For all intent and purpose, the River of Souls event on Rift went rather smoothly, minus some intermittent issues with a few servers. On the other hand, the much touted second and third phase that the game had been working toward lasted all of a half hour last night. As one of the players who logged off to go eat dinner at around 6pm EST, I logged back in barely a half hour later to find that the event was over, the bosses killed, the death rifts not giving items, and the world event page over.
I guess what was disappointing was not the speed of the second and third phase of the event (about a half hour for both phases compared to several weeks for phase 1), but that there were some old developers on Rift from past MMOs that such an oversight should not have been passed over, and I’m guessing it was because none of those names had a part in the event. The event itself was well maintained, phase 1 at least, and continues to show Trion’s quick response to player criticism and suggestions. Perhaps part of the mistake was having the phase 2/3 events on a weekend, and not just any weekend, the “invite a friend” weekend, that set a lot of servers back into queues when they were brought down to launch the final phases of the event.
All is not lost, and assuredly the events that took place will have a lasting effect on future updates. To compensate players (like myself) who either ate dinner at the time, or were doing something else assuming phase 2/3 would be at least a few days long, Trion is offering compensation in the form of 250 otherworldly essence, a treasure box containing a random item from the event, an item to start a quest, and two achievements. The otherworldy source stones (currency for the death rifts) will continue to drop, and so will the shadetouch weapon quest.
More on Rift as it appears.
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