Tonight I might actually get some good quality rifting done. Perhaps I’ll even run that Deepstrike Mines that every keeps talking about. I think I’m a couple levels too high for it. Most of the rewards appear to be level 24, and I’m rocking a lofty level 28 and hanging out in Scarlet Gorge. Still, I’m a bit of a completionist and there might be some guildies that need a solid tank to power through it. Not to mention, I hear that Asha Catari is handing out quests down there. Also, the last boss drops an absorb trinket which might come in handy.

I missed it the first time around because of my mining addiction. Perhaps I’m overly influenced by playing Minecraft while I’m waiting on queues to resolve, but there’s something about seeing that little white diamond show up on the map that instantly and irrevocably side tracks me. Often times flinging me headfirst into dangerous situations. I’ve mined my way to 150 skill scouring much of Scarlet Gorge, but now I need Cobalt to continue my pursuit (not that it stops me from mining Iron, and anything else in my way). Anyways, what was I talking about? Oh yes, instances.

So Riftjunkies.com is doing the game a great service by being my one-stop-shop for getting to where I need to be going. They have tons of maps, dungeon guides, class guides, and other pretty nifty things in there including a Dev Tracker just in-case you’re overly obsessive about things. Right now I should be hitting the north end of Scarlet Gorge and doing the Foul Cascade instance since the minimum level for that is 28. Seems to me the level ranges for these instances are awfully small. Iron Tomb is 17-19, Deepstrike Mines is 24-26, Foul Cascade is 28-30. I think I ran Iron Tombs with a couple of guildies when I was L22. I may or may not have been drunk for that run. Things are a little fuzzy.

Also, Livestreaming has been acting up lately. I tried getting it working a couple days ago, but there was some problem with the site. I’ll give it another shot tonight, you should be able to get there from the link at the top of the page. I have other bloggery plans for Rift as well. I think I’m going to have to rock out a video covering the UI setup, even though there isn’t much there to begin with. I’ll probably run down some of my theories on class combinations, soul synergy and things like that. I’m still working on getting some of my souls unlocked however. There’s just so much to be done! It’s become quite enjoyable to just set myself to a task and be able to strive for it at hours on end. Makes things that much more rewarding in the end.

Of course, I’ll have to cover some PvP eventually, but I haven’t seen much in the way of compelling and dynamic PvP just. Perhaps the end game is more oriented in that direction. I suppose we’ll find out in a month or so when the leveling curve eventually hits 50 and things fill up. I’ve had the opportunity for some real open-world PvP in areas where the levels were actually matching, but nothing really came of it. The PvE server I’m on is quite friendly between factions it seems. No one flagged for PvP and we all sort of went on about our business. Quite different from WAR in that the Rifts are completeable simultaneously with players from the other faction. There’s also the matter of the PvP souls and not being able to level them until level 50 anyway, sort of puts a damper on any initiative to get it rolling. Ah well, I have dozens of other things to work on anyway.