Many members of the RIFT community waited apprehensively yesterday for Daglar’s second half of 2013′s State of the Game letter. After Scott Hartsman’s sudden departure from Trion Worlds, some were afraid that news of the coming year would be sprinkled with hints of free-to-play. Instead, we received a brief letter from Daglar in which he thanked RIFT’s community and expressed enthusiasm over the months of updates to come.

Specifically, he talked about what we’ll be seeing in RIFT 2.2 and 2.3. In 2.2, we’ll finally be getting the third tier for Planar Attunement, new zone events on the Storm Legion continents, and our first Storm Legion raid Hard Modes. An updated Carnival of the Ascended will also be making a return, marking RIFT’s second anniversary. Not much is known about the 2.3 update yet, but Daglar did throw out a pretty big hint– it involves the opening of Dendrome!

Keep reading to take a look.

A rather large bombshell was dropped during yesterday’s first half of RIFT’s second annual State of the Game address (also known as Producer’s Letter). Scott Hartsman, who has been the Executive Producer for RIFT since the beginning, is stepping down from the position and leaving Trion. He left Dahanese with this letter for the RIFT community:

I wanted to let you know that I’m stepping down from my position here at Trion. It’s been an amazing time, working with some of the best developers anywhere, getting the company’s first game off the ground, taking it all the way through a multitude of amazing updates, then to Storm Legion, and even a little bit beyond.

And I’ll still see you in RIFT.
Scott Hartsman

Daglar will be finishing off the continuation of the Producer’s Letter later today, where we’ll undoubtedly find out more about what Trion has in store for us in the coming year. Best of luck to Scott Hartsman in his future endeavors. He’ll be missed.

From the Official Forums:

Hi, folks. Now that we’re coming out of a fresh round of releases, demos, conventions, and a bunch of other excitement, we wanted to take a minute to give everyone an update on the state of the game, its testing, and this past convention season — all with an eye on the road from here on out.

BUT FIRST, A QUICK LOOK BACK…

Since we opened these forums in April, we’ve been consistently blown away by the passion and dedication of those of you who’ve come to join us.

We’ve seen new game-related sites open up, we’ve seen existing sites embrace the direction the game’s taken, we’ve seen the return of friends from games’ past, and we’ve been enjoying seeing this turn into a healthy, growing community that’s always willing to welcome newcomers.

Thanks so much for helping us get to where we are so far. You’re a lot of the reason that people have heard about us. Your dedication to the game, telling your friends, and letting others all across the Internet know what we’re building helps out more than you know.

You get a lot of credit for that, and we’re definitely grateful.