We’re back! Since the end of part 6 we’ve had out first look at Rift’s pricing scheme.
Beta 4 has come with a fairly beefy set of patch notes. I’ll try to mention any important changes I see as I play through in this phase.
The big changes for this round are an increase in the levelcap to 27, and the turning on of the PvP Warfronts. While I doubt I’ll be getting to 27 this weekend, I will try to check Warfronts out to cut through the chatter and get the skinny from the horse’s mouth, ideally before it tramples me into the ground!
9:12 am GMT, 8th of January
Off we go, somewhat later than intended. I managed to lose all desire to play any MMO at all last night, in between some bad news coming from EQ2, and reading some Rift posts which are so gushing with hyperbole that they are indistinguishable from a press-release. Watching the Rift-specific websites compete to see which of them is going to be Trion’s very special favourite is getting to be a bit embarrassing to watch. This always happens before any new MMO release, but it always leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about MMO-blogging.
A good snooze fixed me right up though, and we’ve had a hotfix while I napped!:
GENERAL GAMEPLAY
- Soul Acquisition quests that were not progressing have been fixed.
- Fixed a bug with Soul Points when changing roles while an ability is queued.
WARFRONTS
- Warfront experience is ‘more better’.
FREEMARCH
- Tweaked Freemarch zone-wide events for playability.
GLOAMWOOD
- A Woman Scorned: If you left after defeating the Hag, but without completing the quest, you can now return to the area and speak with the Messenger as long as the event is not in progress.
SILVERWOOD
- Fixed a rogue Rift that was attacking Silver Coast with level 50 Planars.
- Tweaked Silverwood zone-wide events for playability.
CLIENT/INSTALLER
- Client crash fixes related to client startup, and to resizing.
- Fixed a rare bug with the uninstaller to prevent bad things from happening. The next time you start up the patcher, it may ask for Administrator privileges on your computer if it doesn’t have them already. This is normal and expected!
9:42 am GMT, 8th of January
It appears that the servers are currently locked, probably from that update. Osgard will be continuing with his adventures as soon as he can get through the door!
Oops, might be waiting a little while. We’re waiting on a new stable server build. Here are the latest details. I added GMT times.:
Update (1:15AM PST)(9:15 am GMT):
Alright – here’s what’s up. Servers are unstable after the update and rather than have them crash repeatedly on you (and us), we’re going to kick out a new build to fix it ASAP.The minimum ETA on this (with all proper stars aligned) is 30 minutes, with a more reasonable estimate around 1 hour.
I’ll be in touch with updates throughout.
Update (1:30am PST)((9:30 am GMT):
Hamsters are still running as fast as they can — next status update should be in about 20 minutes!
And more!:
Update (1:55am PST)(9:55 am GMT)
The build is currently being deployed to the servers, at which point we can do a check to make sure the issue is stomped. I’m hearing an approximate 25 more minutes for this to be done on the US servers. EU is going to run slightly behind that and I will post specific updates for those servers as I get them.
Well then. Reckon I’d better go make myself some breakfast!
Update: (2:31am PST) (10:31 am GMT):
Surprise twist!The EU servers have caught up and passed the initial sanity check: They are back online.
US servers: You guessed it, we’re checking a few last things and can provide another update in 10 minutes.
I’m on a US server for the sake of being on the same server as some other bloggers, so not quite ready to go yet. The communication we’re getting from Trion, especially with it being 2:30 am over there, is quite excellent.
11:08 am GMT, 8th of January
No more false starts! We’re back in Telera, as Osgard finds himself standing in Argent Glade. All seems peaceful, but he knows that to the South-East lurks the goblin forces of Maelforge, dragon of fire. He must seek out four of his goblin lieutenants, and put an end to their evil.
Rift - Looking Southeast from Argent Glade
Whoops! It’s a good thing I just noticed that my action bars have been reset since Beta 3. That could have ended in a rather embarrassing goblin victory. the reset is because the action bar system has been improved, allowing many more bars than before.
I create some new bars, and assign my skills to them.
11:49 am GMT, 8th of January
The goblin lieutenants don’t spawn until you extinguish their respective burning sacrifice. It’s a good way to make sure that people don’t get stuck waiting for respawns on quest monsters, though as a European on a US server I’m actually almost alone at the moment. I’ve not even seen any rifts opening up, tied as they are to the number of players in the area.
Rift - Seethe the Silverwood Goblin
One of the goblins, Seethe, had a mildly distressing mind-effect he did a few times. Sometimes it would make Osgard just stand there, and sometimes it would make him walk slowly away. Either way it was unhelpful, and I’ll need to look in to what stat or effect’s will help Osgard with resisting such things.
12:16 pm GMT, 8th of January
Osgard was sent further in to Argent Glade. It is a fair size town, with Quicksilver College tacked on to it’s west side. I want to look in to learning a craft while here, but our planar foes had other ideas.
Within Argent Glade are several wardstones, making this whole area attackable. While looking for the crafting trainers, I was suddenly overwhelmed by an enormous goat, and it’s moss-based comrades. An incursion from the plane of life was afoot.
So far as I can tell, the purpose of an invasion is to attack our wardstones. If they manage to destroy one, the enemy can then place it’s wardstone equivalent, and the area becomes a foothold. For instance, the life invasion managed to destroy our wardstone on the east side of Argent Glade, and plant a Living Idol in its place. At that point it seemed to then be able to generate additional enemies, and we had quite a lot of trouble dislodging them, but eventually our forces grew, and we managed to clear it out. It was helped somewhat by a Fire invasion turning up on the other side of the Life foothold, and making a nuisance of itself.
The final moments of the Life Foothold.
That was not the end of the situation, or course. The life invasion had come from a rift somewhere, and forces from it were still running around. From not seeing any rifts or invasions 30 minutes earlier, the whole map was is now abuzz with them.
Life in Rift is very seldom peaceful, and it’s actually quite hard right now for me to find somewhere to write where I’m not going to get attacked, if not by ordinary monsters, then by a planar invasion swarming through my otherwise safe town or questing hub. I’m sure there are spots where they won’t rampage, but it will take experience to know where they are. The biggest problem, for me as a non-healer, is that when an invasion wants to kill me I am pretty much dead.
That reminds me, I need to find a healer to clear all these penalties I’ve accrued from respawning at the graveyard. My Soul vitality is at 20%. While I’m not entirely clear on what that does to me, I’m certain it is a bad thing.
1:33 pm GMT, 8th of January
I found the healer, and paid him to return me to 100% Soul Vitality. Argent Blade is quite a nice little place, though I don’t imagine you stay here terribly long. For the first time, there is a bit more choice of quests, with a few questgivers scattered throughout the town and college.
First though, I want to check out crafting. Argent Glade has a full range of crafters, clustered abound the north-east corner of the town. Unfortunately, it seems to be having some issues with getting sucked in to the plane of fire at the moment.
Argent Glade's Crafting Area, and a Fire Foothold
The foothold doesn’t seem to have taken out any of the trainers yet, so I have a quick look about to see what crafts are available. They are:
Apothecary: Potions, vials, and other useful concoctions.
Armoursmith: Metal armour.
Artificers: Necklaces, rings, wands, and staves.
Outfitter: Cloth and leather armour
Runecrafter: runes and enchantments to increase the potency of equipment.
Weaponsmith: All weapons apart from wands and staves.
That seems to be everyone, unless someone got eaten. I wonder which craft I should take for Osgard. You can only have 3 tradeskills, and currently he has all three harvesting ones. He’ll swap one out for a craft, so I can see how things work.
Let’s start a new thread, as Osgard begins to craft in the Rift Beta Bonanza Part 8.