[Off Topic] Patch 1.10

A screenshot from the Rift website, of Defiant and
Guardian working together!

The Calm Before the Storm

     I've had some time to look over the things that came out with patch 1.10 and I figured I'd like to put down my thoughts and opinions on what I've seen so far.

     The night that they implemented the patch, I logged into Rift like usual and got the update button. Woot! While waiting for the update to complete I read the patch notes, and like I'd seen on the forums, we will definitely be seeing some cross faction co-operation. Is that a bad thing? No, of course not! I've never played a game where factions would unify for a common goal and it makes a lot more sense than duking it out simply because of differing views while all around us the world goes to pot. (Of course anyone who knows me knows that my only experience with computer games stems from WoW anyway so that probably doesn't count!)  Doesn't that make more sense? Everyone knows the Dragons are here to destroy all we hold dear and the strife and antagonism going on between the two sides is nothing but petty sandbox disagreements compared to that. I've always thought it was rather silly that we argue and fight over morals and methods when Crucia is plotting our total subjugation. (You know she is....) I just wonder, game mechanic wise, how it's going to work.

     I already know from comments in the guild that I, as a Defiant, can't enter Sanctum, despite faction friendliness, and vice versa. But I guess it's the minds of individuals who have changed, not the faction as a whole. That makes sense. I haven't actually tried for myself yet, mostly due to not having any time to spend playing casually, and a little due to the fact that I'm too scared to get my butt whupped by the "bad guys". When it's all over we will still be Guardians and Defiant, not one unified force. There will always be conflict in Telara and there will always be those on both sides of the fence in that conflict. That's how it is anywhere, in any situation so I guess both sides need to keep their base of operation to themselves. Wouldn't do to let Cyril see Orphiel's tower workshop or let Orphiel see Cyril and Shyla's inner sanctum now would it?

     One thing I found kind of glaring and distracting, as well as a bit glitchy, is the little faction symbol icons in the guild roster. When you look at the guild roster of the guild, all Defiant characters have an overly large red Defiant seal next to their name on the left hand side. All Guardian characters have the Guardian symbol next to their name. It's a good concept, I can see where it could come in handy in telling the difference between your Defiant and Guardian guildies, but it's rather outrageously large, those symbols. I hope they can skim them down to size, they don't need to be so big. After all if we are a close guild who treats our guildies with familiarity and friendliness, we should know for ourselves which faction we belong to. And isn't the whole point to blur the lines? Than why glaringly point out which faction each one is from?

     Oh, one other thing I wanted to mention was Trion's sales of Storm Legion. They have a billion different ways to buy it and get cool things. For one thing, you can buy a years worth of Rift and get SL as a bonus reward added on. With this comes that strange looking Landslide mount that everyone and their dog has as well as a title...Stormbringer I think? Than, you can get the Infinity edition, which is like the collectors edition. This comes with a strange pink, ground skimming mount with strange reptile like wings (that's actually pretty cool looking), your own personal porticum gate and a rather creepy and disproportionate little baby Regulos mini pet. I know, I can call him "Lil Reggie"....But it does seem like a pretty neat deal! Unfortunately it is rather pricey. I'll have to wait till I can afford it sadly. On top of that, if you pre-order just SL, there are a few different places you can pre-order it from and get an extra neat reward: A beautifully designed cape. Each cape is unique and very visually pleasing! I already know a few that would look good on several characters. Too bad I can't afford to buy all those editions just for the capes. Depending on which major outlet you buy it from, you get that unique cape design. I'm not sure if it goes to all characters or only just one, or if it is a costume item, BoA item, or what. I don't know at this point. All I know is darn it, I want all of them!! I hope they put them up in their little shop they have going. Which reminds me of the next thing...

     Trion also added a shopping cart to the in-game system bar down at the bottom at the end. From there you can supposedly buy SL, game time, the tiger mount, a name/guild name change, and a lot of other things. In a way I can see how that would be handy, but on the other hand it reminds me a lot of those stupid F2P foreign games that I despise. Why do we need this in the game, seriously? We can just go online and check our accounts. I like that a lot better. When I log into the game, I intend to play it, not buy things. If I wanted that I'd go to the website. I don't like that extra little icon. Grrrr. But of course that's just my 2 cents worth and in the long run, I'm just a pebble among many other bigger rocks. Oh well, it's there, might as well get used to it. Although I'm not sure what key bind it is but all of today I keep accidentally hitting the key that brings up the shop and it's driving me nuts. One of those things I need to get around to is filter through my key binds and modify/remove those that I never use or find inconvenient.

