I’m not sure what it is about desert maps in MMO’s but i absolutely adore them.  Maybe it’s my absolute love of the film Lawrence of Arabia, but i always enjoy a good sand desert over a lush jungle.  In fact, i absolutely hate jungle maps with a passion.  They tend to be so over-saturated and packed with trees and brush that you can never get a sense of grandeur.  That’s never the case with deserts.  They’re built to be vast, grandiose, and epic in scale.  Rift’s new zones don’t disappoint in this regard, well not the desert ones anyways.