So of course yesterday was the official launch of Rift.

I have to start by eating crow. When Trion added a bunch of servers and none of them were PvE-RP I fussed about it. After all in headstart, of the 3 PvE-RP servers two of them always had a queue (and in the case of Faeblight, a big queue) in prime time and one of them teetered on the edge of having a queue (Estrael was either HIGH population or had a small queue). I assumed with the retail launch these three server populations would swell further as retail-buying role-players sought a new home.

But last night, the queue on Faeblight, at least, was smaller than it had been. It was about an hour for me at about 9 pm ET. I queued up, finished writing an ITworld post I was working on, walked the dog, fed the guinea pigs and got done just in time to log a character in.

Oh, glorious Silverwood, how I have missed you!!! I played Defiant in alpha (guess I can say I was in alpha now, eh?) and in head start but my heart belongs to the Guardians). I had such a blast romping back and forth across the zone, using the portals to insta-travel back and forth when needed. I’d intended to do a lot of questing but rifts kept popping up, luring me into their not-so-tender embraces. I used that opportunity to earn some more souls as well as complete my crafting daily.

I’m not sure if I was lucky, or if they’ve changed things, but the Public Group mechanism seems to be a lot better about sticking you in groups that have nearby members. When they first put those in I’d hit the button and find the raid I was in was spread across the zone, but that didn’t really happen last night.

Nothing super-special happened in my play session — nothing you haven’t done a dozen times already — but it was just good solid fun. My only complaint is that Rift can be so intense that when I finally got up, every bone and joint in my body (aside from my hands) had gone stiff from sitting so still and intently staring at the action on-screen. 🙂 I guess that’s the kind of problems games ought to have!

Honestly it was the most fun I’ve had in Rift since beta 3 or 4, which prior to now have been my ‘sweet spots.’ I’m not sure how to quantify why it was more fun than later betas. Maybe just because I’ve so missed playing in Silverwood, or maybe the server had just the right number of players on it (I spend some time feeling like I was alone in the zone, and some time being in full raids of combat madness). Whatever it was, it was pure awesome!

I hope you’re all having as much fun playing as I had last night!