On a Rope

On a rope. Got me hanging on a rope . No, not that one. Not this one either, although now we're getting warmer.

I fell through one of these once

I thought I was slipping free of Rift's grip. The second world event went on a little too long, my third character had reached level 50, I'd done much of what I'd had on my to-do list. For the first time since March I'd begun sloping off to play elsewhere. A little EQ2, some Eden Eternal, a few hours of FFXIV, a whole weekend of Ryzom. I was beginning to get comfortably settled into the old routine of a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Then, completely out of the blue, Trion dropped patch 1.4. I mean, I knew it was in the works. I'd read the test server patch notes (took me over half an hour). I'd even moaned about some of the changes here. But I wasn't expecting it to go Live for ages. I also wasn't expecting it to be so...compelling.

Since 1.4 landed I've played hardly anything but Rift. Again. I've spent nearly half the platinum I had saved up, and used a ton of rare mats, working on the new high-level crafting. I got server discoveries both for buying the recipe and making my new Shady Netherforged Slicer. Despite being a dual-wielder I only have the one. Can't afford to make another.

Not so much a weapon, more a fine example of Victorian street furniture

 

 

 

It's not just crafting that's had a huge poke from the latest patch. I spent most of the weekend PvPing. Not just in Warfronts, either. The revamp of Whitefall Steps is poor, but it does seem to have brought in the crowds. As do the PvP rifts, which are very silly. There's been a huge increase in interest in PvP on my RP-PvE server, which makes me wonder just how popular PvP could be in Rift if Trion could actually work out how to do it well.

The PvP rifts are very easy to start, to join and to complete. The rewards make doing them worthwhile. The rather obvious flaw seems to be that Defiants and Guardians each open their own rifts, which they can complete without any recourse to PvP whatsoever. Consequently there's something of an "after you Claude, after you Cecil" vibe going on, with Defiants and Guardians taking it in turn to open their rifts while studiously avoiding each other. I think it will have to be tweaked.

The whole PvP gear system got a revamp, making PvP gear a lot more attractive than it used to be. I picked one character to be my PvP focus and she's a third of the way through Rank 2 now, benefiting heavily from the temporary boost in Prestige and Favor gain. I fitted her out with pretty much a full set of PvP gear. We could really do with separate PvE/PvP gear tabs now the two sides of the game are supposedly going to be developed separately. Bag space is already at a premium without having to lug two sets of gear around.

Crafting and PvP weren't the only parts of the game that got a huge shot in the arm from 1.4. But they're all I have time for right now. The new mounts, epic solo quests, world events and so on will have to wait for another day. As will all those other great MMOs I thought I was going to be getting back to at last.