Developed by Trion Worlds and released on 2011 RIFT: Planes of Telara is one of the few MMORPG that has managed to survive as a pay-to-play title, before surrendering to the Free-to-Play trend that began last summer. The game is not nothing more nor nothing less than a classic high Fantasy themepark MMORPG with 2 factions, quest-hub based gameplay, tab-target combat, PvP battlefields  and everything you can expect of a standard modern MMORPG. Currently RIFT seems a World of Warcraft with better graphics and and a less cartoonish visual style. It is true that the game has unique features, but in the end new players or casual players are going to think "Oh look, a free version of World of Warcraft!", but that's a bad thing or a good thing? Read our analysis and answer the question yourself.

  

CHARACTER CREATION

The creation of characters in RIFT is very interesting; you begin by choosing one of the available factions: Defiants, who blame the gods for what is happening in Telara and prefer to decide their own future and the Guardians, whose components have put their faith in the gods. Each faction has 3 unique races: Eth (human), Kelari (elven race) and Bahmi (a race of purple skin) for the Defiants and Mathosians (human), High Elves and Dwarves for the guardians. At this point, players have to choose what the game calls the "Calling", basically the archetype that defines yyour gameplay style; You can choose between Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Cleric. We could call these "Callings" classes, but is more a general approach to the traditional classes, which can be specialized with souls to cover different play styles and roles. For example, a mage can be DPS, healer or support while a rogue can be DPS, tank, or support. At this point players can choose their purpose from a good selection of predefined builds, which will help players to define their role and playstyle, and that will help you put your first soul points. Customization is pretty good, but is not as good as in the more recent MMORPGs, but allows you to use several options to create a unique avatar.

FIRST STEPS

If you have ever played to World of Warcraft or any MMORPG with a similar style, you won't have any problem to start in RIFT. Everything from the view of the camera, controls to the combat system is exactly the same, which is not a bad thing if you like it: if it works why change it? Still, if you're new to MMORPGs don't worry, the first missions of RIFT beside introduce you to the game history, act as a tutorial, teaching you what you need to enjoy the game. In addition, many of them have voiceovers and animated scenes, which help with the immersion and are quite spectacular.

By completing quests and killing monsters you get XP to level up and gear to equip your character. As you level up you will receive new skills, which are obtained automatically without the need of any trainer, and soul points, which can be spent in your soul trees. Soul are one of the unique class customization features offered by Rift, and are something halfway between the usual classes and the talent trees from other MMORPGs. You start your adventure with three souls, with the possibility to obtain more of them at higher levels. By spending souls points in a soul kill tree, you will improve some aspects of your character related to a particular role or a weapon style and will obtain new skills; for example, if you start with a shadow stalker rogue, you will have access from the beginning to a tank soul, a melee DPS soul and a soul which uses bows and pets. Of course you can spend points in different soul trees to mix their skills and create your very unique build.

In Rift you can unlock different types of content in certain levels. At level 10 you have at your disposal contents such as dimensions (a place where you can build your own home), PvP or instant adventures. After trying a couple of PvP matches (called Warfronts) available in different game modes; the one we tested was a capture the flag mode, but we couldn't do much at level 10, because in the match was full of level 17-19 players, who killed us in one or two hits while we weren't abe to defend ourselves. However we can say that it is a great experience and we can see why competitive players love the PvP.

Instant adventures are a unique feature. Basically you can choose an instant adventure from the available ones (at level 10 there are only two), and put you in the queue. When the system finds you a group, teleports you to an specific point in the world (not an instance) where a series of short quest-like adventures begin. You and your group will have to complete a whole chain of missions, being rewarded with equipment, experience and other useful objects.

The dimensions are where the players can build their own homes. Basically, at a certain level you will gain access to your own dimension: a small piece of land which includes a small hut that can be customized by a great selection of items you'll find in your adventures in Telara. You can buy bigger and different dimensions, but the interesting thing is that you can put items wherever you want and how you want, even in the middle of the air. This freedom gives you the opportunity to create wherever you can imagine, and there is an enormous amount of amazing dimensions that other players have created. We can't even imagine the amount of time needed to create something like that, but we wanted to share the experience with you just to let you understand the depth and the possibilities offered by Rift's dimension system.

SOUND AND GRAPHICS

The graphics engine enables Rift to run smooth even with an older computer, but the graphics start to show their age; We are not saying that the graphics are bad, because they really are beautiful and well constructed, but they can't stand against the most recent games in terms of detail and definition. The light and shadow effects are very good, and although the animations are detailed and natural, sometimes they don't fit well, which could be a little annoying

There's not much to say about the sounds; background music is enjoyable, but combat sounds are not very impressive. The presence of  some voiceovers (although we've encountered very few of them) helps to increase the overall value of the product, but you won't listen to many of them in the first levels.

CONCLUSION

With its recent jump to the Free-to-play model Rift became one of the most solid f2p WoW-style fantasy MMORPGs on the market. The game is already starting to feel the aches and pains of age but is still healthy, full of life, and is superior to most of their opponents in the genre. If you are looking for a free version of the WoW with some unique and interesting features, you won't be disappointed.

RATINGS:

• Graphics: 7


• Gameplay: 8


• Sound: 6

Overall: 7

• The good: A lot of available activities | Extremely deep housing system | deep build customization


• The bad: Quests are uninspired and repetitive | usual over-used fantasy setting

This entry was posted on Friday, October 4th, 2013 at 12:49 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.