Rift: Planes of Telara GamesCom Round-up
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IGN gets things moving:
Realm of the Fae is a dungeon that, as players progress, ultimately spans the four seasons. Fae Lord Twill, the dungeon's namesake and ultimate boss, has created his own realm in an effort to separate him from one of the benevolent factions in the game. In doing so, he's attracted the ire of you allies, and by proxy, you. The dungeon is a pretty straight-forward affair for anyone who has played other MMORPGs in the last few years. Groups of enemies fill the gaps between the dungeon's four bosses, who each have their own special abilities which result in players having to form a strategy to beat them.
Trickster Maelow, for example, has two friends who constantly power him up, so they have to be killed early. Battlemaster Atrophinius, on the other hand, fights players in the middle of a ring of drunken satyrs who, if you get too close, will start smacking you around. So naturally the Battlemaster throws you to the edge as frequently as possible. Another battle pits you against a giant frog-beast who spits poison in rings on the ground and hits hard, while the Fae Lord Himself, well, he was a pushover, but the four elemental beasts he summoned beforehand weren't.
Ten Ton Hammer adds to the pile:
At spawn-in I was told that I have two soul tree points, so I immediately I got a taste of one of Rift's defining systems. Disparaged by some as simply Rift's take on talent trees, having experienced the soul tree firsthand I can say that it's not just a system of enhancements for your abilities. Instead, your choices in the Soul Tree determine what spells you'll have, both directly and indirectly. As a direct damage-dealing pyromancer, for example, I started out by enhancing my fireball and flame dart abilities with soul tree points. So far this sounds pretty familiar, right? But spending those points on unrelated abilities unlocked a new flame armor self-buff in a separate part of the soul tree. A few short levels later I obtained my fourth point which, once spent, granted me a spell which drains charge (charge builds as spells and abilities are used, much like rage with a WoW warrior) to increase the damage output of my fire spells. It's worth noting that in addition to Soul Tree enhancements, players can spend money at a trainer in town to rank up their spells and abilities too.
Respecing, multiple specs, and the ability to switch out specs on the fly are a fundamental part of Rift's character development. "People love playing with combinations. The idea is to facilitate it and turn it into fun rather than having people pay obscene amounts of money to respec." -Scott explained that player can buy up to four loadouts to switch between any time they're not in combat. If you notice your healer is having a tough time keeping your tank battle-ready, maybe you can switch to a build that includes minor healing. Or maybe a boss mob has lots of knockback - why not switch to a build with more ranged capability? 270+ combinations result from taking on up to three souls (two plus your starting soul). Won't that variance lead to a balancing nightmare? "We fully expect that people will discover new and exciting things that never occurred to us, and that's ok... that's part of the fun. We're not trying to overbalance everything and make everyone feel exactly the same."
The Escapist shows up, as well:
The actual closing of the Rifts is fairly simple - kill the monsters that pop out, kill the bigger monsters, and then kill the boss monster. Boom, Rift closed. What's cool about it is that it functions very much like the Public Quests in Warhammer or Champions Online - anyone can jump in and help contribute, and they'll get a reward at the end proportional to their contributions.
As I adventured further, eventually escaping from the Shadowlands to the mercifully less-dreary fertile coastal farmland of Telara (whoops, guess some of the corrupted hero souls used that portal to come along for the ride) it was the Rifts that started to draw me in. The tears and Rifts add a surprisingly compelling and dynamic new element to what is otherwise a fairly standard MMORPG - planar tears appear on the map as they randomly pop up, meaning that it's possible to forego questing entirely and instead just level up by hunting Rifts (and getting some rather useful items in the process).
And then Curse doles out both a preview and interview with studio lead Scott Hartsman:
Curse: How many points will you have available for your souls at max level? Previous info alludes to 1 per level, but the last root ability is at 51 points. Is there any point acquisition aside from leveling?
Scott Hartsman: It is tied to one point per level, and what we fully expect to happen when we release is the same thing that's happening now in testing. We made the idea of having different roles, or what you might think of as a spec, available for purchase. So don't think of it as "man I've only got one point, and if I want ability X I have to invest in all of it and now I'm locked in". If you have four roles you can swap back and forth between, then great, you might have a paladin soul you use for a dungeon, and then one push button away you have a role that has spoints spread across other souls. The character I'm playing on alpha right now has two specs I use, if I'm just plugging through content I'm just 100% Beastmaster. I can also switch to my soul set that's 75% paladin, and 25% beastmaster because there are some good synergies there. Then when I want something new I switch to my other set which is part Champion and part Beastmaster. The point is you're able to take on multiple roles and switch between them at will. You can buy additional role slots at your trainer and you're able to put the roles right on your hot bar and swap anytime you're not in combat. It gives players a level of infinite discovery, and lets them find new and interesting combos to do without getting tired of their characters.
