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RIFT dimensions video asks, 'What will you create?' [Updated]
We don't know about you, but the folks here at Massively are downright salivating over the upcoming flexible housing system in RIFT: Storm Legion known as dimensions. With little over a month to go before the expansion, Trion Worlds is highlighting its answer to player housing with a visually stunning video. In the video, houses are made and destroyed in a matter of seconds, showing how many options are available to creative players who piece together elements to make something greater. In addition to houses, the video shows a longboat and tree fort being built, all with dynamic lighting and complete customization. Check it out after the break and let us know what you think! [Update: RIFT's Storm Legion Beta 2 will run from Friday, October 19 at 10 a.m. PDT through Wednesday, October 24 at 8 a.m. PDT]
Enter at Your Own Rift: Expansion anxiety
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting a big kick out of the little ad banner videos that RIFT is using to promote the Storm Legion expansion. The sight of a mini Scott and Russ flipping signs with promises to generic forum posts is a neat little marketing ploy. Even though I never click ad banners, and even though I'm getting the expansion, I still clicked on them just to see the video and the gameplay. It's like RIFT's version of Dumbledore smiling back through the Daily Prophet. There's a lot I'm looking forward to in Storm Legion, but at the same time, I'm apprehensive about the changes that tend to come with the launch of any expansion. The world of Telara is changing, and Crucia is only part of that. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift we'll look at some of the changes that MMO expansions normally bring and see how they might affect RIFT.
Trion details RIFT's 1.11 update, invites veterans back for free
RIFT's 1.1 patch is lurking just around the bend. It's a good thing, too, because the update known as Tempest Rising is the lead-in to the Storm Legion expansion, which is slated for the not-too-distant future (November 13th to be exact). There's no date on 1.11 yet other than "soon," but Trion has helpfully listed the key features on the official RIFT website. Chief among them are the Tempest Rising world event, early access to the Exodus of the Storm Queen dungeon (provided you pre-ordered Storm Legion), and an overhauled soul system and accompanying reset. Finally, former RIFT subscribers can return for free between November 7th and November 11th.
Quartermasters and where to find them
Okay, if you're running dungeons for justice or valor points, PvPing for honor or conquest, or grinding reputation with one of Pandaria's many factions, one of the questions that you may be asking is where do I go to buy stuff? If you are, then we have a list of vendors for you. First up, the Shado-Pan Quartermaster is Rushi the Fox, at the Shado-Pan Garrison in the Townlong Steppes. He sells a variety of items for justice and valor points. Commander Lo Ping is an all in one Justice Quartermaster selling every faction's justice point gear, at Niuzao Temple also in the Townlong Steppes. Commander Oxheart is a Valor Quartermaster who also sells tier gear for tier tokens at Niuzao Temple in the Townlong Steppes. She's standing right next to Commander Lo Ping, in fact. The Klaxxi Quartermaster is Ambersmith Zikk in Klaxxi'vess, right in the heart of the Dread Wastes. The Golden Lotus Quartermaster is Jaluu the Generous in front of Mogu'shan Palace in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The August Celestials have two vendors, one for Horde and one for Alliance. Sage Lotusbloom can be found in the Shrine of Two Moons selling to the Horde, while Sage Whiteheart is to be found in the Shrine of Seven Stars - both are in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. For PvP vendors, both Horde and Alliance can be found on the Serpent's Spine itself. For Alliance, Honor Quartermaster Hayden Christopher, Conquest Quartermastery Lucan Malory, and Glorious Conquest Quartermaster Ethan Natice are all to be found on the Serpent's Spine in the Valley of the Four Winds. The Horde Quartermasters Lok'Nor Bloodfist (Honor), Doris Chiltonius (Conquest) and Acon Deathwielder (Glorious Conquest) are on the wall between Townlong Steppes and Kun-Lai Summit. Also remember that during the patch 5.0.5 hotfixes, several reputations has their requirements for various Valor point purchases dropped. The Klaxxi now sell necklaces at honored, the August Celestials sell bracers, the Shado-Pan sell cloaks and the Golden Lotus sell rings, all of which are iLevel 489 epics. So check those vendors in case you may have missed an epic you can pick up. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Six things I learned about leveling via instant adventures
With a few weeks to blow before Storm Legion arrives to give us a wealth of new content to explore, I decided to roll up an alt in RIFT and see just how far I could get him in the meantime. The character is a mage, and the Harbinger soul looks wicked awesome, so I figured, why not? I wasn't that interested in going back through all of the quests and zones, however. I've done them, explored them, and made peace with them, and I knew that chugging back through all of those quests would drive me nuts (and take too long!). So instead, I figured I might as well try a new tactic: I resolved to just use instant adventures augmented by dungeon runs for the entirety of my leveling experience. It's a huge plus in RIFT's favor that this is an actual option, and I quite enjoy IAs anyway, so that choice felt right. Over the past week of doing this, I've learned a few interesting lessons about chugging through IAs as a character's sole source of XP, loot, and advancement. For anyone who might be following this path, I'd like to share those lessons.
