Faelor
06-11-2010, 07:03 PM
Source (http://pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096726p1.html). And yes, I am the one starting this fire. LET IT BEGIN!
Rift: Planes of Telara (http://pc.ign.com/objects/143/14347517.html) – once upon a time known as Heroes of Telara – is the upcoming fantasy MMORPG from Trion Worlds (http://games.ign.com/objects/142/14257527.html). We first got a look at Rift in April, and it was, for better or worse, strongly reminiscent of World of Warcraft. The user interface, skills and even the art-style to a certain extent drew heavily from the world's most popular subscription-based MMO. What separated Rift from WoW and games like it were the titular rifts; dynamic events that change the landscape and draw players to work together or fight against each other, but even this was reminiscent of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning's public quest system. It is the class system, which we recently had the opportunity to see, that truly separates Rift from the glut of other fantasy MMOs.
First, a little explanation of who you are in Rift is in order. You, and all the players in Rift, are great warriors who after death appeared in Telara as what is known as an "ascended soul." This is your basic character class and falls into one of four archetypes or "callings" – warrior, mage, cleric or rogue. Each calling affects the type of armor you can wear. At the start of the game, when you're creating your character, there are two different classes per calling.
As the game progresses and you level up, you unlock soul points, which can be spent on a "soul tree" that looks very similar to World of Warcraft's talent system. There is a very important difference, though. As you plug points into the tree's upper part or "branches," you automatically progress along the tree's winding "root," unlocking new skills along the way. These are the core abilities of the class. Pretty basic stuff, right? Then, fairly early on, you acquire your second soul.
Wait, what? You can have more than one soul?
Yep. In fact, that is the core of the class system. This second soul comes with its own talent branches and ability root. In fact, you can eventually get a third soul as well. Of course, you have a limited number of points to spend; by max level, at the moment, you're going to have 51. While that may sound pretty standard, things can still get crazy.
You may be limited to having three active souls, but there are many more. Trion weren't willing to say just how many, but told me that each archetype will have "hundreds of combinations" available to them. And the abilities tied to the souls aren't necessarily your standard archetype skills. What I mean is, if you chose a warrior archetype, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd be limited primarily to melee offense like the Gladiator soul, and highly defensive options like the Reaver. Nope! Certainly, those options are available, but so are souls that aren't traditionally associated with the warrior, such as a spell-thrower.
<!-- start image div -->http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1096726/rift-planes-of-telara-making-the-most-of-your-souls-20100611030825993-000.jpg (http://media.pc.ign.com/media/143/14347517/img_7809698.html)
This combination of souls would allow for a stealth-archer.
<!--- end image div -->The soul you choose at the beginning is flexible, and throwing points into it will likely allow you to play solo pretty well. If you want to be able to do fancier stuff, or to excel in a group, you'll need to start looking at other souls. The first couple may be very easy to get, but as you progress, it becomes very much a collectible mini-game.
An example we witnessed was a rogue-calling character whose main soul was the Bladedancer – a purely damage-focused soul. It was capable of tearing things to shreds, but could not stealth, could not attack from a range, and had very little in the way of escapes and evades. Introducing the Ranger soul, and adding a few points, allowed the rogue to attack enemies from afar, and as they got near, switch to the powerful blades. Another soul introduced the stealth mechanic, but at the loss of some potential damage. A third option was a more caster-type soul that could augment weapon damage with the elements, and allowed the rogue to teleport backwards. Very neat stuff, but it gets cooler when you consider that another possible combination is the caster-type and the ranger, allowing players to attack from a range, and teleport away when the enemy gets too close.
<!-- start image div -->http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1096726/rift-planes-of-telara-making-the-most-of-your-souls-20100611025843140-000.jpg
No matter what talents you put points in, you'll also earn the root skills.
<!--- end image div -->There are much more specialized souls that we were told players wouldn't be able to acquire until they were comfortable with the game mechanics. We were told that there would be, for example, a soul that excels in buffing party members that would be extremely difficult to solo with. Mentioned, too, was the fact that souls don't necessarily have to be combat focused. Seasonal holidays, such as Halloween, could have purely social souls tied to them that allow players to transform or do other non-combat actions, just for fun. Now, we don't know if you can switch between souls on the fly. We think that you can only swap out a soul that has no points invested in it, meaning that you can switch souls when you are respecializing your character. We were told that there is a way you can save certain soul specs and switch between them, but we weren't given any details. Our best guess is that it'll work somewhat similar to WoW's dual-talent-spec system.
The system that Trion has come up with is a novel idea that has the potential to provide players with an immense amount of flexibility for play-styles, regardless of a player's class. It also, however, poses balance concerns, and may make creating fun and involving encounters and dungeons a challenge.
