I have recently been able to get hold of RIFT, Storm Legion and I spent 30 days of pure happiness discovering this game that was missing from my collection of "Amazing games"! It is therefore done. Rift : Planes of Telara, is a paid subscription MMORPG published by Trion and released in 2011. Since then, the game has improved significantly, bringing a lot of changes and new content. The latest extension, Rift : Storm Legion, is extra!
So let's see my preview of RIFT !! ?
Summary:
Presentation and test of the game
RIFT is therefore the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Role Play Game) paid subscription published by Trion. It stages the medieval fantasy world of Telara in which players are grappling with evil creatures emerging from "rifts" that can appear in various places and at various times in the game.
In Rift, two factions clash as they face the same problem. On the one hand we find the gardians who swear by the Gods, on the other hand the Renegades who swear by magic and technology. All these little people are killing each other when a common threat could bring them together. adders, an evil being from a parallel dimension, from another "plane", tries to invade the world with his evil forces (called "planar") via inter-dimensional faults. To overcome this, the opposing forces have no choice but to close these rifts and eliminate the planar invaders emerging from them.
Concerning Storm Legion, it is now Crucia, the great dragon goddess of the bloody storm who wreaks havoc with the help of her state-of-the-art troops ... I invite you to read the story of the game and its progress compared to the patches, it's really nice! ?
Here is the very nice trailer of Rift :
And its extension, Storm Legion :
I also wanted to share with you the trailer for the latest expansion which is much more representative of the current content?
Gang ad Storm Legion
Classes and factions
There are very (very, very, very, very) many game "classes". I have played a lot of MMORPGs and have been blown away by the customization of the class. You can really play what you want!
I had to choose between 6 races (3 per faction: Guardians or Renegades), then enter 4 vocations and then enter 5 profiles... in game we win 5 additional profiles which makes 10 profiles ... It is not finished! Each of these profiles is made up of a combination of 3 souls (talent trees) with points that can be placed upwardst in order to unlock skills and competences as well as "roots" which give us additional bonuses according to its progress in the soul!
Here is the character creation which really has a large panel of customization once again. Choose the hero you want to be!
Character Creation - Rift
So you start with (((3x5) x4)) x6 = 360 specialization choices for your base character then a total of 720 choices once in play! Without counting the points to distribute in each of your 3 souls. We can also buy other roles (double, triple, quadruple, quintuple and sextuple specialization) to change! Note that all this concerns only profiles, proposals created "recently" by Trion to help new players lost with so many customizations. We can always, manually, choose to compose with the 7 souls of each vocation.
Finally there you go, all that to say that you can create exactly what you want and so that's a huge point. A rifle thief, melee mage, summons and pets ... Rift gives you the character you've always dreamed of.
Regarding the two factions, Guardians & Renegades, you will have the same classes but 3 different races for each:
- The gardians count among their ranks Dwarves, High elves et Mathiosiens.
- The Rénégates, them, group together Bahmis, Eths et Kelaris.
All have two racial skills which you surely could have seen via the little spoiler on character creation. For my part, I therefore created a Dwarf mage with a leading role Pyromentaliste (Elementalist, Pyromancer, Archon) for the DPS and another role Legend (Chloromancer, Anathema, Elementalist) for the care.
The game
So here I am in the Guardians faction, freshly resurrected by the gods in order to spread their power on this earth plane (Telara) and to counter the faults and new threats like Regulos, Crucia and their technologically advanced armies.
I appear in a room where an angel teaches me the basics of the game. I take this opportunity to take a look at the User Interface, the UI, and all those buttons, tabs that I can click. It took me a little while to understand everything, but once understood, we see that it is really well organized, explained and detailed. Follow the directions and everything will be fine? Because pictures are better than words, you will discover in the following gallery UI, 10 mage profiles, skills, action bars, in short everything there is to discover in order to develop our basic knowledge of the game. There is even a very good interface customization mode, you can completely reorganize your User Interface so that it looks exactly the way you want. Bigger, smaller bars, at the top, at the bottom, additional bars, put them by 4, horizontally, vertically ... When I told you that the customization was really very extensive? I haven't really watched, but the game also supports expansions.Overview User interface and advanced classes
Here is the UI when I started playing and then as I configured it after 16 levels played. You can see that the quest log is full and that my many spells are happy to find several action bars.
quests
► But let's start our first quest!
