Update 3.7: Summer Solstice Is Coming This July!

The weather is heating up, and so is Telara with the next major update for RIFT!

Summertime is about more than just catching some rays at the beach and enjoying a good barbeque with friends; it’s about slaying some monsters! You’ve got plenty to look forward to this summer: celebrating with your fellow Ascended, checking out brand-new improvements to classic souls, and experiencing our next big technical milestone: the 64-bit upgrade!

• Summer of Souls: Several classic souls are getting a makeover, complete with new buffs, abilities, and build synergies. We’ll be starting things off with the Elementalist, Druid, Berserker, and Warlord at Update 3.7’s launch, but we also have plans to update 3 more souls later in the season.
• Summerfest: The Plane of Life once again bursts forth with all its bounty as Summerfest returns! This year’s additions include a hoard of incredible new rewards, like artifact Piñatas and one of the most requested outfits in all of RIFT – Alsbeth’s Raiment!
• 64-Bit Performance: Multicore brought the speed, but 64-bit code will truly bring RIFT to the next level! The 64-bit Alpha begins in July, bringing significantly improved performance and even more stability.
• New Player Improvements – Guilds: New RIFT players will automatically be placed into a starter guild. These new starter guilds are locked at Level 5, serving as a perfect launching point to help players enter established guilds as they level up their characters and make friends. Characters will also be able to create a guild with a single character; multiple signatures are no longer required.
• Dungeon Veterans: Characters that complete a dungeon five times will become a veteran of that dungeon. Veterans that run a dungeon with at least one other non-veteran grants a 15% bonus to currency, reputation, tokens, and experience earned.

Hot times are ahead, so start preparing for Summer Solstice!

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We’re Celebrating Loyalty Week, Now Through June 28!

There’s tons of great bonuses going on, including bonus Loyalty, Affinity, and Experience!


Log into RIFT through June 28 to reap double Loyalty rewards, plus double Affinity Points for Patrons!

In addition, you’ll also get

• 50% Bonus Prestige
• 50% Bonus Favor
• 50% Bonus Combat Experience
• 50% Bonus Guild Experience
• 50% Bonus Planar Attunment Experience.

Log in this week and enjoy a little bit extra – you deserve it!

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Fantasy Themed Online Slots

Online slots are some of the most popular online casino games around today. With so many to choose from, it might be difficult to know where to begin. If you want to play slots but you don’t live in an area where you can travel to a casino and play in person, you can play online. In fact, some people prefer to play online because of the many advantages. You can play whenever and wherever you want, you don’t have to drive anywhere, deal with crowds, or get dressed up, and you can experiment with different types of games and see which ones you like best.

If you’re into games and fantasy, then you will probably appreciate the many fantasy themed online slots available. The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy launched a new love of fantasy for many people and with this, we just saw more movies, stories, and shows of the same vein. This also means more great slot machines with a fantasy theme.

One of the first was Fantasy Realm from Crytologic. It was simple and didn’t have advanced graphics or animations but it was a great game that attracted a lot of people. There are also newer games with 3D graphics and great elements.

While the basics of most slots are the same, it’s the themes that bring people in again. The lights, colors, story, and theme of a slot machine makes it stand out from others around it. If you love fantasy and you enjoy slots, then you will likely enjoy fantasy themed online slots, and enjoy a casino bonus online. 

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Rift's Recipe of Longevity and Success - Part 1

These days, we're living in the age of MOBAs beyond the shadow of a doubt, as all the most recent major releases - including Blizzard's Overwatch - are looking to include well tested and proven MOBA elements even as they represent completely different genres. Still, even as the iconic World of Warcraft is probing ever bigger depths popularity-wise, possibly edging closer and closer to FTP-dom, there is still room for classic MMO success, and Rift, which has not long ago celebrated its 5th birthday, is living proof to that. Indeed, in MMO terms, 5 years are quite close to eternity and a title which can still boast an active and healthy player-base after that many years, can rightfully be proud of its accomplishments.

Launched to an overwhelmingly positive reception back in 2011,  Rift was Trion Games' first title and foray into the MMO industry. Even when it came out, the title won over many with its customization-focused Soul system and its dynamic events - both innovations in an already rather stale MMO environment which embraced it as a breath of fresh air. Over the years, the game has changed quite a bit indeed: new content was added and its various elements/mechanics were tweaked. Perhaps most importantly, in 2013 it dumped its prescription model, treading onto a path which Blizzard have long been trying to steer clear of with their WoW. Rift now features a hybrid free/pay monetization model which - considering that the game is ranked 13th among the highest-earning pay-to-play MMOs - is quite successful indeed.

The most important ingredient of Rift's success-concoction was the loyalty of their players though, most of whom have remained loyal to it though the years and the sea of changes. The Rift team was always responsive to player feedback, therefore most of the above-said changes - instead of antagonizing their players - reinforced their loyalty. There were some mishaps along the way too though, but there was always enough political will on the part of the Rift team to address these problems and to correct them in a timely manner.

Just how successful can the game still considered to be though? Surely, there are some cold-hard metrics by which this can be more or less accurately gauged...

