Ten Ton Hammer was among the first group of gamers to get some hands-on time with Trion Worlds' upcoming MMORPG, Rift: Planes of Telara. In the first part of our hands-on preview, we got the chance to learn more about souls (the game's classes), character progression, and to take a look the starter area, Shadowlands. In part 2 of our hands-on preview, we explore the functionality of the rifts system and the dangers and rewards that it will offer players.

Trion's much more granular take on PQs - rifts - flips public quests on their head: instead of requiring player interaction to advance the PQ to the lightning round, rifts advance themselves to something both terrifying and a lot of fun. In other words, it's up to players to stop the progression (not, as with PQs, to initiate the progression). If it sounds like a server wide plate-spinning act, rest assured that it's not nearly as frantic as it may sound, and given the bonuses associated with mopping up rifts and invasions, you'll probably welcome them as a nice break from the usual quest, hub, quest, rinse, repeat.