt, much of the real testing has been taking place in alpha, which is running inbetween and during the betas. We have had access to the whole game (just about) for quite a while (I have a level 50) We get patches earlier as well to test them before they go to beta.

The reason the 'beta' is so smooth is because there is a whole other beta (called alpha) doing all the real testing so that the betas are already polished, so that everyone goes 'oh wow these are so polished' some of the stuff we have had in alpha has been no where near the same quality.

Hi. You might like to read up on the Software release life cycle, here is a link to the wiki for you, before you start whaling in on terminology you clearly don't understand.

Source - Wiki,
The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing....

The users of a beta version are called beta testers. They are usually customers or prospective customers of the organization that develops the software, willing to test the software without charge...

Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and previews within an organisation and to prospective customers. Some developers refer to this stage as a preview, prototype, technical preview (TP), or early access.

 

[spengos]

This new PvP feature sounds rather fun:

ANCIENT WARDSTONES
* Keep in mind this is a first iteration of a new type of content, so be aware that it will evolve and improve over time. We welcome your feedback and suggestions as we try to turn the awesome up to eleven.
* Intended to act as a form of player-driven content that bridges the gap between Rifts/Invasions and Quests; to that end, we present ‘Ancient Wardstones!’ *fanfare*
* On entering Scarlet Gorge, a new quest is being offered. Defiants should seek out Mariko Bella at Old Mule Run, and Guardians find Paula Becksten at Overwatch. This quest provides the ability ‘Activate Ancient Wardstone’ and shows you what these new objects look like. The next step is to go exploring and find them!
* Once you discover an Ancient Wardstone, use your new ability to start an event. This might be one of several things. They’re a bit of a surprise and award experience and Rift currency.
* Completing these events allow the Ancient Wardstone locations to upgrade. Standard quests are daily repeatable, while area quests reset every 10 minutes while the Wardstone is active. Rewards for the first quest completion are naturally higher than subsequent turn-ins.
* Beware! Not only do these Ancient Wardstone locations become Invasion targets, they can also be destroyed by members of the other faction. Guard them with care. For the more adventurous – you can activate Ancient Wardstones in areas of zones controlled by opposing factions. Any Ancient Wardstone location can be activated for either Guardians or Defiants.
* Yes, some of the content in opposing areas is PvP oriented, but not all.
* But wait, there’s more:
* Deep in Scarlet Gorge, a horrible beast of the Planes has slept for millennia. Behold – Urthura, ‘The Dweller Below.’ If a single Guardian or Defiant faction controls all Ancient Wardstones in Scarlet Gorge, the sweet smell of power awakens Urthura from her slumber, causing her to rampage across the Gorge, intent on destroying everything in her path. Where she spawns depends on which faction activated the wardstones that summoned her. Once spawned, she can be claimed by either faction, so get that raid together quick!
* Fortunately for the residents of Scarlet Gorge, Urthura tires easily, and can only awaken once per 20 hour period.

 

[Monkeymatt]

Once again if anybody would like to join the OcUK RIFT guild then pop over to: http://ocukrift.proboards.com/index.cgi

Register and put your name down for the Guild.

Thanks.

 

[Oizu]

Hi. You might like to read up on the Software release life cycle, here is a link to the wiki for you, before you start whaling in on terminology you clearly don't understand.

Excuse me?

Jesus these fanbois... I answered the question that was asked truthfully, I really couldn't give a toss about the rights and wrongs of it or whether I am using the right words, it really isn't important...

 

[Nemeses]

Does it matter? There are only so many core concepts in an MMO yes, but spell and ability names/functions, UI arrangements etc are the things you should at least TRY to be original with.

Otherwise what's the point? It's WoW with different graphics and rifts. (With none of the Blizzard polish)

I have tried many MMOs, Rift has been the only one where on Skype with 2 mates every 5 minutes one of us was saying "Really Rift, Really? Just like WoW."

It has some good things about it, like UI scaling/customisation out of the box. But the profession system needs HUGE work. As a Butcher (Skinner) I had maybe 6x as much Soft Leather as I needed, was already well into the next resource type and the mobs I was killing were STILL giving Soft leather. That for example is ridiculous.

What is it with children and wow, wow did not come up with there UI, and mentioning polish, wow has being out 7 years they had time to polish there game. there is not as far as I could see one original thing in wow...

 

[Sleepery]

Excuse me?

Jesus these fanbois... I answered the question that was asked truthfully, I really couldn't give a toss about the rights and wrongs of it or whether I am using the right words, it really isn't important...

How DARE you call the real beta an alpha. What were you thinking! Think of the children etc etc

 

[Coolit]

Actually, In the latest RiFT podcast Abi (head community manager) talks about the beta saying she has read posts on the forum saying its not a real beta which she wanted to address by saying this isn't the case, beta is a beta and they use all the feedback from it to improve the game.

 

[BunnyKillBot]

Excuse me?

Jesus these fanbois... I answered the question that was asked truthfully, I really couldn't give a toss about the rights and wrongs of it or whether I am using the right words, it really isn't important...

