Tag: Rift

Rift: Flash Sale, 50% Off Both Digital Versions


Good news, potential Rifters! For the next 24 hours, you can get Rift standard and digital editions for 50% off. This sale ends soon, so if you’re going to buy, do it now. Amazon is also having this sale for the standard and digital collector’s editions.

Head over to http://www.direct2drive.com/promos/rift/ and you’ll also receive a package with a 10 slot bag, scrolls, potions, and more.

If you make use of the Ascend-a-Friend program, you can also obtain 7 free days, and an exclusive title. So if you’re planning on buying Rift, you can always buy the code before the sale expires tomorrow, then sign up with the above link, and use your code at the end of the seven days.

Rift 7-Day Trial: Alienware/Friend Referral


Wanted to try out Rift, but didn’t know anyone who owned the game? Missed the ally weekends? Well do I have good news for you: Alienware is giving away keys for seven day trials to Rift, and you can get one.

Just head over to http://www.alienwarearena.com/giveaway/rift/, and create an Alienware account to get your key. Follow the instructions, and you’ll be all set up to start your seven day trial.

Alternatively, if you didn’t want to sign up for an Alienware account, you are welcome to use my referral link: Here.

What Happened This Week: 4/24-4/30 Edition


Welcome to the second episode of Week In Review (or whatever I’m calling it this week), your look at some stories that didn’t make MMO Fallout headlines for one reason or another.

1. Bethesda’s MMO May Not Be The Elder Scrolls

Chalk this one up as a disappointment, and actually a rather old news story by news standards. I came across an article from early April from Bethesda stating that multiplayer in The Elder Scrolls was entirely possible, but the company believes multiplayer would detract from what they see as primarily a rich and deep single player game, rather than the recent formula which appears to be a short single player story with the primary focus being multiplayer level grinding.

For what it’s worth, Bethesda was referring to the game Skyrim coming up this year, and an MMO is still possible in the future, having a game that is completely online instead of trying to split the two systems and dilute both experiences. Until Zenimax opens its doors and tells us what it’s been working on, all we can do is speculate.

2. Rift’s New Coin Lock Restrictions Prevent Banning

One of my criticisms with Rift’s coin lock system is that, although it was designed to stop commercial account theft by making the character unable to trade, drop, or deposit, the system did not stop non-commercial account theft (IE: The guy who steals your account just to ruin your day). It did not prevent the person from getting banned via chat-spam or a gold farmer using the account simply to spam advertisements for their website.

The new restrictions on Rift’s coin lock restrict access to everything Guild and Chat related, so a compromised character can no longer speak, nor can they wreak havoc on their guild. All I can say is, good on you Trion. There is the matter I brought up of tying the account lock to email, a system likely to also be compromised along with a person’s account, but it’s a good step nonetheless.

I use Rift’s authenticator on my iPad, not that I’m worried about my account being stolen. I set it up just to test it when it came out and, quite frankly, I’m too lazy to go through the channels to have it removed.

http://rift.mmosite.com/opinion/more_coin_lock_restrictions.shtml

3. I Shared The Agency’s Lack of Enthusiasm

Looking back on The Agency, I’m almost relieved the title was canned. The more I saw the game’s trailers and interviews, the more I saw a concept that worked well in theory, but in practice would not fit well within the MMO genre. More importantly, I noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Sony Online Entertainment, almost reminiscent of a kid who doesn’t want to play a musical instrument, but his parents make him, so he tries his best because he’s stuck there anyway, but he’s ready to throw that thing in the trash as soon as he receives the green light. The news for The Agency was sporadic, and often went through long periods with absolutely no information.

The Agency reminds me of Dungeon Runners, an experimental title that has ceased its operations. On the other hand, however, Sony can hopefully put more manpower into its upcoming series continuities; Everquest Next and Planetside Next.

