Thursday, September 27, 2018

EVENT: Mechs on Parade!





Mechanical Walkers are suddenly growing in number across Telara – could it be the influence of Crucia?

There is something immensely satisfying in tromping around with your own personal mech-style mount, and we’ve got a whole parade for you this week! Rumble through the lands in your clanking metal machine… why not start a parade? Send us your screenshots @RIFTgame – how many can you get to join you?

PRIME Store:
  • The Red & Iron Empyreal Walker has blasted its way through to the Vigil server at last! First of its kind, ready for you!

LIVE Store:
  • NEW Faewood Infinity Walker
  • NEW Red & Silver Empyreal Walker


WORLD EVENT: Available on Live and Prime for Chaos Motes!

Collect enough for special Walkers – this event runs from September 28 to October 1st, 2018. As with other World Events, there will be a quest starter in each home city. You’ll be asked to run an Expert Dungeon with LFG, participate in Warfronts, complete the Mech Zone Event, and collect drops from special Mech Invasions and Footholds!
  • NEW Empyreal Walker
  • Black Empyreal Walker
  • Golden Empyreal Walker
  • Infinity Walker

In addition to the clanking wonders, you can earn:
  • Mech Companion Pets
  • New Minion cards
  • New Dimension items!

What are you waiting for?
Bolt yourself in and join the Mech Parade!
Read rest of entry

PRIME: Exodus of the Storm Queen




All the sigils point to the certainty, for those with the skill to see the cold truth – Crucia’s time is nigh!
09.27.18

If you listen at the shutters, closed against the chill, you might overhear the plotters, the supporters of the ice queen. You might even hear that the very leader of the Icewatch, the Scriptkeeper, Chekaroth is working to enable her escape… except that had you overheard this, you’d soon lie cold and lifeless, your body abandoned on the lake. Better you keep your secrets.

All according to plan
Though Crucia lies bound beneath Iron Pine Peak, her icy tomb – cracked with the sundering of the Ward – cannot contain her powers over mind and thought.

She converses with emissaries and ambassadors through the voices of her captors and converts alike. From Watchman to magister to courtesan to king, she reaches into the affairs of the Ascended, using Guardians and Defiant as cogs to hasten her release.

Her machinations are accelerating: First, she unmade the Blood Storm, turning Maelforge against his own just when victory over Telara seemed assured. Next, she inspired the escapes of her trapped brethren so that they might stand – and be slain – in turn. Now, she sets into motion a plan to remake the fabric of the planes and loose her armies on all who oppose her dominion.



The Storm is nigh
Crucia’s minions whisper that time runs as thin as late ice, and that only one path remains. All should embrace her call, and heed her summons to the Gate…

Chekaroth returns to the Chancel of Labors to complete his betrayal of the Ice Watch.
Will you be there to bear witness and challenge the Exodus of the Storm Queen?

Winter arrives September 27…
Read rest of entry

RIFTstream 09/28: Kitasia On Dimensioneering



Kitasia is coming to town, and we invited her in for a Livestream at the studio!



Dimensioneering is a big part of RIFT, and there is a whole group of folks who spend most of their play time building out incredible environs. Some games have player housing… Telara offers you entire ZONES to build out!

Kitasia will offer her personal advice based on years of mastering the craft of building in RIFT.
Storage issues – do you need to level up – how to get ahead as a new builder – how important are minions – and YOUR questions!
We are thrilled to have her here for this event! She runs RIFTDimensionAddicts.com in her spare time; a great site for those learning the craft.

This just in, Dev Salvatrix, parton goddess of Dimensioneers, is also going to take time to join us on the stream to offer inside information on the art!

RIFT Livestream
Fridays, 11:30 AM PDT
https://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Read rest of entry

Trion Double Up Days





Twice the value, double the fun… September 26 – October 3!

Trion’s games offer DOUBLE the value on Credit Packs during the Double Up special event, from 8:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, September 26th through 8:00 AM PDT Wednesday October 3, 2018.
Buy the mount of your dreams! Invest in new player housing goods! Completely change your look! The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

RIFT

Double the value of our credit packs!
  • 750 → 1,500 credits – $4.99
  • 3,250 → 6,500 credits – $19.99
  • 8,500 → 17,000 credits – $49.99
  • 18,500 → 37,000 credits – $99.99

FLASH – THIS JUST IN: Archonix has also doubled the LOYALTY you gain for investing in these packs!




ARCHEAGE

Double your Credit top-ups for both Patrons and non-Patrons!
Double the amount of APEX granted when purchasing a pack of them. The bonus amounts are as follows:
  • 9.99 1 APEX Pack: yields 2 APEX instead!
  • 49.99 5 APEX Pack: yields 10 APEX instead!
  • 99.99 10 APEX Pack: yields 20 APEX instead!

