Rift: Planes of Telara

[Zerocool]

So end game is sounding pretty good. But what about the game after 20? I mean does it open up at all? Or is it pretty much the same linear path from quest hub to quest hub, with all the quests the same kill X of Y and gather A of C.

Either way, it's looking better than anything else that's out at the moment, but it would be nice to have a bit more freedom and some more diversity in quests. I don't know though, maybe I'll have to wait for GW2 for that. This will be nice to play in the meantime though.

[Katlan]

I kind of like how they arent trying to be so different from WoW, but just taking wow and adding an extra layer to it and more depth. Looking forward to it

[Alderaan]

Grouping: Ok, Mr. Hartsman…You’ve Convinced Me.

Since the release of World of Warcraft way back in 2004, MMOs have gradually shifted from a grouping focus to a solo focus. Unlike Everquest 1, Dark Age of Camelot and the other early MMOs, current MMOs are all primarily solo games. Not only is it possible to solo all the way up to the level cap, it is the most expedient way to do so. Gone are the days of open world content requiring a group. Now everything is solo friendly and group areas are few and far between in the open world. Most group content is now situated firmly in instances.

The argument that I hear from developers justifying this is that group areas in the open world quickly become barren and unused. Players would rather do the easier solo content than find a group and head to the “elite” areas. Because of this, developers have grown to believe that open world group content is a waste of resources. Why spend development time to create an area of the world that will be skipped by the majority of players out there? As much as I love open world group content, this rationalization has the ring of truth to it.

So, why do players skip open world group content? Do players really prefer to play solo? I, personally, don’t think so. I think players skip group content because it is generally such a pain to get a group together. Sitting around in the nearest city while spamming the group channel looking for players is just not fun. Why do that when you can just go level solo and level even faster?

WoW attempted to make finding a group easier with the Random Dungeon Finder. They were successful, except for two things. First, the RDF only worked for instanced content and so had no positive effect on grouping in the open world. Secondly, it had a detrimental effect on open world, both solo and group, because players started sitting in Ironforge waiting for their next queue to pop.

Warhammer Online had a different take, they simply made creating a group an extension of your normal play. Groups were formed spontaneously while out in the open world and were easy to join and leave. Unfortunately, for various reasons, this innovation only had a real effect on PvP. It still must be considered a success however. For all its faults, WAR is one of the few MMOs that I know of in which 90% of your in game time is spent in a group. PvP is the name of the game there and almost all PvP is done in a group in WAR. It is simply too dangerous to not be in a group and getting into a group is too easy not to get into one.

Before the Beta Events, I thought Rift was going to be yet another MMO that ignored Open World group content and focused solely on solo open world content and group focused instances. I have read various forum and blog posts in which Scott Hartsman has said that he too believes that creating “elite” areas in the open world is a waste of resources but, at the same time, he has also said that there would be plenty of group content in Rift.

I, quite frankly, was skeptical. I really wanted to see some open world group content in Rift and Scott’s position that creating group only areas was a waste really disappointed me. Then the beta events happened and I was able to see the Rift system in action.

Mr. Hartsman, I am convinced.

I believe Rift will do for PvE grouping what Warhammer Online did for PvP grouping. It will make grouping a natural extension of game play. Watching the Beta Rift events unfold, it became very obvious that the Rifts encouraged grouping more than a few scattered Elite group areas ever could. People joined groups because they needed to do so to survive. They joined groups because it was fun and they joined them because they were rewarding.

There was no spamming the LFG channel for group members. No one sit in Sanctum waiting for a group to form. People just went out, found Rifts and naturally joined the nearest group or raid and they had fun. People were joining groups and not even really realizing it. Groups just naturally formed as the invasions hit.

The best part of the system is that it is completely scalable. Not enough players to support the intense invasions we saw in beta and the system dials it down a few notches. People swarming the zone and the system dials it up. One night you may be soloing in the zone and the next you may be joining a group to fight off a huge invasion from the Plane of Water.