4. I’m Looking Into Culling More Categories

I’m trying to give myself a consistent set of guidelines with MMO Fallout, because I hear from the grapevine that that is what real journalists do. Being the nonprofessional dope I am, I’m pretty much winging it. I did decide on delisting MMOs that are cancelled before release, at the end of the month they are cancelled, meaning The Agency is delisted, as well as Stargate Worlds.

Looking at my editorials page, I realized I need to do a lot more with that section than I have in the past. Checking in with the BBB is a series I’m proud of, but the category became rather stagnant and unchanging, even at three months per article. So I’ve deleted the category, and the series has been relegated to once every six months, meaning I’ll put out an article in June.

I’ve also deleted Looking Back, Moving Forward, because I hate monthly recaps. I don’t want to reread my own articles at the end of every month to pick out which ones I happen to like the most. Sales is gone, because I now have a dedicated sales and where to buy page that is hard enough to keep updated by themselves, especially since I’ve broken the HTML on the Sales page so many times it’s a wonder this website hasn’t started murdering random viewers in some violent revenge plot against its human oppressors.

So my remaining articles are In Plain English, which still has a purpose. My more regular categories will be Killing MMOs, Week in Review, and Community Concerns, all of which will be weekly articles.

That’s all for this week.

What Happened This Week: 4/17-4/23 Edition


Every week I have a whole list of topics I want to talk about, that don’t fully fit in with the scope of the website. So I came to the decision, why not stick them in a weekly editorial? I’m also using this section to bolster some of the titles that don’t get talked about much here on MMO Fallout.

1. The Final Fantasy XIV Easter Event

I just completed the Easter event for Final Fantasy XIV, or Hatching-Tide as Square calls it. The event description is even more confusing than the announcement, especially given how simple the event itself was. A “scantily clad” woman (game’s description, not mine) is handing out colorful eggs in the three major cities. Every nonspecific number of hours (eight, I believe), you can get a new egg from her. Obtain four eggs, and you can turn them into the gentleman standing by her, in return for an egg hat, which looks rather ornate.

The events up to this point in FFXIV have been rather…passive, is the word I’m looking for. For the Christmas event, players rang bells in cities to obtain random materials that they would use to craft items with (Santa clothing, and food). Unlike a lot of other MMOs, they’re essentially just something to do every eight hours or so that takes up a few minutes at most.

2. People Need To Be Less Defensive

I got into a discussion on Rift with a player who was under the impression that contested territory zones could be captured by enemy forces. After being informed that contested was merely a label for zones that were PvP-mandatory (on PvP servers, you are automatically flagged in these zones), he responded with “well in most MMOs, the term means that the territory can be taken.” His only example was Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. I explained that Warhammer Online was a game strictly based toward territory control, and irregardless I was pretty sure that the game did not use the term “contested territory” for zones that were open for capture. World of Warcraft popularized the term, and since then it has been used almost exclusively to describe pvp-mandatory zones.

After a few minutes, I got a reply, something related to me having the need to “always be right,” and having no issue with making “blunt, personal attacks” against someone for “simply asking a question,” to which I have to say: LIGHTEN UP! Explaining to someone why their statement is wrong is not making a personal attack, and I apologize if I hadn’t properly laden the explanation with “I’m sorry, but…”

And yes, I understand why people are defensive. You can’t ask a question on any MMO without getting barraged with “lol noob,” and other idiotic comments. That being said, people need to better understand the difference between someone who is informing them, and someone who is just responding to be a dick.

3. Can We Drop The Premonition That Rift Is Dynamic?

I took a lot of metaphorical bricks to the face for comparing Rift to a certain other MMO (actually I called it Warhammer 2.0, which I noted would make it World of Warcraft 3.0), but this is what irks me about the game. The Rift system is fun, it offers an alternative to grinding quests, but it is not dynamic. Rifts open in the same spots, they spawn invasions that go to pre-determined locations to set down footholds, and those footholds spawn invaders to attack the exact same locations in the exact same manner. Hell, they even walk down the exact same paths.

