History VideoGame / Rift

* EverythingTryingToKillYou: As far as Greenscale's concerned, this is the ''only'' acceptable kind of world.
** For that matter, take care going AFK unless you're in a place like the depths of Meridian, the middle of a lake, or a mountaintop. Many a player has come back to the keyboard to find a surprise skeleton/golem/fairy/troll doing a victory dance on their graves - in the middle of a now-conquered town.
*** As a matter of fact the lakes aren't safe either, on the account of things [[SeaMonster lurking]] in them too.

* {{Altitis}}: First-time players may suffer from this. There are five "Callings" (which follow the usual RPG "Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric" thing, plus the fifth Primalist), which are to souls (classes) as [[SuperTrope Super Tropes]] are to tropes. Each Calling has 8 distinct souls by default (with up to 3 additional souls purchasable using credits), and you (eventually) get to pick three of them to use in combination. So, you're probably going to be doing a fair bit of tinkering to see not only which Calling is right for you, but which combination of souls is best for you. {{Downplayed|Trope}} in that creating a single character gives you access to exactly 20% of all possible character configurations for a token fee. If you want to see and try everything, you only need five different characters, which is more than most {{MMORPG}}s can say.

* BadassBaritone: The Faceless Man.

* CollectionSidequest: Artifacts. They spawn out in the world in areas ranging from the obvious to the devious and are compiled into sets for each zone of the world. The rewards are not just for completionists/achievement hunters but can also reward you with [[CoolPet companion pets]] or lore.

* BalefulPolymorph: Aside from the Dominator's Transmogrify spell, there's a quest in Silverwood. You know those Unusual Deer and Unusual Squirrels Critters you've been killing for the fun of it? [[spoiler:They're townfolk from Argent Glade a faerie polymorphed.]] This is also done to citizens of Dolcega Valley who refuse to comply by the Storm Legion's HappinessIsMandatory rule.

* HappinessIsMandatory: The Storm Legion forced this on the citizens of Dolcega Valley after they surrendered. Thought Officers now patrol the streets, ensuring that any dissenters are "taken off the streets" by [[BalefulPolymorph transforming them into farm animals]].

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Rift_7754.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Choose your side. Fight the invasions.]]

* EldritchAbomination: Every arch-dragon, but also most anything from the Plane of Water. So you can imagine what Akylios--the Water Dragon--[[UpToEleven is like]]. We don't even fight his true form, just his dragon form, which doesn't even compare to his true form.
** The ''"doesn't compare to his true form"'' does '''not''' refer to eldritch features but rather numbers: His true form is a herd of Akvan sharks ''[[UpToEleven identical]]'' [[FromBadToWorse to his/their "dragon" form.]]

** There's a [[{{Pun}} healer]] in Iron Pine Peak called [[Music/TheCure Roburt Smyth]].

* FiveRaces: Played with. There are technically only four playable races; however, the Guardians and the Defiant each have their own distinct human and elven nationalities. Furthermore, nearly every race and subrace overlaps categories, and none are particularly Cute.

%%* OurElvesAreBetter: Or so they'd have you believe.

* GodIsInept: This trope is why the Defiant are a group of {{Naytheist}} [[MadScientist mad scientists]]. As they looked at the Ward, the Gods attempt to protect Telara from the Blood Storm, and thought, "Really? This is your master plan, just slap a band-aid on the thing and call it good?" Seeing as how it took a single madman with {{Magitek}} all of two seconds to break it to bits it's hard to blame them.

* {{Altitis}}: First-time players may suffer from this. There are five "Callings" (which follow the usual RPG "Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric" thing, plus the fifth Primalist), which are to souls (classes) as [[SuperTrope Super Tropes]] are to tropes. Each Calling has 8 distinct souls by default (with up to 3 additional souls purchasable using credits), and you (eventually) get to pick three of them to use in combination. So, you're probably going to be doing a fair bit of tinkering to see not only which Calling is right for you, but which combination of souls is best for you.
** Somewhat {{Subverted}} in that creating a single character gives you access to exactly 20% of all possible character configurations for a token fee. If you want to see and try everything, you only need five different characters, which is more than most {{MMORPG}}s can say.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Ethian humans.

--> '''[Player]''': You're insane! And a spy! And you have the wrong hat on!

* BadFuture: Terminus, the Defiant starting zone. Players are sent back to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.

