The guys at Rift Watchers are starting an RP-PVP guild when the game finally makes its debut. Personally, I've never been that fond of the PVP ruleset, but I might be willing to give it a try - perhaps pressure to make myself a less attractive target to gankers would encourage me to group more. There's only one minor problem. They're rolling Defiant, and my limited experiences so far in game are telling me that I'd rather roll Guardian.
Building the lore....
In an interview with the lore leads for the game's two factions, Trion told the RW crew that the best faction is the one that each individual player enjoys the most.
I tried Defiant first, and wasn't that impressed. The whole "look at us, we're rebellious and challenge authority" attitude feels cliched, and the faction's introductory storyline features a contrived time travel plot that doesn't appear to explain how the Defiant can have any player characters who weren't physically present with the player when they personally hit level 6 (since the portal to the past appears to be open for just long enough for the player's party to jump through).
In fairness, the Guardian story has its share of fantasy cliches as well. Somehow, I just preferred the feel of the faction, which I suppose is precisely what Trion's lore team worked so hard to accomplish. Players should not only identify with their faction but actually feel a stake in beating the other side - and not just because they happen to be sitting on some in-game bonus that players would like to capture for themselves. That said, has Trion done the job of making the factions stand apart a little too well?
...by separating people?
EQ2 nominally has two factions, and I'm sure that some people really care about the respective lore, but I'll concede that I don't really care. Players are free to group and guild with characters from the other side, and it's left to the individual to decide whether and how to address the good versus evil conflict. As long as you're on the correct server (and it isn't the game's sole surviving PVP server), you can play with your friends, even if your character races are incompatible in the lore.
By contrast, a hard split between factions, as in WoW, Warhammer, or Rift, does the game no favors when it comes to gameplay. WoW in particular hasn't done much to justify segregating the playerbase. Unlike Warhammer, open PVP between factions was not a major factor in Azeroth in recent years. WoW's last two expansions featured neutral cities, neutral factions, and enemies that both of the two warring factions wanted dead. The flavor text was different, but it often felt that there was no good reason why we shouldn't be able to join our friends on a raid against common foes - indeed, the two sides attempted just that during the famous Wrathgate cinematic, straight from Blizzard.
To the extent that Trion succeeds in making the faction lore matter, they add yet another factor - Defiant or Guardian - to servers and levels and itemization as reasons why players in a supposedly social genre are prevented from playing with their friends. If they don't succeed, though, they incur all the costs of having two factions without the benefit of a more immersive world. Right now, it's feeling like a lose/lose situation. I wonder whether Trion will wish in the long run that they'd gone with a more permissive lore.
Revamping WoW's Valentine Event
If you failed to heed my advice to snag a bouquet from a trivial Wrath-era dungeon before they finished updating the event, you will need a level 80+ character to farm one from the new Cataclysm five-mans. All of the other achievements are earned via daily quest tokens. My Warrior went from zero to complete inside of five days, and the holiday now spans a full two weeks. Some achievements, including the notorious candy hearts, are technically RNG dependent, but the threat is that you'll have to wait one more day, not that you'll fail to complete the event. I even snagged the previously RNG-only Peedlefeet minipet on my mage, which cost less than two days' worth of tokens.
(It's also possible to clear the event more quickly if you do a good job of getting stuff you need from other players and saving your soulbound tokens for stuff that you must buy for yourself.)
In the aftermath of the 2009 event, I speculated that Blizzard had intended for most players who attempted the Violet Proto-drake grind to fail, in order to keep the then coveted reward rare. Today, the pendulum has swung full circle; all the achievements I have tried so far have been quick and easy, and anyone who doesn't want to bother can simply buy the mount speed upgrade for 5000G.
Perhaps this reward should never have been attached to a holiday achievement in the first place, as it's arguably "too good" for the effort required today. Either way, world events in WoW are now much closer to the far superior ones in EQ2; fun distractions rather than stressful grinds. Limited time events aren't an appropriate venue for lengthy time investment with a significant chance of failure for reasons beyond the player's control.
Telara's Honeymoon Over At T-Minus Two Weeks?
I snagged the "digital collector's edition" of Rift when it went on sale for a significant discount a few weeks back. It was only with this weekend's final "closed" beta event that I learned what I had actually purchased.
In addition to the semi-traditional cosmetic minipet, the CE flags all the characters on your account for a free turtle mount. The current beta push removed the level restriction on all entry level mounts (previously level 20), so CE purchasers can have their mounts as soon as they can reach a mailbox. Non-CE purchasers reportedly have to cough up two plat worth of in-game currency for the comparable in-game versions.
(The future gold spammers of Telara would like to take this opportunity to thank Trion for dangling highly desired in-game perks in front of players at a point before they will have legitimately earned the money to purchase them - in related news, your third "role" costs 4 plat, and I assume that the fourth one costs even more.)
