Wednesday, March 29, 2017

[Off Topic] Patch 4.1: Forged in Flame

     Hey look yall! Forged in Flame is FINALLY here!!!! Wooooo!!! I bet everyone is super excited about the long awaited 4.1 patch. Ever since I first learned about it and how we'd finally get an actual raid, and new content, I was tickled pink! I'm so excited to dive into this new stuff this patch! All kinds of things finally happening in Rift, which has me super relieved. I've been concerned about the lack of things to do at end game and that it would drive too many players away and Rift would be left dead in the water, which is something I definitely do not want! So imagine my surprise when I got off work today and saw that I had an update. To be honest, the time kind of got away from me and I forgot that today was the 29th. Well, I knew that date, but I forgot that it was significant for Rift! So now I have something to look forward to tonight and tomorrow, since tomorrow is my day off! The good news just keeps on pouring in, because I can finally have the green light to move back to my apartment this week! I've been waiting 8 months now to move back, after the flood that happened in August. Ya, 8 months it took them to repair it. WTF were they up to for those months?? Who knows. I guess they were just not in a great hurry, since it was all paid out by insurance. I was just sort of floating in limbo in this other apartment they stuffed me in until mine was ready, and I've been so miserable here, all my things packed in boxes. I haven't been able to work on my costumes or anything creative, and it's killing me to not unleash my creative side other then with this blog and my fanfiction story! :(

     But enough with that, let's get back to Forged in Flame! I watched the livestream for the art and design of Rift a bit ago, and I have to say, I'm blown away by the beautiful art that is going to be in the new raid, Tartaric Depths. Especially that beautiful flaming boss dragon. Omg I want him as a pet or a mount!! Why couldn't Maelforge look that stunning?! This dragon looks epic! The entire dungeon looks epic actually! My only fear is that it won't be enough of a challenge to keep the raiders happy for long. I really hope they have more raids in the works or something to keep the end gamers satisfied until the next expansion. I hope they can turn things around and lift Rift out of the dust, because I love this game and its beautiful design and I want to keep playing it for years to come like WoW! Speaking of WoW, they just came out with their huge patch on Tuesday! Lots of crazy things going on in that game too! All new content, new questlines, new mounts, everything! Super excited about that too. So I'm actually a bit torn of which game I want to play and for how long. So many games, so little time! lol
Here's the list of stats for 4.1!
  • Tartaric Depths-entry lvl raid for experienced players as well. A prison created by Alaviax (dunno who that is...) to keep all the Red Flight dragons (there's more then one, and they are called Red Flight now??? I'm thinking Alexstraza and her brood now haha!) contained. We have to stop Queen Carli's plan to implement the prophecies of the Goddess of Fate, Aia! Oh noes! Sounds neat! :)
  • Better Dyeing-new tinting quality for Wardrobe items that can be dyed. I'm looking forward to checking this out.
  • New Dye colors, as well as more variety! Gonna have to check into this too!
  • New crafting recipes available!
  • Eternal Items-best in slot, end game weapons for players. Includes abilities that can reduce raid wide dmg, do all kinds of other neat stuffs! There's 2 ways to get these. From drops or by doing the epic questline!
  • 6th Carnival of the Ascended! This begins on March 30th though.
  • Starfall Prophecy available now with credits or Affinity points! Man, wish I knew about this before hehe. Oh well, I don't regret pre ordering it! :)
  • Earring slots now unlocked for all players
  • Planewalker: Water, has been removed. This makes me kind of sad.
  • Mounts can now...walk?? Really? Must check this out!
  • Cross shard trading. Finally yay!
  • lvl 65 boost and trade skill boosts now available on the store!
  • Looooooots of changes to classes. Some nerfs, some buffs. Read the notes here for all the details on that.
  • Capes are now double sided!
  • Tons of dimension stuff added and tweaked.

     Apparently, TD (Tartaric Depths) is an "entry level" raid though, which makes me kinda sad, cause there's no other raid coming out soon, so hardcore raiders will have to deal with potentially easy content. Kind of a let down there. Another thing about TD that's different is that there is no trash mobs! What, no trash mobs?! That's never been heard of before! Half the content of a raid is the trash mobs lol! I'm not sure what to think about this turn of events. On the one hand, ya who cares about useless mobs that give you no reward or benefit for killing them. Players would do everything in their power to bypass the mobs anyway so they wouldn't have to waste time fighting them, so why have them in there? But trash mobs also make the raid last longer, which could be a good thing. The longer a raid lasts, the more entertained your group is going to be, even if it's frustrating. If you just add something to some mob groups, like random green drops or something, that would be more of an incentive then removing the mobs entirely. It would make players feel like their doing something meaningful, rather then just plowing through the raid in mind numbing boredom. Of course that's just me the WoW raider talking, since WoW raids are notorious for being full of packs of trash mobs, and I'm used to having to mow through them between each boss. It will be weird to have no trash mobs at all to kill. We'll just have to see I suppose!

     About the Eternal Items. To me they seem almost like a cross between a legendary and an artifact weapon in WoW: Legion. Legion had these new weapons introduced called artifact weapons, that were unique and special for each class/spec combo. They lvled up with you and you could do special things in game to unlock different looks for them and abilities. So this kind of reminds me of the Eternal items in Rift. But that's ok because I like the artifact system in WoW. It's fun and different and unique. It would be fun if Rift did class mounts or special class quests too! That would be so epic to do!! I would love it!! :) If your listening, Rift devs, I think that would be an awesome addition to the game for players to be busy with. That's the biggest thing about a linear, content driven game like this one. You have to always be providing players with something new to do. If you don't they get bored and frustrated, and although they might stick around because they have already dedicated so much time and effort to the game, they will become increasingly bored and annoyed and will perhaps jump on whatever shiny new game comes out that seems similar. This is what happened to me after all, when Rift first came out. I literally leaped right into Rift and left WoW in the dust for like a whole year-the first time I've ever unsubbed from WoW for any extended period of time actually!

     Also coming in 4.1 is new Planar Crafting stuff! You can get new specialized rewards for each of the professions, and you can craft all new best in slot items, as well as ranged items! Woot! And the ability to gain more from gathering professions too would be a plus! Can't wait to test that out!

     Well I suppose I'm done ranting about the new patch for now, since my download is now complete and I can go play the game for myself! Happy Rifting!

 

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