Rift: Planes of Telara

[Gokulo]

Soo, a friend of my buddy was at Gamescom and apparently he got a couple of beta codes D; What a nice surprise just before XIV OK :D Now to wait for a date ^^

[Alderaan]

Soo, a friend of my buddy was at Gamescom and apparently he got a couple of beta codes D; What a nice surprise just before XIV OK :D Now to wait for a date ^^

Damn you!

[miokomioko]

What Rift and GW2 have going for them is a solid team behind the game that just gets it.

Their solid team could use an art director that isn't only inspired by the illustrations in his D&D manuals... These budg MMORPGs are plagued with generic fantasy design that makes the whole experience feel dated. ;/

[Alderaan]

Their solid team could use an art director that isn't only inspired by the illustrations in his D&D manuals... These budg MMORPGs are plagued with generic fantasy design that makes the whole experience feel dated. ;/

The art in GW2 is by far the best i've seen in quite some time. I absolutely love it.

[miokomioko]

The art in GW2 is by far the best i've seen in quite some time. I absolutely love it.

I hope your not talking about concept art, because that's an entirely different story and I love all concept art of all varieties. Admittedly, GW2 design looks a tons better than Rift, but it still falls under OK for me.

[Alderaan]

I'm talking about the art design in the actual game along with the art style. I love it. It's a perfect blend of not too real without going the ugly route like WoW/Warhammer. Of course that's subjective, but i like what i like.

Also the pics on the official Rift site look pretty average and don't do the game justice when compared to actual in game footage in HD.

[Gokulo]

Yeah, GW2 has this cool pastel thing going on in-game.

[Alderaan]

Part 2 of the TTH interview.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/int...lanar-invasion

[Alderaan]

Another gameplay demo vid that i somehow missed showing off Void Knight and mixing talents. Hey look at that jumping into water!



Best part is the last comment. "If anyones played an MMO before, you know that 4 of your 5 party members will grasp the situation very rapidly and there will be that 5th guy who always dies."

[Alderaan]

http://riftnexus.com/page/articles/_...onefield-z-r71

Trion Worlds gives us an official preview of the Stonefield zone in Rift: Planes of Telara. Stonefield is an early zone for the Defiant faction, one where players will fight the old servants of the titans and defend helpless townspeople from the undead, before potentially adventuring in to the Deepstrike Mine. Read further for this exclusive look at the zone along with images and a high definition flythrough video.


Stonefield

Thunder in the Hills
Wind rattles like labored breathing through the hills of Stonefield. The grass strains to stretch across rounded hills that bulge together like the muscles of some vast stone giant, ready to tear through the grass and stride out from the deep earth to crush mortal men.

http://riftnexus.com/images/Stonefield_01x300.jpg
Sleepers in the stone
Long, long ago, the brilliant and mad sorcerer kings of the Eth dared to call titans to Stonefield from the Plane of Earth. The Eth put these beings—perhaps the purest expression of their element’s invincible might—to guarding Stonefield’s priceless sourcestone mines.

Stone is not just hard and strong but patient, cold, confident, hiding veins of brilliance. The titans waited, and plotted, and slowly raised an army of mountain trolls, earth elementals, and troglodytes. Without warning they rose up, and swept the Eth from Stonefield like an avalanche.

With ingenuity, tenacity, and years upon years of bloody fighting, the Eth overcame the titans and bound them deep under the hills. It is said that they rage within their prison-tombs, and every avalanche and trembling rock, every shift in the stone, is the result of some furious titan slamming his fist into an unyielding wall.

The Bones of the Earth
In some places, the titans’ influence bursts through the very stone. At Titan’s Rest, the skeleton of a particularly vast specimen juts from the hills, jaw agape in an endless scream. Rocs flit between his ribs, as if hoping to pick an ancient scrap of meat from the bones.

Mountain trolls wander his upturned grave, resting against his wrist-bone or making their lairs in his empty eye sockets. These rough-hewn brutes are split into two factions: those who yearn for a return to titan rule, and those who savor the freedom to roam the hills, smashing and slaying at will. When trolls from rival camps meet, they charge at each other, their bulbous feet tearing the earth, and crash together like boulders. Cracks in the titan’s massive bones might be evidence of where one troll smashed in another’s head.

http://riftnexus.com/images/Stonefield_05x350.jpg
Granite Falls
Granite Falls is just as dry and barren as its name suggests. Once, this was a prosperous mining town, its skilled miners tapping some of the richest sourcestone veins on Telara. The miners respected the earth, and never dug too deep for fear of waking the ancient prisoners. This sensible approach has done nothing to protect the townspeople from calamity after calamity since the coming of the rifts.

