Rift: Planes of Telara

[Draegan]

The problem is that right now the rift experience is all fun and new.

A month or two and people will have worked out which rifts are worth dealing with and which aren't, or potentially will have migrated away from particular areas as the critical mass hits a particular level point. How RIFT deals with that is the interesting question.

All Rifts are worth dealing with since they almost have the same loot table except for the type of essences they drop.  Each Rift has someone at least one calling wants.

[Mrbloodworth]

I added the word rumor I guess believe I have a small part of me that does not believe it will happen. I guess.

My bad on that, he does state it as fact.

[Draegan]

I added the word rumor I guess believe I have a small part of me that does not believe it will happen. I guess.

My bad on that, he does state it as fact.

Well maybe it'll get delayed, but I can say that I've seen some of that content already when I was out at Trion's studios.  

Edit: I'm not inferring anything by saying that I've seen it and it may get delayed.  I meant to say that anything is possible.  What I saw, under limited access, looked pretty damn awesome.

[Sobelius]

Well maybe it'll get delayed, but I can say that I've seen some of that content already when I was out at Trion's studios.  

Not sure it is the same content you're referring to, but this article on Zam has spoilers (with video) for an instance called the "Abyssal Precipice"
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=25300

[Draegan]

That's in the game now.  It's a level 50 5-man dungeon.  It's a decent dungeon and had a terrible intro video released a few months ago.

[Typhon]

WoW suffered these problems a week or two post launch, but there was no WoW prior to WoW.

RIFT has a large population of customers who have played an MMO RPG before and is launching with good word-of-mouth.  I'd be really surprised if their queue issues were entirely behind them on launch day.

If you are referring to WOW's que problem post launch it didnt last 2 weeks, it lasted for months...as did the lag until they upgraded their hardware.  Just clarifying.

What I was saying was that WoW was pretty stable with relatively low queue times (on non-crowded servers) at launch.  Two weeks after launch things got bad - which I took as a gradually increasing upswell in players to the point where some of WoWs shortcomings were exposed. 

The "there was no WoW before WoW" meant that there wasn't a population of 20-30 million people (numbers from my ass) that had been exposed to these sorts of games.  Rift going live in a post-WoW world seems like it would make the RIFT folks job that much more complicated when it comes to estimating initial populations.  What percentage of players are pre-ordering?  What percentage are waiting to see whether the head-start is a cluster fuck or not.  What percentage of players have limited patience for not being able to play? (i.e. what percentage of players will you lose forever if the first two weeks are not very smooth).

I agree that WoW had issues for months.  I was saying that since RIFT is (as far as I know) an entirely new system, I would be surprised (impressed) if they managed a launch with no hiccups other than not enough having enough initial hardware.

[Cadaverine]

At least on Deepstrike, the queues have gone from 3+ hours, 24/7, to under an hour, and only around prime time, from what I've seen thus far.  That may change on the weekend, of course.  Probably due more to unguilded, and casual types, leaving for less populated servers, rather than anything Trion has done.

[Special J]

Anyone playing this on the lower end of the system requirements?  My laptop is pretty much at the minimum.

[lamaros]

What I was saying was that WoW was pretty stable with relatively low queue times (on non-crowded servers) at launch.  Two weeks after launch things got bad - which I took as a gradually increasing upswell in players to the point where some of WoWs shortcomings were exposed.

Completely wrong. WoW was a mess on a large number of servers at launch.

[Setanta]

Blackrock was a mess at release - then again, it had been hyped as the unofficial oceanic server.

Saying WoW didn't have issues on release is like saying that hunters and warlocks were well-developed and balanced classes on release (they were buggy and unfinished for those that didn't have the joy of WoW on day one).

[snowwy]

So the truth on how to get gold rewards in rifts are out. Spam abilitys, ANY ability, as fast as you can. Track Ore is very popular it seems, no cost, no aggro, guaranteed top 5..........
Guess my cleric will be spamming warden insta-hots from here on then.........who the hell thought this was a good idea for a contribution-system?
Every bit as retarded as it was in Warhammer, hope they fix it some day.

p.s. where the hell can you find those Eternal Nightsomething that you get a quest-item from?

[Typhon]

What I was saying was that WoW was pretty stable with relatively low queue times (on non-crowded servers) at launch.  Two weeks after launch things got bad - which I took as a gradually increasing upswell in players to the point where some of WoWs shortcomings were exposed.

Completely wrong. WoW was a mess on a large number of servers at launch.

[Abelian75]

Completely wrong. WoW was a mess on a large number of servers at launch.

He's actually pretty much right, though I'm not sure you actually read his post fully.  WoW's much-trumpeted launch woes were actually a bit after launch.  It was in january-march that I believe the really bad issues happened.  That's certainly where all the comp days on my account are.

