Once More Into The Rift, Dear Friends, Once More

This post has few story spoilers, maybe some minor mentions. It's really more of a OOC player experience post than a IC lore post. Plus SCREENIES!

So I rushed home after work to jump onto Rift and play with my fellow bloggers and tweeters on Faeblight, and promptly encountered the 6 hour wait. Why did we choose this server again? I say next time we do this, have someone scout it out, and then decide which server. The rest of us can wait on Twitter or the MP forum or something and then jump on when it's "safe." Anyway I got onto Faeblight this morning and created a couple Defiants (Ochroma and Larrea) and a Guardian(Rughaan). Unfortunately "Rowan" was taken on Faeblight and I was disinclined to tag "blaze" onto the end. Look for me there once I am able to get on the server in a reasonable amount of time. As an aside, why do game developers have an aversion to spaces and apostrophes or hyphens in character names? "Rugha'an," pronounced similarly to "Rowan" and meaning the same thing, properly has an apostrophe, but I couldn't include that in my character name. Arrgh!

MEANWHILE, over on Estrael--another PvE-RP shard like Faeblight--DGF and I created a couple Guardians. She was reluctant at first, having disliked the bit of the Guardian starting area she'd seen during beta, but then realized this would be a new experience, unlike doing a Defiant for the third or fourth time. And as Pete has said, the first couple zones are aesthetically more pleasing than the rather dreary Freemarch on the Defiant side.

The new character preset slider threw us both off when we tried to change the height of our High Elves, so that slowed us down. But we finally got in and matched instances to join each other on our adventure.

My character, Rowan, is an ascended High Elf Druid, who recruited a Warden and a Cabalist soul to help in her fight against Regulos. DGF roled as Enura, a High Elf Night Blade with a Blade Dancer and Marksman to assist. She will probably switch the Marksman to a Riftstalker, preferring to get in the face of the enemy instead of standing off.

We followed the secret book map and got every one in the tutorial area. Is there one for the Defiant tutorial, as well? I didn't get many good pics until we got to the tents (Valor Hold), mostly because I forgot to snap any.

As a druid, I have a pet--or maybe companion is a better term--a faerie. Mine is named Eolande (my pick), Celtic/Gaelic for violet flower. She throws life damage spells and also heals me and my party members. Perhaps it balances out over all versus other builds, but it seems like her spells can often be the difference between life and death.

DGF enjoyed the Guardian tutorial this time around, but I didn't explain the past/present/future of the tutorials very well. The Defiant tutorial is early and explicitly depicted as being in the future, the Defiant Ascended are sent into the past through a Magitech time machine. The Guardian tutorial on the other hand, does not clearly state when it takes place (relative to the main game world) until the end of the tutorial, during the cutscene. If your first characteris a Guardian, this is probably not a big deal; though I was confused myself when playing a Guardian during the beta.

We got through the tutorial area and into the second zone, Silverwood. The crowd was thick, making the gameplay much less immersive. Kill-steals and node-steals were rampant; though after a while, the crowd thinned, and we were able to collect the materials we needed for quests. I don't know if the other players moved on and there was no follow-on crowd, or people were just starting to go to bed.

I'll have to think about a backstory for Rowan, not to mention my other toons. I am not clear on how much the Ascended know about their past lives. Obviously the major NPC leaders know who they are, but the dialogue with some of the exemplars of the different classes (in the Sanctuary of Rebirth) imply that the PC Ascended have some memory loss. And are the second and third (and more) souls willing partners? Hostile? Oblivious tools to be used?

This post has been a bit scatterbrained, [Edited to include links]. I also still have some thoughts (and screenies) on the open beta, but I am not sure they are relevant any longer. Tell me what you think, Dear Reader.