Trion has been clear in its statements that they have no intentions of taking RIFT F2P and that the game is doing well as a subscription game.  Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman had this to say in regards to RIFT Lite, “In the past ten months, RIFT has evolved at a breakneck pace, through seven massive updates that set new expectations for live MMOs, in features, in content, and in service. We think a Lite edition with no time limit is the best way for players to see what an amazing experience RIFT continues to be.”

Patch 1.7: ‘Carnival of the Ascended’ continues RIFT‘s trend of frequent content updates and includes PvP improvements, Expert Dungeons changes, the River of Souls Chronicle, and more.  The full patch notes can be found on the official forums.

Stay tuned to find out!

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews

Special Guest Rantalyst

• Brian Gardner

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

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With the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare took storytelling in MMOs to a new level.  The majority of quests and NPC interactions take place in small cut-scenes with voice acting that, for the most part, is quite well done.  For some side quests I do still find myself hitting the space bar to skip the voice-acted interaction, particularly in the parts where the person I am speaking with uses some sort of alien language, but the class quest scenes and major story-line arcs for each planet have me enthralled.

Later this year BioWare is set to release Mass Effect 3, and potentially change the way you play video games.  Yes, it is a single-player RPG, but what makes it relevant to this article is the three game modes available to choose from in the game.  Currently being called Story Mode, Action Mode, and RPG Mode, Mass Effect 3 will allow players to customize their gameplay experience to their liking.

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They followed this news up with a look at the last remnants of an ancient society of giants known as the Jotun, who may have existed before the human gods.

Over the centuries of their existence, the jotun have fallen far from their state of grace, losing command of technology and magic they once utilized, and remembering their place as kings of the land only in legend and story.

You can check out the entire Jotun article on the official ArenaNet Blog

All-in-all ArenaNet appears to gearing up for what should prove to be a pretty epic Guild Wars 2 release.  The developer is promising big things in its upcoming MMO, and many players are excited to see if they can deliver on those promises.  The Year of the Dragon could very well turn out to be a huge one for ArenaNet.

Funcom has unveiled some new information on its upcoming MMO, The Secret World.  MMORPG.com has an article up showing off some screen shots as well as a bit of the story of the Blue Mountain preview.

Players must explore Blue Mountain and attempt to set right the abuse of Nature and fight the evil that has come as a result.  Working with the Wabanaki Indians you must travel into the afterlife and face the demons that dwell there.

Funcom has also released a creepy preview video for the zone which shows off some of the locations and creatures found there.

As of May 1st, 2012, the wait will be over, and Tera will be launching in Europe and North America.  The game will be available in both a standard and collector’s edition, with details of each coming in February.

There will be a series of alpha and beta tests leading up to launch, and you can sign up to help test the game over on the official sign-up page.  The process is quick and easy.

As we head towards official launch more and more information is sure to begin making its way out.

Starting Thursday January 19th, and running through Sunday the 22nd, Trion is letting players new and old play Rift for free as a special weekend event promotion.

Former subscribers will also be able to pick up some veteran rewards depending on the amount of time they spent subscribed to the game.

I have already logged in and I had complete access to all my characters, including the max level ones, so it looks like you will be able to freely explore everything your heart desires.

Head over to the official site to download the client.

Be sure to check out our Initial Impressions article posted yesterday, as well as the First Look Video below, and be prepared for the strange new worlds you are about to encounter.

Guest rantalyst Brian Gardner joins us once more for a spirited discussion on our first impressoins of a little BioWare game you may have heard of by now, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

I logged in the day of F2P early access with no problems at all.  The ease with which I was able to install and log-in already puts this experience a step above my attempts to get into the game upon the initial launch 2 years ago.  There’s a plus already!  My Lieutenant Commander was sitting there, patiently waiting as he had been for the better part of two years.  He would have to just keep waiting however.  This was my first time back into a game that had reportedly changed quite a bit since I had last played it, so that called for a new character.

Character creation is one of the things Cryptic Studios does well, and Star Trek Online is no exception.  The amount of character options are enormous, and the amount of detail you can put into each of your creations can leave you in an epic daze of character creation for hours.  You can choose an existing Star Trek Lore species, and create an avatar to your liking, or you have the ability to just go wild and create and entirely new alien species.

