Yes, there are Story quests -- usually a string of quests for each zone -- and an Epic quest for each faction (actually, not sure the Guardian one has been implemented yet), but I agree, it all has a bit of a grind feel to it. Depends on your attitude towards it, I guess.

The zone wide events are pretty unique though, for the genre.

What level does this happen at btw? Oh, how do you like the game so far, CC?

After you get out of the starting area, around level 6 or 7 you'll go to Silverwood/Freemarch. They happen periodically there and every zone after that. I like the game. Playing casually but I haven't got bored yet, though I'm only like 23 or so. I've done a dungeon and a little PVP, and the PVP was just ok, I'm sure it would be better with a pre-made. The dungeon was pretty cool looking, wasn't too difficult though.

Cool looking forward to these zones in the near future. I have to read up on the PvP part of the game. I'm on a PvP server, but I take it there are battlegrounds and all that jazz too.

Press K and it opens the battlegrounds menu. Nice thing is if you're not at the level cap for a BG you get buffed up to the max level of that BG stat wise, however your equipment and skills will still be restricted by your level.

After playing some more last night, I do say I really do like Rift more than I thought I would. The way they have the class system setup is pretty epic indeed. I'm digging the Rogue class and how it's not a melee only which is nice. I'm not sure if I will buy the game or not yet. Not that it's not good enough, but because I might not have the time to play atm. We will see but the more I play, the more I am enjoying it.

Oh, the game has Public Quests, and people were playing them too (an issue with Warhammer)! I'm not sure if it's because they are the lowbies or not.

Good times and this is a very good game so far.

P.S. I trained for Butchering and Foraging to make some easy cash in the AH. Hoping at least haha

They made a post today about server transfers coming in a few weeks. Would be nice if they had faction transfers along with it. Id love to play defiant but not wanting to do a complete reroll lol.

_________________

Kinda soon for faction transfers, methinks.

I have to play the defiant side to see which faction I like better...before the 7 day demo is over

I wouldn't hate server transfers. I could bring my 48 Rogue over.

I played the defiant to try out a few different classes. Their beginner area's story line is pretty interesting I must admit. Compared to the Guardians side (that is takes places in different time periods).

Wish they had some Huey Lewis bust out as you enter that time portal.

lol

I'll be able to play at a more peak time starting next month. Finally off midshift for the next 6 months.

Hoorah.

Me too, hopefully, I umpire a ton of softball and little league games in april/may

so hopefully after next week I shall return to full time play

I'll be back in Rift soon. I need to D/L the game and all that fun stuff. With this weekend being my wife and my 16th wedding anniv. I figured it would be best not to get the game until later (my faction with wife has improved)

I live on the West Coast of the US, so my play time is probably pretty late from most of your perspectives -- and I usually can't log in until about 7:30pm Pacific time (10:30pm Eastern), because of other RL obligations. It won't matter until I'm 50 anyway; at that point I'll revisit my schedule and see if there's anything I can move to be on earlier.

Still a couple months off, it sounds, but character transfers are coming.

http://www.riftjunkies.com/2011/05/23/p ... Junkies%29

I'll continue cultivating a Chloro, but I'll keep the Ranger in the back pocket and transfer him when I get a chance. They're both fun, I can play whichever turns out to be nee-- oh who am I kidding, I'm going to end up raiding with the healer all the time

If we could switch to defiant we would pack up our entire guild to Belmont. Just a lot more old Lanys people haha. Good to see this decision though... i'm curious to see where people migrate.

Old bump but I have been playing a Beastmaster/Champion/Paragon and loving it. At first, the Warrior class started out kinda of slow, but the damage is very nice, and it's fun to play. Btw, I read up and the Rift boards are saying Beastmaster/Champion/Paragon is the top single DPS build for the class right now.

Interesting, but I am not using a 2H weapon for the last few levels. Having fun with DW, even tho I'm sure 2H might be more dmg over all.

Draconi, what setup are you using for weapons on your Warrior (DW or 2H)?

