Good morning folks. It’s Sunday and I am already beginning to dread the start of another work week. I did in fact get drug out into the world kicking and screaming yesterday. Somehow my wife talked me into a trip to the ghetto for school supplies. However luckily it was over almost as quickly as it began, as the one Dollar Tree we went to actually had everything she had on her list for her classroom. I will admit that after Albany, the ghettos of Tulsa feel quite a bit more posh.
Viva Summerfest
It’s Summerfest time again in Rift and with it comes the scavenger hunts, that have now been updated to include the Storm Legion content. This is my first year participating, and while I have not spent a ton of time working on them yet, it is my goal for today. I have to admit that there are so many different quest lines and scavenger hunts that it is a little bit weighty to try and wade in as a first timer. Thankfully yesterday Rift Scene released a really amazing guide to the new content. For first timers like me, there are additional guides that cover the previous years little and great scavenger hunts as well.
If you follow the new guide it has a listing of all of the items available for purchase with the summer merit badge tokens. Personally I am drooling over the level 60 epic rings… and hopefully after completing all the scavenger hunts today I will have enough currency to buy one for Belghast my almost raid geared main. Additionally as always while the event is going on, every rift has a change of dropping the summer merit badge currency. We have found the sweet spot is to take storm legion characters onto Ember Isle and open Major rifts. These seem to be much easier than the Major rifts in the Storm Legion zones, but drop similar rewards.
The Hidden Temple
Last week I posted some pictures of the guild hall, in it was a shot of the hidden temple area at the top of the waterfall. Rae has once again been hard at work, and the above image is the current state of that same area. I personally find them almost unrecognizable. She figured out some cool tricks to do with tile to make the really intricate flooring you see above. Additionally she built a pergola from scratch over the pool in the corner. What I love is the level of depth our guild hall has. We even have a hidden cairn that no one has actually found on their own yet.
Additionally our guild hall now has a bartender, and as a result our bar area has been tweaked here and there a bit. The above shot doesn’t necessarily show off all of the features, but I had to use it because of the impromptu Stalwart dance party that happened while I was in the hall taking pictures. In addition to these area there have been a lot of little additions that make the whole area look more “lived in” and furnished. The upstairs is slowly coming together but I dont think Rae really has a firm direction yet. I fully expect to log in one day and everything be completely different up there as she had gotten some wild inspiration.
I love the above screenshot. I backed up all the way to the zone boundary to take it, and it shows off OUR take on the Granite Falls area. You can see we added a Regulos Ballon to our “Bazaar” area, which has had a little bit of tweaking here and there, and the path to the temple up through the waterfall is far less hidden. Additionally little bits of flair have been added all along the path making it feel more finished. All I really want now is for Trion to add in vendors that we can sprinkle throughout the bazaar making it feel like a real zone.
They mentioned during one of the recent live streams that this has been a point of heavy debate amongst the development staff. The whole question is… will having functional guild machines and vendors make the hub cities depopulated. My theory is no… so long as they limit what we can place in our dimensions. Personally I would like to see a varieity of vendors and access to all of the crafting machines. Additionally I would love to see a functional mailbox that we can place outside our Inn. What I am okay with not having is access to auction house and banks. These are completely things that should be left in hub cities and will make sure players go back to the hubs to access them.
Love My Guild
Yesterday I played a bit in the morning and then late afternoon we went out to run errands. Before I left I queued up the guild for the “Kill 700” pvp quest, as we had completed all of the available PVE ones. I was gone roughly two hours and when I got back I noticed that we had no guild quest at all. I was pumped… that meant we had completed the PVP quest in record time. When I started asking people about it, and logging over to my Guardian to grab the “Win X Matches” quest… I found out that no… we had not only completed the Kill 700 quest… but also completed the Win X matches.
Apparently while I was gone… my guildies spontaneously organized a PVP team and knocked them all out in what felt like crazy time. It seems as thought Rae, Tibuant, Delevax and Liani(@CorticalScrub) pulled together a group and ground them out together. If I have missed anyone that participated… please forgive me… but those are the people who chimed in when I was asking about it. I would not be surprised if this ended up being an entire guild pvp affair. I have to say I had and still am having such a “proud papa” moment over this. Anyone who has lead a guild realizes just how rare it is that your members freely self organize and do stuff together.
Currently thanks to this flurry of activity we are sitting a good chunk into level 6. Here is hoping that frequent guild harvest quests can ding us before the wednesday reset. If not we will have 7 and 8 next week easily. It feels like we are just flying through the levels, and the perks we are gaining for the guild are really awesome. Right now we are working on the perk that increases the amount of gold gain for all players… which will in turn feed the 3% tithe gold duplication that is happening already and going into the guild vault. Here is hoping that eventually we can fund that third guild vault.
Chasing Hellbugs
Granted… the above picture is not a Hellbug rift, but it is of guildies closing a Rift. At least once a day Tibuant has been pulling together a guild group to go out and open fire rifts in the hopes that we will get the ever illusive “invasive species” rift for a shot at pets and mounts. Tib has had some rather shitty luck thusfar to be honestly, and I think this is what has spurred on his quest. Currently I believe he has gotten 6 of the Skitt pet, and not seen a single mount drop. I have had 2 red mounts and 3 red pets and 1 purple pet thusfar but am still always game to do it… for a shot at the purple or green mounts.
The one thing I have noticed… people are extremely rude when it comes to tears. There is a guild on our server called Vox Populi… which is neither very original… nor something I think most people would aspire to be given the Bioshock Infinite reference. So far their MO seems to be running around a zone, opening major fire rifts… and then abandoning them if they are not the Invasive Species one. Firstly this is kind of a dick move, but secondly it is self defeating… since every zone has an upper limit of rifts that can be open at one time. By not closing the rifts they are opening… they are just screwing themselves over in the long run.
All of that said… we have tried to be good stewards of the land. If a rift is up… we close it period… regardless if it is the magical happy hellbug rift or not. Additionally if there are naturally spawned rifts we often close those as well, since it will free up space for new tears to form… that we can then open and hopefully GET a hellbug. Bitching about that guild aside it has been a blast just running around with guildies and wrecking things. I am a simply monkey and mass carnage makes me happy.
Wrapping Up
I have rattled on enough for this morning and I want to get on into game and work on things there. I hope you all have a great end of the weekend and that the beginning of the week is pretty calm. Additionally since I have been talking about House Stalwart quite a bit, I thought I would throw this out there. If you are on Faeblight or currently unattached to your server and are looking for a good home… you might check out this post that covers our guild rules. If it sounds like something for you feel free to look me up on Faeblight on either Belghast, Belgrave, Belglaive or Belgaroth.