Where Can I find a Rift Tear?

Hello people,

I haven't been playing much Rift at all, but I got an impassioned plea about a part of the game that I felt I could answer, and since it was my first question ever on this blog . . . what the hey!

"please give me some addvice on rift. I have never played like this before and i am used to wiz 101. Where is a minor rip or tear i which to summon the planar energy?"

Awesome to know you followed me here because of my ties to Wizard101. Feel free to ask questions, and I'll do my best to help.

Ok, to start, just a quick background on Rifts and Tears might help. Click! If you're looking for an explanation of what they are, the Telerapedia does a good job. There's also a video from 2010 where a member of Trion demonstrates how tears work out in the wilds. This link takes you to the important part of the video for the subject at hand.

As far as where you can find these things out in the world . . . well, it'll take you a bit to actually find one. You have to kind of adventure a bit beyond the starting areas before you find one.

I looked briefly for a map to see if there was one that showed where you could find Tears out in the open. I had my hopes pinned on this awesome Rift map tool. You should check that out even though it doesn't have what you're looking for because it's just that awesome.

To be honest, I think most people just run around till they find an open rift and go for it. If you open up your game map by pressing M, you'll probably find little symbols all over it indicating where all the rifts are occurring in a given zone. (Also, this list of basic keyboard commands might help you out as well)

Best of luck out there!

Happy Dueling

Veteran Rewards!

Received an e-mail from the fine folks of Trion today that talked about their Veteran Rewards.


I'm a big fan of veteran rewards in games. The comments on the Massively article about it are a fun read. MMORPG has discussion on it too, but the comments are nearly as fun to read. The main controversy here is over "when" you get your rewards. With these rewards it's at the time of subscription. A multi-month subscription will earn you all your veteran rewards up front.

I don't mind that since Rift is a subscription model. In fact, that seems to make sense to me that you'd get your rewards up front so you can enjoy them during your subscription. Heck, some of the veteran rewards for Everquest were so nice that I bet you would have had people buying multi-year subscriptions (if that were possible) just to have access to them. ;p

F2P is different. I like how Guild Wars gives you a birthday present of a new pet every year since your account creation. That's pretty awesome in fact. That alone makes me log in at least once a year just to see what new pet I have.

In the end, these veteran rewards are mostly cosmetic, which is cool for the creative community--I'm sure videos with matching outfits will be incoming . . . but your own personal mailbox and vendor are going to be pretty handy.

What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Rift's Half Birthday = A free week of play!

WOOT! I just checked my e-mail and check this out!


Ok, Rift, I had unsubscribed from you because . . . well . . . I got bored of you, and you were costing me money. BUT A FREE WEEK IS A FREE WEEK! I am kind of excited to log on and check my characters again. :) I'm sentimental like that. hehe.

Happy Dueling!

Not Everyone Likes Rift ;)

I got a note the other day from a friend who played Rift just through the intro stages and lost interest (you don't know her). She fully admitted to being in a bad mood that day, but I thought I'd share a couple of her complaints and see if I can't comment on them a little bit from my perspective after around 50-75 hours of play.
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Non-Rift liking friend says:
"Surprised you like Rift, I was really surprised at how much it truly sucked. There's nothing new, there's nothing being done that hasn't already been done by others, better. They seem to have taken the worst of all mmos and put it all in to one."

Response: Ok, I'm gonna admit that my "Non-Rift Liking Friend" has a lot more experience in MMOs than I do, and therefore, I'm gonna give her as much respect as that deserves. I know she's also a very particular gamer with particular tastes. I know she has a passion for the games she plays and the higher ground she strives for. I get it. I want something different and better too.

But, there's something about the ease of public Rift raiding that is so refreshing and easy if you're the type of person who wouldn't mind raiding while leveling. After you get a mount, you can just join a public group and start bouncing from rift to rift to rift. Entry requirements are very low in this kind of raiding and rewards seem fairly high. For the most part I don’t have to form any attachments and can log off whenever the heck I want to instead of getting sucked into a group where I feel “committed” to anyone.

