While I am going to strive to not make this another video game only blog, part of what interests me in life is video gaming, and as such I am certainly going to post about it to some extent. Don't worry, I'll try to keep it to a reasonable level.
That said, while at PAX, one of the things that I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend was the Rift Community Event. I have been playing Rift since beta, and am nearly 50 (PAX set me back a bit, but it was definitely worth it). Getting to put faces to names, and to actually talk to the people responsible for developing the game was a fantastic opportunity. While I was sad that they didn't have a booth at the event, this definitely made up for it, and was honestly probably better in the end.
Trion closed down the Blu Restaurant for the evening, and they were serving h'or d'oeuvres, pasta, and drinks. I have to give the restaurant credit, the food and drinks at the event were definitely amazing, including this little mini crabcake that was good enough to satisfy a Marylander. Several of the Community Leaders, Sr. Devs and Marketing people from Rift were there, I took pics of mostly everyone (save Abigale and Elrar, who you might know as being Community Managers), which are hosted on my Flickr.
There were only probably around 200 or so people there, so the people from Trion were mingling around, and we got to talk to a few of them a good bit. They seemed really, genuinely interested in our feedback as players, and were aware of a lot of the things that were being brought up. A lot of the things that we mentioned as having problems with in the game, they had experienced as well, and were already working on solutions. Ironically, many of the issues I personally was having were resolved in the patch that hit the morning of the event, so I didn't have as many questions to ask.
Dwarf Jumping: This has been a big pet peeve of a few of my guildies for a while (most notable, my boyfriend), hence it was basically the first thing asked. The dwarf jumping animations, especially for the male dwarves, are just bad. The dwarves jump and split-kick their legs, and it's just horribly awkward looking. Apparently the reason their animation is so bad is because they had a hard time rendering them as jumping realistically, but at the same time not losing height in the process. It was more important to have dwarves not be penalized for their small stature in the game world (which has happened in games in the past). We made some suggestions as to how to improve their jump animation, including the flip-jump that was used in EQ, as well as having a High Elf come out and do a Legolas-style "Dwarf toss." I'm not certain they'll actually fix this particular issue, but at least there's a good reason.
Belmont: For those of you who don't play on Belmont (or one of the other original beta servers), you might not be aware of the fact that these older servers have had their share of little issues as of recent. They are aware of this, and are keeping a close eye on these servers to ensure that they continue functioning properly.
Raids: They were sincerely surprised at how fast that players got to the raid bosses, and in turn got so many of them down. Because of this, (and because earlier that morning they'd buffed several bosses) I have the feeling that the next round of raid bosses will be harder.
Artifacts!: I actually tracked down the "guy that put things in hard to reach places" (Sr. Game Developer Simon Ffinch) and he confirmed that every artifact in the game can be reached by player characters, even those without Angelic Flight. He personally tested all of them before Angelic Flight was even added to the game. As the OCD type of person who sees something shiny and must acquire it, I was very happy to learn this. He cannot confirm the same for crafting nodes because he didn't test them all. If an artifact is particularly hard to get to, there is a higher chance that it will be a rarer artifact. It's not a guarantee, but the chances are better. Also, apparently someone had already completed 100 Artifact sets and gotten the Shiny Tartagon - but was 14 levels too low to use it.
Underwater Zones: During their video loop, I saw something that looked like a Mermaid underwater, and I asked about the rumored underwater zones. It is something that the Devs really want to explore, but many of them have played other games where underwater zones have been pretty terrible. They realize that the swimming system that Rift released with had some limitations, and they want to get past these in order to deliver the best gameplay possible. Many of them have experienced underwater zones in games like EverQuest, and knew how terrible they could be (if you played EQ, you know exactly what I am talking about).
I'm sure there are other things that I am forgetting, but those were the things that come to mind right now. All and all, I had an extremely good time, and if you have the opportunity to go to a Community event, I HIGHLY recommend it.
There were only probably around 200 or so people there, so the people from Trion were mingling around, and we got to talk to a few of them a good bit. They seemed really, genuinely interested in our feedback as players, and were aware of a lot of the things that were being brought up. A lot of the things that we mentioned as having problems with in the game, they had experienced as well, and were already working on solutions. Ironically, many of the issues I personally was having were resolved in the patch that hit the morning of the event, so I didn't have as many questions to ask.
Dwarf Jumping: This has been a big pet peeve of a few of my guildies for a while (most notable, my boyfriend), hence it was basically the first thing asked. The dwarf jumping animations, especially for the male dwarves, are just bad. The dwarves jump and split-kick their legs, and it's just horribly awkward looking. Apparently the reason their animation is so bad is because they had a hard time rendering them as jumping realistically, but at the same time not losing height in the process. It was more important to have dwarves not be penalized for their small stature in the game world (which has happened in games in the past). We made some suggestions as to how to improve their jump animation, including the flip-jump that was used in EQ, as well as having a High Elf come out and do a Legolas-style "Dwarf toss." I'm not certain they'll actually fix this particular issue, but at least there's a good reason.
Belmont: For those of you who don't play on Belmont (or one of the other original beta servers), you might not be aware of the fact that these older servers have had their share of little issues as of recent. They are aware of this, and are keeping a close eye on these servers to ensure that they continue functioning properly.
Raids: They were sincerely surprised at how fast that players got to the raid bosses, and in turn got so many of them down. Because of this, (and because earlier that morning they'd buffed several bosses) I have the feeling that the next round of raid bosses will be harder.
Artifacts!: I actually tracked down the "guy that put things in hard to reach places" (Sr. Game Developer Simon Ffinch) and he confirmed that every artifact in the game can be reached by player characters, even those without Angelic Flight. He personally tested all of them before Angelic Flight was even added to the game. As the OCD type of person who sees something shiny and must acquire it, I was very happy to learn this. He cannot confirm the same for crafting nodes because he didn't test them all. If an artifact is particularly hard to get to, there is a higher chance that it will be a rarer artifact. It's not a guarantee, but the chances are better. Also, apparently someone had already completed 100 Artifact sets and gotten the Shiny Tartagon - but was 14 levels too low to use it.
Underwater Zones: During their video loop, I saw something that looked like a Mermaid underwater, and I asked about the rumored underwater zones. It is something that the Devs really want to explore, but many of them have played other games where underwater zones have been pretty terrible. They realize that the swimming system that Rift released with had some limitations, and they want to get past these in order to deliver the best gameplay possible. Many of them have experienced underwater zones in games like EverQuest, and knew how terrible they could be (if you played EQ, you know exactly what I am talking about).
I'm sure there are other things that I am forgetting, but those were the things that come to mind right now. All and all, I had an extremely good time, and if you have the opportunity to go to a Community event, I HIGHLY recommend it.
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