La sanctuary guard ask me to go talk to Fayne Doran who is another non-player character (NPC). We are very well guided, take a good look at the mini-map at the top right indicating where Fayne is located. So I go to its location to continue the thing.
Here is Fayne! Here is a completed quest, one! Well, it is true that it was not difficult. She asks us to kill 10 creatures lurking in the area, we start our first fights.
I continue my first quests quietly. By pressing M, you deploy a larger version of the mini-map to see the surrounding areas or just where you are and places. Tracked quests are always marked on this map so you never get lost. Convenient.
By continuing, by dint of completing quests, returning items to NPCs and killing monsters, I am leveling up! This done, I can start putting points in my talent trees.
So much for the progress of the quests and leveling. There is a very large number of quests on this first map in order to master the rest of the adventure. You will also get various equipment to improve the characteristics of your character, money and experience of course.
I will not reveal the end to you, but do you have an idea by looking at this last screenshoot? ?
Loopholes
These are an important part of Rift obviously. You will encounter faults of different levels (from solo to raid 20) and especially of different natures since there are 6:
- Earth
- Air
- Feu
- Water
- Fri
- death
I was able to meet all these types during my adventures below level 20 but I only thought of 4 in screen: death, Fri, Earth et Feu.
Each of these vulnerabilities must be opened (if not already done) by triggering a Lure. Then appears a random fault from which monsters land; it will of course be necessary to fight them.
So I activate my lure and ... Ah! a fault of Life ! In reality this flaw comes from the plane of life. In the world of Rift, there are several planes of real worlds. Several steps are necessary to close a vulnerability:
- Open it with a decoy if it is not already done in order to reveal the fault;
- Fulfill the various given missions, the phases;
- Survive several phases including a bonus that gives you more experience than the others (if you go fast enough in all the previous phases);
- Kill the rift boss;
- This done, a small bag is at your disposal and the loophole closes;
Don't forget to collect your rewards. You also notice that you are gaining powers from the rifts. I have 3 of them and these can be used to trigger some really powerful effects. Is 200% power not nothing?
Among the rewards you will find planarites (Blue), currency to exchange planar equipment, and consumables giving you resistance, health, power and other interesting bonuses. You can also recover Corrupted Sourcestone (Purple) which are harder to get but give high rewards. The monsters in this rift were really small but as I went along I really encountered some nice, tougher bits.
The high level rifts are very important to recover elements allowing to equip very comfortably and to be able to make important dungeons and raids.
Rift Rifts "should look like they can spawn anywhere, thanks to thousands of possible spawn points." And regardless of the “game design dogmas” that “do not interrupt a player who is doing a quest or that the content intended for groups must be separated from that which can be done solo”, Will Cook wanted to reinforce the feeling of insecurity by ensuring, for example, that "the creatures of the rifts move, follow the main axes of the universe [even the quests hubs, these linear paths that guide the player from one region to another. 'other thanks to the quests] and have objectives to achieve ”.
And to allow all players to participate in these events (whether grouped or not), Trion also incorporates loopholes of widely varying sizes and intensity ("from minor invasions to massive raids on a global scale") , in addition to being progressive: the first level is relatively easy, but once reached, the next one is a little more difficult and you will have to be a good player or gather enough participants to defeat the final boss of the event - with hope to receive better rewards.
To know that at a higher level, there are faults in crafting, hunting ... but I'm not there yet!
Dynamic events and adventures
There are dynamic events triggering randomly on the map. Rifts are one example, but there are others of these named events Adventures. We find ourselves fulfilling various tasks such as:
- Repel a horde of undead;
- Help farmers grow their plants for the harvest;
- Protect a freight convoy;
- Destroy an enemy outpost;
- Destroy the water, life, earth bridgeheads, ...:
- Attack enemy convoys and their advances because certain events move on the roads;
I even had the chance to participate in a regional event with attacks coming in from anywhere, a village was completely under siege, large monsters were present and the final boss was HUGE! We were going ... almost a hundred to participate scattered around the village!