Displaced from the Deepstrike Mine by the Endless Court, the people of Granite Falls have lost their livelihood, the unemployed sit, surly and despondent, in the overcrowded tavern. Adding injury to insult, a mysterious illness has swept through the hill folk, poisoning even the miners’ leathery lungs.

Those who succumb to disease, hunger, or despair find no rest, for the dead rise in the cemetery outside Granite Falls, eager to swell their numbers with the fresh-killed corpses of mourners and passersby. Death Rifts are now nearly as common in the hills as Earth Rifts, and nothing in Stonefield stays buried long.

Transcript from the lectures of Haru Windsworn, Master of Bahmi Studies in Meridian
“Today, we are honored by the presence of Bora Temurgal, Ascended reaver of the Red Sun tribe. As you can plainly see, the Bahmi emblazon themselves with narrative tattoos called ‘sefir.’ Unlike Mathosians, bragging around their campfires, the stoic Bahmi save their breath by writing their exploits on their flesh.

Here is a particularly rousing tale that stretches from First Hunter Temurgal’s lower biceps to loop around her wrist. I will read it aloud, and those of you who did your coursework are free to read along.

I killed a troll, and this was strong.
He thought to strike me from ambush.
I heard him coming,
Loud as tumbling boulders.
His fist hammered down,
But he crushed only earth.
His teeth gnashed shut,
But he chewed only air.
My axe tore a canyon into his throat.
He thrashed and he reached for me.
He clutched only death.
To be sure, I put my axe in his head.
And I sat on his corpse awhile,
Wondering why, as he died
He grunted the name ‘Centius’
And this was wise."

Flythrough Video for Stonefield


http://riftnexus.com/images/Stonefield_02x250.jpg

http://riftnexus.com/images/Stonefield_03x250.jpg

http://riftnexus.com/images/Stonefield_06x250.jpg

[Alderaan]

Updated OP with some more info and classes.

3 more classes need to announced so i'll add them then.

[Purrrfect]

Lol 5th guy. Nice couple vids.

[Alderaan]

New info from PAX.

* Guilds will have levels
* Guilds will have assignable ranks (leader/officer etc.)
* Guilds will have quests that they can complete as a guild. For instance the guild leader or officer can pick up a quest for the Guild to harvest bushes or kill elementals. As your guild quests normally it counts off the items for the quests.
* Guilds will have different achievements and benefits.
* Guilds will have buff flags or standards.
* Trion believes guilds should be more than glorified friends lists


* Newly announced Ice Mage class called Storm Caller!
* Confirmation on World Raid Bosses!!!
* Greenscale Blight Raid instance will contain a Dragon boss.
* Hammerknell Fortress Raid will contain 10 bosses.
* PvP Flag is a go on PvE servers
* Choloromancer (spelling?) is a healing mage.
* Tier Raid progression
* AA like System that gives buffs to resistances from high level rifts. These will be slottable.


* Token System similar to WoW for Raids.
* Softcaps on Stats.


* Duels are in. Similar to WoW. Duel request, flag drops, countdown, duel starts.
* Female mages had a dance animation, males did not seem to have one yet. PAXzen in IRC stated it was ” A little side to side wiggle. Nothing memorable.”


* There is a Quest Helper built into the UI
* Combat felt inline with EQ2 or WoW in terms of responsiveness.
* World Bosses are CONTESTED. PvP anyone?!?! Yeah!!!!
* Macro system is in. Kilrathi did not get to mess with it.
* Rift Raids are in.
* Dueling currently gives XP, will probably change before release.
* Devs state that there will be big expansions and small ones.
* Expansions are already in the planning phase.
* Beta this year, no closer estimate than that.

My only concern is how important the gear from world bosses will be because i'm not going through that shit again. Although i do find it more fun if PVP is involved.

[Alderaan]

The Telara Chronicles, a 128 page graphic novel will be release on 2/1/11.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../Rift/Rift.jpg

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.massively.com/2010/09/06/...nes-of-telara/

The dungeon portal loomed ahead as a developer pushed a headset into my hands. "You heal," he said to me then moved on to the other four players standing next to me. "You tank. You three DPS. Don't worry too much; you're all a little over-leveled for this dungeon. Let us know when you're ready."