(Daily Credit Rewards Pack will be disabled during this promotion. Active Packs will still deliver the stipend installments during this period. Daily Credit Reward Packs will return after Oct. 3/18)

TROVE

All purchases of Credit Packs and Credit Pouches will give your DOUBLE the value! All Radiant Sovereigns and Loyalty from these packs are doubled too!
  • 750 → 1,500 Credits – $4.99
  • 3,250 → 6,500 Credits – $19.99
  • 5,000 → 10,000 Credits – $29.99
  • 8,500 → 17,000 Credits – $49.99
  • 18,500 → 37,000 Credits – $99.99
  • 12 → 24 Credit pouches – $19.99
  • 30 → 60 Credit Pouches – $49.99
  • 60 → 120 Credit Pouches – $99.99

DEFIANCE 2050

Double your Credit Packs!
  • 500 → 1,000 Bits – $4.99
  • 2,300 → 4,600 Bits – $19.99
  • 6,250 → 12,500 Bits – $49.99

ATLAS REACTOR

Receive DOUBLE the number of Loot Matrices when you buy any of the packs below!
  • 2 → 4 Loot Matrices – $1.99
  • 6 → 12 Loot Matrices – $4.99
  • 13 → 26 Loot Matrices – $9.99
  • 28 → 56 Loot Matrices – $19.99
  • 60 → 120 Loot Matrices – $39.99
Read rest of entry

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Oct 3: Storm Legion Twitch Drops



To celebrate the launch of Storm Legion on RIFT Prime, we’ve got a Twitch Drop coming! Both Live and Prime players can earn it!

Gain your Raiment of the Storm Queen on Wednesday, October 3rd!
Strike a pose in Crucia style! This gorgeous wardrobe item is normally only available during the Carnival of the Ascended, but it can be yours just for tuning in to our RIFT Prime: Storm LegionLaunch stream! It comes in both male and female style, and looks terrific on Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Bahmi alike!

Join us on Twitch on October 3rd, at 2:00 pm PDT: https://twitch.tv/trionworlds
The small print: In order to get your RIFT Twitch drop, watch our launch stream for at least 15 minutes, and ensure that your Twitch and Glyph accounts are linked! Your costume will be awarded within one week.
Read rest of entry

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Rift Prime – Has It Worked?


Rift developers Trion Worlds first released their beloved MMO with a subscription-based payment model. It seemed like the right way to go at the time, especially when you’re trying to match the success of something as massive as WoW. But some years later, they changed over to free-to-play, and like with any MMO that’s done that in the past, it didn’t work out as well as they had hoped.

Moving over to F2P means having to lock content behind a paywall, which means that the players who play the game without spending any money generally lose interest once they get to a certain point. It also allows developers to install costs into a game where those costs shouldn’t exist, and the general consensus on Steam and other review platforms is that Rift’s F2P model didn’t work – and many saw it as the developers falling into a cycle of greed.

Things Have Changed
Things have changed, however, and just like the NZ sports betting enjoys has progressed, Trion Worlds announced earlier in the year that they would be switching back to their old sub-based model, but only for a specific server: namely their Rift Prime server. Rift Prime, which they describe as a “time-locked progression server” is completely different from its F2P counterpart.


How Does It Work?
It’s pretty straightforward: the player pays a monthly subscription in Prime Rift, which allows them to play through the game in its original state, totally devoid of loot boxes and the in-game store. Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman explained to reporters at the time why they decided to move back to their old payment model

“In any game that converts from subscription to free-to-play, there’s always going to be some people who preferred it the way it was before,”, especially those on a budget, Hartsman stated. “And the games themselves can go on to huge future success in the new model, but there’s always that group of people that would love to re-engage if the game only had its previous business model.”

The Idea behind Rift Prime
Trion World also noted that, for the most part, their player base has remained stable. The only time the number of players increases is when a big update it released. Players will return, enjoy the new content, and inevitably move on to something else. The first month of Prime proved to be a monumental success, and although no real updates were released, Trion Worlds has stated that they couldn’t be happier with the player turnout.

Rift Prime is meant to provide returning players the chance to stay long, providing more engagement and hopefully retain the higher player numbers the MMO receives during updates. It’s all a part of Trion World’s new plan to produce content that engages players for longer periods of time, and to clamp down on the fluctuation that most MMOs feel around content updates.
Read rest of entry

Defiance 2050 – Was It a Mistake?


Trion Worlds is developer behind one of the current top MMOs in the world: Rift. Rift has seen plenty of success since it was first launched in 2011, and have made waves this year after they released their old subscription payment model back into the game in the form of Rift Prime.

But Rift hasn’t been their only project in recent years, and the developer recently released their long-awaited Defiance 2050. It’s a reboot of an MMO that released five years ago, and was quickly found to be lacking in content, and while many felt it had plenty of potential, the devs decided to pull it down.

Fast-forward to today, and Trion Worlds released a reworked version of the original, and while it has seen a few improvements here and there, it’s essentially the same game, suffering from the same problems it suffered from in 2013.

About The Game
Defiance 2050 is a shooter MMO where you take up the role of an Ark Hunter, and tasked with hunting down mutated baddies, aliens, and upgrading better gear. The game is set in a California wasteland, where you control your from a fairly standard third-person perspective. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but what makes Defiance stand out is the immersive and seamless MMO world where your character is set.

