Now, I’d never heard of Trion Worlds before Rift, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they got more recognition if this game makes a splash.  Coming from a fresh viewpoint of Trion and Rift, I’ve comprised a small list of pros, cons, and neutrals, aka “Newts,” that should hopefully give a non-biased review.  Two things first though.

Firstly, this is still beta, and anything and everything can change before or after release.  Secondly, I’m going to try something new in this article.  Whenever I review a game from now on, I’m planning on using a scoring system.  This score system will be composed of three review choices:  ”Woot,” “Lame,” or “Meh.”  Only one of which will be the overall review.  Read on for the review and some screenshots!

Pros:

• Build, mix and match, and combine your own talent trees for one of four different classes (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, or Rogue) with roles like Ranger/Marksman/Saboteur or Ranger/Nightblade/Bard.
• “Rooted” talent trees with a gateway-like talent point system.  More abilities become available in a tree the more you invest soul/talent points into it.
• Beautiful graphics and spell effects.
• Engaging storyline.  I want to know moar!
• Extremely fun Rift Event system, and invasion patrol mobs that make the game feel like the world’s actually at war with the opposite faction as well as the planar forces of Regulos.
• Flexible UI for customizing gameplay.  All elements and frames can be moved and scaled according to the player’s desire via the in-game Edit Layout tool.
• Very few bugs or instability issues during Beta 5.  Feels like a solid game even during testing!

Newts:

• Invasions and Rift Events can get in the way of questing, travelling, and/or gathering.  This is easily remedied by participating in the events to clear out enemy forces, or just simply using common sense and moving to a new area.
• Unable to ask town guards, such as Sanctum Guards, for directions.  This is only a minor inconvenience.
• Each faction starts in their own separate starting zone, no matter what race is chosen.  In other words, no matter what race you choose, Guardians always start out in one area, and Defiants always start out in another.  A minor inconvenience, but still lacks a bit of flavor that could have been injected into the game.

Cons:

• Monthly subscription fee.  This always gets me.  I hate micro-transactions as well, but it’s a good sign that those don’t exist in this game.
• Worried that the Rift Events will get old, boring, and predictable a short time down the road.
• Possibly a huge turn-off for some, the game feels like it may borrow too much from other MMO’s.  It’s not ground-breaking, but it’s not dull either.  It feels like a sister MMO rather than a pioneer in an already saturated market of World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and even Warhammer.  I’ve heard it put that “Rift doesn’t have a soul,” or “doesn’t have it’s own soul.”  I would disagree, but it’s still something I can’t shake.

Things I Have Not Had a Chance to Test:

• Dungeons
• Crafting
• Gathering/Harvesting
• PvP

Screenshots:

Cinematic Trailer:

Overall Review:

WOOT!

Rift has impressed me these past few days of testing.  I’ve played WoW for 3 years, dabbled in EQ2 Extended (still come back to it every now and then), and I know of the events system in Warhammer. I think Rift is a perfect blend of those three, and therein lies its potential.  I hope this game goes far!

If you’d like to read more about Rift, check out Trion’s site at http://www.riftgame.com.  Rift releases March 1st, 2011, and can be pre-ordered directly from Trion or other major retailers.  Standard and Collector’s Editions are available in both digital download and physical disc format, and come with a myriad of bonus items depending from whom you purchase.  For information on pre-ordering and pre-order bonus items, see here:  https://www.riftgame.com/en/products/.  Rift is monthly subscription based, and information regarding said subscription can be found here:  http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/subscriptions.php.

I know I’ve stated that this site is on hold for a bit, but I’ve found myself with a little extra time this evening.

Let me give you some quick back-story to this before I get started:

On Thursday morning, I woke up to find a Final Fantasy XIV Online Buddy Pass code in my inbox from a very generous friend.  I hurried to activate and link it to my Open Beta testing service on my Square Enix account, as well as install the game.  For those that might ask, this Buddy Pass gives 30-days full, free access to the game.  Also for those that don’t know, I participated in the Open Beta earlier this month, which also allowed me to reserve my character on the server of my choosing.  This last point is crucial to the letter below.

So I patch my installation with the newest updates, and eagerly create my character.  However, when I reach the server selection screen, I find that my home server isn’t listed.  Odd, I tell myself.  I better do some checking to see what’s up.  I had suspected this, but it turns out Mysidia, my server of choice, has been locked out of accepting new character creations.  That’s alright, I say to myself.  I’ve got things to do, and it can wait a bit.  This was on Thursday, September 23rd, mind you.

It is now five days since I activated my Buddy Pass and made my first attempt at character creation.  Mysidia, despite Square Enix stating the opposite, is still locked against new player characters.  Now, obviously, this is still the pre-launch period and there will be issues, but there’s something I need to get off my chest.  Let me be clear, I’m not holding anything against SE, nor am I saying the launch and game are a failure, nor am I saying I feel entitled to something.  I still look forward to the game, and can’t wait to see what SE has in store for us.  What I am saying is things need to be brought to SE’s attention, and this open letter is for that purpose.  I’ve already filed a suggestion on the site regarding this, but I do feel it’s blog-worthy.

Now onto the open letter:

Dear, Square Enix,

I admit that I am upset at the fact that I cannot create my character on the Mysidia server due to capacity issues.  I refuse to rage about this topic; however I would like to offer a suggestion and analogy regarding character creation, open beta name reservations, and server capacity lockouts.

Firstly, we Open Beta testers were promised that our character names would be reserved for the server(s) of our choice.  Now with character creation lockouts, even the people who reserved their characters’ names cannot create said characters.  What was the point of reserving names if we’re just going to get locked out of creation now that the game is live?  This, to me, is absurd.

