Monday, February 21, 2011

Temporal Rift

It is 9.04am here in Dublin and I am in the office.

I haven’t slept.

Now I know this is my fault. It may also be the fault of dinner… you know I don’t think chicken fajitas need two whole bell peppers chopped up but eh, what do I know? I will just have to coffee up, keep the brain engaged. I’ll get through this day. What got me through the weekend however was a heady mix of addiction and excitement. (In retrospect, that sentence looks suspicious.)

Rift of course. What else?

You know, for not knowing next to a damned thing about the game, I am having a fantastic time. There are so many games out now with hype machines and detractors/supporters and ads everywhere that well.. I just tune most of them out. Rift was one of those things that got tuned out. I’d get around to it in time. Fortunately for me I did.

Originally I snagged beta invite keys for Beta 6 for myself and Shannon but neither of us actually ended up with the time or desire to download it and test. Bad beta players in other words. Trion on the other hand was far more forgiving, which is to say that their database just sent the invite, and we ended up invited via email to the Open beta like approximately ten billion other people. Nothing special but enough to remind us, so in we went.

Rift has subsequently been pre-ordered for us both. Founders pricing has been locked in. Unless I have a suddenly and inexplicably awful 30+ days between the free month and headstart, Trion is going to get six months out of us both.

That brings me back to having not slept. No I didn’t stay up all night playing Rift, though I easily could have. We’re still blaming dinner for that particular detail. But I did play it endlessly this weekend. Both myself and Shannon turned to each other more than once with excitement in our voices “Want to play some Rift?”. At 3am this morning when neither of us could sleep in any way, shape or form and we finally gave into staying up. Rift.

It may have eaten a good portion of the weekend, when I wasn’t doing things I was supposed to, but it is welcome to what it took. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such fun in a new game and wanted so hard to play more. For completely missing the hype and having no clue, I am now a convert.

I won’t be playing today though, I’m going to let the rest of the beta pass without me drooling over it. There’s things I have to get done and well.. the dreaded beta wipe. I am already far too attached to one character, I don’t need to make the loss worse. Thursday though, you know where you’ll find me.

Tripping the Rift Fantastic.