Following last week’s closing down of Icewatch and the initial reshuffling on RIFT‘s European (EU) shards, we did indeed see similar reshuffling on the North American (NA) shards on Friday and over the weekend. The NA cluster was split into two, and each cluster received one new shard (Hailol and Necropolis)– one of which was a PvP shard (Necropolis). Luckily, no shards were forced to be made into Trial shards.

The European community was also reshuffled again with the addition of two new shards– one French-speaking (Nomi – PvE), and one English-speaking (Volan – PvP). The EU shards also saw a separation of clusters. Now all English-speaking shards are in one cluster while the German and French-speaking shards are in another. For a longer summary of these changes, see this thread.

Announced during last Friday’s live stream, Trion will be giving the survivors of the EU Icewatch shard debacle a unique title and some Loyalty rewards. The specifics of either reward aren’t known yet, but this is definitely great to see after the community’s initial reaction last week. The way the team went about the reshuffles over the weekend was also much better, since there was plenty of notice ahead of time and no shards shifted into Trial shards.

During yesterday’s RIFT live stream, the Trion team answered a whole bunch of questions from the community and Elrar showed off a few of the Loyalty rewards we’ll be seeing when RIFT goes free-to-play beginning June 12th. Thanks to the F2P Item Store making its debut on the PTS yesterday evening, players are able to test out the goods themselves by purchasing Credits ahead of time and figuring out which wardrobe items, dimension items, mounts, and other goodies are on their must-have lists. The best part, of course, is the fact that purchasing Credits now gives players a bonus on their returned Credits when the system goes live.

Besides the new mounts obtainable when unlocking Loyalty tiers and the Ice Strider reward mount, there are quite a few new mounts in the Item Store labeled “Premium” mounts as well as an alternate version of one (previewed above). There are also Premium pets! We have a preview for you today of those mounts and pets and of the new items Elrar showed off during yesterday’s live stream. As always, we’ll be sharing a few new bits of information revealed in the live stream as well.

There’s a new item previewing on the PTS version of RIFT‘s Item Store, and it’s going to make it a wee bit easier to cover all of the crafting professions in RIFT without having to resort to a healthy supply of alts. A couple of weeks ago, Daglar hinted that Trion was going to be adding an item to the store that allows players to unlock one additional profession slot per character. Yesterday that item showed up on the PTS. It’s called a Trade Skill Extension and costs 1200 Credits at the moment. Credits are the only way to purchase these.

There has been a slight change to how they work, however. Instead of only allowing players to unlock one additional profession slot, these Extensions can be purchased multiple times and will even allow players to unlock all nine main crafting professions on the same character. Presumably, these unlocks will only work on the character the item is purchased on and aren’t account-wide, but we’re still waiting to hear official confirmation on that assumption.

Since there’s so much to explore on the Player Test Shard at the moment thanks to a huge portion of RIFT 2.3 hitting the PTS this week, we’re going to be splitting our preview into two sections. Here’s the first part, which will focus primarily on The Dendrome and the content directly associated with this new zone. We’ll talk a bit about the Item Store briefly, but stay tuned for a full-length preview in the days to come.

One other thing to note– the Item Store is currently undergoing a lot of changes, which will hopefully make the game’s free-to-play system better overall. If you check it out on the PTS yourself, to bring up the store, you’ll have to press “]”. There is also a button where Deeps’ Depot used to be. The store seems to be taken offline intermittently in order to receive staff updates, so if you find the button missing and the keybind disabled, it’s probably best to wait a while and try again or check back the next day.

As with all information on the PTS, everything discussed here is subject to change at any time. As usual, we’ll do our best to shy away from story spoilers. That said, let’s take a tour of Dendrome, shall we?

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.

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!

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 Patch 2.3, one of the many things being added to RIFT is another new personal dimension. This one’s also based off the popularly-requested Moonshade Highlands map and is called Three Springs. Three Springs is a fairly large dimension based on the Three Springs area of the in-game zone, of course, and it comes with a gorgeous bit of interior space. The Assembly House in Three Springs is completely accessible, which will give dimensioneers some pretty cool options.

The key for Three Springs will set you back 300 Plat and can be purchased at the vendor with all the other dimension keys in Tempest Bay. The dimension itself comes with a 1000-item limit. And the best part? Three Springs is currently available on the Player Test Shard for us to check out. Keep reading for our screenshot preview.

RIFT’s Hellbugs– they come in pretty colors, look awesome when they jump, and are currently helping fire rifts see a lot of action. One problem, however. The drop rates on these little and not-so-little guys are very random and a little low for many players’ tastes. The combination of the two makes completing a Hellbug mount/pet collection fairly time consuming. Unless, of course, the RNG gods are on your side so to speak.

RNG, which stands for ‘random number generation’, is the acronym us gamers like to use when our odds of obtaining goodies are purely left to the virtual dice. By now, most of us are familiar with the concept of RNG mount drops in RIFT and remember it from past world events where players were either lucky or, well, weren’t. Trion took a hint from players after Waves of Madness and promptly started offering mount rewards during world events that didn’t require a whole lot of luck. The past few world events mounts have been really easy to nab, in fact.

In the past we’ve covered Star Wars theme parks and snow-covered Viking villages in our Dimension Spotlight. This time, we’re turning down the exotic locales a notch and taking a look at a perfect weekend getaway underneath a waterfall. As a bonus, our waterfall-enchanted nook just happens to be set in Moonshade Pools, RIFT‘s newest dimension.

Moonshade Cove, which is on the Faeblight shard, comes to us from Ebonrose. Thanks to a very cool contest held by The Artisan’s Guild on Faeblight, Ebonrose’s dimension was the first place winner of the “Hidden Gems of Faeblight” contest, which showcased some of the coolest underdog dimensions among Faeblight’s thriving dimension-making community.