As a busy father of three, I LOVE THAT . . . good or bad as that may seem. It's not that I'm non-social . . . it's that I'm busy yet like the companionship of gamers. haha. If that makes sense. :)

Of course, somehow this all could be done better, but Rift is new, and although low level "raiding" as it were is familiar in a few other MMOs out there, this MMO is popular NOW in 2011 . . . which makes it a happening place with tons of people around. I like that. It's HOT. I'm not sure what the future for Rift looks like, but it's thee game to play right now.
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Non-Rift liking friend says:
"Yeah so I can be melee ranged or magic...skill tree you say - yes of course there is, so while we pretend to let you be unique, you're unique, just like everyone else."

Ok, I see where you're coming from on this. "Builds" become the min-maxing beast that they are and no skill is truly unique, so although your build is great for you, it's not really what the min-max crowd would consider "the best." This is very much unlike a game like Guild Wars where you would have to capture your skills from unique and rare bosses across Ascalon. Some skills required a lot of patience and time to capture.

Just like how Syndrome in The Incredibles says, ". . . And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super ... no one will be."

Rift suffers from Cookie Cutter aka "Everyone is super." I'll give you that, but so did Guild Wars . . . it just took more effort to be a cookie cutter build in that game.

I will say that I didn't even look at builds when playing. I just kind of filled out my skill tree with what felt comfortable. If I was raiding and grouping at 50 though? Yeah, I think I'll be researching and adjusting my build--call it fear of social stigma.
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Non-Rift liking friend says:
"I'm just so tired of 'go kill 10 bears and collect bear hearts - but not every bear has a heart' bullshit."

Fair enough. This quest system is in pretty much every mainstream MMO and ALL have this problem. I'm tired of it, and I think many other people have this complaint too.

On the other hand, it's comfortable. Rift feels a bit like I'm sliding on a familiar pair of shoes. I "get it," therefore, it's hard to resist that familiarity.

I have heard of people trying to level without quests though . . . only leveling from Rifts or killing stuff alone. Seems to be possible, but as long as you're killing stuff, you might as well get a quest reward for doing it. Too bad my leveling is so independant. I think Facebook games will eventually change the way we play MMOs.
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Non-Rift liking friend says:
"Graphically pfft - I've seen better on my DS."

HAHAHA! Ok, I can't give my friend this one. That's pure rant. ;)

I crank my video settings all the way up on Rift because I have a rig that can handle it, and it’s beautiful. I'm not 100 percent sure, but it seems by default Trion starts you on really low graphic settings . . . it's debatable if that’s a mistake on their part. At first I was thinking what kind of horrible 90’s texturing is this?

The scenery and landscapes are amazing in parts of the world. I truly enjoy Rift's beautiful world.
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Non-Rift liking friend says:
"Are we all such sheeple that as soon as a game comes out that dares to not kill 10 bears, we don't know how to process it, so we shun it and run back to what has been beaten into us as the norm. Is this the best we can do?"

Obviously not. My friend comes from a videogame design perspective, and I have to agree. What I like is that it seems at least a couple different paths exist for leveling up, but I think this should have been more blatant. I think perhaps experience rewards should be granted to those who specifically choose to level up without questing. If I wanted to skip early quests and only quest in say Perspice, that would be really cool. Give me a toggle! Something! We like choices, but I think we also like those pathways to be defined for us. That would be the "design" part of a video game.

ON THE OTHER HAND THOUGH, I tend to take the John Cage approach to most MMOs I play:

"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

"The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." --John Cage.

"Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?" --John Cage

LOL, oh wait . . . that last quote doesn’t apply. ;-) But, in all honesty, I think you have to give Rift a chance to live with you for a number of hours. Try it out. There is truly beauty in this game. You just have to look for it (unlike say the videogame "Flower," where beauty *is* the game.)

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On a side note though . . . there is something missing in Rift, and that would be my old friends from WoW and perhaps my lack of community involvement in this game. Something is missing here, and I'm not sure what it is. When it all comes down to it, this may not be the right time and place for me to play Rift . . . and that's ok . . . I would like to get to 50 though. ;-) If something doesn't change for me in this game, that very well may be the end of the game for me.

