Rift’s 3rd beta event started earlier today and I have jumped into the fray along with the rest of us. My attempt is to continue to break things and see what has changed. For the next hour or so, I’ll be live blogging what I’m up to in Rift.

Where am I? On the Faeblight shard as Candace, the Eth Cleric. Keep checking the page for more updates or hit that refresh button!

6:45 – Candace was just created a few minutes ago. I chose a Warden to begin with. Maybe a healing soul at the beginning is a bad idea. We’ll see.

6:50 – OK so Warden isn’t too bad. Water jet is a nice offensive ability and the little heal over time is nice. It’s cool to see that the global cool down issue has been rectified. I can soft queue abilities now. This makes combat much better. I also love seeing all the classes available at the beginning.

6:55 – Chose my secondary soul which is the Druid. Holy cow, I have a fairy. Now this is cool.

7:03 – Sweet. I have my talents already. Is it me or do we gain more skill points now? It seems like it is that way which is a great thing considering I have two classes to deal with. For now, I am focusing on Warden for the heals over time and the Druid’s melee combat.

7:07 – Well this isn’t good. Rift just crashed on me. I re-started it only to get an error that my character was still logged in. Then it continually kicked me off with the same error, not allowing me to change to another character. I had to force an exit in order to shut the game down. Attempt #2….

7:10 – OK Rift apparently hates windowed mode. Crash #2. Switching to the Google netbook for blogging purposes so Rift can enjoy a full screen game.

7:15 – Rift seems to enjoy windowed mode better. Candace is back in the world of Telara. Here we go. She’s off to fight the baddies with her fairy. Call me what you will but this fairy has a nice buff!

7:20 – Some people may not like the quest help on the world map and mini map, but I sure do. It’s nice to have a nudge in the right direction, especially with a brand new game that I am not used to. I did notice with Rift it’s not just “go there and kill ‘em”. There is reading involved to understand some quests.

7:25 – As I finished taking out Shyla and reclaiming her soul, I wondered why I couldn’t find a place to repair equipment. I am so used to repairing damaged equipment that I figured it was just part of the game. On further inspection (hitting the “C” button) I realized that there is no durability.

7:30 – I got my third soul already. I chose the Sentinel which is more direct healing. I figure with the offensive abilities of a Druid, heals over time of a Warden and the more direct heals of a Sentinel, I can heal a group fairly well and focus on some soloing ability for myself. I have a feeling this is going to gimp my character later on but we’ll see. I could always switch roles to more combative as I move along if I feel like it.

7:40 – With the third soul chosen, things begin to get complicated on the skills tree. I find myself taking some serious time to really craft where I’m going here. Do I focus mostly on one class with the other two supporting me? If I do, which would be the best focus? How will I spend my skill points to maximize the potential of the character? Fortunately, the possibilities are endless but it does take a bit of theorycrafting to really figure things out. I think my little Ethian Cleric is almost done with this starting area. It’s almost time to go back and right the wrongs, fight the bad guys…with my fairy.

7:48 – Around level 7, you’ll go through a portal in time and start the real game. Here’s the cool part. Your mission is to go through a portal, but you get thrown into some serious battle time when this happens. Even a big baddie shows up to declare he is going to stop you all. It’s quite epic. The cut scene itself is very nice indeed and I do love the voice acting in this game. Really top notch VO for a video game.

8:01 – My problem has begun already. It’s the quests. I’ve done these quests already. Not in Rift, but in every other game. I’ve already killed three of these guys, collected four of these things, talked to so and so and then used something random. The quests are so similar to other fantasy MMOs and that’s the part that gets to me. Though I do ask myself “Well who is doing this differently?” ….No one yet.

8:05 – Brad stole my drink from me.

8:08 – Here’s where it’s fun again. I had a typical “go talk to this dude” quest. When I spoke to him, I had a choice in what to say. Three statements all garnered different responses from the prisoner I talked to. The cool thing is, I didn’t have the chance to go back and try all three. My response to him was it. That sort of made it feel a lot nicer. You know, the whole “Choose who you are and your destiny” thing going on. Wait a second…ooo! It’s an invasion! Something is happening. I would go on about why this is a cool thing but I’d rather get in-game and fight the baddies instead.

8:17 – THE PAIN! THEY HATE MY FACE! A Rift just opened on top of me. That was fun…not really. Respawning is probably a good idea at this point.

8:22 – Well that was a fun run for the time being. I’ll probably jump back in later to see what’s happening and do some more theorycrafting and leveling. For now, I think Brad requires food and so do I. We’re having a late dinner tonight due to blogging goodness and beta fun.