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The ancient halls of stone stir and ancient evils once again threaten all the lands of Telara. The ocean swells with the coming abyss as the raw elemental powers of Death and Water prepare to use the world as their battleground and destroy the Ward in their wake.

It falls to you, Ascended, to fight back these timeless foes and rid the world of their plague forever!

Join us tomorrow, June 2nd at 3:00PM PDT for a special test of the next World Event! This epic invasion is the first of many features to come with RIFT Update 1.3 and your help in preparing it for world-wide release will benefit everyone upon its release.

We look forward to seeing you on the Public Test Shard and will make leveling and gear merchants available tomorrow prior to the start of the test.

From RIFT’s Facebook Page

5/7/11 – PTS

RIFTCONNECT
* The optional social network integrations in RIFT have been combined and expanded under the heading ‘RiftConnect’.
* Settings for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube can now be accessed via a button on the lower left corner of the patcher as well as the Settings menu in-game.
* Facebook sign-in status can only be changed from the game patcher.
* In-game recorded video now has options for Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook sharing.
* The commands used to post updates from in-game are:
- Facebook: /fb, /fbpic
- Tumblr: /tumblr, /tumblrpic
- Twitter: /tweet, /tweetpic
- To send out to everything you’re currently logged in to: /blast, /blastpic

Originally posted by Sweet (Source)

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Hey all,
Just wanted to give you a quick look at the upcoming Rogue changes, these should go to TEST with the next patch either today or tomorrow. Please try them out and give us your feedback.

Marksman
– Master Archer now scales with Points in Soul
– Sniper Training now gives a 7/14/21% bonus
– Added a new ability at 24 points Deaden: Blasts the enemy interrupting spellcasting and silencing them for 5 seconds on a successful interrupt. This ability is not affected by global cooldown.
– Leaving a Pedestal will now apply a 15s buff with the Pedestals damage bonuses

Ranger
– Shadow Fire now increases the damage of Ranger attacks by 35%

Assassin
– Impale now gains additional bonuses from attack power
– Physical Trauma now increases your Final Blow damage by 4/8% to targets affected by your Impale

Bladddancer
– Soul renamed to Bladddancer
– Bladd Finesse now increases the Attack Power bonus for Deadly Strike by 50/100/150/200/250%
– Deadly Dance bonus increased to 7/14/21% and can occur up to 3 times
– Bladd Finesse and Combat Expertise swapped positions in the Soul Tree
– Due to changes to the Bladddancer a free respec has been give

Bard
– Added a new ability at 36 points Verse of Rebirth: Brings the fallen ally back to life and restores 20% of their health and mana. This ability cannot be used while in combat.

PTS 1.2 Addition #2 – 5/2/11

GENERAL
* Added weekly quests to Meridian and Sanctum to obtain a random Expert Rift lure.
* Currency caps are now shown on the character sheet.
* Potentially fixed player armors randomly changing color!
* Daily quest on offer for a particular day now stay the same before and after a shard restart.
* If the last leader-ranked member of a guild is removed due to trial player restrictions, a new leader will automatically be selected.

PTS 1.2 ADDITION 1

As a part of the Looking for Group release, there have been a number of updates to instances and item rewards – See below for details!

LOOKING FOR GROUP
* You can now use the new Looking for Group tool to queue for Dungeons, Rifts, or group quests with other players on your server!
* The Looking for Group icon has been added to the main menu tray in the lower left corner of the screen, and can also be opened with the default shortcut key ‘I’.
* Select from the group roles available to you based on the roles you currently have saved on your character.
* Queue for specific dungeon or expert dungeon groups, or join the random dungeon queue. Once a group is formed, members will be teleported to the chosen dungeon zone.
* Rift and quest groups formed through the Looking for Group tool are not automatically teleported.
* Queue for group quests currently in your or your party members’ quest journals from anywhere in the world and find others also looking to complete these quests!
* Additional rewards are granted for completing a random dungeon through the Looking For Group tool – these can be gained up to seven times per week but are not restricted in number per day, so you can do as many or as few as you like each day of the week up to the weekly cap. Save them all up for one day or spread them out; your choice!
* Additional restrictions based on gear also apply to forming groups for tier 1 and 2 Expert Dungeons through this tool.

Alpha was opened briefly yesterday and a lot of people got to see a ton of changes that Trion is playing with. Here are somethings that the community is reporting on:

This post will be updated as more things are reported. There are also no patch notes on Alpha currently. Also remember that all of this is subject to change at a moments notice. We’ll try to keep it updated until there are official Alpha patch notes.

Updates:
1:07pm EST 4/21/2011 – Warrior Changes

With Rift barely a month old now, it comes as a surprise that Trion is already preparing to launch the first content patch, Patch 1.1. However, even more exciting is that the new patch was available for testing on the Alpha servers, complete with gear and level vendors so everyone could participate in the brand new world event that will take place when the patch hits servers. However, the patch offers a lot more than just a world event, several new features have been added, a wide range of balance issues have been looked at, and oh, a new raid called river of souls has been introduced! The event was a huge success (though not devoid of some frustration) and lasted approximately five hours. Without further ado, here are the details:

Alpha 1.1 3/23/11

== FEATURED ==
* The Endless Court Event? Yeah, they’re all up in your Telara, killing your mans. Not cool.
* You can now report AFK teammates in a Warfront. Check out PVP/WARFONTS for more.
* The ‘I’m Stuck’ button or falling through the world in a Warfront no longer results in a Deserter debuff!
* Rift events no longer track player contribution against other players. See below under RIFTS AND INVASIONS for more details.
* Many quest fixes below under individual ZONES.

Originally post by Elar (Source)

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The River of Souls reeks with the foul stench of Death. Alsbeth the Discordant, bride of Regulos, sows her evil will into the soulstream that binds Telara with the afterlife. Dark magic corrupts the spirits within, transforming them into lifeless husks eager to serve the Devourer.

Alsbeth is determined to crush Telara under the tread of the Endless Court, and tear down the Ward to make way for a massive invasion. It now falls to you, Ascended, to beat back the darkness before the world is snuffed out!

Remember these Patch Notes are not final as they are in a state of flux. They are not live and are subject to change at any time. These are only for testing purposes only.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* You can now link locations in chat! Just like other links, shift-right-click your map or minimap while entering chat text. Clicking someone’s location link in chat will place a waypoint on your own map.
* You can now swim up using the jump key while also in mouselook mode (default: right mouse button to look around).
* Added a custom error if you cannot use a questgiving item.
* Raid groups roaming across the lands to destroy non-Rift/Invasion content will see lowered experience rewards.