[Ghambit]

So the truth on how to get gold rewards in rifts are out. Spam abilitys, ANY ability, as fast as you can. Track Ore is very popular it seems, no cost, no aggro, guaranteed top 5..........
Guess my cleric will be spamming warden insta-hots from here on then.........who the hell thought this was a good idea for a contribution-system?
Every bit as retarded as it was in Warhammer, hope they fix it some day.

This would explain why my neural prod jacks me up so high. 

[Morfiend]

So the truth on how to get gold rewards in rifts are out. Spam abilitys, ANY ability, as fast as you can. Track Ore is very popular it seems, no cost, no aggro, guaranteed top 5..........
Guess my cleric will be spamming warden insta-hots from here on then.........who the hell thought this was a good idea for a contribution-system?
Every bit as retarded as it was in Warhammer, hope they fix it some day.

p.s. where the hell can you find those Eternal Nightsomething that you get a quest-item from?

That is REALLY retarded if it is true.

[Lakov_Sanite]

So the truth on how to get gold rewards in rifts are out. Spam abilitys, ANY ability, as fast as you can. Track Ore is very popular it seems, no cost, no aggro, guaranteed top 5..........
Guess my cleric will be spamming warden insta-hots from here on then.........who the hell thought this was a good idea for a contribution-system?
Every bit as retarded as it was in Warhammer, hope they fix it some day.

p.s. where the hell can you find those Eternal Nightsomething that you get a quest-item from?

That is REALLY retarded if it is true.

It's true. I wasn't sure why my non damaging saboteur abilities were raising up the meter so fast but it makes complete sense now.

[Abelian75]

Yeah, it seems like their implementation of the contribution system is torn between being an actual goal-oriented thingy where getting "gold" contribution is supposed to be a challenge/accomplishment, and an afk detection system.  Personally I think the way the game is built it makes complete sense to just be an afk detection system and have it be relatively trivial to always get gold.  Right now it's sort of weird, because everything about the game encourages you to want help whenever possible with anything, save for the little quirk of the contribution system, where sometimes having a dude come in to help can shaft you.  It's definitely not an interesting system at all and doesn't feel fun to fight for gold.  It seems like a simple yes/no as to whether you actually contributed meaningfully for each stage could just be used to calculate the rewards.  Getting more of a reward for being there for each stage makes sense, but other than that?  No.

To make matters worse it actually discourages playing smart.  (Although now that I know about the spamming of detect ore, I'll do that when I run out range now)

I kinda suspect they'll just trivialize contribution soon, and probably part of the brokenness is that they were already on the path to doing so before launch.  My guess would be it was a lot more draconian about contribution a few months back or something, and they made the "we should just throw this whole thing out" realization shortly before launch.  Cuz yeah, it's kind of a nonsense system at this point imho.  

[Soulflame]

It's better than setting it randomly when the fight starts.  

More seriously, I hope they do fix it soon.  That's really ridiculous.

[Ghambit]

How much of the pop. actually takes advantage of the mechanic anyways?  I bet very little.
Not worth upsetting the real support contributors for the sake of a few craft-spammers.  You'd THINK it'd be as simple as injecting a single line of code that'd run an exception for those non-combat abilities, but something tells me it's not that simple.

[Jherad]

How much of the pop. actually takes advantage of the mechanic anyways?  I bet very little.
Not worth upsetting the real support contributors for the sake of a few craft-spammers.  You'd THINK it'd be as simple as injecting a single line of code that'd run an exception for those non-combat abilities, but something tells me it's not that simple.

I doubt many spam their tracking abilities, but it is painfully obvious to most that the system encouraged use of insta-casts. I'd all but stopped using Fireball and longer casts in rifts, even though I contribute far more in real terms when using them. That needs to get sorted.

[Zetor]

Yep, I've been spamming instants on my cleric (mostly instant hots and waterjet). I did notice I was getting more contribution when my heals were actually being useful, though - or was that a fluke?

[Vinadil]

Anyone playing this on the lower end of the system requirements?  My laptop is pretty much at the minimum.

Not sure what minimum is but I play on a standard laptop (no vid card upgrade) and it plays fine.  I don't have graphics up but neither did I turn down the original settings.  I play on a Core duo, so nothing special.

[Bzalthek]

I like to maintain a level of giving a fuck on my cleric.  I'm only low point warden but I spam my cast time heal+hot, and follow immediately with insta hot.  If someone dips low I send my insta heal.  I like keeping people alive, especially other clerics who keep me alive.  I like being able to spam on contant targets in the raid windows rather than hunting down a mob in all that insanity.

[Cadaverine]

The contribution system is simply retarded.  Last night, on my Paladin, I soloed a rift during an invasion, and I couldn't max out the contribution meter.  It got about 3/4ths of the way up, and stopped, turning grey.  Stayed that way pretty much the rest of that phase of the rift, until I hit my shield throw ability on the last mob, at which point it jumps to full.  Still didn't get shit for finishing the rift, just 9 planerite, and a useless consumable.

