Rift in Retrospect: A Look Back at the Updates

Puremallace

Source: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=28073&storypage=1

 

Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland takes a trip down memory lane to outline the major content that's been added to Rift since launch.

With the recent launch of Update 1.5 and players catching up on their sleep from the Extra Life event, I find myself looking back at the history of Rift, amazed that eight months has gone by since the game's early head start launch on February 24. Releasing five major content patches, as well as dozens of minor (and not-so-minor) hotfixes in a space of several months is mind-boggling in retrospect, and really drives home the constant effort Trion Worlds has put into their flagship game.

For those ZAM members who are new to Rift or would like to take a trip down memory lane, I'm going to look back at all of the content that's been added to the game since launch. Follow along after the jump!

Seeing this for the first time was terrifying.

Beta and Launch

Rift's official launch was on March 1, but my experience with it began in short bursts through the beta phases (during which I wrote several articles here on ZAM). My time in beta made me aware of several things. First, Rift felt like a new car on a new road; I still knew how to drive, where all the controls were located and what the rules of the road were, but it handled differently and I had no idea where the road would take me. Like World of Warcraft (my staple MMO for several years), the game involved similar controls and a leveling system that seemed centered on quests. The archetypes were rather similar to WoW as well, except with fewer classes but more skill trees. And then I began to notice similarities to other games; the ability to use multiple souls at a time reminded me of Final Fantasy XI's subjob system, and my first encounters with rifts put Warhammer Online's public quests into my mind.

And there was the charm of rift in beta; it was a raw world, but took popular aspects similar to those found in other games and combined them with a brand new story. As the level cap was slowly raised, I found myself getting more and more drawn into the story. As some other players find, one of the best parts of an MMO is becoming totally immersed in the lore, figuring out who the characters are and what role you play in the fate of the world; and Rift certainly didn't disappoint! When the game launched, players were able to level to 50 and had about a month to enjoy the dynamic rift systems and participate in warfronts and dungeons.

Update 1.1: The River of Souls Event

Update 1.1 was released on March 30, along with the first world event: the River of Souls. Again, I had a chance to try out the event on the test servers before it was released to the general public. I'll admit, the event was very laggy on the test server; the final stage involved a series of boss fights in Stillmoor but, due to the preponderance of players in the one area, I ended up only seeing about 20 at a time, and the bosses only when they were starting to pummel my face! A Game Master eventually killed the bosses for us, just so we could see the end of the event when Alsbeth, the general of Regulos, was fought back and opened the portal to the River of Souls raid. This encounter was the culmination of a series of world events, including repeatable quests for players of all levels, and rewarding unique items for the event currency; and this model (weeks of build-up, followed by a major event and a raid opening) would become the standard for future world events. Due to technical limitations when the actual event occurred in the live game, Alsbeth simply gave up and ran away to the raid. Boo.

Update 1.2: LFG Tool and Spoils of War Event

Outside of the world event, Trion was introducing other advances not seen in many other MMOs, such as the ability to record video and upload it directly to YouTube or the ability to tweet about things in-game to your Twitter account. But back in the game, the growing population of Rift started debating the direction the game was taking... especially when the Looking for Group tool was announced in patch 1.2. Suddenly, all the folks fleeing the Blizzard ship for a new vessel started seeing visions of doom and gloom in their future, since many considered the advent of the LFG function in WoW as the beginning of the end for the social aspect of the game. To allay their fears, Trion emphasized that the dungeon finder would be only for single shards (although I predicted it would eventually become cross-shard, and it certainly did in Update 1.4). Amazingly, the sky never fell and players were able to join dungeon queues while completing their quests anywhere in Telara.

Update 1.2, which was released on May 10, introduced a world event called “Spoils of War," which added quests in a style similar to the River of Souls; these quests gave currency to trade for rare items, artifacts and recipes during the event. I particularly remember people freaking out, saying, “Oh, it's so easy to find blue artifacts now!” ... and I might have been one of them, as I love hunting artifacts! While the event did not conclude with a new raid dungeon, it did also bring with it a wardrobe function to customize a character's looks, and the new skills Omen Sight/Quantum Sight. The sight skills allowed players to find Slivers which could lead to 10-man raid rifts and alternate timelines, making the big raid of this patch the Gilded Prophecy.

