Slow and Steady doesn't win the race..

I really hope that, for my own benefit, that alot of people just pre-ordered Rift, but didn't actually get the CE. I've been thwarted many times while trying my best to scramble to an ore vein, only for a player on their two-headed turtle to swoop in and steal it. ;)

Tell me that doesn't look hauntingly beautiful!

Rift has been a great experience to see an mmo in it's beginning stages and see what a very good launch is. Where you can get into a server you want, get the names of your characters (probably THE most important thing for me), have no pressure of having to keep pace with players who level faster than I do and encounter minimal lag. I love how rifting is important, but not overly critical and it doesn't put me at too much a disadvantage that say Warhammer did if you didn't do scenarios and open rvr for influence rewards. The biggest disadvantage is just the mounts that everyone has and getting places faster than me, but that was my own fault for not pre-ordering (and I did have an option of buying a CE from the local Gamestop).

Something I found interesting was how monsters interact with each other, or more specifically with other monsters. In a newbie area, there are wolves that attack nearby fire squirrels and in turn become fire wolves. Or when rifts open up, the monsters start attacking nearby npcs or other monsters. It reminds me of UO where you'd see an ettin fighting a *snicker* goat... i wonder who wins? Answer: the goat. But just b/c you help it doesn't mean you get the right to loot the ettin.

As with WAR, ill try to post screenshots with coordinates on where special artifacts are located.

I've been part of 2 major invasions in what is a special part of Rift. Basically the sky opens up with rifts EVERYWHERE; you can't go anywhere without there being a rift in the general vacinity. And for those that haven't been exposed to the game, rifts are tears in the sky that spawn normal and elite baddies. Your goal is to generally defeat and close rifts while defending your town's power source. If the power source is destroyed, the enemies are able to spawn their own energy source which spawns even more enemies. What is special about all of this other than it being impossible to ignore, everyone stops what they're doing and goes to defend towns or attack rifts. Camraderie is built by fighting together, protecting and healing others. I've found communication is very important, otherwise your raid gets dispersed and can easily be caught be a roving elite npc band. No one seems to take leadership though, unlike Warhammer where people took charge and it worked better.

I've noticed one thing that needs an update, is when salvaging armor (in particular), and you select the skill, your cursor doesn't light up. The first few times I tried the skill, I thought the skill was broken. But after you select the skill and then select the armor, it does break it down.

Need to save up for a mount! lol