Rifts in Rift are essentially a version of Warhammer Online’s public quest system, that are invisible while the timer ticks down, and preventable (by destroying the invasion before it can set down a foothold). In fact, the system itself is really just taking a quest and removing the need to talk to a quest giver.

In one World of Warcraft quest line, you must kill a set amount of two types of Centaur. Turn the quest in for experience and rewards, and you get another quest to kill two different types of Centaur. Turn that in for experience and rewards, and you receive a quest to kill the lead Centaur. In Rift, you start phase 1, killing specific enemies that spawn. Finish the phase for experience and rewards, and you start phase 2: Kill other specific creatures. Finish that phase for experience and rewards, and start phase 3: Kill the boss.

Rift is a fun game. It is polished, it has a wealth of content, and Trion has been patching the game almost daily to ensure content comes out as quickly as possible, as well as tweaking content to appease the player base. Just don’t tell me that the rifts are dynamic.

4. Should Sarcasm Be Ban-Worthy?

I’ve mentioned before on here that I have GM’ed in MMOs (as I still do), and one of the biggest problems we face in handing out infractions is sarcasm, and if this article instills one piece of wisdom on you, let it be this: When using sarcasm in text, always remember your sarcasm tags (/sarcasm). When I read chat logs from players who are reported for, say, attempted account theft, there is no difference between “give me your password and I’ll give you free stuff,” and “give me your password and I’ll give you free stuff.”

So to answer my own question: yes, actually, sarcasm can very well get you banned, depending on how many times you do it. Most people get the idea after their first warning, but you’d be surprised at how many continue to the point where they are permanently removed, and then contact support to complain that they were “only being sarcastic,” and how we “can’t take a joke.” We can take a joke, you just need to work on your timing and presentation to make it funny.

5. If Nobody Plays, Why Is There So Much Lag?

Ask Derek Smart how many people play Alganon, and he’ll say over 100,000 active accounts. Me, on the other hand, I’ve physically come across one other person playing in the past couple months. This begs a very important question for those of us who do play: Why does the server lag and make me feel like I’m on my old DSL connection?

For the fact that any given area is exponentially more populated by mobs than players, Alganon still faces lag-related issues including mobs walking behind you, rubber banding, and unresponsive attacks. It’s never gone as far as dropping my connection, but I have more than a few moments where all activity simply stops for a few seconds.

I find it fairly hard to believe that the population is “growing,” as viewing how the servers react to the current load, a growth in the community would likely result in the servers committing stress-induced hari kari.

That’s all for this week. If you have any specific topics you’d like me to talk about in next week’s column, feel free to leave a comment.

Rift: South Korea, and Let’s Talk China


Before I begin, I wanted to talk about Rift and China, namely the statement flying around that Rift will never have a snowball’s chance at matching Blizzard’s subscriber numbers unless they release in China. The above statement is, of course, completely true. The issue this raises, however, is Rift’s odds at releasing in China, which don’t seem all that likely in the near future, or really ever. The main problem Rift faces is the concept of the undead, especially since the game already carried the River of Souls event, that based its entire concept around the idea of souls being plucked from the river of souls (where everyone goes at death) to serve as an undead army.

China and the undead don’t got along well, and World of Warcraft’s expansions were delayed for multiple years, following extensive censorship, before the games could be released. Skeletons are replaced by sacks of flour and scarecrows, blood is green, even undead insignia are replaced or removed outright.

Anyway, Rift is releasing in South Korea! Running through CJ E&M Games, Rift will makes it break into the east. According to Trion’s Lars Buttler:

 “We take the Korean market very seriously as it is driven by innovation and growth in the online gaming space. By working with CJ E&M we are able to bring deep, immersive online gaming experiences to the east, and continue delivering quality games to gamers worldwide.”

Well hopefully Rift will take the Korean community better than some Korean companies take the western community. Rift was the top selling PC retail game in North American in March, according to NPD. We’ll see if this success can transition over to Korea.

