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RIFT announces Christopher Junior as game director
The release of RIFT's latest expansion has led to a minor changing of the guard over at Trion Worlds. It's still the same guard, though, just in different positions. A shuffling of the guard, if you will. The game's new executive producer Bill Fisher announced in a letter to the community that Christopher "Archonix" Junior is getting brought up to the director position following the release of Nightmare Tide. Junior, by his own words, has been working with RIFT focusing chiefly on the systems end of design. The game's holiday event is scheduled to live next week, followed by the first major patch since the launch of the expansion. The patch, tentatively titled Storm at Sea, will include a new open-world area, extensions to the existing raiding area, and updates to the Minion systems that were introduced with the expansion. Check out the full letter to the community for another few details and a bit more introduction to the game's new director.
RIFT performs extensive rollback following hardware outage
Denizens of one of RIFT's more populated servers are experiencing the raw end of a 23-hour rollback following hardware issues. Trion Worlds Executive Producer Bill Fisher announced that a hardware outage hit three servers early this morning, with one of them -- Faeblight -- lacking a recent data save point and requiring a one-day rollback. "This is a significant loss for players on this shard and we fully understand that," Fisher said. "We are currently in the process of identifying and refunding RIFT Store purchases for users from Faeblight, as well as tracking down any Instant Sixty potions that were granted on this shard. This process may take several hours but we will ensure that any credits spent during this time are returned." Fisher said that the studio is giving bonuses to the affected servers and is contemplating more compensation. Trion also implemented a hotfix that is giving a false error to players, stating that the update requires a full re-download. The actual patch is much smaller than that.
Trion's games DDoSed again
E-thugs are at it again: Trion's MMO services are once again under attack. Last night, the official RIFT twitter account announced, "Ascended, our servers are experiencing a DDoS at the moment. We're working to restore network stability as quickly as possible." On the official forums, RIFT Executive Producer Bill "Daglar" Fisher confirmed that ongoing RIFT lag problems are compounded by the attacks: "Adding on top of the oddities that people are reporting, we've also been under DDOS attacks and our network team has been working to minimize the impacts of these." Overnight, even the first few pages (five, as of the time of this writing) of the RIFT general forums were flooded with spam from attackers. Several low-traffic forums on the ArcheAge boards have also been spammed early this morning. [With thanks to Omedon for the tip and apologies to Daglar for the temporary demotion!]
RIFT offering multiple paths to the same endgame gear
Should all MMO playstyles offer a path to the same awesome gear? Trion Worlds seems to think so, as it's preparing a new unified currency for RIFT: Nightmare Tide that will allow raiders, PvPers, and PvE dungeon divers a way to buy great weapons and armor. Kitty Kitty Boom Boom was ecstatic to hear of this change from a recent RIFT Livestream: "According the Bill Fisher (Daglar), the reason is that the vast majority of RIFT players dabble in different things. The subtext (in my opinion) is that not enough people are getting to raiding. They'd rather do a little of this and that -– in other words, have fun. Going forward, whatever activity you choose will contribute to a background feeling of progress. This helps the raiding agenda while also helping casuals have a progression track." Other adjustments coming with the expansion is a power cap system and a transformation of the tanking toughness stat into the DPS hit stat.
PAX Prime 2014: Unpredictable water flows through RIFT: Nightmare Tide
When RIFT's Nightmare Tide releases on October 8th, Trion Worlds expects that it will make more than a few MMO gamers rediscover why this is not a game to be discounted. Not only will the full expansion be completely free, but it will allow the Ascended heroes to finally take the fight to the Plane of Water. It's there that a being known as Draum has had his dreams disturbed, water has decided to eschew the laws of physics, and the bloodfire army is attempting an invasion of its own. The team believes that RIFT has two types of players: ones who want to enjoy the story and ones who just want to level already. Nightmare Tide is built with both in mind, allowing people to delve into the story as much or as little as desired. However, Trion's Bill Fisher told me at this year's PAX Prime that the story is so good this time around that he's had a hard time doing the MMO gamer thing of ignoring the quest text. At one point, players will encounter the birthing of a clutch of Skelf eggs. Skelf are humanoid sea creatures (some are like sharks while others share similarities to angler fish) who tend to kill the weakest member of a clutch. However, player intervention will save a poor Skelf baby who will then follow that player around and become a key part of the expansion tale.
RIFT producer's letter reveals Nightmare Tide expansion
RIFT's latest expansion is called Nightmare Tide, and Trion producer Bill Fisher says that it will release before the end of the year. The new content will take players into the Plane of Water and will feature new open-world zones, new story quest lines, a new rift type, an increased level cap, and more. Fisher also mentions RIFT's ongoing Summerfest as well as the new Blighted Antechamber Warfront. Finally, there's a blurb about auction house changes coming in the pre-expansion 2.8 update. Click through the links below to read all about it!