The only negative thing I have to say about character creation is that you are forced to choose some attributes for your character right then and there.  At this point I am not sure just how much these choices can make or break you, but I really do not like having to make skill/attribute choices before I play one second of the game.  For veterans it’s most assuredly not a big deal, but for a new (or relatively new) player it can leave you afraid that you may have screwed something up before you even get started.

Once you’ve created your character you can visit any tailor in game to change your uniform options, and even tweak the look of your character for a cost of energy credits (the normal in-game currency you acquire by completing missions, vendoring items, etc.).  The uniform and basic detail options of your Bridge Officers and Away team can be adjusted here as well.  Of course, being a free-to-play game, there are plenty of options that can be unlocked in the C-Store for real world money.  The in-game store itself is laid out in a very simple to use, intuitive manner which makes it easy to find available items and their costs.

Upon loading into the game for the first time in a long time, my initial impression was absolutely positive.  Within minutes I began noticing changes that had been made, not only in the game world, but also with the game systems.  The graphic textures of the game have vastly improved since my time in STO, and gameplay felt smoother than I remember.  Cryptic is working on utilizing DirectX11 for users whose rigs are optimized for it, and I’ve heard some really good things about it.  Even without DX11 though, the graphical and overall systems improvements were absolutely apparent.

A little side note:  There are many players complaining about the visual beauty (or lack there of) of the information signs found on the Earth Spacedock.  They may not be much to look at, but their simplicity and utility are a gift sent down from the heavens for those of us who easily get lost in giant circles.

As far as visual presentation, game performance, and character creation go, Star Trek Online gets an A+ from me.  I wanted Cryptic to slap me in the face with improvements the moment I logged in, and they did just that.

The main reason I walked away from STO two years ago can be summed up like this: Boring, repetitive gameplay.  Sure, most MMO’s on the market today feature quests that essentially do the same things over and over, but in STO it just felt like a never ending treadmill of identical quests in identical sectors of space.

One measure Cryptic has taken to alleviate some of this grindy repetitiveness is to organize their quests into Episodes which consist of a group of missions that are part of an over-arching storyline.  This fundamental change in how receiving quests is perceived, and what completion of a quest means, has done wonders in my opinion to revitalize the questing, and for the first time in years I find myself quite often taking the time to read the quest text.  Yes, some quests can be a bit repetitive, but the conclusion of the overall Episode story is the motivation to finish out the duller missions so you can see what happens next.

Some of the missions I have gotten have been familiar from my time in initial launch, but they have been tweaked to fit within the new episode stories and streamlined to make completion of the objectives less strenuous.  Everything isn’t roses however.  There are occasionally quests that have you beam down to a planet’s surface, find and scan an item, and then find and scan more of those items.  Unfortunately said items can be ridiculously far apart, and difficult to spot.  There have been times when there weren’t even any enemies to fight along the way, which yes can be annoying at times as well, but without them you are left spending ten minutes roaming around an empty world to scan four items, in which there are exactly four.  This is by far my least favorite quest type in the game.  It can also be difficult at times to quickly and easily recognize where you should be going next as the mini-map and world map do not always do a good job of pointing you in the right direction.  Sector space can be particularly confusing when trying to locate your next destination and the map system there could really use some updating.

Cryptic’s Episodic missions aren’t your only available option in order to get your quest on.  The Foundry is one of the boldest innovations in any MMO.  At first glance the ability for users to create their own game content may seem like laziness on the part of the developers, and to an extent it may be, but once you delve into some of the highly rated missions that players have created it quickly becomes apparent that there are true Trek fans in this game who possess an intense love for the deep story of exploration and peace at the heart of the Star Trek Universe.

If you played STO early on, you already know that the ground combat was some of the worst gameplay to be found in any game.  Slow, methodical, dull, ridiculous.  Those words only begin to describe how bad ground combat was.  To fix this, the developers re-imagined ground combat completely, and have implemented an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter style combat that brings a bit of the action back to ground missions.  Upon logging in for the first time in years, ground combat was one of the things I wanted to see immediately, and the game didn’t make me wait long.  While it may not be able to compete with top of the line shooters that are out there, this system is WORLDS ahead of where it was before.  If you’re a big time shooter fan, you’re probably not going to want to come to STO just because of the ground combat, but in a game that leans more towards space combat, the new ground combat system is a fun way to keep things interesting during Away Missions.