These activities are called adventures and can be done anywhere on any map in the game. You can also use the "button".Instant Adventure"in order to teleport near adventures, as the regions are large, and complete them with the help of other players. Completing 7 in a day gives you a special reward, in this case 3 Corrupted Sourcestone (Violet) as I mentioned above.
It is also possible to recover a Planar Focus on which you can add various bonuses to resistance to the elements but also other characteristics.
Handicrafts
Currently there are a large number of possible trades in Rift, I was amazed once again.
You can do up to three crafting professions at the same time knowing that harvesting professions count. Three harvesting professions are at your disposal:
- Minor: extraction of minerals and precious stones;
- Pick-up: collection of plants and wood;
- Butcher: butchering and various teeth and bones.
There are also six manufacturing trades:
- Les Apothicaires: specialize in making explosive flasks or various potions. Requires butchering and collection, uses laboratory;
- The Artificers: are craftsmen specializing in the manufacture of equipment for spellcasters: wands, sticks, totems, but also necklaces or rings. Requires miner and pickup, uses work bench;
- The Weapons manufacturers: are dedicated to the manufacture of daggers and swords, axes and weapon maces. More broadly, they are dedicated to working with metal to make weapons. Requires pickup and miner, uses forge;
- Armor Manufacturers: also work with metal, but with a view to making the various pieces of armor, whether mesh or plate. Requires pickup and miner, uses forge;
- The Rune makers: are dedicated to crafting item upgrade runes. In particular, they have the ability to add various magical properties to an object. Conversely, they are also able to disenchant an object in order to recover its magical components. Requires destroying objects (recycling), uses work bench;
- The Tailors: specializing in tailoring are able to make outfits in fabric or leather. They work in particular with the cloths gleaned from the remains of their humanoid victims and the tanned leather from the corpses of the animals of Telara. Requires butcher and cloth on creatures, uses loom.
There is also survival (cooking) and fishing! I am not a big fan of IRL fishing but it always amuses me in the game. I must admit that the Rift system is rather well done because the fish, changing according to the regions, also change according to the depth of the water. Fish by a lake and you won't get the same fish as throwing your cork farther down the center.
I personally chose Minor, Pickup et Artificer to arm my mage. You must have a workshop (forge, workbench, loom, laboratory, ...) to be able to practice the craft. Which forces you to come back to town and meet people. By the way, even at a low level, the manufactured items have proven to be very useful compared to some games where you make and then sell because the created object has frankly no use or is less powerful than the one 'we are currently wearing.
More screenshots on crafting
Character sheet
There are a lot of options and tabs! Character, statistics, crafts, familiar, fortune, notoriety, artefacts, Books, outfits et securities.
Besides, the titles are quite nice, if one becomes for example an artificer, one can bear the title "Apprentice artificer" and Onidra nabbed the title "Editor", class!
Size
There is therefore housing in game. During our adventures, rather quickly, it is possible to obtain a key in order to enter its dimension and to arrange its house as desired. You can visit your friends' house, the guild house or invite your acquaintances to your home. Several property sizes are available. The first is very small, even being a dwarf it was easy to enter!
Come on, let's go home! First impression ?
It is true that it is tiny ... But it is already good since it was free! Let's furnish the thing a little with the first elements bought and won.
Getting started with the housing tool is quite easy. You can choose the x, y, z position (axes and height), size, orientation, placement or to put the object back in the bag.
It's a good start ! After some new adventures, quests, and some shopping from various vendors, here's what I was able to do with it.
How good we are in bed! There are really a lot of buyable items (and even more in Storm Legion) but being a beginner I have very few resources. You will find very nice things on our article Ballad between dimensions.
Capital
Ah Sanctum, the capital of the Guardians ... I took a long time to get there because I was good at my quests ^^ It seems small but there are a lot of places and services in and around the capital city.
The winter event attracted me to it. Yes, there was a huge and really nice Winter event with lots of activities (Snowball fight, enlightening lost passers-by, finding gifts, making people smile with low spirits and even ... snowboarding! I really like this sport and it was the blast of being able to snowboard in play, slalom between the poles and make the big jump!
Come on, I will provide you with some screenshots of the Winter event!
