Rift

Overview

RIFT is developed by Trion Worlds. The game's official launch date was announced as March 1st, 2011. Pre-ordering the game allowed players into the head start and able to play the game from February 24th, 2011. On June 12th, 2013, the game went free to play for all players.

Story

The once beautiful land known as Telara, is under attack by mysterious rifts. A huge explosion has made the plane Telara and other planar worlds fractured, and torn. Powerful and treacherous, these rifts occur when another plane intersects with the magical Ward protecting Telara. Rifts create doorways for planar invasions, destroying the lands and people of Telara, but they may also grant otherworldly power to those brave enough to seize it.

Telara isn't safe anymore. Invasions can occur anytime and at any given location, and the danger to the once beautiful world is growing. Two major factions have formed to save the world of Telara from the rifts: the Guardians and the Defiants. Each faction works in different ways to preserve Telara's future, and both seek to undermine the other.

Not much is known about the nature of the rifts, but Telaran scholars, historians and priests seek to find the mysteries that is surrounding these massive planar rifts. The people on Telara believe that the rifts are being caused by direct attacks on the magical Ward surrounding Telara.

Rifts appear in the world as a tear in the fabric of air, but there is still much to learn from these massive forces. Can riftic power be harnessed by sorcery? Can creatures, human or inhuman, enter the rifts to venture into the deadly planes beyond? How many planes really exist? Where are they coming from?

Even though much isn't known about the rifts, one thing is sure; If they are not closed and destroyed, the world Telara will surely end.

Gameplay

To start with, players must complete hundreds of quests, kill thousands of monsters and seal lots of rifts, to advance to the max level of the game, which was originally 50 (Has since been raised to 60). The way you approach reaching the level cap, can be done in several ways ranging from killing monsters, to sealing the great planar rifts in the game.

The way the game is played is the norm of MMORPG's. Players create a character from the ground up, and once they get into the game, they hotkey their abilities onto a hotbar, where they use their abilities to kill, heal or protect his or her allies and foes.

The game features many different classes (which are known in the game as Souls) which can meet a lot of different responsibilities.

The class system in RIFT is different from any other MMORPG though. Its diverse, flexible and has lots of opportunities. This is explained in further detail later, in the class system section.

The game has two ways to be played; PvE (Player vs. Environment) or PvP (Player vs. Player). The PvE aspect of the game features a lot of different ways to be played. You can go out and kill any random monster you might want to, or begin an epic journey through a quest, and even go and clear a dungeon/raid. If that doesn't fulfill your needs though, you can go and close Rifts. This is a new dynamic feature, only available in Rift. These rifts are as mentioned above, planar invasions and they need to be closed, before they make a foothold in the world of Telara. See the Rift section for more information on this.

If you however, don't like to fight NPCs (Non-player characters) and you prefer the real thing, PvP is the way to go. In RIFT, players can fight each other, in either World PvP, or instanced Battlegrounds. The PvP portion of the game is still full of secrets. The developers haven't said much about it in interviews and videos, but we do know, that World PvP can take place (I.E the factions can fight against each other in the open world) or the factions can fight in Battlegrounds.

Another way to play the game is instances/dungeons and raids. This is where people from the same faction join together to defeat mighty creatures and foes. This takes place in a closed room, where only the ones in a given party can enter.

In dungeons and raids, players take on mighty monsters. Once you defeat a boss, or another event in a dungeon/raid, your party gets loot, which may get assigned to the ones that need it.

The loot system hasn't been discussed so much as of yet, but it has been said that in the alpha version of the game, only free-for-all is the loot system you can use. (Free-for-all is where people can take whatever they want, from killed monsters etc.)

It is expected though, that the game will get a need or greed loot-rule. This is where players say if they need the item or not, and if a player votes 'need' for a huge axe for example, and the rest of the group 'greeds', the player needing the item, of course gets the item.

If two people 'need' on the same item though, they roll on which of them that gets the item. The one with the highest roll, gets it.

Races

RIFT provides many playable races to choose from. Each race has its own special look, unique racial ability, and background story. The races are divided into two factions:

• Guardians: The guardians have 3 distinct races to choose from. They are the Dwarves, the High Elves and the Mathosia
• Defiants: The Defiants have some more dark races, they are the Bahmi, the Eth and the Kelari.

Class system

In RIFT, the class system used is very different from any other MMORPG. Players start out by choosing one of four classes called "Callings," which are the Warrior, the Cleric, the Mage and the Rogue. After they have chosen a Calling, they select which "soul" within that Calling they want to attune themselves with. This is where it gets interesting, as the four callings have lots of souls to choose from and the soul you choose, is the "class" you play. The callings and souls are as follows:

To access new abilities for your class, you use points you gain every time you level up in the talent tree. For example, once you've used 5 points in your talent tree, you unlock a new ability. Then once you have used 10 points in your talent tree, you unlock a new ability. In this way, you don't ever have to go and train for abilities at a trainer. In Rift, you learn it the second you spend points in the talent tree.

