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.

Hellbugs are pouring out of fire rifts everywhere in RIFT, but Hellbug mounts, on the other hand, are proving a little more difficult to come across. RNG is RNG, as they say, but Trion is making one adjustment to help us out during our searches. In a future patch, all Hellbug rewards including pets and mounts will be made Bind on Account. The announcement was made first by MikeD then later confirmed by Elrar, who also reminded players that these rifts will stick around for a while, so there’s no need to feel pressured to farm all of the Hellbugs within this first week of release.

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Just wanted to mention again – the Invasive Species Fire Rift will remain in-game for the forseeable future, at this time there are no plans to remove it from the regular rotation of fire rifts.

As Mike mentioned – all of the Hellbug rewards will be made Bind on Account in an upcoming Hot Fix.

If ya feel a bit burned out (no pun intended) on killing Hellbugs trying to get the rarer rewards I encourage you to take a break and enjoy other parts of RIFT – they’ll be there for ya when you return

Thanks all, have fun, good luck and have a wonderful weekend!

Happy hunting!

RIFTS
* Hungry, hungry Helbugs have crash landed in RIFT from the DEFIANCE universe! A new fire rift named “Invasive Species” now has a chance to appear in all zones. Completing the unstable stages of this rift offers a chance at acquiring any of three different types of hellbug mounts and companions, including the extremely rare Toxic Hellbug.

ITEMS
* Fixed an issue where objects without a cooldown sometimes displayed cooldown time left.
* Fixed a crash that occurred when comparing an equipped item with another item that has a very large number of stats.

QUESTS
* Freemarch: Water Saga Quest – Solace Cabal: Fixed a case that breaks scripting when players immediately aggro mobs after starting event.
* Steppes of Infinity: Ice Heart: Fixed an issue that would cause Atos to become stuck in a cast loop

CONQUEST
* Fixed an issue with respawns which could sometimes cause players to fall through the geometry.

So you want to join the ranks of Mage healing.  I won’t kid you, it’s a tough job that’s made even more tough by only having a couple direct healing spells.  While you could be a good dungeon healer you will likely play a support healer in raids.  This isn’t a knock against Mage healers, we are very good at pumping out group heals, but keeping a tank up during massive pulse damage can be tricky with little to no margin for error.

So with all the challenges that a Mage has to overcome when healing what spec makes it easier and how can a Mage go from being a good healer to a great one?  Well, most of the time you will find that those Mages who are good at healing know all the fights like the back of their hand and, more importantly, they know how to manage their cooldowns and time their direct healing abilities properly.  While the timing and management of cooldowns are an art form that will take a fair bit of practice to master we can take a look at how you might want to spec out your Mage souls, what macros to have available, and a general rotation of some spells.
 

This week we sit down with Mark Jacobs and discuss his Kickstarter project: Camelot Unchained. Our conversation ranges from what to expect in the game to going over his founding principles and getting to the bottom of what he wants his game to become. Camelot Unchained looks to bring old school RVR/PVP ideals to a modern game. While not shooting for a AAA game created to support millions of players; Mark Jacobs hopes to fashion a game for RVR players only. Not sacrificing design to make everyone happy, Camelot Unchained hopes to bring RVR to its niche market.

Keep reading to watch the interview.

During last Friday’s official RIFT live stream event, the Trion team showed off some pretty awesome Dendrome goodies. We found out a bit more about the Architects, which is the insectoid race that has helped Crucia build a few of her undertakings. Laethys was the last true master of the Architects. They’re from the Plane of Earth but aren’t greedy for gold and treasures. They do consume the life force and energy from living things, however, which is a process that leaves behind piles of sand as a byproduct of sorts, which is why the Dendrome is half sand and half lush forest. It’s also why Ashora is full desert.

The goal of the Architects? To have another Queen, it would seem. A fair bit of concept art like this image was previewed during the stream. Elrar also showed us the interior of the Infinity Gate, which is pretty huge. We also saw a sneak peek of the new Hellbug rifts (and mounts/pets!) coming to RIFT starting on Wednesday, May 1st.