Please think about this analogy:  I call the best, most expensive restaurant in town a week in advance for reservations to dinner.  A week later, I arrive at the appointed time on the reservation, only to be turned away because the restaurant is filled to capacity.  That’s not good business practice for the restaurant, and neither is it good business practice for you as Square Enix.  This fictitious restaurant would lose respect and credibility very fast if they repeatedly treated their customers this way.  They would quickly go from the best restaurant in town, to the least trustworthy.  Yes, businesses have the right to deny service to anyone, but in most cases, that decision is made when someone has done something wrong.  That’s obviously not the case here, in both the sense of complete denial of service and the lockouts as punishment.

My suggestion is, even with character creation lockouts, allow people who have linked their live FFXIV service to their Open Beta test service to bypass said lockouts as long as they are creating a character on the same servers they used at the end of Open Beta.  They have “reservations,” after all.  Take it one step further even, by only allowing those players to use their reserved names since these lockouts are so strict.  I say this not only for me, but for those out there still waiting to get in, as well as those waiting to get in once the standard edition launches this week.  Given how bad the lockouts are now, it may be doubly worse on the standard edition launch day.  This part of the player-base may be a small minority; I don’t know.  But allowing reservations, then turning the customer away at the appointed time is a sad, sad decision.

Thank you for reading this, and thank you for your time.  I look forward to doing business with you in the future, and to my adventures in Eorzea.  I can’t wait to join my friends in our company, and find out what happens with the Garlemald Empire.

Sincerely,

Ryo

Thanks for reading.  ^_^

UPDATE: As The Twelve would have it, an hour after I published this editorial, Mysidia opened for character creation again!  I am now a happy Midlander!  Please note, I do not take any credit for Mysidia re-opening for new player characters.  It would be a very small chance that Square Enix’s decision was due to me.  I would still like to emphasize my suggestion and analogy though, and hope that anyone stuck at the server selection list gets online, in-game, and onto their server very soon.

I’ve comprised a list of somewhat frequently asked questions -okay, I admit, no one’s asked me these, but I wanted to give some flavor and background to the blog.  Also, you can now leave a comment to contact me directly.

• FAQ
• Comments Contact

Ryo - Brewfest 2010

FFXIV End of Open Beta Party in Uld'ah

As for my current activities, I’ve been running the Brewfest boss to get the Swift Brewfest Ram since I already have the Swift Brewfest Kodo.  I also participated in the Final Fantasy XIV Open Beta this month, and am currently playing by the generosity of a friend from Warcraft via a 30-day Buddy Pass.  He pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition, and all CE’s got a week’s advance access to the live servers.  The game officially launches to everyone on September 30th.

This site is still a project on hold for the time being due to real life responsibilities and circumstances, but feel free to have a look around at the existing news, posts, and editorials.  Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

-  Ryo

In this week’s YVT, we’re looking at more art.  However, this time the artistic masterpiece is two-in-one and made of dice.  Yes, you read that correctly.  YouTube user dAlvarez3182 likes dice.  In fact, he likes them so much that he owns 14 THOUSAND of them.  He also used them to make a single mosaic of James Dean that he then swapped to Marilyn Monroe.  According to his video description, “The project is about 8 ft tall and 5ft wide.”

Mr. Alvarez also has videos on his channel of a Rubix Cube mosaic of The Joker, as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger in 2008′s The Dark Knight, as well as a Bicycle Playing Card mosaic of Jimi Hendrix.

Thanks for reading (and watching) this edition of YouTube Video Theatre!  For more YouTube Video Theatre articles, see here.

256byteram has programmed the Portal “Still Alive” credits theme into the setup in this video.  Says, 256byteram:

Bah. I liked the terminal theme from Portal so I made it real!  Everything on the terminals and sound is controlled by an Intel 8080 Microprocessor at 2MHz. The sound chip is a MOS SID (From a Commodore 64).

-Source:  Video description

The fictional operating system, GLADoS is the antagonist of the Portal game, and the memorable OS sings a nifty diddy once a player completes the game in which it taunts them in an eerily sing-song tone.  Portal is a highly acclaimed game, and is available for purchase on PC and Mac via the Steam computer gaming client.  It developed by Valve Software, of Half-Life and Left 4 Dead fame, and has an upcoming sequel slated for 2011.  You can visit ThinkWithPortals.com for more info on the game and sequel.

Does this unnerve anyone else?  Just me?  Ok.  I just won’t share my cake then.

I used to love Lego‘s as a kid.  I’d spend hours building what I thought were awesome sculptures of houses and people.  Now I hate them, because of people who can build epic things like this.

Via Señor Gif

Funny thing is, if she were a soccer player, she’d have been lying on the ground clutching her head like all the pros do when they get “hurt.”

Cooking Mama serves up a surprise dish to Street Fighter’s Abel.  Click through to see the full comic strip:  http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9042193

As seen on 1Up.com by wafflehouseninja.

Remember the days in elementary school spent in art class drawing your favorite superheroes and portraits of your friends or family?  Well, step aside, because this guy has you beat.  He’s no grade schooler, but he’s definitely a talented artist.

Ebru, meaning “paper marbling” in Turkish, is the process of designing paintings in a basin of water, and transferring them to paper.  The result isn’t necessarily a painting of a landscape or person, but rather a marble-like texture.  Or at least, that’s how I understand it.  Wikipedia explains it better than I:

Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble or other stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric. Through several centuries, people have applied marbled materials to a variety of surfaces. It is often employed as a writing surface for calligraphy, and especially book covers and endpapers in bookbinding and stationery. Part of its appeal is that each print is a unique monotype.

-Source

Thanks for reading (and watching) this edition of YouTube Video Theatre!  For more YouTube Video Theatre articles, see here.

I wonder if he does tie-die t-shirts?