I hardly heard him as I frantically tried to memorize the full array of skills in front of me, rearranging my hotbar to put my heals up front and center. "Ohh, you're a druid," another Trion Worlds developer said over my shoulder. "They're fun -- they get a faerie pet that heals your team as well." I followed his pointing finger and clicked on the skill to summon what appeared to be a cross-breed between Tinkerbell and a Troll doll. Fun times.

The developer who pulled me into the live demonstration at PAX Prime took up his microphone and directed everyone around the booth to look up at the big screen and watch a team of total strangers jump into a mid-level dungeon. Welcome to Rift, I thought nervously. There's nothing like diving in head-first with your potential humiliation on public display.

Cyberpunk fantasy

Earlier that day, I had the opportunity to bend the ears of the Trion team members as they set up for the imminent PAX crowds. Squirreled away in a private room, a pair of devs walked me through the character creation process. I had to admit: Up to this point, Rift had been clocking pretty low on my interest radar. It took just one interview and a hands-on demo to change all that.

On the surface, Rift may seem like every other fantasy game out there -- after all, there are elves, humans, dwarves, swords and demons. I'd even wager heavily on the presence of dragons somewhere. But the devs stressed that this was a fantasy world in upheaval as it was under constant threat of invasion from chaotic dimensions, and this had the effect of subverting all the typical fantasy tropes. For example, one of the two main factions -- the Defiant -- have eschewed the old religion and gods for cold, hard technology. To illustrate this, their characters can choose pseudo-cyberpunk (fantasypunk?) looks.

As we fiddled around with the character creation visuals, the devs stressed that their primary goal with the art style was to make a beautiful, bold aesthetic that wasn't quite as realistic as it was highly-detailed and memorable. There were several options to pick from -- skin, eyes, hair, makeup, markings, and sliders for the face and highlights -- although Trion wanted to avoid going overboard with too many options. "When you start fiddling with dozens of sliders," a dev commented, "It's ridiculously easy to end up with an ugly character and no way to make him or her attractive." I couldn't agree more.

Charging ahead

While I -- ever the consummate professional journalist -- failed to write down the name of the dungeon we were running, I blame the fact that the combat started fast, continued furiously, and never quite slowed down. We weren't too concerned about mezzing and single pulls, but instead resorted to the time-tested tactic of the tank running in and trying to grab aggro while the rest of us inconsiderately did our best to take it away.

Our main foes were goblins, and they came in several varieties as we wound our way down what appeared to be a torchlit hive of sorts. As the healer, I started out by just spamming the group heal, but that drained my mana faster than I would've liked. I eventually discovered that I had several different varieties of heals on hand, as well as a skill that would boost my next heal spell by 50% when used. After that, it got a bit easier.

I found myself pleasantly surprised at how fluid the gameplay was; everything felt polished, looked terrific, and performed spot-on. In fact, it all flowed together so well that I simply concentrated on the dungeon run like I was sitting at home instead of having my every healing flaw pointed out on the jumbotron with color commentary.

A class of your own

Back in the quieter demo room, I was shown one of the key features of the game: the character builds. Unlike most MMOs, Rift doesn't want to pigeon-hole you into a rigid, pre-defined class with little room for individuality. Instead, players will collect "souls" (think of souls as specialty classes) to mix-and-match in order to create a unique build. Eventually you'll have the option of a three-soul build, so you can pick three out of however many souls you've collected already in order to make a class of your own.

For example, I was shown an elf rogue whom the dev wanted to fashion into a close-quarters powerhouse. So he chose three souls that complemented each other: assassin (for close-combat DPS), blade dancer (DPS and dodge) and saboteur (who launches bombs and injects poison at point-blank range). The dev stressed that he didn't know whether this was going to be an effective build or not, but he had the option of starting with an idea -- running into a crowd of mobs, dancing out of the way of damage while throwing down a bomb or two.

Classes are further customized by investing points into each of the souls' talent trees. These function much like you might have seen in other titles, although they do have an interesting twist. The more points you invest into the top part of the tree (which contains passive and active talents), the more bonus talents you unlock in the bottom part of the tree, which may grant additional skills. With several build presets available, and a minimal respec cost for the talent trees, Trion hopes that players will feel free to create as many classes as they desire.

Don't stand in the fire, noob

At the bottom of the pit's spiral lay our first boss, an ugly cuss of a goblin with a penchant for launching firebombs at us left and right. It was here that we experienced our first wipe, due to my inadequacies as a healer and our entire party being flagged for the burn ward.