RIFT's Storm Legion closed beta event starts Friday
You know all about RIFT's first expansion. What you may not know is that Storm Legion's first closed beta event starts this Friday, October 5th. The shindig lasts through the weekend and it's open to any and all Ascended who have pre-ordered the expansion. New zones like Pelladane, Cape Jule, and the city of Tempest Bay will be open for exploration, as will the game's new Dimension mechanics. And of course you can check out Storm Legion's four new souls as well. Finally, Trion is allowing current RIFT subscribers to copy their live characters to the beta server. More info is yours at the game's official site. [Source: Trion press release]
RIFT lets you go on the offensive with Hunt Rifts
The titular feature of RIFT is getting another tool for its belt: Hunt Rifts. This new type of dynamic event is coming in Storm Legion and allows players to go on the offensive instead of merely reacting to planar invasions. Hunt Rifts are challenging events in which players will be targeting planar commanders. According to Trion Worlds, these commanders are tough prey indeed; you'll need a hearty group and advanced tactics to take them down. Hunt Rifts will be found in the two new continents: Dusken and Brevane. The cool part about Hunt Rifts is that they allow players to work their way up the chain of command in the enemy's forces, earning special items and gradually unlocking super-tough Great Hunts. Great Hunts are impossible for players to accomplish without the help of Torvan Hunters and many friends.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Macro this!
You know that saying about never discussing religion or politics around the dinner table? I'd like to add one more to the list: RIFT macros. Some players love them, and some players hate them, to the point that the topic completely turns them off from the game. Each camp has some very valid arguments, and there doesn't seem to be too much of a middle ground on the subject. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I'd like to take a look at that polarizing issue and explain why I grew to love macros.
RIFT saves pandas with expansion
In what is most certainly a coincidence, Trion Worlds has announced a special promotion today to support pandas with the help of players who purchase a certain expansion. No, not that expansion. Starting tomorrow, every copy of RIFT: Storm Legion pre-ordered will prompt Trion to donate a buck to Pandas International. Pandas International is an organization devoted to saving the Giant Panda, who probably would not need saving if they were martial arts monks (just saying). The pre-order has to take place through the game's website, and it ends after October 3rd. If you're up for a laugh, make sure to read the small print on the official announcement. Maine is always the bane of any good panda party.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Fall colors... and more mead!
It wasn't that long ago that if you ever asked me what my favorite season was, I'd respond without hesitation, "Spring!" Being a Midwesterner means that spring is the rescue of winter doldrums and the march to summer. However, the past few years have swayed me to a different answer. I honestly feel that autumn has so much more to offer. Maybe it's that my favorite holiday, Halloween, lies smack-dab in the middle of it. Perhaps it's the fragrant smells and gorgeous sights of leaves turning. Definitely it has something to do with bonfires, hot apple cider, hayrides, and fleece jackets. So even while the last vestiges of 80-degree weather clings to my state, I'm already eager to dive head-first into a pile of leaves. Barring that, I'm more than content to revel in RIFT's newest festival, Autumn Harvest. Now with 100% more MEAD!
RIFT adds pumpkin patch lootables to mobile app
RIFT's recent 1.10 patch triggered the start of a brand-new festival for the game, the Autumn Harvest, and now Trion Worlds' mobile app is getting in on the fun. The team has added a Pumpkin Patch scratcher to its lootables section, giving users a chance to win festival loot for their in-game characters. The new lootable is available for a limited time only, presumably until the end of the game's festival. Lucky winners can nab currency for the event or a goodie bag containing special food. Lootables are free lottery-type scratchers that are granted once every hour on the mobile app, with a maximum of six kept in reserve at any one time.
One Shots: Go directly to jail
You have to love a culture that thinks jail should be a breathtaking experience for the prisoner... literally! Today's One Shots from reader Lovander (Tarnished Coast represent!) shows how Guild Wars 2's Sylvari race mixes glowing sparkles with deadly detention cells. Lovander wrote, I came upon this jail in the Sylvari capital, The Grove. Every cell is a Venus Fly Trap. Loved the design! Follow on for the color screenie plus a few more One Shots beyond the break.
RIFT reveals the second new soul for Storm Legion, the Tempest
Warriors in RIFT are usually all about hitting things with weapons. Sure, they drop in some variety, but the focus of the class has always been a strong set of swords or axes or whatever. And the newest soul revealed for the upcoming Storm Legion expansion continues the trend if you assume that "lightning" qualifies as a weapon. The Tempest has been unveiled and promises to bring strong electrical powers and massive thunderstorms ripped from the Plane of Air into the Warrior's hands. Tempests are versatile, able to attack from long range or channel lightning into a short-range destructive burst. They also possess illusory tricks to help evade defeat in the event that heavy armor isn't protection enough. Despite this, they're probably the least adept of all the Warrior souls at wielding non-lightning weapons, which means that another soul is necessary to provide hard-hitting weapon talents. Take a look at the introductory lore and early screenshots on the official reveal page, and keep your eyes peeled for the final two souls as the expansion nears release. [Thanks to Brad for the tip!]
