Ald Demo

With the Storm Legion expansion comes a new class;  Battlecrab!  This new rogue soul is exceptional at battling evil forces of the deep.  This king of the crustaceans makes up for its slow movement speed with its devastating claw attacks that leaves complete chaos in its wake.  While not as effective outside of its natural elements, I'm looking at you land lovers, I'm confident this new soul will rule the seas!

I'm not sure what it is about desert maps in MMO's but i absolutely adore them.  Maybe it's my absolute love of the film Lawrence of Arabia, but i always enjoy a good sand desert over a lush jungle.  In fact, i absolutely hate jungle maps with a passion.  They tend to be so over-saturated and packed with trees and brush that you can never get a sense of grandeur.  That's never the case with deserts.  They're built to be vast, grandiose, and epic in scale.  Rift's new zones don't disappoint in this regard, well not the desert ones anyways.

Ding

Two years and 4 months after my initial level 50 ding in Rift, I've reached 60.  I just love that word "ding", it just has a ring to it.  Wow, that was terrible yet I'm going with it.  I can't believe it's been so long honestly because it sure doesn't feel like Rift has been out that long.  I'm sure it's due to my lengthy hiatus from the game because of GW2, among other things.  Regardless, i decided to spend the week going 50-60 while i wait on phase 4 of FFXIV.  Amazingly enough, it took me just that long for my initial 50 levels.  I took my time this go around and avoided all dungeons and just focused on quests and exploring the new zones.  What to do now?  Probably uninstall for a while again!

The first thing i did upon my ding was spend all of my cash shop currency that i accumulated during my year as a member, which Trion graciously saved up for me.  It's no surprise that i decided to go with an armor set for my rogue that looks like a cross between a space cowboy and bounty hunter.  Those being my favorite two guilty pleasures in the fantasy/sci-fi realm.

My last purchase came in the name of convenience, which happened to be a mount.  Not just any mount, but a freaking armored panda mount.  Trion's obsessed with taking pokes at Blizzard i suppose.  Anyways, the selections were limited in the 150% movement speed department, which is the current fastest speed.  I went with the best looking one of course.

Being a nerd and using their game tracking software finally payed off.  Well, technically I've received tons of rewards from them in the past, but never anything of value.  This time around i was rewarded with the Storm Legion expansion for free, which included four new souls, and an adorable Raptr mini-pet.

Wish i could rename him Snoopy

Quest reward cape

Upgraded quest reward cape

Flame on

We're looking for crites

     Source

I can't say I'm surprised that it's happening but i am shocked it took this long.  I was sure Rift would be heading down this path prior to GW2's launch, which never happened.  This announcement strikes me as a bit odd at the timing though.  Perhaps they've reached do or die status or perhaps it's just time.


I am happy that Trion isn't gating any actual content behind a cash shop, other than the Storm Legion souls and the normal inventory space that every game does.  This will absolutely help in getting more players trying and possibly engaging in Rift down the line.  This, however, doesn't solve the problem that i felt Rift had when i stopped playing.

The game was a ton of fun and what really set it apart was the soul class system.  It was the closest thing to FFXI, which i always said had the best class system ever in any MMO.  The ability to swap to whatever your group or raid needs on a whim is amazing flexibility.  I loved swapping between a tank or dps or even a bard on my rogue.  It made grouping so much easier.


The problem with the game was it's extreme focus on the "raid or die" mentality.  I recall as if it were yesterday what Hammerknell did to the player-base.  Personally, i loved the difficulty and the focus on only the best groups being able to complete certain bosses.  Unfortunately this new raid eventually broke and destroyed 50% of the raiding guilds listed on the now defunct raiding progress website that the players created.  The only way to recruit players to your guild was from dead or dying guilds.  This is just unhealthy for the future of your game.

There was a pretty good post on the official forums at the time outlining this and the path the game was headed down.  How there would only be 1 or maybe 2 guilds per server that would even be able to fill or compete in the raiding game.  I also recall how this post was looked down upon by the players, to which some even stated how consolidation of raiders was a good thing.  My mind was blown how short sighted some people can actually be.

Now, i haven't been involved in the game for about a year now so maybe things have changed.  Hell, the fact that there's housing now is a huge step forward into giving players more to do other than raid.  I can only hope that the news of FTP helps Trion build a player-base back to what it once was, but it's up to them to provide more options for players to participate in.

I thought I'd take advantage of 5 free days and return to Rift to see what the game actually looks like on a good PC.  At the time i actually played and raided pretty hardcore, i was on a system that maxed out at 20fps if i was completely alone in some corner of the world, and under 10fps in raids and rifts.  I have to say, it's a completely different game aesthetically and gameplay wise.  While i do miss it and have much respect for Trion, i don't think I'll have time for it once GW2 launches.  This was sort of my goodbye for now to the game.

Since i haven't played Rift in 3 months now, i thought I'd gather all of our Hammerknell vids in one spot. Missing Rune Kind and Inwar somehow so I'll have to yell at someone to get me those. There's of course no Akylios vid since we stopped playing before we could kill, which is unfortunate since i hear it's nerfed to hell now and on farm. Such is life i suppose. Even though i really miss the game and i think Trion is rolling, it's full speed ahead into GW2.

Well, it didn't take that long but finally rank 8. Probably the most fun i've had in Rift despite the class imbalance. This ones all on Noraan, Naughtius and Zygore for distracting people so i could stab them. Played mostly as 51 Nightblade with my warrior mentality of just running in and destroying people. As if any other rogue soul could do that, right?

Prior to 1.4, i decided i'd work on getting as many coins as i could stomach to purchase a bunch of the new epic water resist source machines. As usual, this led to me finding a bunch of stupid things to do to occupy my time. One of those was finishing up all the achievements in every zone for finishing quests.

First things first. Rocking my new look. The originator of the chainmail rogue.

Last on my list was the quest chain in Shimmersand. Holy fuck did this send me all over the map and back a dozen times, but man was it a fun chain.


  
  Achievement complete!

   New mount from a random drop off an expert water rift. Looks like a cross between a rat and a frog. Funny story about getting this too. It seems to only drop when i show up on bard after going afk to make a sandwich. It's true, i swear. We got 2 of them like that.

   Holy debuffs Batman.

   I thought i had enough of crabs when i left FFXI. Instead we get lobsters.




   We also got a random world drop banner that does absolutely nothing. I call it the dirty q-tip. The only use for it is for everyone to throw one up during a raid and annoy everyone else.




   Also started PVP'ing again for the first time since level 40. All i can say is, man it was so much more fun pre 50. Shit's ridiculously unbalanced.


   Camping the event vendor awaiting phase 4 to start, for server firsts of course. I failed.

   Guardian invasion in Meridian that i somehow missed. Gotta get those 50 kills for my achievement dammit.


   No one should ever give me access to the guild bank, for i will hijack it and rearrange everything as annoyingly as possible. I screwed up on the "A" though.

   Let's go Hammerknell already. 1.4 can't come soon enough.