I am really excited to see what Scott and Trion have in store for us in the future. It is pretty apparent that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Rift system. I fully expect that the Rift system we see now and on release will be expanded upon and will look different six months after release.

Hopefully the system makes open world grouping relevant again and more importantly, maybe it will make it fun again as well!

[Jintu]

Beta 3 Patch Notes: Pretty good for barely 2 weeks worth of time + holiday

Spoiler: show

Beta 3
12/27/2010

=== FEATURED ===
* Soul acquisition and soul point gains have undergone some changes -- see below under SOULS for more details!
* One new full-zone event and seven new Invasion bosses are available for Beta 3!
* You can now control-click soul icons in quest windows and get a full soul tree preview of the soul with all of its abilities.
* You can now rename your pet! Right click the pet’s portrait and select the ‘Rename’ option.
* Reactive abilities now have a special display when they are triggered and available for use.
* New game opening movie is in!
* Cyril has a whole new voice! This includes the Guardian intro movie voiceover.


GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* Respec costs have been temporarily disabled for Beta 3 to allow every more chances to play with soul combinations.
* BETA 3 TEST ITEM: Items are available on the Planar Goods merchants that will teleport you to the opposing factions’ zone (Freemarch-Silverwood).
* Lots of new mounts! Updated many mount vendors.
* Corpse despawn time is greatly extended for corpses containing Rare or Epic loot.
* Keyboard turning speed has been significantly increased.
* Falling out of the world should return you to the nearest graveyard alive, instead of dead.
* Daily quests can only be shared on the same day they are being offered.
* You will no longer see, nor can trigger, achievements flagged for the opposite faction.
* You can once again remove a title after adding one to your name, using the "No Title" button on the Titles collection pane.
* Rest experience has been enabled. If you log out in a Tranquil area (most major towns), you will get rest experience for each hour logged off.
* Monster and player kills while rested grant 200% experience.
* Players can no longer give characters names beginning with 'GM'.
* A number of client and server stability improvements have been made since Beta 2.


RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Added two new invader boss encounters in Silverwood.
* Added five new invader boss encounters to Freemarch.
* Many improvements to the Silverwood zone event.
* Freemarch zone event should now make itself seen for beta 3!
* Rewards are now available for successfully defeating zone events.
* Silverwood and Freemarch Invasion bosses now drop Champion's Emblems and sourcestone loot.
* Fixed the Defiant Commander to correctly award Invasion effort when attacked.
* Added loot to Guardian and Defiant invasions and footholds.
* Revised contribution for rifts and invasions, particularly so that contribution gains are more fair to healers.
* You should now be able to pull an Invasion without pulling adds from outside the Invasion group near a foothold.
* You should also be able to kite Invasion mobs without so many leashing issues.
* Interrupts no longer work on foothold-spawning abilities, like those used by Invasion Captains. (In previous betas, interrupting them would cause the spell to actually succeed faster.)
* Members of an Invasion who remain alive after the Invasion leader is killed now correctly take 1% damage per tick from being 'Untethered'.
* Once an Invasion succeeds in establishing a foothold and becomes Untethered, they will no longer continue to draw shifting planar creep around them on the ground.
* Invasion immunity upon spawn has been reduced to 10 seconds.
* Invasions will now award artifacts 50% of the time for gold contribution, and 10% of the time for silver.
* The Invasion effect 'Unbound' will no longer be removed if an invasion is pulled and then leashed (reset).


DUNGEONS AND RAIDS
* Raid groups are no longer allowed into low-level dungeons.
* Also fixed a problem where a player or group could enter a dungeon even if they didn't meet the level or party size requirements.
* Party member pets will not appear if the pet owner is in a different instance of your zone. Other party members also shouldn't appear briefly on your screen if you leave the group.
* Instances now reset at the correct time. The /time command reports this, but it should be 4:00AM PST.