Might be a bug, or something, but that seems to be the way it goes in pretty much every rift I've done on the Paladin.  Outside of the bosses from two invasions last night, I get a handful of planarite, and the usual random healing/damage consumable from the rifts.  On the bosses, I got like 20 odd planarite, and a blue stone, and 2 consumables.  I keep hearing stories about the loot in these things, but I've yet to see anything drop.  Maybe if I stop trying, and just train the gathering professions, and spam those, I'll do better, apparently.   

[Soulflame]

You can set View target of target and Cast on target of target.

Find a tank, heal him, cast water jet or other instant damage spell when you don't need to heal, and it'll hit the tank's target.  It's really nice because you don't even need to switch when he does.

[Ghambit]

The contribution system is simply retarded.  Last night, on my Paladin, I soloed a rift during an invasion, and I couldn't max out the contribution meter.  It got about 3/4ths of the way up, and stopped, turning grey.  Stayed that way pretty much the rest of that phase of the rift, until I hit my shield throw ability on the last mob, at which point it jumps to full.  Still didn't get shit for finishing the rift, just 9 planerite, and a useless consumable.

Might be a bug, or something, but that seems to be the way it goes in pretty much every rift I've done on the Paladin.  Outside of the bosses from two invasions last night, I get a handful of planarite, and the usual random healing/damage consumable from the rifts.  On the bosses, I got like 20 odd planarite, and a blue stone, and 2 consumables.  I keep hearing stories about the loot in these things, but I've yet to see anything drop.  Maybe if I stop trying, and just train the gathering professions, and spam those, I'll do better, apparently.   

Sounds like you need to work the larger invasions rather than solo-rifting.  I had the same occurence as you did until I focused on rift-invasions that require 40-mans to defeat.  THAT'S when the shards really pile up.
And when you think about it minor rifts really arent an issue quest-wise, so it behooves you to handle the larger invasions so you can get back to business as usual. 

[Threash]

Spamming track ore was giving me zero contribution just now so that was either hotfixed or simply not true.

[Modern Angel]

Same. Quantity over quality was true at least once upon a time, and may still be partially true, but stuff like tracking got me nothing.

[Xuri]

Maybe I was just imagining stuff, but it seemed to me I was easily getting high contribution scores when I debuffed targets that lots of people were hitting. Also, spamming the bard motifs has worked wonders.

[AcidCat]

Perhaps I am an anomaly but I've yet to even look at my score in a Rift/Invasion scenario. I know sometimes I get more goodies than others, whatever, I'm having fun, the rewards are secondary. I've already received enough rift goodies to get a blue chest piece and a purple greater essense piece, so whatever reward system there is works good enough for me.

[lamaros]

Completely wrong. WoW was a mess on a large number of servers at launch.

He's actually pretty much right, though I'm not sure you actually read his post fully.  WoW's much-trumpeted launch woes were actually a bit after launch.  It was in january-march that I believe the really bad issues happened.  That's certainly where all the comp days on my account are.

Memory > Account History.

The comp days are there because that's when they started issuing comp days (I also have I had 12 comp days between Dec 23 2004 and Feb 3rd 2005), the problems started a lot sooner. Not huge queue problems, but lagging and crashing and the like. I can strongly remember the game being nearly unplayable for days when I was in the undead starting area, and I leveled pretty darn fast.

RIFT seems to be a much better launch in comparison.

[Hawkbit]

Remember the loot lock, where your toon would be stuck in the looting animation, sometimes until you logged out/in?  Good times, those were.

[Abelian75]

Remember the loot lock, where your toon would be stuck in the looting animation, sometimes until you logged out/in?  Good times, those were.

The worst thing about this bug isn't the bug itself, it's seeing the following line paraphrased in five hundred million forum posts and/or MMO chat channels:

"NO MMO IS BUG FREE AT LAUNCH.  WoW had TONS of bugs.  Loot lag anyone?"

[Surlyboi]

Anyone playing this on the lower end of the system requirements?  My laptop is pretty much at the minimum.

Not sure what minimum is but I play on a standard laptop (no vid card upgrade) and it plays fine.  I don't have graphics up but neither did I turn down the original settings.  I play on a Core duo, so nothing special.

I'm playing on a late '08 Macbook Pro at high settings and it's running pretty well. The only issues I've seen so far have been getting booted when the server shit the bed.

[raydeen]

Anyone playing this on the lower end of the system requirements?  My laptop is pretty much at the minimum.

Not sure what minimum is but I play on a standard laptop (no vid card upgrade) and it plays fine.  I don't have graphics up but neither did I turn down the original settings.  I play on a Core duo, so nothing special.

I'm playing on a late '08 Macbook Pro at high settings and it's running pretty well. The only issues I've seen so far have been getting booted when the server shit the bed.

I did the beta on a Core Duo 2 GHz with an ATI x1400 mobility chip (early '06) and it ran alright. Nothing stellar but playable. It seemed to lag a bit when there was a ton of mobs, npc's and pc's all in the same place but I attributed that to a.) open beta and b.) everybody and his brother checking it out to see if it was the new WoW killer.