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Rift: Ember Isle Preview
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Trion Worlds recently invited press out to their studio to experience an in-depth hands on with Rift's 1.6 Update: The Ember Isle. Our Carolyn Koh was on hand for the event and brought back a ton of new details on what's easily billed as a mini-expansion to Telara.
Riftby Trion Worlds has only just had its half year anniversary and are now launching their biggest DLC pack –Update 1.6: The Ember Isle. This one is a doozy. A whole new island –not a tiny island, it’s a huge land area. “It’s about twice the mass of Shimmersand,”said Hal Hanlin, Design Producer of Rift “and it plays really big.”The more I heard about it, the more I realize it’s like a mini-expansion. Best of all, it’s free. On a gorgeous fall day in San Francisco, a number of us press-types got a preview of the game in alpha.
Read the rest of Carolyn's hands on and interview with Hal Hanlin in this Ember Isle Preview.
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Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Hal mentioned in the Gamestop interview that 1.6 was mid November, so that places it on November 16th.
Ember Isle is flipping huge and the description of a mini expansion is honestly not that far off. PTS testers are actually having trouble testing everything they have pushed out. The new 5 man ALONE has Regular, T1, T2, and Master mode and master mode has 11 bosses.
The raid is Rise of the Phoenix and has gotten very good bug testing and the bosses are no joke in that place and the loot you get makes sense.
This really does sound gorgeous and fantastic.
Here's my "but". . .that is, but can opposing factional player disrupt another factions build and progress and are they prompted to join-in on the rift invasion?
Just getting a sense of the openness and orgainic and community-encouraged nature of the game-play here.
Here is how they work. You have a sourcewell set up in the middle that can be upgraded 3 times. Then you have turrets and lifesrpings debris around maybe 2-3 of each depending on the size.
Lifesprings obviously heal more as they are upgrade and can be upgraded 4 times and Turrets are the same way. This whole area is neutral, so Defiant and Guardian can be there.
There is NOTHING that stops someone from ganking you. NPC's only care about theplanar invasions. I toyed around with this yesterday and almost the second I upgraded some turrets and life springs planar invasions came pouring out non-stop at a decent rate I could somewhat handle. It was pretty fun.
A very impressive first entry into the genre. This latest patch looks great. I wish Trion all the best, but I simply can't play the typical themepark MMO anymore.
Which is why I asked the previous question.
By the sounds of it, this is not a typical themepark multiplayer game (many dont call them massively-multiplayer anymore).
This "sounds" like a vastly large and persistent territorial control map that either faction has the opportunity to control. Maybe I'm wrong, but thats the sense Im getting. And if that is the case, and there is community-wide incentive, encouragement, game-play value and rewards to do so, then this is more "massively-multiplayer" than any other game out there.
Am I way off-base?
IF and only IF you could capture a sourcewell and it would show up as Defiant or Guardian, then yes I would say this is a pvp concept.
It is more pve then pvp because it is neutral. If it was not you deal with that whole...zomg so outnumbered..qq can't do anything too many of x faction. There is a fort like city called Atia THAT COULD if Trion wanted to turn into a Wintergrasp type thing, but that is a maybe. Something odd about Atia is there are friendly Guardian NPC's in what is basically looks like a Defiant hub!??!
Sounds like these devs are working hard to make the game fun. I don't play but it sounds impressive from here.
why does that golem remind me of the cookiemonster? (paint it blue and look @ the 3rd pic)
Clicky for Rift trial
Rift is a good game and this continues the trend.
It had not occured to me, but now that you mention it.
It's great to see RIFT adding so much new content. It's a shame though that they didn't just wait to release this game six to nine months after they did and have all this new content in the original release, because RIFT 1.0 simply did not have enough stuff to do to keep people interested. I guess they wanted to release when they did so they weren't competing for box purchases with TOR.
If you remember ToR was scheduled for Summer of 2011 and that was EVERYONESSS prediction. Remember all the Rift will be dead when ToR launches in July post?
Pretty sure even Blizzard expected it in Summer 11 or Fall 11'. ToR getting moved just basically handed 2011 to Trion to completely solidify their playerbase. If ToR had launched in Summer, then yeah it could have crippled Rift, but since then they have added just a ridiculous amount of stuff and more is coming.
Not sure the last time I heard of a damn thing coming out of Blizzard being described as a "mini expansion"
call me when they add RVR
"beer and pretzels"
That is the most important thing i got from the article. And i agree. Except for the pretzels that is.
2nd is that i like to see the game growing at this pace and more landmass was long overdue. If they would next dedicate a whole patch to client performance and fluff, not only the lvl50s would be happy.
Still not much time left until Dec, as Rift could use 1-2 patches more of this caliber to be prepared for SWTOR's launch.
Cool content. Too bad star wars and GW2 are right around the corner. It would've been nice if lower level charecters could play certain parts of this area without dying.
Pointless space and a completely dead world does not a mmo make. WoW has god knows how much more content, then ToR and the entire population sits in two cities twiddling their thumbs or spends all their time on th pts and treats it like a live server because they are so bored.
ToR wants to be like WoW, then deal with the same issues. Smaller world with jam packed content. I would throw a fit if they added content without fully using their current content to the max.
