RIFT: Fae Yule 2015 is Here! .

Christmas is close but it’s come early to RIFT! You know that feeling as well as I do; the glistening virtual snow as they float on and about, basking in the game’s night sky with colorful decor of whimsy and wonder, and, of course, digging in your axe into the back of hapless tree-folk to get some delicious event currency that encourages the highest level of consumerism possible in a game. Yep, it’s all here and more in Fae Yule 2015.

Like the last Autumn Harvest, this is my first time experiencing RIFT’s premiere Christmas event and it certainly does look good. Aside from the festive transformation of the world of Telara, there are loads more to do than Autumn Harvest that extends a fair bit more past the zones of Freemarch and Silverwood. There are three phases to Fae Yule and each phase have their own varying story quests and daily quests that are unlocked as the month progresses. In every phase, not every quest can be done in a day because there is a daily rotation where others will become unavailable for that specific reset and others will suddenly pop out in the event-daily hubs in both Meridian and Sanctum. But as it was said earlier, there are other quests found in other zones like in the Plane of Water, so you won’t necessarily be logging on and off your characters in a single place every time like in Autumn Harvest.

I never want to wake up…

If there’s one thing that Trion knows how to do best, it’s getting into the spirit of the season. Most of the prolific and significant places in the game are decorated with flair and tenacity of a father giving their kids the best first Christmas they could ever have. Lined with lights, trees, scatter gifts, and even gigantic candy canes, the world of Telara is replete with the homey atmosphere of this great and whimsical holiday of giving. Frankly, the only thing missing is some eggnog and a bunch of warm blankets and you can consider spending your Christmas in RIFT.

As expected (or as usual, as the case may be), the RIFT store offers a plethora of seasonal goodies available only during the Fae Yule World event for either the event currencies of Unique Snowflakes and Dark Icicles, or for a certain amount of store credits along with other credit-only items like the Merry Mink Trove. While obtaining these in-game currencies are less of a pain than it was with the Autumn Harvest due to more quest sources, players will still be miffed that they will not be able to obtain everything without a ton of alts.

GUFFAW! STUFF!

Want the neat little 36-slot bag? Well, prepare for next year to get that nice looking Vaiyuu mount, because you certainly won’t be getting it this year with just one character. What about a nice neck upgrade? Nuts to that as well due to every character only being able to acquire up to 30 Dark Icicles provided they do the single story quest for each of the three available phases of Fae Yule. However, similar to other events, all event items, with the exception of raid tier gear, are either bound-to-account or do not bind at all so you can freely pass them along to whichever character you want. But it goes without saying that not all your characters will be able to obtain almost everything unlike your main, which is kind of a bummer if you ask me.

This then leads me to my only complaint with, not just Fae Yule, but for all RIFT holiday events; the curse of the cash shop. While I may have said that you could, more or less, purchase everything you could possibly want in Fae Yule through severe altitis, the method to madness can be extremely tedious, monotonous, frustrating, and just downright silly. Then comes in the credit purchase option for most of these holiday goodies, becoming more and more enticing and alluring as the days pass by, urging you to alleviate yourself of the stress and work in farming these in-game currencies with a few simple clicks to confirm your purchase.

Ugh.

These events are obviously all skewed towards being able to maximize profits for the game and that is understandable. Every MMO, after all, is still a business and every business requires a nice little cash flow to keep it running, but I’ve started to feel the blatantly boring quest designs that linger along the lines of “completely mundane” and “just enough whimsy” creating an illusion that grinding for the currency is going to be fun on multiple characters when it is, in fact, not.

Most quests involve nothing more than tedious kill and fetch quests held in different contexts to drape each activity in a different color. I plied through each available quest for the day with each alt I had with precise and methodical progress, but by the fourth alt, I started to question why I was doing it in the first place. I’ve already had my fair share of killing wolves in Tarken Glacier for regular questing or for Butchering, and I certainly don’t want to do so again under the guise of obtaining a Fae Yule gift for some schmuck NPC I could care less about. I ravage Nightmare Rifts already for planarite, essences, and achievements on a daily basis, and I certainly don’t want to add another reason to that list, much less one about something as shallow as retrieving more presents or some other nonsense.

Let’s Riiiiiiiide!!!!

I could tank and forgive Autumn Harvest for being the same thing, but it was the first event for me and, I admit, I have my own bias for Halloween, but with Fae Yule being the second major holiday event I’ve come across in RIFT and, for most people, being a bigger deal, I expected more from it. The only quests I did legitimately enjoy repeating over and over again are the snowboarding quests. Located through a portal in both Meridian and Sanctum, players get ported somewhere on Iron Pine Peak to partake in a really interesting and fun snowboarding activity that gets them to cross checkpoints while mowing down snowmen as they fly through the air in extreme-sports fashion. These quests are repeatable and give just a bit of Unique Snowflakes for their fun, but I certainly haven’t gotten bored of them yet. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll use the thousands of extra snowflakes I already got from doing this repeatedly, but I’m just happy to have a break in the grindy, Go-Go-Go! world of RIFT. This is what I call a really unique event-specific quest that really takes it to the heart of the season of snow and cool. Sadly, that’s all there is to it in Fae Yule and you’ll mostly be picking up frosty flowers or killing random creatures for some menial task that you could care less about.

Oooh, shiny.

Though there are a few extras that, I have to say, Trion integrated seamlessly into the daily grind without making another chore for players to do like the bonus loot from the last boss of any expert dungeon. These bosses drop a Fae Yule gift which can then be exchanged for a piece of “dormant” gear from MS, RoF, and TF, which can then be upgraded to become T1 gear. As great as that might sound, let’s be honest: T1 is pretty crap these days and so easy to acquire anyway that it simply isn’t as enticing as it sounds. Faelight Sparkle returns is another noteworthy quest of this sort that gives T3 gear instead, but is far grindier, but that, at least, can only be done once and you’ll surely finish it long before Fae Yule ends so long as you keep doing what you’re already doing.

Along with Fae Yule 2015 is another present from Trion in the form of the Winter’s Wrath update whose central element is the brand new Affinity system. Logging in for the first time in the day nets you 5 affinity points and players can obtain 3 more as they play through the day, netting them 8 points per day. These points can then be exchanged for nice little goodies like mounts from phased out troves like the Crimson Arclight Rider, Jolt, and even a rarer levitate mount. Bug fixes galore and easing of certain quest requirements like those in conquest alleviate the tedious existence in RIFT due to this new update and a little bit of love for pure PvPers as well. Heck, Trion even “tried” to fix the green-blue discoloration bug on outfits that’s been happening for a damned long time. It still happens to me from time to time, but no longer as often. I can’t really ask for a better Christmas gift to be completely honest. But as most developers and programmers know, you take one step forward and…

It’s attached to the dude on the right…

…take four hundred and ninety-two steps back. Looks like we’ve received an extra gift we certainly do not want. Trino, plz.

Related: Event (In Game), Rift, Winter Event