During Scott Hartsman’s Ask Me (Almost) Anything Reddit chat last Friday, Hartsman gave his honest opinions and some rather large answers to questions that RIFT players were curious about. There were specifics about Storm Legion, for example, that he couldn’t reveal, but for the most part, he answered the questions very thoroughly. He delved into some interesting subjects including the different types of PvP players in RIFT, the MMO industry’s past, the MMO industry’s future, the future of the Bard soul, and Trion’s stance on one day turning toward a free-to-play model.

Massively published an article yesterday in which the author takes a closer look at the answers Hartsman issued about these subjects, and speculates a bit about what they might mean for the future of RIFT.

Good news for the RIFT lore junkies out there. Last Friday, while Scott Hartsman was chatting it up on Reddit with RIFT fans, both Massively and MMORPG.com had some cool, new Storm Legion lore information to share. Some new Storm Legion screenshots and artwork were revealed as well.

The Infinity Gate

Amid the Steppes of Infinity there stands a massive ruin gazing up toward Crucia’s storm-tossed sky. Floating impossibly above this structure is an intricate construct of interlocking lenses and disks, their surfaces covered with bas reliefs.

If scholars were to brave the Storm Legion forces patrolling the Steppes, they would say the ruin is capable of opening portals to other dimensions — portals large enough to send armies marching through. This is the Infinity Gate, and sending an army through is just what Crucia has in mind.

Be sure and check out Massively’s RIFT exclusive: Storm Legion lore bonanza for the full article, and keep reading for MMORPG.com’s lore coverage.

In details revealed yesterday in a Massively article, we found out that Trion is including some very cool pricing bonuses that affect everyone interested in the expansion. Players who have already purchased RIFT will be able to receive Storm Legion for a discounted price, and on top of that– if players new to the game are interested in giving it a try, they will receive the original RIFT game free when purchasing Storm Legion.

This move from Trion is a surprise to many fans, and a good one. It helps players new to RIFT easily delve into the game, and returning players get a bonus of their own. It’s smart. In a world of MMOs where new players often have to purchase expansion on top of expansion, Trion seems to be one step ahead of the competition here, especially if this pricing method continues in future expansions. In the official forum thread about this news, one player sums it up nicely:

“These Trion people are crazy. It’s like they want to make ridiculous amounts of money from happy customers, instead of insane amounts of money from soon-to-be-ex customers.”

Seriously, great move, Trion!

Yesterday, a press release announced that Trion Worlds licensed CloakWorks’ Shroud technology, which will let the team spruce up their graphic shinies for Storm Legion. Specifically, those shiny cloaks we’re going to be getting our hands on. The technology will likely affect other areas of gameplay as well. This information is available on a Massively article, as well as on CloakWorks’ official site.

Conquest, Summerfest, more Instant Adventures, the mentoring system, and Primeval Feast are all headed our way in patch 1.9. That’s a good-sized chunk of content. But… there’s more! Just when we thought patch 1.9 couldn’t contain any more cool features, another long-awaited addition was announced yesterday– barber shops! Yep, we’ll finally be able to change our goofy hair cuts (and tattoos).

Here’s the original announcement, found in this E3 Massively article:

“Yes, barber shops are coming to Telara. While Trion admits it could have held the feature back, it decided that barber shops were a cool feature more easily implemented than other features.”

Awesome news. Here is the community response thread for this announcement. Yeah, fans are pretty happy about this one. Sometimes it’s the little things, features like this, for example, that make RIFT that awesome game it is.

Massively’s Justin Olivetti spoke with Hal Hanlin regarding many of the changes in today’s patch, including Hammerknell, Character Transfers and most interesting: Population Counts.

Speaking of population, I couldn’t help but relay the accusation that RIFT’s population is not growing but dwindling (or “dying,” depending on your proximity to a cyberprophet of doom). Hanlin laughed and said, “I can assure you — no, we’re not. Uh-uh. We are continuing to uptrend our number of subscribers.”

In fact, he revealed that one of the most-cited sources of this accusation — the population indicators on the server list — has changed simply because the company has severely beefed up the capacity of its server hardware to accommodate more players. So what rated as a “high” population before might be downgraded to “medium” today. He said that this upgrade was done in preparation for even more player trials coming in the future.

So perhaps some of the naysayers are wrong here. Population levels are always tough to gauge, especially if all you have to go by is queues and “High”, “Medium”, and “Low” tags. Now when you actually change what those numbers mean… well you get some bad guesses.

Make sure you read the rest of the article over at Massively.

