MMOs

The Rift beta NDA has just been lifted, and there’s so much I want to write about. I want to tell why this makes me feel like I felt when playing EverQuest, even though it really is nothing like EQ. And in fact, EQ did certain things better. So maybe I’ll work something about that into this article, more in others. For now, this is just going to be a stream of consciousness ramble through the second Beta event, the fantasy-based Guardians.
Two sides — the technomagical Defiants and the fantastical Guardians. They come from the opposite ends of time to defeat the otherworldy threat of Rifts spawned by extradimensional dragons. And if they can give each other a few knocks, so be it.
Likely starting most clearly with WoW and even more so in the latest crop of F2P games out of Asia, battle lines in fantasy MMOs seem more often based on the forces of technology facing off against the magical forces of nature. That’s roughly the division here. At the end of the world, right before the final destruction of the patchwork world of Telara, the Defiants resurrect heroes from the past, ensoul them with the souls of their enemies, and send them into the past to defeat the evil before it has had a chance to shatter the world. You’ll have a chance to remove a second soul from another fallen enemy before your trip backward in time, though. The Defiants are the “evil” side, the side that puts results above means, and living creatures are just more machinery. You, the resurrected hero from the past, are an “Ascended”, a literal god from the machine.
The opposite faction, the Guardians, consider the Defiants the worst abominations against the gods that could possibly be imagined, and the Defiant “Ascendeds” parodies of the real things. The Guardian Ascendeds are resurrected heroes from a battle in their more recent past, against a vile fire dragon. They have the souls they had before — their calling — but can acquire new ones through magical means.

Read more