Space combat will be familiar to anyone who has played STO before, as it has not changed much, and really it did not need to.  The space combat system itself was done very well from the beginning and it was typically the unoriginal quests and locations that really brought it down.  In a ship-on-ship phaser fight in space everything “feels” as you would think it would.  Ships turn for better firing angles against weakened sections of the enemy ship, or to protect their own damaged shields.  During combat you are choosing which weapons to fire, controlling power to different shield sections, and utilizing your bridge crew’s abilities to give you an advantage over the enemy.  Star Fleet doesn’t traditionally come in guns blazin’, but when it’s time to protect a defenseless colonized planet from invaders, STO space combat will deliver a satisfying battle encounter.

The Duty Officer system brings a unique mini-game experience that has become a hit with STO players.  The system gives you the experience of running day-to-day activities on your ship as you assign duty officer personnel to tasks based on their personal attributes in order to generate the best possible outcome for each particular mission.  These tasks can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, and can generate rewards if successful such as experience, skill points, dilithium and more.  The Universe isn’t a safe place however, and your Duty Officers can wind up injured and have to report to sick bay to recover, or in some instances even be killed in the line of duty.  You begin with a small selection of officers and can expand your roster by leveling up or purchasing more roster spots through the C-Store.

You can literally play Star Trek Online without spending a dime if you so choose, and the Dilithium Exchange is the feature that makes that possible.  Dilithium ore can be acquired through gameplay such as certain daily missions, and up to 8.000 dilithium ore per day can be converted into Refined Dilithium which in turn can then be traded for Cryptic Points in-game via the Dilithium Exchange.  There is a floor and ceiling for how much Dilithium a Cryptic point can sell for, but there is room for economic flux and a bit of competitive marketing.  As an example, at the time of this writing each Cryptic Point is going for just under 300 Refined Dilithium.

STO still suffers from it’s share of problems, but the bar has undoubtedly been raised from where it was when this game originally made its debut.  The rumors you’ve heard about this game being much improved from its original incantation are definitely true, and if you’ve been thinking of trying it out again, especially for Star Trek fans, it is for sure worth the download so you can decide for yourself if Star Trek Online deserves a place in your gaming library.

Like many free-to-play games, there is the opportunity for a parent to upgrade membership to a premium account. It is not entirely clear what the free-to-play membership features, however, pay-to-play accounts will have access to events, unlimited friends, greater character customization opportunities and more. The Web site, curiously, does not readily list the cost for pay-to-play, either.

This storyline will begin in January 2012, and will be free and fully available to VIP account holders.

The question is, will Statesman wind up really being alive somewhere down the line like other killed-off comic book heroes?

Do you play City of Heroes/City of Villains? How do you feel about the loss of Statesman?

In the last few months the lands in Atreia have become more and more deserted. We want to reinvigorate the world of Aion and attract new adventurers to the towns to take to the skies as Daevas.

Aion players will not be affected by this change of service and change in publisher. At this time, you’ll still have to pay-to-play and admire your wings.

Are you an Aion player? How do you feel about the change of service, and how it affects only European players?

…and then proceeds to be even more negative than we were.

Topics discussed include MMOs as “toys” vs. “stories,” Guild Wars 2, the pain of Final Fantasy XI, and the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

I doubt it, but we’re back, anyway!

Taking some time to get our bearings again after a long absence from recording, we sit down to discuss what we’ve been up to since our last episode in May of 2010…

Click here to download.

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

The Borg are taking advantage of all the new releases happening on Tribble, and a distracted player base, to launch a full scale invasion of the planet Defera! Both Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Force have responded by sending officers to the planet in an attempt to prevent the Borg from fully assimilating the world and the knowledge it contains.

The Defera Invasion zone is a new event that pits players against the Borg in different situations scattered throughout the planet’s vast and varied landscape. There are four different areas of conflict on the map, each with its own range of difficulties. Missions vary in difficulty from solo play to requiring a 5 member team to succeed.

The event also contents new drops, mission rewards, and craftable items. To access the event zone, simply head to either the Defera Visitors Center or Defera System in the Deferi Sector of the Orellius Sector Block during mission hours. If an event is not running, you can still access the area’s crafting vendors and roam the zone freely. The event will run for two hours every four hours while it’s in testing.

Are you going to check out this new Borg event?