Rift: South Korea, and Let's Talk China


Before I begin, I wanted to talk about Rift and China, namely the statement flying around that Rift will never have a snowball’s chance at matching Blizzard’s subscriber numbers unless they release in China. The above statement is, of course, completely true. The issue this raises, however, is Rift’s odds at releasing in China, which don’t seem all that likely in the near future, or really ever. The main problem Rift faces is the concept of the undead, especially since the game already carried the River of Souls event, that based its entire concept around the idea of souls being plucked from the river of souls (where everyone goes at death) to serve as an undead army.

China and the undead don’t got along well, and World of Warcraft’s expansions were delayed for multiple years, following extensive censorship, before the games could be released. Skeletons are replaced by sacks of flour and scarecrows, blood is green, even undead insignia are replaced or removed outright.

Anyway, Rift is releasing in South Korea! Running through CJ E&M Games, Rift will makes it break into the east. According to Trion’s Lars Buttler:

 “We take the Korean market very seriously as it is driven by innovation and growth in the online gaming space. By working with CJ E&M we are able to bring deep, immersive online gaming experiences to the east, and continue delivering quality games to gamers worldwide.”

Well hopefully Rift will take the Korean community better than some Korean companies take the western community. Rift was the top selling PC retail game in North American in March, according to NPD. We’ll see if this success can transition over to Korea.

Rift: River Of Souls Goes Out With A Fizzle…


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.

Rift: Authenticator Now Available for iOS


Rift has been at the top of my security hitlist for a couple weeks now, ever since Trion announced the release of Coin Lock, a security feature that, by their own admission, did little to improve security. Rather, in my own suggestions, I have always praised the mobile authenticators, noting that although they are not foolproof, they subscribe to the most pressing issue in account security: distancing the account from the computer, and when dealing with account theft, nothing accessible through the computer should be used. This means nothing sent to emails, dynamic codes, and more.

The Rift authenticator has been available on the Android devices for a while now, with promise that the app would come to iTunes in some fashion. Today, Trion announced that the security app is now available. The Rift Authenticator goes for a whole $0.00 (USD) and works on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and requires OS 3.0 or higher to install.

The authenticator is easy to set up. Simply install it, head over to riftgame.com, log in, enter the authenticator code you are given, and voila. You are required to answer a secret question to add the authenticator, which will hopefully work to stop account theives from adding their own authenticator to an unprotected account (as was an issue with World of Warcraft).

As for the app itself, you are given a handy meter showing how much time is left before the code is no longer useful. The code changes every 30 seconds, and is 8 numbers long.

Posted from my iPad. For the sake of not-very-funny humor.

Another Friend of Friend Weekend For Rift


Once again, the folks at Trion are pulling in new players with yet another free weekend for friends of subscribers. The original codes were released for last weekend’s run through, and team Trion are looking to do the same for this weekend, beginning on the 8th. The event runs from 10am PDT April 8, 2011 through 10am PDT April 11, 2011.

So if you know anyone who owns Rift that hasn’t given away their code, now is as good of a time as any to mooch.

Instructions

  1. Log in to your Trion Worlds account, or create a new account if you do not already have one.
  2. If you are not automatically redirected, click the “Apply Code” menu item.
  3. Enter the Ally Code you received from your Ascended ally.
  4. Once you’ve entered your Ally Code, download the RIFT patcher above.
  5. Install the RIFT patcher, update the game, and you’re ready to play!

 

Play Rift? Have Friends Who Don’t? Free Time For Them!


Hey, Rift’ers. I know you’re busy fighting back Alsbeth and the legion of undead attacking Telara at the moment, but offer me a moment of your time. Do you have a friend looking into Rift who just doesn’t want to throw $50 down on the box, but doesn’t want to miss the event? If you answered yes to both of these questions, you’re in luck! Your friend can play with you during select times, just by creating an account and applying a code.

Have your friend head over to Trion’s website, log in (or create an account), and give them the code you received in your email linked to your Trion account. It will look like this (minus the pixels on the code):

The event goes from 10am PDT April 1, 2011 through 10am PDT April 4, 2011.