QUESTS
* Morban: Added additional map markers for the quest Blast Away to help pinpoint the location of the cannons.

ZONES
* Morban: Reduced Draelock’s damage across most of his abilities.
* Steppes of Infinity: For the instant adventure Capture Commanders, Antapo Commanders will now despawn two minutes after being captured. Additionally, if a Commander gets stuck in the terrain, it will despawn if the player moves far enough away.
* Steppes of Infinity: Fixed an issue during The Craft of Conflict zone event that could result in players not receiving credit if their characters die fighting the Nug Battler Nug .

CALLINGS
* Shaman: Vicious Streak now increases the critical chance of all abilities.
* Inquisitor: Radical Coalescence is now removed if the Inquisitor dies.
* Sentinel: Damage from Wrathful Exuberance is now reduced in PVP.
* Sentinel: Damage procs from Wrathful Exuberance now have a 35 meter range.
* Harbinger: Lucent Slash no longer requires a target in order to use.
* Harbinger: Phantom Blades no longer requires you to be facing your target in order to cast.

ADDONS
* Fixed a problem with Dimension “add” and “remove” events for addons not always working properly.

During last Friday’s official RIFT live stream, we found out a little more about the Loyalty system that will be a major part of the new free-to-play system beginning June 12th. Yesterday Bill “Daglar” Fisher continued delving into the explanations of the system in a new developer blog. The Loyalty system will be replacing our current Veteran Rewards program, and instead of being able to purchase goodies after having been a subscriber for so long, we’ll be able to automatically pick up rewards as we reach certain Loyalty tiers.

As was discussed during the live stream, Loyalty will be granted to players who subscribe as a Patron, purchase or spend Credits, and consume REX. Veteran players will also be receiving a one-time stipend of 7000 Loyalty per past month of subscription when the F2P system goes live. This will mean that for most of us, we should log in on June 12th with some goodies to pick up right off the bat.

The title image above, which is a sampling of an in-progress Loyalty tier reward, shows an interesting variety of items available. Currently on the PTS the Loyalty tiers aren’t fully implemented, but most other parts of the item store are available for preview.

A large portion of the content headed our way in RIFT 2.3: Empyreal Assault is now on the Public Test Shard for player testing. The item store isn’t completely functional yet and is still very much in progress, which is evident by many of the items and prices, but the store itself is there for our previewing pleasures. Dendrome is also in place along with some of the zone events, new dynamic content, Strongholds, and Queen’s Gambit, which is the new Chronicle.

MikeD shared some details in a forum post as far as what to expect in the dynamic content within Dendrome. Keep reading to take a look.

The RIFT portion of yesterday’s Trion Friday live stream extravaganza was, unsurprisingly, focused on RIFT’s big move to a free-to-play system beginning on June 12th. Daglar joined Simon and Elrar and explained how some of the systems will work in greater detail as well as updated the RIFT community on some promising changes to the current Patron reward system. The team has been listening to all of our feedback and has made a few changes that, overall, make being a RIFT veteran a little more appealing.

Elrar also showed off the in-game shop in its current state and let Daglar talk a little bit about the different categories of items, the Loyalty tiers, and a whole lot more. To catch a replay of the live stream, you can see it here. Alternatively, keep reading to see our detailed highlights roundup.

Daglar continued addressing a solid portion of player feedback on the forums yesterday. Among his posts, a few were especially interesting. He commented on what we’ll be seeing as far as race and faction change items in the cash shop as well as the future of server transfers and expansion content.

This first quote was regarding the possibility of additional character slots in the item store:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

---

Character slots is on the wish list, but we cannot say for certain if it will make the launch date.

Server transfers will remain free for your normal free weekly transfer. We could potentially in the distant future charge for multiple moves per week, but I don’t really like that idea and I’d rather get us to a better place with cross shard / single shard technology.

Faction and race changes are not linked. If you change yourself to a Bahmi as a guardian, you are still a Guardian. If you are a Kelari and change faction, you are still a Kelari.

Bahmi Guardian? Now that’s an interesting change.

Yesterday, Trion released a screenshot of how the in-game RIFT item shop currently looks, even though it’s still a work in progress. The screenshot tells us a few interesting things, however, and it also lets us preview a few of the items that will be available for purchase when our free-to-play system goes live. Thanks to the currencies and prices on-screen, we’re also able to take a stab at how much things may cost in real-time dollars. A pretty dapper top hat and accompanying outfit are also previewable to the side of the screenshot.

