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Rift Previews: E3 Hands On With Rift
MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy took in the sights and sounds at E3, stopping by the Trion booth for a little bit of hands on time with their upcoming MMORPG, Rift: Planes of Telara.
By William Murphy on June 21, 2010
Back in April I had the chance to fly out to San Francisco for Trion's unveiling of what is now called Rift: Planes of Telara. There was a lengthy hands-off demo exploring the rift gameplay mechanics back then, but at E3 this year I finally had a chance to get behind the controls and see how the fantasy MMORPG actually plays. Producer Adam Gershowitz (who recently has been added to the dev team at Trion) and head honcho Russ Brown watched over my shoulder and helped me along as I played through some of the game's newbie experience and explored the newly unveiled class system (details of which can be found here). And for a game that's still in the Alpha stages, the level of polish and sophistication is pretty incredible. Rift is certainly looking like the AAA title Trion hopes it will be.
Defiant players will begin life in the Shadowlands. Not to be confused with the titular location of a certain Anarchy Online expansion, the Shadowlands is sort of a place between life and death in the Rift universe. Players are all former heroes of a past war that rocked the world, and begin as what the team refers to as "Ascended Souls", a Telaran slain during the great Shade War and resurrected to combat the forces of Regulos. As one of the Ascended, players have access and the ability to commune with the souls of Telara's many fallen heroes. Basically this serves as the lore reasoning behind death and the multi-classing system.
From the start players will pick one of the game's 16 base souls (classes) as their primary at character creation. As you level you'll get points to spend in the soul's Soul Tree (skills) to unlock new class abilities. Currently players will unlock a second soul slot at level fifteen and a third at level thirty, giving you the potential to mix and match up to three souls at a time to create your own custom class. As you spend points in one soul's tree, you gain both root abilities (displayed in a winding linear path at the bottom of the tree) and points to spend in the more specific talents for things like critical hit chance and other improvements.
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Obviously you'll only ever be able to have so many points to spend across all three soul trees, being that the level cap is 50 at launch. So whether you go extremely deep into one tree or spread your points out across multiple souls is up to you. Though the team is still playing with the cost and the mechanic of re-specs in their game, they understand the inherit need for letting players retool their choices and there will be a re-spec system in place at launch that both allows re-customization and inhibits players from doing it every five minutes. With the ability to combine any three souls from the same calling at one time, there's an incredible depth to this system that has me anxious to find out what the remaining classes will be.
The gameplay itself is fairly straightforward if you've ever played any of the more traditional MMORPGs. During the demo I tried out a Nightblade which is part of the rogue category classes. Dual-wielding and somewhat squishy, he plays quite a bit like the WoW rogue with combo points, stealth, and a high emphasis on single-target damage. But there's a catch: he also deals in dark magic. After leveling and obtaining my first points to spend in the soul tree, I unlocked a ranged fireball sort of spell which applies a DOT to the target and adds a combo point at the same time. I then able to fire off about two or three shots before the mob would get up close to me at which point I was able to unleash a finisher with the accrued combo points. The Nightblade is definitely going to be a class I have some fun with when the game launches in early 2011. For me specifically it has a really nice blend of melee and magic all focused on dealing death to the enemy.
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Before we finished the demo, Adam showed me an as of yet announced class that he prefers to play. I couldn't get him to tell me the name, but he paired the class up with a Nightblade and I marveled as he teleported in and out of combat hitting the enemies with multiple stabs and then porting away, firing off some fireballs, porting in and stabbing, porting away and shooting... all I could think of was "Holy crap that's going to be a nightmare in PvP". When I asked him about how the team was approaching balance with such a complex class system he assured me that they have tools in place to track the metrics and watch for signs of overt imbalance, but that they fully realize the ascended soul system is going to mean there's simply no way around imbalances from time and to time and that they'll just do their best to adjust the game based on feedback from the players. I don't envy their position on that front, but at least they're honest about the task ahead.