GUILDS
* Opening the Guild window while tracking a Guild Quest will stop de-tracking the quest.
* Changed some guild quest text so it didn't tell you to kill members of your own faction


DEATH
* Spirit walking characters should now appear transparent to others.
* Fixed a bug where you could get stuck in a dead state after respawning.
* Added resurrection NPCs to all graveyards.
* If you are dead, you must choose to respawn or soul walk before you will see any windows that pop to enter an instance.
* We made a number of changes to resurrection rules to improve overall gameplay:

Resurrection at Graveyard - Changes
* Players who resurrect at a graveyard will now take a 25% soul vitality penalty, instead of 100%.
* Players who resurrect at a graveyard now get the weakened soul debuff (50% reduction to all stats for 5 minutes), which can be removed by a Healer NPC.
* Resurrection NPC dialogue and options are updated to reflect the above changes.

Death Penalty Debuff - Changes
* Players will receive a weakened soul debuff if they die normally with 0% Soul Vitality OR if they respawn at a graveyard.
* The weakened soul debuff has changed to be a flat 50% stat reduction instead of a stacking 20% debuff.
* Weakened soul debuff now has a duration of 5 minutes.
* Weakened soul debuffs can still be removed via Healer NPCs.

Soul Healing Cost - Changes
* Soul healing has its cost reduced significantly for leveling players. Low level players will see a large reduction in the cost to heal death penalties. Mid-level players see a moderate reduction, and high-level players see a low reduction. Max level players do not have cost reduced.


COMBAT
* Reduced mana regeneration rates for low and high level ranges. Slightly increased Mage mana consumption in general.
* Pets now inherit a percentage of their owner's attack or spell power based on its type and the owner's Calling. This means pets' damage will scale better with your gear.
* Ranged and Melee abilities now play nice together, and will switch between them instead of showing an invalid weapon equipped error.
* The grace period before the end of global cooldown now plays nicer with procs that affect the next spellcast (instant cast, Life and Death Concord, etc.)

SOUL ACQUISITION
* All souls are now available in Meridian and Sanctum through soul-specific quests. These are just placeholder for now to prep the new system and will be replaced later with real quests.
* Souls are now given out sooner and with more choices available - all souls are available at level 1, and you will leave the starting zone with three souls for your character.
* Increased the number of soul points awarded to characters. You now receive 1 additional point every third level, and finish with a total of 66 points at level 50.
* Please let us know how the new point balance feels!

SOULS
* Due to the changes in soul point gain and ability unlocks, all characters have had their soul points reset.
* You will now be prompted with a popup box if your soul points have been reset.
* The Soul Tree interface now warns you if you cannot spend more points in a soul due to level cap or reaching soul point maximum.
* Many of the Soul-specific ability unlock changes below are related to opening all soul choices at level 1.

ARCHON
* Pillaging Stone: Now a 0 point root unlock.

ASSASSIN
* Serrated Blades: Will no longer critical hit, and its effect will end when the target dies. It no longer skips the first tick, and damage is reduced per tick to account for the additional hit.
* Savage Strike: Now a 0 point root unlock.

BARD
* New Horn and Lute sounds for Bards!
* Fanfare of Vigor: Fixed a bug where this wouldn't increase the character's Endurance when soul points were spent in Stage Presence.
* Coda of Distress: Now increases damage taken by 5%.
* Invigorated Soul: Should no longer heal dead players.
* Anthem of Glory: Now a 6 point branch unlock.
* Cadence: Now a 0 point root unlock. New ranks have been added!
* Coda of Wrath: Now a 2 point root unlock. Go train - new rank here, too!

BEASTMASTER
* Fierce Strike: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Tearing Slash: Now to a 2 point root unlock.
* Primal Recovery: Now a 4 point root unlock.

BLADEDANCER
* Combat Efficiency: Fixed a bug where energy was not being returned correctly.

CABALIST
* Curse of Solitude: Fixed the DoT damage.
* Shadow's Touch: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Sigil of Lurking Decay: Moved to a 2 point root unlock.

