Rift's previously announced free server transfers have gone live with some remaining kinks - for instance, the crowded Faeblight server was initially on the destination list, only to be removed by the time you're reading this. That aside, there's an interesting detail that may have been previously announced, but was news to me - the game will now have "trial account only shards" where subscribers will not be allowed to create characters, and will be prompted suggesting that they remove any characters they made while they were trial accounts via the new free transfer feature.
Cynical comments about EQ2X aside, I don't know of any game that segregates its free trial population in this manner. There are very good reasons for doing so - beyond the traditional gold spammers and level 1-10 general chat trolls, Rift seems to plan on continuing to do one-time server events that encourage queues, and adding trial accounts to that mix is bound to leave someone unhappy.
That said, what will the community be like on a server populated entirely with trial accounts (and perhaps a few rebellious players who make new accounts and convert them to paid accounts for the sole purpose of being amongst the few players on the server to go beyond the trial level cap)? Will that environment be at all conducive to actually converting trial players into paying customers? Will the current referral program allow players out of the newbie leper colony to play with their friends who are already in game?
I'm not saying that it will work, or that it won't work, but someone who wants a sociology paper may have topic in waiting here.
Missing Midsummer Spark
WoW's Midsummer Fire Festival kicks off tomorrow, and I will be in attendance since I have an alt who is a couple dozen bonfires away from the holiday meta-drake. This has historically been one of my favorite world events amongst all MMO's, but I'm not that excited about it this year.
My favorite part of the event has always been the little nudge to experiment with some alts, as bonus exp abounds from bonfires around the world. With Cataclysm's linear zone progression, this option is far less interesting - I'm already outleveling zones before I even get to see the new storylines I rolled up a new character to visit.
It would be nice if I were pleasantly surprised - if nothing else, my mage is sufficiently undergeared that I might actually use the cool-looking Scythe staff if I can obtain it. Guess I'll find out over the next week or so.
My favorite part of the event has always been the little nudge to experiment with some alts, as bonus exp abounds from bonfires around the world. With Cataclysm's linear zone progression, this option is far less interesting - I'm already outleveling zones before I even get to see the new storylines I rolled up a new character to visit.
It would be nice if I were pleasantly surprised - if nothing else, my mage is sufficiently undergeared that I might actually use the cool-looking Scythe staff if I can obtain it. Guess I'll find out over the next week or so.
Earning My ROM Wings
I hit two milestones in Runes of Magic over the weekend - level 45 in my secondary class, unlocking a new 45/45 elite skill for my main, and 6000 Phirius Tokens, allowing me to purchase a pair of wings from the item shop.
What are wings?
As a pure non-subscription item shop game that does basically nothing to force players to pay during solo leveling, ROM has to make its money somewhere. The high end gear system appears to be one of the main money-makers. There are large numbers of consumable item shop purchases that can be used to enhance players' gear, dramatically increasing its stats to a degree that goes far beyond what other MMO's offer through enchantments/adornments/runes/etc. Some of these items are available for Phirius tokens - you get 10 per daily quest completed and can complete 10 daily quests per day - but the prices are such that I'd imagine any serious player is going to need to move faster than this system allows.
Items that can be equipped in players' back slot - typically wings, though some are flowers or floating swords that follow you around - are exclusive to the item store. These items have no stats by default, but they do represent another gear slot that can be enhanced, including a permanent bonus to exp and drop rates that is almost never found outside of temporary item store consumables.
Pricing the wings
It's somewhat difficult to determine what wings are actually worth, because they are not included in the permanent stock of the diamond shop (the currency that you get directly for spending real money). Typically you'll see wings go on sale once or twice a month for 3-5 days at a time for prices running around 150-300 diamonds ($7.50-$15 at non-sale exchange rates, price usually includes some items to get started on enhancing the wings as part of a bundle).
Fortunately, there are a few other options. There is a cash store item that allows players to unbind soulbound equipment and place it on the auction house, so you can pay gold for someone else's wings (which they hopefully are not getting rid of simply because they made poor choices in building them). Another option, the route I took, is to plunk down 6000 of the Phirius daily quest tokens - 600 dailies/60 days worth.
