RIFT, people.  RIFT.  Somewhat less than hot off the heels of my previous “introduction” article on this game, behold the greatly-anticipated second instalment.  We shall call it Part 2, because that is what it is.

It has become something of a habit of mine to underestimate things.  How long it takes to walk to work in Winter when the paths haven’t been gritted.  The length of time it will take to install those final Windows updates before leaving for the day.  In this case, it was how much of RIFT I’d have to play to get a decent idea of what the early levels were like.  This is an MMO unlike any other, yet at the same time it is immediately familiar in many ways.

Confused?  Excellent, so was I.

It bears repeating that I will be discussing this game with the assumption that people have played other MMOs before now, because there’s simply no chance that I’ll be able to explain every element I talk about.  Let’s get into it, then.

From the get-go, RIFT lets you know that it means business.  Character creation starts out simply enough, choosing your faction, race, gender and “calling”, which is loosely translated as your group role.  While not quite the holy trinity of tank, healer and DPS, it’s close enough to be easy to decide based on what you feel like doing.  But as soon as you’ve chosen one of Warrior, Rogue, Mage or Cleric, things take a turn for the obscure.

Suddenly, you are given the choice of a massive number of “purposes”; up to eight of them, to be precise.  Think of them as if they were specs of character.  In much and such the same way as you can get a Feral or Restoration spec for your Druid in WoW, in RIFT, your entire class is based around what amounts to your talent choices.  These pre-made paths through the talent trees are framed as individual classes unto themselves, with strange people’s names given credit for that particular set of choices.

Initially, this was off-putting.  What if I don’t want to be any of these?  What if none of them look good, or don’t cater to how I want to play?  Luckily, RIFT has an answer to that quandary.  For now, you pick the one that sounds closest to your playstyle and continue.

Following this, we have some pretty decent character customisation options, though some areas are notably lacking.  RIFT seems to focus solely on the face of your character, giving you no freedom to edit your body shape and size.  This isn’t deal-breaking, but it would have been nice to see some more leeway given here.  Once you’re done tweaking your eyes and nose to perfection, choosing your name is last up before you are launched into the game proper.

An intro cinematic explains the back-story of your faction, heavily weighted in favour of your own viewpoint.  Playing as the Guardians will portray you as paragons of virtue, while the Defiants are reckless renegades to be suppressed.  Conversely, playing a Defiant will cast you in the role of the unfairly downtrodden, with the Guardians being elitist and dogmatic.  With a taste of the game’s expansive plot-line fresh on your palate, you are quickly given control of your avatar.

The first area of RIFT serves as a combined tutorial and prologue to the game, setting the scene for events that shape the lore while simultaneously telling you how to do basic things like move and fight.  There’s nothing out of the ordinary here – anyone who has played an MMO before will feel right at home with everything from the controls, the UI and the overall hotbar-based mechanics.  Where RIFT differentiates itself is in the details.

Those “purposes” I mentioned before?  Those are just guidelines.  You are free to shape your character how you see fit, using the talents in your “soul tree” to customise your character’s abilities to your own personal liking.  Strangely, this can lead to some doubling-up of skills – not identical in name, but function – though the overwhelming feeling is one of absolute freedom and variety.  It’s the first MMO that I’ve played where I’ve felt like I could really choose any spec I wanted and still be viable.  All too often, I’ve seen games preach freedom of talents, when in reality there was always one or two “best” specs.

It’s this level of detail that endears me to RIFT and what kept me playing beyond the first few hours.  It’s something that is found in every area of the game, with the tutorial area alone host to a wealth of lore items to those willing to explore.  Named NPC enemies with rare items to drop are squirrelled away to be hunted down by the intrepid.  RIFT gives just as much as you’re willing to put into it, and I found myself willing to put quite a lot.

I’ll go into more detail in my next section, but I want to re-iterate what I said before.  RIFT is a good game.  The more I play it, the more I am convinced of this and the more I want to recommend it.  If you’re not willing to wait the while it might take me to shape my feelings into words, go get this game and play it – the experience will be worth ten thousand words.  Otherwise, stay tuned here at Zero1Gaming for the next part of my RIFT review!

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