Winter in Sanctum
But back to Sanctum ! The city has everything you need like mail boxes, bidders (sales room), mount seller (even if there were already some in the first city visited in the north of the region), a master of war for PvP battlefields, all you need for crafts but also a lot of stewards to buy equipment according to the notoriety that we have with the various regions, clans, cartels ... stylist if you want to, literally, remake your portrait and other services that are as useful as they are friendly !
I was not able to take as many images as I wanted because it is very beautiful and well organized. Visit the rest for yourself! : p
Are we in the game?
Some frames
I had too little playing time to meet players and do a dungeon with them, so I apologize for not bringing this up. The players are really very nice and it's been a while since I saw so much good humor, spirit and support in an MMO. I was also able to see a lot of RolePlay players (Brisesol Server on the Guardian side). Here are some mounts that I observed in game, it's frankly the class!
Graphics
Rift does not require an overpowered PC to be able to run the game quietly. My PC was high end 4 years ago and I was able to play in medium graphics without any issues. Above it was another story but much prettier like the screens you can see in this section. There are really fabulous sets and Rift reaches a level of realism quite captivating, it is very successful.
The small details are also thought out and worked on and reproduce a very good immersion, we are in the world of Telara, a very beautiful world. For all that is decoration, the work carried out was fantastic, the shadows, the play of light and the chosen design is perfect. It's just often purple!
There remains, I find, a small downside on the effects of spells. These apparently lack realism, beautiful play of light and particles. Maybe it was due to my PC not wanting to go "further" but I was a little disappointed on this point. Everything else is fantastic!
Rift has succeeded in bringing a very large artistic paw et we can easily fit this game into the prettiest current MMOs.
Its
Now let's move on to the sound designs of the game. I played my entire test with a quality open face helmet.
Always to go even more in the immersion, the ambient sounds are very successful. In town, we hear the hubbub of people talking and walking. In the forest, the sound of the wind, the birds, the bushes, everything is there. Each place has been very finely crafted and by closing our eyes we know exactly where we are: mountain, city, forest, river, cave, ...
The spells raise the level and each of our skills produces a very beautiful sound according to its nature and power.
A very good point for Rift which once again greatly surprised me.
Configuration
Minimum System Requirements
Operating system : Windows XP, Vista or 7
Processor : Dual-core 2 GHz or more powerful
RAM: Go 2
Hard disk space: Go 15
Graphic card : Nvidia GeForce FX 5900, ATI / AMD Radeon X300, Intel GMA X4500, or higher
His : DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
DirectX®: 9.0c (update June 2010)
Broadband internet connection (ADSL, cable or faster)
Recommended configuration
Operating system : Windows XP, Vista or 7
Processor : Core 2 Duo 2,2 GHz or better
RAM: Go 4
Hard disk space: Go 15
Graphics Card - Desktop Computer: Nvidia 250 GTS or more powerful
Graphics card - Laptop: Nvidia GTX 200M series or more powerful
His : DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
DirectX®: 9.0c (update June 2010)
Broadband internet connection (ADSL, cable or faster)
Trion provides the player with several graphic qualities, ranging fromultra low withultra HD, thus allowing many configurations to play the game. A 2008 PC can do the trick if it was powerful at the time.
Conclusion
Rift is a game that didn't appeal to me that much ... I totally messed up! This wonder is full of ingenuity and everything is very well thought out. I was able to spend 30 days and it was really fun every time I connected. The difficulty may seem very low at the beginning but I assure you that afterwards you will have to show that you can play! I had announced to Onidra "It's very easy all the same, I am fighting 7 enemies at the same time with my fingers in my nose!" and she replied "Ah ah, you'll see later if it's that easy!" She was right ! (She's going to like me to say that: p). From level 20, we start to feel that it thickens enough and apparently it will be more and more difficult. So get ready for big fights! To conclude the article, I urge all MMO enthusiasts who have not tested the game to register in order to do so, I am sure you will not regret it. With RIFTlite, it is possible to play up to level 20 without paying a subscription. If you liked it, you will be able to upgrade your account and take out a subscription at 12.99 euros per month (FAQ for RIFTlite). Hope you enjoyed the article, feel free to post pictures of your in-game characters, designs you made illustrating RIFT, or any other game / article comments!
Show your membership in the Guardians or the Rénégates!