CHLOROMANCER
* Essence Surge: Fixed an issue preventing this from healing all of an ally's health.
* Lifegiving Veil: Now converts 50% of Life damage done into healing, up from 20%.
* Empowered Veil: Now increases the percentage of Life damage converted into healing by Lifegiving Veil by 10% per soul point, up from 5%.
* Ruin: Slightly increased damage.
* Flourish: Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds.
* Synthesis: Increased the healing bonus to 150%.
* Natural Fusion: Now increases the healing bonus on Synthesis by 25% per soul point spent.
* Vile Spores: Now a 0 point root unlock. Slightly increased damage.
* Withered Vines: Now a 2 point root unlock.
* Entropic Veil: Now a 4 point root unlock.

DOMINATOR
* Memory Wipe: Fixed so this works as described.
* Neural Prod - New Ability: 0 point root unlock. Instant cast, assaults the enemy's mind with electrical energy, dealing Air damage.

DRUID
* Boundless Growth: Now reduces the cooldown... instead of increasing it.
* Slumber, Grim Silence: No longer castable without line of sight.
* Crag Hammer: No longer affects auto-attacks.
* Weight of the World: Now works!
* Fervent Strike: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Shield of Oak: Moved to a 2 point root unlock.

ELEMENTALIST
* Quicken Elements: Reduced aggro generated by this ability.

INQUISITOR
* Perseverance: No longer blocks your own Trepidation.
* Circle of Oblivion: Now triggers auto-attack.
* Soul Drain: Now works properly across all ranks (without giant delays after it) and activates auto-attack on use.
* Unholy Tutelage: Now works.
* Contempt: Now heals for 30-90% of the damage done by Vex.
* Aggressive Renewal, Harsh Discipline: Now deal Death damage.
JUSTICAR
* Mien of Leadership: No longer reduces the healing or damage from sources other than Cleric abilities (ex: food or drink!)
* Celerity: Now actually decreases the time between auto-attacks, instead of increasing it.
* Absolution: Now an instant-cast.
* Reduced the weapon and attack power contribution of all melee attacks.
* Strike of Judgement: Moved to 0 point root unlock.
* Cavalier: Moved to a 2 point root unlock.

MARKSMAN
* Strafe: Damage increased.
* Empowered Shot, Deadeye Shot, Lightning Fury: Casting times on these reduced to 1.5 seconds. Damage has been reduced.
* Swift Shot: Can now be used at melee range. New rank added, so remember to train.
* Hasted Shot: Another ability with a new rank added - get your train on!

NECROMANCER
* Mass Grave: Now summons only a Skeletal Zealot and a Shadow Revenant.
* Plague Bolt: Now a 0 point root unlock.
* Necrosis: Now a 2 point root unlock.
* Revivify: Now a 4 point root unlock.

NIGHTBLADE
* Blazing Fury: Fixed a bug where this sometimes would not return Energy correctly.
* Dusk to Dawn: Damage increased.
* Melted Skin: Has its stacking group changed to stack with physical damage debuffs, but not magic damage debuffs.

PALADIN
* Balance of Power and Tip the Balance: Now work based on weapon damage. The better weapon equipped, the more damage they do.

PURIFIER
* Caregiver's Blessing: Now properly triggers the global cooldown.
* Wisdom of the Ages: Updated the mana costs.
* Fiery Blessing: Will not last forever after switching roles. Does not stack with other Purifier blessings.
* Shield of the Ancestors: Updated the mana cost for ranks 9-10.
* Rite of the Ancestors: The absorb procced from this now lasts 15 seconds, instead of 15 milliseconds.
* Divine Cascade: Updated the mana costs.
* Latent Blaze: No longer castable without line of sight, and the debuff is no longer removable.
* Surging Flames: Now heals allies with the lowest health first.
* Flame Ward: Now lasts 6 seconds as advertised, instead of 5.
* Enflamed Rejuvenation: Now only triggers on single target heals.
* Soul Lance: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Spirit Rupture: Moved to a 2 point root unlock.