On paper, it’s got some truly interesting ideas, and if they’d tweaked the game enough back in 2013, it most likely would have made a solid MMO. Nothing genre-changing, but good enough to make big waves in a gaming world that predated the Hero Shooter; it had all the potential in the world.

The Latest Version
Reviews for Trion World’s latest attempt have been scathing, to say the least. The biggest problem seems to lie in the fact that very little was actually done in the rework. The “new” version retains all the controls, story plots, characters, and art style as the original, minus a few texture upgrades here and there. Players have even found the same, irritating bugs that were in the first game.


Players Are Disappointed
It’s been underwhelming, and Trion Worlds fan are not happy. It’s a game only worth checking out if you’ve become bored of CSI or you’re waiting to engage in a bit of horse racing betting or whatever gamers do with their spare time these days. The biggest criticism lies in the fact that there is no progression from the previous iteration – if you got far in the 2013 version, there’s no way for you to port that over to the new one and carry on where you left off. In any single player game, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but in an MMO where you have to dedicate hundreds of hours into finding and upgrading gear, it can become a serious problem.

All in all, they made decide to fix up the game, but for now it’s best left untouched.
Read rest of entry

Friday, August 31, 2018

RIFTstream 08/31: Hosting Keepro



This Friday, August 31, 2018, join us live on Twitch for our weekly RIFTstream.

This week the RIFT team is recovering from going to Gamescom in Germany last week, so we’re hosting Trion Creator Keepro! Keepro was recently at Gamescom too, where he got to interview the team in-person. This week he’ll be playing on PTS with nine of his buddies to test out the upcoming RIFT Prime T3 raid, Primeval Feast. Watch live for a chance to win awesome prizes! But, remember, you have to be on Keepro’s Twitch chat to qualify to win.

RIFT LIVESTREAM
Friday, August 31, 2018
11:30 AM PDT: Hosting Keepro
https://www.twitch.tv/keepro
Read rest of entry

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Fan Spotlight: Telara DB





From time to time at Trion Worlds, we like to highlight players who go above and beyond with their fandom and create incredible art, fansites, videos, and guides. This week, we’re highlighting the folks at Telara DB!



Fan sites are an important part of any video game. They find and curate content that developers don’t give players directly. Often, they create these sites as labors of love because they are deeply invested in the games that they play. This holds true for Telara DB.

Telara DB


Telara DB is a RIFT fan site that holds item and appearance data from RIFT. You can search thousands of items and appearances and get the stats and descriptions for those items. What’s great about the Appearance section is you can see a full 3D view of the items. This is perfect for trying to figure out the appearances of items want for your character before collecting them. Later, the team hopes to implement the full databases for RIFT recipes, quests, NPCs, and achievements.

The Telara DB Team


This kind of massive undertaking couldn’t be done alone. The team includes data miners, tool creators, and database makers.

  • JosuaLackhand is the site developer for Telara DB. He aggregates the data mining team’s data and presents it in the UI.
  • “I was looking for an alternate way to search and explore the RIFTdata. I spent some time digging through the Discoveries XML files and brainstorming on what I could do with the data, and how I wanted to do it. I built and launched an early alpha version of the site, and shared it over at the Ghar Station’s Discord. From there, I got connected with Clowd, Deathbeams, and Imathrowback. Together we worked together to take the site in directions I couldn’t have foreseen when I…started. We do amazing things like extract and show 3D models with the help of Imathrowback’s Telarafly, display the iLvl and affix information based on the deep-diving math that Clowd has done, and have searchable appearances and links between equipment and appearances that come from Deathbeam’s hard work.”

  • Clowd is the owner of The Ghar Station. On the Telara DB side, he data mines, provides formulas for the other data miners, as well as provides insight on how to read the data.
  • “I had already resolved the iLvl calculations for RIFT and had been researching the affix system…to produce the final numbers on items…I pitched the idea of including the iLvl calculations into the site. ‘It’ integrated well into the site and gives extra info and insight into items that aren’t available…elsewhere.”

  • Imathrowback is the lead data miner for RIFT. His modern tools are used to datamine patches from both Live and PTS.

  • Deathbeams is a data miner and memory scraper. On Telara DB, he provides the connections between appearances and items, making it possible to view the items in 3D.
  • “RIFT’s wardrobe system is the best in the industry in my opinion. I wanted to collect as many appearances as I could, but appearances and items weren’t connected which made it hard to figure out where to get them. I decided to find a way to connect them and share the data with the community.”
Read rest of entry

Thursday, August 23, 2018

RIFTstream 08/24: Hosting Kelari Cuddles



This Friday, August 24, 2018, join us live on Twitch for our weekly RIFTstream.



This week the RIFT dev team is in Germany at Gamescom, so we’re hosting Trion Creator Kelari Cuddles! Kelari Cuddles is gearing up for her very own Extra Life Charity Stream starting the very next day! Watch live for a chance to win fabulous prizes! But, remember, you have to be on Kelari’s Twitch chat to qualify to win.

RIFT LIVESTREAM
Friday, August 24, 2018
11:30 AM PDT: Hosting Kelari Cuddles
https://www.twitch.tv/kelaricuddles
Read rest of entry
 

Star Wars Gaming news

RIFT: News and guides © 2009