At the time of posting this it has yet to roll out to the North American servers, but our European friends got it at 3:00 BST.  Hopefully by this evening these will be deployed to the North American servers as well.  Overall there are not a huge number of changes happening, a few tweaks here and there.  The most important tweak however, and I think many other players will agree is that the Dye Vendor is reported to be returning from his recent vacation.

Pretty Pretty Princess

Funny how finally playing a game with armor dyes has made us all addicted to them.  The talk in the general channels is nonstop questions and or jokes about the dye vendor.  I myself have had a pair of boots desperately in need of a dye job for several days.  One of our guild tanks has resorted to using a hideous color scheme compiled with the easily obtainable apothecary dyes.  I wonder if the color palette of seafoam green and magenta offends the mobs so much that it increases his aggro.

Two-Tailed Cats Be Gone

A controversial change coming down in the patch is the removal of Valmera mounts from Defiant players who were crafty enough to stealth run into the vendor inside of Sanctum.  Since this was not necessarily an exploit, it simply involved stealthing into enemy territory, I can see the frustration for the players this is effecting.  But in reality it is somewhat unfair to give defiant players an additional mount, regardless of the effort they went to gain it.  On the positive side, as the notes say the cost of the mounts are being refunded.

Trophies of Death

So one of the side effects of not having a true “rifthead” yet is you never really know if you just fail miserably at figuring out a quest, or if it is honest to god bugged.  There have been several of us stuck on the “The Saga of the Endless: Trophies of Death” quest step for weeks, never really figuring out what we needed to do to progress through it.  I am so relieved to find out that apparently it was in fact bugged and has been fixed.  Maybe I can continue climbing the ladder. 

One of the players on my server has the title Timelord, which comes late in the series.  Being a massive Doctor Who junkie, I must have this title regardless of the mental costs.  I just really really hope that it does not involve staring into the Untempered Schism.  I have bad enough headaches as is to risk ending up with that infernal drumming sound in my head at all times.

Hotfix Notes

official patch notes here

Over the course of the last several weeks this blog has all but become devoted to Rift, at least in it’s content matter.  One of the pieces you probably can’t glean however is that I have been approaching rift much differently than I did World of Warcraft.  In WoW, I was the leader of large guild, and raided multiple times a week on a schedule.  We fell in the casual raid category, but as a leader type I still pushed a good deal more than I should have to make sure things were getting done.

Slowing Down

When I cancelled my account I had 3 85s, 4 80s, and 7 between 60-80.  I prided myself on getting a character leveled and ready to raid in a minimal of time.  When I leveled my shaman to 80, it was fully epic geared and ICC10 ready within 5 days.  So to say I played with a focus and drive is a bit of an understatement.  Leaving WoW, and coming into Rift, made me realize how much of this process was my way of trying to make a game I no longer enjoyed fun again.

So as I entered Telara, I have taken a much more slow paced view of the world.  While I still hit the cap within 6 days played time, it was a much more gradual pace than what I was capable of.  The same has held true with dungeons.  Recently we have been running more than our share of experts both for gear drops and plaques.  While they have been fun, lately the pace we frequency of running them has started to remind me a bit too much of the countless hours I spent mashing my face against heroics for the guild.

I am nearing a complete set of tier 1 gear, with only my gloves lacking.  So after our initial push, I plan on taking a step back and moving more slowly.  The focus on experts has detracted from the other things I really enjoy in the game.  One of my favorite things is defending a town against an invasion.  For some reason it feels so epic, to stave off wave after wave of mobs trying to take over our territory.

One of the things I had to contend with in WoW was the barrage of tells I received the moment I logged in.  Recently with the focus on running experts, it has felt a bit like that again.  I log into questions of “what are we running tonight?”, “When will the Aussies be on?” and “how long do we wait before we pug this?”.  With the recent influx of newly 50s this should take some of this pressure off, but regardless I need to start saying no for my own sake.  WoW became a second job for me, and I refuse to let that happen in Rift.

The Skewed List

In my travels today I stumbled across an article on mmorpg.com entitled, Rift: 5 Things Rift Does Wrong.  While one point I mostly agree with, and another point I couldn’t care less about, there are three bullet points that I feel the author missed the boat on.  Now granted, just like this blog is most of the time, the author clearly states these are his opinions.

“Lifeless Questing”

The author is far from the first person to make this statement.  The Author sums up his point best in this statement “I find it a little disheartening that questing in Rift amounts to basically: go to hub, get a bunch of quests, go to bright yellow circle, kill things, return to hub when objectives are met. “.  Rift questing is very traditional, I will give them that.  Thing is, for a good number of mmo players, this is what we want.