Adam also showed me around a bit of one of the game's capital cities. Like Ironforge or Freeport before it, it's here that players will likely do most of their economical maneuvering, training, and other less combative pastimes. On the subject of training, Adam told me that while players will gain all of their skills and abilities out in the world as they level up, returning to a trainer at the cities will allow them to purchase additional ranks of each spell or skill for a monetary cost. It's at the trainers where players will also be able to re-spec and try out new builds as well. In the cities players will also be able purchase their mounts, one of which I was privy to see at E3. While there will apparently be a large number of available mounts with no class or race restrictions (though possibly some factional restrictions) they weren't quite ready to show them all off. Rest assured it's not all about horses. The mount Adam whipped out was something of a blend between a rhino and lizard, massive in scale and covered in scales.
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But just as he began to bound around on the beast with great zeal, the PR rep came and told us our time was up for the day. Reluctantly, I bid farewell to Adam and Russ and the awesomeness of the ascended soul system. For sure, Rift plays quite like your traditional MMORPGs in terms of combat and pacing. It has a large seamless world to roam about and plenty of additional fluff like achievements, customizable armor, a deep guild system that is not quite ready for revealing and everything else you've come to expect from a Triple-A release. But the real value of Rift will undoubtedly rest in its innovative class system and the dynamic content offered by the Rifts themselves. One thing's certain this early on though... Trion's not screwing around. The polish and attention to detail even at an early stage are apparent and one hopes they have the fortitude and time to follow through on the promise Rift has at its disposal.
Nice writeup. Sounds like there can be some really fun and unique class combinations.
But I always worry about those fun classes being nerfed in PvE due to PvP complaints.
this game is really looking to be quite incredible, and I can't be the only one to notice a lot of these classes are heavily inspired by old school Dark Age of Camelot classes?
Really looking forward to this one hitting the beta scene :D
Its a very nice write-up, for sure. I'm really excited for the game and I can't wait to see how the development progresses.
There are a couple of mistakes (well, two that stuck out at me, anyway). First, the class he is referring to is called the Nightblade, not the Nightshade. Although this is an understandable mistake, considering its very similar to the DAoC Nightshade class in its stealth assassin/magic user combination.
The second is that while there are 16 classes in the game, I don't believe you have the ability to combine any three at random, which isn't right. Players can combine any three classes from within their particular calling. The callings are Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, and Mage. So while you can combine a Bladedancer with a Nightblade and a Ranger, you cannot combine say, a Champion (Warrior calling) with a Warlock (Mage calling) and a Bladedancer (Rogue calling).
I just don't want there to be any confusion! But again, great article on what is going to be a great game.
The preview says the game plays like a traditional mmo...So the combat is typical ability clicking fare? I was under the impression that this was an action mmo like Tera or Vindictus.
mashing, not clicking. If you are using your mouse to click abilities you are probably doing it wrong. Anyways, yes that's what it sounds like.
Thanks for the write up - one thing - Shadowlands is the Defiant starting zone - the Guardians are brought back by the Vigil and not by technomagical means like the Defiant use.
Rzep: It's not an action MMO, so it will be more like a 'standard' MMORPG in that respect.
Have they confirmed an early 2011 release date? This article was the first mention of a release date I've read anywhere.
Well, 2011 is confirmed. But the best answer I saw prior to E3 was something like "Our current target is 2011" out of Scott Hartsman. A few quotes around Q1 2011 came out of E3, though (not from Scott I don't think).
Nice writeup - and an interesting looking game. One to follow!
The gameplay sounds really common but good enought, and the graphics looks awesome.
Well you kinda ruined my expectations here :D I was looking for that 16*45*14 number of combinations. But this way it is not a combination but just choosing what class you WONT be (1out of 4...)
But anyway Im looking forward to it it sounds quite interesting and the sound of polishness is nice;)
Adam Gershowitz was the combat and careers lead/producer for Mythic's Warhammer Online. We all remember how balanced that class system is. Just putting it out there.
Glad I am not the only one who felt that way after seeing the demo at E3.
I was floored by the fact it was still in Alpha. The game quality looked like it was ready for release, and if thats considered Alpha...I can only dream about what going Gold is going to entail.
