Rift: Planes of Telara

[Lantyssa]

No, I just want them to wear reasonable armor.  One can still look feminine in full armor.

[Bzalthek]

This begs for a comic strip where two hulking knights in full plate (read: steel barrel) are checking out an identical set of full plate walking past: "nice ass!"

[Chimpy]

The pictures look pretty nice.

[Draegan]

For more pretty, here's a compilation of all of the official screenshots.

http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Category:Official_Screenshots

[Pennilenko]

No, I just want them to wear reasonable armor.  One can still look feminine in full armor.

Everybody knows that the best armor is basically a thong and bra with a few bits of metal sewn on.

[Bzalthek]

Precisely.  If anything, in a land where everyone seems to have magically enchanted blades and other arcane tools, excessive armor is just a hindrance!

[Ghambit]

No, I just want them to wear reasonable armor.  One can still look feminine in full armor.

Everybody knows that the best armor is basically a thong and bra with a few bits of metal sewn on.

Exactly.  'Cause who'd want to damage a half-naked fantasy vixen?  That's how that armor works...  purely psychological, and therefore built into the damage models.  e.g. The better your armor, the skimpier it is.  

[Pennilenko]

If I was just some dumb peon and I saw this chick carrying a gigantic fucking sword wearing almost nothing, around an army of fully armored soldiers, guess who I would mess with last.

[Mrbloodworth]

Rift: Planes of Telara - Dynamic Dimensions Trailer

EDIT: Shows off some of the "rifts" and how it changes the things int he area. No audio, no write up.

[rattran]

Rift: Planes of Telara - Dynamic Dimensions Trailer

Any further posts with just a link and no summary, discussion, explanation, or commentary will be deleted. Put a little bit of effort into it (this goes for everyone, not just MrB).

Hey, look what got posted elsewhere! Not everyone can watch video at work.

[Mrbloodworth]

Figured the title would work. but OK. Fixed.

[Sky]

I was just talking about the normal mapping in EQ2, loved it so much...

We use a per pixel shader technique called normal mapping where we take the lighting information from a very high polygon model and apply it to a lower polygon model in game. So the way that light bounces off the model makes it appear much higher polygon in game than it really is. Few mmos out there are fully normal mapped so we are truly next gen in that regard.

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?4570-Q-amp-A-with-Art-Director-Darren-Pattenden

[Chimpy]

For some reason, the "higher polygon" part made me think of the conversation on the last page about boobage in the game.

And I chuckled.

My friends were saying they announced the last mage soul yesterday, but I could not find information about it (and delving through the official forums lasted about 2 minutes before I ran away in fear).

[Sky]

You mean the stormcaller?

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/431/feature/4627

[Mrbloodworth]

I was just talking about the normal mapping in EQ2, loved it so much...

We use a per pixel shader technique called normal mapping where we take the lighting information from a very high polygon model and apply it to a lower polygon model in game. So the way that light bounces off the model makes it appear much higher polygon in game than it really is. Few mmos out there are fully normal mapped so we are truly next gen in that regard.

Hopefully they are using higher resolution normal maps than Eq2. But, im always leery of any multiplayer game using all out normal maps. Performance is always an issue.

[Soukyan]

Justicar = DoK / Warrior Priest then? 

It appears that way. I believe the lead for the team who is developing the soul trees was a developer for WAR, so I expect to see some class similarities and some skill similarities with that game. Which is cool with me because I love WAR. Rift looks even better to me, though, so I'm excited. Haven't been this interesting in an upcoming MMOG in a long time.

[Hartsman]

Justicar = DoK / Warrior Priest then? 

It appears that way. I believe the lead for the team who is developing the soul trees was a developer for WAR, so I expect to see some class similarities and some skill similarities with that game. Which is cool with me because I love WAR. Rift looks even better to me, though, so I'm excited. Haven't been this interesting in an upcoming MMOG in a long time.

It's been interesting - The devs working on the souls have past experience from working on: EQ, EQ2, DAoC, WAR, WoW, and even Fury. 

So far there hasn't been a "THIS GAME DID EVERYTHING BEST!" kind of mindset with the classes, which has been fantastic.

The debates on the design floor do, however, get pretty epic.

[Shatter]

Justicar = DoK / Warrior Priest then?  

It appears that way. I believe the lead for the team who is developing the soul trees was a developer for WAR, so I expect to see some class similarities and some skill similarities with that game. Which is cool with me because I love WAR. Rift looks even better to me, though, so I'm excited. Haven't been this interesting in an upcoming MMOG in a long time.

It's been interesting - The devs working on the souls have past experience from working on: EQ, EQ2, DAoC, WAR, WoW, and even Fury.  

So far there hasn't been a "THIS GAME DID EVERYTHING BEST!" kind of mindset with the classes, which has been fantastic.

The debates on the design floor do, however, get pretty epic.

For the love of god dont let the WOW guy lead the discussion

[AutomaticZen]

The debates on the design floor do, however, get pretty epic.

