When Trion first announce their Beta Event system I was pretty skeptical. As were most people who learned there would not be a typical Beta period where players are selected to test the game for a determined length of time. Normally these tests last a few months and players provide their gameplay feedback as well as report bugs found in the game over those months of playing/testing the game. Instead there would be Beta Events that would run the length of a few days and feedback would be gathered over those few days of testing. There would be two types of beta players for these events, the VIP’s who would get to be in every beta event, and the “per event” invitees who would only be selected for a single event.

More talk on the the Beta 2 Rift Event, from Gamebreaker.tv.

RIFT – Trion Worlds has dropped the NDA on their upcoming MMORPG and we are here to talk! Host: Gary Gannon, Jasmine, Josh Allen.

The following video shows invasions and rifts like we’ve never seen.

Today we get a transcribed demonstration from IncGamers.com with Hal Hanlin discussing Rifts, Invasions and rewards. Hal is a design producer for Rift: Planes of Telara and he was at Trion Worlds Hands-On Event giving a presentation.

The topic of rewards from rift events came up on the Fires of Heaven message board and this seemed like a timely answer.

The rewards for closing Rifts:

“We incentivise people to go out and kill these [Rifts,] so people do kill them. One of the greatest pieces of equipment we have is called a Focus and you can get multiple different Foci. You can buy them, or you can get them as quest rewards or whatever. And these are trinkets that you can customise with Planer Essences [objects which give various bonuses and are rewards for defeating Rifts.] You can also get bigger and fancier ones, depending on how much you’re willing to pay.

You get different [Planer Essences] that do different things and you can further customize your gameplay.”

If you recall back in the beginning of September, we got a quick peak at what these foci look like.

Friday IRC Dev Chats are back, brought to you by Telara Central. Today we got a chance to ask questions to Will Cook, who is the Lead Dev on the dynamic content, along with his pod teammates Andrew Krausnick and Larry Boles. If you were interested in learning more about rifts and how they worked. This was the place to be Friday afternoon. Here are a few highlights.

Arithion asks: In regards to the 20 man raid forces. Will there be Raid sized Rifts and Invasion – and if so how will these operate. Will they simply appear and be a raid Area until it’s cleared or will you know when they’re a tear if they’re Raid sized?

Andrew Krausnick: as you might assume from us answering the previous question: the answer at least to ‘raid rifts’ is: YES, we’re actually developing a lot of this functionality right now, so I don’t have specifics: but philosophically we want them to be both rifts and raids, we want there to be the sense of social gameplay and ‘jump in and play’ while also having the level of challenge and coordination you’d expect from a raid encounter

Ciovala asks: Do Rifts spawn in set locations and do invasions follow any predefined sets of paths?

Will Cook: So, not to look too much behind the curtain but, we have a placematting and highway system that is pretty sweet. We can run events off of a more handcrafted placemat or even off a single reference point depends on how “sticky” the area is (a lot of rocks in the way?). The highway system is for dynamic events that travel, like invasions, it’s their preferred way of getting around, and it’s more realitstic than just having the mobs path over mountains. Between the placematting, highways, and mobile scripting we use for dynamic events, our dyanmic content really never gets location-locked

(Full Transcript)

Kotaku has posted some videos and their impression of Rift from their time at PAX. If you’re an avid follower of Rift, then you won’t find any new information but the videos do show you more perspectives of the game. For those that are new to the game it introduces you to rifts, invasions and touches on the soul system.

The other distinguishing element of Rift is its dynamic content. The developers hope that players will experience an MMO world that feels like it’s living and progressing even when they are not there. This dynamism is evident by those rifts from which the game gets its name. They appear as tears in the fabric of the world. They’re the potential beachheads of invasions from forces of earth, fire, water, air, life or death. When a tear appears, players can try to seal it. If it opens all the way and becomes a rife, an invading force enters and marauds their way to towns.

Videos beneath the break.

Another interview with Russ Brown at PAX, this time by Ten Ton Hammer. Again more information on the class system, invasions and rifts. Russ also explains the Role system and how easy it is to switch between all of them on the fly.

Some reminders of what some Rogue souls can do:
Bard: Group Support Class
Assassin: Poisons!
Riftstalker: Shield and tank toys.
Marksman: Mobile shoot from range and keep moving.

In another post we’ll discuss a newly found item in Rift called a “Focus”.

Part One of the Video Interview
Part Two of the Video Interview

More GamesCom information coming out for Rift: Planes of Telara, now from the mass media sites; this time from The Escapist. It’s a quick over view of what we know of invasions and the instance Realm of the Fae.

In our short time with Rift, we were only briefly shown what happens when planar rifts run wild, but it was more than enough to spark interest. Eventually, the elemental forces will start wandering away from the area immediately around the rift, interacting with – and wreaking havoc on – the world at large. They’ll even attack quest hubs and kill quest givers if not stopped. Of course, players will get quests to drive them back in return … but the longer the rift is open, the more powerful they’ll become, requiring more of a concerted effort on the part of players to stop the invasion.

Make sure you read whole whole hands on impression.