I do like playing with my good buddy, Dina though. My best memories of Rift may very well be her running me through dungeons like the pro she is.

What do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Ding 40!

Yes! 40th! (actually almost ding 42 by now)

Here I am with Dina as we pose with our mounts. I opted for the nimble eldritch silver steed model.


HI HO SILVER, AWAY!

Mine doesn't look as awesome as hers, does it? No . . . I probably have to get to 50th for the deluxe model, but I'm totally holding out for a unicorn.

Anyway, I'm just continuing my questing in the Droughtlands and haven't seen an end to the content yet. I've really enjoyed working up my quasi-inquisitor/purifier build so far. Although! I was quite happy to see that when I switched to a Druid build for the first time just to see what it was like (and dump some money toward the skills since I finally had purchased my horse), that the fairy had pokey-dotted undies!


WHAT THE?! LOL!! Those silly fae.

I'm looking forward to the final stretches to 50! Wish me luck!

Happy Dueling!

Droughtlands Fun

I've been having a good time in the Droughtlands in Rift. I think I've actually had more fun in Droughtlands than I have in the past 10 levels or so. That also might be why I'm back to recording a few X-fire videos! I have a few to share with you.

1- Stingite in Tiger Illusion.



"Part of a quest in the Droughtlands has you turn into a tiger to help the trip go faster. :)"

2- Stingite vs. Sothul of the Bloodstorm



"Interesting solo Rift boss fight in the Droughtlands. You fight Sothul as part of a quest chain. I didn't really break a sweat but it was a fun fight."

3- Stingite vs. Venom Eye



"Quick solo boss fight. I love the look of these scorpions in Droughtlands, and this gives you a good look at one since Venom eye is larger than normal."

Good times!

I'm really close to dinging 40 now. I can't wait to get my new level 40 FASTER mount. The turtle and the striped Vaiyuu are really starting to feel slow . . . especially when I'm riding behind Dina and getting blown away by her speed.

See you all in Telara!

Happy Dueling!

Preposterously Large Pants

. . . not much more needs to be said . . . :) If there ever was a loot link war item, that'd be the one you'd want in your backpack the most.

Happy Dueling!

Rift is hard to blog about

I have no idea why it's hard for me to blog about Rift, but it is. To make matters worse, its the game I've been playing the most lately too. Every time I think of something to blog about concerning Rift, I kind of think . . . no, that'd be dumb . . . um, so let's see what you think about these things that have gone through my head:

. . . .

I had an idea to blog about the lighter side or the humor of Rift. Humor is there in the game, but it's very subtle. It's about 10x more serious than say, World of Warcraft with its cartoonish features, outlandish dances, and blatant laughs. I would say Rift seems to give you more of a subtle chuckle every once in a while.

For instance, here you see me sitting with the three named squirrels outside Meridian. Perhaps they have some deeper meaning I haven't found yet, but . . . when I saw their names, I smiled.


Another example would be this here Kayfax quest. What you do on this quest is follow this cat around trying to protect it from the wilds, but it ends up morphing into a giant Battlecat-esque tiger and starts calling *you* its pet.


For the price of one piece of planerite, you can unlock a pair of glowsticks and do a few additional dance moves, but it isn't the odd dance move over and over . . . it's like the dance move is only done once during your animation sequence. Again, very subtle humor here.


Or how about this weird doll in the corner of the tavern. Not terribly funny, but I still gave a courtesy laugh.


You know what isn't funny? Dying people.


Maybe that's why it's hard for me to write about this game. It's completely out of my writing style to be too serious. I'm always goofing off and hardly ever serious. It's just in my nature.

. . .

I could write more about my achievement spam, and it would help me understand it more, but meh . . . my whole attitude toward achievement spam lately is a little less than excited. My score is 265 now btw. Slowly but surely. Check out my latest three achievements from Scarwood Reach.