Over the last few expansions one of the things I have detested about wow, is the fact that so many quests have turned into mini-games.  I don’t want to climb up a tree and throw bear cubs onto a trampoline, nor do I want to pilot a harvester and play a Super Mario like platform game as I try to climb a mountain.  What I want are well written quests with storyline that matters, and clearly defined objectives.  On top of that, I would really love to have clear visualization that is correct, so that I know where I should be going for this quest.

These two things ensure that if I am in the mood to read quests and really get into the storyline, then I can. The storyline in Rift is extremely well written and engaging, and when I am in the mood for it this is who I prefer to play.  However if I want to go on auto-pilot and quest for maximum experience, I can do that as well because the minimap tools clearly guide me to my objectives.  Nothing frustrates me more than being forced to play some poorly designed minigame, when all I really wanted was to go here and kill X things.

Granted, I come from an earlier time in MMO history, and much of my roots and practices are still there.  When I am purposefully trying to level, I find myself grinding quests the same way I used to grind through mobs.  However, with the slower pace I have taken in this game I have found myself enjoying the content along the way.  This game doesn’t hold your hand as much as other games, and to find some of the cooler things you have to get off the beaten path and go exploring.  There are so many quests you will never find, just by following the golden path.

“Stale Solo Play”

I guess I really don’t understand what the author means here when he says the solo play is stale and boring.  Really comes to the point of what exactly he is calling solo play.  To me, anything you can do as a single player without pre-planning, in an impromptu fashion is by nature…  solo play.  So while he spends more time harping on the fact that he doesn’t enjoy the questing system, I really don’t see him explaining why soloing is specifically boring.

To me this game is one of the more solo friendly games to come along in a long time. Why is this?  Simple… the public grouping dynamic.  On our server it is generally considered rude if you are running in private group mode, so for the most part players are open to the public.  So this allows you as a solo player to quickly merge and mesh with additional players that are completing things you couldn’t normally do by yourself.

So much of my time spent doing rifts is entered into in a solo fashion.  I ride out into a zone, and make my way to a rift near the porticulum town.  From there I enter into a public group, and start moving from rift to rift freely all the while, participating in a group dynamic while still playing on your time, your schedule.  Because of this same “open” dynamic, when you are off questing you are far more likely to find assistance when you encounter a road block on a quest than if you were truly alone in the world.

“Checklist Crafting”

This is one I have heard a lot over the years.  Crafting should be more intricate, or crafting should be more involved.  Problem is, these are awesome things in theory but nobody actually wants to play a game with one of those systems.  Everquest II had a cool system, for about the first five minutes I played it, after that the novelty quickly wore off when I realized I would never be able to just sit down, and craft a bunch of items quickly for my friends. 

For me crafting holds a special place in MMOs.  As an adventurer type, I go off exploring the world, and come back to town with a bag full of collected bits.  Crafting gives me a moment of downtime, from the action of questing, rifting, dungeons, and raids.  A time for me to set up a bunch of things to “build”, and go afk and get something to drink.  This downtime, gives me a much needed pause button from the game, and also lets me get some cool stuff made in the process.

I am at the very most a casual crafter, but honestly I would imagine serious crafters are even less for a more involved system.  If you are a serious crafter, chances are you play the auction house with your wares.  Doing so means you farm up a good number of mats, multiple times a week, and batch create your items to be sold.  If you have to sit there at the keyboard and mash buttons to get your stock replenished, you are just creating a new grind for players.  While you might think otherwise, fire and forget it crafting really is a good thing for an mmo.

The other complaint that always comes up, and this was slightly eluded to in the post is that crafted items in Rift are the same as dropped items.  Hardcore crafters for some reason feel that their items should be better than everyone else’s.  I have seen this time and time again in games, and I am assuming this is so that a dedicated crafter can maintain a monopoly on the best gear.  Thing is, these games are about epic adventure, not setting up trade cartels.  If you really want to become a master artisan that corners the economy, you might want to look into other games.

Things I Don’t Disagree With

“PVP Balance”

Firstly the author makes a point about PVP balance being off due to the massive number of soul choices.  I can completely see his point on this one, and were this something I cared about I would probably agree with him.  Thing is, I would almost as soon player versus player combat not exist in MMOs at all.  Generally in every game, one of two things happens.  Either the PVP balancing screws up PVE enjoyment, or PVE playability jacks up PVP fairness.  It is a balancing act that no game has ever gotten right, and honestly I wish to god they would simply quit trying.  PVP is something best left for other genres in my opinion, like first person shooters.

“Just Two Leveling Paths”

While I don’t necessarily think it is an Achilles heel, the fact that there is only one Defiant starting zone and one Guardian starting zone pretty much guarantees that by your second or third time leveling though, everything will be very stale.  It has it’s pluses and negatives honestly.  I have always liked the fact that each of us as players has the same shared experience.  There is no night elf leveling experience, or dwarf leveling experience, only the shared faction experience.

