RIFT: Planes of Telara game review

This game has turned out to be fantastic. When this game was first announced, it was somewhat quiet compared to other games I have played or heard of. I wasn't really sure what to think of it at the beginning, but it definitely looked interesting, and I was intrigued. So I signed up for the beta events and patiently awaited my invitation. I never got one. So I went ahead and pre-ordered the game in the hopes that I would not be disappointed. I was not.

The first feature in this new MMORPG that I grew to love was the class system. It is not entirely new, as other games have utilized a similar class building style, but it is the best in my opinion. In Rift, each character starts off with one "soul" or class talent tree. As you level and progress through the game, you can collect more of these souls, and spend points in each tree however you like. Each character can only have three souls activated at once, but you can buy up to four roles which allow you to equip three trees. So in essence, every toon you play can have four different specs. You can switch specs at any time and reset your points in each spec individually. This means that you don't have to memorize where your points are spent in a role that you are happy with just to change a role you do not like.
There are four classes to start with currently, Mage, Cleric, Warrior, and Rogue. Each of these classes have a soul that provides a pet, and most of them can provide heals as well. The thing that makes this feature so great is the fact that with only one character, you can play damage, tank or healer without ever having to toon hop!


The next thing that I would like to cover are the world rifts that open randomly in the game world. These rifts come in six varieties, Fire, Life, Water, Death, Storm, and Earth. Each one starts as a tear somewhere on the map, and players can either open them and start the event themselves, or the rift will automatically open on its own. These events take entire raids of people to complete, each having several stages in which players much overcome a certain amount of monsters or items to get to the next phase. Upon completion of these rifts, participating players will receive loot and special planar items that can only be obtained in this way. If left undefeated, these rifts will manifest into world invasions and the planar mobs will run around attacking player bases and terrorizing the unsuspecting quester. It adds both flavor, immersion and excitement to the play experience. Below is an example of a life rift open in Telara.

This game also features an achievement system to help show off your gaming prowess to all of your friends and guild mates, as well as mounts and pets to be collected. For myself personally, this is a huge plus, as I love to spend hours collecting little critters to keep me company and huge sloth like creatures to carry me swiftly from one point to the next. "Got to collect em all!" Below are images of just two of the available mounts as well as two of the pets you can get through a pre-order of the game. I don't want to give too much away =)

To say the least, from my perspective,  this game is well worth trying. It is both fun and exciting, while still offering challenging overall game play for those hard core MMORPGers out there. End game offers raiding and PvP content, with extensive social, crafting, and achievement systems to keep you busy when your RL friends don't want to talk to you anymore =)