While we wait for the third Rift closed beta event to kick off this week, Staff Writer LockeColeMA decided to reflect on his experience as a member of the Guardian faction in the second beta event.

What do you think of when you hear the word "invasion" in an MMORPG? The first image that comes to my mind is a bunch of NPCs screaming for help, while some foot soldier grunt enemies stand around waiting for you to slaughter them, pick up their loot and move on. The town still is invaded after (perhaps until you hand in your quest), the NPCs still scream, you yawn and go back to collecting rabbit feet or whatever else is in your quest log. Somehow, the terrified quest-giver still wants her rabbit feet while frenzied nasties are destroying her town; which remains intact. Sigh.

Imagine instead you're on your quest to find rabbit feet when you notice something odd. You've been down this path a hundred times, but you don't remember seeing these kinds of trees... and why are there skeletons popping up? What’s with the music changing all of a sudden? And... are those tentacles coming from the sky!? You make like a jack rabbit and run as fast you can back to town, only to find that those skeletons have taken it over and are creating more skeletons to find sacrifices to whatever tentacled beastie is coming out of the hole in the sky. And then they rush at you. Welcome to Rift.

Rift's second closed beta event recently ended, and I was lucky enough to get a pass to try out the Guardian faction. Even luckier, Trion Worlds has dropped the closed beta NDA, allowing all sorts of goodies to come to light about their much touted “next-gen” MMO. As you can probably surmise from above, the “next-gen” part seems to be the plan for spontaneous events to happen all over the world, at any time. Rift's story is that the world of Telara is being torn apart by elemental rifts. These rifts can show up just about anywhere, altering the landscape and creatures around them, and spawning invasions of hostile enemies that establish footholds to create more invasions... you get the idea. Left unchecked, a rift can grow massive, and the invasions can destroy towns throughout an entire zone, eventually overcoming the NPC defenses.

Which, of course, is where the players come in. The second event gave me a chance to try a Guardian, one of the two factions in Rift (the other being the techno-savvy Defiant, who were playable in the first beta phase). The game begins with you picking your character's race, calling and looks. As far as races go, Guardians can be Dwarves, High Elves and Mathosian humans. The character customization options are pretty standard – honestly, more customization than I needed, but some people really like making their character look just like themselves... or their complete opposites, and you have the opportunity to do so to a good extent here. The four callings are Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Mage. After creating my tall and dashing warrior Mathosian, I entered the game to receive a nice introductory movie... where I die?!

Yes, according to Rift lore, all PCs are technically zombies. Sorry, "Ascendants." Either way, my story started with my own glorious death-by-dragon sequence, where I was then raised back to life by the Vigil, the gods of Telara. The lore was coming fast and heavy at this point, but the newbie area breaks down as follows: there's a death rift opened by the insane former king of Mathosia, and thank goodness my level 1 classless warrior is back or we'd all be doomed. So the first thing I had to do was check out my potential classes. In the beginning of the game, a new player picks a calling and then needs to choose a soul, which is Rift's term for class. Warrior, for example, can choose Paladin (defense), Champion (offense), or Reaver (DoT and defense). While it may seem like a big choice at the beginning, your soul can be changed in major cities. And, as you progress and gain points to put in your soul tree, they can be reset for free at any trainer. Loving the potential to cover any mistakes, I started out as a Reaver and ran outside to my first few quests.

The quest line in the newbie area is simplistic and linear. I'll admit, I was a bit disappointed after hearing about the dynamic world of Rift. I killed corrupted knights and saved villagers, just to watch more knights spawn and run off to slaughter more villagers. At the same time I recognized the necessity to teach players where to go and how to play, so I gritted my teeth and continued into the nearby village. The lore kept coming in quest-sized spoonfuls—the king had brought back forbidden technology, and the Defiant joined him to use it. This set up the beginning of the Guardians versus Defiant feuding as well as anything else.

Continued on Page 2.