Rift: Planes of Telara Previews

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Written by BuckGB on February 3rd, 2011

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Rift is built around a dynamic content system that spawns four flavours of elemental rift into the world, through which demonic entities pour. If these rifts are left to linger, they create what's known as a '˜foothold', the visual representation of which is a knot of slimy tendrils that anchor the floating rift to the earth. Their corrupting influence spreads the longer they're left, and increasingly tough enemies appear, who drop consequently better and rarer loot.

Players must tackle these to defeat the invaders and close these rifts, or they'll spread incrementally across the server. What happens if they're left unchecked? The world gets messed up good and proper. If towns are engulfed, players no longer have access to the facilities there, so it pays to play Neighbourhood Watch and keep the beggars in check. To my mind, it sounds a little like Warhammer Online's public quest system, but with a sense of creeping growth. Or degeneration, depending on how you look at it.

Elemental rifts spawn randomly around the zones. The sky will turn dark, and a huge jellyfish monster or some creature related to that particular element will descend from the sky to try and ruin your day. And give you a lot of experience points. Rifts are great fun, and they basically work like a mini gauntlet. Several stages of monsters spawn, one after the other, until a mini-boss spawns. For each stage, you get a ton of experience points and loot, and once the mini-boss is slain, the Rift will seal and disappear.

Rifts are constantly spawning all over the map, and every so often a zone-wide event will occur where dozens of Rifts will spawn at once. This was by far the most fun we had playing the game. Joining a huge raid and going out as a massive group to kill dozens of Rifts was absolute fun, and a great deviation from the monotony of questing.

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