Paths in RIFT’s Telara – Part 1

By Jonathan Doyle, OnRPG Journalist

Have you played Rift yet? If you have, you may well be feeling the same thing I feel. I know not everyone will. We’re all different gamers with different desires after all. Some of us will prefer different challenges.

Even so, I imagine a few of you are feeling what I feel. I’m in love.

Allow me to explain. I was not expecting anything from Rift. To be perfectly honest, life is very busy all by itself. When you add in trying to keep an eye on the shifting nature and buzz of the games market, things get lost in the chaos. For me, this was Rift. I didn’t consider it a loss. I blog on occasion, I write, I keep in touch with bloggers and sites that help me keep an eye on the market. I figured I’d catch up. After all, hype is expected. If ever a game gets released in the AAA market and isn’t hyped, I’d wonder where they spent the advertising budget.

Rift, then, for me was just something that was. It’s a game, I play games, I’ll get around to it. Then bloggers started playing the beta events. It still didn’t click for me. There were other things I was doing.

Eventually I got codes for Beta 7 for myself and for Meticulous Meta of the City of Heroes column. I am sorry to report in yet another dreary sentence. I did not play. I did however make an effort to at least look at the game in Open Beta just for something different. Two days later, there were two collectors editions pre-ordered.

Why? I’ll try explain but I am not sure if I can. Love is the best example I can give. I am in love with the world of Telara. I very quickly and very easily fell head over heels for a game I had up until that point completely ignored. For me it just struck the right chord at the right time and I came home to a game and a world that I didn’t know I missed yet. Right now I’m in the office and all that is coming over the lifeline that is Twitter, is Rift. My friends have fallen under the same spell as I have. Meticulous Meta is in love with it as well. It just ….works. I wish I knew why.

Let’s look at the game itself. People have mentioned seeing massive influences in it from World of Warcraft and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. These things are true. You have your quest hubs, you are led in a clever manner from one to the next and introduced to everything at an easy pace. Even the titular rifts are familiar if you have played any games recently. They are, on paper, essentially public quests for warbands. Does that properly convey how enjoyable they are? Not by a longshot. It doesn’t properly tell you how exciting one can be, even when it is not yet active and instead lingers as a tear in reality. A tear that floats there and tempts you to pit yourself against it. The crafting, the rifts, the quests and even the warfronts. These are all things that I have seen before and they were done well elsewhere.

Here though, they fit fantastically. For me certainly, the systems I listed off, haven’t been perfected exactly. It is as though this is the game those systems were designed for, it just hadn’t been created yet.

Then there are the additions. Foremost amongst the all is the soul system. If public quests are Warhammers legacy in the MMO world, the Soul system will be Rifts. The four basic archetypes blossom into nine souls each, any three of which you can have active at any given time. Further to that there are “role” slots that let you collect and eventually play all the souls you want in their combinations of three. Want a pvp rogue but have a ranger bard hybrid? Push a button and you can change into your pvp souls. It is so simple and so cleverly designed that I wonder why I personally have never interacted with its like before.

In the end, no matter the triumphs or failures of Trion Worlds with Rift, the final proof to any player is in the playing. I personally never tried Rift in its earlier incarnations. Maybe in a way I am lucky. I never saw the world in a rougher state. I never experienced the level cap when testing high level content. I have come to this world as a new player and had the chance to see it with fresh eyes.

In the end, I fell in love. Hopefully Telara will be that game for some of you. That game where you cannot ever imagine yourself playing anywhere else. Maybe it will just be a quick fling with fond memories. Maybe you will even hate it. That is of course all down to you, the player.

It’s worth a shot though. I’m glad I took it, even if I cannot properly define how I feel about the game. I’m just not articulate enough. Neither can I define love, no more than anyone could. Instead though I will leave you with some lyrics I am sure you are familiar with and hopefully will explain where exactly I am with Rift and Telara.

And then I saw her face
Now I’m a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I’m in love
I’m a believer
I couldn’t leave her
If I tried

Wakfu CB Impressions – Quick look into a Living Cartoon

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot), OnRPG Journalist

After several years filled with delays, Ankama is finally ready to give the rest of the world a little taste of their latest foray into the world of Twelve with Wakfu. Wakfu is a MMO Tactical Roleplaying game that features a beautiful cartoon world that is shaped by the actions of every player. As a sequel to their already popular MMO Tactical RPG: Dofus, Both titles have become very popular (especially in France) with tons of apparel, toys and even a full blown animated series (which just started its 2nd season recently)! Although I played the original Dofus way back during its first open beta test and didn’t think much of it, I managed to snag up a closed beta key for this one, so I gave the game try.