* BalefulPolymorph: Aside from the Dominator's Transmogrify spell, there's a quest in Silverwood. You know those Unusual Deer and Unusual Squirrels Critters you've been killing for the fun of it? [[spoiler:They're townfolk from Argent Glade a faerie polymorphed.]]
** This is also done to citizens of Dolcega Valley who refuse to comply by the Storm Legion's HappinessIsMandatory rule.
* TheBeastmaster: The Rangers and...{ahem}...[[ShapedLikeItself Beastmasters]].

* CastFromHitPoints: Archons have an oblique way of doing this, in that they translate their ''stats'' to their allies. They make up for the obvious weakening by ''also'' being able to steal their ''enemies''' stats.

* CombatPragmatist: The Defiant play this to the hilt. In the Guardian starting area, for example, you learn that they blew up the bridge to Silverwood because they couldn't hold it through force of arms. To the Guardians, this is a horrifying breach of the code of honor. For the Defiant it's [[ButForMeItWasTuesday Tuesday]].

* DarkIsNotEvil: Many classes utilize the Plane of Death, and they aren't any better or worse than anyone else. They're certainly creepier, though.

** As of the 2.1 patch for Storm Legion [[spoiler: Crucia the Storm Dragon and even Regulos himself (in his true form as the God of Death, unlike the other Blood Storm) have been defeated.]] That's the good news. The bad news is that [[spoiler: Crucia's spirit has managed to find a hiding place, so she's still out there, and Regulos, while dead, claims that his presence was holding back something worse.]] [[OhCrap Oh crap...]]
** Considering that the next expansion takes place in [[spoiler:the Plane of Water it's possible that Regulos is holding back the true form of [[EldritchAbomination Akylios]].]]
** It's revealed by [[spoiler:the servants of the Goddess of Fate that the something worse (Akvan) that the Gods of the Elemental Planes are holding back threatens the Elemental Planes and fortunately ''not'' Telara, which they are willing to sacrifice to protect said Planes.]]
*** [[spoiler:Her followers also reveal that if the Ascended (players) allied with Crucia (the one who arranged Regulos's death rather than merely sealing him away) she and the Ascended could have come up with a plan to stop the Akvan... They do ally with her yet she pulls an YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness on them in order to control said Akvan, so they change the portal so that it leads directly to the Akvan that she's trying to control resulting in [[EvilIsNotAToy her being controlled by said greater horrors]]. All the NiceJobBreakingItHero problems can be traced to Crucia holding the VillainBall.]]

* TheFairFolk: D'aaaw, look at those cute faeries, aren't they swee- [[BlackEyesOfEvil HOLY]] [[ImAHumanitarian SHI--!]]
** Thankfully, the faerie aren't ''all'' like that. The Druids' hat is that they've allied themselves with those faeries and satyrs [[LaResistance utterly opposed to Greenscale]].

* {{Greed}}: ''The'' schtick of the Golden Maw and their patron, Laethys the Earth Dragon. GoldFever doesn't even ''begin'' to describe these people.
** And then there's the Bloodstorm in general who devour entire planets for Sourcestone which is apparently crack for dragons. And Telara is apparently made out of it, so basically the Bloodstorm sees Telara as the mother of all drug fixes and explains why they don't just find some other planet that doesn't have native life that wants to kill them.

--> '''Dolcega Citizen''': I am so happy. Really.

* LightIsNotGood: You'd ''think'' Life is all sweetness and kindness. Then you see the [[NatureIsNotNice relentless predation]] that Greenscale, the Life Dragon, champions...

* MagicKnight: Riftblades and Void Knights.
** Nightblades also qualify. Ditto for any of the Cleric's melee souls.
** And don't forget Harbinger, the newly released Mage soul in Storm Legion.

* MakingASplash: Wardens, and Cabalists to a lesser degree.
** And then, we have Akylios. [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Hoo]] [[EldritchAbomination boy]].

* [[MostDefinitelyNotAVillain Most Definitely Not A Deep One]]: [[spoiler:The inhabitants of Lakeshore in Freemarch.]]

* OrderVersusChaos: Telara versus the planar invaders.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: They're {{eldritch abomination}}s for one thing...
* OurElvesAreBetter: Or so they'd have you believe.

* RashomonStyle: The two different start zones rather hint at this.
* ResurrectedForAJob: the Ascended.