RANGER
* Rejuvenate: Moved from an 8 point root ability to a 4 point root ability. A new rank has been added, so remember to train up!
* Divert Rage: Moved from a 2 point root ability to an 8 point root ability. Everybody do the ability shuffle!
* Splinter Shot: Moved from a 4 point root ability to a 2 point root ability. A new rank has been added, go train.

RIFTBLADE
* Searing Strike: Now a 0 point root unlock.
* Fiery Burst: Now a 2 point root unlock.
* Flamespear: Now a 4 point root unlock.

RIFTSTALKER
* Planar Strike: Now a 0 point root unlock.
* Guarded Steel: Now a 2 point root unlock. What's that you ask? 'New ranks?' Yes! Go train.
* Planebound Resilience is now a 4 point root unlock.

SABOTEUR
* Fragmentation Bomb: Now a 0 point root unlock. No longer has a cooldown. Damage reduced appropriately.
* Blast Charge: Now a 2 point root unlock.
* Detonate: Now a 2 point root unlock.

SENTINEL
* Luminous Gaze, Swift Recovery: Now... works.
* Empowering Light: Properly removes Empowered when it explodes. Added the damage done per Empowered to the Empowered tooltip. Empowered effect no longer lasts for a shorter duration than Empowering Light.
* Shards of Light: Now causes aggro immediately. Updated the icon.
* Healing Breath: Updated the icon.
* Enraptured Breath: No longer reheals the original target of Healing Breath.
* Healing Communion, Enraptured Breath, Marked by the Light, Healing Benediction: Now heals allies with the lowest health first.
* Lasting Invocation: Now works properly on all ranks of Healing Invocation.
* Embolden: Works.
* Protect the Flock: Now properly decreases the amount of damage taken, instead of increasing.
* Marked by the Light: No longer heals the target instead of nearby allies, and its heal does not trigger its own proc.

SHAMAN
* Courage buffs: Updated the mana costs.
* Heart of the (etc): Now increases resistances by 30 for these types of buffs.
* Vengeance of the Winter Storm: Rank 6 no longer does rank 7's damage.
* Rage of the North: Added scaling increase to this ability.

STORMCALLER
* Ice Shear: The debuff applied will now cap out at 3 stacks of Electrified.
* Electrocute: Rank 2 now deals the correct amount of damage.
* Thunderbolt: Now a 0 point root unlock.
* Cloudburst: Now a 4 point root unlock.

WARDEN
* Tidal Surge: No longer consumed by non-heals.
* Soothing Stream: Fixed the mana cost for ranks 1-4.
* Overflow, Rising Water: Now with 100% more working.
* Ebb and Flow: Scales chance properly based on soul points spent.
* Ripple, Downpour, Orbs of the Tide: Now heals allies with the lowest health first.
* Crushing Wave: Updated the mana costs.
* Waterjet: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Cleansing Waters: Moved to a 2 point root unlock.

WARLOCK
* Neddra's Torture: Changed to stack with other abilities.

WARLORD
* Leader's Mark: Moved to a 0 point root unlock.
* Spotter's Order: Now a 2 point root unlock.
* Empowering Strike: Now a 4 point root unlock.


ZONES

FREEMARCH
* Guardian Invasions can now appear!
* Fixed an invasion in Freemarch that was spawning all commanders, and no minions.
* Updated resource node spawn rates.
* Added loot to major events in Freemarch.
* Made adjustments to the invasion 'highways' and foothold locations throughout Freemarch.
* Adjusted the entrance to Meridian to allow for more interesting battles for the front gate wardstone.

MATHOSIA
* Increased skeleton population in Thedeor Fields.
* Players who arrive late to the rift party in Mathosia will receive credit for the first objective up until the point combat starts with Shade of Regulos.
* The light beam just before the Eye of Regulos should now be visible to all video settings.
* Ettins should no longer stomp your head when they respawn on top of you.
* Fixed an issue with treant and golem spawning in quests 'High Elven Inquisition' and 'Dwarven Inquisition'.