Nothing to do with fanboism, everything to do with knowing the industry you are talking about. A beta is meant to have a certain polish and it is for the shame of other releases that betas often feel like an earlier stage of development.

Use of the phrase the 'Real Testing' demonstrates such a gross misunderstanding of how software is developed it deserves being singled out and corrected.

Open test participants these days are filled with an absurd smug sense of grand delusion as to their importance and involvement in the final product. Or to quote Kryten - 'He's like the security guard on the front gate who considers himself head of the corporation.'

 

[Oizu]

Nothing to do with fanboism, everything to do with knowing the industry you are talking about. A beta is meant to have a certain polish and it is for the shame of other releases that betas often feel like an earlier stage of development.

Use of the phrase the 'Real Testing' demonstrates such a gross misunderstanding of how software is developed it deserves being singled out and corrected.

Open test participants these days are filled with an absurd smug sense of grand delusion as to their importance and involvement in the final product. Or to quote Kryten - 'He's like the security guard on the front gate who considers himself head of the corporation.'

Again, I REALLY don't give a TOSS about the words that I am using, I was (indirectly) asked a question about what the alpha that was being referred to is, and I answered, take your pedantic 'I know gaming better than you' arguments somewhere else. kkthxbye

 

[Range]

How longs the Beta out for on Friday

 

[Sin_Chase]

What is it with children and wow, wow did not come up with there UI, and mentioning polish, wow has being out 7 years they had time to polish there game. there is not as far as I could see one original thing in wow...

Nice assumptions.

I have been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. MMOs now have a huge presence in the gaming industry, more than they ever had previously. There is no room to be releasing a game without a GOOD standard of polish. Rift feels awkward, it does not play as smoothly as it should, it's clunky.

Nothing original in WoW? Most of what is in WoW today is the benchmark for anything new coming out, it has the most customisable and extensible UI I have seen in any MMO, or game for that matter.

I could go on, fact of the matter is WoW does not do everything the best but is the benchmark in terms of feature set.

Not going to argue WoW Vs the World but Rift is too close for my liking, no point playing it for Rifts and different Graphics.

 

[Cerzi]

Rift is pretty much WoW for people who hate WoW. ie, that's a pretty decent demographic theyre tapping into.

For many people WoW is to be avoided just because it's WoW - it has a bad rep in popular culture, for example. Making something that is essentially the same (including the high polish, big budget aspect) but with a different name and none of the bad rep is guaranteed to be a success.

 

[spengos]

Nice assumptions.

I have been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. MMOs now have a huge presence in the gaming industry, more than they ever had previously. There is no room to be releasing a game without a GOOD standard of polish. Rift feels awkward, it does not play as smoothly as it should, it's clunky.

Every article I've read about Rift, every podcast I've listened to, every forum post i've read, says it's one of, if not THE most polished MMO pre-release. They could release it now and it would be a decent game.

Nothing original in WoW? Most of what is in WoW today is the benchmark for anything new coming out, it has the most customisable and extensible UI I have seen in any MMO, or game for that matter.

No, there is very little about WoW that is original. Name one substantial game mechanic you think WoW invented and i bet it was done before-hand in another MMO. Blizzard are just exceptionally good at taking ideas and improving them. Of course there's nothing wrong with this. As I already said, this is how games evolve. But it's the primary reason they've stayed at the top for so long. How can you compete against a game that is constantly evolving? Every single MMO that comes out is helping WoW to get stronger. If games like WAR, LOTRO, Age of Conan, Everquest 2, Lineage 2, etc, had never come out, WoW wouldn't be anything like it is now.

Not going to argue WoW Vs the World but Rift is too close for my liking, no point playing it for Rifts and different Graphics.

Such a strange logic. So Rift is too similar to WoW plus it has dynamic content and improved graphics but you choose to stick with WoW. I fail to see what you have to loose.

I'm yet to see a WoW fan come up with a valid reason why Rift isn't worth playing. It's either "it's a WoW clone" or "it lacks polish". Your put downs are as original as the MMO you play.

I've played WoW for years and I'm utterly sick to death of it. I've gone back to it more times than any other game, but its always the same game. There's not much wrong with the game as a concept, I'm just tired of the same lore, same locations, same dungeons, same tired NPC and monster models. I swear if I see another Murlock I'll kill a kitten! If a game like Rift comes out that is similar enough to WoW that I like it, but has new lore, new enviroments, better graphics, dynamic content, decent world PVP, then I'm well up for some of that.

 

[Sin_Chase]

The game engine is rather poor in my opinion, trying too hard but ultimately appears a mess. Dynamic content? What is dynamic about rifts? Nothing. They are dynamic the first time you see them, then what? Same old grind just in random locations. Whoop-dee doo. The whole public contribution idea with them is half-assed. What happens? You bind attacks to mouse-wheel and spam as hard as you can to tag the mobs for potential loot/xp and at the end of it get some random chance at loot and currency.