To be fair, with EA and Gameworkshop controlling most of the decisions... well its kind of hard to do your job very well in those conditions. I think the right people are in charge at the top for this game, so it shouldnt be a problem. Guess we will just have to wait and see.
Great write up! I'm excited about this game and the graphics look amazing. Can't wait til it's released.
Rift looks to be one of the next big names out there. The word just needs to spread a little better.
I've been following this one like a bloodhound over the last 2 weeks and yes, "Early 2011" and "Early first quarter 2011" have been quoted and confirmed out of E3 by two different devs. One was a red-haired lady over the Defiant's lore (in an interview with the game site kombo.com) and the other was a lead of some sort in a video out of E3 that I saw on youtube.
Provided all goes as planned they are shooting for Jan/Feb/Mar 2011.
You should check out the threads in the actual Rift forum here.
While Vorruga is right in respect that you can't mix the Souls (read:classes) of a particular Calling (read: arctype:Warrior, Rogue, Cleric and Mage), you can mix those core Souls within a Calling. THere are also Heroic Souls that you find while in game. These are more specialized Souls within a Calling. SOME, and I do stress that so don't let your expectations run rampant, of the Heroic Souls can dip into another Calling.
A common current example is that of a Cleric Calling Soul (so, let's say a Purifier) finding a Heroic Soul (that incidentally any Cleric Calling Soul can use we are just picking on the Purifier) that offers many Cleric Calling skills/abilities but also grants the Rogue Calling ability of Stealth.
Another example that has been offered up by the devs is that of a Warrior Calling character who through finding and slotting a Warrior Calling Heroic Soul is allowed access to some Arcane abilities (spellcasting).
Again, don't expect this to be the overabundant norm, but the options will be there to a degree to have such flexibility in character design through Heroic Souls(classes) found while adventuring.
Uhm, no. You still aren't understanding what he said. It is not AT ALL using all of the classes but one. But the poster right before me, I think, told ya where to go read up on this. :)
Also, unless this has just recently changed, there will be 32 classes at launch, (8 per calling)- not 16. Some souls (classes) will be "pure" some will have attributes from other callings.
This looks amazing. What impresses me the most and I hope this never changes is that it looks and hopefully plays like a traditional RPG. We are back to the days when monsters look like monsters not badly drawn cartoons, the terrain and landscape is realistic and not will with teletubby style mushroom houses or childish like backdrops. This looks like its taking us back to the days of Baldurs gate and IceWind Dale.
And as long as we don't find people wielding swords 5 times bigger them and totally out of proportion as appears to be the rage in Asian MMO's I think this will be the natural sucessor to WoW. Note I say sucessor and not clone or killer, it will be the game MMO fans move onto once they have out grown the target audience of WoW. I really hope along with the feel and look of the game play it has a more mature approach and takes us back to the Elder Scrolls or Fallout style of gaming. Where no longer do you hunt cute little kobolds with candles on their hats or bouncing mushrooms but real opponents that can be taken seriously.
I can't wait to see more.
Doing the math on calling/soul combos:
Assuming 8 souls available to each calling (which I'm not sure has been verified), that means that in any given calling, you have 8 possible single souls, 28 possible dual-soul combos, and 56 possible triple-soul combos, for a total of 92 possible "classes" per calling, 368 possiblities over 4 callings, 736 possiblities over 2 factions. Especially considering that each of these combinations allows various "talent spec" allocations within them, that's a lot of choices!
Granted, it's not quite as much as it seems--you only get 1 slot and 2 soul choices per calling to start, some combinations are probably not worth doing, there's probably some overlap, etc. Still, it does seem to really open up the options, and I feel like a lot of people (including a lot of the press) aren't understanding this.
As someone who loves choices and hates regret, I know this means it will take me forever to decide on a calling, and further hours choosing souls and allocating skills within them, but at least I'll have lots of options for changing my mind on the latter two!
this game looks pretty awesome. i haven't even been watching it to closely and i can't wait for it. i'm glad thet scrapped the whole switch between classes on one toon idea. i like this new class system much more. the only thing that i think will keep this game from doing as well as it should are all the other MMORPGs coming out next year like Tera, GW2, TOR, and Vindictus. i know a lot of people are going to play TOR and GW2.