However as I am leveled my rogue through Freemarch, and now Stonefield, the ground definitely feels well trodden.  I hope given time they will add additional starter experiences, but ultimately you have to look at it this way.  With the diverse functionality of Rift, there is no reason why a player would ever need more than four characters per faction.  Were I to consider leveling 8-10 characters like in wow, I would probably cut myself.  But leveling four characters, over the same quests is really no different than having to level characters up to the new cap each time an expansion comes out.

In Northrend, with 6 80s, I can promise that things felt just as well done each time I moved a character to Dragonblight, even trying to alternate between Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord.  The only game I have played in recent memory that truly gave me an insane number of leveling paths, was Everquest II.  However we didn’t reach that point until several expansions out the door.  At launch, basically you were given the same kind of either Freeport or Qeynos experience as Rift.  I would be far more disheartened if I had seen poorly designed content, rather than limited starter options.

Divergent Post

I know this post today is a little divergent from what you guys are used to seeing from me since the focus on rift.  Every so often I will read something and want to comment on it, and this blog has long been my format for these comments.  Expect to see more informational posts, but at the same time expect to see more editorial commentary as well.

Today the event moved into a new step with the 1.11 patch.  With it came a number of tweaks and fixes.  It appears some of this dungeon issues we encountered were rolled in with this fix as well, so that is good to see.  The biggest thing that will be effecting most players is that the daily quests now will only be valid for rifts of your level range.  In truth, when this event rolled out there should have been some clarification in the first place that these dailies were complete able outside of freemarch since the quests you receive are level 15.

Righting Some Wrongs

In addition to a patch, whose notes will follow shortly, Trion appears to have stepped up to the plate and staked their claim in the “doing the right thing” column.  It appears that each of the players that each of the players that were effected by the account hack bug early on in the game received a free month of gameplay for the inconvenience of caused by the long customer service wait times.

I first heard about this last night in guild chat as several of our players that had gotten hacked during those first weeks of game play received their letter.  While each account was eventually “made whole” again, it did have several effects on them.  Our shaman for example, would have been able to purchase his level 50 mount but due to the hack had limp by just to survive those expert dungeon soul repairs.

In the past Blizzard had credited accounts, for missed playtime in a number of days or hours, but never before have I seen an entire mouth given out so freely.  This truly comes makes Trion stand in a class of its own.  If you would like to see the full statement of the text sent out to players, Rift Junkies has posted the notice, and rather than reposting here I will just send the traffic their way.

Full 1.11 Patch Notes

link to official patch notes here

Yesterday Rift saw it’s first major content update in the River of Souls.  With it came a plethora of class balancing, game tweaks, a world event, and a new raid instance.  This was the first major post launch test of Trion’s meddle.  The first major patch is usually a make or break moment for a game, and I have seen companies pull them off smoothly and others bring down the servers for a week.  While I can’t really give them a full passing grade for the results, the game was extremely playable.

What They Got Right

Firstly they gave the player base more notice than I have ever seen on a content update.  On they same day they placed this patch on the test server, they announced the specific day it was launching.  So from that day forward all players knew to plan ahead for these major changes.  While this only worked out to be a week, it is still a really major thing to have received notice of when the patch would go live on the same day it was initially announced.

On top of that, they announced Tuesday night that the servers would be down for roughly 4 hours.  In reality the downtime took 2 1/2 hours to complete.  This is another major thing, the number of times I have seen a server downtime go less than the announced time has been pretty few and far between.  The only negative here, was that the downtime was handled by US personnel, which made it extremely inconvenient for European players.

I’ve posted both the alpha and live patch notes on the forum, and those who have read the list can agree it was rather massive.  The amount of balance tweaks that were undertaken was extremely ambitious so all things considered the game was extremely playable.  Coming from WoW, our raid had a standing rule that all raids would be cancelled if a major patch was released that Tuesday.  It was a given that the servers would for the most part be unplayable by the time our raids started.  The servers themselves remained stable all evening long.

What They Got Wrong

One of the big changes that went in, that effected level 50 players was the change to the way bonus plaques work.  Much like the way WoW used to work, there are now daily quests in both Meridian and Sanctum for a Tier 1 and Tier 2 dungeon.  Last night the choices were Foul Cascade for the Tier 1 and Darkening Deeps for Tier 2.  Our little group decided to take on the Tier 1, hoping to knock it out quickly then proceed to Tier 2. 

