My Rift 2012 wish list

Rift CorgiJanuary is almost over and Rift patch 1.7 is soon to release. It won’t be long before we’re celebrating the one year anniversary of the MMORPG we so love. One thing I’ve always enjoyed is a good pie-in-the-sky wish list. It is high time I laid out my plans for Rift in 2012. These are the things that I hope to see that aren’t necessarily nuts and bolts oriented. They might not be what you’d consider “valuable” features. They’re just fun things that I think would make the game more enjoyable to me.
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The Raider’s Companion: Imminent Release

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I am pleased to announce that as of today the proof review is over, the paperback is submitted, the hardback is submitted, the ebooks are complete and we are ready for market.

It is my goal to have all of the cover and image prints printed (funny phrase there) this weekend. The paperbacks should arrive by next Tuesday. The hardbacks should follow shortly after but I have no experience with this printer so I can’t say for certain when they’ll be complete. By next weekend I hope to have all of the rewards packages shipped! US supporters will probably receive theirs within about a week of that date. For those not in the US it will take substantially longer.
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The burst of the SWTOR bubble

Tanks don't wear robesIt seems there is a rampant wave of doom-calling in the blogosphere about the failure of Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is probably obvious by the lack of posts on Epic Slant about the game that I wasn’t that interested in it. I’m still not but sometimes it is just nice to fit in with the crowd, especially when you get to say (in some ways) “I told you so.” Let me be clear, I’m not saying that I accurately predicted that this game would fail and am now taking joy in it. What I’m saying is that all the complaints now are things I saw in beta that led me to not buy the game. The things that I pointed out and that people told me “I was missing the point” on. For all of those things, I told you so!
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Developer Quote Humor

I don’t often pick on developers. It is generally poor form and doesn’t make you any friends. Occasionally, however, I read something funny and I just have to laugh and point it out! This time around this comes from the Rift forums regarding the changes to physical damage in PvP. The quote is:

The second issue is the Physical damage in PVP. In exploring the issues that were at play here we found that behind all of them was the fact that we increase Armor values by far more on items post level 50 than we do Elemental defenses. -Atrius

This wasn’t known? This had to be explored and discovered? I’m pretty sure 98% of level 50 players could have told them that in two minutes! That is why we all have a specific sigil for each element! That is why we all buy elemental resist runes! So silly!

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Rift PTS Patch 1.7 #2

Rift CorgiToday Trion released the notes for Rift PTS Patch 1.7 #2. These cover a lot of the items that were not on the original set but were talked about in the forums. One HUGE bombshell that I didn’t expect was the mercenary system. To reduce your PvP queue you can now basically end up on EITHER SIDE. This further supports my opinion of “we don’t even need sides?” This is what we should have always had! 40 people queue up and get put on two opposing teams. Simple, elegant, done! Trion brings that now and I am stoked. We are also getting a sixth role which is a big deal! I’m starting to feel the WOW factor in this patch now. I’ve highlighted some things that I think are freaking awesome!
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The Raider’s Companion Review Copies

The Raiders Companion CoverGreetings everyone! I’m sure some of you might be curious as to where I’ve been these last few months. To be honest I haven’t had a lot to write about and I’ve been busy with the business aspects of The Raider’s Companion‘s. When I wrote The Guild Leader’s Companion I had no idea what I was in for. I made a lot of mistakes with the release, the marketing, and how it was presented. I did not want to repeat those mistakes (I want to make new ones ;D) with The Raider’s Companion so I’m building up a solid foundation instead of just throwing the book out into the wild on its own!

At this point I have physical copies of the book in review. We’ve made a change to the cover, caught some formatting errors, and we’re trying to do one more read through to ensure there are as few (I prefer zero) spelling, grammar, and syntax mistakes as possible. For the business aspect I’m developing advertisements, setting up the product page, and working to fulfill my Kickstarter obligations in advance of the release if possible. I also need to get the book into the hands of people to review to start building buzz.

That is what I’m writing about today. Epic Slant Press is a small company. I don’t have a huge budget to send books out to everyone for free. That said, Epic Slant Press is a small company with a community focus. I will never treat a small blogger like myself any different than Massively.com. I truly believe in the value that individuals bring. Why am I bringing this up? Simple! I have a small budget for reviewers and I want to utilize it effectively. Sending out tens to hundreds of books at random, hoping to get a hit, just won’t work. I want to send them to people that legitimately want to read and review it.
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Rift Patch 1.7 finally addresses healing clerics

Ferrel wears plateIt seems Rift patch 1.7 is where we’ll finally see some changes to the cleric souls. In my eyes this has been a long time coming as the healing souls in particular have been rather neglected. There is a whole list of changes with more being promised in patch 1.8. I’m honestly pleased with what I’ve seen so far providing it makes it to the live servers. Some of my concerns have been addressed while others are still pending. In either event, the healing souls are only improving and that is a good thing in my eyes.
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Rift PTS Patch 1.7 #1 Notes

Ferrel in RiftI’ve been waiting patiently for Trion to release the 1.7 patch notes for Rift. I figured it would be this week and it seems I was right! One major change that I am pleased with is the destruction of the “two tier” dungeon system. Now maybe we can start running those previously tier one dungeons again. We’re also starting Rift’s first item reconfiguration. I’m a bit worried about that but we’ll see how it goes.

There are virtually no changes to clerics yet which is a disappointment. Trion needs to get moving on that. I know this is the first set of notes but there isn’t a big “WOW” feature here yet. This is more of a 1.X.X patch than a true 1.X. I’m sure we’ll learn more as we go forward!
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The problem with Rift’s DPS Clerics

FerrelThere is a lot of work that needs to be done balancing Rift’s cleric souls. For the most part the class has been completely neglected. We’ve seen a few changes here or there but we’ve never gotten the overhaul that the others have. More importantly the purifier, sentinel, and warden have been virtually ignored. The healing souls need love but whenever you talk about it on the forums people foam at the mouth and yell about how our DPS is not comparable to other classes and must be raised! That is all anyone focuses on so let’s look at that shall we? What is the problem with our DPS?

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