Really encouraging article for those interested.

Vesavius

There is a thread talking about the classes in this article by Tenton ( http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87884/page/2 ), but the info delivered is kind of bigger then that, so rather dilute that one here are some of my fave quotes from it;

both sides view each other as dangerous, if not outright evil... the Guardians are far from a bunch of white hats. Only the smartest and best at killing made their way back from the Shadowlands to take on Ascension at the hands of the gods, regardless of their moral choices in life.

Lore that goes beyond your good, I am evil, lets fight. Cool.

Rift is officially in late alpha, but through level 12 (the highest I could get in our five hours with the game) it's more polished than games I've played in late beta.

Better yet, Shadowlands isn't a single player tutorial , but a true multiplayer experience hosting up to 30 people from your faction, complete with substantial opportunities to group within your first fifteen minutes of gameplay. . Best of all, a comfortable level of solo and co-op challenge is back for low level players of a top-tier fantasy MMORPG.

Loving the early encouragement to group. A PvE co-op players dream.

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. "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. 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 "

This system is looking so deep and flexible.

Mining nodes randomly spawned atop rock outcroppings and Free Marches, being a bit more stark, is better suited for miners.

Nodes that seem specific to the terrain, or at least influenced by it. If I want to mine, I go to rocky terrain. Small detail, but good.

I was pleasantly surprised that these kind of tactics were available even before level 10.

All very encouraging tbh.

 

 

Khalathwyr

That article did have some great stuff in it. New souls(classes), Death Penalty "Death Walk" information.