Rift Beta continues and this time it’s to stress test the servers. I’ve played a little more and discovered a few things.
First of all, I like this game. It reminds me a lot of my past online gaming adventures and it’s made me happy while playing it. I’ll obviously not be able to give it the full time and effort I once did, but it will certainly be fun to pick up and play when I have a few hours spare in an evening of a week.
Next up is the races, Guardians and Defiants. I started out playing as a Guardian and everything was light and fluffy but with good story and solid characters. Everything was about protection and destroying evil and machines. Based on this one side I was impressed. But I have also created a character for the Defiants and seen a completely different perspective of the game. The same questing and adventuring applies, but the level of detail that has gone in to make the two sides different is amazing. The graphics fit the race you choose. The environments are lush with more mechanisms and mechanical items as a Defiant which make it a nice change to switch sides now and again.
Part of the stress testing of the servers meant that Rifts were opening up all over the place. Groups were getting together and attempting to complete the tasks at hand. Today I found it to be a great fun time to be online. The rifts opened up and by joining the public groups meant a spot was already made available and off everyone went. It didn’t matter whether you knew the people you were with or not, everyone worked as a team to get the Rifts closed. And that’s just what happened, it was fun and still progression since I gained a whole level just by running round and closing Rifts.
There were a few glitches though. There seemed to be times where the game would pause ever so often during these Rift events. At first I thought it was my PC and network causing the issues, but upon checking others were also experiencing the same effects. This is obviously what the stress testing was all about and the people behind the game can go away and fix it.
And today was the only day I’ve seen a character on screen of someone I’ve known from games past and met in real life too – Rasuphas! The chat channels are nice, but seeing a character and their face/equipment is nice too. Here is a screenshot of him carrying his bow!
The experiences I’ve had with Rift during the Beta events and after my initial quick review of the game, my thoughts on actually getting the game have changed. After a few requirements to complete tasks by March, I am able to pre-order the game on the special discounted rate per month (6 months at £5.99 pm). So come launch day I will be there with the rest levelling up.
