For this edition of the Second Wind Roundtable, I thought it'd be a funny little prank to coerce a couple of my colleagues into playing Scarlet Blade with me. I was wrong. I was so, so very wrong. We lost some good men in there, but those of us who survived to talk about it gathered 'round for some group therapy over hard whiskey and mind-bleach.

Coincidentally, we also transcribed it so that you can learn from our mistakes. Be warned, many screenshots below the cut are explicit, though some have been tastefully censored for the sake of all things holy and sacred. No, really, we are not kidding: This post is not safe for work/children/anyone with a sense of common decency. That being said, you can join us after the cut.

I'm so, so sorry.

Trion Worlds' RIFT is still a relative newcomer to the MMO space, released a mere two years ago in March 2011, but in that time it's made quite a name for itself as one of the premier AAA titles on the market today. Since the game's release, Trion has built a reputation for putting out frequent, quality updates, and in the time since launch, RIFT has continued to grow with the addition of new features and content.

Last November, Trion released Storm Legion, the game's first expansion pack, which bumped the level cap up to 60, tripled the size of the in-game world, and brought player housing to the masses in the form of dimensions. For my part, I used to be an avid RIFT player, but despite the game's unique soul system, there just wasn't enough to differentiate itself from the myriad other similar MMOs on the market, and I never managed to make it to max-level before I let my subscription lapse out of boredom. So for this edition of Second Wind, I picked myself up a copy of Storm Legion and jumped back into the world of Telara once again to see just how far it has come.