REALM OF THE FAE [Dungeon]
* Adjusted Autumnal Lackey's volume and voiceover.
* Also fixed Trickster Maelow's voiceover.
* Fae Lord Twyl's graphics have another polish pass.
* Atrophinius' knockback no longer deals damage, and some of his other abilities are reduced in damage.
* Fixed a display issue with this zone's map.

SILVERWOOD
* Ascended heroes who have settled in Sanctum and Quicksilver College will now teach you the ways of their Ascended Souls. Mages are taught in Quicksilver College, while all others are found around Sanctum.
* Population improvements for Untamed Copse and Wayward Thicket for high player counts.
* Silverwood Rifts and Invasion amount and difficulty will scale based on number of players in the zone.
* Updated Defiant Invasions in Silverwood to have similar balance to other Invasions.
* Barrel Full of Goblins: The barrels now respawn faster.
* Big Brother Hazer: The bound minions required for this quest now respawn faster.
* The Perfect Specimen: Tweaked Maffle's scripting so he may be targeted immediately.
* Delivering the Hostage: Cleaned up some old scripting which could have been breaking Eukar.
* Quests Rescuing Foresters, Agitated Wildlife, and Ending the Mischief should perform better with high player load.
* The constant battle against invasions has taken its toll on the guards posted at the bridge to Sanctum, and less of them are available per shift to defend the nearby Wardstone.
* The wardstone in North Argent Glade has been reduced to level 10 from 15, to better line up the level of attacking invasions with the area.
* Two wardstone locations on the west side of Sunken Marsh are now level 9, down from level 11.
* Bless the Fallen: Increased the respawn rate of Fallen Citizens.
* Increased the difficulty of Aldern.
* Added an additional potential Rift location to Silver Coast.

TERMINUS
* Gathering Power: Mousing over Spectral Harvesters now indicates that they are a potential quest target.
* Reduce, Recycle, Reeducate: Players can no longer target Shyla the Fallen until the quest fight begins and she can be damaged.
* You Reap What You Sow: Target quest items are now drops from Soul Caller mobs. More item drop sources are active, and a more aggressive minimum spawn has been set to ensure there are enough quest targets under full load. Drops for this quest are shared with the group.
* All that cheering going on in the Life Factory should be toned down now.


ITEMS
* Essence stats are brought in line with new stat balance rules.
* Single stat essences from Planar Merchants now have corrected resist types, instead of all having death resistance.
* Fire consumables from rifts now last 2 minutes instead of 10.
* Items that are Unique-Equip will now show 'Unique' in the tooltip. Planar gems that are unique equip for their planar type will show 'Unique-Family' in their tooltip.
* Removed the now-unnecessary description text on Greater Essences that said they were unique-equip, now that we have the unique-equip tag in tooltips.
* Greater Essences sold by faction merchants in the main cities now have names.
* Adjusted the level of Rare Essences sold at Rare Planar Goods merchants.
* Increased the cost of Rare items on Planar Goods merchants.


PVP/WARFRONTS
* Warfronts are disabled for Beta 3. Sorry!
* Added separate error messages for PvP attacks failing due to the target not being flagged, the target being in a safe-from-pvp state, and the caster being in a safe-from-pvp state.
* Loads of new PvP achievements are now available.
* Guardian Guild PVP quests now with more context... and text in general.
* Fixed a bug where you would sometimes get unintended rewards from killing your duel opponent.


