RIFT - starting faction

The next beta event for RIFT kicks off tomorrow and I’m in looking forward to it, but at the same time I’m hesitant about playing too much. Just a case of not wanting to overplay it during beta really, when obviously I’ll be repeating the content once the game launches. Well, probably anyway. My choice of starting faction is not so set in stone right now, as we’re very wary of ending up on the overpopulated faction.

From the betas and forum polls it looks like that will be Defiant, which is a shame because that was the faction I liked the visuals for, but I think you need to be pragmatic about these things and choose what will provide the best long term gameplay experience. If like us you’ve got a heavy interest in PvP, then obviously it makes sense to pick the side that is the underdog so you get the quickest warfront (scenario) pops and have more opportunities for sneaky git open world PvP entertainment. It must be nice for the pure PvE types who don't have to worry about any of this, because it really is quite an important choice, unless re-rolling is something you have the time and inclination to do. We have considered doing that if required, but it's a pain in the arse so a bit of a last resort really.

So as much as I like the look of the Defiant stuff, I’ll glady going with Guardians if that continues to look the better option. Though I must say the Guardian starter areas do look great, their city of Sanctum is rather posh and they have very cool looking mounts at level 20 (not as good as the Defiant level 40 mounts mind you…). Hmmm, not really a hardship, yet for some (strange I know) reason I struggle with how the dwarves have stupidly large hands. It's distracting and kinda disturbing in a screwed up way.

Anyway, whatever we go with, I just want to get started now.