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.

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.

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.

During Trion’s Friday live stream extravaganza yesterday, Elrar and UnloadedUT hosted a second Dimensional Thunderdome event that took place in the new Moonshade Pools dimension on the PTS. Dimensional Thunderdome is, well, pretty awesome, and definitely worth the watch if you missed the live stream. Dimension-building experts facing off on teams to see who can build the coolest random-object-in-a-hat? Entertainment at its RIFTiest.

One highlight of the show was Elrar stealthily throwing in a preview of a new vanity pet coming to RIFT. Raptr users will immediately recognize the little guy who’s previewed above in the title image. Yep, that’s the Raptr raptor! Now, if you’re unfamiliar with Raptr, it’s 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 of Raptr.

Elrar announced yesterday that we’ll be seeing the arrival of the new Moonshade Pools dimension next week. This dimension will be one of the largest personal dimensions in-game and will sport a 1000-item limit. It also, of course, features one of the most gorgeous areas of Moonshade Highlands. Elrar also announced that the team will handing out some dimension goodies (two ferns to be exact) for players who are signed up to receive the RIFT newsletter. The team will also be holding a couple of special live stream events for the grand opening of Moonshade Pools:

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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TWO LIVE STREAMS – www.twitch.tv/trionworlds

Dimensional Thunderdome – Friday, 4/12 @ 1:30PM Pacific: 3 Teams Enter, 1 Team Leaves. Show off your dimensioneering skills and compete for prizes!

Moonshade Pools Tour – Friday, 4/19 @ 1:30PM Pacific: The two winners of our Joy of Dimensions Contest have been hard at work decorating their own Moonshade Pools. We’ll show you just how awesome it can look!

For an early tour of the empty dimension, check out our Moonshade Pools Dimension Preview.

So, Elrar said something pretty interesting during last Friday’s Trion Worlds live stream event. The team was talking about the upcoming launch of Defiance, which is Trion’s MMOTPS that’s a direct crossover with the upcoming SyFy television series by the same name, and Elrar asked about the special red Dodge Challenger mount that’s obtainable when pre-ordering Defiance. A player in-game then asked if we’d see the Dodge Challenger make an appearance in RIFT as well (at around 11 minutes into the live stream). Elrar answered with this: “No, but there is going to be a sweet, pimped-out ride from Defiance making an appearance in RIFT. Ssh!”

Since trucks and pimped-out ATVs don’t make a whole lot of sense in RIFT, our best guess so far is that we may be seeing a Hellbug mount. What’s a Hellbug, you ask? Take a look at the title image. That’s a Hellbug. Hellbugs are some of the main enemies in Defiance and come in all sorts of shapes and sharp-toothed sizes. They also make a super cuddly plushie and mascot of sorts, but don’t tell them that.

A Hellbug would make a pretty fitting RIFT mount, especially considering the wide array of cool-looking beasties we’ve already tamed as Ascended. As rumors would have it, the data for a Hellbug mount, pet, and accompanying mobs have reportedly been found hidden in the PTS files. When will we see them make a live appearance? Hard to say, but soon hopefully, especially considering Defiance launches April 2nd! For more Defiance news and info, check out the official Defiance site as well as our sister site, Defiance Junkies.

Hey, RIFT lore enthusiasts, remember this Q&A thread from well before the launch of Storm Legion? It was one of threads that we all kind of celebrated because lore, while present in-game in all of its fantastic nooks and corners, does not always make appearances outside of the game. Developers don’t often discuss lore, and lore questions tend to get glossed over during interviews. Well, the poor Q&A thread certainly got glossed over for more than a few months now, but rest assured– the folks at Trion are actually going to dive into that thread this coming Thursday, March 7th during a live stream event starting at 10:00 AM PST.

This live stream will be hosted by Elrar, of course, and Captaincursor, Trion’s appointed loremaster, will be making an appearance and taking a peek at questions players may have regarding lore and sharing some thoughts. Elrar has also invited players to come up with new questions for the loremaster and post them in this thread.

If you’ve done any Onslaughts within the last few days, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the new, temporary anti-botting defense mechanism Trion has added to Storm Legion Onslaughts. Basically, if you stay in one spot long enough, a tear-looking AoE circle will appear beneath your feet that does considerable damage. The circles tend to be quite random, so it’s possible to see them appear as you’re merely running through an Onslaught that’s under attack. You can also have one appear when you’re drinking between invasions or even while you’re upgrading a turret, relay, or lifespring.

Trion’s taken notice of the last part, thankfully, and will be making a change in the next hotfix that will allow players to use Nexus Infusion to upgrade Onslaught turrets, relays, and lifesprings while on the move. Here’s the announcement, which was posted by Elrar yesterday on the official forums:

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Hey guys,

Thought you’d like to be the first to know – in the next Hot Fix we’re planning to make Nexus Infusion not be cancelled by movement. Meaning you can continue to channel the ability while dodging AoE’s permitting you don’t go out of range.

Thanks for the feedback, cheers!

If you’d like to provide Trion with any thoughts on the new AoE mechanism, this post was taken from a feedback thread regarding the recent addition to Onslaughts (also, our comments section works again finally– hooray!).

Trion’s team has been closely monitoring the state of PvP balance since the launch of Storm Legion, and yesterday Elrar made a post on the official forums about some upcoming Rogue changes being made to keep that balance in check. The changes mentioned so far will affect Rogues only while engaged in PvP. Here’s what he had to say:

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Since the release of Storm Legion we’ve been keeping an eye on PvP and the effectiveness of all the callings. Through our observations, your feedback, and the data we have available we’ve identified some core areas we’re going to improve to make sure Rogues fall back into line with the others.

We’re going to start by reducing the burst damage of a handful of specific abilities and making sure that certain combinations do not allow consistently high burst, survivability, and mobility at the same time. These changes will only apply when engaged in PvP.

The plan is to get the first round of these updates out in the next Hot Fix with any additional changes to follow if required.

Thanks for helping to start and maintain constructive discussions – we’re constantly reading and considering the feedback you provide, your passion for RIFT & PvP is always appreciated!

After the arrival of yesterday’s RIFT Patch 2.1, players found themselves unexpectedly dropped down to 0 accrued Conquest Power. This effect was unintended by Trion, and Elrar made this statement later in the afternoon regarding it:

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Hey all,

We know that with Update 2.1 being released in North America this morning an inadvertent issue was discovered that caused all Conquest Power accrued to reset to 0.

Unfortunately, there is no easy or immediate way for us to restore individual amounts – so in accordance with the new season, and to provide the most rapid solution possible, we’ve gone ahead and provided 100,000 free Conquest power to everyone.

This is 50% of the total conquest power you can earn and maintain. This payout of Conquest Power will be made when you enter your first round of Conquest following my post here.

Our apologies for the surprise and frustration this has caused – thanks for bringing it to our attention so quickly!

This is rather unfortunate for players who had farmed up to the 200k maximum Conquest Power right before Storm Legion launched, but at least Trion quickly made note of the blunder and has provided a sort of middle-of-the-road solution. For a list of other RIFT Patch 2.1 known issues, check out this forum thread.