It's not worth playing because it's not different. It has the same group format, same raid format, same currency formats, same combat formats, same crowd control formats it's TOO like WoW is to even warrant buying the thing, never-mind paying a monthly sub for it.

Tell me, what is different in Rift that you are whining about in WoW? The models are not dynamic, the mobs are not dynamic, the textures are not dynamic. WoW has already done "rifts". They did it with the opening of Nax. Random spawns of mobs in zones....wow...that was entirely forgettable and I sure as hell have no desire to have something similar ever happen again. I was tired of rifts after the first night of playing the beta - to the point of actively avoiding them and sticking to questing because it was a waste of time.

So, with Rifts written off, what is left? Well...questing, grinding, instancing. The graphics are not an attraction, I actually hate them. The instances are not an attraction, new NPC models....are not an attraction. There is nothing unique about Rift to warrant picking it up and for what is supposed to be a dynamic MMO I have never, ever had such a linear quest progression than I have experienced in Rift.

You give me 1 reason why I would jump ship from a far more mature MMO, which is vastly superior in polish, plays better and does not lack anything that Rift does which is actually desirable.

Playing Rift I had a list as long as my arm with shortcomings and the only 1 thing which impressed me was the scalable/moveable UI out of the box. Hardly endearing that is it?

 

[eekfek]

I'm so glad I've never been tarnished by Warcraft

Why is it whenever a new MMo is being released 95.27% of the WoW crowd feel the need bash it, proclaim Warcraft is the only MMo worth playing and persist in trying to change people's views ? it's beyond me, it really is .. makes me cringe !!

----

anyways !!! Friday can't come quick enough !!! I hope they extend the next Beta phase again

 

[Sin_Chase]

It will be a decent enough MMO for those who wish to play it. I am merely indicating why I have issues with it and would not swap to it and why I feel it has shortcomings.

Point is, the people who are getting up in arms the most are the Rift fanbois because their precious shiny new MMO lovechild is being *gasp* pitched against the industry leader in the market segment.

It does not matter that WoW did not do it first, fact is - they do it better. If you cannot do it better or different, why bother? The answer to that is people will play it regardless and they will make money ANYWAY so they don't NEED to. Just many of us who play other MMOs and see no merit in picking the game up will not.

Everyone proclaimed WAR as the WoW killer, that it would hurt WoW subs....yeah...about that. Rift will not poach any significant numbers from WoW because it is not different enough to entice people like myself who cannot see a pro to making the jump.

Nothing about being tarnished as you like to think of it, just straight up hard facts. I don't chop my car in for the same but 1 year facelifted model, but SOME people do. Would have to be a substantial upgrade/change, Rift - is not. If you think it is then you are either deluding yourself or have some unwarranted hate towards WoW and being the devil's advocate. (Protip - Rifts, RIGHT NOW, are not as big as a feature as others/the developer are making them out to be)

 

[Xerco]

25 use vip beta keys up for grabs:

Congratulations on your Rift beta key!

Your key is: XXDR-Z2ET-2MJE-MMTD-3Q2X

Instructions:
To participate in the upcoming RIFT beta event, just follow the instructions below. You’ll receive your beta invite via email a few days before each event begins, so make sure to add ‘@trionworlds.com’ to your Safe Senders list.

1. Go to https://account.RIFTgame.com to login or create a new account.
2. Click "Apply Code" on the left-hand navigation bar and enter your VIP key.
3. You're done! You will automatically be invited into the remaining beta events.

Note: If you apply a code during a beta event, you’ll receive an invite shortly. Don’t panic!

1. Product Description: Attached are the latest product descriptions for RIFT. If you’re describing the game on your site, please update with this latest text.
2. Box Cover: I’ve attached the front-of-box to this email. If you need a different version (such as an OFLC-rated box for AU or a PEGI for Europe), just let me know.
3. Beta Descriptions: Here are the remaining beta events and their dates. As long as a gamer has a code applied to their account, they’ll be invited to ALL the remaining betas.


Beta 6: Planar War
Feb 4th, 18:00 GMT – Feb 7th, 18:00 GMT

Levels 1-35

Telara is left in chaos as the elemental planes force their way into reality. The armies of Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Life, and Death launch devastating invasions through the rifts opening across the land. Beat back the invasions and eliminate the planar blight that’s eroding this once-peaceful world.
Play to win! Seal any rift and receive planar loot and you could be eligible to win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 video card! Terms and conditions apply, click here for details. And In-Game Prize Packs will be given away to ten (10) select players who complete the objective!

Beta 7: Telara the Merciless
Feb 15th, 18:00 GMT – Feb 21nd, 18:00 GMT
Levels 1-42

A tireless and unending horde, invaders from the planes continue their assault on Telara. The final (beta) battle is at hand and the fate of the planet depends on the courage and strength of Telara’s champions. Become one of the Ascended and fight for a world that’s on the brink of losing all hope.
Play to win! Defeat any dungeon boss and you could be eligible to win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 video card! Terms and conditions apply, click here for details. And In-Game Prize Packs will be given away to ten (10) select players who complete the objective!