Apparently - according to Trion World CEO Scott Hartsman, at any given moment, around a third of the people present online in the Rift universe are players who have been riding along since the beginnings. On top of that, there's a sizable crowd of "rotating" players, who return to the game periodically to check out new content and stay to play for a while before leaving again. This metric alone gives a rather impressive sense of why Rift has been so successful. There's more to the recipe though...and we'll take another look at it in an upcoming piece.

Philip Thalberg is tasked with covering the TI 2016 for GosuTeam, the most dedicated eSports community on the planet.

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Multicore Madness Mount Sale

Multicore Madness sweeps into RIFT, and your favorite mounts have been swept along in the wave of performance improvements! From now until June 13, all RIFT Store mounts are on sale for 25% off!


In addition, we’ll also open the stables for 12 hours each day (starting at 12am Server Time) and release a rare mount at the same discount!

Here’s what’s coming up:

Friday, June 10
12am: Lovely Budgie
12pm: Shadow Hellbug

Saturday, June 11
12am: White Squirrelicorn
12pm: Volt

Sunday, June 12
12am: Shadow Hellbug
12pm: Lovely Budgie

Monday, June 13
12am: Volt
12pm: White Squirrelicorn

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RIFT LIVESTREAM – 06/10/16 3:30pm PDT

Sound & Music in RIFT!

The Rifts are alive with the sound of music… Time and time again, players tell us how moving and evocative the audio is in RIFT. This week, we proudly bring you two of the people responsible for the magnificent array of melody, sound effects and voiceovers in this sweeping MMOG. Your host, Ocho, talks with our audio wizards Jason Clarke and Andy Crosby about how they bring the world of Telara to life through sound design.



RIFT Livestream
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, June 10th, 3:30PM PDT (GMT -8)
Duration: 45 minutes

See you all there!

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VOTE NOW: Preset Contest Redux

We are all very excited to see so many great submissions for the RIFT Preset Contest Redux. We want ALL Ascended to have a say in which Presets make it into game, and invite you to participate in our survey!


You may vote for up to five Presets per archetype. Each one gains equal weight, and will be combined with our Developer evaluations for the final call.

Please review the entries from a new player’s point of view. Look for clarity, detail, accuracy and completeness!

Click here to access the survey!

Thank you, Ascended, your experience and input is valuable to us all!
The RIFT Team

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Unicornalia returns along with the Celestial Unicorn!

Giddy-up: Unicornalia returns to RIFT from now through June 8.


Refugee Unicorns from the Plane of Life once again need your help! Head to your capital city for a special mission or complete the Hooves and Horns event in Moonshade Highlands to make progress in earning your very own Unicorn Mount! Want a more Celestial steed? Check out the Limited Edition: Celestial Unicorn Troves available for a limited time in the RIFT Store.

Unicorns need your help!

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Rift Classes - What's Best for PvP?

This is indeed a very good question...it can be answered both simply and briefly or in an extremely convoluted manner. One can say that class doesn't really matter when it comes to PvP...it's the skills of the player behind the character that hang in the balance the heaviest, and one would be right. With the huge amount of freedom that Rift gives its players when it comes to character creation and development through their Ascended Class System, one can indeed come up with skill and ability combinations that are quite surprising and may be a hit in PvP. That said however, those looking to play Rift solely for the PvP experience are probably not walking the right path. The game has been designed with a PvE focus, and that is obvious every step of the way. Another aspect of Rift which speaks against a definite PvP focus is the fact that leveling in the game can be brutal. Therefore, picking a class one is not particularly fond of playing, just because it is supposed to be great at PvP, can lead to major pains down the line and eventually defeat the very purpose of the choice too.

Now then, the other problem is that whenever someone pops the question in the title, he means a sort of 1v1 match-up and comparison, while in Warfronts we're looking at team battles, which are balanced in a way that range, melee, healing, fast tanking and support all have their very well-defined roles in it. There is no balancing for Arena, and most Rift players like it the way it is.

To make a long story short though, those looking to become feared PvPers should probably focus on Rogues. There are quite a few of them running around in PvP and most of them seem to carry a bow, so there's definitely a marksmanship-based explanation to their PvP success. Warriors and Mages are quite successful too: for the former, being a Warlord seems to be the recipe while for the latter, Dominator spec works. Clerics are good in PvP too, but they have to stick to their own role: they are usually topping the healing charts, so obviously that's the niche such players should focus on. Obviously, a number of different soul trees work with the above builds.

The bottom line about Rift is that unlike some other popular MMORPGs out there, it has not turned characters into a sort of generic form to facilitate 1v1 PvP balance. In this respect, the game is indeed a breath of fresh air.

Philip Thalberg signed with GosuTeam after he covered the TI 2014 for the world's top eSports destination. 

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RIFT Livestream – 5/27/16 – 3:30 PM PDT

Ocho is back from paternity leave! He and Brasse will wrestle for the right to host this week’s stream.

Join one of us for the RIFT Art stream, with two of the folks who bring you Telara’s distinctive style and color: Environment Artists Justin Stearns and Anthony Reis.

How does game design influence artistic decisions? What are the steps from concept art to live game?

Find out this week!



RIFT Livestream: Bringing Telara to Life
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, May 27 at 3:30 PM PDT (GMT-7)
Duration: 45 minutes

See you all there!

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