RIFT: Ghost bat!

Sheesh, I’m almost amazed with myself lately.  With the onset of summer — and a slightly more free schedule — I’ve been devouring MMOs left and right, on the prowl like a hungry monster who can’t get enough to satiate his gullet.  I’m not doing it because I feel dissatisfied with my mainstays, but I’m just enjoying the luxury of variety without having to pay extra.

And don’t even get me started on how Fallen Earth’s going F2P soon.  My cup of joy overfloweth.

I’m almost playing so much that I don’t want to stop to write, but I know that I’m getting behind on talking about all of these games too.  So I’m going to pledge that every day this week I’ll spend time discussing one of the (now four) MMOs I’m consuming.

Today’s about RIFT.  And contrary to Tobold’s observations, I’m still playing, still enjoying, and not bored at all.

I’m back with my level 31 Rogue after extended periods of play with my Cleric and Mage, and I think I’m finally — finally — settling down with one character.  Lord knows I need to.  It’s almost like there’s so much choice in this game for character builds that playing one character is like having an army of multiple personality alts crammed into your head.  So it takes a bit longer to decide if any of these builds and playstyles are working for you — or me, I guess.  The Rogue simply has the most fun soul (the Saboteur, now with land mines!), and I do love playing as a Bard in a party.

I’ve gotten into a routine when I log in: I queue up for an instance, then head out for questing and rifting while I wait.  A couple of quests completed and a dungeon run accomplished makes for a satisfying play session, all things considered.  Last night I even stumbled onto the puzzle in Scarlet Gorge and solved it without going to the internet for help (surprise, surprise).

Currently, the dungeon the game keeps throwing me in is Deepstrike Mines, which is a pretty quick and enjoyable run that seems perfect for PUGs.  Two days ago we had a healer (a mage) who didn’t know how to heal past hitting a pair of keys, which meant we ended up wiping three times off the bat.  After talking to the guy and realizing they didn’t care about learning how to heal properly, we voted to kick and then stood around for ten minutes waiting for the game to send us a replacement.  Unfortunately none came, but we were getting along enough that we were reluctant to end the run.

So we decided to clear out the trash while we talked, and one of our members said that we should head to the floor and kill the bats for a chance at a rare pet drop.  Lo and behold, a ghost bat (or ghost screechling, whatever) dropped, we rolled, and I lost.  Still, it was a fun run even though we didn’t finish, and I had an additional piece of information for the future.  I wanted that pet BAD.

Yesterday I did the same run, only this time we mopped up handsomely and finished the instance without a single death.  After everyone left, I stayed behind to head back down to the floor and tackle the bats (which are non-elite, so they’re easily soloable).  Fortune favors the brave, and I got my pet bat on the second kill.

That makes for a very happy Syp.

Next week we’re looking at patch 1.3 hitting the servers.  It’s not the most exciting patch for where I’m at in the game, at least in regards to the big raid that it’s including, but I am looking forward to another world event.  Guild banks are a welcome addition, too, although there’s only so much you can enjoy that piece of content unless you like staring at inventory squares for extended periods of time.  I know I’m horrible for saying this, but I really want Trion to start talking about 1.4 already — and I’ll be cheering the team on if it can get another meaty update out this summer.

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• Posted in: RIFT