Okay, well, I’m Kenna. If I see you, I’ll wave or something :).
I’ve been playing, but don’t have a lot of free time to sink into it right now…
Really enjoying it so far though! Maybe this weekend I’ll try to put some real time into getting one of my characters up into the 20s or so.
For those of you playing, how’s the solo gaming? I generally like to play by myself or with a small group of friends. I don’t like planned raids where you have to wait around while people get their shit together. Can you solo in the game or does it require a party after a certain point?
-XT
I’ve done both solo and 1-other-person playing. I can’t speak for the end-game yet, but the non-end game doesn’t seem to require another person. About the only thing you’d need a group for would be some of the instances, and those can be easily avoided. But with the mechanic of the rifts, you get some of the fun of a big raid group without actually having to plan a damn thing–a major perk, in my opinion. While you get put into a group, it’s a group of whoever happens to be there at the time. No planning required.
I’m only up to level 20, but so far as I’m aware it’s styled after WoW, where you can solo straight up to 50, but after that is dungeons and raids, with optional dungeons sprinkled throughout the mid-levels. There are some group quests outside the dungeons, but they’re explicitly stated (and unlike WoW, where a determined player can solo a 2- or 3-person quest, group quests will kill you).
Most rifts can’t actually be soloed, and based on what I’ve seen it’s rare that you’d be soloing them anyway. They’re marked on the map and usually get at least 2 people, often more, heading to their location. If at least one person is in a “public” group (and solo players are considered a group of 1), then the others can opt to join that public group and come together in an ad hoc party to take out the rift. There’s no obligation, and most people join and quit public groups without saying a word to anyone else, and you can even ignore the public group entirely and still get rift-specific rewards, you just won’t get XP for enemies other players tag.
As far as leveling goes soloing is fairly easy. Be advised though that there is an incredible amount of freedom as to how you build your character, it is not hard to make a weak character that will struggle. Respeccing is trivial though so any mistakes are easily corrected, but if you are having a hard time look to your build first.
I have to admit, it SOUNDS really good.
-XT
Solo play depends greatly on the souls you use (that is, your “spec”). If you choose poorly, you may have a hard time surviving. But as long as you don’t build a healing-only or an extra-fragile glass cannon character, you’ll be fine. I’m up to the mid-30s (out of 50 levels) and haven’t grouped at all, except for public quests.
That said, some builds will be easier to solo with than others. My recommendations for a solo-friendly build are1) Choose one pet soul. The pet helps split aggro and damage.
2) Choose one “defense” soul, either tank or healing. That lets you survive better.
3) Choose one “dps” soul. Get a couple good attack powers.
I’d put at least 10-15 points (out of 66 at max level) into each soul so you get the basic powers of each soul. And I’d not put more than about 30-35 points into a single soul. When soloing, you need more diversity than a single soul can provide.
The great thing about the soul system is you can have multiple specs and switch among them on the fly. So while with your friends, use your specialized dps/tank/healer build, and then switch back to the solo build when you’re not.
Also, while leveling, do not ignore the Rifts. You get good xp out of them and some good gear. If possible, log out in an “inn” that gives a rested bonus. When rested, you earn x2 xp on kills. Doing Rifts and being always rested means I’m generally well above the level curve of a zone, which makes soloing even easier.
My current build is something like 15 points Paladin (tank), 20 points Beastmaster (pet/dps), 10 points Warlord (tank/support). I have little trouble soloing a single elite of my own level; sometimes I have to burn my instant-heal power on a 10-minute cooldown. I can clear most minor Rifts by myself and do most group quests solo. What I don’t do is kill things fast. 
Word. My level 20 Cleric is 20 Justicar/6 Shaman/0 Sentinel. Solid, with a lot of healing (that’s how the Justicar tanks, plenty of self-healing), and just enough extra DPS abilities to speed things up. He’s slow and ponderous but can generally survive by himself. I haven’t decided on his second role; right now it’s primarily Shaman but I should probably have a more dedicated healing role.
Are there different races, or is everyone pretty much one race? Has anyone tried the PvP?
-XT
Both sides have three races, two genders each race. Besides cosmetic looks and lore differences, the only difference is a special movement power each race has. There are no separate starting areas.
I haven’t done any PvP yet. I do know its possible to level doing only warfronts (PvP instances).
There is three different races per side, but the differences are very minor apart from the looks. One side is humans, elves and dwarves and the other is darker humans, avatar elves and big guys. The pvp as you can imagine from a game with so much class variety is fairly unbalanced, but fun non the less and all four base classes can compete. Trion is also good at spotting their mistakes and acting quickly to fix them, for example their fix to gold sellers hacking accounts was better than anything WoW came up with in six years.
I’m Acus. I’m Central time, so I’m normally logging off by 9:30-10 pm Central time (8 PT).
As for solo/specs/etc, I have a pretty pure DPS build (44 Paragon–dual wield warrior, remaining points in Riftblade/Champion) and had no problem soloing my way through to 50.
A friend ended up speccing out of beastmaster because the pet ended up being more of a problem than a help–it kept proximity-pulling additional mobs. And that is one thing that is a little different with Rift–mob density is, well, rather extreme at times.
Rifts can easily be soloed if you keep in mind that they can be “closed” at the first timed stage by letting time run out before you kill the sub-boss. You don’t get the “extra” rewards of the bonus stages, but if you can’t beat that final elite at the end, I’d rather just close it anyway. Pissed me off to no end during the world event death rifts when someone would burn through that stage and get us stuck in ether a two-people vs the graniteborn champion with no healer or two people vs the 30-soul countdown, particularly since just letting the timer run out on stage 3 would have counted for the daily.
That’s the build I use on my Warrior. Ridiculously fun.