The Journey of an Ascended

Late 2010, I was playing WoW with friends from school. It was fun leveling up, however lvl 85 wasn't that great for me.

Early 2011 I got into the CBT for Rift. I wasn't expecting to find the game I'd be playing in two years but I gave it a try.  The game interested me right away.  I liked how polish the game was during closed beta, coming from someone who started MMOs in 2007 and experienced AoC and Warhammer at launch.

I got some friends into Rift and we began to play. We rerolled and level to 10 multiple times. They eventually stopped playing. I leveled up to 50, however I wasn't in a rush and played very casually. I made 50 around summertime. 

Questing as a warrior was kind of hard, couldn't take on multiple mobs at once and survive like my Death Knight in WoW. 

Early 2012, my friends got back into Rift and I rolled a rogue. This character became my main, I loved the way the class worked and I still do today. 

My Rogue has 60 days played, I'm sure however that half of that is AFK. (Takes a long while of AFK before getting kicked off Rift).

I never really got into progression raiding. I was raiding Greenscale when Hammerknell was the top tier. In Storm Legion I was raidng the 10 man when the 20 man was the top deal. 

I have been subbed for 2 years, however haven't always played weekly, the occasional burnout. 

Things I appreciate about Rift

The Events. There are always events going on, open world bosses that typically have 10-30 people battling it. One boss in Storm Legiom, Volan, who is a long fight as you have to fight 3 of his body parts first phase, his tail second phase, 9 body parts in 4th phase, and then him again in final phase. These events give Infinity Stones, currecncy to buy weapons and gear. 

The World. The zones are well crafted, great art style in my opinion. Some of the sights are pretty amazing to see, especially on ultra settings. 

Leveling. The avenues of leveling are numerous. The first route I took questing with the occasional dungeon. This took a lot of time. Instant adventure with dungeons and warfronts went very quickly, yet it also gets you to max level severly undergeared. 

Aritfacts- Collect them to fill out your sets. The last artifact of the set is the rarest and can fetch some nice coin on the Auction House.

Dimensions- The housing in Rift is outstandingly good. It is instaneced though it has so many possibilities. Some people on Rift put an insane amount of detail into their dimensions. 

PVP- It's no secret that pvp isn't a focal point of RIft. However, I am very fond of Rift's pvp. It's smooth and works nice. It's usually who ever hast the most healers, but that's randomly determined. Conquest is an interesting take,  nothing like a 150 person battle and your side coming out on top.

In conclusion, Rift is my MMO of choice, after two years I am satistfied. The population has dipped since launch, however it is healthy. The PVE shards are very active while the PVP shard isn't a total ghost town. There are always groups closing Hunt Rifts (scaling in difficulty group of Rifts that can take 5 or up to 20 men to complete)

Raptr's promotion offering Rift (30 days included) + Storm Legion +30 Days ( 60 days in total) is well worth checking out. 

Thanks for reading, by no means do I think my writing is good, I'm no English major.