K so I am like...terminally bored with WoW at this point. What would be a good site to browse to really get an idea what each class/spec and the races?

The rift site itself? Some sort of mmo champion? I'm thinking one of those ranged rogues or a caster or hunter...etc. Bard might even be interesting but man...I really need a change. Cataclysm ended up just being immensely boring.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

The RIFT site itself gets you a really thorough idea of what the game's about, but you will not find optimization advice there.

At 50 you'll likely end up playing every spec your class has at one point or another, so keep that in mind when looking at them.

Personally as a mage I usually run around solo with a necro/lock build and switch up to a heavy elementalist build for fighting elites. In PvP I've done pyro, dominator, stormcaller and warlock builds. In 5 man groups I usually heal as a chloro, or when healing is covered I'll go with a stormcaller build for lots of aoe or the elementalist build for heavy boss dps. Then for raids I have a heavy archon build for super raid buffing/debuffing.

That's one of the biggest selling points of the game is the real flexibility everyone has to shape their role to whatever is needed.

My main specs atm:

Necro (single target dps + some aoe + survivability)
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zwvz ... .eezhzVqxo

Stormcaller (aoe and single target dps)
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zyqz ... Vtcz0xoAuz

Elementalist (single target dps + super strong pets)
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zqvR ... Atz.xb.x0h

Chloromancer (healer + buffer + debuffer)
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zzRv ... Edhuo0c.xx

I might experiment with Elementalist/Archon/Chloro for soloing elites.

Go necro, the pets do much more damage than elm pets do. Necro/chloro i find to be the best mage solo build. when i play my mage i use this combo to solo the elite quests and it works great.

_________________

What do you use for the third soul?

Somewhat related... been playing around with this spec in PvP a little, seems pretty decent, very mobile with decent survivability.

(Edit: Fixed link)
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zvR0 ... o.vdh00b.x

Either archon for the talent free buffs or lock for the extra dot. When I go home tonight ill put together the talent tree that I use. I farm the elites in shimmersand for the rep totem to give to my 27 crater with this build. I'll post it tonight.

_________________

Went ahead and cancelled my account last night. Got tired of the horrible LFG match ups and my guild had a hard time fielding enough players for raids. I have been playing my DPS cleric and now other guilds only want me for heals lol.

Guess ill play lotro or Eq while I wait for Starwars.

_________________

Isnt Lotro Free now? Im on Xegony in EQ its fun for when I have time to play!

_________________
"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cakvala

Yeah lotro is free to play now. Though the free to play version is so watered down that I just pay to play so I don't do without lol. I have my shaman account and another account both on the rathe in Eq. Back my old same ole again blasting out AA in fire before I level anymore lol.

_________________

Should just join us, Ekilam.

Yeah with the free transfer server will be awesome in the near future

There is no guarantee Belmont will be one of the available locations to transfer to. It already has a decent population on its own.

I don't know the stats, but I do hear complaints that it's not full enough.

So how is Rift later on down the line? I played the beta for a few days and got ridiculously bored with the repetitiveness and general lack of pizazz that the game had while leveling up.

I'm debating playing it but I'd like to know what it's like. Here are some questions I have:

Is there a lot of content; is there diversity in content?
Is it challenging?
Is raiding a time fuck?
Is there a lot of stuff to do if I only want to level up one character?

If anyone can shed a little light on those, I'd appreciate it. For reference, the only two mmorpg I've played that I will understand any comparisons to are EQ and WoW.

Thanks

I'm only like lvl 20, but I've been scouring the forums on a daily basis and it seems like the primary complaints are that once you're at 50, people just sit on their asses in the main cities and wait for raid times.I've also read that money and badge/rift currency are useless and that players really have nothing worth crafting/buying.
That's just what I've read.

From what I've seen in the short time I've been playing, leveling....is way too fast. I'm not saying I want the horrid grind that EQ leveling was but this is even faster than WoW leveling. Not a really smart idea in a new game with limited end game and horridly unbalanced pvp. I'm leveling 2, 3 times or more per session played. It's pretty cool being back with a bunch of Lanys folks though, even though I've not totally made the connection as to who is who in the guild lol.

