Rift: Planes of Telara Preview
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Character creation in Rift is both streamlined or nuanced as you wish, with no stat point assignment decisions to muddy the primordial waters. Players first select whether they'll side with the idealistic Guardians or the thoroughly practical Defiants, then choose their race, customize their character's appearance and facial attributes using the en-vogue triangular slider that adds another dimension to slider bars. For the demo, we were shown the High Elves, a lanky Defiant-aligned race that certainly didn't come from Felwithe.
Finally you'll choose your class, which was yet another subject that Trion is playing close to the vest on at the moment. If you're bored of WoW's narrow take on the class numbers and variety, Rift might be for you. The class list for the Defiants boasted nearly a dozen classes. We did sneak a peek at two classes, however - the tankish, sword-and-shield wielding Reaver and the roguish (but stealth spurning) dual-wielding Bladedancer. Both were Defiant classes, and at level 20 had less than a full bar of spells and abilities, which led me to wonder if spell and ability design was WoW-ishly deep than EQ2-ishly wide. Adam assured me that Rift wouldn't be a 3 button mashing MMO, however, but this question will probably have to wait until we can get our grubby hands on a beta build.
Graphically, mobs, characters, and the setting we saw was designed with obvious care, and an excellent example of the "stylized realism" we hear so much about - sort of an idealized photorealism rendered in "bright palette" colors. Hartsman described Rift as one of the first true high-definition MMORPGs, and while "HD" is largely open to interpretation, the character models and zone environments looked impressively crisp. So crisp and clean that Rift would be an ideal candidate for 3D, should Trion wish to open up that option. Animations are another place where Rift shines. Movement and combat is incredibly fluid, and with a reported 10,000 animations in the game, every type of mob dies in several different ways. It's one of those small things that tends to make a big impression as you play. Other essential MMO features - PvP, crafting, a player-to-player economy, were hinted at as well, but not discussed in detail.