- Top one is for completing 84 quests in Scarwood.
- Next one is for completing the two story arc quests in Scarwood: Hero of the Plains and the Last Command.
- Third one is for killing 200 Aelfwar in Scarwood.

That's just kind of like pretty standard fare for Achievement spam. Meh . . .

. . .

I could also write about my favorite daily quests. like the brawler fight and troll charming in Perspice. AND, I guess I could also talk about the dailies that aren't that great? /shrug

. . .

I can definitely say that Rift is cool. It's a really really slick game. It's hella visually appealing, and you just feel cool while playing it. You know? Perhaps it's that "cool" factor that I need to write more about. What makes this game just so freaking cool? /shrug

. . .

So, hey! I just wrote a blog post about not knowing really what to write about in Rift. Where's my achievement spam for *that* eh? ;-)

So what would you, the reader of this blog, like to hear more about regarding Rift? I don't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do to answer any of your requests (if there are any hehe).

Happy Dueling!

p.s. I don't know, perhaps it's just I'm too busy playing the game to write about it? Less Talkee more Playee? Or maybe it's just I'm too new to talk on anything with any authority? Weird. Thanks for your comments in advance!

Twittered news of Trion at E3

There are a few Twitter streams I like to haunt for information on Rift, and as luck would have, today there were a couple really cool tweets!

1- Picture of Trion setting up their booth for E3. The tweet links to Rift's Facebook page, which shows this:


Awesome. You gotta read those facebook comments! XD. here's a good one: "I think that christmas tree is builded wrong..." haha. Also from reading the comments, it looks like perhaps they used this life rift model at the last E3?

2- @Missdoomcookie, who's the Defiant Lore Lead for Rift, posted a link to a Trion game called "Defiance" that will be demo'd at E3. This looks freaking hot!


It's basically an MMO that Trion is collaborating on with Syfy. From what I'm reading, the end result will be a cross-over TV Show and game. This has never really been done before. LOVE the concept.

I'll be tuning in to Twitter for more E3 news from Trion. Let me know if you hear anything good.

Happy Dueling!

Ding 30, Thanks Dina, and Tweetpic macro button!

YES! So the other day at the end of this post I reported my "score" was 145. My new score? 180!


That got bumped up a few by dinging level 30 and for having my buddy Dina run me through a couple of instances with her high level rogue (with me healing), and you saw this all if you happen to follow my new achievement spam Twitter account. Hehe, I have a whopping four followers of my achievement spam on @stingite. ;-)

So, here I am dinging 30, which apparently looks like I'm simply just peering off into the distance contemplating how killing that boar bumped my score and why rhyming is all in the timing. (not that great of a screenshot)

And here I am at Deepstrike Mines running toward the loot as we finished that off. (kind of a meh screenshot)

And here I am as Dina and I finished off the Iron Tomb (which actually isn't a bad screenshot at all -- go figure) . . . and here we are one second later as I earn the Champion of Freemarch badge because I'm all that and a bag of potato chips. (Looks like Dina just decided to totally butt in front of me in line for the free potato chips! ;-))

If you look at my @Stingite Twitter spam however, you'll notice that I have a lot more pictures going on there. What's up with that? Well, I'll tell you what's up with that, I set up a cool Twitter screenshot macro button so I can take pictures and send them directly to Twitter. It's just basically one line "tweetpic"


Now I just need to figure out another macro for toggling between hiding my UI and showing my UI when I tweetpic. hmmmm. Anyone got any tips? :)

Happy Dueling!

Couldn't Resist This Offer--Collector's Upgrade

I originally bought my copy of Rift at Walmart, which meant I also got a free Lil' Wally pet to run around with and be my best buddy.


Lil' Wally doesn't do much, but he definitely opens a new door of opportunity for me to be featured on PeopleofWalmart.com every time I summon him.

I didn't spring for the more expensive collector's edition at that time, and now I'm kind of glad I didn't since I just got an e-mail that I could upgrade my regular account to a collector's edition for just five bucks.


Not bad!

In most MMOs, you'd only be able to redeem this cool two-headed turtle mount and pet on one character, but there's no decision like that to make with Rift. Check it out, every character on your account has access to this mount. Every stingle stinking one. :) That's just the way Trion rolls.