 

Update 1.3: Waves of Madness Event, Artifact Changes and Guild Banks

Update 1.3 ended the “Spoils of War” event but built upon everything else. First, and most importantly to me, artifact-hunting underwent a huge change. Previously, artifacts appeared commonly in all zones, respawned quickly, and had a very small chance of being blue or higher quality. With 1.3 the mechanics changed; artifacts respawned much slower (at the rate of several minutes to several hours), but the chance of receiving a rare artifact was significantly increased. While this meant players could more easily find a hard-to-get artifact on the auction house, it also meant that spending hours hunting for artifacts would net you around 20% of the amount you'd see before (at least in my case). Not that I'm bitter or anything. Really. Honestly. Sigh.

On the other hand, Trion added dozens of new artifacts to the game with a catch: they were only visible as red glowing objects when the player used Quantum or Omen Sight. Suddenly a brand new artifact business arose to replace the one from before!

The patch also ushered in the next world event, called “Waves of Madness,” as death and water rifts erupted all over Telara. Similar to the previous events, this resulted in a unique currency as well as daily quests; however, it also ended in a brand-new raid, the fortress of Hammerknell, as well as some unique artifact sets and NPCs appearing all over the world. The story of Telara began to move ahead significantly during this patch. The story of Scotty, a recurring character on the Guardian side, developed to the point that he (SPOILER ALERT!) was shown to be the heir to Hammerknell, able to open the ancient fortress and confront the evil within. And the new raid ended with the second of the six dragons of the Blood Storm, Akylios.

Rift’s gameplay was growing up at this point as well. Trion introduced character and guild transfers free of charge, but with a 7-day waiting period between each transfer. This allowed players to join friends on another shard without forcing them to restart. Along with this exciting news came guild banks, although they were initially delayed.

Update 1.4: PvP Rifts and the Water Saga Story

After developing their PvE raid content for so many patches, Trion turned their sights in Update 1.4 to additional PvP fun and more solo options. This patch introduced the first PvP rifts, which would start events between the two factions with one side bringing resources to the rift and the others stopping them and closing the rifts. However, win-trading and exploits quickly became an issue... and Trion just as quickly stamped it out by rolling back the offenders. In addition to the PvP rifts, a new “alternate” warfront on weekends that added additional objectives for additional rewards was introduced. Combined with giving double favor rewards at the start of 1.4, this led to an unofficial event dubbed “Favormania” by the player base.

Back on the PvE side, a new storyline called the Water Saga Story began. This series was made for solo players or small groups and expanded the story of the Faceless Man (for the Defiants) and the Abyssal for the Guardians. As it results in a special mount and came chock full of lore, I've heard positive responses so far! Meanwhile, raiders were not completely brushed aside: a new planar sliver, the Drowned Halls, was released as well. And finally, Synergy Crystals were added to give bonuses to players wearing certain pieces of armor.

Update 1.5: Planar Attunement, Chronicles and the Ashes of History Event

And that brings us to Update 1.5, which just launched last month. This patch introduced a ton of content, including the Planar Attunement post-50 advancement system, the duo Chronicles instances, the new Library of the Runemasters Warfront, Veteran Rewards, a new Master Dungeon mode for Darkening Deeps, Warfont Accolades, the beta version of the AddOns system and the Ashes of History world event.

The features and content Trion has added to Rift after such a short time is nothing short of amazing. While not all of them were universally praised, the game is still going strong and the team remains exuberant about their game as well. Each interview we have with them reinforces the enthusiasm for their product; the team isn't made up of just the designers of Rift, but players as well. I did not have a chance to play much of 1.4, but the new 1.5 features have drawn me back in. I even stayed up for 24 hours for Rift's recent Extra Life event! See you in Telara!