Fortunately, it wasn't too difficult to recover (except for our ever-wounded pride) -- a virtual snack of food took away the death penalty, and I rejuggled a few heal spells to conserve mana for a longer fight. With experience at our back, we steamrolled the goblin, looted a couple pieces of choice armor, and unlocked the next phase of the dungeon.

Riding the rift

If the vast array of character build options is one of the tentpole features of Rift, the titular effects deserve equal recognition. Rifts are basically rips in the fabric of the universe where six chaotic dimensions -- death, life, water, fire, earth and air -- are doing their darndest to spit in Captain Planet's eye and make this world just like their own. Wardstones defend certain areas from rifts opening, but they can't cover the entire landscape, and sooner or later nasty things will happen.

The devs explained that the game is smart enough to slow down the process of rifts appearing and opening when players aren't around (say, in the middle of the night), and to move the action to where the crowds are. When a rift appears, players have the option of jumping into it -- although I wasn't shown this aspect -- or combating the inevitable invasion that follows. An opened rift changes the landscape around it according to its element and launches a dynamic invasion of demons and other nasty critters that march toward wardstones to take them down. Seeing as how invasions can be repelled and wardstones repaired, it behooves players to join the fight instead of ignoring it and going on their merry way.

Trion Worlds has designed the rift system to not only offer dynamic world events, but to entice players into working together by increasing the rewards when more and more characters are involved. On an interesting note, I learned that the dimensions actually hate each other, and if two invasions from different dimensions cross paths, they're as likely to fight each other as they are players. Each dimension also has a representative cult in Telara, so even when rifts aren't present, the danger always is.

Until we meet again

I declined to stay past the hour it took to reach the first boss of the dungeon, although it certainly wasn't for a lack of fun. If anything, I came away from PAX this year with a newfound respect for Rift -- its creative concepts, its attractive art design, and one of the coolest mounts I've ever seen (the Yarnosaur, a rhino/camel beast). I can't vouch for the rest of the game, but Trion Worlds certainly appears to have a serious contender in the works.

[Alderaan]

Curse.com Q&A
http://www.curse.com/articles/rift-news/812863.aspx

This year at PAX, Trion was showing off their newest MMO, Rift: Planes of Telara. The Curse team was able to experience an invasion which occurs if players do not stop an open rift from closing.

We also were able to sit down with the team and have a series of questions answered! All questions have come directly from the dedicated Rift: Planes of Telara community. Check out the interview below!

--------

Q: Around how large will the game world be on release?

A: It's a very large world. We have tons of zones. We have one instance per-zone and you can re-enter the instances at different level ranges. So it's a pretty big game.

Q: Will world PvP be encouraged in any way?

A: Oh yes! World PvP will be encouragd because invasions and rifts will be tagging players for PvP. So we'll for sure have some world PvP.

Q: Will there be specific PvE and PvP gearsets? Or will there just be one type?

A: They will be somewhat interchangable. There is obviously some gear that's better for PvP and some gear that's better for PvE. It's going to be up to personal taste. It's more like our class system will allow you to choose a PvP build because it's pretty dependant on how you do your builds. You can definitely get a major difference between a character who's built for PvP and a character who's built for PvE. It's really more dependent on your class build and how you spec your souls. We're finding that people make very unique and imaginative soul combinations to do PvP.

Q: Is there any information on what players can expect from battlegrounds?

A: Not yet, but very, very shortly. We'll be releasing those shortly.

Q: Will there be dynamically generated content such as NPCs that spawn only during a certain time of day or according to certain conditions?

A: Yes, definitely. We already have that in-game, right now in alpha. We have this concept of invasions where rifts and footholds create invasions. For instance, if you defeat a foothold, you will inspire NPCs to spawn and go out and attack other footholds and you can follow them and recrut your own little personal army that you run around with. It's pretty fun!

Q: Are there any plans to expand upon the current character creator?

A: Right now, we're taking feedback from alpha, we're looking at the character creator and over the course of our testing we're always going to take feedback and we're always going to make changes.

Q: Is there any information about how long it might take a player to reach max level?

A: Right now, our max level is 50. In alpha, we're seeing a wide variety of times, we're adding more and more stuff to do. We definitely don't have a set number but it looks like it's going to be about 10 days of played time.

Q: How severe will the consequences become for not being able to close a rift in time?

A: This is dependent on zone. In the lower level zones we generally don't have the stakes as high as in the higher level zones. Basically, you can lose questgivers, most of your merchants, you can lose any sort of NPC, areas can change, you could lose the ability to turn in quests, it's pretty severe. We're encouraging players that it's not like you can't do anything, we're giving you another form of gameplay.