There’s currently only one server available and four class choices: Iop, Cra, Sadida and Eniripsa. Now I usually don’t play as a healer or a support class with any kind of MMO, but I was so draw to the design of the Eniripsas that I decided to give them a whirl.

Upon entering the world, I was instantly taken in by the detail put into it, using an isometric view to make the world seem three dimensional, and everything was just so bright and colorful. The game didn’t waste any time getting me up to speed with the battle system, since I had to save a little goo monster which served as my guide and companion.

Although I’m not much of a fan for tactics RPGs, the pacing of combat in Wakfu has got me hooked. Unlike most tactical RPGs were you must take your time and plan out each move, Wakfu awards players for quick decisions with stat bonuses. Even if you’re not a tactical genius at these kinds of games like me, sometimes making your next move on instincts might not be such a bad idea.

After I completed a few tutorial lessons and fought with a crazy lady wielding a wood chopping axe, I found myself in Incarnam, a town that serves as an extended tutorial for all players. After a few minutes of walking around a bit aimlessly, I meet up with some other players and we went around exploring the town together.

Party play

In the middle of the town, there was a chubby white cat that pointed players in the direction of the Dojo and the Gobball farm. I wanted to see what the dojo was like, so we checked it out first. The place was filled with Pandawas practicing their martial arts skills, and one funny looking Iop in the corner that was doing his own thing. One of the members in my party pointed out that the Pandawa trainer made a small reference to Hong Kong martial artist Sammo Hung by having the first letters in his name switched, which made me chuckle just a little bit.

“Kick up the bum!”

Speaking of which, Wakfu is a game that’s filled with light hearted humor and definitely doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s hard to go even a small moment without seeing something that will make you chuckle or at least just put a smirk on your face, like that Sammo Hung reference or Pandawa master that likes to sit on a stick of bamboo all day.

How does he do that? That must really hurt unless he’s… Err… Nevermind… :X

The lessons taught at the dojo explained the important of using elemental attacks, playing out turns quickly to earn speed bonuses and attacking enemies from different directions. After I completed these lessons, and claimed a couple of rewards, I went down to the Gobball farm to learn a bit more about the ecosystem. The farm is run by an old man named Wolfram and his two sons: Wolfgang and Mimi. They teach players on how to be trappers that effect and shape the world.

There’s two parts to the ecosystem: Wakfu and Stasis. Wakfu revolves around the act of restoring nature while Stasis revolves around destroying it. Performing these acts is as simple as killing the flora and fauna in the area or by planting seeds gathered by the flora and fauna.

Whenever the farm had too many or too few gobballs around, Mimi (who supports acts of Wakfu) would come out and plant seeds everywhere to spawn more of them, while Wolfgang (who supports Statis) would walk around and eat every gobball in his sight. Personally, I thought it was more fun watching Wolfgang eat everything with his huge fork and knife, unlike Mimi walking around planting stuff with his huge bug eyes and flower basket.

Those eyes… Those creepy eyes…

While no effects could be done to farm, outside of Incarnam, acts of Wakfu and Stasis can have serious results on the world. Entire species of monsters and plants can be permanently wiped out if enough players kill them off, but overpopulation could also lead to ruin, so it’s important to make sure areas are balanced with both Wakfu and Stasis, which can be checked up on by simply clicking the Wakfu button at the top left corner.

Ecosystem… system!

The more I played Wakfu, the more I fell in love with the game’s buttery smooth animations that resembled the animated series quite nicely, all of which made me feel like I was in a living cartoon.
Overall, I had a lot of fun trying out Wakfu, and most of my enjoyment came from the tutorial areas alone. The quick pacing of combat makes this tactical RPG a lot more enjoyable compared to the others I’ve played, plus the rich visuals prove that 2D will never go out of style, not to mention the impact of players affecting the game world makes Wakfu perfect for some actual role-playing, which you don’t see a lot of these days with MMOs.

Again: most of my time was spent playing around Incarnam, so I haven’t even delved into the other available features in the closed beta, such as crafting, baking and even politics (although I’m not much into politics in real life, so I doubt I will be interested in politics for this game…)

Wakfu is currently still in closed beta and finding beta keys at this point will be nearly impossible, but don’t fret since open beta should be right around the corner.
For more information, check out our Wakfu profile page here at OnRPG.