The ultimate selling point for me though was the expanded bag space. I swear bag space is my number one problem in any MMO I play.

Such a packrat here.

OH, btw, did you hear about this?



Man, free character transfers back in the days of World of Warcraft and Everquest would have been awesome (and completely mind-boggling to perhaps someone who plays Wizard101 where you can just server jump at will). Unfortunately I'm not high enough level in Rift (or with enough scattered friends who play the game) to care much yet. Still, that's a nice move on the part of Trion. :)

Happy Dueling!

Rift's Twitter Spammage

There was a time when Rift first came out of beta that my Twitter stream was spammed to heck by people who played Rift. I'm a couple months late to the party here and this doesn't really seem to be the case anymore. People that I followed seemed to grow tired of the spam and turned off their automatic updates to Twitter. (or, you know, they're not playing Rift right now . . .) One of the blogs on my blogroll even seems to be a Tumblr blog dedicated to achievement spam.

Anyway, from what I can tell, setting up your Twitter spam feed works one of two ways.

1) Log in to Twitter manually when the occasion strikes you (the log in is kind of hidden back in a tab of your settings dialog box).



2) Set up your social media from the patcher and log in automatically when you log on to Rift.


You can't hide that Twitter login from me! Now that I'm playing Rift . . . MUHAHAHAHA, it's my turn to spam!

But in all seriousness, I love this feature. More MMOs should develop social media feeds because, you know, MMOs are social games. In fact, all Trion needs now is a simple way to Livestream, and they will have effectively dominated social media even moreso than they already have.

On the other hand . . . as incredibly smart as this feature is, some of these updates when I accomplish something in game become immediately recognizable and ignorable to the people who read it on my Twitter stream (because it is spam after all). I'd take (and I'm sure they'd take) a blog post with a nicely written description over Twitter feed spam any day.

On that note, here's my Twitter spam accomplishments from my Rift play yesterday with just slightly more information to help describe what's going on.

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Stingite: I earned this achievement: All Things Defiant! http://yfrog.com/0v20110520132104j



You earn the All Things Defiant achievement when you wander around and find eight locations in Meridian. Easy achievement. I just happened to wander into Orphiel's observatory yesterday and BLING! ACHIEVEMENT SPAM FOR MY FOLLOWERS! WOOT!

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Stingite: I earned this achievement: Roamer of the March! http://yfrog.com/4220110520140156j



You earn this achievement when you wander off the beaten path in Freemarch and finally fill in your map. Nineteen locations in total. In this picture you see me strafing around by a not too often visited location that has a couple of group quests that were easily soloable at level 26.

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Stingite: I earned this achievement: The Long March! http://yfrog.com/eu20110520141930j



You earn this achievement when you complete all 103 quests that Freemarch has to offer. Yay me!

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Stingite: I earned this achievement: Verily Downstream! http://yfrog.com/0f20110520210755j



You earn this achievement when you complete a rift event in Freemarch where you banish Veras, a water boss in Freemarch. Verily get yourself downstream with doth badeth selfeth we saideth to the Veras!

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Stingite: I earned this achievement: Apprentice Crafter! http://yfrog.com/0e20110520215001j



Basically, this is the achievement you get when you craft an unknown amount of items. Yesterday was the first time I really fiddled around with crafting, and I made a number of Tin Boots and turned a bunch of hides into leather.

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All of these achievements eventually tally into a "score" for your character. My total score so far is 145, which if you were to compare Rift to say Pacman, then I guess I've just beat the cherry and strawberry levels and I'm about to go on to oranges. ;-) ONWARD TO THE KEY LEVELS!

You know, part of me would like to set up a separate Twitter account for all my Rift spam, so I could continue to catalog it though because I think it is valuable information, well for me at least. I like collecting things like this for information purposes and possible blog post fodder. In fact, I may do that. Thanks for helping me decide to do that. :p

Happy Dueling!

Roc, Rock, Drake! Yes, I Stood and Delivered!

