Thursday, January 27, 2011

Rift: Planes of Telara Review


Share






This is a follow-up to my question is it worthwhile playing Rift?

So I've just finished up for the night playing Rift: Planes of Telara. Got a good 2 hours in on the Beta run.  Played in PvE (Player versus Environment). Here's what my first thoughts were.


  • Man, these controls are difficult to get used to.
  • Hmmm, do I have to click this guy to start a quest?
  • Argh! Where's the 'target nearest enemy' button?
  • Man, I'm having a bit of trouble facing my opponent.

As you can probably guess, I was playing solo.  Even though a few buds were online, they are too levelled up to bother joining them.  Solo is fine, for now.

But WOW, the graphics are really good.  Your main character isn't as sharp as I'd like it to look, even though it is early and not fully kitted out, it still doesnt look as sharp as Warhammer Online did.  But the environment is great.  I wish I got a screenshot when I was standing on a ledge, over-looking a large valley.

Here's one (check out my over-sized novelty sword hehehe):  


I've been playing as the Warrior and it's been fun.  I would have liked an AE class though (AE stands for Area of Effect, where your character can call an ability that causes damage to a greater area). I have no idea if I get AE abilities as I level up, but this would have be good to be able to easily find out.  It probably is if I went searching harder.

Overall, it looks like it is going to be a fun game to level up.  Can't wait to find out what the PvP is like (Player vs Player).  I do really like the amount your can train in your soul tree to gain abilities and specialities.  It seems like it has a lot of depth. I would think there would be a lot of unique characters of the same class.  This what I see as the best part of the game.

So to summarise, in my 2 hours first impression, I want to play more. Give me more!!!  It looks like it is going to be a good MMORPG.  But, it is still in Beta and there aren't as many people online at the moment as there will be.  Saying that, there were no bugs and no latency playing from Australia on a North American server.

Can't see myself buying it at the moment, there still is a lot to learn on how the game works before I buy.  Still yet to see my first Rift open in the sky, so I wanna learn what that is all about! :-)  

Hopefully this post will get a bit of awareness for the game and get some Aussie servers.  Perhaps too the team at TRION worlds can give me a free copy *begs*

Rift: Planes of Telara - An exciting new MMORPG, but try before you buy!

- tork