First problem we encountered was that apparently instance lockouts did not reset at the normal times due to the server downtime.  This locked one of our oceanic players out of the instance, and it took us a good 10 minutes of zoning in and out to figure this one out.  After grabbing one of our stable of regular pug players, somehow he and I wound up in a different copy of the instance.  All of the players zoned out and joined us. 

We began to clear trash again, only to make it up to the first boss and find that he was missing.  Turns out we got locked to the instance that our Australian player had, despite the fact he was no longer in group and was never leader.  We chocked this up to patch day oddness as we reformed the group outside the instance.  Once again we cleared to the first boss for the third time, and hurrah, we had something to kill.

When we reached the second boss we encountered the first massive game breaking bug of the night.  On the Countess Surin Skenobar encounter, there is a phase where she teleports around the room dropping explosive barrels.  While doing this she targets random members of the party hitting them for large amounts of damage.  The bug we encountered was that when she fired her rifle during this phase, these massive hits would damage ALL party members.  So quickly the entire party would just be dead, without any way to heal through it.

We dealt with all kinds of little bugs here and there.  As a warrior I had major aggro issues on top of a wierd bug where any kind of “shield” ability was drawing aggro onto the caster not the tank.  All of these things were manageable, and knowing they were there, we could adjust our strategy to deal with them.  Not being able to complete one of the patches showcase features, that looks really bad.  I expect by the time I get home tonight, that all of these things will have been hot fixed, because after all that is the Trion way as it seems.  But ultimately last night we just quit working on FC, because we knew there was no getting past that bug.

A Grim Harvest

Now for the piece that everyone was really looking forward to, the event.  Honestly last night, I was expecting a whole lot more.  Inside the capitol city there is a series of daily quests, in Meridian they are gained from Grim Disciples members located directly behind the porticulum.  Originally I was going to provide a run down of each of the quests, but Gaarawarr gives a far better run down that I could have done, with loc codes, images, and full reward information.

I had built this up into my head to be this massive invasion of Freemarch, and was shocked to see business going on pretty much as normal.  What we are seeing currently is the first phase, which appears to last a week of a multi-week event.  I am hoping as this week goes on, the occurrence of the new rifts will increase.  The good is, the new rifts are pretty amazing.  The two that I have participated in so far are the “dragon” rift where a massive skeletal dragon gets released from the rift, and flys off in the distance, and the construct rift where you are bombarded with various corrupted constructed and their endless court handlers. 

It’s all about accumulating Otherworldly Sourcestone, which can be used to purchase spiffy things from the Grim Disciplines.  Big negative of the Otherworldly Sourcestone is that they are an inventory item, not a currency… which was a confusing design decision.  Currently the prices of the items, versus the number of Sourcestone you gain from doing the quests and rifts means that no one has the toys to play with yet, but we can pretty much make an educated guess as to what they will be. 

For 100 Sourcestone you have the Hagbrood Hatchling pet, which to the best of my knowledge is a scaled down version of one of the many Harpies you fight from death invasions.  Touch of Shade comes in a 300 Sourcestone, and based on the flavor text of “Shrouded with shade energy from the Plane of Death” I am placing my bet you get the cosmetic “death” glow like when a mob roams into a death rift.  Lastly you have the Guise of Death for 600 Sourcestone, which I believe is the “zombie” illusion that Trion has talked about so much in various interviews.  Big negative of the guise is that it equips as a trinket, so for players who actually HAVE trinkets, seems like you will have to give up that slot to use it.

Keeping Hope Alive

While things last night were a bit wonky, overall it was not bad.  Judged in wow standards it was a really good patch nights.  Compared to the Rift launch however, it was a bit disappointing.  Trion made an ambitious move to do a major content and rebalancing pass a month after the launch of their game and I think the  results are mixed.  We will have to live with it for a few weeks to see whether or not the results are a net win or a net loss.

My fears over the changes in the paladin/reaver effecting my survival have ultimately been mostly true.  The biggest change last night however is it felt like I had to fight a good deal harder to hold aggro.  I am not sure if this was the overall lowering of my paladin feedback damage, or the increase of mage damage.  Healer aggro as well seemed to be far higher than it has been in the past as well.  Hopefully I can figure out what magic buttons I need to tweak to bring things back to the norms.

As this event rolls out I hope it gets more exciting, but currently it is basically just another daily quest.  I have hope that over time it really will become the world changing event it was sold as.  I am sure this post will come off as pretty odd, considering I have been almost Pollyanna at times in my glowing reviews of Rift.  Hopefully as you read back through my past posts you will see I praise when folks do things well, and I poke when they are falling down as well.  I still have faith in Trion, and I still expect in all honesty that by the time we get home tonight to have another patch to bring a lot of these issues in line.  Was just disappointing to find out that this company truly was fallible.