First Impressions of Conquest

1.9 hit live shards and with it came a plethora of amazing updates.  With seven years of WoW to my (dis)credit, I was, yet again, pleasantly surprised by how smooth patch day transpired.  The servers came down at exactly 8:00AM PST, just as announced, and were literally back up by 9:00AM PST, with 1.9 ready to play.  Partner this with the fact that 1.9, in and of itself, is one of the single largest patches to an MMO I've seen in over 13 years of MMO gaming, and you have yourself a worthy cause for admiration and excitement.  To be clear, here's an overview of what was included:

• 10m raid called Primeval Feast
• Open-world, three faction PvP system called Conquest
• Mentoring system
• Barber shop
• PvP Prestige ranks 41-50
• New tier of PvP gear
• World Event: Summerfest
• Instant Adventure for Freemarch, Stonefield, Gloamwood and Silverwood
• Cross-shard chat and friending

As if the above list wasn't enough, tack on countless "quality of life" improvements pushed into the game such as the automatic inventory sorting or the separation of random normal dungeon rewards from random expert dungeon rewards and you simply have to tip your hat to Trion.  Sure there were a few hitches such as Instant Adventure being disabled for a while as they looked into a couple related issues but pushing a major patch live in roughly one hour and people being able to log right in and start enjoying much of the new content is quite the accomplishment on today's MMO scene.  Further, it gave me the opportunity to take part in several games of Conquest.  With this post, I intend to share my thoughts regarding this new addition to Rift.  However, let's begin with a brief explanation of how Conquest works so the argument can begin upon a level playing field.

Conquest is set in an alternate Stillmoor where three factions are vying for control of the area.  Within the zone itself, each faction has their own starting location and, spread out across the vast terrain, are roughly 30 "extractors" which are purposed with the task of extracting sourcestone from the very soils of Telara (a planet that was created out of sourcestone by the way).  At the start of the game, all three factions begin with 0% control of Stillmoor where control is measured by the amount of active extractors in that faction's possession.  As the match transpires, factions take control of extractor locations and can eventually upgrade them with defensive turrets.  The game continues until one of the following conditions is met:

1. Any one of the three factions achieves 60% control of Stillmoor at which point that faction is immediately victorious
2. The maximum number of kills, across all three factions, has been reached - at which point a 2 minute countdown begins and the team with the most control of Stillmoor at the conclusion of that timer is victorious

Controlled extractors dig up Empowered Sourcestone around the nearby area that can be gathered by anyone and returned to a stockpile at your starting point.  Here, there are crafting recipes spanning most crafting professions that give crafters the ability to provide faction-wide buffs in the way of extra hit points, extra damage, faster mounts and more.  Lastly, there are portals that are capturable at noteworthy locations such as Zareph's Return and Briarcliff that can be used for rapidly traversing the map..

Now that we have an understanding of how Conquest is played, I can move on to the pros and cons of the system.  For each con, I'll propose a solution.  Let's get started:

Pros

• Successfully satisfies the need and desire for open-world, large-scale PvP
• Offers ample opportunity for strategy.  You can zerg around if you'd like but the more successful teams are going to be those who strike a fine balance between defense and coordinated offense.
• Incorporates crafters in a meaningful and noticeable way.
• Succeeds in reducing the PvP gear grind quite a bit by offering substantial favor and prestige gains compared to other forms of PvP.  As an example, I was a block or two into prestige rank 32 upon starting my first Conquest match.  We won that time around and I had hit prestige rank 33.
• By and large was very enjoyable and stands as a great addition to Rift's ever-growing PvP arsenal.

Cons

• Quite clearly demonstrates what may be a core engine issue resulting in draw/render problems.  Any truly "large scale" battles (i.e. 30-40 or more people at once) where clunky and resulted in very slow (as much as 10 full seconds at times) draw times for characters.  I'm fairly certain I died several times just in my first Conquest match to players that were completely invisible to me.  This is, by far, the most significant issue.
• Portal camping quickly became an issue and was especially noticeable at Zareph's Return wherein one faction would hang out by the portal without capturing it to farm those porting in before much of the fight could even be rendered to the screen.  This has actually prompted Trion to temporarily disable the ZR portal altogether while they work on a solution.
• Faction balancing is still a bit fickle and it is very easy to achieve a substantial numbers advantage before the system updates to disallow any further applicant to that faction.
• Building further upon the above issue about faction balance, an issue related to early zerging quickly became apparent as the moment Conquest became available everyone poured into the first faction, Dominion, and immediately began zerging the map to achieve a sizable % advantage before any meaningful opposition could even be mounted.  This resulted in the Oathsworn (given the location of their starting point) always immediately heading southwest to salvage back as much as possible from the Dominion.

