Friday, February 28, 2020

Playing Lost and Found in Rift

I did it!  I found my old level 42 cleric in Rift! He was buried away in a "trial" server with about 10 other characters. I just needed to shift my "Shard" at the selection screen and track him down.  Once I did that and renamed him, it was as simple as shifting him over to a playable shard.

I loaded him up, logged in and found myself in the beautiful wintry world of Iron Pine Peak. Looking at the map also told me I was over-leveled to be in this location, so all was well . . . I could mostly wander around and not have to worry too much about getting into a scrap I couldn't handle. I even killed a cat while not knowing my skill points were all reset.

Iron Pine Peak . . . that's a pretty decent sized chunk of land to explore!

Then pressing B for bags revealed something terrifying . . . a 9 year old stash of goods where I had no idea what was what.  If you're an old time gamer that loves to revisit MMOs, I'm sure you've felt the same panic and fear.  What in the world is going on here? Oh no . . . Buff Scrolls?!?! Crafting Supplies?!?! HELP!

What in the world are these full bags and mishmash-ed skill bars? I'm terrified!

My ability bars were a tragic mess and come to find out I needed to completely respec my character.  It was an absolutely terrifying 10 minutes that resulted in me finding a lot of lost and forgotten items. I imagine it's like someone renting a storage shed, leaving the country, and coming back nine years to find a pile of strange microwaves and coffee pots they had completely forgotten about.

My favorite "lost coffee pot" that I found was a cosmetic pet I had named "Lil' Wally" since I bought a card that came with him at Walmart. I think it's a frog?

Yes, you're alone, but you've got a frog and a pixie, so things can't really be that bad can they?

I ended up choosing an "easy" build with a healer pet and we spent some quality time killing mobs and completing quests in my immediate vicinity . . . things like winter wolves, mountain cats, evil cultists, fire elementals, and six-legged basilisks.

It was a good couple hours of fun last night re-experiencing this old world.

It seems an unlikely place to find a fire elemental, but what the hey.

And I must say . . . my dude could totally be in a fantasy K-pop band with his purple faux-hawk and perfectly pixie-like features. LOOK AT THIS HOTNESS!

go ahead . . . swipe right.

I also spent some time just "looking around" at things, like this swirling Air Rift (at least I think it's an Air Rift?) in the cold mountain tops. giant swirling chunks of rock with uber looking Griffons prowling around. Wow!  Just super visually stunning . . . especially since I bumped my graphics up from Low to Ultra. I could have never experienced this game in all its splendor on my old rig, that's for sure.

Really this should be video footage to show how amazing this swirling meteor field looked.

I'd say I still need to experiment with all my skills a bit before I can say this character is fully ready to rock in a level appropriate zone, but I had fun wandering around here and rediscovering things like my mechanical horse mount and Lil' Wally.

I think I at least have another couple play sessions in me for Rift. No pressure, just a big world to explore and more lost things to find. Sounds like fun, right?

Happy dueling

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