Rift Review (Update 2013)

I have been a Rift veteran for the last 2 years, I picked it up after playing on one of those 2 week free trails and ended up liking the game. This became of the first pay to play MMOs that I actually was willing to pay per month for. The biggest problem with Rift was its very small player base when it used to be pay to play, it would take around 1 to 2 hours to find dungeon queue. Now that the game is free 2 play you are more likely to spend 1 to 2 hours in a queue to log into the server. Like most games that go free 2 play as soon as it was launched it exploded, peak time queues were a 4 hours expected wait. But over the next few months it will thin down to the main users that actually enjoy the game and want to continue playing it.

The most unique thing about Rift over other MMOs is the customisation you can have with your skill tree and souls. Souls are basically traits that allow you to specialise your class, for example you can have a rouge base class character, and from this you can then select 3 souls. These souls are specialised to each class. Warriors, Priests and Rouges have different souls. These souls allow you to define what you want your class character to focus on, DPS, Support or any mixture you want these 3 souls to be. This really allows your character to be different from the rest or focus on that one aspect you want it to have. On top of this you can also have 5 different trees, it costs in game money to unlock the extra slots but they allow you to instantly switch to a different set of skill trees when you so desire changing up your characters fighting and playing style to whatever situation you may encounter.

The combat is like a typical MMO standard, this feels much like the combat in World of Warcraft. You simply get in the area of the enemy you want to attack and start spamming your skills and repeat, the combat is nothing new and exciting but it doesn’t bore you that easily either. The biggest selling point of Rift is their rifts. When the game was first released this was its number one talked about feature, having these rifts appear across the world and you can join in on the adventure with a local party all fighting inside of the rift. The rifts are elemental based and each release different forms of enemies, this is wave based, much like a horde mode except you get loot at the end of each round. On average there are 5 waves to each rift, the final wave ending on a boss in which you receive better loot for fighting till the end. These have now expanded over the years with some large scale rift events that can take your across half of the enormous world. Having to protect the 10 towns near all of the active rifts while the final super boss in destroyed in the high levels has nearly all of the players in that server having to take part in this event. This makes the game feel more fresh and active compared to most MMO games that really focus on the single player adventures. Rift focuses heavily of events, large or small there are always multiple events at a time, some even clashing with each other. This will keep you on your toes throughout and run around many areas of the world to partake in these events.

The currency in the game goes up to platinum coins, it takes a while get a few 100 platinum but it spent much faster, I feel that this is one of the biggest weaknesses in the game. Making you grind to get all this currency in and then spending a lot of it on a faster mount. Now with the game going free 2 play they have incorporated a store in which you can spend real money for bonuses and in game items. The shop is balanced not creating it to become a pay 2 win game. Most of the items are mounts and potions to give to small boosts in experience or fame with the local scholars. They have also added a currency of crystals that can be spent in the store and exchanged for in game money, it feels like they heavily borrowed the concept from the Guild Wars 2 store which makes it look more appealing and balance opposed to other stores in MMO games. The world of Rift is gigantic and even bigger with the inclusion of Storm Legion expansion pack that is now included in the free 2 play model. It will take you a many hours to full traverse the entire world and that is without encountering any enemies in the higher level zones. The visuals are also fantastic, this is one of the nicer looking MMOs alongside Tera. The models and environments have been handled with a high attention to detail.

Finding a guild that will accept it very easy and highly advised, the bonuses, guild bank and raiding will make your rift experience last longer and more enjoyable with a group of you. They have found the perfect balance to make the game free 2 play without the store taking away a lot of the focus in grinding and finding epic loot. Rift is now Free 2 Play, so no excuses to check this game out.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.