After you've played the game for a while and advanced in levels, you can unlock additional souls. A player can have a maximum of 3 souls from their Calling on him/her at any given time, which makes the game have a total of about 270 class combinations. Each character can also save up to four of these soul combinations combinations (called Roles).

Once you've selected your 3 souls of choice, you begin to spend points in the given talent trees. Now you have a choice to either max out one of your souls to get the last ability in the soul tree and spend your remaining points on the others, and fulfill 1 role (DPS, heal, tank, etc), or you can choose to spend your points more evenly throughout your 3 different talent trees within your chosen Calling making your self a more rounded character.

Rifts

In Rift, the possibly biggest feature, will be the rifts (also called planes). These rifts will appear randomly throughout the world. They can appear anywhere, from out in the woods, to a beach nearby. Even just outside a huge city! Nobody knows where they will open next.

The game features 6 different kind of rifts:

• Plane of Life
• Plane of Death
• Plane of Fire
• Plane of Water
• Plane of Earth
• Plane of Air

Once a rift to another plane opens, monsters will start flooding out and start to take over the closest land. If the plane doesn't get closed (This is done by destroying the monsters spawning out of the rift, and then afterwards closing it somehow), the rift will make what is called a "foothold". A foothold is place where a rift has taken over. The monsters have kept spawning and they have made a base. Now there are a lot of monsters and they are taking over more and more land as time moves on. A foothold might start to push north, so they start to attack anything in sight, north of the foothold. Once they have started to go north, they will venture a small distance up north, before they might change their mind and suddenly go to the west. Now there is a foothold where the rift spawned, but the monsters have pushed a lot more than just there. Now its an even bigger task to close the rift, since you have to destroy all monsters and then finally, their base. If a rift gets a foothold and begins to advance in different locations, it can be a tough time.

With all these directions and footholds, different planes might clash onto each other. Imagine a plane of death has opened and started a foothold. They might start to go north, and once they've ventured for a while, they clash into a plane of earth. Now these two forces will make a little warzone, resulting in one of the side's demise. But now imagine you were fighting the plane of earth with some friends, and suddenly the plane of death comes and you actually have to ally with one of the planes, to defeat the other. This makes for an interesting three-way-battle, and that is what makes this feature really great.

Dungeons

Rift features many diverse and unique dungeons, which all are listed here:

• Realm of the Fae
• Deepstrike Mines
• Darkening Deeps
• Abyssal Precipice
• King's Breach
• Iron Tomb
• Runic Descent
• The Fall of Lantern Hook
• Charmer's Caldera
• Foul Cascade

Since the release of the game, two new dungeons have been added to the game, as high level dungeons:

• Upper Caduceus Rise
• Lower Caduceus Rise

As a new take on the dungeons, Trion Worlds have also added a new tier of difficulty in patch 1.5, called master modes. This difficulty level is above experts and therefore adds more health points to all bosses, grants them new abilities and new loot, so now the tiers of dungeon difficulty goes as follows: Normal -> Expert -> Master Mode.

These dungeons have the master mode tier implemented:

• Darkening Deeps
• Caduceus Rise (combines Upper and Lower together)

Expansion

The expansion Rift: Storm Legion was released on November 13, 2012.

Release Info

RIFT will be released on March 1st, 2011 in various formats. The Digital Standard Edition contains the following features:

• Founder’s Pricing: The opportunity to sign up for a limited-time, discounted subscription plan.
• Shrouded Sourcestone Rune: Grants 3 Endurance and 10 Death Resist.
• Companion Pet: Each character the player creates can choose from one of three unique pets.
• Beta Access: Play in the remaining beta events.
• Head Start Access: Play the game before it hits store shelves.
• Complimentary Game Time: Thirty (30) days of subscription service for new accounts.

The Digital Collector's Edition contains everything the Standard Edition does, plus the following extras:

• Collector’s Satchel: Increase the size of primary backpack to 24 slots.
• Ancient Tartagon Mount: Available at level 20, this two-headed turtle mount increases player speed by 60%.
• Bogling Wastrel: This mischievous, Collector’s Edition-only pet sets players apart from the other Ascended.

Official Website

www.riftgame.com

PC System Requirements

Minimum

• • OS: Windows XP, Vista or 7
  • Processor: Dual Core 2.0 GHz or better
  • Memory: 2 GB
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce FX 5900, ATI/AMD Radeon X300, Intel GMA X4500 or better.
  • DirectX®: 9.0c, June 2010 update
  • Hard Drive: 8.0 GB available
  • Sound: DirectX 8.1 compliant card
  • Other: Broadband internet connection (DSL, cable modem or other high speed connection)

Recommended

• • OS: Windows XP, Vista or 7
  • Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or better
  • Memory: 4 GB
  • Desktop Graphics: Nvidia GTS 250 or better
  • Notebook Graphics: Nvidia GTX 200M series or better
  • DirectX®: 9.0c, June 2010 update
  • Hard Drive: 8.0 GB available
  • Sound: DirectX 8.1 compliant card
  • Other: Broadband internet connection (DSL, cable modem or other high speed connection)