     Some bugs so far on 1.10 are Rogue ranger pets hitting like babies and thus reducing ranger dps by a large chunk. The in game shopping cart won't let you buy anything from it. The vet rewards vendor of the opposite faction are blank, Some characters who were Guardian that joined our Defiant guild had their icon display them as Defiant, despite their being Guardian and sitting in Sanctum. The world event quest won't consistently stay on your screen. Every time I log in, I keep expecting info on the world event on the right side of my screen like normal but it's never there this time around.

     Edit on the bugs: Today there was an update and supposedly it addressed all of these issues. Yay Trion, that is why you get my money! Cause your so amazingly awesome. Also ps....there are a lot of spelling errors on the world event info stuff....

This is one of the lootable games on the Rift mobile App
available to you during the World Event only.

The World Event of 1.10:

     My opinion of the world event was rather reserved at first. I wasn't sure if I was ok with another seasonal event that seemed to mirror WoW's seasonal events so closely. So for the first few days I just ignored it's existence and went about my daily Rift life. Than a guildie asked me to join him in doing world event stuff and I mustered up my courage to see what it was like. Apparently most of the world event stuff happens in the Realm of the Fae. Or the Autumn Harvest realm. In order to get there, you find little mushroom icons on your map. According to my guildie they disappear after a time so you need to be quick getting to one.

     Otherwise you have to run across the zone again to get to another one. They are called Faerie Rings, which totally tickles my RP/Lore fancy! I love getting more into the Fae lore. They have always been my favorite fantasy race, of all creatures/races of fantasy creatures ever. And the Fae in Rift are so cute. The satyrs are always amusing, and the little faerie tricksters so silly! I love the butterfly faerie too! (random side tangent: I almost wish they had kept cleric Fae pets the same...I rather liked my fae with the overly large butterfly wings!)

     There are a buncha daily quests, and one quest that persists throughout. That quest is called "Fight for Life". To complete it you need 15 Autumn Harvest Signets. The reward for this quest is one of 4 ghostly mounts. A croc, a raptor bird, a Namjok, and a spider. The actual names of the mounts escapes me at the moment. You only get 1 signet per day apparently, by completing a daily quest given to you by Atrophinius, who is apparently running the show. I only know Atro from doing Greenscale's Blight chronicle earlier on with a guildie. I found him rather hilarious in that chronicle and he's no different in the Realm of the Fae. Standing next to him is always a hoot because of the things he's always ranting about. He's such a cute satyr! But so tall...And here I thought Kelari were tall!
     Other quests for the World Event include helping Atro about the Realm of the Fae with odd tasks, like kicking those little compost shamblers back to their pen (they are constantly getting out ugh!), saving minions from frostjacks (it took quite some time to figure out why I kept getting turned into a snowman..), freeing trapped life forces (rather confused by that one...), and finding Autumn Fungus Caps, which are apparently radioactive green mushrooms that can be found everywhere in Telara. I actually wrote a rather amusing story about my main character's experience in tracking those shrooms. I used to have a link to it, but it seems to have been lost, I'll post a link when I relocate it!

My take on the World Event this time around? I'm rather liking it so far! Of course I've loved all the world events! Yes, even the summer festival one! I love special little events that send me out on tasks!! It's most of the reason I play Rift.

     This event has a lot of interesting things to do around the alternate realm. In addition, I drank one of those autumn eyes potions and lo and behold I suddenly was in shiny heaven. There were like thousands of artifacts ALL OVER!! My shiny senses were going through the roof. I drank all of my potions in rapid succession trying to get my hands on all the shinies I could see. Unfortunately I ran out of potion and inventory space before I was able to collect even half the shinies I wanted. I'll have to go back often and hunt for more!
     And that's it for now!