Heya! Well before I talk about this cool quest I completed this morning, I just have to say DANGIT! My wife has a song in my head now all because of this blog's title. LOL. She says every time she thinks of "Guard and Defy" that she thinks of the song "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants.


Sorry about that . . . but it's now this blog's official theme song. hahaha!

Ok, so I fought a few bosses in The Stonefield this morning that were pretty fun fights. These were the three bosses you fight as a part of the Roc, Rock, Drake Quest.

The first boss I encountered was Dyrek the Talon. The fight was so fun the first time, that I had to run back and try it again. Much to my excitement, he even dropped a blue weapon for me as a reward. Check it out:


The next boss I ran to was Gruum the Earthbender. Gruum was fond of splitting into little angry baby pieces of Gruum, which again, made the fight fun and interesting.


After the tricks of the last two bosses, I was expecting this dragon to have something amazing up his sleeve! Unfortunately it was the tamest of the three fights all around. I guess looking cool is a good enough perk . . . and justification for destruction at the hands of Stingite. Goodbye Zexyl the Tainted, I shall miss your prettiness.


I continue to enjoy my time in the The Stonefield. There's been a lot of awesomeness that's happened while I've been here. Flash pick up groups are totally the norm in Rift. I'm loving it!

Happy dueling!

Cool Rift Screens 13-May

Just wanted to share a few screenshots from Rift that I took yesterday and talk about them a little bit.

This view was just stunning the first time I came upon it. (Click on that to make it bigger btw.)


That's totally Desktop background worthy right there! :) This is one of the bigger getaways in The Stonefield called Granite Falls. As beautiful as this place looks, it's horribly haunted, which also mean EXP goodness in the early 20's here for Stingite (currently level 22). This location has been much more inviting than the horribly mountainous Coterie Camp. I feel like I could stay here for a while and get a spa treatment (like Tony Hawk at the Blue Lagoon, yo).

Next up is this picture of a Stonefeather pecking the heck out of me.


. . . and here I thought I had sucked all the rage out of him with my rage vacuum machine. (Strange quest.) ;-)

Third screenshot comes from an area of The Stonefield called Titan's Rest.


As you can see, it's called Titan's rest because it's the remains of a giant titan. I ran all over the top of his remains and gathered information about it (no, the million other rift players scanning the remains for information didn't stop this scientific endeavor or make me feel like a cheap date). Inside the skull there, you can steal a bag from some miners and get the title "the red handed." They all instantly turn on you and attack you btw . . . just be ready . . . dirty thief.

Good times in The Stonefield so far! Hope you liked the screenshots.

Happy Dueling!

Closing a Fire Rift and THINGER!

I haven't shown a video of me closing a rift yet (or any rift for that matter), so I thought I'd film some video of it. You may notice at the beginning of the quest I look slightly butt ugly. This is true because I was just finishing up a quest where you had to inspect stones while "trollified" to decipher them. But, of course, it's me, so I make ugly look gooooood. Check it out:


If I had worked a bit harder or buffed myself a bit, I might have killed him within the timer limit and caused a bonus round, but I wasn't really concerned about that. I just wanted to video myself closing a rift. XD

Also, since I felt so dirty from that whole transformation into a troll, I figured I'd do a little HULK SMASH to the most insane troll boss out there, THINGER!


THINGER THINGER THINGER!

It got pinchy there when I got an add, but I managed to pull out a win at the end there.

I'm extremely close to level 21 now! Woot!

Happy Dueling!

Refer a Friend Program

I gotta say it's great to see Trion following suit as with so many MMO companies before them and providing a "Refer a Friend" program for Rift. I also gotta say, the rewards are pretty awesome (although free game time is always appreciated as a a refer a friend reward . . . jus' sayin' . . . read on!)

All the details about the refer a friend program can be found here.

Basically if you get your friends to sign up you can earn one of three rewards depending on how many of your friends take the bait!

1 friend = Lassie!

2 friends = Pirate hat!

3 friends = FLAMING HORSEY OF POWA!