Trion hints at 3.0 in RIFT state of the game letter
RIFT game director Bill "Daglar" Fisher has released a new state-of-the-game post that you'll find front-and-center on the fantasy title's website. The letter contains some very general insights into Trion's development methodology ("keep listening, keep adjusting, keep delivering") as well as a bit of a tease for the game's 3.0 update. RIFT players may in fact be getting some new goodies before the game's next expansion. "Why wait for an expansion pack to release a new crafting profession," Daglar asks. "Why wait to introduce new souls for each of the callings? Why wait to start introducing the story of 3.0?" There are no concrete details as of now, but Fisher says to expect more "as time goes on."
Stock up on your trophies with RIFT's upcoming store section
If you've ever wanted the share the spoils of your RIFT achievements with your alts, you'll soon have the chance. Creative Director Bill "Daglar" Fisher took to the forums to announce a new trophy section coming to the store that will allow players to buy another copy of the rewards they've already earned from completing achievements. These copies will be bound to the account, however, so they can only be transferred to alts, not to poor achievement-less friends. In the future, Fisher said that the team will be experimenting with adding more exclusive items to this section. Players can expect to see trophies appear in store on the PTS in the upcoming weeks.
RIFT adds warfront modes on a daddy's day off
While most fathers were enjoying brand-new ties and meals out on the town this past Sunday, RIFT Lead Game Designer Bill Fisher decided that he'd be a papa to the PvP game community and take care of their needs. Fisher went into the office on his day off, asked players what they wanted added, and whipped up two new game modes for warfronts. The Black Garden warfront got a domination mode added, which allows players to wrest for the control of two key points. Also sporting a new domination mode is the Karthan Ridge warfront, although this one is a little more complex. Players in Karthan Ridge have to fight over five control points; the control points on the enemy's side of the map award more score points than do those on the on the home team side. The hotfix also reinstated the second dimension option to players which had been disabled after the 2.3 patch.
RIFT removes currency-boosting effects for raids
Trion Worlds Lead Game Designer Bill Fisher has announced that RIFT won't be allowing raiders to use item store tokens to boost ultra-rare currency gains. In a forum thread titled RIFT is officially pay-to-win, Fisher addressed the concern over the upcoming item shop's impact in the raiding game. The specific beef was with item store tokens that offered a substantial boost to all currency gained in the game over a period of time. Trion has since nerfed the token's potency (from 100% currency bonus to 80%) as well as removed the ability to gain extra Frozen Eclipse Stones from it. Fisher explained that he decided to remove the token effect because he felt it was crossing the line of what is and is not acceptable from a cash shop. "I don't want you to have the perception that to take part in that section of the game you are going to be forced into buying something," Fisher wrote. "RIFT doesn't win the race by trying to be exploitative of any given group -- yes, it has to make money to continue getting updates, and I know everyone out there understands that."
RIFT goes free-to-play, promises 'no tricks, no traps'
Trion Worlds has just announced that fantasy MMO RIFT will be headed free-to-play on June 12th. Though former studio reps were once adamant that the game would remain a subscription MMO, the team has apparently decided it can better compete in a F2P world by being F2P. The hybrid model will include an optional sub with fully free content like dungeons and questing; consumables, cosmetics, and even gear will make up the cash shop. We asked Creative Director Bill Fisher to explain the whys and wherefores of this decision. Check out our interview after the jump! [Updated: The official site has also posted a handy chart to show you what you're getting at different tiers.]
Enter at Your Own Rift: Goodbye Scott, hello 2.2
If I was to make a list of the top, oh, five or 10 MMO developers whom I admire, Scott Hartsman would be on there. It's not just that I appreciate that he's one of the few human beings who is shorter than I am, but that he's had a remarkable career full of accomplishments that I respect. EverQuest II and RIFT both owe a great debt to the leadership of Hartsman, which is why it was a sad shock to hear that he was leaving Trion Worlds for unknown pastures. And thus we begin a new year of RIFT, teetering between uncertainty and promise. For as severe as Hartsman's departure will be felt in the development of the game and in its community, we're also looking ahead to the title's third year of operation and a new update that looks to add even more delectable treats on top of this fantasy buffet. So today we're going to say goodbye to Scott and hello to Update 2.2 as we look at the recent state of the game post.
RIFT's newest State of the Game teases updates 2.2 and 2.3
As promised in last night's first part of RIFT's State of the Game, tonight's part two is coming to us from Lead Game Designer Bill "Daglar" Fisher. In it, we hear brief word of game updates 2.2 and 2.3, which will bring the Carnival of the Ascended and Dendrome content, respectively. While 2.3 will remain a mystery for now, Daglar teases new carnival games, new zone events, the expansion of the Planar Attunement system, a few PvP updates, and more with the 2.2 update. Although this State of the Game is short, it introduces Daglar to the players in this new role and lays the groundwork for what's to come.
Scott Hartsman leaving Trion Worlds
According to a recent post on the RIFT forum, Executive Producer Scott Hartsman has announced his resignation from Trion Worlds. "It's been an amazing time," Hartsman writes, "Working with some of the best developers anywhere, getting the company's first game off the ground, taking it all the way through a multitude of amazing updates, then to Storm Legion, and even a little bit beyond." Lead Game Designer Bill "Daglar" Fisher will be continuing with the State of the Game update starting tomorrow, but no word yet if he'll be taking over the Executive Producer role. [Thanks to Kirk for the tip!]