Definitely will be worth a look see
I've been watching all the info released on Rift for some time and the game certainly piques my interest. Thing I'm curious about, though, is this skill tree system. I may be missing something, but as described, it sounds a lot like WoW's 3 categories per race. What is different about it? What makes it special and allows it to stand apart from WoW's system?
This game is being sued by Palladium Books for copyright infringement. No Im not trolling, just getting information to those who may be curious. Feel free to go to Palladium Books website, and read the section "Weekly Updates/ current Events".
This article really, really, really makes me want to play this game....!!!!
Judge threw out the case 5 days ago. Course, I could understand why you wouldn't see that posted on the Palldium Books website. If you check the Rift:PoT forums as well as the corresponding Michigan State site you'll see different.
My thoughts exactly. It's a difficult one, this; trying to keep pvp balanced whilst leaving classes more open and less "cookie-cutter". I can quite understand that some players enjoy pvp (as I do occasionally, although not open gankfest style), and that therefore there simply has to be some element of class balance, it's just a shame that it feels so limiting at times.
I vaguely wondered if it would be possible to have pve servers where the classes could be as originally intended, and pvp servers where classes were tweaked according to player feedback (read complaints).
Don't suppose that would be possible, but still, a gal can dream, eh?
I think this was pretty rubbish article(or more like advertisement). Seriously 1/3 was all about coming stuff that wasn't even showed. Only really informative thing was that it looks like AAA class game. Other than that it looks like average, highly traditional MMORPG. I actually couldn't pick up what combat really was, using specials with autoattack or direct push attack style?
I know it is hard to come up much material from 15min playing but having bit own critique would be nice. You don't need to candy coat everything or act like every graphical trick is like OMG I never seen that before.
Ah yes the good old PVP vs. PVE balancing, kind of ruined it for me when they started doing this in WoW to please one croud or the other. The whole problem with having a PVP and a PVE only server is that they would have 2 different games, one would be all about PVP and the other PVE so they would have to push different class balancing patches one for PVE one for PVP which would not work. So we get stuck with one patch balancing PVP and then next patch balancing PVE since they screwed it up witht he PVP patch. Kind of makes more work than its worth imho but I guess you have to please both sides of the coin or you lose subs which brings a potential good game to its knees and those that are fans end up being screwed since the game shuts down after a few years of play. But lots of competition out there in the various MMO's so maybe they will come up with something good to keep us entertained.
Oh and that whole coming back as a soul then going down to the world sounds familiar to what they did in Mabigoni(SP) which I played for like 30 minutes and then I got tired of it. Hope its good I am itching to play something.
OMG another WOW clone that is offering nothing new to the MMO genre... How sad.
How many point and click shitty combat games can we put up with? Endless it seems. Very very sad.
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...uh... you havent done your homework have you? Rift:Planes of Telara would be the first AAA mmorpg to offer a dynamic PvE world. That in itself is huge. Their class system allows players to mix and match classes, skills and "souls" there fore resulting in unrestrictive and yet complex forms of character progression. In other words, they are actively trying to make sure the whole cookie cutter arche type system isnt repeated. Point and Click? are you referring to the fact that it is not twitch based as point and click? The chief creative officer is promising the game will have thousands of events which will occur throughout the game world, merging both story and gameplay. The design blurs the realms between life and death, the gameplay will reflect that lore and concept. No more cheesy "oh i died but im back again" for no reason. NPC Armies will come through rifts and not just fight eachother but the try to conquer the land from their individual realms while players also fight eachother based on faction and lore.
This game will redefine the genre. Trion is already shaping up to be the next big studio. I might be assuming too much, but everything I have seen, both at E3 and from my research says otherwise.
This is not the MMO for you. Trion will be releasing an action-adventure sci-fi MMO a bit later, perhaps that will be more to your liking.