GW2 is more hyped then ToR for a very good reason. In ToR we know the end game. Everyone knows how that song and dance is going to end and it might be big with 17 zones, but will end up with only two cities populated and the rest completely dead as they add more and more and do not understand where they are going wrong.
Let them pick storyline over dynamic content. It will be their undoing and only cause more stagnation in the market. Story's end, but real mmorpg's do not. Also you have to realize storys are only good if they keep going. Eventually you hit max level and do the story quest and realize there is not much else.
There are different standards for TOR and GW2. If the situation was reversed and GW2 lisetd all their endgame content and TOR had not, people would be screaming that bioware was hiding something yet GW2 doing the same thing is somehow praised for it.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I guess not everyone hates this game but when I played it, it felt like I was playing every other mmo out there.
Rift just isn't that unique to me and the rifts which is their claim to fame are more annoying then fun.
When you have world events more than 3 times in a day it gets out of hand and very frustrating to do quests or simply travel.
Also all the mobs in Rift aggro you which I've never come across in an mmo.
The only mobs that aggro you are usually the ones that are higher in level than you or have red names, but in Rift mobs that are ten levels below you continue to attack you and it makes traveling or even trying to explore Rift's world one of the least unsatisfactory things to do.
I mean I have no clue about anyone else but when a game world is actually beautiful I do enjoy exploring it more in depth and Rift just doesn't allow a player to do this.
I realize that the world isn't that huge to begin with but I still would have liked to have had the chance to explore it, and just found that I couldn't.
Smile
Just to point this out but that's probably because ArenaNet has a very good record for listening to what their players want and then doing it.
They know that Guild Wars 2 is being made by the players for the players and ArenaNet has always been a sort of respected company.
On another note I also would be kind of disappointed if the game that I had been waiting to play for a couple of years revealed the end continent to me before I even got the chance to play the game besides seeing it released to consumers.
Smile
Sounds like some fun and it's good to have fresh content "serviced" to us on the regular. Right now I'd say Rift is doing a good job at pushing stuff out.
Kind of at the rate that DCUO tried to on their release. Tho they couldn't quite do it I dont think and updates were not as frequent in content..
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
You think Aion would of had to ban 1million bot acccount if their mobs had aggro'd? Vindicus just banned 9 million bot accounts. People are not understanding the reasoning behind this.
They actually changed it so that grey mobs do not aggro on you unless you run directly through and now you see threads about people crying there are bots in the game now. You can not have it both ways.
@Gw2 I am not praising it as some second coming of UO because I think while it unbelievablyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy STRONG on pvp it is beyond weak on the pve side of the coin. People are not quite getting this. What you have seen from GW2 is the pve lol...they have laid it all out and they are placing their bets that dynamic world and some 5 man instance content with alternate stories will hold over mmorpg raiders.
I see the hype behind ToR, but I do not understand the reasoning honestly. People say Bioware + Star Wars...I just saw someone with some pop siccle Star Wars in their grocery cart?? Should we all go buy that because it says Star Wars on it?? People said they would not fall for the hype again after FF14, Aion, WAR, but I am seeing it again.
I have to comment on a complete load of crap like this.
'Completely solidfy their playerbase?' Week after week, people play less and less. We cant measure subs since Trion isnt backing up their talk with sub numbers. But we do know they have halved the number of servers and the servers spend more and more time in the lower population brackets each week despite half the number of servers.
And Trion *still* hasnt addressed the main reasons that people have left for. They extend the game, but they dont flesh it out. They add content for current customer retention and advertise their asses off for customer acquisition, but the content thats added doesnt address the reasons why most people that have played Rift didnt last (and Im using the word most until Trion publishes sub numbers over 500k)
It took Blizzard 7 years to reach the point where more people have tried WoW and quit than are currently playing WoW. It took Trion a couple months.
Rave about the cvontent all you want, but dont try to make it seem like Trion is building this huge playerbase and 'solidifying' it, because its still a very volatile playerbase right now. If it was solidifying they wouldnt need to 'add more trial servers' (Trion's way of saving server closings)
Also, if you think trion cares more about your sub than blizzard does you are naive. Trion knows they *have* to work harder. If they were only on 1.2 now they would be dead in the water.
uhh..how much are they selling one of those "GM Teleport chests" for? 0_0
I want one!!
As for those that are saying people are playing less and less etc. I am having an amazing time in this game! Far more so than World of Warcraft to make the most immediate comparison.
I find the law to be compelling, and it is everywhere! From the Artifacts that you pick up and build collections with, to the mounts, the Rift Events....it's everywhere! THe story of Hylas was particular good in my view, and his conversion to Greenscale and all the reasons that go along with it.
I find the ability to swap builds whenever I need to a huge plus to the character system in Rift. The Cleric class in particular, once it gets going, can fill nearly any role that is required. Rogues are incredible DPS machines with one of the best leveling specs available in the Ranger soul.
I wander through zones and on a fast mount (level 40) I can explore to my heart's content, no low mobs can easily attack me at all. The slower mounts? Maybe but they take a heck of a long time to even notice you when they are Gray. The problem of low level mobs attacking was waaayyy back at launch.
The game has almost every quality of life feature that the modern MMO gamer needs. In-game map overlay, quest markers, quest tracking, looking for group for dungeons quests and raids with teleport. At higher levels there are multiple zones that can get you to 50.
The game is quite awesome :-)