Released by Trion Worlds, RIFT is a great massive multiplayer online game. I enjoy playing it immensely and I have yet to reach level cap. This is not my first go round with RIFT. I played it when it launched and own the collector’s edition. I enjoyed it when it first released and the enjoyment remains despite it having gone free to play.
What’s the Story?
The planes are ripping Telara apart. Regulos is trying to take over Telara using the powers of the planes of earth, air, fire, water, and more to create chaos and tension among the citizens of Telara. He succeeds so they send back heroes to change Telara’s fate. These heroes are called the Ascended.
There are two sides to the conflict, each believing their way is the right way. We have the Guardians on one side who place their faith in the Gods of Telara to save them. On the other side, we have the Defiants. The Defiants believe that the age of machinery and science will be the cure to saving Telara from the fate at Regulos’ hand.
Tears in the Plane
This is one of my favorite aspects of RIFT. Tears in the Plane, known as rifts (which give the game its name), are where the invasions from other planes, such as fire or earth, descend upon Telara to wreak their havoc. Players take part in closing the rift by following through stages of the rift until the final boss is defeated. There are several types of rifts including:
- Minor rifts
- Major rifts
- Crafting rifts
- Raid rifts
- PVP rifts
Everyone Join In
Another fun aspect that is in RIFT is zone events. These zone events consist not only of closing rifts, but also defending wardstones around the zone the event has started in. Similar to rifts, there are stages of the event that have to be completed to move on to the next. The final boss is usually something big and worthy of being fought, generally taking several of players to take down.
Questing
What would an MMO be without questing? RIFT has these in abundance as well, crossing various zones including elite areas. There are repeatable quests, or dailies, as well, but these are completely optional. Even the crafters have quests to do.
What I don’t like?
The one facet of RIFT that I do not like is the quests that require you to pick up items laying on the ground. Solo, this is fine, but when you are running in a group like I typically am, the respawn timer on these is a little slow on the draw leading it to take twice as long for a group to complete a pick up quest.
Do you play?
I am always eager to see what others think of RIFT. What do you like or dislike about the game?
