Yesterday, Trion posted an official news update about mentoring: Mentoring 101: Play Everywhere! Most of the basic information isn’t new to players who have tested out the mentoring system on the PTS or have read our guide on mentoring, but there is some detailed information regarding the rewards granted through mentoring. It’s also worth a read if you’re catching up on all the details of patch 1.9.

Here is the entire section on rewards:

Besides a new way to enjoy all the content you might have missed while leveling you’ll earn rewards and XP your character can use!

• Quests, Rift Content, and Mobs all give you XP comparable (but slightly less) to what you would earn at your natural level. This means you’ll keep earning levels or Planar Attunement even when you’re mentoring!
• Zone Events reward Sourcetone equivalent to your natural level. (i.e. if you’re naturally Level 50, even if you’re Mentored down to level 10 you’ll still earn Inscribed Sourcestone from events.)
• Mentoring even gives an XP bonus when grouped with lower level players!

The rewards granted through low-level Instant Adventures also scale nicely, which means they’re worth doing while mentoring for the Sourcestone rewards. RIFT’s unique reward system makes mentoring an ideal fit for the game. Read more about mentoring in RIFT in a recent Rift Junkies editorial here.

There are a lot of cool things to check out on the Public Test Shard (PTS) right now. One of which is RIFT’s mentoring system, and to pair along with it, a new low-level Instant Adventure. Both are planned to release in patch 1.9. Mentoring systems have been successful in multiple MMOs including Final Fantasy XI and EverQuest II. Such systems offer players a way to enjoy older content and group up with friends and guildmates of all levels. Right now’s the perfect time for RIFT to introduce a mentoring system, because the game is in a very comfortable state, and new players are trying out the game every day.

Like most features in RIFT, the mentoring system is easy to use and very straightforward. We thought we’d show off some of its natural simplicity, and talk about some of the pros and cons of using it.

Over on the PTS forums, Tacitus has been excellent about helping us keep tabs on the low-level Instant Adventures currently in development. While providing feedback regarding a few questions, this tidbit of information was uncovered:

Originally posted by Tacitus (Source)

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Regarding being a level 10 going up against level 14 mobs, we DO have a plan in place to add a vote system to skip the current adventure. The idea being that it would let a group that found itself in an adventure that they could not beat, they would have the power to move on past it. The trade off will be that it starts a new adventure arc – progress towards a rare encounter is reset. Unfortunately, that feature MIGHT not make it into 1.9. It is a feature I strongly favor, but getting other features finished for IA might crowd it out until a little bit later.

The idea of a vote system that offers players a choice to skip current steps of an Instant Adventure and move on to something easier sounds like it would be a very solid addition to all types of IAs, especially those in lower level areas. This would allow players to complete IA chains without needing to depend on a full group in order to do so, and would also account for various level/gear differences while new players are leveling.

Instant Adventures are one of easiest ways to access RIFT’s group content and dynamic content. They’re also great ways to farm currency, PA experience, and faction notoriety. Making them even more user-friendly and accessible by all levels and types of players? Great move, Trion. Keep up the good work.

A couple of weeks ago in an interview with some of Trion’s staff members, we found out about some of the design philosophies the company has discovered, developed, and maintained over the past year that RIFT has been our MMO home. Trion has learned a lot about what their fanbase wants when it comes to raid design, dynamic content, endgame activities, and everything else in between.

It seems that their philosophies and lessons learned as far as raid design have worked out well– Infernal Dawn seems to, so far, be a huge success. Patch 1.8 in general seems to have been a success. It had a little something for everyone. But as most MMO gamers know, a successful patch begs one question in particular: What’s coming up next?

RIFT is preparing to launch their eighth major content update, bringing to us a new raid, new trade-skills and the ever-expanding role of Instant Adventures. This week, we sat in on a conference call with Hal Hanlin, Scott Hartsman and Adam Gershowitz, and discussed everything that is coming with this latest patch. We even got a taste of what is coming on down the road.

There were plenty of questions regarding Fishing and Survival. We learned that these new skills don’t just bring reasons to roleplay and play around, they bring actual benefits to your character, from a power and convenience perspective. For example, the tents and bedrolls for survival are not just for roleplaying purposes; they do have effects. According to Adam Gershowitz, from a gameplay perspective, they are there to give you a little bit of rest experience as well! The developers main focus is to allow players to pitch a tent, so that they can attend to things happening in real life, like kids or making dinner, and not force the player to head back to town to log off safely.