Definitely looks cool.
I would like to hear a little more about aspects like PvP, etc. though...
Sounds like a very interesting game! I like the idea of the rifts, and I like the idea of so much customisation possible for any given character. Graphics are secondary to me, though it's cool this one looks like it will be a graphically beautiful game. Maybe my future will consist of this game and SW:ToR: one for my fantasy kick, the other for my sci-fi kick.
From the way I read how the customisation is set up, it will be more expansive and complex than WoW's three talent trees/class.
To the guy who said it is a point-and-click, it's not. It will be a 'button masher'. Point-and-click is a game like Battle of the Immortals or Diablo 2.
I'm sick of the "WoW clone" comparisons. Wow is a clone of many games before it! hello?!
I wonder when Toyota, or Nissan, or Chrysler all came out with their first cars if people said " oh great, it has seats, an engine, and 4 round tires...another Ford clone"?!? .." how boring, at least use square tires and be different or something".
This game is going to be freakin awesome! I can't wait to play it!
I wager it's because a lot of people don't know what they're talking about and enjoy dismissing something by branding it as something it's not. Rift does not strike me as a WoW clone at all, so not sure why people are jumping on the bandwagon here as it being a WoW clone.
The classes sound like they're being done completely differently through class customisation. There are no dynamic mob spawns in WoW that fit the description of the ones in Rift, and the artwork isn't in the same vein/atmosphere.
The description of the Nightblade does sound a lot like WoW's Rogue but there are also similarities with the DAoC Nightshade, so it is a bit of a hybrid between two games' classes.
Before calling a game a WoW clone actually look up on it. Go to the official forums and read over some of our conversations. Rift isn't a WoW clone and it is adding several unique ideas to the MMO genra, which includes a unique class system allowing more unique character builds with less restriction and true dynamic content being the first MMO actually with the technology to accomplish this.
I didnt get much from that review in content wise. Sure its written good and describes what the writer experienced but I felt like after reading all that I wanted to know more about what the rift part of the game is all about. Still it sounds exciting I guess, as any other game can be and the atmosphere is cool. also the ascension of past heroes is a cool idea, Iv often thought of this idea my self. What theme of mmo is this would you say? Fantasy or a combination of that and something else?
I actually prefer traditional MMOs to a large degree.. I don't need any new types of combat when the traditional seems to be just fine... The only thing I wanna see is a lot more content and a lot more things to do..
There's nothing wrong with "traditional", imo... Other than the fact that a lot of new games coming out just don't compare with what's already out there... In FACT, it seems a lot of the games that have came out within the past couple years has actually been retrogressive... If you going to take games back to their roots, at least have content to do... A good solid content MMO is the biggest problem these days...
This one seems to be taking it a bit further and I hope it succeeds cause just after a couple months, I'm bored of all the new ones that came out.. They just don't hold on to my attention...
This one seems like it could.. I want an MMO when I log on, I feel I have lots to do.. Whether complicated crafting systems... Working on guild activities, housing, events... Instances, PvP BGs, even working on refining my char, exploration, etc...
Games lately after one or two months, you are maxed out and there is nothing left to do and the worlds are too small so exploration is even boring...
I'm highly looking forward to this game because it IS that traditional MMO I've been looking for that seems to take it a step or two further by adding a lot more variety and dynamic content which to me should have been sort of a staple in any MMO from the beginning.. Even if it had to be manually scripted... So when I saw the video that they would even control certain events manually also.. That's sort of exciting... Computers can only do so much.. I always felt a DM (Dungeon Master) should still be implemented on MMOs as well to manually set certain events in action based on he sees going on with the servers...
Anyway, I will definitely be picking this one up.. It's already made it's move to my #1 even over GW2... (I will probably pick up GW2 just because of the free play model as well and play both. lol)
The writup actually was good... It did give a really small few extra glimpses to what to expect...
Everything else you are wanting to know can be found on the game's website or the wiki...
Or even go to youtube and search "Rift E3" and watch a lot of those videos that will give you even more...
There's even a podcast for the game...