Something that initially interested me about RIFT is the artifact system. It’s a great addition to any MMOG, and does a lot for the depth of RIFT. While not the first game to include such a system, the idea that tangible things from the RIFT history and storyline can be discovered in-game is great, and adds another level of realism to the world. It also creates another “profession” open to anyone willing to put in the time or money.
The current rewards, however, don’t do the system justice in my opinion. Sure, the various wearable and non-combat items are fun, and the Shiny Tartagon is a status symbol for how many artifacts you’ve collected, but now that players have had over four months to collect these, it’s time to update not only the rewards for artifact collection, but the types of artifacts hidden throughout the world.
As I said, the current token rewards are a great starting point. Like the profession itself, they are aimed more at the non-raiding character, and the rewards do a good job of reflecting that. It would make very little sense to include armor pieces or weapons as token rewards for collecting artifact sets, and I’m not suggesting that be the case. The problem I have, is that it seems like many of the rewards available are similar to those from NPC factions, specifically the non-essence planar rewards and World Event rewards.
The discussion about rewards for planar and faction notoriety is an entirely other topic, so I won’t go into detail about how I think they should be set up. On the contrary, I think the planar and faction rewards do a decent job of providing a range of fun and useful items not available anywhere else. But with over 1,000 artifacts out there to collect, it seems like the artifact rewards are fairly underwhelming.
If the artifacts are tangible enough to pick up and collect, why aren’t any of them usable magic items? There are plenty of books, armor pieces, scepters and trinkets already in place that could easily be turned into bind on equip or bind on pickup items. Based on various drop-rates, this could be augmented so that in order to reclaim the specific magical item, several fragments strewn around the zone would need to be collected.
Additionally, each zone could have one or two epic-quality, level appropriate artifact items or sets that would represent a detail from the zone’s storyline. Whether it be Eliam’s own sword in Freemarch or a Centaur Chief’s bow in the Droughtlands, it would provide another way to obtain above-average gear akin to each zone’s planar quartermaster.
But this is only the first part of the progression that needs to take place in order to keep artifact collecting a fun and fresh experience. With the third World Event taking place in Telara, an easy way to provide more incentive to collect artifacts would be to create new artifacts that are “dropped” by the factions involved with the invasions. We are seeing something akin to this with the various rare drops from rifts during these events, and I think these could be supplemented with artifacts located in the wake of invasions or around footholds.
These artifacts would likely be similar to the ones currently in game. Things like troll toenails and pieces of food can be easily found in various zones, and it would be fun to be able to collect the little things invaders left behind. Like the World Event quartermaster rewards, these would be exclusive for characters around during the invasion. A title reward for collecting the set from the event would be a great way to show you were out in the world, harassing the invasion forces.
Alternately, certain zone-wide invasion events could integrate artifacts. For example, during Jakob’s invasion in Freemarch, once the invasion boss has spawned, an artifact representing either an item used by said boss or something the boss has vulnerability to could spawn within a certain distance of the boss. The character that finds and picks up the item could then either gain a buff for fighting the boss and/or become the bosses target for “stealing” a possession of theirs. After the boss has been defeated, the item could be unequipped and added to a set, or be a set in and of itself.
Currently, the highest reward for artifact sets costs 100 tokens. While no small feat, those interested in serious collecting won’t stop there. As such, there should be increasingly awesome rewards. At certain milestones throughout the artifact set completion process (at every 25 sets or something) a new quest could become available, requesting the character to hunt down a specific artifact referenced in the storyline. It could be a short questline, one to hunt down clues about the person who owned it, it’s known location, etc.
Upon finding the artifact, it would be available as an armor or weapon piece of epic quality, with a level requirement comparable to when the average player would gain access to it. For example, the first quest available after completing 25 sets would be somewhere around level 16-23, with the last couple quests being level 50 expert- and raid-quality items.
The ultimate quest (available after completing the last artifact set) would be a challenging questline. Not as long or aggravating as The Saga of the Endless, but as a supremely skilled artifact hunter, this would be going after a truly rare and legendary item. Upon completion, a very powerful weapon would be available. For those who have played World of Warcraft, I’m talking Illidan’s Glaives powerful. This would be an extremely exclusive item based on the time commitment involved in getting it, and would be something anyone seeing your character would be jealous of.
Now, obviously these are just my own fanciful opinions on what direction artifact collecting should take and are all rough ideas at this point. However, their purpose is to show that there are so many wonderful things that can be done to build on the already-solid base for RIFT’s artifact system. RIFT does a better job than many other MMOGs to provide a variety of end-game pastimes other than raiding, but like any part of a game, in order for it to stay fun and a viable activity, it needs to evolve with the game.
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