So what can be done about all this?  There are undoubtedly many possible solutions but here I'll outline how I, personally, would go about it:

Draw/Render Time Lag Issue

This was the most easily-identifiable issue and, also, has a straightforward but perhaps not-so-easy solution.  That being said, the solution is simply this: fix it.  Being that we don't have any insight into Trion's Rift server architecture, nor do we have any deep understanding of how they've altered the Gamebryo engine to suit Rift, we can only loosely speculate as to what needs to be done in this department.  Some artificial solutions present themselves in the way of capping population count in Conquest or providing more objectives with which to potentially break up the groups a bit but either of these would simply be band-aids atop a deep wound.  Trion claims to have some optimizations on the way that will improve this particular deficiency so, for now, we can only wait and see.

Portal Camping Issue

My proposed solution to this issue is a bit unique.  I would like to see the portals removed altogether but mount speeds increased by 25-40% while in Conquest.  I would then like a new crafting recipe made available that creates a one-time use portal that would allow members of that faction to teleport to that location.  Upon teleporting, that player would be given a debuff that prevents teleportation for the next 1-2 minutes (to be adjusted as necessary).  This would allow for strategic portaling and opens up a plethora of opportunities for strategy.  Imagine a savvy Conquest faction charging a particular, under-defended extractor that is rapidly swarmed by an army portaled in, only to immediately portal out themselves to another extractor across the map.

Faction Balancing Issue

The current mechanism in place, which denies application to a faction that is "full" handles the issue admirably but the problem is simply the speed at which it updates.  So, simply put, Trion needs to ensure the existing balancing mechanism updates as quickly as possible to prevent blatant faction flooding.  Which brings me to the final 

and related issue:

Faction Flooding and Zerg Issue

The solution to this issue is, in my mind, a no-brainer: put a countdown on the start of the Conquest match much the same as is done in Warfront but make it a bit longer than Warfronts. During this time everyone would be contained within their starting area to provide time for factions to reasonably balance out, for strategy to be discussed and for people to visit the Conquest vendor without having to do so during the heat of battle and, thus, be a wasted raid spot.


All in all, Conquest is loads of fun but, as is to be expected with any new feature to a such an expansive game, there is always room for improvement.  Beyond resolutions to the aforementioned issues, some quality of life enhancements such as icons beside player names to quickly identify their faction without having to read their tooltip would be a plus.  Further, coordinating strategy within Conquest is currently very challenging as you are more or less resigned to waypoints and text chat.  I could propose some improvements in this area but I feel Kyera, over at the official Rift forums, took care of this admirably.

Why Rift is the Best MMO On the Market

Let's begin by assuming you're either new to Rift or are considering picking up the game.  In the prior case, you worry about whether your investment will pay off in fun dividends.  In the latter case, your trigger finger is a bit shaky and you're hesitant to make the jump.  With this entry to The Ascended Chronicle, I'm going to make the argument to support your leap of faith and I'm going to do so with 5 examples among myriad to whet your appetite.

1) So Different yet So Similar

For those considering the jump over to Telara from Azeroth, or any other world for that matter, often the most significant hindrance preventing the switch is one of comfort level.  I played WoW for seven years.  Prior to that I played Final Fantasy XI.  Even before that, I played Ragnarok Online.  Somewhere in between I've played Warhammer Online, Aion, Tera, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Needless to say, although I'll say it regardless, I've had my fair share of MMO experience and have performed the proverbial "jump" countless times.  Never before has a transition been so seamless as it was to Rift.  The game simply "feels" and "plays" similar to other MMOs like WoW.  It uses an interface you'll immediately be at home with and employs a combat style not too far removed from that which you're accustomed to.  To the game's credit, Trion has implemented a slight bit of realism into Telara's presentation and, as such, has forgone the inclusion of spectacular combat effects commonly referred to on MMO gaming forums as "rainbow sprinkles and unicorn farts".  Rift's combat is guttural with a tinge of realism that still gives Trion's unique take on MMOs a somehow familiar feeling.  Further, the user interface is laid out in a predictable manner and one that will take all of about 30 seconds to get used to.