We will have to wait until next week when we get our first hands-on to be able to say for sure, so keep checking IGN's E3 coverage for more.
Rift: Planes of Telara (http://pc.ign.com/objects/143/14347517.html) – once upon a time known as Heroes of Telara – is the upcoming fantasy MMORPG from Trion Worlds (http://games.ign.com/objects/142/14257527.html). We first got a look at Rift in April, and it was, for better or worse, strongly reminiscent of World of Warcraft. The user interface, skills and even the art-style to a certain extent drew heavily from the world's most popular subscription-based MMO. What separated Rift from WoW and games like it were the titular rifts; dynamic events that change the landscape and draw players to work together or fight against each other, but even this was reminiscent of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning's public quest system. It is the class system, which we recently had the opportunity to see, that truly separates Rift from the glut of other fantasy MMOs.
First, a little explanation of who you are in Rift is in order. You, and all the players in Rift, are great warriors who after death appeared in Telara as what is known as an "ascended soul." This is your basic character class and falls into one of four archetypes or "callings" – warrior, mage, cleric or rogue. Each calling affects the type of armor you can wear. At the start of the game, when you're creating your character, there are two different classes per calling.
As the game progresses and you level up, you unlock soul points, which can be spent on a "soul tree" that looks very similar to World of Warcraft's talent system. There is a very important difference, though. As you plug points into the tree's upper part or "branches," you automatically progress along the tree's winding "root," unlocking new skills along the way. These are the core abilities of the class. Pretty basic stuff, right? Then, fairly early on, you acquire your second soul.
Wait, what? You can have more than one soul?
Yep. In fact, that is the core of the class system. This second soul comes with its own talent branches and ability root. In fact, you can eventually get a third soul as well. Of course, you have a limited number of points to spend; by max level, at the moment, you're going to have 51. While that may sound pretty standard, things can still get crazy.
You may be limited to having three active souls, but there are many more. Trion weren't willing to say just how many, but told me that each archetype will have "hundreds of combinations" available to them. And the abilities tied to the souls aren't necessarily your standard archetype skills. What I mean is, if you chose a warrior archetype, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd be limited primarily to melee offense like the Gladiator soul, and highly defensive options like the Reaver. Nope! Certainly, those options are available, but so are souls that aren't traditionally associated with the warrior, such as a spell-thrower.
<!-- start image div -->http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1096726/rift-planes-of-telara-making-the-most-of-your-souls-20100611030825993-000.jpg (http://media.pc.ign.com/media/143/14347517/img_7809698.html)
This combination of souls would allow for a stealth-archer.
<!--- end image div -->The soul you choose at the beginning is flexible, and throwing points into it will likely allow you to play solo pretty well. If you want to be able to do fancier stuff, or to excel in a group, you'll need to start looking at other souls. The first couple may be very easy to get, but as you progress, it becomes very much a collectible mini-game.
An example we witnessed was a rogue-calling character whose main soul was the Bladedancer – a purely damage-focused soul. It was capable of tearing things to shreds, but could not stealth, could not attack from a range, and had very little in the way of escapes and evades. Introducing the Ranger soul, and adding a few points, allowed the rogue to attack enemies from afar, and as they got near, switch to the powerful blades. Another soul introduced the stealth mechanic, but at the loss of some potential damage. A third option was a more caster-type soul that could augment weapon damage with the elements, and allowed the rogue to teleport backwards. Very neat stuff, but it gets cooler when you consider that another possible combination is the caster-type and the ranger, allowing players to attack from a range, and teleport away when the enemy gets too close.
<!-- start image div -->http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1096726/rift-planes-of-telara-making-the-most-of-your-souls-20100611025843140-000.jpg
No matter what talents you put points in, you'll also earn the root skills.
<!--- end image div -->There are much more specialized souls that we were told players wouldn't be able to acquire until they were comfortable with the game mechanics. We were told that there would be, for example, a soul that excels in buffing party members that would be extremely difficult to solo with. Mentioned, too, was the fact that souls don't necessarily have to be combat focused. Seasonal holidays, such as Halloween, could have purely social souls tied to them that allow players to transform or do other non-combat actions, just for fun. Now, we don't know if you can switch between souls on the fly. We think that you can only swap out a soul that has no points invested in it, meaning that you can switch souls when you are respecializing your character. We were told that there is a way you can save certain soul specs and switch between them, but we weren't given any details. Our best guess is that it'll work somewhat similar to WoW's dual-talent-spec system.
The system that Trion has come up with is a novel idea that has the potential to provide players with an immense amount of flexibility for play-styles, regardless of a player's class. It also, however, poses balance concerns, and may make creating fun and involving encounters and dungeons a challenge.
We will have to wait until next week when we get our first hands-on to be able to say for sure, so keep checking IGN's E3 coverage for more.