I would not do that many daily quests just to save a few bucks. Fortunately, I didn't have to, as daily quests are a part of ROM characters regular progression, especially if you have a secondary class that you'd like to level without actively playing it. The long-term goal of farming up the tokens over the year or so I've been playing the game was a good little nudge towards taking care of daily quests that the game expects me to be doing anyway.
I don't know how far I'm going to get in terms of upgrading the things with Nebula jewels and whatnot (I will be very cautious about putting regular stats on them, since I don't want to get stuck with bad stats), but I suppose that's a medium to long term goal for future Phirius tokens. There isn't really that much else I need in that section of the item shop right now, other than maybe an additional storage chest for my house, but in the mean time at least I've got a pair of good-looking wings to show for my efforts.
 |
| Shiny wings have a shiny on-use ability |
As a pure non-subscription item shop game that does basically nothing to force players to pay during solo leveling, ROM has to make its money somewhere. The high end gear system appears to be one of the main money-makers. There are large numbers of consumable item shop purchases that can be used to enhance players' gear, dramatically increasing its stats to a degree that goes far beyond what other MMO's offer through enchantments/adornments/runes/etc. Some of these items are available for Phirius tokens - you get 10 per daily quest completed and can complete 10 daily quests per day - but the prices are such that I'd imagine any serious player is going to need to move faster than this system allows.
Items that can be equipped in players' back slot - typically wings, though some are flowers or floating swords that follow you around - are exclusive to the item store. These items have no stats by default, but they do represent another gear slot that can be enhanced, including a permanent bonus to exp and drop rates that is almost never found outside of temporary item store consumables.
 |
| An example pair of fully-upgraded wings on the auction house, compared to my brand new statless version. |
It's somewhat difficult to determine what wings are actually worth, because they are not included in the permanent stock of the diamond shop (the currency that you get directly for spending real money). Typically you'll see wings go on sale once or twice a month for 3-5 days at a time for prices running around 150-300 diamonds ($7.50-$15 at non-sale exchange rates, price usually includes some items to get started on enhancing the wings as part of a bundle).
Fortunately, there are a few other options. There is a cash store item that allows players to unbind soulbound equipment and place it on the auction house, so you can pay gold for someone else's wings (which they hopefully are not getting rid of simply because they made poor choices in building them). Another option, the route I took, is to plunk down 6000 of the Phirius daily quest tokens - 600 dailies/60 days worth.
I would not do that many daily quests just to save a few bucks. Fortunately, I didn't have to, as daily quests are a part of ROM characters regular progression, especially if you have a secondary class that you'd like to level without actively playing it. The long-term goal of farming up the tokens over the year or so I've been playing the game was a good little nudge towards taking care of daily quests that the game expects me to be doing anyway.
I don't know how far I'm going to get in terms of upgrading the things with Nebula jewels and whatnot (I will be very cautious about putting regular stats on them, since I don't want to get stuck with bad stats), but I suppose that's a medium to long term goal for future Phirius tokens. There isn't really that much else I need in that section of the item shop right now, other than maybe an additional storage chest for my house, but in the mean time at least I've got a pair of good-looking wings to show for my efforts.
 |
| Fortunately, the shiny ball of energy between the wings doesn't interfere with the massive shadow energy from my shadow attacks - which, incidentally, were buffed significantly in this week's patch. |
Legendary Dirge Boots
Lyriana finally obtained 40 Velium Shards - EQ2's level 90 dungeon token currency - and I was off to have her very first piece of endgame armor ever crafted. Ironically, Feldon posted a guide the very next day that could have saved me some heartburn.
Crafting your dungeon gear
The boots cost 47 shards if you buy them from the NPC vendor, but only 40 shards if you have them crafted. That's 2-3 dungeon runs worth of shards, which is enough for even a lazy player like myself to go hunting for a crafter to have the boots made. Fortunately, I found a helpful guy who was very patient with me as I didn't know a fair amount of things that theoretically I should have known.