Keep reading to take a peek!

Since this week’s huge bombshell announcement regarding RIFT going free-to-play beginning June 12th, Daglar and the entire Trion RIFT team have been quite diligent in making sure they keep the lines of communication open with the playerbase. Daglar has set a record with the amount of posts he’s made in this official forum thread (hence “Daglar Tracker”) which has been an overall solid source for player feedback.

Keep reading to see a couple of choice quotes that Daglar made yesterday regarding the possibility of additional servers for the F2P transition and thoughts on in-game shop gear, previous raid tiers, and some possible changes we may see to tier mark systems in the future.

GENERAL
* Raid assistants can now invite instead of recommend invite via the unit frame menu, and non-assistants can now recommend invite.
* Fixed an issue causing Hellbugs to do more damage than intended to other NPCs in the Invasive Species rift.
* The Hellbug Monarch from the Invasive Species rift is no longer immune to taunt.
* Fixed the Skywarped Talon mob spawning with no health in the Runecrafting crafting rift.

CALLINGS
WARRIOR
Beastmaster
* Calliope’s Beastmaster Crystal: The 4 piece bonus buff triggered by Messy Wounds now last 30s, up from 15s.
Tempest
* Discharged Defenses: The tooltop for Discharged Defenses has been corrected, it now correctly reads that its buff causes Warrior attacks to ignore some of the target’s armor and resistance.

In lieu of hearing a simple announcement regarding an arrival date for Patch 2.3, we received some other big news yesterday along with that patch date announcement. Yep, RIFT’s going free-to-play on June 12th, which is also when 2.3 will be opening its doors (and Dendrome). Most of us saw the hints of this move coming months ago in between the layoffs at Trion, the addition of the in-game shop, and Scott Hartsman’s departure. Yesterday’s news still came as a surprise to many of us, however, especially given the timing of the news.

Bill “Daglar” Fisher mentioned yesterday that the team had been planning this move for more than a year, but despite the fact that the team pushed one-year subscription plans during the launch of Storm Legion, veteran players were only given one month to absorb the F2P news. Many one-year subscribers are understandably feeling a little let down by this move, especially considering the fact that some are paid up with over 300 days remaining on their accounts.

In an announcement put out in a press release, Rift will go free to play starting June 12, 2013.

PLAY ALL YOU WANT AND PAY WHAT YOU WANT AS RIFT® GOES FREE-TO-PLAY!

Trion Responds to Community Demand;
Trion’s Proven MTX Engine to Power Free-to-Play RIFT

Redwood Shores, CA (May 14, 2013) - RIFT®, the award-winning online game from Trion Worlds, will adopt a free-to-play business model starting June 12, 2013. Players will be able to experience the entire game world; every dungeon, every zone, and every level and get full access to all current and future game updates.

“We have been listening to feedback from our players and watching the continuously developing MMO community, and are now ready to launch RIFT as a premium free-to-play experience,” said Bill Fisher, Creative Director of RIFT. “After taking our time and planning a careful transition; we are very excited to bring an enhanced game experience to everyone, without barriers.”

All players will be able to explore the entire world of Telara for free and will have access to the expanded in-game RIFT Store where a variety of services–mounts, boosts, wardrobe items, and more–will be available for purchase. An optional subscription will still be available that grants a slew of “Patron” benefits and bonuses to maximize the RIFT experience. Trion will celebrate its current and previous subscribers with loyalty and currency rewards for their time spent playing RIFT thus far.

“As a gamer’s game, a super fun and fair experience is of the utmost importance to us,” said Fisher. “Players will have the opportunity to buy customizations and boosts to heighten their play experience; however the best gear in the game will always have to be earned through playing RIFT.”

RIFT free-to-play kicks off with massive content update 2.3, Empyreal Assault, which will open up an unforgettable new zone, world event, chronicle and much more. Empyreal Assault launches on June 12th, 2013 for all Ascended of Telara.

For full details on RIFT F2P visit: www.riftgame.com/free

Does this change your opinion of RIFT? Will this make you stop playing or start again? What does the community think?