The Details Go Downhill From Here?
If Trion announced a cash shop tomorrow, and said that the first offering was a package containing the mount, the pet, and a four-slot upgrade to your backpack space (which may or may not be upgradeable by other means) for $10, the reaction most likely would not be positive. The only difference between the cash shop plan and what Trion has actually done with the digital CE (which contains nothing to actually collect) is that anyone who has already purchased the non-CE version is unable to pay for the upgrade later. How long will Telara remain without a cash shop, when they can spin it as something that at least some players who passed on the digital CE actually want?
CE vs Cash Shop aside, my point is that the curtain is about to be drawn back on Rift as it actually is, rather than how its' top-notch marketing campaign has portrayed it. No one is talking about how the game apparently will not include max level content in it's final beta event next week, and continues to maintain an NDA on its "simultaneous alpha". The last major MMO I can think of that did not drop the NDA for its endgame testers up to and past the open beta was Warhammer, and that proved to be a harbinger of exactly how un-prepared Mythic was for its endgame.
I've been saying for months now that the most obvious concerns with Rift's staying power are not likely to be apparent from first impressions at press events or carefully controlled and staged beta windows. What I wasn't expecting was to see the honeymoon come screeching to a halt before the game even hits its "early start" pre-launch. Now, Syp's wondering if the game is getting overhyped and Pete, formerly a staunch supporter, wants a "classic" server with the beta two build from December.
If this is where we are before the open beta even starts, things might get very ugly around March 30th when those first subscriptions come due.
(The future gold spammers of Telara would like to take this opportunity to thank Trion for dangling highly desired in-game perks in front of players at a point before they will have legitimately earned the money to purchase them - in related news, your third "role" costs 4 plat, and I assume that the fourth one costs even more.)
The Details Go Downhill From Here?
If Trion announced a cash shop tomorrow, and said that the first offering was a package containing the mount, the pet, and a four-slot upgrade to your backpack space (which may or may not be upgradeable by other means) for $10, the reaction most likely would not be positive. The only difference between the cash shop plan and what Trion has actually done with the digital CE (which contains nothing to actually collect) is that anyone who has already purchased the non-CE version is unable to pay for the upgrade later. How long will Telara remain without a cash shop, when they can spin it as something that at least some players who passed on the digital CE actually want?
CE vs Cash Shop aside, my point is that the curtain is about to be drawn back on Rift as it actually is, rather than how its' top-notch marketing campaign has portrayed it. No one is talking about how the game apparently will not include max level content in it's final beta event next week, and continues to maintain an NDA on its "simultaneous alpha". The last major MMO I can think of that did not drop the NDA for its endgame testers up to and past the open beta was Warhammer, and that proved to be a harbinger of exactly how un-prepared Mythic was for its endgame.
I've been saying for months now that the most obvious concerns with Rift's staying power are not likely to be apparent from first impressions at press events or carefully controlled and staged beta windows. What I wasn't expecting was to see the honeymoon come screeching to a halt before the game even hits its "early start" pre-launch. Now, Syp's wondering if the game is getting overhyped and Pete, formerly a staunch supporter, wants a "classic" server with the beta two build from December.
If this is where we are before the open beta even starts, things might get very ugly around March 30th when those first subscriptions come due.
WoW Valentine's Bugfail
WoW's Valentine's event is up and running with a variety of bugs of moderate severity because the event apparently wasn't updated to account for the new expansion. Most are expected to be fixed by Tuesday's patch.
One thing that isn't on the list but might be a bug is the bouquet of roses, which only drops from a handful of 5-man instance bosses... in old Wrath era dungeons. The easiest, the first boss of UK, can be easily soloed on normal mode by most, if not all, level 80+ characters. Soloing this means not having to look for a group and rolling five ways to see who gets the bouquet (after which some groups will literally disband, to the chagrin of anyone who wanted to complete the dungeon).
My guess is that this was not intended, and that the bouquet drop will be moved to Cataclysm five-man dungeons as soon as Blizzard can manage. If you're in the market for a bouquet, I'd fly to UK with all due speed before this gets fixed.
One thing that isn't on the list but might be a bug is the bouquet of roses, which only drops from a handful of 5-man instance bosses... in old Wrath era dungeons. The easiest, the first boss of UK, can be easily soloed on normal mode by most, if not all, level 80+ characters. Soloing this means not having to look for a group and rolling five ways to see who gets the bouquet (after which some groups will literally disband, to the chagrin of anyone who wanted to complete the dungeon).
My guess is that this was not intended, and that the bouquet drop will be moved to Cataclysm five-man dungeons as soon as Blizzard can manage. If you're in the market for a bouquet, I'd fly to UK with all due speed before this gets fixed.
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