RIFT

[Kavik Brock]

I was goofing around in the RIFT Beta5 the last couple days. Seems pretty cool. The graphics are pretty nice (and I apparently need a new graphics card since I couldn't run it full-bore) and the game-play is your standard MMO-fair.

This video is of a Life Rift (there are several types of rifts Fire, Death, Life, etc.) and mobs from a different plane are coming through it to attack anything nearby. An interesting thing with RIFT is that if you come across something like this you can join a public group to fight it (that way everyone gets credit, xp, etc.) and public groups can pop-up if enough people are near each other doing the same quests/rifts. You don't have to join, but it's a nice option and you get group XP if you join it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCuP5rC2H6Y

ETA: My toon is a Stormcaller/Elementalist Mage. I think I have a third soul at this point, too, but I don't recall what it is. Souls are the different talent tree's you have available to your character. And you three souls by around lvl 7 or 8, so you can get new talents from each tree or just go up one or only two. It gets pretty complex if you're trying to reach a certain talent.

[Lecktor Hannibal]

I've been getting the beta invites but haven't bothered to load it up yet. Will it be able to compete with WoW or is it going to be another also ran?

[Kavik Brock]

Tough to say, at this point. It has a lot of potential. I'm going to keep with it for a bit. One of the things against it is that if you want everything to look "pretty" you're going to need a decent PC. That's one of the things I always see from people, "Well, WoW runs and looks great on my 4 year old laptop! So, I want your game to do the same!"

That just doesn't always work, though. But, it is a factor for people.

As far as questing, so far, it's typical MMO-stuff. The classes, and combinations within, are pretty interesting and have a lot of potential.

The best tanks in the beta, so far? Rogues. o.O