One of the most impactful changes to #Rift comes in the form of a social device called Twitter. In Beta 7′s patch notes we found:

TWITTER
* Twitteriftic?
* You can now opt to set up Twitter options from within the Rift client. This is optional to use and also optional for automatic achievement tweets.
* To tweet some text, use the command /tweet followed by text in the chat console.
* To tweet a screenshot, use the command /tweetpic followed by optional text. This will snap a screenshot and upload it to yfrog.com, and tweet the link along with any text entered.
[Note: This notes have been abridged]

You can argue that this is the most impactful change to the game in this update. Trion is now moving to expand it’s development out of the game towards the social sphere of the internet. This does two things: 1) Increases exposure and internet awareness of their game. 2) Gets people involved socially where they might not of in the first place. So how do this help #Rift?

This first item is obvious, any publicity is good publicity. The second item has potential to make Trion more money. It’s no secret that MMOGs are social games that thrive on community. It’s also a proven fact that people tend to stay subscribed to an MMOG if they are involved with a community. This new Twitter feature is just a the first small step in evolving the community element of #Rift outside the game. Breaking that social barrier of in-game and “RL” is a good strategy of keeping players playing #Rift.

While Twitter by itself might not drag tons of people out of the game and into social circles, it is a step in the right direction in creating places for those social circles to grow.

There is one issue that is obvious to me staring at my Tweet Deck on Day One of Open Beta. If you’re monitoring #Rift you’ll begin to notice that everyone is an overachiever and is drowning out the rest of the #Rift sphere. Now you can change the hastag, but it defaults to #Rift. Hopefully this changes soon.

The best part of this addition is the tweetpic’ing. The ability to share screenshots instantly with everyone and put messages on them is fantastic. Already you can notice people having fun with this (Yes Zann, you can stop now, I see you). Easy and hostable images for instance bragging rights. You know the best ones are going to be from a bunch of Defiants after squashing some clueless Guardian during a #Rift Invasion. We all know how polite PVPers are too.