Rift: Gloamwood

An interesting thing happened in Gloamwood, which perhaps I should have seen coming. Where rifts in the Silverwood (the starter zone) were zerged by players (which was great fun), practically no one is touching the rifts in Gloamwood at all, at least not on my shard (Quicksilver).

I’d like to do these rifts, but not on my own. This means that I have to settle with footholds (doable because the enemies rotating the wardstone are not linked when you tag them) and then there’s quests. This, together with the fact that Gloamwood looks a bit too dark and gloomy for my taste, means that the game is suddenly not as cool as it was to begin with.

I fear that the rifts will only be zerged by players in Silverwood (the starter zone) and whatever the zone is for level cap (level 50) as more and more players reach it. This could probably even be shown as a graph with a big bump in the start and end of it, together with a “flat valley” in the middle. Since I don’t have the exact numbers, I’ll leave it up to someone else to draw it (fat chance).

Other than that, here’s what I have observed since last time:

• If you’re meticulous and look around, you can find some great secrets. In the area with Kongeegon in Silverwood I managed to find a mysterious plaque that teleported me to the top of a tower. More plaques awaited here, and clicking these teleported me from one tower to the next. No exit was possible except for finding the right plaque (and a few artifacts in some of the towers).
• In another place I found a plateau on the side of a mountain with a big chest.
• The music in caves is nice with atmospheric notes in the beginning of the piece.
• It’s wonderful that I can join a public group by the click of a button, but when the rift is finally sealed, it could be nice with an easy button to leave as well instead of having to right-click my portrait and select the menu option for it there.
• There are too many shared cooldowns for the potions and consumables for my taste. I sell some of the consumables right away as I get them, simply because I won’t allow them to “block” access to my healing or mana potions in the heat of battle.
• The game could use a little more humor.
• Thumbs up for the swim speed. It seems to be the same speed as running.
• I noticed that you can mount in-combat. Useful when being gang-banged, dismounted, then running up to a nearby camp with guards. As the guards take over and grab aggro, you can immediately mount up and escape.
• I had two underwater breathing potions, but I think I misunderstood how they’re supposed to work and wasted them both. Normally such potions work by giving you underwater breathing for a few minutes, but this potion only worked for 8 seconds. I think it’s supposed to fill up your breath bar while submerged, but to be honest that’s pretty useless. I ended up skipping an underwater quest because of it.
• Sanctum, the main city for Guardians in the far east of Silverwood, is a tad small and unimpressive. Not your typical MMORPG capital. I heard that the capital for Defiants is also underwhelming.
• Collections are cool and I pick up all the artifacts I spot, but it would be nice with a musical fanfare whenever a collection is completed. Just as a pat on the back.