* SummonBiggerFish: Not only can rifts of different elements form naturally within a short distance of each other, they can be triggered by players...which leads to some extreme tactics.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: ''Both'' mortal sides. Some of the members of the Blood Storm, like Greenscale and Crucia, are arguably this (or at least have a sliver of this).

* WorldOfSilence: This is [[BlowYouAway Crucia's]] ultimate goal.
* YinYangBomb: The Inquisitor soul's ''modus operandi''.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: "A sailor might see a shark feed, and say he has seen hunger, or through a shark’s black eyes he might understand hunger and go mad. This is the difference between the true nature of the Blood Storm, and the dragon forms they take upon Telara."
** We get to see the true nature of Regulos as the God of Death and he seems more comprehensible than [[EldritchLocation his own realm]] (he's a LiteralSplitPersonality consisting of Regulos the Dragon of Death and Aedraxis Mathos, who later preform a FusionDance making it possible [[spoiler:to kill the God of Death DeaderThanDead]], though if one knew of this fact before Aedraxis Mathos was born they would be DrivenToMadness at the realization that Regulos is unkillable until Aedraxis Mathos is born), which isn't surprising for a [[GrimReaper God of Death]]. [[spoiler:We end up killing him.]]

* InterfaceScrew: When your health gets low, your vision gets desaturated and sounds become more muted. Whether this is a good way to draw a player's attention back to their own HP bar, or [[CriticalAnnoyance an extra annoyance in an already stressful situation]], is your choice.

Not to be confused with the tabletop game ''{{TabletopGame/Rifts}}.''

[[https://www.trionworlds.com/rift/en/ Rift]] is an MMORPG from Trion Worlds which purports to be a truly dynamic gaming arena, as opposed to other such games where everything is always the same. This is made possible by, you guessed it, the eponymous [[HellGate rifts]] cropping up randomly and spewing out hordes of monsters, while simultaneously altering the very landscape [[PowerFloats and]] [[PowerGlows just]] [[PowerEchoes generally]] [[FloatingWater looking]] [[ArtMajorPhysics badass.]] The players can either shut the things or use their powers for themselves; it's really a matter of preference, although the [[KnightTemplar Guardians]] would prefer the former and the [[MadScientist Defiant]] might encourage the latter. But whatever your decision, one thing's for sure; if you don't move fast, you just might lose your opportunity!

It became Free-to-play on June 12, 2013.

** The wardrobe system tunes this up or down as you wish on actual playable characters (essentially, you can put gear in a "display" slot for the graphics instead of the actual equipped slot, while getting the stats of another equipped item) and PvP-focused players decking out their caster to look like a heavy tank and vice-versa is as common as if not more common than putting your elf in a speedo and fuzzy boots for aesthetic purposes.

* GenreSavvy: Colonel Dragas, the Storm Legion's commander in Brevane, seems remarkably well-versed in metagaming....
** "Expect that the Ascended are going to be there. They will be tipped off by some sensor reading, or a vision from the gods, or some fishermen will ask them to go get minnow traps because he's too busy standing on the dock!"

* InfantImmortality: Averted by calling WhatMeasureIsANonHuman on juvenile trogs in Stonefield. Granted, they aren't fully sapient; but they're clever enough to [[YouBastard run away from melee classes that try to kill them after you take one of their group out.]]

* OmnicidalManiac: Regulos, the Death Dragon. Apparently, he's ''offended'' by living existence in much the same way [[TransformersGeneration1 Unicron]] is, although his hunger doesn't ''quite'' match (he doesn't seem interested in eating his own minions unless [[YouHaveFailedMe they mess up]], for one).

** One of the quests you can give a minion is called "[[ThePrincessBride What is my way, Vizzini]]?"

** Somewhat {{Subverted}} in that creating a single character gives you access to exactly 25% of all possible character configurations for a token fee. If you want to see and try everything, you only need four different characters, which is more than most {{MMORPG}}s can say.

* {{Altitis}}: First-time players may suffer from this. There are four "Callings" (which follow the usual RPG "Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric" thing), which are to classes as Super Tropes are to tropes. Each Calling has 8 distinct classes, and you (eventually) get to pick three of them to use in combination. So, you're probably going to be doing a fair bit of tinkering to see not only which Calling is right for you, but which combination of classes is best for you.

** One of the NPCs in Perspice is named Dehni Elphman, this is most likely a reference to Music/DannyElfman.