The armor also require a gem that drops in various Velious instances, and this ingredient is still required if you're having a crafter make them. I've never seen the gem I would need drop, and was in for a bit of sticker shock when I visited the broker to see how much it cost when I found out I would still need one. (There's a less powerful tier of armor that only requires shards, but this seems like a bad deal since the pieces cost more shards, are missing key abilities, and will be discarded as soon as you can upgrade them.) Spending 100 plat on an armor component was painful, but in the end the component is worth that much on the open market whether I farm it myself or pay someone else to do it for me, and it's not like I generally spend money on much of anything else on the broker.
Overall, the system is an interesting way to keep crafters relevant in a game state where the good gear is still primarily reserved for group content.
A big deal for a support class?
The thing that really set my mind on farming up the boots, rather than some of the other options (made with cheaper gems), was the special focus effect. EQ2 characters have five "concentration slots" with which to maintain buffs that require concentration. Most classes do not actually need this many, but bards are a buff-focused class and actually do manage to fill all the slots. Last expansion, a raid-only adornment (like a WoW gem, LOTRO relic, etc) was added that removes the concentration requirement from a buff that a Dirge will always want to be using. This expansion, that same effect is available on all T2 and better class boots, such as the ones I just had crafted.
As a result, I've now got permanent leeway to add another one of my buffs to the mix. This is a piece of gear that I will almost certainly carry with me until I manage to replace it with another item that offers the same effect, almost no matter how much better the gear gets in the next expansion, because this makes me better at my class' core function - buffing the rest of my party - in a way that I can't replace by adding a few percent to my personal DPS.
I'm not sure that this type of class defining perk is a good idea for endgame gear - eventually, it gets to the point where late-comers simply can't do what groups expect them to because they have not yet gotten a group to get the unique items they need. That said, I'm definitely happy to have an upgrade that's more interesting than your average +1% crit or whatnot.
Crafting your dungeon gear
The boots cost 47 shards if you buy them from the NPC vendor, but only 40 shards if you have them crafted. That's 2-3 dungeon runs worth of shards, which is enough for even a lazy player like myself to go hunting for a crafter to have the boots made. Fortunately, I found a helpful guy who was very patient with me as I didn't know a fair amount of things that theoretically I should have known.
The armor also require a gem that drops in various Velious instances, and this ingredient is still required if you're having a crafter make them. I've never seen the gem I would need drop, and was in for a bit of sticker shock when I visited the broker to see how much it cost when I found out I would still need one. (There's a less powerful tier of armor that only requires shards, but this seems like a bad deal since the pieces cost more shards, are missing key abilities, and will be discarded as soon as you can upgrade them.) Spending 100 plat on an armor component was painful, but in the end the component is worth that much on the open market whether I farm it myself or pay someone else to do it for me, and it's not like I generally spend money on much of anything else on the broker.
Overall, the system is an interesting way to keep crafters relevant in a game state where the good gear is still primarily reserved for group content.
A big deal for a support class?
The thing that really set my mind on farming up the boots, rather than some of the other options (made with cheaper gems), was the special focus effect. EQ2 characters have five "concentration slots" with which to maintain buffs that require concentration. Most classes do not actually need this many, but bards are a buff-focused class and actually do manage to fill all the slots. Last expansion, a raid-only adornment (like a WoW gem, LOTRO relic, etc) was added that removes the concentration requirement from a buff that a Dirge will always want to be using. This expansion, that same effect is available on all T2 and better class boots, such as the ones I just had crafted.
As a result, I've now got permanent leeway to add another one of my buffs to the mix. This is a piece of gear that I will almost certainly carry with me until I manage to replace it with another item that offers the same effect, almost no matter how much better the gear gets in the next expansion, because this makes me better at my class' core function - buffing the rest of my party - in a way that I can't replace by adding a few percent to my personal DPS.
I'm not sure that this type of class defining perk is a good idea for endgame gear - eventually, it gets to the point where late-comers simply can't do what groups expect them to because they have not yet gotten a group to get the unique items they need. That said, I'm definitely happy to have an upgrade that's more interesting than your average +1% crit or whatnot.
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