CRAFTING
* Copper and Ashwood nodes shouldn't spawn in the starter areas of Freemarch and Silverwood anymore.
* Bursts, Flares, and Blasts for Runecrafting now have tooltip text.
* Correct skill values now display when gaining skill.
* Un-learning a skill now immediately removes any quests specifically requiring that skill from NPC dialogues (i.e. crafting quests).
* Fixed an issue where tin bars, bronze bars, and any items crafted with these materials were severely overpriced. They should resell to merchants with appropriate values now.
* Salvage Armor now works on Shields, instead of Salvage Weapons.
* Reduced the number of items needing to be crafted for low level daily quests.
* Fixed crafted Vials requiring Mage/Cleric only. Manasurge Vials should be the only ones with such restrictions.
* Crafted shields with melee stats may only be equipped by Warriors.
* Increased drop rate for Kinetic, Perpetual, and Sentience items when Runebreaking.
* Ciphers (offhand) from Runecrafting have been replaced by Resolute Runes (main hand), which have +Endurance.
* Ciphers, Relentless Runes, and Resilient Runes (all ranks) have been removed from trainers and player recipe lists.
* Dim Wrathful Rune and Dim Dominating Rune have been removed. Higher ranks are unaffected.
* Devastating Runes, Calamitous Runes, Destructive Runeshard, and Ravaging Runeshards have been adjusted from Uncommon to Rare. Their stat bonuses are now higher and they cost more from the Artisan Store.
* Skill-up values across the board for Runecrafting recipes have been updated slightly. Each recipe with a minimum skill requirement of 10 or more now stay orange for 10 points, instead of 9.
* All Runes that had crit, focus, hit, parry, or block have had their values adjusted for balance.
* While a number of Runes have been removed from the trainer and recipe lists, if you had already created one of the affected Runes, they will remain in your inventory at this time.
* Fixed some issues where harvestable resources were respawning instantly.


GRAPHICS AND AUDIO
* Fixed a problem with how character hair was displayed with a helm equipped.
* Improved handling of smoke and similar particles in foggy areas.
* Fixed a bug with headtracking while polymorphed.
* Additional ambience noises are in the process of being added to several areas of the game.
* Player character healing abilities now have magic-type specific visual effects instead of only the previous green sparkle.
* Fixed greyed out ability icons displaying incorrectly with some video cards.


COMMANDS AND MACROS
* Equipment manager commands are available. Use /saveequip # and /loadequip #, where # is between 1 and 9. This will save your current equipped items and allow you to change between gear sets when needed.
* Using a modifier key on a default movement key (such as shift+W) will no longer cause you to move slightly when triggering the keybind.
* Alt-F4 no longer immediately closes the client. Instead, it prompts you with a confirmation box. Players asking questions in general chat rejoice.
* Alt+Enter now toggles the game between windowed and full-screen modes.
* The grace period between global cooldown and casting abilities will play nice with macros now.
* /quit and /exit will trigger the game logout window (logout or quit game) now.

UI/SETTINGS
* Added a reminder popup at client startup if you're running the Low Quality Renderer.
* Water should be properly visible in the low quality renderer.
* All quest UI text should be shown in a larger, more readable format.
* Quest givers who are also the completer for the quests they give will now properly display an overhead icon and show the 'quest incomplete' dialog when clicked on.
* Added a checkmark toggle to the Achievements window to only show achievements for the current character.
* Item comparison tooltips no longer appear strangely offset when near the edge of the screen.
* Item comparison tooltips should now always update properly.
* Minimap tooltips should never end up offscreen.
* Minimap character markers for characters in your raid now update group numbers if a character changes groups within the raid.
* If an indicator on the minimap is less than 5 meters away from you vertically, we don't show 'above' or 'below' tags.
* When binding a key to a hotbar slot with an ability in it, it no longer tries to trigger the skill when displaying the overwrite confirmation box.
* Adjusted the default position of some UI elements to avoid overlapping when adding action bars, i.e. side action bars and the quest tracker.
* Fixed icons on action bars staying greyed out after combat or soul walking, even though they could be used.
* Fixed the display issue where progress bars remain empty when interacting with an object for the first time.
* Also fixed a 'corpse unavailable for looting' error that would show up sometimes.
* You can now swap a larger bag from your inventory with a smaller bag that is equipped, and the items will move into the new larger bag automatically.
* Dragging items from your inventory, bank, and character sheet and dropping them onto an equipped bag slot will place the item into the first open slot in that bag.
* You can now cancel dragging an icon by right-clicking.
* Characters' hair will no longer poke through helmets on the character sheet.
* The alert tray will be more timely in updating you with petition status updates.
* The Auction House Bids tab now allows you to sort by Seller.
* Quest use items for objectives in on-screen tracked quests will now have their icons disappear when the quest is ready for turn-in.
* Opening the split-stack window now puts the cursor into the text entry box right away.
* New art and improved saving performance for Edit Layout mode.
* Mouselook while using click-to-move no longer interrupts your movement.
* The Raid window should no longer lock up after performing a raid ready check.
* Some critters that should hide their nameplates work properly again.
* Playing at smaller than 1280x1024 resolutions will no longer cause the page buttons to appear off-center in the tutorial tip windows.
* Fixed a bug where you were unable to go into fullscreen mode after manually resizing your window.
* Also fixed an additional issue where hitting ‘Cancel’ would mess up the UI Scale after going into fullscreen mode.
* More Eyefinity camera adjustments!

