PAX Prime 2012: RIFT's Storm Legion approaches
The Storm Legion is coming. Even now, those touched by Crucia are preparing to unleash her will. But RIFT's Storm Legion expansion is bringing more than just dragon minion foes. A new soul for each calling, player housing instances, new continents, new dungeons, and new raids are all part of the bundle. We caught up with the Trion team at PAX to catch a glimpse of what the oncoming storm will bring.%Gallery-161264%
Storm Legion's dimensions are bringing crazy customizability to player housing. Scattered around as individual instances throughout the world, dimensions can be unlocked and collected by players. Players can also collect items with which to decorate and personalize their dimensions: rocks, lamps, telescopes, baubles, you name it. These items can be placed at will -- want to sink a lamp into solid rock so only the very tip of the light is showing? Fine. Want to place it completely unsupported in mid-air? Also fine. Additionally, items can be resized. You could have a giant friggin' beehive with giant friggin' bees, or you could shrink that hive way down. There are some smaller quality-of-life features, like the way that stones and other natural objects that are placed together will be texture-matched. You can jam two rocks together to form a long wall without asking yourself, "But will it blend?"
Freedom of placement and sizing puts a lot of creative power in players' hands. You can do everything from making a very straight-forward collection of trophies to making a tree-house to making a jumping puzzle. Clever players will be able to find all sorts of uses for put the dimensions' flexibility to good use.
The Trion Worlds team seems to have taken the word "expansion" to heart -- everything about Storm Legion seems to echo the idea that bigger is better. Where the game started off with a single continent, the expansion will roughly triple the available space by adding two new continents for players to explore. That's a lot more space. The team is trying to make full advantage of the sense of exploration so much space tends to instill -- for example, players can leap from some unfinished masonry into a lake, which leads them into a new area.
Expansion isn't just for maps! Storm Legion will bring the level cap up to 60, giving players all new levels to experience the joy of leaving behind. The roster of souls is growing by four, as well. We got a look at the Harbinger soul, a melee-type Mage archetype. The Harbinger blinks quickly in and out of combat, using location to press the advantage. With more use for melee weapons like the scythe, sword, and axe, the physical Mage soul is incredibly versatile.
All the new areas that Storm Legion is introducing bring about the opportunity for a whole new range of visuals. A particularly stunning example is the location of an encounter that will lead players to beard the dragon Regulos in his den. The territory surrounding Regulos has been transformed and resembles the inside of some gigantic creature. After walking down what feels like miles of a malformed larynx, players are spat out into a valley of crystal and jagged stone, which leads them to an impossible chasm they'll have to cross by means of narrow bridges of the same living flesh material as they saw before.
Storm Legion is due out sometime this fall.
Massively's on the ground in Seattle during the weekend of August 31st - September 2nd, bringing you all the best news from PAX Prime 2012. Whether you're dying to know more about WildStar, PlanetSide 2, RIFT: Storm Legion, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!