We got the opportunity to dive into 1.3 early at E3, all while a petite seven-foot-tall dev perched on our shoulder and gave us running commentary. Patch 1.3′s crown jewel is a 20-person raid in the ancient fortress of Hammerknell, which was built by folks who thought it’d be a smashing idea to cram evil spirits into runes and then use that as the foundation. Sounds to us a lot like building a summer camp on top of a desecrated native burial ground, but we’re sure these architects had good intentions.

Surprise, surprise, the spirits started to ooze out into Hammerknell and tore up the place. To make matters worse, Hammerknell is the prison of a water dragon — and the water plane started to come to its rescue. So the Dwarves decided to treat it like an illegal toxic dump by sealing up the fortress, whistling innocently, and conveniently forgetting it until another raid area was needed.

But it’s not as simple as just unlocking the front door and marching in to claim some loot! Hit the jump as we walk you through the process of down-and-dirty archaeology!

Read the rest of the article from Massively as they talk about Hammerknell, Guild Banks and a new type of artifact collection system.

Massively has recently gotten a chance to talk with Scott Hartsman on patch 1.2 and beyond. Here are few choice quotes that we think showcase which direction Trion is taking RIFT.

First we find that 1.2 is coming, potentially, May 4th.

On Looking for Group Tools

One of the biggest improvements with the update is the addition of a Looking for Group tool. This was something everyone wanted, Hartsman said, but the team refused to rush it out the door in poor shape. It does what you would probably expect: Players can queue up for an instance by role (the system recognizes which builds you have and offers options for tank, healer, support and DPS) and then wait as the tool assembles the group for a cooperative adventure. Once a group is formed, the system thenn throws them into the maelstrom automatically. The LFG tool isn’t just for dungeons, either; it’s designed to help players get together for world quest content like epic or arena quests.

The LFG tool will come in handy in conjunction with 1.2′s improved daily dungeon system. Trion’s tweaking the daily dungeon quests so that you can either do one per day or let them pile up so you can knock out a bunch at once. Hartsman said that this caters to the “weekend warriors” who want all of the special rewards of daily dungeons but can only make time for them once a week. The game will store up to seven daily dungeon quests for you at a time.

Emphasis is Rift Junkies above. Great news for those that can’t get on every day to do a dungoen. This aids casual and hardcore players alike.

Few details on Beta are filtering out. Here is one impression.

From Massively:

RIFT isn’t perfect, and there’s a lot that might feel all-to-familiar, but the rift invasions and the soul system address the two biggest problems in MMOs today: lack of player interaction and the limitations of the holy trinity in groups. Rifts encourage players to band together, include each other, and fight against a common enemy. The soul system encourages five people, regardless of class, to group up and still have the tools to make progress together. If rift invasions are tuned correctly, and if the soul system realizes its potential, RIFT has a real opportunity to breathe new life into the MMO genre.

Here’s one more from Ten Ton Hammer:

Rift is a graphically stunning game that is filled with both beautiful landscapes and horrific monsters. While graphics don’t always make the game, the look of Rift is excellent and thus far runs smoothly even in a beta setting.

Very few games lately have been able to convey so much in their first 20 levels, but with so much depth and such a quick leveling curve Rift has done an excellent job of immersing me in its world. The combination of so many good elements along with a difficulty level that provides a solid challenge without being oppressively difficult has me wanting to see more and anticipating the next 20 levels and beyond.

And a mid-week podcast from Rift Podcast.com:

Scott Hartsman – Rift’s Studio General Manager, Chief Creative Officer and Executive Producer; Alyvian – forum and irc regular, beta tester and Tranquility Guild Leader and Cindy ‘Abigale’ Bowens – Sr. Community Manager for RIFT join Arithion to talk about the following:

* Beta NDA Lift
* Rift system scaling
* Fullscale Invasion of the masses
* Soul choices overhauled
* More than 51 Soul Points
* Beta 3
* Kelari Roll!

After a long holiday weekend here in the United States, the information express starts up again, and today we have an instance reveal from Massively.

A Clash of Elements

Scarwood Reach is divided by two opposed elements, ravaged by rifts, and fought over fiercely by spawn of the elements. In the north, Death Rifts spew forth flesh-crafted horrors and turn the land to barren dust. In the south, the Elves of House Aelfwar have spread the surreal jungles of the Life Rifts. These two invading forces meet in battle at King’s Breach, which legends say serves as a back door to the sealed Dwarven delve of Lord’s Hall.

None know the true location of the hidden passage, or if it even exists, but that does not stop the Endless Court and House Aelfwar from fighting jagged tooth and rotting nail for every square inch around the supposed entry. Ascended who come to assault these two cults will find an army of Life Cultists besieging a fortified Deathtouched position.

Follow the link above for additional screenshots.