Beta 5, our thoughts

Well beta 5 is done. It was a proper stress test on opening night, but smooth sailing by morning. We had alot of fun, questing, PvP in warfront, PvP openworld, Invasions, and Instanced dungeons.

Did not have any issues with the questing, it moved us through Gloamwood fairly well. When you start to get the 22 quests, you can find iron, silver, and medium leather for crafting. The warfronts went as expected, with a 9 lvl range, if enough levels near the top of the range, they dominated the warfront. The black gardens are very fast paced, and can be done quickly if one side is vert dominated. The codex was slower, much larger map and alot of flags to convert. It was fun, but more than The Black Garden, it really favoured ranged. (8/10)

It took 3 tries to actually finish the first dungeon, Realm of the Fae. Level minimum may be 15, but a group of 15's is just wipe. The second dungeon Dungeon Deep, we though we had the power, but even with me 25 point spec'ed to pally with a shield, I was still 3 shotted by the first boss. We can try this again next weekend, should be fun. (8/10)

As it was expected there was some ganking, it seemed localized to Gloamwood. They were always given a free ride back eventually, but it did point out a flaw. The NPC's do not attack the opposing players at all. It has been sent to the dev's, hopefully they fix it, not to have the gaurds help, but it will help with immersion. Letting the hated enemy in the town seems like an oversight. (6/10)

Did quite a few invasions. They have not really changed much, but we did see some actual footholds that swallowed all the content in the area. I stumbled accross a fire on, on the top of the mountain, way off the beaten trail. Was only lvl 14 invasion, but still took me 45 minutes to clear it, it had covered the entire mountain plateau. (9/10)

Crafting was fun, made some armour, and even made a few pieces and used planar shards on them for stat bonuses. I only managed to get 5 of the Planar Sourcestones, but they were 2 differnt colors so I was not able to get any of the purple stuff. I am still using my purple 15 pants from beta 4 that I traded the sourcestones in for. (8/10)

Edit was to add rating like Kuri.

I had alot of fun again in beta, thank you all.

I will jump in with a couple of comments.


Overall game play, in reference to character animations and spell effects. 8 of 10 Coming from WoW and having bow animations that do not shoot sideways, that alone was pure win for me. The other combat moves are a tad repeatable, but very realistic with only a few out of touch, but very cool attacks.

The graphics were great, I play in custom mode with no shadows and reduced ground clutter. The AA slider is on smooth only. My poor video card had a stroke when I hit the old apply button with 4X AA... Gonna go with 6.25 of 10 for my setup, but overall, I loved it.

The quest system is nice, lots of questing areas with a wide variety of quests and a typically useful reward. If you take the time to read everything, you will find a well written story with a rich lore. Very cool stuff. 8 of 10

Warfronts were fun, very Warhammer like, good terrain, damaged scaled to a point where it actually took time to PK someone. Quests were a bonus, nice items from repeated victories in each map. I hope and think this will continue all the way to Tier 5. 8 of 10

Rifts are absolutely the single most unique aspects of the game. Its ALL good with random spawns, level variences, the npc spawns, all kinds of fun. One comment I will make, I think they should address the item levels of the lvl 15 (?) blues. Collecting and fighting to get the rewards is no small task, and they shouldn't be replaced by lvl17 greens, I am thinking at least lvl 19 item scaling. TEN of TEN

I am glad I had the chance to play in beta, Rift is a great game, gameplay is fun and addictive, and the great company on vent was greatly appreciated. Many more adventures await us.

The first day of beta 5 stress had it's issues but after that it ran fine, and I think the game will only get better in regards to server client performance.

I played a few classes this round and my daughter and wife joined me and we all had a lot of fun doing the questing and rifts.

My daughter played a Stormcaller/Elementalest/Dominator and did not have any issues soloing, the wife played a Pyromancer/Elemen/Donitaor and she did not have any issues soloing either, as you can tell the girls in the family like to kill and kill fast.

I played a Beastmaster/Champion/Reaver mix and it did ok, but I could not find any good spec for pvp, I have a Necro/Cholormaner/Warlock and it did ok also but the best setup I had for soloing and pvp was the druid/inquister/warden 1 on 1 was good unless it was a kiter and for soling mobs I could kill 5-6 even conned mobs at a time due to the Inquisiter's aeo spells.

I also found out that theres some treasure mounds in far off areas of zones that give blue and purple items, they are hard to find but the rewards are decent and worth going after.

It is so hard to just go exploring, always so much to do. Will spend some time this beta, maybe we could explore Gloamwood in full and see what we can find. And/Or Scarlet Gorge if enough of us get high enough.

Maug wrote:
I also found out that theres some treasure mounds in far off areas of zones that give blue and purple items, they are hard to find but the rewards are decent and worth going after.

What are these mounds of treasure you speak of Maugisan.....

There mounds in far to get places that when looted give you a bag with a green to purple item as loot. The mounds are lootable multi times but I think after the first time you get junk in the bag. I got a blue item and other times I only got a piece of paper.