Q: Will players be able to play both factions on one server?

A: Yes.

Q: Will there be any cross-faction communication?

A: Right now I don't know what the plans for cross-faction communication are. But right now we're not going to allow it.

Q: What types of servers will be available at launch? PvE, PvP, RP, etc.

A: Yeah, we'll have PvP, we'll have PvE, we'll have roleplaying servers, we'll have the full game.

Q: Will players be separated by region? US, EU, etc.

A: We will have data centers in different areas of the world we will not stop people from playing the game on any region's servers.

Q: And is the current plan for Trion to handle a world-wide release?

A: That is the current plan, yes.

Q: What plans are there for end-game content?

A: We have all your classic end-game experiences, we have raids, we have rifts, invasions, warfronts, everything. We have tons of stuff. Crafting, just have fun!

Q: Can you tell us anything about the crafting system right now?

A: Sure! The crafting system is actually fully available at PAX right now. You can have up to 3 crafting skills and we have various forms of harvisting, so you can take 2 harvesting, one production skills, or one harvesting and two productions, it's really up to how you want to do it. You can even make all harvesting, or all production. We have all your classes like outfitters who make leather and cloth gear, mining, butchers, scavengers, artificers, runecrafters, we have loads.

Q: And will lots of the end game gear come from crafting?

A: A good amount of it will. We want to make sure that end-game crafters are important.

[Alderaan]

PAX interview with Russ Brown, VP of Development.

[Gokulo]

Seems you can get a beta card by buying Chronicles #1

http://www.newsarama.com/php/multime....php?aid=38349

From their FB page:

TELARA CHRONICLES #1 hits stands tomorrow. As an added bonus, when you pick up your copy at a comic retailer, you can also get Issue #0 and a Rift: Planes of Telara™ Beta Card (while supplies last).

[Insanecyclone]

Guild beta sign ups

http://www.riftjunkies.com/2010/09/2...ions-now-open/

Hi, Folks!

Many of you have been asking me about getting your guilds into beta. We are certainly going to want to have some guilds participating. We will need help testing things like raiding, pvp, guild progression and the guild tools themselves.We will want to have a variety of guilds participating. So we will need all sizes and play styles.

To help us with that, I would like to start a list here. Please provide the following information to be considered as a beta guild.

Guild Name:
Number of active members:
How long has your guild existed?
What games have you played together?
What is your guild play style (casual, raid, PVP, etc,)?
Please link to your guild website if you have one.

Please note: it is very important that you make sure your guild members have signed up for a Trion account. If your guild is selected, we will only be able to invite those members who are registered with us. So make sure they are all signed up and ready to go!

Please keep this thread free of discussion. This thread should only be a list of potential beta guilds. And please only post your guild once. Multiple posts in this thread does not increase your chances.

[Alderaan]

How awesome is Trion?
http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea...-Soul-for-Rift!

Name a Soul for Rift!

Hi, Folks!

We have a decision to make around here and we thought we would ask for your input. We have bounced around a lot of ideas of our own but decided that it would be nice to hear your ideas as well!

We have a Mage soul that we've been calling a Chloromancer. But somehow, that just doesn’t seem like the best name we could give it. We'd like your help in making this important decision.

First, let us tell you a little bit about what this soul is and does.

Overview
Drawing on the vital energies of plants and nature, this mage finds a balance between life and death. Only [Soul]s can focus these life energies into a devastating force, or recycle destructive magic to heal their allies.

Strengths
Their every destructive spell generates healing magic, so a [Soul] can survive situations that would kill most mages, and keep their allies alive even as they annihilate the enemy.

Weaknesses
Invaluable allies though they are, [Souls] possess neither the destructive potential of their fellow mages, nor the restorative spells of most clerics, and their ability to heal is dependent on the damage they deal in combat. A [Soul] who cannot hurt her foes cannot effectively heal her allies.

And here are a couple of screenshots of this nameless soul in action!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4129/...75abe80cb5.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/...014340c3c4.jpg

What do you think? Do you have any ideas for what we should call this soul?

Post your ideas here in this thread. We will pick out the best of them and list them in a poll. You as a community will vote with us to decide which name it should be. Your vote carries the same weight as a developer's!

The name that gets the most votes will be the name of this soul when Rift: Planes of Telara is released!

Let’s hear your suggestions and then watch for the poll in the coming days so you can cast your vote!