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.

OnRPG recently had a chance to interview Simon Ffinch, Senior Design Director of RIFT. During the interview, the OnRPG team tried to garner some information about what the next year will hold for RIFT. There weren’t too many new tidbits of info discovered in the interview, sadly, but there were a couple of interesting details. Here are two of the questions that were asked, along with their answers:

Can you tell us a bit about what you have planned for this year?

Well I don’t want to give away too much right now so I will keep this a little vague. We do have updates planned out for RIFT well into next year with some really exciting and much requested things for the players to experience. We will be expanding on all the features we have in the game right now and exploring a host of new ones. With the death of the dragons things will be changing around Telara. Players will discover that the denizens of the plane of life are not so bad after all with the corruption of Greenscale removed, although they can be a little mischievous. I will just say that nature abhors a vacuum and the Dragons have left a very large vacuum and of course the true meaning and power of the infinity gate is still to be revealed.

What can we look forward to in Dendrome when it comes out with 2.3?

In the immediate future players can look forward to the world event that will lead to the opening of The Dendrome. Small cracks in the barrier between Ashora and the Dendrome can be widened by players, the better they do the easier the access to the Dendrome will become. As well as a large amount of area to explore this zone will add a really radical new type of dynamic content called Strongholds, plus a whole lot more that will be revealed over the coming weeks. The players will also get to learn a lot more about the Architects and their history and place in Telara.

While this isn’t quite as promising as an official state-of-the-game address listing more specifics on Trion’s yearly plans, at least this bit is something. The plans for opening Dendrome sound pretty interesting. It will be nice to see another world event that’s tied to the current story in a major way. Make sure to check out the full interview over at OnRPG.

The team at GamesRadar got a chance to conduct an interview with RIFT’s art director, Darren Pattenden, and associate art director, Chee Fong. During the interview, they talk about RIFT’s artwork and some of the magic that goes on behind the scenes, what inspirations are behind Trion’s vision of Brevane and Dusken, and what direction Storm Legion’s art is heading towards. Here’s one of the questions that was asked:

GamesRadar: The idea of “magical technology” is fairly common in RPGs, how did Trion make its style different?

Chee Fong: We designed it from the ground up. We’ll avoid cliché where we can, but there is bound to be inspiration to be drawn from classic depictions of it like perhaps the movie ‘The Dark Crystal’. Ultimately however, we wanted to sell the new world and impress the audience so we concentrated more on that than consciously trying to avoid anything that had been done before. We created an original culture in the Defiants for example and tailored the look to that culture. So really we’ve just been enjoying being creative and having fun with it.

Storm Legion definitely has that unique factor. For the full interview, check it out here.

Gamespot revealed today more details with an interview with Scott Hartsman about the upcoming expansion STORM LEGION. Click the link for the video, but here are some of the details we can gleam from the interview.

First the biggest bit of news: Expect to lose more sleep in fall of 2012.

Of these two continents, Dusken is the more fearsome. It’s a dark place, where death figures prominently in the world and the story; the themes are closer to horror than anything Rift has explored in the past. This is as it should be: it’s here that you follow the story of Regulos, the dragon god that hails from the plane of death. The other continent, Brevane, isn’t so obviously terrifying, though it’s no less vital. It’s on this continent, in The Eternal City, that Telaran civilization developed, though the warring factions that reside there aren’t necessarily always civilized.

Two continents, three times the size of Telara, called Dusken and Brevane that should be stunning in design. In my conversations with Hal Hanlin, the world development team has been honing their skills and the things they can do with their tools outclasses everything they’ve done before. The perfect example is the difference between Telara and Ember Isles. Ember Isles is gorgeous; so you can only imagine what the guys at Trion can do with two continents three times bigger than what’s out there now.

Keep reading for more insight from the Gamespot interview.

We got a chance to talk to Hal Hanlin and pick his brain about the upcoming addition to Rift: Conquest. We went over the basics of conquest earlier and now we get to ask some of the questions we’ve been wondering about. Conquest is currently on the PTS servers and being tested at specific times, so keep your eyes out on the official forums for updates on when the next round of testing is going to happen.

In the mean time keep reading and find out what Hal Hanlin had to say about RIFT’s new three-way faction war: Conquest.

We got a chance to wrack Josh York’s brain in regards to Trion’s direction for itemization with 1.7 and beyond. With the latest game update we see Trion flexing it’s muscle in creating a itemization system that should give the room to grow as we inch closer to the one year mark. With these changes, we are probably going to be seeing a new tier of content very soon. Hopefully these changes will help create a smoother transition to new game content.

The biggest test to the new itemization system will come with the next tier of content. Previously, PVP gear remained the best in slot option due to being able to get a full set well before the natural saturation point in Hammerknell. With the new PVP changes and gear more easily gotten, at least there isn’t a major grind. Hopefully the implemented changes allow a much smoother transition for new and returning players along with long time veteran players.

Josh York is an up and coming developer for Trion, and you might remember him from an interview we did when he was part of the QA team. He’s working with the Itemization team and we thought he was the perfect person to talk to about the new itemization system in 1.7!

Keep reading for the full interview.

This week we review all of 1.5 and bring you an interview with Cameron McNeil a Sr. Systems Designer for RIFT where we talk all the ins and outs of Planar Attunement!

Host: Jason
Co-Host: Kythik

Direct Download: click here.
iTunes: click here.

We got a chance to hang out with Simon Ffinch and Hal Hanlin in the Trion Booth break room as we discussed PAX, patch 1.5 and everything RIFT for quite a bit of time. Please excuse James “Elrar” Nichols for walking across the camera.

Host: Jason
The Crew: Kythik, Xep, Ket, Ssly

Direct Download: click here.
iTunes: click here.

Gaming Illustrated recently interviewed Will Cook, the dynamic content lead developer, to talk about patch 1.3 that is releasing today.

GI: Will, you’re talking exactly about one of the strengths of the games in my opinion. Can you talk a bit about content and what it really means to get good content updates, such as these events and how they’re evolving as the game is now approaching 1.3?

WC: Well the great thing about what we’re doing with world events is I suppose there are two goals that I always try to have. The first one is that anybody should be able to participate in the world event whether you’re level one or level fifty. We want to make sure that in every single phase there’s something for you to do and rewards for you to earn. The other cool thing we’re doing with world events is how we’re updating our library of dynamic content. A lot of the content built into these world events will exist in a slightly different form after the world event ends. We want the stories to make sense but the world event is in a sense telling a live story that everyone’s participating in and when it’s done, that’s the moment that you will remember forever but it’s not going to repeat itself. However, a lot of the individual story elements are still there because as more and more players join the game we want to make sure that they can experience the full story of Telara as well.

For more on dynamic content and Will’s role in creating it, keep reading the at Gaming Illustrated. We also get a confirmation that the World Event is 6 week long.