2) The Little Things are often The Big Things

In 13+ years of MMO gaming experience, I've never witnessed a development studio whom gives more attention to "quality of life" improvements than Trion.  Seemingly every patch or hotifx provides a new, sometimes simple yet much appreciated improvement that aims for nothing more than improving the little things in Rift.  Need to find an item in your completely full bags quickly?  Hit CTL + F and start typing the name of the item as you inventory is dynamically highlighted in accordance with your search.  This works on both the bank and guild bank inventories as well.  There's even some special filters you can use such as search for "/a" which will highlight any artifacts in the inventory being viewed.  Are you someone who likes your portrait nameplates down near your action bars and your chat area to the screen's right?  Hit ESC and go to "Edit Layout" and you'll find that the entire interface - literally every single piece of it - can be moved wherever you want.  Do you want to roll multiple characters even putting a few of them on other realms but cringe at the thought of having to configure the UI, keybindings and macros for each character?  Trion's got your back as with the click of a button you can import any settings, from any character on any server at any time.  Further, you can be selective about what you wish to import.  Want to sell all poor quality items quickly?  There's a button for that right on the merchant pane.  Wish you could record video but don't feel like picking up a copy of Fraps and don't really know you're way around video editing software?  There's YouTube integration built right into the game that let's you easily record, encode and upload video straight to your YouTube account.  I could honestly go on for days about all the "little" things that are present in Rift simply to make your life easier but why not click around yourself?

3) It's Not "In a Few Minutes" Adventure.  It's INSTANT Adventure

Some may wonder why I'd call out this specific feature as there are countless to choose from.  In short, I feel this provides as good an example as any to make my point.  To put things in perspective, this aspect of Rift was actually put into the game during a hotfix.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It wasn't part of a major patch but rather an idea somebody at Trion had one day that was received well and given the proverbial green light.  Instant Adventure is precisely what you would expect: adventure at the click of a button.  It's one thing to grind out quests on your own or even in a small group.  It's entirely another thing to be instantly teleported to a location in Telara and take part in a dynamic campaign of scalable objectives.  Simply hit the "." key and choose between Shimmersand/Stillmoor adventures or the more challenging Ember Isle adventures.  Within 5 seconds you'll receive a prompt with which you can immediately teleport right into the action and be placed into a raid of up to 20 players.  It's good experience.  It's good notoriety.  It's a good way to earn currency such as planarite or inscribed sourcestones and, most importantly, it's great fun.  In the next patch, instant adventure, is coming to literally every zone in the game so low-level characters can participate as well as any max-level characters that wish to mentor themselves down to an appropriate level.  Don't worry, if you mentor yourself down for a lower-level instant adventure, you still get experience, notoriety and currency consistent with your level!  Simply put, Instant Adventure is innovative, fun and is yet another example among myriad of just how much passion Trion puts towards this game.  In fact, this point provides an adequate segway to my next area of focus:

4) Rift:  Clearly a Labor of Love


Seven years of WoW and I can say with confidence that there's few better feelings than that of anticipating patch day.  I knew my addons would most likely break and I understood that the game itself would be a buggy cesspool for a few days beyond launch but it didn't matter because a substantial amount of content was on its way and that's precisely why I was playing the game in the first place: to enjoy the content I'm being provided.  It was the buzz of a new Arena season and the footrace between quest hubs.  It was the set of initial footsteps into a new raid zone and aromatic scent of new challenges lying in wake.  Ah, patch day - you couldn't arrive soon enough.  Unfortunately, that rang truer than I had, at the time, anticipated.  Hindsight always being 20/20, and after a year in Telara, I look back at my time in WoW and wonder how I even managed it.  Trion puts out content at a blistering pace that makes my time in Azeroth look ridiculous by comparison.  As an example, World of Warcraft patch 4.2 was pushed live on June 28, 2011. With it came one new raid instance and a daily quest hub outside along with a handful of balance and "quality of life" fixes.  Patch 4.3 arrived on November 29, 2011 and was a much larger patch feature-wise.  To put things in perspective, between June 1 and November 30 of that same year, Trion put forth a "bit" more aggressive of a schedule.  Also, consider that my Instant Adventure example above, is one of many features that have arrived in this game via hotfix:

• Patch 1.3 - 
• New 20m Raid:  Hammerknell Fortress (11 encounters)
• Guild banks
• Free character transfers
• New tract of artifacts across all of Telara called "Twisted" artifacts essentially doubling the amount of artifacts in the game
• Raid Rift overhaul
• New World Event
• 15 hotfixes (minor patches) for Patch 1.3 
• Patch 1.4
• New Warfront:  Whitefall Steppes: Escalation
• LFG tool now cross-server
• PvP Rifts: open world, objective-based PvP hubs
• New epic questline: The Water Saga
• New 10m raid: Drowned Halls (4 encounters)
• Quest journal overhaul
• 8 hotfixes for Patch 1.4
• Patch 1.5
• Chronicles:  solo or two-person dungeons modeled after Rift's many raid environments
• Planar Attunement:  character advancement beyond the level cap
• Veterans Rewards: unique items such as mounts, costumes and more for veterans of Rift
• New tier of dungeon content: Master Mode - Take on the dungeon "Dungeon Darkening" deeps with heightened difficulty, a new encounter and greater rewards
• New Warfront:  Library of the Runemasters
• Addon support
• New World Event
• 15 hotfixes for Patch 1.5
• Patch 1.6
• Ember Isle: An entire new zone increasing the world map by roughly 20% with dailies, epic questlines, new Rifts, new zone invasions, and tuned for well-geared level 50 characters
• New 10m Raid: Rise of the Phoenix (4 encounters)
• New Warfront: Black Garden: Stockpile
• New Level 50 dungeon: Caduceus Rise - it's the size of two dungeons and can be done in halves
• New world event
• Tier 2 Planar Attunement - another tier of planar attunement trees for character advancement beyond the level cap
• 3 hotfixes for Patch 1.6

To be honest, the above list doesn't quite do the reality proper justice.  There are so many improvements and features packed into the hotfixes themselves that to list them out here ad nauseum would push this blog posting well into literary territory bordering upon absurdity.  Suffice it to say, I'll let the contents herein speak for itself.  Let me ask you, though: when was the last time you played an MMO that boasted a content update schedule so aggressive?  I'll answer that for you:  you haven't because it's never been done before.  And it's this very fact, which leads me to my final example of why Rift is, without question, the best MMO on the market today.

5) "We're Just Getting Started"

For Rift's one year anniversary, Trion did a great deal of interesting and fun things.  Among them was releasing an anniversary video to commemorate the occasion and whet the collective appetites of Ascended across the world.  At the end of that video, Scott Hartsman states that Trion, with respect to Rift, was "just getting started".  From any other company, this could easily be considered simply as market posturing and little more.  From Trion, however, you couldn't help but be instilled with a sense of wonder at how they could possibly outdo their history.  Then it began in February with the release of patch 1.7 which completely overhauled itemization at max level to make it a smooth and understandable progression.  With that patch they also included quite a few PvP updates including an all-new Mercenary system that drastically cut queue times for Warfronts.  That same patch also introduced in-game weddings, a "purpose" system for helping new players through the extensive soul system, approximately twice as many expert mode dungeons to run, a new Chronicle and a new master mode dungeon.  Just two months and several hotfixes later, patch 1.8 was released offering a new 20m raid, two new professions (Fishing and Survival), a Guild Finder system, Leaderboards spanning every  aspect of Rift and a new "Seal" item slot.  We're only halfway through the year on this 13th day of June 2012 yet patch 1.9 is already on the PTS while patches 1.10 and 1.11 are both still planned for later this year.  Were we to stop there, one might still marvel before the blistering pace at which Trion pushes quality content into their game.  Yet even still, it was recently announced that Trion has all along been putting together an expansion that will, literally, triple the size of the known world.  What's more is that this expansion is targeted for Fall 2012 and includes, at bare minimum, the following:

• Two new continents each as large or larger than the existing Telaran continent
• Countless epic quest sagas taking you through all the new lands and telling their stories
• A new, faction-neutral stronghold called Tempest Bay
• A raised level cap to 60 from 50
• A new soul for each of the four callings to bring the total soul's per calling to 9
• Instant Adventure for every new zone
• 7 new dungeons
• 3 new raids
• 1 new chronicle
• New Rift type: Hunt Rifts - rifts that scale in difficulty to provide increasing challenges over time
• A colossus world boss whom interacts with the environment in ways never seen before in MMOs.  He smashes through walls, scales bridges and can be attacked via several different targeted areas that each dynamically alter the encounter.  The encounter itself is more than just your typical raid encounter as you will use the environment itself, power-ups, launchpads, cannons and more to take down this monstrosity with your fellow Ascended.
• Player housing in the form of Dimensions.  Enjoy sipping mead from atop your stool in the Granite Falls Inn?  Why not carve out your own alternate reality version of that very location and make it your own!
• Grandmaster crafting
• New item slot: capes

And, as always, the above is just scratching the surface.  There are countless more improvements coming to the game in Rift: Storm Legion that to mention them all here would, well, hopefully you get the picture by now.

So what's holding you back?  I've played MMOs for 13+ years, and Rift is easily the best one I've laid my twitchy little fingers on.  The content keeps on coming, the improvements keep on rolling in and the future for Trion's labor of love is both bright and inviting.  Grab a friend and go solve the many puzzles and mental challenges hiding away in the corners and narrows of Telara.  Gather a group of allies and take on some Ember Isle Onslaughts.  Theorycraft until your heart's content with the expansive soul system that truly does let you play your class how you want to play it.  No matter what it is you enjoy most in an MMO, Rift has something to deeply sink your teeth into.  I'm Synovia on Faeblight-US and I'll see you in Telara.

PvP Woes and How to Fix It

My initial foray into MMO PvP began with World of Warcraft over seven years ago.  At that impressionable age of 21, I was handed a copy of the game by my boss at the game development studio I was working at as a co-op during college.  Initially playing a Human Priest named Ninthcircle at the request of my boss in exchange for a free copy of the game (the class being the request and not the ridiculous name) I immediately had my expectations of what MMO PvP could be shattered.  Prior to ever setting foot in Warsong Gulch or waiting for the Tauren Shaman named Uenaydar to come 1-shot me with a Windfury proc in front of Stromgarde Keep in the Arathi Highlands, my limited understanding of what MMO PvP could bring to the table was that it would be clunky and nowhere near the responsiveness I was accustomed to being a sponsored Unreal Tournament player.  Quickly, however, I realized the error of my assessment and my world was expanded to include MMO PvP under the banner of competitive and skill-based gaming.

Fast forward roughly seven years to February 2011.  My time in WoW had more than run its course and Rift had launched both smoothly and successfully.  Now a Defiant Rogue named Synovia, I began plotting my Warfront domination plans.  Much to my dismay, this plan never really came to fruition as it quickly screeched to an abrupt halt by what I considered then and still consider now, to be one of the worst grinds I've ever done in any game.  I am of course referring to the gear grind in Rift PvP.

During my WoW days, I used to complain about the amount of time it took to obtain enough gear to be "competitive" in Battlegrounds.  In retrospect, the time investment required in Rift to obtain said gear makes the same grind in WoW look like a proverbial walk in the park.  In WoW I could spend a week or two taking my lumps in Battlegrounds and showing up to the occasional Astranaar raid to then find myself fully decked out in gear that at least makes me "competitive".  In Rift, the same cannot be said.  I've had many argue against me on this point but, quite frankly, the math isn't on your side.  That said, let's define what I mean by "competitive" in the sense of PvP gear.  At present, I would consider "competitive" to be having your character completely decked out in, at minimum, the middle tier of gear.  For Defiant Rogues, this is the Vigilante's set.  The set prior to this one is the Seditionist's set and Rift employs a system wherein you must trade in the previous tier's item along with a chunk of favor to obtain the upgraded, next-tier version.  Here's what you're looking at in terms of favor:

• Helm:  20800 + 54400 = 75200
• Shoulders:  20800 + 54400 = 75200
• Chest:  27200 + 68800 = 96000
• Belt:  16000 + 40000 = 56000
• Legs:  27200 + 68800 = 96000
• Feet:  16000 + 40000 = 56000
• Neck:  19200 + 48000 = 67200
• Ring:  12800 + 12800 + 32000 + 32000 = 89600

With the above list alone, I can illustrate my point beautifully and I'll even exclude MH weapon, OH weapon, ranged weapon, trinket and an entire core which, in and of themselves, are at least 500,000 favor combined to acquire.