Seems to be a pretty fun game so far and when I find more time I plan to delve a bit deeper, but it does sound like they've got a lot of work to do in regards to crafting, rep rewards, pvp..etc. We'll have to see if the devs can work their magic.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Seems like they need "alternate advancement" for the level 50 people. hah.

_________________
"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cakvala

That's funny, I was just pining for an MMO that didn't have any levelling at all. It's pointless. It doesn't even serve the purpose of letting you learn the ropes of class mechanics, since they change so much at max level in an mmo.

Larreth, the roster and website should help you see who is who.

Leveling was very fast. Too fast, I agree. There's also a limited number of things to do at 50 (as in any game), but they're regularly adding more content as part of the standard subscription, which is very good. As you level up, there are ten single group dungeons available. When you hit 50, you have a choice of two, and with enough gear, there are two tiers each of five expert dungeons (same zones as the lower levels, with harder mobs, new areas, and new bosses). There are also single group expert rifts, raid rifts, and two raid dungeons which all become possible once you have good enough gear. I don't care for the emphasis on gear as opposed to levels, but it works.

The expert dungeons are a challenge, at least as you first learn them, but what doesn't become easier after you know what you're doing? The raid content builds upon experts and requires a fair bit of strategy.

Some raids take longer than others, but some (like raid rifts) can be completed in as little as 20 minutes or less. From my experience, the time needed is directly related to how familiar you are with an event. Most guildies can knock out most expert dungeons (which are all instanced crawls, btw, with no respawning mobs) in less than an hour.

Some people have leveled multiple characters, but I haven't seen the allure. I can almost always find something useful to do when I want, and that's as a rogue, which seems like the most popular class. Tanks and healers can almost always get a group virtually immediately. Damage and Support roles take a bit longer.

Game is awesome after switching to Guardian. It's really fun to actually get groups and have instant PVP queues where people play properly and win.

Defiant PVP is horrible. People do their own thing all the time.

Sounds like every single alliance bg on my wow server.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

You guys are making me want to play.

I've gotten sick of WoW.


Mostly been playing PS3


What server is everyone on? Guild?


As far as classes I still prefer healing and dps casters, what ones should I look at if I start playing? Race?


thanks!

_________________
--Rosepedal

Bunch of folks on Belmont, Defiants.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Go cleric or mage, then look for Lanys Refugees.

I started with a cleric (Inq/Cab base, just level 15 now) messed around with a warrior for a few levels, and started a rogue (ranger) and I am loving the Ranger!

I have a 50 Ranger/Marksman/Bladedancer, and I'm leveling a Chloromancer/Necromancer/Archon. I can't decide which one I like more.

I know my chars are still in newbie area (17 for cleric and 12 rogue) but I do like them both. My Cleric is Inquisitor/Cabalist/sentinel and right now it is a lot easier to hand two to four mobs around my level. The ranger/marksman/assassin is mowing through mobs and quests. I can keep two mobs on my pet right now, but if it gets more than that I have to do some dancing.

What are you guys doing in regards to raiding? How is it a few months after launch?

We're spending a lot of time gearing up in the T1 and T2 dungeons. Full-on raids have a headcount requirement we're not meeting on a consistent basis yet. You could help there.

We had about 35 lv50s, and about 20 of them were geared for raid (full t2+). But none logged on, so everyone left. Neva, zokan, pain, me, warpd, akyra, etc.

yep, I am on, leveling, and watched you guys leave...

There are currently 45 level 50's in the guild.

10+ of those are alts of other lv50s, my alt still puts all my stuff in lanys' bank. I rather put my stuff there than in the random guilds I raid with.

I don't have access to the guild bank (Gabbath or Ghaani). But I am just around level 20 so it really doesn't matter.

I don't either. At one point I was told to look in the guildbank for level 50 blue items while gearing up in T1, because somethings those things are in that place for that purpose. But when I looked, I saw only "You don't have permission to view this vault." Then it started swearing at me.