We’re introducing a new segment of our website called LIVE RIFT FEEDS. On this page you’ll find several channels in which you can watch level 50 players play through Expert and Raid Dungeons. You’ll also find a link to this page on our sidebar to the right.

Currently we have two channels up for your viewing pleasure. Channel Judge is from the perspective of a level 50 Cleric, and channel Agonizing is from the perspective of a level 50 Warrior. Enjoy watching some end game content.

Rift Podcast‘s latest episode has Berenger Fish on to discuss the end game content and we get some new insights on what is coming down the line. What we currently know about the end game is that there will be rifts, raid rifts, expert dungeons and instanced raids. With this podcast we find out what raids will be in at release, what comes after, and all the details about raid size and lockout timers.

It was previously announced that raids came in two sizes, 10 man and 20 man. Today it was announced that the 10 man raids have been taken out and there will only be one raid size: 20. This was a tough decision to make for the dev team. Their reasoning was based on technicalities as far as creating different gear power levels, potentially forcing competitive guilds to do both 10 man and 20 man raids in a single lockout and creating a more streamlined design effort when developing encounters.

TenTon Hammer has been able to grab Scott Hartsman and get him to answer a bunch of question regarding the current development of Rift: Planes of Telara. We do get some new insight in things like end-game raid progression.

Ten Ton Hammer: How much thought has gone into end game at this point, will it ship with raid content already in place?

Scott Hartsman: Absolutely, we have some end game elements that have been in testing, if you count warfronts, when we started raid testing and expert dungeon testing, it’s been several months now. We have two separate roadmaps, one for 1 to 50 and a much more detailed one for level 50 onward. We are intentionally making a game that doesn’t need to have the 1 to 50 content extended to create gameplay. We want the 1 to 50 leveling to take as much time as we have available content, we don’t want it to be a grind.

We aren’t going to be one of those games that plays one way in beta and then you get to launch and it’s like, hey everything is now 10 times longer, enjoy the launch game! People would rightfully freak out and that would kill a lot of the fun in the game. We have been pacing the game the way we want it to play in alpha and planning out what end game tiering will look like after that. We have two tiers of expert mode dungeons, we have got raids both interior and exterior, we have the PvP instances, we even have end game level crafting and reputations. You will be able to log in and have your choice of six or seven things you can do, we don’t want to get in the trap of being a game where folks feel like they have nothing to do. One half to two-thirds of our design team has transitioned to end game already and our QA team is actively running their own playtests that they can get feedback right into the designers hands.

It looks like the Rift Team is putting a big focus on the end game product and allowing the leveling process to be clean and neat. At the level cap, outside PVP, you will have something that looks like World of Warcraft with a few tweaks. Tiers of expert (heroic) level dungeons, tiers of raid instances, and crafting. We will have to wait and see if they bring anything new to the crafting world.

It’s Monday and it’s time for a new podcast from Rift Podcast.com. This week’s episode has Simon Ffinch on to talk about a ton of new pieces of information.

* There are multiple storylines – each faction expresses their own views on events around Telara through their own storyline.
* Quests will be available in solo, group, and raid difficulty.
* Souls will be obtainable through Quests – difficulty will vary
* The new revamp of the starting areas has been designed to draw the player into the story more
* There are multiple ways for people to stay busy once they reach level cap
* Away with Access Quests! No plans to have them currently at release.
* Putting the MM back in MMO: The only instances around are the Dungeons.
* Guild Quests: What types? How difficult?
* He also touches on Dynamic Quests, Epic Quests, Daily Quests, Hidden quests, Endgame Content and quite a bit more.

Make sure you head over to Rift Podcast and get all the new details.