You may of noticed a new URL of this website up in the navigation bar! We’ve transitioned to a new network where all of our fansites are on the same domain. This doesn’t change anything for you externally but helps those of us who bring you new content organize things better. This is only the beginning and we plan on bring you, the fans, some exciting new things that will include a brand new website called JunkiesNation.com which will cover everything from MMORPGs and the lifestyle that comes with them (yes, that means Cheetos, Mountain Dew and comic books).

For now sit tight and keep enjoying the daily content you get from our writers. For us, we’ll get back to work. If you see any problems or issues, please send all feedback to Ryan Raplee at Teljair@Rerollz.com.

Cheers everyone!

Kervik had some good news yesterday for players who are eagerly awaiting the third tier for Planar Attunement yet have noticed the severe lack of level 60 weapon enchant/buff nodes to utilize. The second tier’s weapon buffs leave a bit to be desired at level 60, and it’s good to see Trion has made this update. Without further ado, keep reading to see the team’s proposed additions.

Welcome to RIFT 2.1: Endless Eclipse!
=======================================
RIFT 2.1 Hotfix #7 – 2/06/13

GENERAL
* Racial Abilities: Dwarven racial ability, Density, has been removed. Replaced with Dwarven Breakfast – Restores 8% health and mana per second over 13 seconds. (We’re working on getting this enabled for existing Dwarves in North America)
* Fixed Swift Spotted Armored Valmera Collar as well as Spectral Horse so they now scale to your highest-speed mount.
* Continued pass to correct floating or inaccessible artifact locations.
* Continued updates to improve shard stability and performance.

PLANAR ATTUNEMENT
* Swift Saddle Planar Attunements now function as expected!
* Safe Fall Planar Attunement abilities have been replaced with Planar Enhancement – increases Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Endurance by 2.

February is here, Valentine’s Day is approaching, and you know what that means. Those of us who are single get to happily avoid the pink-and-ballooned aisle of our local store! Well, aside from that, of course. There might be some /kissing going on, and not just outside of Telara, but in Telara, as well. In this past weekend’s update on the Public Test Server, some new holiday achievements appeared in the World Event section. And yes, it seems there will be some /kissing. And some killing! And some kind of Love Bug… thing. Read on to take a look.

While RIFT’s PvP updates often seem few and far in between, there is a small PvP update on the way and currently evident on the Public Test Server (PTS)– new PvP consumables that are purchasable with Favor. There’s a new PvP vendor in Tempest Bay by the name of Mercenary Burke. He’s located at the southern end of the PvP vendor building (which is almost directly south of where the porticulum is) and shares a counter with Mercenary Frost. His inventory may be expanded upon in the near future, but for now he has a selection of bind-on-pickup consumables that are usable only on level 60 PvP equipment. Keep reading to see a list of the items, complete with item descriptions and costs.

SOULS

CLERIC

INQUISITOR
* Vex: Reduced mana cost.

MAGE

ELEMENTALIST
* Summon: Greater Air Elemental: The ability description for the top two ranks no longer claim that the pet is capped to level 27.

One of the hottest debates within the RIFT community since the addition of Conquest has been whether or not it was a good idea to place perks that benefit both PvP and PvE inside a PvP-only system. Many high-end raiders were frustrated with the Conquest Power perks and the addition of the Conquest trinkets. There were also PvP players who disliked the requirement of Infinity Stones for PvP planar essences. These items and perks that blur the lines between PvP and PvE content were set up this way intentionally. Daglar clarified the team’s stance on cross-content perks and items on the forums yesterday:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

---

There are going to be portions of the game where content crosses over and it grants benefits. You are not absolutely required by the game to take part in this activity. You feel that you must as you are a high end raider. We absolutely give you an incentive to engage in this content – I will not argue that point.

I have seen these requests before – I will see them again. We will not be removing the PvE benefits from Conquest. We will not be removing the trinkets from working in PvE.

The same holds true of requiring infinity stones for essences from PvP. There are other aspects of the game that we want you to engage in. This is why we create a variety of reward paths.

He also clarified a few other things along the same lines, including whether or not Thunderous Leap will be making a return in instances and raids. The short answer: Nope. Keep reading to see the (slightly) longer answer as well as Daglar’s current thoughts on the development direction of Conquest.

Last week Trion Worlds announced that they would be publishing XLGAMES’ new MMORPG ArcheAge for Western audiences. At first glance it might seem unusual for a company that already has one MMO (or even two once Defiance launches) to run what could be a competing title, but although RIFT and ArcheAge share some of the same general mechanics there seem to be more differences than similarities.

With another recent hotfix behind our belts, there was a handful of interesting dev tracker posts on the forums yesterday. First off, let’s talk hotfix changes.

A pretty large chunk of the Warrior population was disappointed to find that Thunderous Leap, one of the Warrior PvP PA abilities, was disabled for use inside dungeons and raids. Ailion commented on the change:

Originally posted by Ailion (Source)

---

Thunderous Leap was disabled in instances because the use of this ability to bring the player to supposedly inaccessible locations resulted in some unintended game states within certain encounters. This causes the mechanics of the encounters to break. We have decided to disable this ability to maintain the integrity of the encounters.

There seem to be two schools of thought regarding the change among the vocal Warrior players of the community. Some players feel the change was too cutthroat and will hurt PvE Warriors who enjoyed having a baseline mobility move, and other players feel the change might have been necessary, but only if other PvP PA abilities are treated equally (Cleanse Soul, for example).

Keep reading to see the rest of the dev tracker posts.

GENERAL
* Swift mounts (110% speed) and higher now all scale to your fastest purchased mount’s speed. [Currently the Swift Spotted Valmera is not scaling like it should after this change.]
* The Specialty Crafting Goods vendors in Sanctum and Meridian now sell lower-tier planar dusts in exchange for the next higher tier dust.
* All Feasts now persist through death – whether you respawn, resurrect, or Soul Walk.
* Warrior PvP PA: Thunderous Leap can no longer be used in instances other than Conquest/Warfronts – such as Dungeons, Raids, Weddings, etc.
* Corrected some unreachable Artifacts and some sneaky typos!
* Fixed a bug where characters who temporarily had Storm Legion access (on a trial basis) would lose the Prestige they had gained at the end of the trial period.