[Bombur]

Holy Crap!

Trion Devs have made more changes and fixes in 2 weeks, then the SE DEVS have done on FFXIV, through Alpha till now.

[Lucavi]

Give me this game. I want you to have my money! Take it. Take it all!

[Shnaklaha]

Is this one of those deals where if you preorder the game ou get a vip pass to beta? or just luck of the draw? This might be my wow-fix since i refuse to go back to wow but i've been having withdrawl =/.

[Insanecyclone]

Unless you're able to get a VIP key it's mostly luck of the draw. I'm a non vip person and has gotten into all 3 events, of 8 if rumors are true.

I haven't heard of anything about preorder offers/bonuses yet.

[Alderaan]

Live stream of beta starting at 1pm est, if anyone without access is interested.

http://www.transcendencegaming.org/i...?pageid=stream

[Katlan]

Is there a BG guild? And, if so, which side? Plan to start playing tonight and wouldn't mind playing w/ the BG folk

[Kuya]

BG folks are decent folk

[Katlan]

ya ya. First thing in the morning, just got into work. brain isn't fully functional yet

[Kuya]

I wasn't even correcting you. You really are tired.

[Katlan]

I thought i misspelled "folk" at first or used it incorrectly lol

[Grey Jorildyn]

Not entirely BG folk but we've got a solid starting group building up on my site. Just got a GM in place who is working on our rift chapter development full-time.

[Insanecyclone]

What shard? I wanna play with bg people this time around.

[Insanecyclone]

Looks like Wolfsbane shard has been up a while.

And they're up!

[Alderaan]

Currently on Belmont for Defiant and Sunwell for Guardian.

[Jintu]

Currently on Belmont for Defiant and Sunwell for Guardian.

Myself, and 2 other friends from other games are on Belmont as well. Have all my characters on the shard. Seems they took my feedback about Warden spells not being blue/water color, changed all my spells this beta from green to blue!

[Jintu]

http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/exclusives.php

Trion Worlds today announced plans for the limited-release Collector’s Edition of Rift, the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game that pits players against six planes of reality on the besieged world of Telara. Available only at select retailers, the special edition includes the following exclusive items in addition to the game client DVD:


Exclusive in-game digital items:

-- Ancient Tartagon Mount: Available at level 20, this turtle mount increases player speed by 60%

-- Collector’s Satchel: Increases the size of your primary backpack to 24 slots

-- Bogling Wastrel: This unique pet sets you apart from the other Ascended



Exclusive in-box premium items:

-- 8GB USB Drive: Exclusive flash drive branded with the Rift logo

-- Official Rift Soundtrack: Featuring 17 epic tracks from acclaimed game composer Inon Zur

-- SteelSeries gaming mouse pad featuring detailed art of a blistering Fire Rift

-- Telara Chronicles Trade Hardcover: All five issues of the gripping graphic novel miniseries based on the Rift universe in one limited-edition hardbound book


Those who pre-order either the standard or Collector’s Edition of Rift will receive their choice of the following in-game pets: Cockatrice Chick, Deep One Spawnling or Hellhound Pup. Additionally, players who pre-purchase the game at select retailers will get one of the following exclusive weapon enchantments. Each rune grants your character +3 Endurance and protects against that element.