Another great Beta test concluded at 6PM GMT Saturday evening with mass invasions hitting Telara hard. I was in Scarlet Gorge when a massive Earth invasion hit Stonecrest and we were badly outnumbered as the invasion force stormed in. Sadly there were not enough players in the zone to make a real dent in the invading force before the servers went down.

Having spent a lot of time during the first part of Beta 5 finishing off Gloamwood from Beta 4, I managed to get some time questing in Scarlet Gorge on the last day. My impressions of the zone vary, it is a little on the barren side as far as landmarks are concerned, something that I found in the Defiant start zones of Freemarch and Stonefield. Having come from Silverwood and Gloamwood, which are packed with interesting locations, it was a little disappointing. It does however look pretty amazing, especially up by the waterfalls.

Barren but not lifeless

What I am enjoying about every new test is the flow, very rarely are players having to run back to locations they have just been to complete a quest chain (FedEx quests). This is a massive plus point for someone who enjoys questing and it’s always been something that really bugged me in other MMOs. Having completed every Gloamwood quest possible, the transition into Scarlet Gorge was a smooth one. My only criticism of moving between zones at the moment are the quest types. When you move into a new zone, the starting quests for the new zone feel like low level quests and you’re rinse and repeating the quest objective types from previous zones. This usually only happens for about the first three quests so it’s not a major annoyance in any sense.

Items, Crafting and Currency Stuff

Simplified Currencies

As the game has progressed through the Beta tests, the item types are changing.  Apothecary saw quite a few changes with the downgrading of potion effects and additional new Serums to get your head around (see changes) so professions, and items related to professions, are continually being tweaked in quite a major fashion.  Also new in Beta 5, which was discussed in the pre-Beta 5 patch notes, was the new character sheet for currencies and the streamlining of currencies.  The new  currency sheet is a vast improvement keeping it all in one place, and now with the currencies being streamlined across all zones, it makes it a lot easier to understand. In fact the whole character sheet interface has been tweaked and it’s looking really polished, easy to understand and well organised.

Group with Me

Strike Slip

One of the best new additions to Beta 5 was the Public Grouping option. This wasn’t quite functioning at the start of Beta 5 and was disabled for a short time but once it was sorted it really enhanced the feel of the world you were playing in and the invasion events. For example, you no longer feel you are fighting alone, you simply whack the big button on-screen and you’re automatically grouped with players in close vicinity. Now when fighting a RIFT or invasion you feel part of the collaborative effort to stop the Rifts in their tracks and this is what Rift as a game is all about, the common enemy no matter whether you are Defiant or Guardian. Perhaps we are seeing a shift in how we should be playing MMOs, not continuously soloing the content but actually ‘playing’ with real players. About time.

What TRION are proving with each and every Beta test is that the idea of rifts and a dynamic game world not only works in-practice, but also enhances the world and play experience. The invasions and rifts are bringing Telera to life and also bringing players together in a real sense. Of course it’s up to you how you play and you can ignore all the Rift action but then that is sort of missing the point of playing in the first place.

Stability

As far as game stability goes, there were no issues at all on my Windows 7 machine although on XP I did experience numerous crashes and lock-ups. Late on Saturday night another update was rolled out which addressed stability problems but I did not get a chance to see if it made any changes on the XP machine.

The Beta did get off to a shaky start due to the huge influx of new players who had obtained a VIP key in the days running up to the Beta start. Within the first few hours TRION had launched at least a dozen new servers to lighten the load and filter new players onto new servers. After that point there was no issue getting into the game and the queues had simply disappeared. The quick reaction by the development team is a good sign and hopefully as the game hits retail that same level of support will continue.

Bring on the Planar War

And so we head to Beta 6 which kicks off on 4 February, the Planar War. This time the level cap goes up another five notches to level 35. Until then, we’ll be keeping you up to date with all the RIFT developments throughout this week and we have some great content lined up that we’ll be working hard at pushing out.

Need a Key?

So far IncGamers has distributed around 25,000 VIP Beta keys and the last few of this last batch are almost out. The good news is we have snagged another 2500, so if anyone missed out on the current batch, more will be available this week prior to the start of Beta 6 on Friday