Continuing on, we're looking at a price tag of 611200.  I want that number to sink in for a moment.  Let it really sink in deep.  Now, I want you to consider the following:  this weekend was a bonus weekend for Port Scion.  To take full advantage of this opportunity, I went Saboteur in attempt to maximize my potential favor gains.  This weekend, on a bonus weekend in Port Scion, I averaged roughly 5000-6000 favor per game when we won and a little over half that when we lost.  However, let's not even consider losses.  Heck, I'll even take the upper bound of my example and assume I made 6000 favor every single game.  Each game took between 10-40 minutes to complete, depending on how the game was being played.  That said, let's take a nice, round 30 minutes per game, and ignore any time in queue.  This yields the following calculation:

611200 / 6000 = 101.866.

Don't worry, I'll even round down for you:

101 * 30 = 3030 minutes

3030 / 60 = 50.5 hours

So assuming absolutely optimal favor gains (unless you are fortunate enough to still have a favor vial or three at your disposal, despite the fact that my several concessions herein would more or less negate the benefit) based on it being a bonus weekend and you winning every single match, no queues, not including any weapons, trinkets and also not including a PvP core of any form, you are looking at a bare minimum of 50.5 hours of time in-game before you will reach a level of gear that I am being extremely generous in calling "competitive".

How often do you play?  For the sake of argument, let's assume you play a couple hours every single day of the week.

50.5 / 2 = 25.25 days until you can be even remotely competitive.

But Synovia!  You're forgetting about the bolstering system!  The bolstering system buffs your stats until you reach a certain level of prestige!  Actually, that's not entirely true.  The bolstering system monitors your character's stats and will turn off after you pass a certain threshold.  This means that if you roll into a Warfront in PvE gear because you haven't yet put in a full 50+ hours to get the PvP gear to be competitive, you will not receive Ascended Courage.  So should we then purposely gimp ourselves until we've put in those 50+ hours?  Is it ideal to get your proverbial shit pushed in for 50+ hours of game time so you can experience the "fun" of Rift PvP?

Absolutely not and, quite frankly, the current system is unnacceptable.  I've said this quite a few times on the forum and I'm going to say it once more here:.

The gear to be competitive in PvP should NEVER be the reward for one's efforts.  The gear to be competitive should be trivial to obtain and the reward for one's efforts should be titles, mounts, pets, dyes, costumes or any other intangible that doesn't directly affect the competitiveness of Rift PvP in a substantial way.

So how do we fix Rift PvP?  Well, there is certainly more wrong with it than what this blog post explains.  There are class balance issues (such as that 11K health Warrior who won't die, has the mobility of a Feynman Diagram and is shitting on your entire team while out-damaging the supposedly overpowered Saboteurs).  There are also some issues with the game's engine itself in that the fluidity and responsiveness of Rift PvP combat isn't yet on par with that of WoW or even Aion.  However, we have to start at the root of the problem and I believe my sentiment herein to be precisely that.  I would therefore propose the following:

1. Use two tiers of PvP gear instead of three and keep the "trade-up" system in place wherein you trade the lesser item and some favor for an upgraded one 
2. Make the first tier of PvP gear obtainable in two week's casual play time (a couple hours a night) or less but keep the upgraded tier at a costly level to still provide a "grind" for those who, for some ridiculous reason, actually want it.  Ensure that the "upgraded" items are only slight improvements over their predecessors.
3. Offer titles, mounts, pets, dyes, costumes, visual weapon effects, fun PvP fluff items (i.e. Flag of Ownership from WoW - it was a lot of fun killing someone and slamming a "Flag of Ownership" into their corpse) and perhaps small upgrades such as PvP runes and PvP weapon enchantments as the "grindable" rewards for PvP
4. Make Unseen (and the Guardian equivalent) reputation obtainable in Warfronts.  I didn't touch on this particular pain point in this article but it's desperately needed.

Future considerations for Rift PvP, beyond Conquest, would be the following:

• Offer a Rift version of WoW's "Rated Battlegrounds" in that anyone who has achieved maximum prestige rank may queue into rated versions of Warfronts against other maximum prestige rank players.  Offer unique rewards for participation in this.
• PvP Rifts, which were a great thought, need an overhaul to make them worthwhile.  Increase favor and reputation gains therein and shorten the running distance to sourcestone drop-offs a bit so you aren't running across Ember Isle on foot to drop off a piece of sourcestone for 5 (yes, five) Unseen reputation and 125 (lol) favor.