Ricardo
Sanchez, Trion VP of Digital, came out swinging during the
Trion panel at New York Comic Con 2010. What were
creating is the most polished and complete MMO released since
2004
Basically, its pick whatever you want from
an MMO and were going to give it to you.
As fans know, Rift:
Planes of Telara
is an 8 sided battle royale between two human factions (Guardian
& Defiant) and six Planar NPC factions (life, death, and fire,
plus the previously undiscussed water, air, and earth planes). The NPC
factions, Ricardo noted, take advantage of the extensive
highway system to spread as rifts progress and span out,
creating new footholds in player-held objectives.
While Trion has suggested that planar invasions could be used and
guided as part of player vs. player tactics, Ricardo noted that
Guardians and Defiants could actually team up to defeat invasions
without a loss of reward. Since players must be flagged to directly
participate in PvP, its possible to work alongside with
players of an opposing faction if not to directly group with them.
The Rift progression concept has changed slightly since we last spoke
with Trion. Highlighting how Rift battles grow and change as more
players become involved, Ricardo introduced us to the series of timed
bonus rounds that players will experience after
successfully sealing a rift. At least two bonus rounds are available
when rifts reach a certain level of interaction, which become
progressively more difficult with shorter timers. If players succeed,
theyll be rewarded with incredible levels of loot and
experience. If they fail, the Rift will close and players will be
rewarded richly anyway.
In past coverage, weve gone into great detail on
Rifts class and callings system, but Ricardo put a new spin
on the system for PvP players, emphasizing all the permutations that
characters can go through. And while the extensive hybridization
offered by Rift
allows PvE players form an attachment to their character (since one
character can perform a number of different and interchangeable roles),
the system also makes competitive players much more unpredictable.
Its really a new level of variability for PvP
players, Ricardo noted.
The videos released this week show some of what Ricardo called the
loving detail poured into the game, right down to
hand-drawn stained glass in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/videos/meridian">Meridian
and individually crafted snow drifts. Youd think that level
of detail comes at a price in performance, but Ricardo insisted that
style="font-style: italic;">Rifts
minspec is more than reasonable.
Finally, Ricardo fielded a number of questions about whats
being done to make the Guardian faction more desirable over the
steampunkish Defiants. Players were concerned about potential player
imbalances between the two player factions, and Ricardo noted that
despite efforts made to show off some of the rougher edged Book of
Eli-ness of Guardians (including a purpose-built
href="http://www.riftgame.com/en/media/videos.php">Guardian
trailer), it is a bit of a
struggle to increase the inherent coolness of the Guardian faction.
While he gave no details, Ricardo noted that Trion hopes to
differentiate Guardians on gameplay a distinction that will
be easier to prove as the game moves deeper into beta over the winter
leading up to a planned 2011 release.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our RIFT Game Page.