Trion’s most recent Twitch.tv stream featured the familiar faces of Elrar and the RIFT developer team giving players a sneak peak at the Dendrome, but that wasn’t all the new content eagle-eyed viewers spotted. In the background of most of the video was a whiteboard covered with ideas, and since the Twitch stream aired players have been eagerly guessing what it could all mean.

There’s certainly good reason to assume that the whiteboard could be a legitimate vision of the future. Previously in March 2012 the “RIFT Anniversary” official video featured a quick shot of a whiteboard noting Fishing and a Mentoring System, both of which appeared later in patches 1.8 and 1.9 respectively. So what can this “behind the scenes” glimpse tell us about future content?

We are pleased to announce the latest addition to the Junkies Nation Network: Final Fantasy XIV Junkies! In our long-standing tradition of launching and covering the latest and greatest MMORPGs, we bring to you what we hope will be the cornerstone of the FFXIV news and guide community! We will tirelessly dedicate ourselves to bringing you the latest in news, guides, articles and community coverage; when it comes to Final Fantasy XIV info, look no further!

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will be nothing less than a crowning jewel in the MMORPG-scape. Featuring an all-new world designed from the ground up, Square-Enix has over looked nothing in the rerelease of this flagship installment of its Final Fantasy franchise. From it’s new and robust combat system, to it’s chocobo breeding system and player housing; FFXIV:ARR will have something for everyone.

A new world filled with Moogles, magic, chocobos and Magitek armor await you and we here at FFXIV Junkies will be there every step of the way with you. Be it exploring the depths of the deepest dungeons, taking down Ifrit or just decorating your player housing, we’ll be here with all the latest news and information in this realm reborn.

So please, be sure to bookmark us and follow us on twitter!

GENERAL
* Players who rejoined a guild created by a different faction than their own will now have the correct faction displayed next to their names in the roster.
* Fixed a bug that could cause some players to crash when loading.

CONQUEST
• Optimized respawning within Conquest maps and fixed a problem which would cause players to get stuck when teleporting to Caer Mathos during matches.

DUNGEONS AND RAIDS
• Endless Eclipse: Regulos – Shambling Nightmare can no longer critically hit on normal attacks.
• Endless Eclipse: Kain (Hard Mode) – Fixed an issue that would allow the Deathbound Bloodthieves to break their “dead” animation before they resurrect.
• Archive of Flesh: Collision added in Cahail’s room to prevent players from completely avoiding Frenzied Embrace.
• Exodus of the Storm Queen: Fixed issue that would prevent the “Hot Lead, Cold Steel” event from re-starting on a reset.
• Exodus of the Storm Queen: Fixed an issue that would prevent players from using the exit portal after beginning the “Hot Lead, Cold Steel” quest but not yet begun the fight against Dominax.

Remember a couple weeks ago when Elrar showed off this little yellow guy during Trion’s weekly live stream? Raptr’s making his debut leap onto our RIFT shards today with the addition of a handful of new Raptr rewards.

What is Raptr, you ask? Raptr is this nifty gaming site and software that’s free and can be used to connect with other gamers, share screenshots, news, etc., and track your gaming time. Raptr often pairs up with game companies like Trion to give away in-game goodies and promotions as a reward for being a member.

For the Raptr pet, you’ll need to have an Elite Raptr rating in RIFT or higher. The good news is that if you’re new to Raptr, you have plenty of time to obtain that rating since this promotion will run from April 23rd to June 11th. Other than the cute yellow guy, Trion and Raptr are offering a new pair of Wardrobe-specific Stone Spaulders and this Storm Legion Arbiter Helm that was also offered at the beginning of the expansion.

Oh, yeah, and there’s also a promotion for a free copy of RIFT and Storm Legion if you’re a little late on picking up the game and/or expansion. For more information, check out Raptr’s information page on this offer as well as Trion’s announcement regarding the promotion. Raptr herd, assemble!