And now the moment you've all been waiting for!!! MY REFER A FRIEND CODE WOOT! ;p

click me and join!

Just think, it's the perfect opportunity to get on my friends list and auto-port to me every 30 minutes to bug me.

Happy Dueling!

Couple of Boss Fight Videos: Level 18-19

Here in my late teens, I'm starting to understand that in boss fights with my character, outlasting is the name of the game. This doesn't always make for the most interesting of combat scenarios, but on Bosses with high hitpoints, at least it doesn't mean I'm taking a dirt nap early.

Here's a good example of a fight where I just needed to outlast the boss: Jacob the Iron Tyrant. The fight was one of the more interesting I've run into solo out in the world. Basically you needed to destroy four idols and then just slowly bash away at Jacob until he gave it up.



This next video is of a boss that just looked awesome. Once again, the fight was pretty straight forward . . . he just looked cool. :) I present to you, Legul, Mr. fiery devil horns:



Good times. I'm really enjoying leveling in Rift so far. There have been challenging moments mixed with interesting changes in my play style. Things went from mana dumping nukes to trying to play a bit more conservatively.

. . . and it could very well just be my class choices and build . . .

Anyway, I should ding level 20 later today and move beyond the entrance to Stonefields. See you in Telera!

Happy Dueling!

5 vs. 1 PVE noobie Rift Cleric battle FOR THE WINS!

Heya!

Just cross-posting a video from Rift yesterday. Earlier in the morning I was fighting in Lakeside and got overwhelmed by adds (and managed to survive), and I had so much fun with that survivability, that I decided I needed to come back after work to this spot and try to recreate it. Check it out!



Haha! That was awesome fun. :) I'm just starting to understand my character's play style a bit more. It's going to be interesting to see how he turns out because I honestly have no idea.

Happy dueling!

Spoils of War Update

I went to go log into Rift this morning, and I was greeted with a cool new picture in the patcher I hadn't seen before and an update button for Patch 1.12: The Spoils of War!



This led me to the patch notes and the prelude to the Spoils of War Update, which I hadn't read yet:

RIFT 1.2
May 4-9

Shell of mystery, rain of richesStrange things—stranger than usual, that is—are emerging from the rifts of Fire and Earth. Fragments of ancient golden dragon eggs lie scattered wherever the Flame- or Earthtouched set foot. Even stranger, coins have been raining into both Sanctum and Meridian, inspiring unusual greed in the locals. Neither Guardian nor Defiant scholars can solve this mystery without studying these shells and coins, so the Ascended must collect as many specimens as possible.

Beginning May 4 and lasting until RIFT 1.2: The Spoils of War goes live on May 10, these golden shells and sinister coins will spread a hint of mystery and the lure of easy riches throughout Telara. Your faction will offer several daily quests to gather samples of each.

The gifts of burning greedEach of the four daily quests to collect these strange relics will grant you a unique item containing a random treasure prized by the Ascended. Rare artifacts, crafting currency, and plaques of achievement can all be found within.

Hmm, I'm quite young in the game, so I've yet to run into an Earth or Fire rift. I've only seen Death and Water rifts.

Guess I better get leveling! Sounds like fun. It does sound like I might get the chance to race for coins though. You know what that means, right? More Mario music videos! ;-)

Happy Dueling!

Striped Vaiyuu!

Hello visitors and future subscribers!

I'm Stingite, curator of this fine establishment. I currently plan on writing a little bit about my adventures while I nuke my way through Rift, an MMO by Trion. From initial impressions, this is a great game and one that's definitely worthy of a few words.

So far in the game I'm a level 15 Kelari Defiant Cleric riding on a level awesome zebra thing.


(Thanks again to my friend Dina for floating me a loan of a couple plat so I could buy this thing)

I do believe the technical name for that mount is the Striped Vaiyuu, which came from Stryper being mixed with Steve Vai.





mmhmm! Somehow those equal this:



Yeah, I don't get it either . . . I'm just making crap up now.

Anyway, welcome to the blog! I'll try to post at least once a week for a while. :)

Happy Dueling!