[UnSub]

Trion vs Palladium ends, leaving a Rift between them.

Probably would have been hard for Palladium to stand that they were the only ones who could use the term 'Rift' and all variants in the nerd space.

[Stabs]

Not least because Feist's Riftwar saga began 8 years before Rifts was published.

[SurfD]

Trion vs Palladium ends, leaving a Rift between them.

Probably would have been hard for Palladium to stand that they were the only ones who could use the term 'Rift' and all variants in the nerd space.

I have always felt a bit sad for the Palladium games guys.   The Rifts Universe as an IP is probably one of the coolest, most richly developed RPG worlds i have ever seen, it's just too bad that the ruleset it is attached to usually causes frothing rage after trying to understand it for more then 30 seconds.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I have always felt a bit sad for the Palladium games guys.   The Rifts Universe as an IP is probably one of the coolest, most richly developed RPG worlds i have ever seen, it's just too bad that the ruleset it is attached to usually causes frothing rage after trying to understand it for more then 30 seconds.

Wouldn't that imply that they brought it on themselves?  If they are good at making up IP but suck at making games maybe they should be publishing fiction instead of games?  Not sure where the sympathy for them comes from, unless its akin to the sadness you might feel for the wasted life of a convict in prison who made too many wrong choices. 

[Ingmar]

The Palladium dude is pants on head crazy, don't feel sorry for him.

[Draegan]

Trion tossed out another dungeon reveal; this one is the Abyssal Precipice. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKQXlr-RPs

[Chimpy]

Trion tossed out another dungeon reveal; this one is the Abyssal Precipice. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKQXlr-RPs

That really was an underwhelming little video there. Haven't heard much new about this game for a while and they show what looks like 4 people attacking 4 different creatures on top of a mountain? Where is the cool boss or crazy spell effect or something flashy?

Sigh.

[Nebu]

That really was an underwhelming little video there.

This.

If your video doesn't drop jaws, then you probably shouldn't release it.  Ok, unless you have to in order to maintain funding. 

[Falconeer]

That video critically hit my frothing interest for this game, draining away the little enthusiasm I had. I hope I am just seeing things, I really want to like Rifts, but the video REEKS of EverQuest 2 in an alarming way, and I wasn't anticipating that at all. I loved EQ2, but I am not really looking for anything that resembles it in the style/animation/combat departments.

[SurfD]

Trion tossed out another dungeon reveal; this one is the Abyssal Precipice. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKQXlr-RPs

That really was an underwhelming little video there. Haven't heard much new about this game for a while and they show what looks like 4 people attacking 4 different creatures on top of a mountain? Where is the cool boss or crazy spell effect or something flashy?

Sigh.

What the hell was up with nearly everyone in that video swinging their weapons at empty air?   All i saw in that entire video was a lot of flailing weapons at empty space.   I mean, what is the point of your fancyass graphics engine, if you cant even use it for properly beating on monsters?  How big are the hitboxes on the mobs in this game?

[Chimpy]

That video critically hit my frothing interest for this game, draining away the little enthusiasm I had. I hope I am just seeing things, I really want to like Rifts, but the video REEKS of EverQuest 2 in an alarming way, and I wasn't anticipating that at all. I loved EQ2, but I am not really looking for anything that resembles it in the style/animation/combat departments.

The game is named Rift, no plural. 

And I don't think you can expect much of a stylistic change from the EQ2 "photorealism" way of look as a large portion of their development team appears to have come from the EQ and EQ2 teams.

There really are 3 realms of MMO art design to me:

Attempts at being as Photorealistic as possible while being a little gritty: EQ2, LotRO, Vanguard all seem to have been in that vein from what I have seen.
More stylistic and sometimes cartoony: WoW
Photorealistic world with ridiculously sterotypical female character models in stripper clothes: Anything made in Korea.

[Lantyssa]

No "Stylistic but not cartoony"?

[Hawkbit]

Needs a "Cracks starting to show?" thread. 

Actually, either that video was a full-blown mistake on the PR side, or else they're beginning to let us all down easily.  That was terribad and like a few others above, my interest waned a notch or two.  That video should have been entitled "Been there, Done that."

[Pennilenko]

That video showed me that shit was working and that I can expect a familiar feel. What type of fantasical magic mmo technology were the critical people expecting?

I mean do you all want some fantastic completely unrelated to game play cgi trailers and shit, or do you want to see what the game is really like?

Also I am not a fanboy, and am jaded like the rest of you, I just have no idea what you all are expecting.

[Nebu]

That video showed me that shit was working and that I can expect a familiar feel.

You should be plenty satisfied with the current MMO offerings then. 

[Ingmar]

The waving weapons at things from 20 feet away thing was pretty jarring. Like worse than SWTOR animations (which I am pretty neutral on overall) jarring. Hopefully it will look better when not in 3rd person marketing camera angle view.