Massively Interview: Making strengths of weaknesses in RIFT
RIFT players are currently enjoying the calm before the storm. No, literally -- the Calm Before the Storm patch just launched Wednesday, bringing with it broad changes to factional cooperation and competition and laying the foundation for November's upcoming Storm Legion expansion. Massively streamteam member Mike Foster sat down with Trion Producer Adam Gershowitz to bring us up to speed on the patch, the expansion, and what lies beyond for RIFT. Read on!
The Perfect Ten: Ways MMOs explain infinite resurrection
Why? Why do we die in MMOs and receive an infinite number of resurrections? Are we in a type of hell defined by endless combat and suffering, doomed to never escape the cycle? Is this a cruel experiment being performed by supreme alien beings from afar? Does that make us the living undead, immortal Highlanders, or something even more significant? If you're looking at me with that look you have in your eye right now, I'd like to remind you that asking these questions is more in line with the core of RPGs than just mashing the 1-2-3 buttons. The rules that make up and dictate our virtual lives should have both meaning and sense, yet so many of these games expect us to just blithely accept that we can come back from the dead over and over without nary an explanation. Well, I like explanations. Even if it's just polite nonsense, a thought-out reason as to why our characters are death-proof tells me that the devs treat their game with a higher degree of integrity than others. So here are 10 MMOs in which the endless cycle of death and resurrection gets at least a backhanded explanation instead of "shut up, just accept it."
RIFT's Calm Before the Storm update adds cross-faction capabilities, world event, and more
RIFT's first expansion is just around the bend, and today Trion has updated its fantasy MMORPG with a patch titled Calm Before the Storm. That's storm as in Storm Legion, the megahuge content drop coming your way on November 13th. Today's patch lays the groundwork with some smaller-scale updates including a new world event, a new instant adventure opportunity in Scarwood Reach, and cross-faction gameplay that allows you to join forces with your Defiant or Guardian brethren to tackle dungeons, raids, and PvP challenges. [Source: Trion press release]
Enter at Your Own Rift: The calm before the storm
You had me at "I've slept so long." Seriously, I rarely pay any attention to MMO trailers because they tend to be heavy on CGI, so what you see on the screen has nothing to do with what you'll actually see in the game. But with the Storm Legion trailer, a lot of it looks exactly like what we've seen in demos and gameplay videos that the RIFT team has shown at recent conventions. In other words, I can't wait for November to arrive. But before the storm comes the calm, and before the expansion comes one last game update. RIFT launched about a year and a half ago and is closing in on its 10th update, a nice round number leading into the first expansion. That's an aggressive schedule by any MMO standard, but it's particularly impressive when you dig into the patch notes and see exactly what's changed each time. With the imminent arrival of the last update before the first expansion, I made my way back over to the test server to get a glimpse of some of the changes. Some of them are coming any day now with update 1.10, while others hint at what's coming in the lead-up to the expansion.
Why I Play: RIFT
For those of you who desperately need to know why I play RIFT in one line, I'll make it easy for you: I play RIFT because I really used to like World of Warcraft. When World of Warcraft first launched, it was difficult to explain just how astonishing the game really felt. The innovations that it brought to the table have become so commonplace over the years that we forget how stunning they really were. And when I first logged in, I had visions of what the world could support, the things that could be done, and the ways that players would get to explore hidden vistas and small corners of the world. As it happened, World of Warcraft went along quite well for several years, but somewhere along the line the magic faded for me. I can point to exactly when, but that's not the goal because RIFT seems to catch a lot of those dropped promises and put them into the game. And it's a game of extremes, with summits and valleys aplenty, but there's enough to like that I don't mind the bad so much.
The Daily Grind: Which two MMOs would you like to see crossover?
I love crossovers. They're quite common in comics and in television while a little less so with movies (although crossovers happen even there). But what about MMOs? EVE Online and DUST 514 are going to share the same universe, while Pirate101 and Wizard101 take place in the Spiral with plenty of crossover possibility. That said, what if there were a true crossover between MMOs? What if characters, mobs, or events could spill over from one into another? Maybe the rifts from RIFT would suddenly start threatening Middle-earth or the gangstas from APB would decide to hijack a few starships in Star Trek Online? What if Marvel and DC would allow a limited-time interaction between their two MMOs in the future for some epic superhero throwdowns? Today, only your imagination is the limit. Which two MMOs would you like to see crossover? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Is the subscription justified?
I wonder whether the folks at Trion Worlds feel as if they're on an ever-shrinking island, holding fast to the subscription-only model while the world erodes into the sea of free-to-play. It's got to be an unsettling feeling, particularly as the competition continues to press in from all sides. Is clinging to RIFT's subscription worth it? When even Star Wars: The Old Republic flinched and buckled to F2P, what chance does RIFT have to stay its course? Is Trion hurting or helping this game by holding fast to the business model? It's a tricky question that's made trickier by the scarcity of facts. Trion's expressed strong confidence in the way it's steered RIFT so far, and I wonder whether that's a genuine confidence based on numbers that I don't see or a brave front for a duck that's paddling furiously under the calm pond surface. So is RIFT really so good that it justifies a monthly subscription, and if so, what makes it OK to stay above the F2P waters on that tiny island?
