Update 10/10: Elrar announced that Phase 3 of Tempest Rising will introduce players to Exodus of the Storm Queen, the new dungeon. This will give players about two weeks to enjoy the dungeon before the expansion’s launch.

While we don’t have a date for RIFT Patch 1.11 yet, we do have Trion’s announcement of the patch, along with some of the details about what we’ll be seeing when it launches. Most of these details we were already aware of– including the major changes to our current souls and callings and the 4-part Storm Legion major World Event, Tempest Rising. During Phase 3 of Tempest Rising is when Storm Legion pre-orderers will be gaining access to Exodus of the Storm Queen, the first new 5-man dungeon.

“Telara as you know it is coming unhinged. Familiar souls grow strange while new souls lurk in the shadows. Machines and demons battle through the streets of capital cities. Worse, a messenger delivers dire tidings from a distant shore: Crucia’s imprisonment is a façade. Soon, she’ll break free of the Icewatch and join her massed legion in the conquest of the planes.”

Also in this announcement is the news that Trion will be allowing returning players of all levels to return to Telara for free during the weekend of November 7-11 to test out all the major changes of Patch 1.11, and take part in the Storm Legion pre-expansion event.

Just in case you’re itching for more Storm Legion in the meantime, make sure to check out Ten Ton Hammer’s Storm Legion preview. Oh, and beta testers, Elrar mentioned yesterday that the team will be announcing the second closed beta test sometime this week!

TenTon Hammer recently posted a Q&A where readers submitted questions and Scott Hartsman of Rift: Planes of Telara, answers. Much like other recent articles, this one is for the neophyte Rift Fan.

Ten Ton Hammer: Does the map of your world extend eastward into the islands? (Submitted by Khalathwyr)

Scott Hartsman: Aha! The launch world, in fact, is as it is right now, meaning that the map that you see is the world that we are launching with. It is that and a goodly number of interiors, instances, and dungeons.

Ten Ton Hammer: So when it comes to the islands, is that a hint that there’s going to be boats for travel and perhaps even player boats? (Submitted by Khalathwyr)

Scott Hartsman: Right now, the world does not extend out that way. The mainland is the launch content.

Follow this link to read the rest.

UPDATE: Here is the transcript.

TenTon Hammer’s Podcast was put out and this week they had Scott Hartsman on for an interview. Scott spent about forty five minutes with the guys and talked about the game in general. He started off with the basics, talking about the dev team and went on about the games class system, souls, how they are used, how things are balanced. For the pro-rifter, no new information was released in this podcast. Much of the discussion centered around information previous TenTon Hammer articles have already discussed. For those new to the game, check out the podcast and skip to the 46 minute mark (you’ll thank me later) and enjoy.

A new Rift: Planes of Telara screenshot has surfaced. It’s an image that was posted in addition to the Ten Ton interview with Scott Hartsman. Check out the tiger pet in the bottom right.

You go away for the weekend and what happens? Scott Hartsman does an interview with Ten Ton Hammer and I have to find out about it on Monday. Anyway, I assume most of you have seen this interview already, but I’ll go ahead an pull out the pertinent information that we can gleam from it.